Through the pain that was hammering on his brain and the light blinding his eyes, he tried to make sense of what he saw. The tu-fei, the Russian bandit, charged at the wedded pair. Alfred, mild-mannered and calm Alfred, threw himself forward with an animal cry of fury to protect his beloved, but the great paw knocked him aside with barely a flick of a muscle. Alfred was on the floor, blood on his head.

Screaming. Someone was screaming.

Valentina Ivanova – no, Valentina Parker – was yelling at the big man in Russian. She slapped his face. Not once, but three times. She had to reach up high to do so and looked like a kitten playing with a lion’s muzzle. Yet he didn’t touch her. He growled and roared and shook his great furry head from side to side. He staggered and swayed, too drunk to stand firm, and still she screamed at him.

‘Poshyol von. Get out of here, you stinking Russian pig. Ubiraisya otsyuda gryaznaya svinya.’

‘Prodazhnaya shkura,’ he bellowed and then in English, ‘You whore.’

Theo got himself over to Alfred and helped him to his feet.

‘Stop it, stop it. Prekratyitye.’

It was the girl. She seized hold of the man’s massive arm and pulled him to look at her. His black eye was slow to abandon the bride’s face but eventually shifted to the girl at his side.

‘Poshli, come,’ she said urgently. ‘Come with me. Quickly. Bistra. Or you will be shot like a dog.’

Then it was over. The shouting stopped. The man was gone. Alfred was rushing to Valentina. The girl disappeared. The last thing Theo could recall was the sight of her small figure dragging the big bandit from the room and the odd thing was that he went quietly, tears rolling down his cheeks into his thick beard. The old woman with the vast bosom was standing, arms outstretched, in the middle of the room, gazing up at the ceiling and declaiming in a heavy Russian accent, ‘You shall pay for this. God will make you pay for this.’

Theo wondered if she meant him.

33

Lydia had to run. Even though he had been drinking, Liev moved fast on his great long legs, as if there were a demon inside him.

‘Damn you, Liev Popkov,’ she swore. ‘Slow down.’

He halted, studied her blearily with his one eye. He seemed surprised to find her at his side.

‘What,’ she demanded, ‘was all that about? Why did you break up the wedding party? O chyom vi rugalyis?’

He shook his head and lumbered on, at an easier pace this time. It was raining now, but cold enough to turn to snow again at any moment. Lydia was in the wrong clothes. The green beaded frock was not meant to keep out the Chinese winter. She had seized her coat from the cupboard in the hall on her way out, the old thin coat, not the bloodied new one – she hated that one – but she was wearing silly satin shoes and no hat. She took hold of his arm and gripped it hard. Her fear that the violent confrontation with her mother would cause him to abandon her made her dig her fingers in tight and concentrate on seeking out the right Russian words.

‘Why did you do that to my mother? Tell me. Why? Pochemu?’

‘A Russian must marry a Russian,’ he grunted and lowered his head into the rain. He would say no more.

‘That is nonsense, Liev Popkov.’

But she left it there. Her Russian was not adequate to the emotions she was struggling with. The sight of her mother’s beautiful face so twisted with anger and the sound of the Russian words pouring from her mouth too fast for Lydia to grasp had shaken her. It had stolen something solid from her world. Why would Liev barge into the house? None of it made sense.

She guided the big bear past the railway station and down to the docks. He seemed to have no care for what direction he took, unaware of where he was going until a singsong girl in a bright yellow short cheongsam that showed off her legs reached out and touched his cheek with a hand whose nails were as green as dragon scales.

‘You want jig-jig?’

He brushed her aside. But his head came up and he looked around, saw the tall metal cranes and the gambling dens and the chain gangs of porters. For the first time he noticed the rain. His bloodshot eye turned to Lydia and frowned.

‘I have a plan,’ she said in Russian. ‘I found a man. He knows my friend, the one I’m searching for. This man I found is… dead now. I did not understand his Chinese words but he said the name Calfield. I think it is here. Somewhere.’

‘Calfield?’

‘Da.’

She knew she hadn’t explained it well, but it was hard to find the words in his language. Her impatience got the better of her. She pulled him toward the buildings overlooking the quayside and pointed to the names up on their frontage. Jepherson’s Timber Yard and Lamartiere Agence. Across the road Dirk & Green Wheelwright next to Winkmann’s Chandlery. All jumbled up among the Chinese businesses.

She gestured to Liev. ‘Calfield? Where is it? You must ask.’

Understanding dawned. ‘Calfield,’ he echoed.

‘Yes.’

It had taken her hours. Lying awake last night, trawling through the nightmare of yesterday. Again and again she came back to the knife disappearing into Tan Wah. His soft hoarse cough. The blood. How could there be so much blood in one so thin? She wanted to scream aloud No, no, but she had made her mind go back, further back. To the wood. When she first asked Tan Wah about Chang An Lo. His chatter of words meant nothing to her but she went over them. Remembering. Listening. Seeing his floating eyes. His hairless face, already a skeleton. His teeth, yellow and chipped.

Words. Sounds. Unfamiliar and alien.

Just as the folds of the dividing curtain turned from black to grey, the start of their last morning in that attic room, one word stepped out into the front of her mind from all the meaningless sounds. Cal-field. Tan Wah had definitely used the word.

Calfield.

She gnawed at it like a bone. He had been taking her to Chang, that much was clear. Then he had waved his bony hand toward the quay and said Calfield.

It was a business or trading company of some sort, she was sure of it. Calfield was an English name and no Englishman lived down there at the docks, so it had to be a business. She had planned to seek out Liev Popkov the second her mother and Alfred left for the station, but his intrusion just made it happen earlier. The honeymooners would set off anyway and probably not even notice she wasn’t there in all the excitement. They wouldn’t miss her.

‘Lydia Ivanova.’ It was the bear. His voice was steadier now, his words less slurred. ‘Pochemu? Why you want this friend so bad?’

She glared at him. ‘That is my business.’

He growled, literally growled. Then he reached into the greasy pocket of his long overcoat and pulled out a stack of banknotes. He took her hand in his great paw and placed the money on her palm, curling her fingers around it to hide it from jealous eyes.

‘Two hundred dollar,’ he said in English.

A wave of sickness hit her stomach. The return of the money was so final. He’d finished with her.

‘Don’t leave. Nye ostavlyai menya.’

He said nothing. Just removed the long woollen scarf from around his neck, draped it over her wet head, and wound it around her shoulders. It stank of God-knows-what filth and stale sweat all mixed up with tobacco and garlic, but something in the gesture stilled her fear. He wouldn’t leave her. Surely.

But he did.

She felt betrayed. There was no reason why she should, but she did. It was a business arrangement, nothing more. Two hundred dollars of protection, that’s what she’d bought. Liev had more than earned it already, risked his life time and again during her search in this dangerous place for no more than Alfred probably paid for her new coat. But now he had returned the money. All of it.