Kirill had meant to cover the screen with his hand so she couldn’t see Samson’s face, but as he backed away from her to capture the whole scene she had fleetingly seen him and registered the outrage and dismay in his eyes. When Samson had said, ‘I am with you, dear Anastasia,’ she knew that he was giving her more than just support. He was coming for her, and that’s why she’d tried to smile at the camera.
Kirill didn’t miss that and, after he’d made another call, he caught her and her guards up on the way back to the compound, prodded her and said he’d certainly found the right man in Samson. He would make sure her husband complied with all the demands.
They had taken her watch, but she estimated it must have been two or three in the morning when they got back to the compound. Kirill had seized the bottle of vodka by the fire and now followed her into the building, behind the man who had her chained. He dismissed the guard when the chain had been unlocked and came into the room and fumbled at her breast, saying he couldn’t help but be excited by the way she had handled herself. Most women would have become hysterical in those circumstances, he exclaimed, but she was strong and defiant, and that had really turned him on. She felt like hitting him, but she simply removed his hand, looked into his face and shook her head slowly.
Next morning, she noticed the room was much colder and her breath smoked in the air, and when no food arrived she realised that Kirill was punishing her. She sat shivering on the bed, wrapped in the rug from the night before and with a coverlet over her feet. But at least she wasn’t trussed up in a box. Around mid-morning, a hand appeared around the door and a paperback was chucked into the room, Ivan Turgenev’s First Love, a novella she’d read in college. Her only memory was that she had wanted to slap both protagonists and tell them to stop being so self-indulgent.
She read the book and kept her hunger at bay by rubbing toothpaste in her mouth and drinking water. Night fell and the room became colder still and the air stale. It was late when the man came to handcuff her to the chain and led her out into the open. Kirill was seated beside a roaring fire and, by the look of things, was already well into a bottle of vodka. He wore a hunting cap with earflaps, mittens, a jacket and waistcoat, breeches and lace-up ankle boots. Around his neck was a loosely tied silk scarf with a pheasant motif. She suspected he was dressing up for her.
He handed her a glass, which she refused. ‘I can’t drink without food. It will make me ill.’
Between them was a metal picnic table on which lay the Russian edition of the book. The cover showed a woman in a long white dress and hat standing by cheery trees in blossom. Kirill picked it up, gazed at the picture for a moment and showed it to her. ‘This is very good art. Good Russian art.’ Then he issued instructions in Russian and very soon a vacuum flask of soup was brought, together with some bread and smoked cheese in the shape of a sausage.
She gorged on the bread and cheese and sipped the soup while Kirill flipped through the book and very soon her blood sugar had risen and she was feeling more herself.
‘You like this book we study? I chose for you.’
‘I wonder why,’ she murmured, looking down. ‘I find the character of the boy irritating and the woman is manipulative. She is five years older than he is and she’s playing with his emotions for no reason. She has many suitors and doesn’t love him and, anyway, she is his father’s goddamn mistress. She is deceiving everyone then she dies: end of story. What’s the point?’
‘Drink,’ Kirill commanded.
She considered the vodka and downed it all.
‘This is great Russian work about love,’ said Kirill.
‘And disappointment,’ she said. ‘But my main problem is that people don’t behave like that.’
Kirill let out a guffaw. ‘This happened to writer. Turgenev fell in love with his father’s mistress! There was good reason I chose this book – because of your situation. You remind me of Princess Zinaida, and Samson is young boy Vladimir.’
‘You have me as the flirtatious bimbo! And Samson as the lovesick youth! Jesus! Then I guess my husband, Denis, takes the role of the father. It doesn’t add up.’
‘But Hisami is father figure to replace your father.’
‘How do you know my father is dead?’
He gave her a weary look. ‘We researched you, Anastasia. And Denis is older than you. He is in his fifties and you are thirty-five years of age.’
She shook her head and looked away.
‘Read to me in English the passage where the son discovers the truth.’ He took her book from her, found it quickly and handed it back with a finger placed at the spot.
‘It’s ridiculous – I can’t read this.’ But he threatened to take her shoes away and keep her without food the following day so she read, with a tone of sarcastic melodrama, the scene where the father of the smitten boy Vladimir takes his riding crop to his mistress. ‘“Zinaida shuddered, looked at my father without a word, and then, slowly lifting her arm to her lips, kissed the streak of red that had appeared upon it. My father flung the whip away from him and, hastily running up the steps, dashed into the house.”’ She dropped the book. ‘It’s sentimental rubbish.’
Kirill affected shock at this. ‘Maybe this is like your husband?’
‘I don’t understand. What do you mean?’
‘Your husband is out of jail and he has met with Samson, but nothing has happened. He has not done what we want and Samson leaves New York and goes home to London. He spurns you.’
She straightened. ‘But you’ve told my husband of your demands.’
‘He knows what we want, but he plays games with us. Yet he can do nothing. He is under house arrest. They put tracker on his leg and he cannot leave apartment. So Samson went to New York and he was unable to persuade Denis to help you. We were watching.’
‘Let me talk to Denis. I can tell him what he needs to do. Please, Kirill! I’m sure he will help when he hears from me. Call him.’
‘No!’ He stabbed the fire with a long stick and sparks flew into the night. ‘Did you know your husband was CIA agent and so was his sister?’
‘They went through difficult times in Kurdistan. Working with the CIA would be part of that, I guess. But he doesn’t talk about it and I never knew his sister.’
‘Professional killers.’
‘You have that wrong. She was a doctor who helped children with cancer.’
‘Your husband killed four men in Macedonia and saved your life. Where do you imagine he learned that kind of skill? With CIA, of course.’
‘No,’ she said firmly, although she had always had her suspicions, which stemmed from his relationship with the polite Bob Baker and their occasional huddles in the pool house in Mesopotamia.
‘Men like your husband will do everything to save themselves,’ mused Kirill. ‘They have different psychology. They are very cold, very strong. That is now problem for you because he will try to win and that means you may die in process.’
‘There’s something I don’t understand about you, Kirill. How can you sit here and drink with me and talk about books at the same time as threatening me with a bullet in my head? How many people have died? Five people, including the poor chef? Why?’ She felt light-headed and bold, and she knew that she should be flattering her jailer rather than challenging him. She stopped and glanced at him, then decided to press on, knowing that the drink was talking. ‘Please explain to me what is so important to you and your associates that you are prepared to kill so many people?’
‘There are many casualties in these times, but your husband is responsible for deaths. Remember that.’
‘Denis didn’t kill them – your organisation did.’ She sprang forward but the man holding the other end of the chain yanked her back and wrenched the shoulder that had been injured on the boat.
‘Why?’ she shouted as the pain flooded her mind. ‘What do you damn well want?’
Kirill smiled. ‘What is ours – nothing else.’
He kept her by the fire another two hours, drinking and making rambling speeches on the decline of civilisation and the Russian soul, all of it tinged with a sentimental fascist longing. She feigned interest, indulged him by arguing with him and once – more out of boredom than anything else – launched an attack on the corruption of his country. ‘Russia is run by men for men, gangsters who do not understand the meaning of work or community, because they’ve only ever stolen from the people, so please don’t preach to me about the values of the goddamn Motherland.’ He enjoyed this and countered with a sharp analysis of the United States, but she couldn’t be bothered to reply and yearned for the solitude of her room. Eventually, he tired, staggered to his feet and ordered her to be taken into the building.
But this was not where things ended. Later, he came to her room and felt his way to her bed in the half-light, tripping at the last moment on the leg of the table – the only furniture in the room – so that he sprawled over her and breathed alcohol in her face. He groped her breasts, saying something about admiring a woman with her spirit, though it was hard to tell because he was so drunk, and fumbled at the fastener on her trousers. For one moment she wondered if she should let him do what he wanted, but that thought soon vanished when his hand slipped inside her pants. She struggled upright and brought her knees to her chest. ‘No!’ she said. He stopped and raised his head. ‘Kirill, these are not the actions of a civilised man.’
‘But … I want you.’ He could barely get these few words out. He lay motionless on the bed and mumbled something in Russian to himself. She saw that his fly was open and penis was out.
‘Oh, Jesus,’ she said. ‘Kirill, you have to decide whether you want to be my executioner or my lover, because you sure as hell can’t be both.’
He muttered something in Russian, yet she could tell that he was thinking about this. She put out a hand and touched his forehead – he was perspiring and his hair was damp from sitting by the fire in the hunting hat. She stroked his temple. ‘This is not right for people who respect each other,’ she said quietly.
‘I want you.’ He let out a sigh before managing to say, ‘And I know you want me.’
‘But not like this, when you’ve had too much to drink.’
‘I saw it in your eyes. You want me.’
‘That’s smart of you, Kirill. When I saw you first, I thought – this is a shrewd man, an observant man, a man of learning.’
He nodded and she kept stroking his head and speaking to him in a soft voice about his intelligence and manly virtues. Once or twice she overdid it and his face jerked up to search her eyes for insincerity, but she reassured him that she meant what she was saying, although she had to admit to him that she found it odd to be expressing such feelings in these circumstances, and in due course he relaxed.
She noticed his breathing change. ‘Why don’t you get more comfortable and lie down with me,’ she said, shifting to one side. She encouraged him to lift his legs on to the narrow bed, then she lay, exactly as she had with Zhao on the boat, but this time she did not sleep. She waited without moving and, soon enough, Kirill rolled on to his back and began to snore gently, his arm occasionally flopping across her stomach.