‘On second thought, I think my wife is right. How dare you come barging into my home for no reason? This needs more discussion. ’

‘Sir, I have already given you the reason. We are cooperating with our Chinese colleagues, as it is out of their jurisdiction here in the International Settlement. There really is nothing further to discuss.’

Alfred drew himself up, stiff as a board. ‘I must dispute that. And I will take it up in my next report for the Daily Herald.’ He waved a hand in Lydia’s direction. ‘Leave us, Lydia.’ To the officer he said loftily, ‘I don’t want my daughter involved in this… fiasco.’

Mentally Lydia pulled out every single pin she’d stuck into the A on the sheet of paper last night. Without a word she left the hall.

‘The soldiers. They’re here. Quick.’

But he was already moving. He had risen instantly from the blankets but swayed on his feet, fighting for balance. His dark eyes blinked hard.

For one brief second she reached out and kissed him. ‘That’s for strength.’ She smiled.

‘You are my strength,’ he said, then seized his jacket. He was otherwise fully dressed, even wearing his boots. Prepared for this moment.

She scooped up the satchel that she had packed with his medicines last night and put an arm around his waist. ‘Let’s go.’

‘No.’ The fever had dulled his eyes but not his brain. ‘Cover our tracks.’ He gestured at the blankets.

Quickly she grabbed them, stuffed them with the hot-water bottle into one of the dusty sacks against the wall, and then piled a heap of dirty straw from the rabbit hutch on top of it. To discourage probing fingers.

‘Thank you, xie xie, Sun Yat-sen,’ Chang said solemnly.

Lydia would have laughed, but she’d forgotten how.

The snow saved them. It came spinning down in big floating flakes that blotted out the world. Pavements grew treacherous and sounds were muffled as cars and people faded out of focus into the swirling white world. Out through the garden door with the broken latch. On to the main road. They ran.

How Chang An Lo did it, she’d never know. The cold cut into her face. She was wearing no coat, just a thick wool sweater, but that was the least of her worries. The Kuomintang troops were at the house and once they found it empty, what then? They’d come looking. She kept glancing back over her shoulder but could make out no figures behind, and she held tight to the conviction that if she couldn’t see them, they couldn’t see her. Or could they? The snow turned the air into dense white sheets that blocked out any vision more than a few yards and it made everyone hurry, heads down, no interest in an odd pair rushing over icy pavement.

She had to think. Make her mind work for both of them.

Where to go?

Their feet pounded the pavement in fast rhythm together. Her heart kept pace. Her arm around his waist held him firmly against her side and she could feel him trying not to put weight on her, but once he stumbled. His damaged hand hit the ground hard but he said nothing, just hauled himself up and back to the running. The more they ran, locked in chaotic flight, the more she loved him. His will was so strong. And there was a calmness at the centre of him that controlled the pain and exhaustion. Only the muscle that flickered in his jaw betrayed him.

Think. But it was hard when everything was slipping and sliding inside her.

She ducked down Laburnum Road to their left. Then right and immediately right again, zigzagging to confuse pursuit. Her breath came in quick, sharp gasps. As she drew Chang An Lo across the road, they were almost run down by a bicycle suddenly swooping out of the gloom, skidding in the snow, and it set her pulse pounding faster to realize how near the soldiers could be without her even knowing.

She could think of nowhere safe except the docks. Tan Wah’s old hovel, if it was still there. Liev Popkov had destroyed its roof but it was better than nothing, anything was better than nothing. But it was a long way. Chang was weakening, his feet stuttering as if trying to give up on him.

‘The quayside,’ she muttered, her breath flaring out in front of her in the icy air.

He nodded. Snowflakes were caught in his eyelashes.

‘Can you make it?’

He nodded again. No waste of breath.

She slowed their pace to a hurried walk. She wasn’t going to have him drop dead on her. Headed downhill. All they had to do now was cross the big junction of Prince Street and Fleet Road, then keep going straight down to the docks, but as they approached the crossroads she saw two policemen standing on the corner right in front of her. One was in British uniform; the other she recognised as French. They were huddled in their navy capes, heads close together.

Without breaking stride she steered herself and Chang through the crawling traffic across to the other side of the road, away from the uniforms, and thought she had got away with it. But the British one’s head came up. He stared straight at her. At Chang. Said something to his colleague. Both immediately strode in her direction, carving a path through the sheet of white air. She couldn’t run. Not with Chang An Lo. Instead she tried to come up with a good reason why a white girl would be stumbling along with a Chinese draped around her shoulders in a snowstorm.

She couldn’t.

The police figures were closer, held up by a small burst of traffic, all shrouded in white. Death robes. A native man pushing a wheelbarrow with a child sitting in it swore at the car in front, which had slowed for the junction. It revved its engine ready to accelerate away, and the noise made Lydia glance across at the driver. She could barely see him through the sweep of snow-laden windshield wipers, but she saw enough. Instantly she stepped out onto the road, dragging Chang with her.

She tapped at the sedan’s window. ‘Mr Theo, it’s me.’

The window rolled down and Mr Theo’s grey eyes peered at her, narrowed against the cold wind. ‘Good God, what are you doing out in this?’ His gaze shifted to Chang An Lo. ‘Bloody hell.’

The policemen were almost at the car.

‘I…’ Her dry mouth tripped her up. She tried again. ‘I need a ride.’

She saw his eyes notice the two uniformed figures now approaching the rear of the car. Beside her Chang An Lo’s breathing came in convulsive gasps.

‘Not on the run, are you?’

‘No, Mr Theo,’ she said quickly. ‘Of course not.’

He knew she was lying. She could see it.

‘Get in,’ he said.

46

Well, this was an interesting turnaround.

Theo was leaning against the doorframe of his guest bedroom and despite the sick headache that was a permanent fixture these days, he was smiling.

Po Chu was going to love him.

On the bed lay the young Chinese. Hell’s fire. What a state the fellow was in. Looked terrible. Don’t die. Don’t you dare die. I need you alive.

The Russian girl was sitting beside the bed on a chair that was well over four hundred years old, not that she had eyes to appreciate its beauty right now. She was holding one of his mangled hands in hers and talking to him in a low urgent voice, the words too soft for Theo to hear. But that didn’t matter.

Lydia Ivanova, you have brought me a prize indeed.

Theo drove her home. He’d almost had to cart her bodily out of the sickroom, she was so loath to leave, but Theo was having none of it. There was Alfred to face, so she had to go home and sort that out first. Anyway there was something so intense about the way she tended the Chinese young man that Theo was nervous that she was about to leap into bed with him, fever or no fever. What would Alfred say to that?

He left Li Mei bathing the patient’s brow with herbs and potions from the hoard in the satchel and promised Lydia she could return when her mother and Alfred said she was allowed to. Not before.