‘Thank you,’ he said as she helped him into the pile of blankets and tucked a hot-water bottle under his feet. ‘Do not be angry.’

‘Hush, my love, I’m not angry. Just frightened you are leaving me.’

‘Look at me. Do I look strong enough to leap over your roof and fly away?’

She laughed, generous with her energy. ‘Go to sleep now.’

‘And you?’

‘I’ll go to the market as soon as it opens. To buy you some clothes.’

He clung to her hand as her face slipped in and out of focus. ‘Peacock feathers and gold slippers would be nice.’

She smiled. ‘I was thinking of a topper and tails.’

He had no idea what she meant, but he raised her fingers to his lips.

She smiled at him. ‘And don’t go holding any wild parties in here while I’m away.’

Someone was rattling the padlock. Silently Chang rolled out of the blankets. The long-bladed knife was already in his hand. He crouched to one side of the door.

‘Missy Lydia? Missy, you here? Wai want you.’

It was the cook, Wai. Chang breathed more easily. The man must be a piss-head if he couldn’t see that of course she wasn’t inside the shed if the padlock was fastened outside. The shed had no windows, just a small skylight in the roof, which meant no one was able to look in. He heard the cook move away, muttering about the cold wind, but Chang remained where he was. He forced the cobwebs from his mind. He needed to be alert. He listened for other footfalls but none came. Around him the air was dim and musty but he was aware of sunshine trickling into one corner, picking out the dust motes and sending a cockroach scuttling into the dark.

Gradually the light changed. Chang judged time passing by the speed with which the rectangle of light crept across the floor, brushing Sun Yat-sen’s nose, then sliding over a huddle of wood lice and settling on his heap of blankets as though exhausted. Somewhere among the burlap sacks that leaned against one wall, a mouse pattered. With quiet concentration Chang observed a spider as it spun a web from one shelf of paint pots to another, and he would have given another finger to have the agility of its legs at this moment.

Because he sensed danger. How or when, he had no idea, but he could taste it. It was in the air.

When the sunlight finally sidled from inside the shed, he began to worry about Lydia. He pulled one of the blankets from the bed and wrapped it around himself and placed a handful of the medicines in the cloth case that was meant for the pillow, ready to move if he had to. With his right hand he carefully unbandaged his left. The time for cosseting was over. He studied both hands. The right was healing well now, but the left was still ugly and swollen, oozing pus from the hole where his smallest finger had once been. The sight of them offended him deeply. The balance was gone. They were lopsided. Even healed, they would possess no centre point.

Rage reared up from where it lay curled deep in his stomach, but he controlled it, breathed slow, exhaled long. Steadily and unremittingly he began to exercise his fingers.

‘I’m sorry I was so long. You mustn’t worry about me.’

She had taken one glance at his face and seen beyond the welcoming smile he gave her. She bent and kissed his mouth. ‘What are you doing over here by the door? You should be in bed, resting.’

‘I have finished resting.’

She gave him a look but made no comment. Instead she unwrapped her packages. Her wide grin filled the dingy shed with warmth and vitality, and he could feel it seeping into his own veins.

‘They’re not new, I’m afraid, but they’re good.’

She held them up. She was right, they were good. He was touched that she must have gone especially to the Chinese market in the old town because they were not Western clothes. A pair of loose peasant trousers, a quilted tunic, and a thick padded jacket, and in a separate parcel a pair of stout hide boots. A leather satchel, scratched and battered but still intact, pleased him most because it reminded him oddly of himself. Except he was no longer intact.

‘Thank you. For these gifts.’

‘Your hand.’ She frowned. ‘What have you been doing? It’s bleeding again. Let me bind it up.’

‘One twist of bandage. No more.’

Again she gave him that look.

‘In the English market where I found the satchel, I heard talk. About the bombs. Two more last night.’ She dug out the antiseptic boric acid and the pot of sulphur paste from the pillowcase. ‘Planning on going somewhere?’ she asked lightly.

‘No.’

She nodded.

But it was an uneasy movement. ‘They say it’s the Communists planting the bombs. Eight people were killed outside a nightclub and there’s talk of scouring the district for union members. Everyone is angry.’

‘They’re afraid,’ Chang murmured. He dismissed the pain as she dabbed at the wound on his left hand.

‘Is it the Communists, do you think?’

‘No. It is Po Chu. He is clever.’

‘But surely he gains nothing by-’

The door swung open and a brisk wind snatched at her hair. A strand of it swept across Chang’s face, but he saw the tall figure standing in the doorway. Chang didn’t move. Just his right hand. It picked up the knife.

Lydia leaped to her feet with an exclamation of surprise.

‘Alexei Serov! What on earth are you doing here?’

She stepped right in front of the figure, blocking his view, but not before Chang had seen his sharp green eyes take in the rough bed, Chang’s hands, and the dried bloodstain on the wooden floor.

‘Come up to the house,’ Lydia said firmly and stalked out of the shed, forcing the Russian to retreat. She closed the door and clicked the padlock shut.

44

‘Do you know what the penalty is for harbouring a known fugitive? ’

‘Just one minute, what reason do you have for thinking he is a fugitive? He is a friend of mine who is wounded and needs help, that’s all.’

‘In a shed?’ Alexei Serov’s tone was sceptical.

‘I really don’t see that this is any business of yours,’ she said crossly.

They were standing in the middle of the drawing room, but she didn’t want to discuss things. She wanted him to leave. She had not invited him to sit, nor offered to take his immaculate grey overcoat and silk scarf.

‘Anyway, what were you doing snooping around my shed?’ Even as she said it, she had a feeling she could have put that better.

‘Snooping? Miss Ivanova, I regard that as an insult.’ He drew his shoulders back stiffly. His short hair bristled. ‘I called at your front door and it was your servant who informed me that you were in the shed with your rabbit. He was the one who suggested I go down there.’

Wai, the cook. Damn the lazy fool.

‘Then I apologise. I meant no insult. I just feel that you…’

‘Intruded?’

‘Yes.’

He looked at her with a cool questioning gaze and came a step closer, his hand tapping impatiently on the lapel of his coat. He spoke in a low voice. ‘I think you are taking a big risk. Yet again. These are violent times, Miss Ivanova, and you should take great care. The bombs that explode, the intrigues that cut the ground from under any agreements, the dangers to someone who doesn’t know what they are involved in – these are things you know nothing about. People get killed every day for doing less than you are doing.’

Some of her confidence evaporated, and it must have shown on her face because he said more pleasantly, ‘It’s all right, I don’t bite.’

She smiled and made it look easy. ‘Thank you for your advice, but it is of no concern to me.’

‘What are you saying?’

He knew damn well what she was saying. ‘That it’s all nothing to do with me. Of course I hear of what is going on here in Junchow, but…’