That was probably true. But it was not the point.
With a snort of disgust Alexei stepped into the storehouse and unhooked the chain from the wall. A faint choke like a dog’s cough issued from the man on the floor. At least the poor devil was still alive. With no apparent damage other than a telltale swelling on his jaw, he rolled over on his side, muttered something incomprehensible and started to snore.
‘Podnimaisa! Get up!’ Alexei barked. He backed it up with a prod of his boot.
This produced a grunt. He bent down and hauled the man to his feet and they staggered out of the shed into the night air. Its icy blast instantly froze the alcohol in their blood and the big guard shuddered but sobered up enough to stand alone, listing precariously towards the heat inside the drum. He was younger than Alexei had first thought, with a clean-shaven, good looking face, early thirties probably.
‘Now,’ Alexei said. The sooner this was over the better. ‘I need to ask you a few questions.’
‘Piss off.’
The guard started out with an odd sort of flat-footed gait towards the yard entrance. It was like watching a duck on ice. Popkov stepped away from the fire and tapped him on the back, except that one of Popkov’s taps was like anybody else’s full-bodied thumps. The man went sprawling to the snow-covered ground, face down, arms and legs splayed, and before he could even think about what had happened to him, Popkov was sitting astride his back. He yanked off the guard’s hat, tossed it into the fire and seized a handful of thick fair hair in his fist. He wrenched the man’s head back and waited for Alexei to begin.
The Cossack was efficient, Alexei had to give him that, but this was a way of doing business that disgusted him.
‘What’s your name?’ Alexei demanded.
A dry croak issued from the guard’s tortured throat.
‘Ox brain,’ Alexei snapped, ‘let the man speak.’
The grip on the hair loosened a touch, so that the guard could swallow.
‘Your name?’
‘Babitsky.’ A hoarse whisper.
‘Well, Babitsky, it’s quite simple. I want to know whether a certain person is a prisoner in the Trovitsk labour camp.’
Babitsky grunted.
‘So if I give you a name, you will tell me whether he’s-’
‘Nyet.’
Without hesitation Popkov bounced the guard’s face on the ground. Up and down. Just once. But it came up with a nose covered in blood.
‘For fuck’s sake, stop that!’ Alexei exploded. ‘Babitsky, just answer my question and then you can go.’
The man moaned and spat out blood. ‘I only know the prisoners by numbers. Not names.’
Fuck.
‘So who would have the list of names?’
‘The office.’
‘Who works in the office? A name this time.’
The man’s eyes were growing hazy and he was having trouble breathing. With a mountain crushing his lungs, it was hardly surprising.
‘Get off him,’ Alexei commanded.
For a moment their eyes met and Alexei prepared to deliver that punch he’d been promising himself all evening. But Popkov wasn’t stupid. He gave a flash of teeth, released the hair in his fist and raised himself up on his knees so that he was still astride the guard but no longer resting his weight on him.
Babitsky dragged in air and said in a rush, ‘The camp office is run by Mikhail Vushnev. He knows them all.’
‘Where will I find this Vushnev when he comes into town? Where does he drink?’
‘The bar…’ He spat more blood on to the snow. ‘Down by the tyre factory. It’s a dump but it’s always got some fuckable girls serving the beer.’
Alexei removed a handkerchief from his coat pocket, wiped the man’s bleeding face and rose to his feet, thankful to be at a distance from him. He dropped the scarlet cloth into the fire. He wished he could drop the whole of tonight into the flames as easily.
‘OK, let him go.’
For once Popkov did as he was told.
The man staggered to his feet, cursing. Alexei took out a packet of cigarettes, shook out two, lit them both and handed one to Babitsky. He watched the man’s blood drip on to the cigarette.
‘Fuck you,’ Babitsky groaned, drawing smoke into his lungs.
‘Fuck the lot of you. I’m off tomorrow out of this freezing shit hole.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘What’s that to you?’
‘Nothing.’
‘I’ve been posted to Moscow.’ His split lips curled in a bitter smile. ‘So fuck you and your questions.’
Alexei turned away. He’d seen enough. He had a name: Mikhail Vushnev. That’s where he’d start. Without the damn Cossack this time.
12
Lydia lay back on her bed and thought about the bargain she had struck with Alexei. She had promised to stay in her room in exchange for keeping Popkov at his side tonight, but would he stick to his word? Her nerves were tight and her eyelids burned. That was the trouble with making deals with people, you never knew whether they’d let you down. She stared up at the ceiling, at a damp patch on it that had oozed into the shape of a giraffe, probably a few leaky pipes up there. Like leaky tongues, they couldn’t be trusted.
Your Russian is excellent. Elena’s words drifted back to her and brought with them similar words she had once said to Chang herself. She murmured them now: ‘Your English is excellent.’ It had been summertime and the Chinese sky was huge that day, a bright peacock-blue sheet of silk shimmering above them. She smiled at the memory and let her mind spiral down into it as readily as a bee spirals down into the sweet overpowering scent of an orchid. She didn’t struggle against it. Not this time. Day after day here in this cold Russian landscape she was fighting to mould a future, but this time, just for tonight, she allowed herself the sweet fluid pleasure of slipping back into the past.
Chang An Lo had led her down a dirt track to Lizard Creek, a small wooded inlet to the east of the town of Junchow. The morning sun lazed on the surface of the water and the birch trees offered dappled shade to the flat grey rocks.
‘I am honoured that you think my English acceptable,’ Chang had replied politely.
Her heart had been racing. It was a risk, coming here alone with a young man she scarcely knew, and to make matters even worse he was Chinese and a Communist. Her mother would tie her to the bedpost if she knew. But already their lives, his and hers, had become entwined in a way she barely understood. She could feel the hooks like tiny little darts sinking into the soft and tender parts of her body, into her stomach and the thin white flesh of her thighs. Tugging at the strong beat of her heart. His stillness was as elegant as his movements, in a black V-necked tunic and loose trousers. Horrible rubber shoes on his feet. Earlier he had waited for her outside the English church where she had greeted him very formally, hands together and eyes on the ground, bowing to him.
‘I wish to thank you. You saved me in the alleyway and I am grateful. I owe you thanks.’
He did not move, not a muscle shifted in his face or body but something changed somewhere deep inside him, as if a closed place had opened. The warmth that flowed from him took her by surprise.
‘No,’ he said, eyes fixed intently on her. ‘You do not owe me your thanks.’ He came one step closer, so close she could see tiny secret flecks of purple in his eyes. ‘The people traffickers would have cut your throat when they were done with you. You owe me your life.’
‘My life is my own. It belongs to no one but me.’
‘And I owe you mine. Without you I would be dead. That foreign devil policeman’s bullet would be in my head now and I would be with my ancestors, if you had not come out of the night and stopped him.’ He bowed very low. ‘I owe you my life.’
‘Then we’re even.’ She’d laughed, uncertain how serious this was meant to be. ‘A life for a life.’