“How did this happen? Did you fall?”
No answer. Olga could be forgiven for putting all her concentration into getting along the street.
The two women were similar in height, which was a good thing. About the only good thing. Maeve was going to feel the after-effects of this unusual muscle activity tonight and tomorrow. She would end up with a limp of her own.
“Let’s rest at the next streetlamp.”
She extricated her aching shoulders from the yoke that was Olga’s arm and propped her against the lamppost. The relief was bliss. She wriggled her shoulders and stretched her arms.
A car approached and she noticed Olga turn her head, following the movement until the tail lights vanished around Laura Place.
“Are you frightened of someone?”
Olga didn’t even nod her head. Didn’t need to. The answer was in her eyes. Domestic violence, maybe? Would she be better off in a women’s refuge?
“You definitely want to go home, do you? I’m not trying to force you.”
Several firm nods.
“Let’s move, then. Not far now.”
They started again and got to the top of the street and crossed to the side of Sydney Place facing the mature trees of Sydney Gardens, as elegant a terrace as any in the city.
“You’ll have to tell me which house.”
Olga pointed.
The far end. Sod’s law.
When they finally reached the arched entrance lit by an overhead lantern, each grunting with the effort, Olga produced a key and unlocked the panelled front door. She turned to face Maeve and said, “Thank you. Goodbye.”
She was effectively barring the way, making clear she wouldn’t be inviting Maeve inside, and she was of a size to insist.
Have it your way, lady, Maeve decided. An offer of a drink or just a handshake wouldn’t have come amiss.
She was on the point of saying a cool “Okay” and turning away when she noticed something else. The light from the lantern above them was revealing a raw, red line around Olga’s neck.
Olga must have noticed the shocked stare because she clapped her hand over the marks.
“I think you should call the police.”
The whites of her eyes doubled in size. “No. No need police.”
“Who did this — someone you know? I’m trying to help you, Olga.”
Without warning, the resistance dissolved in hot tears and huge, convulsive sobs that would have moved anyone to sympathy. Automatically Maeve reached out to grasp the jerking shoulders. Olga responded with a bear hug, pressing her face into Maeve’s chest and practically wrestling her to the ground without meaning to. She was saying something repeatedly. At first it was too muffled to hear, then the words made sense. “You stay, you stay, you stay.”
Maeve was tugged inside the house and the door slammed.
Aware only that some powerful conflict had just been resolved, Maeve was expecting to be released, but Olga kept hold of one of her hands and led her through a dark hallway to a room where she put on the light.
This woman of contradictions was over her tears already.
“Now we drink tea,” she said in a tone that brooked no refusal. “You sit.”
Good suggestion. A chance for some calm conversation — if that was achievable.
This was a kitchen unlike any Maeve had seen before, designed to make the best use of the large, high-ceilinged Georgian room that must have once been fitted with a range, deep stone sinks, and banks of wooden cupboards and shelving. The original cook and maids would have been wide-eyed at the twenty-first-century version. For a start, it was voice-controlled. Olga spoke some unrecognisable words and triggered the sound of running water inside the white island at the centre. A section of the flat surface tipped downwards and, in its place, a jug of hot water and two mugs popped up.
“You like English breakfast?” she asked Maeve. “Bloody thing can only use teabags.”
“Fine.”
While the brewing was in progress, Maeve marvelled at the ingenious use of the space above their heads. A selection of ovens that looked to be specifically for microwaving and baking pizzas and bread were fitted into a false ceiling, each ready to descend by some miracle of engineering and presumably function at the voice command.
The mugs were filled with steaming tea. Milk didn’t seem to be automatic and had to be collected from a double-door fridge behind her.
“We take to sitting room,” Olga announced, distinctly more commanding in her own home. “Stools too high for me right now.”
“I’ll carry the mugs,” Maeve offered, thinking of the limp, “unless they transport themselves.”
Olga didn’t get it. The hi-tech kitchen had long ceased to be a novelty for her.
The sitting room couldn’t have been a bigger contrast. Small and cosy, it was furnished in the style of the early nineteenth century with what might well have been a genuine Sheraton sofa and matching armchair with reeded mahogany legs and square-shaped seats and backs. The walls were papered to halfway in faint satin stripes. An oil painting of a vase of roses hung above a fireplace with a grate containing ash of recent use. Olga gestured to Maeve to sit on the sofa.
“This is a joy,” Maeve said.
“Joy — what is joy? I call it guest room. In beginning was for housekeeper.”
“The real guest room would be upstairs, I expect?”
Olga nodded. She squeezed herself into the seat of the armchair. The mahogany creaked, but the workmanship was equal to the challenge. “I like sitting room here. I chill here.”
Her limited English gave force to everything she said, probably more than she intended. Maeve decided on some direct talking of her own.
“What were you doing in that basement in Great Pulteney Street?”
Olga rolled her eyes. “Look at me.”
It wasn’t an answer, so Maeve waited.
“Am I fat woman?” No beating about the bush.
“That’s not a word I’d use.”
“In Russia we have many words. All mean same.” She grasped a bunch of flab at her waist and shook it as if she was trying to rip it away. “Fat belly, fat arms, fat legs, fat arse.”
What could anyone say to that? Maeve gave a sympathetic smile, as if excess flesh was a problem for everyone.
Olga smiled back. “Bath is strange place. Many peoples by day. Nighttime I go out. I see no one.”
“At this end of town, you mean? You’ve got a point. There’s not much here in the way of nightlife.”
“Not many peoples see me, thank God.”
“So you like it quiet?”
Her eyes slid upwards in self-mockery. “Fat woman on street in tracksuit.”
“You’re trying to lose weight?”
“Trying, hoping, praying.” Olga laughed again. “I have treadmill downstairs. Exercise bike. Weights.” She pulled a face. “Boring.”
Maeve agreed with that. She didn’t have her own gym in the basement — she didn’t have her own basement — but since going into training she’d tried hotel fitness centres and hated running on a bloody belt. And the music was always crap. “So you go out for a run?”
Olga made a fart sound with her mouth. “For walk.”
“And something really bad happened tonight?”
The hand started moving to her neck again, but stopped. “All quiet on street, like I say. Long line of cars, cars, cars. I am walking past.” She swung her arms to demonstrate.
“Serious walking,” Maeve said to show she was following this.
“And then suddenly” — she snapped her fingers — “this guy get out of car and stand in front. I stop. He has hand on my chin like this.” She mimed the action, showing how her jaw had been forced upwards. “He is strong bastard. I am frightened. Bite my tongue. He pull gold neck chain. Zap — is broken.”