‘I didn’t think you’d be back here.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because without the Cossack, there is nothing here for you to come back for.’
‘There’s you. And Edik with his dog.’ Her tone was bemused.
‘Like I said. Nothing for you to come back for.’
‘Elena,’ Lydia said solemnly, ‘I thought you and I were friends.’
‘Then you thought wrong.’
The woman dumped the bullet on Liev’s chest where it sat like a miniature gravestone on top of the bandage. A heavy stillness settled in the metallic-tasting air.
‘ Lydia,’ Alexei said quickly, ‘come with me. We’ll buy medicines for him.’ He wanted her out of this room.
She didn’t move. Her huge eyes were lost in shadows but her gaze was fixed unwaveringly on the Russian woman.
‘Why did I think wrong, Elena?’
The woman’s expression softened. But that made it worse, as if she saw no hope for the young girl in front of her.
‘Because,’ Elena said, ‘you damage everything you touch.’
50
Lydia rang the doorbell this time. She closed her eyes while she waited, to shut herself off from this moment as if it could belong to someone else. She had rattled halfway across Moscow in the trams as the bleached and pungent city air at last grew dark, and a moon as yellow as a melon skimmed up into the evening sky.
She’d watched a lamplighter pedal down the street whistling, with his long wooden pole over his shoulder, stop under a streetlamp and, without dismounting, turn its gas jet on with the tip of his pole. She wished she was him. She’d seen how the conductor on the tram, a woman with tired eyes, had handed out tickets with due attention to each passenger. Lydia had wanted to be her. Or the girl with the baby with the birthmark. Or the couple in the street with their arms looped together.
Anybody but herself.
The door opened. ‘Ah, Lydia. How charming of you to call.’
‘Good evening, Dmitri.’
‘I can’t say I wasn’t expecting you. You see how much faith I have in your word.’
He was wearing a silk maroon robe over black trousers and a smile so courteous that for one thin sliver of time she let it give her hope. He threw back the door and she walked into the hallway. Music was drifting out from one of the rooms and she recognised it at once. Her mother used to play the piece, one of Chopin’s Nocturnes.
‘You’re looking tired, Lydia, distinctly pale. Let me pour you a glass of wine. You’ll feel better.’ He held out his hands to help her off with her coat.
She didn’t move, just stood there in his warm apartment with her hat and coat firmly in place. She tried to find him behind his smile but he was too well hidden.
‘Dmitri, don’t do this.’
His grey eyes widened. ‘My dearest Lydia, you surprise me. We made a deal.’
‘I know.’
‘Your Cossack is back home?’
‘Yes.’
‘Not even dead.’
‘No.’
‘So,’ he spread his hands as if confused, ‘what’s the problem?’
‘I don’t want to do this.’
He gave her a slow, sad look and gently removed her hat, so that her flaming hair tumbled over her shoulders.
‘I really don’t think,’ he said softly, ‘that what you want is relevant. We agreed. A bargain is a bargain. I have fulfilled my half of it and now it’s time for yours.’ His voice was sounding different, as though his mouth were dry and his tongue heavy.
‘Dmitri, please. You are a decent man and we can still be friends despite-’
‘Friends! I don’t want to be friends!’
Anger flared for a second and he bared his teeth at her. And then it was gone, smothered by an attentive smile. That was when she knew nothing would change his mind and that was when she started to hate him. She glanced behind her at the door.
His hand closed over her wrist. ‘No, my little Lydia, nyet.’ He spoke soothingly, the way he would to a nervous colt. ‘Don’t think of leaving. And don’t glare at me like that. Such contempt.’ He laughed and the sound of it made her skin crawl. ‘If you try to leave, my dear, I shall have Comrade Popkov rearrested.’ His eyes grew brittle as glass. ‘Understand?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. Now we understand each other, let me take your coat.’
She didn’t move but he carefully unbuttoned it for her and started to slide it from her stiff shoulders.
‘Dmitri,’ she said without looking at him, ‘what is to stop you threatening to arrest Popkov in the future every time you want me to come over here?’
He beamed at her, delighted. ‘Ah, now I see we really do understand each other.’
‘Answer me. What is to stop you?’
‘Nothing. Nichevo. Absolutely nothing.’
The room with the music turned out to be his study. It was intimate, despite the hard lines of the desk and the shelves of leather-bound books. Well chosen for seduction, it seemed to Lydia. Soft lighting, a gramophone playing, the rich colours of an Afghan rug on the floor, a pot of coffee and a bottle of burgundy on a table next to a chaise longue. It was the chaise longue that caught her eyes, with its elegant curves and dense green velvet. Silk cushions of amber and russet, as inviting as a forest floor in springtime.
‘Wine?’ he offered.
‘No.’
‘Do sit down.’
She remained standing.
He removed the gramophone needle from the record, poured out two glasses of wine and paused for a moment with one in each hand while he inspected her, head cocked to one side. He seemed to like what he saw. She wanted to slap the smile off his face. The room was over-hot. Or was it her? The aroma of coffee seemed to clog up her lungs and she felt suddenly sick. I can handle him, she’d boasted to Elena. How naive could she be? She’d stupidly believed she could flutter her eyelids and toss her hair at this man, extract what she wanted from him and escape without having to pay the price. That man eats girls like you for breakfast, Elena had warned. She should have listened to her.
Yet without Dmitri’s help Popkov would still be in prison or, worse, dead. Dmitri had waited with the patience of a spider until she blundered into his web and she had no right to feel surprised when the sticky threads tightened around her.
‘Here, this will calm you down.’ He proffered a glass.
‘Do I need calming?’
Again he inspected her. ‘I rather think you do.’
She took the wine and drank it down in one go. He approached, standing close enough for her to smell the pomade on his hair, and the lines of his face seemed to harden as he bent his head and kissed her lips. She could taste whisky on him. So he’d started without her. She let his lips linger on hers but made no response.
‘ Lydia,’ he murmured, ‘so cold? So stony?’ He ran a hand up her throat and into her hair, then dropped it down to her breast. ‘Loosen up, my sweet angel.’
She stepped back from him, replaced her glass on the table and turned to face him. They had laughed together, danced together, surely he wouldn’t force her. ‘Dmitri, release me from this bargain. I’m begging you.’ She dropped to her knees in front of him. ‘Please.’
He smiled slowly and for a moment she thought he was going to agree, but instead he unbuttoned his flies and reached for her head.
‘You disgust me, comrade,’ she said coldly and rose to her feet. ‘So let’s get it over with.’
With no hesitation she undid her blouse buttons, stepped out of her skirt and removed her underwear. In the time it took for Dmitri to realise she was doing his job for him, Lydia stood stark naked in the study.
His gaze roamed over her body. Her face burned but her eyes remained fixed on his, as if by willpower alone she could force him back from the brink and make this enough. This display for him. She couldn’t believe now that she’d been blind enough to find him attractive. He yanked down his trousers and kicked them away, moving closer to her. He touched the smooth milky skin of her stomach, her thigh, the fiery curls in between. He was breathing hard.