She didn’t look at her eyes. She was frightened what she might see there.

Quickly she wiped the cloth over her face, then hurried over to the sink and stuck her head under the tap. The water was ice cold but immediately she felt better. Cleaner. Inside. When she stood up she expected Alexei Serov to be gone, but he was standing behind her holding a towel. She rubbed her hair and her skin with it, fiercely, as if she could rub the images from her mind, but when she dragged a brush through her hair so roughly it snapped the handle, she made herself stop. Took a breath. Forced a laugh. It wasn’t much of a laugh.

‘Thank you, Alexei Serov. You have been kind.’

For the first time he seemed awkward and ill-suited to the room as he clicked his heels and dipped his head in a formal bow. ‘I am pleased to assist.’ He marched over to the door and opened it. ‘I wish you a rapid recovery from your ordeal today.’

‘Tell me one thing.’

He waited. His green eyes grew wary.

‘Why do you have Kuomintang soldiers at your beck and call?’

‘I work with them.’

‘Oh.’

‘I am a military adviser. Trained in Japan.’

‘I see.’

‘Is that all?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then good-bye, Lydia Ivanova.’

‘Spasibo do svidania, Alexei Serov. Thank you and good-bye.’

He nodded and left.

Before his footsteps had faded on the stairs there was a sharp exclamation on the lower landing. It was her mother’s voice. After a brief torrent of Russian that Lydia couldn’t catch, Valentina burst into the attic room.

‘Lydia, I don’t ever want to see that Russian here again, do you hear me? Never. I forbid it. Are you listening? Damn, it’s cold in this wretched room. I absolutely will not have that hateful family anywhere near… Lydia, I am talking to you.’

But Lydia had taken her eiderdown and curled up inside it on her bed. She closed her eyes and shut out the world.

Chang An Lo. I am sorry.

It was the middle of the night. Lydia was staring up into the darkness. A pain in her temples was thudding in rhythm with her heartbeat. She had worked it out. For Chang to send Tan Wah to Lizard Creek, he must be ill. Or wounded. It was the only explanation. Otherwise he would have come himself. She was sure of it. Sure as she was of her own life. And now because of her, Tan Wah was dead, which meant she had put Chang in greater danger. Without Tan Wah, Chang An Lo might die. Her throat ached with unshed tears.

‘Lydia?’

‘Yes, Mama?’

‘Tell me, dochenka, do you think I am a bad mother?’

The attic room was as dark as death except for a thin slice of moonlight that drew a silver line down the centre of the curtain that formed Lydia’s bedroom wall. Her mother had drunk steadily all evening and had been muttering to herself in her own bed for some time, never a good sign.

‘What is bad, Mama?’

‘Don’t be foolish. You know perfectly well what bad means.’

Lydia made the effort to talk. This would be their last night together in this room. ‘You have never cooked me plum pie. Nor sewn up holes in my clothes. Or bothered whether I brushed my teeth. Does that make you bad?’

‘No.’

‘Of course not. So there’s your answer.’

A wind rattled the window. To Lydia it sounded like Chang’s fingers on the pane. The noise of a distant car engine grew louder, then faded.

‘Tell me what I have done right, dochenka.’

Lydia chose her words with care. ‘You kept me. Though you could have abandoned me at any time in St Mary’s Children’s Mission. You’d have been free. To do whatever you wanted.’

Silence.

‘And you’ve given me music, all my life there’s been music. Oh Mama, you’ve given me kisses. And colourful scarves. And shown me how to use the tongue in my head, even if I’ve driven you crazy with it. Yes, you did,’ she insisted. ‘You taught me to think for myself and, best of all, you let me make my own mistakes.’

A cloud passed over the moon and the sliver of light died in the room.

Valentina still said nothing.

‘Mama, now it’s your turn. Tell me what I have done right.’ There was the sound of a deep intake of breath from the other end of the room and a low moan. It took a whole minute before Valentina spoke.

‘Just your being alive is right. It is everything.’

Her mother’s words seemed to burn up the darkness and set fire to something inside Lydia’s head. She shut her eyes.

‘Now go to sleep, dochenka. We have a big day tomorrow.’

But an hour later Valentina’s voice came again whispering through the darkness. ‘Be happy for me, darling.’

‘Happiness is hard.’

‘I know.’

Lydia pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes to scrub away the pictures of Chang, alone and sick, behind her eyelids. Happiness she could get by without. But she was determined to hold on to hope.

32

Achingly beautiful.

That’s how Theo thought Junchow looked this morning. It had snowed overnight and now the town dazzled. Its drab grey roofs had been transformed into sparkling white slopes with curling eaves like sledges, eager to slip and slide away. Even the solid British mansions were no more than fragile icing. The light from the sky was a strange muted pink that made everything glitter, including the school courtyard below, where the perfect imprint of the paw marks of a night creature trailed through the snow from one end to the other.

‘You go now, Tiyo, or you be late.’

Reluctantly he abandoned the window. Li Mei was standing behind him in a virginal white gown. A snowflake. He took her in his arms and kissed her soft lips but released her when he saw liquid trickle down her cheek. She was melting. He took the top hat she was holding in her hands. It was seal grey and appeared ridiculous to him. He was wearing a morning coat with absurd tails and a stiff white collar. Li Mei touched his cheek, smelled the flower in his lapel, and straightened the hat on his head.

‘You look very fine, Tiyo, my love.’

‘A very fine idiot,’ he laughed.

She laughed with him.

‘Come with me,’ he said.

‘No, my love.’

‘Why?’

‘It would not be fitting.’

‘Bugger fitting.’

‘No, I do other things today.’

‘What things?’

‘I go speak with my father.’

‘With Feng Tu Hong? Damn that devil. You swore you wished never to see him again.’

She lowered her head, her black hair swaying in a rippling curtain between them. ‘I know. I break my oath. I pray the gods will forgive me.’

‘Don’t go to him, sweet one. Please. He might hurt you and I couldn’t bear that.’

‘Or I might hurt him,’ she said, lifting her almond-shaped eyes to his. Achingly beautiful.

Theo tried to concentrate. The wedding service was thankfully short. That was the advantage of a civil ceremony over one of those elaborately drawn-out church weddings, full of fluff and flummery that Theo loathed. This was better. Brief and to the point. Shame for Alfred though. He was quite put out by not being allowed to exchange vows in a church before God, but if he insisted on marrying a woman who had been married before, what did he expect? The Church of England was a bit of a stickler about these niceties.

The bride was sparkling. That was Theo’s problem. He was sitting in the front row of seats behind the groom, only dimly aware of the other guests around him, of hats and perfumes and neatly tied cravats. It was the bride’s cream bolero that was bothering him. It was covered with tiny seed pearls that shimmered and shifted each time she breathed, seizing the light and swirling it around Theo’s head, making it difficult for him to think clearly. He focused on the back of her dress instead, on her slender hips under the ivory-coloured chiffon, on the soft curves and the sweet rise of her buttocks. Abruptly he wished he were at home with Li Mei. In the bath. His tongue trailing up her buttery thigh.