The Concubine's Secret Read Online Free PDF

usual.’
    ‘ Maybe today . That’s what the station master always bleats.’
    ‘So this time it could be true.’
    She nodded and let her glance roam casually over the straggly trees on the far side of the track, their skeletons etched in ice. Then, as if in no hurry, she turned again to her fellow travellers. Casually. It took an effort, but she kept her expression neutral as she sought out once more the rest of the newcomers. Two men, one woman. The two men wore uniforms she didn’t recognise and both possessed an air of authority that made her wary of eye contact, but she noticed them glance her way. A couple of paces to one side of them stood the woman.
    ‘Don’t stare.’ Alexei’s voice was gentle.
    ‘I’m not staring.’
    ‘You are.’
    ‘Of course I’m not. I’m just admiring her fur coat.’
    ‘Admire something else.’
    Lydia dragged her eyes from the woman’s long dark hair, from the way it curled softly on her collar and swayed like a delicate glossy wing across her cheek as she moved her head. Exactly like Valentina’s used to. Bile, bitter-tasting, rose in Lydia’s throat.
    ‘From the back the resemblance to her is striking,’ Alexei murmured, his breath billowing white in the chill air.
    ‘Resemblance to whom?’
    Alexei gave Lydia a long unblinking stare, then dropped the subject. He took a drag on his cheroot and slid a glance in the direction of the two uniformed men.
    ‘They know the train is coming or they wouldn’t be here.’
    ‘You think so?’
    ‘No question. It’ll come today.’
    ‘I hope Popkov hurries up. I don’t want him left behind.’
    Even as she said it, she sensed it was a mistake. Alexei gave her a look but made no comment. She knew there was nothing he’d like better than for Liev Popkov to be left behind in Selyansk. He cast another glance over in the woman’s direction. ‘I wonder who she is,’ he said under his breath. ‘She sticks out like a sore thumb in a place like this.’
    Lydia allowed herself another look, a lingering stare this time, at the woman’s silvery fur coat that seemed to shine in the dull wintry light. She noted the stylish matching hat perched at an angle, the pale grey boots as soft as kittens’ paws and the flash of a creamy cashmere scarf at the throat. The woman looked as if she’d strolled off Leningrad’s Nevsky Prospekt and found herself in a farmyard by mistake.
    ‘Her name is Antonina,’ Lydia said quietly.
    Alexei looked at Lydia with surprise. ‘How in hell’s name do you know that?’
    ‘I learn things.’
    ‘And how exactly did you learn that?’
    ‘She told me herself.’
    ‘When?’
    ‘The night before last. In the hotel bathroom.’
    Alexei stubbed out his cheroot under his boot and took a deep breath. Lydia could see he was thinking hard, working out the odds of his sister having blundered. She touched his sleeve with her fingers.
    ‘It’s all right, brother. I did no harm. I was careful, I told her nothing.’
    ‘So what else did you learn about this woman?’
    Lydia let her gaze be drawn back to the ripple of dark hair and the arrogant lift of the chin.
    ‘She’s the Commandant’s wife.’
     
    Alexei studied the woman. The camp Commandant’s wife. Now that was interesting. No wonder the uniforms hovered so close.
    He experienced a sudden unreasonable rush of hope. He knew it was totally unwarranted, ridiculous even, but he was powerless to crush it. Last summer in China he’d jumped on a train with Lydia without a backward glance, and together they’d headed hundreds of bone-shaking miles north across the border to Vladivostok to find a father neither of them had seen or heard of for over twelve years. Alexei had done it for a whole handful of different reasons but expectation of success was certainly not one of them.
    In his heart he was certain their search for Jens Friis was doomed to failure, but he never uttered a word of this to Lydia. The Soviet State was too massive and too resolute a