‘… you?’

‘Yes.’

Lydia slid her arms around her mother and rocked her gently. ‘Oh, Mama.’

‘I couldn’t get rid of him even after I married. Because of the photographs.’

‘I’ll burn them.’

‘I’d burn him, if I could.’

‘Mama,’ Lydia moaned and tightened her embrace.

‘So now you will do as I ask?’ Valentina twisted around, her face close to her daughter’s, two dark eyeless shadows. ‘You’ll give up your Chinese Bolshevik?’

Lydia pulled her coat more firmly around her and stamped her cold feet on the rock-hard patch of lawn under the eucalyptus tree. She had been waiting an hour. The garage hid the house from her, just as it hid her from the house, and she’d had plenty of time to study the wall she was sheltering behind. It was made of red bricks and she’d counted how many lay in each row. Sixty-two. She had plucked three snails off the mortar and tossed them into the shrubbery, and watched a brown-legged spider cocoon a beetle that blundered into its web. There wasn’t much else to watch.

A crow took off above her from the eucalyptus tree, making the silver leaves quiver, and with two slow beats of its heavy wings it drifted over the tiles of the garage roof and up high into the chilly air. She squinted up at it. The sky was a milky blue, full of soft swirls of white that reminded Lydia of a marble she’d once owned. She’d found it in a gutter, a bright patch of blue sky buried among the filth. She’d kept it safe in her pocket for four days, but in the end was tempted into a game of marbles by a gang of boys in the playground. She’d played and lost. When she saw her marble bundled with a handful of others into a grubby pocket, she felt she’d betrayed it.

A car door slammed. It was somewhere farther down Walnut Road and an engine growled into life. That was good. People were waking up, going off to work at last. It wouldn’t be long now. It had been still dark when she’d put on her school uniform and slipped out of the house, a thin gleam of gold painted along the eastern horizon. She’d had the sense to leave a note. Gone to library. To finish homework. They wouldn’t know it didn’t open until eight-thirty, and actually it was a relief to skip breakfast with Alfred. He was awkward first thing in the morning and had a habit of looking up from his porridge with a frown, blinking hard behind his spectacles, as if wondering who on earth these two strangers were at his breakfast table.

Lydia thumped her gloved hands together and let out a long breath. Watched it curl away from her as solid as cigarette smoke. She drew in another deep breath, but it was an effort. Her lungs hurt. They just wouldn’t work properly. It was her mother’s words. They lay like a lead burden on her, crushing her chest.

It wasn’t right.

‘Mr Mason.’

‘Good God, girl, you startled me.’

He looked so smart, so upright. A fedora and alpaca coat. A black lizard-skin briefcase snug under his arm, car keys in hand. The picture of respectability. Pillar of society. Lydia wanted to tear his eyes out and feed them to the crow.

‘What are you doing loitering around my garage?’

‘I’m not loitering. I’m waiting to speak to you.’

‘Oh, not now. I’m in a hurry to get to the office.’

‘Yes, now.’

Something in her voice made him pause and look at her. His grey eyes grew wary. ‘Can’t it wait?’

‘No.’

‘Very well.’ He unlocked the garage and swung open the doors. The Buick’s big chrome headlights stared out at her.

‘I have the photographs.’

His hand dropped the car keys. He bent, picked them up, tried to bluff it out. ‘What photographs?’

‘Don’t.’

He pulled himself up tall, pushed out his chest, came and stood too close. ‘Look, young lady, I’m a busy man and I have no idea what you’re talking…’

She slapped him. A long swing with her arm and then her palm full on his cheek. The crack of it sounded loud in the still air. She was shocked, but not as shocked as he was. His eyes glazed for a moment. The red imprint of her hand with fingers splayed was stamped on his cheek. His fists came up but she stepped back out of reach.

‘That’s what it feels like. To be knocked about, you wife-beating pervert. Taking nude pictures of your own daughter…’

He lunged for her. She dodged.

‘What would Sir Edward Carlisle have to say about that?’

‘Now you get this straight, girl, it’s not…’

‘Don’t. I don’t want to hear your lies, you piece of slime. Sir Edward will sack you on the spot.’

His face grew ashen. He was having trouble swallowing, but his eyes remained shrewd. He held up one neatly manicured hand in a gesture of peace.

‘All right, Lydia. Let’s get down to business. You’re no fool. I’ll give you ten thousand dollars for the photographs and negatives. ’

Ten thousand dollars.

A fortune. Her head swayed.

‘You can have it in cash. This afternoon.’ He was watching her closely and suddenly reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. He yanked out a thick wedge of notes and fanned them out like cards unsder her nose. ‘Here. Take this. As a starter.’

Ten thousand dollars.

Ten thousand dollars would buy anything. Everything. Passports. Visas. Pianos. First-class boat tickets. She could take her mother to England and flee. Oxford University, just as her mother wanted. It was all there, in Mason’s hand. All she had to do was say yes. And she could take Chang An Lo to safety with her.

But would he come? Leave China?

Mason’s lips pulled into a thin line. It was meant as a smile. ‘Agreed?’

She opened her mouth to say yes.

‘No.’

‘Don’t be a bloody stupid fool. This is your chance.’

‘But you’d have the photographs.’

‘I’d destroy them, I promise.’

‘No.’

‘Why?’

She opened her hands to the sky, letting the money go. ‘Because you are scum. I don’t trust you. As long as I hang on to those negatives, I can be certain you will never lay a finger on Polly again. Or your wife. Or my mother. Do you understand me?’

He scowled, turned away. She watched the money return to the wallet. Her throat hurt.

‘Don’t come near my mother anymore.’

‘Go to hell, bitch.’

He walked to the car, his head sunk on his chest, and lashed out at one of the tyres with a brutal kick.

‘Mr Mason.’

He didn’t look at her.

‘Mr Mason, leave Theo Willoughby alone too.’

Mason made a harsh sound that sent a shiver down her spine. ‘Don’t you worry about him,’ he retorted. ‘Feng and his son between them will look after Willoughby.’ His eyes crept back to hers, and the expression in them made her skin crawl. ‘Just like they’ll look after you.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Now they know who took care of the Communist.’

‘What Communist?’

‘Don’t play innocent. The one they’re after. The one you nursed.’

Lydia felt ice spike her veins. ‘That’s a lie.’

‘No. Polly told me.’

‘Polly?’

‘Oh yes. Your loyal little friend. Still want to protect her, do you? Yes, she told me and I told them. Right now they’re probably at your house.’ He laughed outright. ‘You didn’t really think I’d give a bitch like you ten thousand dollars, did you? You and your whoring mother can…’

But Lydia was already running.

She burst into her house.

‘Mama,’ she shouted. ‘Mama.’

No reply.

The houseboy – what was his name? Deng? – she called out for him. He came running.

‘Yes, Missy Leeja?’

‘My mother, where is she?’

‘I not know.’

She pounced on him and shook his bony shoulders. ‘Is she here?’

‘No, she out.’

‘So early?’

‘She go with Master. In car.’

‘Just the two of them?’

His bright eyes were nervous of her as he held up two fingers. ‘Master and Missy.’

She released him and he scuttled away, hunched like a beetle. Her tongue licked her dry lips. She’d panicked for nothing. But that didn’t mean the danger wasn’t there. It was. She walked into the drawing room and stared out the French windows. How the hell do you fight back when you can’t see your enemy? She leaned her forehead against the icy pane of glass and thought about that. Something broke loose inside her. Everything felt too heavy. Too big.