‘It was a man. A Chinese.’

‘What! A goddamn Chink. Well, we’d better take a rethink here.’

He stopped walking and, with his arm firmly round her waist, elbowed his way past a goat that was dangling by its feet from a pole and bleating pathetically. He pulled her into an arched doorway where they could talk more easily.

‘You’ve had a fright, miss. But look, if it’s just a stinking Chink we’re talking about, you’d do better to let the local Chink cops sort this one out.’ He smiled, his blue eyes reassuring, his teeth white and well-cared for, his soft Southern accent as smooth as syrup.

Abruptly she tried to break away from his grip on her waist.

‘Let go of me, please,’ she said curtly. ‘If you won’t help me, then I’ll find a policeman myself.’

His mouth crushed down on hers.

Shock and revulsion rocked her. She fought wildly to free herself, dragged her nails down his cheek, but with a curse he pinned her arms behind her back, pressed her tight against the wall where the bricks crushed her wrists, and started to pull and yank at her skirt. She kicked and struggled. Writhed away from his hands. But it was like fighting against one of America’s battleships. His fingers were thrusting under the elastic of her underwear, his tongue invading her mouth like a slug.

She bit hard. Tasted blood.

‘Bitch,’ he growled and hit her.

‘Bastard,’ she hissed through the hand clamped over her mouth.

He laughed and snapped the elastic.

‘Stop right there.’ A male voice spoke coldly in the American’s ear.

All Lydia could see was the tip of a gun barrel pressed against his temple. The click of the hammer being cocked sounded like a cannon in the sudden silence in the doorway. She seized her chance. Lashed out, kicked hard, caught the American’s shin a vicious crack. He grunted and backed off.

‘Kneel down,’ the voice ordered.

The sailor knew better than to argue with a gun. He knelt. Lydia slipped out onto the busy road, ready to take to her heels again, indifferent to her rescuer. Chivalry seemed to come with a high price these days.

‘Lydia Ivanova.’

She halted. Stared at the man in the heavy green jacket, his face creased with concern. It was familiar. Her mind groped through the rush of blood to her head and the animal urge to flee.

‘Alexei Serov,’ she said at last in astonishment.

‘At least you recognise me this time.’

Relief came in a warm thick wave. ‘May I?’ She held out her hand for the revolver.

‘You’re not going to shoot anyone.’

‘No, I promise.’

He released the hammer safely and allowed her to take the gun from his grip. She crunched the heavy metal butt of it down on the American’s skull, then returned it to Alexei Serov.

‘Thank you.’ She gave him a wide smile.

He looked at her oddly. His eyes scanned her face, her hair, her clothes. ‘Come,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you home.’ He offered her his arm with extreme politeness. ‘Hold on to me.’

But she backed away. ‘No. No, thank you. I’ll just walk beside you.’ Even she could hear that her voice was not normal.

‘You’re very shaken, Miss Ivanova. I don’t think you’ll manage it on your own.’

‘I will.’

He stared at her again, nodded.

‘But there’s been a murder,’ she told him rapidly and pointed back down the street, though she knew it was hopeless.

‘There are murders every day in Junchow,’ Alexei Serov said with a brusque shrug. ‘Don’t concern yourself.’

He set off with a long stride and signalled three men waiting quietly behind him to follow. Only then did Lydia notice them. They were Kuomintang soldiers.

He saw her right to her door.

‘Is your mother home?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ she lied.

She needed to be alone, needed silence. Chang An Lo had been so close, barely a whisper away, but now…

Yet Alexei Serov ignored her protests and escorted her all the way up to the attic, ducking his head to avoid the slope of the roof over the last few stairs. Normally she would have died before taking anyone into their room. Even Polly. But today she didn’t care. He sat her down on the sofa and made her cups of tea, one after another, dark and sweet. He talked to her occasionally but not much, and when he sat down in the old chair opposite, she noticed the chipped cup in his hand. Slowly, like climbing up from some deep slimy tunnel underground, her mind was starting to focus again. His gaze was roaming around the room and when he saw her watching him, he smiled.

‘The colours are wonderful,’ he said and gestured to the magenta cushions and the haphazard swathes of material. ‘It’s nice.’

Nice? How could anybody in their right mind call this miserable hole nice?

She sipped her tea. Studied this man who had invaded her home. He was leaning back in the chair, fully at ease, not like Alfred who always felt edgy up here. She had the strange feeling that Alexei Serov would be at ease wherever he was. Or was it all an act? She couldn’t tell. His short brown hair was clean and springy, not brilliantined like most, and his eyes were the shade of green that made her think of the moss on the flat rock at Lizard Creek. He was long and languid all over, his face, his mouth, his body, the way he crossed his legs. Except for his hands. They were broad and muscular and looked as if he had borrowed them from someone else.

‘Feeling better?’ he asked.

‘I’m fine.’

He gave a low laugh as if he doubted her words but said, ‘Good. Then I shall leave you.’

She tried to stand but found she was wrapped in her eiderdown. When had he put that there?

He leaned forward, observing her closely. ‘It is dangerous for a woman to go down to the docks. On her own, it is suicidal.’

‘I wasn’t on my own. I was with a… companion. A Chinese companion, but he was…’ The word wouldn’t come.

‘Murdered?’

She nodded jerkily. ‘Stabbed.’ Her hands started to tremble and she hid them under the quilt. ‘I have to report it to the police.’

‘Do you know his name? His address?’

‘Tan Wah. That’s all I know of him.’

‘I would leave it there, Lydia Ivanova.’ He spoke firmly. ‘The Chinese police will not want to know about it, I assure you. Unless he was rich, of course. That would change their outlook.’

Tan Wah’s skeletal face, yellow as the loess dust that blew in on the wind, floated before her. ‘No, he wasn’t rich. But he deserves justice.’

‘Do you know the man who stabbed him? Or where to find this murderer?’

‘No.’

‘Then forget it. He’s just one of many dying on the streets of Junchow.’

‘That is harsh.’

‘These are harsh times.’

She knew he was right, but everything in her cried out against it. ‘It was for my coat. He wanted my coat. Tan Wah is dead for just a stupid hateful bloody coat…’

She threw off the eiderdown and leaped to her feet, tearing at the buttons of her Christmas coat, shaking the foul thing off her shoulders and hurling it to the floor. Alexei Serov rose, picked up the blue coat and very deliberately draped it over the chair he had been sitting in. Then he walked over to the small sink beside the stove and returned with an enamel bowl of water and a washcloth.

‘Here,’ he said. ‘Wash your face.’

‘What?’

‘Your face.’ He put the wet cloth in her hand. ‘I must go now, but only if you’re sure you’re…’

Lydia gasped. She had moved over to the mirror on the wall by the door and looked at herself. It was a shock. No wonder he had stared at her oddly. Her skin was paper white except for a fine smattering of blood spray all over her face and neck like dark brown freckles. One cheek was swollen where the American had slapped her, and there was a long scratch just in front of her left ear, most likely from the dash through the undergrowth in the woods. But worse was her hair. One whole side of it was stiff with dried blood. Tan Wah’s blood.