61
Theo opened the drawer and removed the pipe with
care. He ran a hand over its long ivory stem and felt the ancient
carvings on it talk to him through his fingertips. The need to keep
it safe, to have it there at his bedside just in case, was so
strong he knew he had to destroy it. Ever since that strange day at
the farmhouse with Alfred and Liev Popkov he’d had an acute
awareness that his life was too fragile to take risks with
anymore.
Maybe it was all that crazy strutting about with a
gun in his hand that did it. Or the violent death of Po Chu. Or the
impending execution of the Communist.
Death was whispering in his ear.
Or was it the curt letter from Mason severing all
future contact? That had mystified Theo. What in hell had changed
that bastard’s mind?
All he knew for certain now was that he wanted more
from life. For himself. For his beloved school. And for Li Mei. He
raised his gaze from the pipe in his hands and looked at her. She
wore no jewellery, no face paint, and her hair was pulled back from
her face in a severe knot, a white flower pinned to it, all signs
of her mourning for her brother. She was sitting at the window, her
hands folded over each other on her lap, her almond eyes watching
him. Only the tick of a tiny muscle at the side of her mouth
betrayed how much she wanted this.
Slowly he lifted the pipe up above his head,
holding it with both hands like a sacred offering to the gods, and
for a brief second his mind yearned again for the swirl of the
sweet smoke. But Theo didn’t listen. The pipe came swinging down
with force, right onto the brass rail at the foot of the bed. The
ivory shattered. Pieces skittered across the room and one brushed
against Li Mei’s small foot. She kicked it away.
‘Now will you say yes?’ Theo demanded.
Her black eyes were bright with happiness. ‘Ask me
again.’ ‘Will you marry me, Li Mei?’
‘Yes.’
‘Tiyo.’
‘What is it?’
‘She’s there again. At the gate.’
‘Who?’
‘The Chinese woman.’
‘Ignore her.’
‘Perhaps she wants her cat back.’
‘You mean Yeewai?’
‘Yes. The creature used to be hers. And now you say
her husband has been executed and his boat taken, as well as her
daughter, there’s no reason why you couldn’t give the animal back
to . . .’
‘If she wants the cat, let her ask.’
‘I don’t like the woman, Tiyo. Or her cat. There
are bad spirits around her head.’
‘Superstitious claptrap, my love. There’s no harm
in her. But if it’ll please you, I’ll give her a few dollars next
time I go out.’
‘Yes, do that, Tiyo. It might help.’
But when Theo drove out, there was no sign of
Yeewai’s previous owner and he gave her no thought. The traffic
across town was slow, the streets full of Saturday shoppers, so it
took him longer than he expected to reach Alfred’s house and he was
annoyed at being late. In the days that were to follow, he would go
over these moments again and again in his mind, trying to get them
straight and in the right order, to see if anything could have been
done differently. But some were fuzzy and indistinct. His arrival
was one of those. He remembered backing the Morris Cowley into the
drive and leaving it near the open gates because Alfred’s big
Armstrong Siddeley was already taking up most of the space. But
after that, nothing until Alfred was clapping him on the
shoulder.
‘Good to see you, old chap. I know Lydia is longing
to thank you.’
It didn’t look like that to Theo. She was standing
by the window in the drawing room, holding herself very stiffly.
Either the girl was in pain or she was on guard. Could be both.
Theo followed her line of sight to see what she was staring at
outside. Nothing. Just an old garden shed. She didn’t look well.
Gaunt cheeked. Her skin transparent. Her mouth was pulled tight
with strain and her amber eyes seemed to have turned several shades
darker. Yet something in them gleamed, as if there were a bright
light deep down there, a kind of fire he had not seen in them
before. He remembered that, when he conjured up her image later.
That fire.
‘Lydia, come over and say hello to Mr
Willoughby.’
It was Valentina who spoke. She was smiling
enchantingly at Theo, and he got the feeling she was one or two
ahead of him in the vodka chase. When he thought back later, it was
her long cool throat he recalled, though he didn’t know exactly
why. She was wearing something bright, red maybe, that showed off
her creamy white throat with its delicate pulse throbbing at the
base. She kept touching it with her scarlet-tipped finger. Her
mouth smiled a lot. And her eyes were genuinely happy, so that she
looked younger than at the wedding only a few weeks earlier.
‘We are so very lucky to have you home again,
aren’t we, darling? Safe and sound. Well,’ she laughed and the look
she gave her daughter flickered with something more fragile,
‘nearly sound anyway.’
‘How are you, Lydia?’ Theo asked.
‘I’m well now.’
‘Good for you, young lady.’
‘Come on, darling, don’t be so rude. Thank Mr
Willoughby.’
‘Thank you, Mr Willoughby. For searching for
me.’
‘Poof, what kind of words are those? He deserves
better than that. He risked his life.’
Lydia shivered. Then she smiled and something
seemed to open up in her, letting out a young eagerness for a
moment. She offered him her hand.
‘I am grateful, Mr Willoughby, really I am.’
‘It’s your Russian bear you should be thanking. He
was the one who did the dirty work.’
‘Liev,’ she said.
She raised the glass of lime juice in her hand and
turned to where Liev Popkov was slumped in an armchair. He was
peering with his one eye into the depths of a glass of vodka that
was swallowed up in his great paw, but when he saw her look across
he shook his black curls at her and showed his teeth. It made him
look ready to take a bite out of someone. Valentina glared at him
and muttered something under her breath in Russian.
‘And Chang An Lo?’ Theo asked.
‘He’s in prison.’
‘I’m so sorry, Lydia.’
‘So am I.’
She went over and stood beside the big Russian, her
knee only an inch from his elbow, and went back to staring out the
window. They didn’t speak, but Theo could sense the connection
between those two. Odd that. He could sense Valentina’s disapproval
too. Obviously the invitation to Popkov had not been her idea. She
moved off in the direction of the vodka bottle.
‘Sounds like bad news for Chang,’ Theo said in an
undertone to Alfred, who was looking particularly smart in a new
charcoal suit. Valentina had worked wonders with the old
chap.
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘Execution?’
‘Inevitable, it seems. Any day now.’
‘Poor Lydia.’
Alfred took out a large white handkerchief and
wiped his mouth as if to scoop up the words. ‘It might be for the
best in the long run.’ He shook his head unhappily. ‘If only she
would find herself a nice young English boy at that school of
yours.’
‘Why so glum, my sweet angel?’ Valentina said with
a laugh.
She’d returned to slide an arm around her husband’s
waist. Theo was amused that his friend managed to look so pleased,
yet at the same time so embarrassed by Valentina’s open display of
affection. But the way Alfred looked at her, so much love in one
small smile, it haunted him afterward.
The next hour blurred in Theo’s mind. But he knew
the reason for that. It was shock. At what followed. It acted like
a glass of water spilled over a page of writing, smearing all the
words and making them run into each other like tears. So quite how
he found himself walking into the driveway behind Valentina, he
wasn’t sure. Something to do with cigarettes. That was it.
‘Oh damn,’ she’d exclaimed. ‘I’m out of
smokes.’
‘Here, try one of mine,’ Theo offered.
‘Good God, no. They smell lethal.’
So he’d offered to drive her to the shop that sold
her foul little Russian cigarettes and she’d been delighted. She’d
gone over to her daughter, spoken softly in her ear, stroked her
hair, obviously explaining why she was skipping off. Lydia nodded
but made a face. Not happy. But in the drive he’d opened the
passenger door for Valentina, that much he did remember. And the
kiss. Her soft lips on his cheek and the smell of her scent, the
light touch of her hand on his chest. She was so happy it was
infectious, so brimful of life. It bubbled out of her. Her daughter
was safe from both Po Chu and Chang An Lo, while Alfred lay curled
in the palm of her hand. What more could she want?
As Theo climbed into the driving seat he saw two
things that surprised him. One was Lydia standing in the doorway of
the house. He couldn’t imagine why she’d come to see them drive
off. The other was the Chinese woman, the one who’d thrust the cat
into his arms on the junk and who’d been hanging around his gates
for the last two days. What the hell was she doing here? The
foolish woman placed her stubby body directly in front of the car.
He hooted the horn. Her broad face and narrow eyes twisted into an
expression of hatred and she spat at the windshield.
‘Aah, this crazy town is full of mad creatures,’
Valentina complained, but she wasn’t alarmed. Nothing could dent
her good humour today.
‘I’ll get rid of her.’ Theo jumped out, and that
was when everything went wrong.
The woman swung back her arm and threw something
under the car. He started to run at her, but she was already racing
out of the drive at an astonishing pace. Theo put a spurt on and
had made it as far as the gate when the world cracked right down
the middle. He could think of no other explanation. The noise was
like the roar of the devil. He was hurled across the road and felt
his wrist snap as he landed. His ears seemed to implode. He
couldn’t hear.
He dragged himself off the tarmac and looked behind
him. The Morris Cowley was gone. In its place was a crater and a
few grotesque pieces of twisted metal. Behind it Alfred’s Armstrong
Siddeley was all hunched over as if it had been kicked in the
teeth. Broken glass trickled down from the sky like razor-sharp
rain. Ten yards away on the scorched lawn lay the tattered remains
of Valentina’s body. Her flesh turned to raw meat. Lydia was
kneeling beside it, her mouth open wide in a scream that Theo
couldn’t hear, her hands cradling her mother’s shattered
face.
It was then that shock shuffled the images in his
head and sent him spinning down into a cold black pit.