Chapter 1

‘I love this view,’ her father said. ‘It’s the best on the island.’ He held out his hand to Lucy. ‘Come and sit by me. It’s so peaceful up here.’

‘The garden is looking lovely,’ she said.

He was a keen gardener, and the mild climate made Jersey a plantsman’s paradise.

The sea stretched below them at the bottom of a cliff mantled in spring foliage and flowers, girdled by a thin line of yellow sand. Yuri Warren had bought the site twenty-five years ago and built the house. It’d been a minor heart attack that had prompted the move, but the signs had been ominous. He had a wife and two-year-old daughter. He had enough money to retire if he sold the business. Within five years, his wife had died of cancer and he and Lucy were alone. He had lived far longer than anyone expected and he was grateful. The pace of life was easy, the gentle climate suited him. He had brought up his daughter, tended his beloved garden and devoted himself to his life’s work.

He had made it her cause as much as his. He had shared everything with her. From an early age he taught her to speak Russian. She looked like a child of his native Ukraine, with her Slavic bone structure and fair hair. He had bequeathed her everything but the piercing blue eyes. They were her Irish mother’s legacy.

Lucy glanced anxiously at him. ‘I’ve been so worried about you,’ she said. ‘But you are feeling better, aren’t you?’

He thought, I’ve got to be brave. I’ve got to tell her. I’ve got to tell her everything. My time has run out. Hers has come. He reached for her hand and held it.

‘No, Lucy,’ he said gently. ‘I’m afraid not. Listen to me, darling, and be calm. I have only a few weeks left. Maybe a few days. It could happen any time.’ He heard her sob. ‘Don’t do that,’ he said. ‘You mustn’t. I’ve had a very good life and much happiness. It’s coming to an end, that’s all.’

She stemmed her tears for his sake. With an effort she said, ‘How long have you known?’

‘Since the last test. I’ve been putting everything in order. I don’t want you involved with lawyers. It’s all clear cut now. There’s only one thing left.’

‘What is it?’ she asked him.

‘To tell you the secret I’ve been guarding since before you were born. And to show it to you. Help me in to the house.’

It wasn’t the safe where he kept his papers and Eileen’s jewellery. It was a trap door under his desk. When she moved the desk and took up the rug, it was almost impossible to see the join in the parquet floor.

‘Put your foot on the fourth square to the left, Lucy.’

She did so and the flap rose up on a hidden spring. She knelt down to look inside. It was a cavity hollowed out and lined with lead.

‘There’s a box,’ he said. ‘Bring it to me.’

It was plain wood with a ring handle and a simple catch. ‘What is it?’ she asked him.

‘A great treasure,’ Yuri answered. ‘But, before I show it to you, I want to tell you how it came to me. Put the box there, on my desk. When I’ve finished, we’ll open it together.’

He waited for a moment. The past was dangerous for him. It made the failing heart beat faster. Keep calm, his doctor had insisted. Don’t excite yourself. He had smiled and shrugged off the advice. For what purpose? To eke out a few more days? ‘Some of it you know already,’ he told Lucy. ‘How I was taken for forced labour in Germany. How my parents were shot. How Major Hope got me to England after the war. You know all that. But I never told you about Boris.

‘Boris was in the camp at Spittal. There were ten thousand Ukrainians from the division that fought with the German army. The war was over and they were waiting to surrender to the British. There were women and children mixed up with them, kids like me who’d been caught up in the retreat and taken along. It was very hot. I remember men swimming in the dirty river and the women washing clothes along the bank.

‘I was hungry and lousy and lost. I’d been kicked and beaten till I was scared of my own shadow. Then Boris found me. I can still see him now.’ He paused for breath. ‘He was a big fellow, built like a bull. Ugly, with a shaved head. He had a loud voice and a laugh you could hear in the next camp. I don’t know what he saw in me, although he said afterwards I looked like his little brother who’d died. But he adopted me, Lucy. He scrubbed me clean and fed me, and kept me by him. “Don’t you worry, kid,” he’d say. “You’ll be all right. You stick with me and we’ll get out of this shit.” He was coarse and people were frightened of him. I saw him hit a man with one blow and he fell as if he’d been pole-axed. Nobody bullied me with Boris around. I followed him like a little dog. I slept curled up by his feet at night.

‘He talked to me, telling me about what he’d done in the war. He’d been in the SS extermination squads, killing Jews, he said. He was proud of it. “I fought the bastard Bolsheviks,” he said. “They threw my family off their land and my mother and my little brother starved to death. I fought them and the filthy Jews that were the cause of all the trouble.” He had no shame about it. But I loved him, Lucy. Can you understand how I could feel like that for such a man?’

He didn’t wait for her to answer. ‘The German general and his officers had deserted the camp. The place was full of rumours. The Reds were killing any Russian who’d worn a German uniform, even the poor devils who had been conscripted in to labour battalions to dig earth works.

‘The Ukrainians were waiting, not knowing what would happen to them. Boris had changed his uniform for an ordinary infantry soldier’s. He said anyone wearing the SS uniform was handed over to the Reds immediately. I was terrified he’d be taken away. I used to cry and he always promised me, “I’m not going anywhere without you, kid. Now stop your snivelling.” And he’d give me a great bear hug that squeezed the breath out of me.’

Yuri was far away as he talked, reliving the trauma of those chaotic days. He could feel the heat of the sun on the trampled dusty earth and the smell of the camp was in his nostrils. ‘The British came and took our surrender. I remember the officers had a big dinner after the terms were agreed. Our commander, General Shandruk, was dressed up like a real swell. Many of them were old Tsarist officers, and some of them had been living in exile since 1919.

‘The British were friendly to us. They gave food and sweets to the children and there was quite a bit of fraternizing and drinking.

‘Boris didn’t mix. I could feel he was uneasy, in spite of the way he talked. He kept in the background. We didn’t know where we would be sent; one day it looked good, the next people were panicking because they heard we were going to be put on trains for Lenz. The Red Army was at Lenz. They were taking people back and shooting them in thousands. One night hundreds of Ukrainians and their families just slipped away and the British let them go. Then there was an announcement. The Ukrainians were going to be moved to a camp at Bellaria, outside Rimini. Beyond the reach of the Soviets. I’ll never forget the cheering. People were dancing with joy, hugging each other, weeping with relief. Boris got very drunk that night. He was still drunk when a British officer and four men came in to arrest him the next morning. There was a separate list of SS criminals who were being entrained at St Veit and handed over to the Reds. Boris’s name was on it.’

Lucy saw his lip tremble and a tear rolled down her father’s cheek.

‘They took him by force. He fought and struggled and I was screaming at them to let him go, while the officer held me. I wanted to go with him. I wanted to die with him. He was all I had in the world.’

‘Daddy,’ she said in a whisper. ‘Don’t. Don’t. You mustn’t upset yourself.’

He didn’t hear her. He said, ‘I begged the officer to let me say goodbye to him. I was crying and pleading in Russian; he called someone to translate. He spoke a bit of German. He said to me, “All right. You can say goodbye. Come with me.”

‘They were loading men on to a truck. The soldiers had guns trained on them. I saw Boris, and the officer gave me a push and said, “Go on. But be quick.”

‘Boris was handcuffed. There was a big bruise on his face. He couldn’t embrace me, so I just clung to him round the middle. “Look after yourself, kid.” I can hear him now. His voice was thick as if he wanted to cry. “I’ve got a present for you. It’s buried under my cot. It’ll make you rich, Yuri. Hide it. Don’t let anyone see it, or they’ll take it from you. Promise me?”

I couldn’t take it in properly. He seemed to realize that because he said it all again. “Under my cot. It’s a treasure. Get it! Hide it!”

‘They were separating us, pulling me away. They dragged him to the truck and he shouted back to me, “Think of me, kid. And do what I told you!” They were all loaded on to the truck and driven away.

‘I went to Boris’s tent. It was empty. There was his camp bed, which I’d slept beside, on the floor, to be near him. And I dug underneath and found what he’d given me. Now you can open the box, Lucy.’

She held it in both hands. The red stones and the delicate gold flashed in the bright Jersey sunshine. In the garden outside she heard the buzz of a lawnmower.

‘The holiest Relic in Russia,’ he said. ‘It’s been revered by Ukrainians for a thousand years. It’s in our blood. We’ve been so close, Lucy. I’ve shared my dreams with you because one day I wanted to share this with you, too. I had it planned, and then I had this last attack. Russia is in turmoil. It’s the time for us to strike. I won’t live to do it, so you must take my place.’

‘How can I?’ she whispered.

‘I want you to go to Volkov in Geneva. Tell him about the Relic. Bring him and our people together. Kiss the cross, Lucy, and swear that you’ll do it!’

She hesitated. He was a bad colour and his breathing was uneven.

‘You’re the future,’ he said. The young have shown us all the way. The students in China who died for freedom, the Germans, the Romanians, our Polish brothers. The day Volkov returns to Russia with the Relic, the Ukrainians will rise and declare independence. And Communism will collapse. It’ll die from the heart, from Moscow. All the murdered millions will sleep easy in their graves.’

‘I’ll do what you would have done,’ she said. ‘I swear it.’ For a moment she touched the big central stone of the cross with her lips.

‘Thank you, my darling.’ Her father’s voice had sunk. ‘Get me some water … my pills …’

She laid the cross back on its satin cushion in the box, made in her father’s factory, like the flooring that concealed the safe. She pressed the hidden mechanism and the cover closed over it. She realized that she was trembling.

Her father had swallowed his tablet; his colour was less grey. ‘I’m tired,’ he said. ‘But now I’ll die a happy man. I’d like to rest now.’

She helped him to the downstairs room that had been turned into a bedroom once he couldn’t walk upstairs. As he lay down, he raised his hand and stroked her face.

‘I’m so glad I never had a son. There’s an old saying, “A daughter gladdens her father’s heart”. How true it’s been for me.’

Ten days later he died.

It was a private funeral. There’d be a requiem mass in the local Catholic church for his many friends in Jersey, but only a dozen came to the graveside. Like Lucy, the women were in mourning. It was their custom, and they cherished the old ways. One by one they came and kissed her, murmuring their sympathy. Then they came back to the house for the traditional funeral breakfast. Lucy didn’t weep; she had no tears left. Part of herself had been buried that morning—right beside the mother she hardly remembered. He often told her how much he had loved Eileen and how beautiful she was.

His old friend, Mischa, made a solemn speech. He called Yuri by his original name, Warienski, and spoke of his patriotism and his life-long devotion to Ukrainian freedom from the Communist yoke. He reminded them of his generosity in time and money, his involvement with the human rights activists inside the Soviet Union. His letters and articles denouncing the arrest of the bravest of the young intellectual dissidents, Professor Volkov. He had tears in his eyes and Yuri’s Russian friends cried openly. Vodka was passed and drunk in Yuri’s memory. And then Lucy called Mischa aside. He was the closest to her father and the president of their English association. She brought him in to her father’s study and closed the door.

He said quietly, ‘Yuri wrote to me before he died. He said you would take his place.’

‘I’m going to try,’ Lucy said. ‘I promised him.’

He said, ‘He asked a lot of you, even when you were a child. Perhaps this is too much. If you change your mind, nobody would blame you, Lucy. One of us could approach Volkov.’

She shook her head. ‘You’re known,’ she said. ‘You never made a secret of your activities. You’d be watched. Nobody will connect an English woman called Warren, on a holiday in Geneva, with anything subversive.’

Don’t mention the Relic, her father had warned. All our organizations have been penetrated by the KGB ever since we helped to expose the Yalta Agreement. They learned we were more than a few exiles shaking puny fists at them from a safe distance … Only Volkov can be trusted. No one else must know.

Mischa said gravely, ‘It won’t be easy. Volkov has been silent for five years. He hasn’t written a word or given an interview. There have been rumours that he was very ill. And his wife is an infamous woman. She worked in the Lenin Institute.’

‘I know the risks,’ Lucy said. ‘But my father believed in Volkov. He said he was a patriot who would never spit on his own country as an exile.’

‘Yuri was an idealist,’ Mischa said gently. ‘He wouldn’t believe that Volkov might have changed.’

He came close and laid a hand on her shoulder. He had known her since she was a child. He had watched her grow in to a beautiful young woman. She should have married by now, producing grandchildren for her father. But Yuri had dedicated her on the altar of his own fanatical beliefs. And he was sending her out to fulfil his mission from the grave.

He tried once more. ‘You know how much I loved your father,’ he said. ‘But I do urge you to consider very carefully. This could bring you in to considerable danger, Lucy. Take time to think about it.’

She shook her head. ‘I’m booked to fly to Geneva tomorrow. Don’t worry. I’ll be careful. Wish me luck.’

He bent and kissed her on the forehead. ‘I do,’ he said. ‘God go with you, Lucy. But promise me one thing. If Volkov is not the man you think he is, abandon it at once and come home.’

‘I promise,’ she said. ‘But I know I won’t have to keep it. I feel my father’s near us. Do you feel it?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘He’s here. Open the windows in the house. It’s what we do in the old country. It allows the spirit to leave in peace.’

When they had all gone, Lucy walked out to the garden. She sat on the empty seat and stared out at the sea below. Sailing boats glided into view, swaying and dipping like swallows in the breeze. It was so peaceful and secure. Sailing had been her father’s hobby. As a child he had taken her out on a simple sailing boat, taught her the rudiments of handling a small craft, navigating the little inlets and outcrops of rock around the coast. She was an apt pupil; she loved the sea and had no fear of it.

The little boat had been replaced by a motor cruiser. Soon it was Lucy who sailed to St Malo and Yuri who crewed happily for her. They spent their holidays at sea; he had taught her to navigate and she took them down to the south of France the year before his last illness.

She thought of that time, watching the sea and the boats below. They had been so happy together, so deeply companionable. She’d had boyfriends, but no one had engaged her heart. That belonged to Yuri and to the man whose faded photograph was still pinned on her bedroom wall. The face haunted her; she kept it as others kept an icon, to remind them of their faith and to give them strength. Imprisoned, persecuted, defiant to the last, Dimitri Volkov was the dream that hadn’t faded like his photograph. Mischa was wrong to doubt. Volkov hadn’t changed.

She thought of the ancient cross, in its dark hiding place. A thousand years ago it had been given by the tyrant Vladimir when he converted to the Christian faith. Ever since, men had woven legends around it and invoked its mystical powers. Dark superstitions had invested the cross with a God-given power to bless or curse. No Tsar dared take the oath at his coronation without holding it in his right hand. Hands tainted by murder and sacrilege had reached out to seize and destroy it. But the shrine was empty. The priest who had been its guardian had died in torment rather than betray where it was hidden.

A life-span later, the old tyranny was crumbling. A people who had never known freedom were demanding it. All it needed was a man of vision and heroic courage to bring the cross back in triumph to Russia, to rally the millions of Ukrainians against the power of Moscow. Volkov was that man.

It was a smooth flight the next morning. Lucy landed at Geneva airport and took a taxi to Les Trois Fontaines, a modest family hotel in the Rue de la Tour Maitresse. The weather was glorious. It was a lovely city, built round the southern end of the spectacular lake. Her hotel room was pleasant and not too expensive. She explained to the proprietress that she was on a working holiday and would need to rent an apartment.

The first estate agent she visited suggested several properties, but none was suitable. Too smart and highly priced, or too geared to short-term family lets. There was one, the girl suggested, that might suit her at Petit Saconnex, but it was for a six-month tenure. Lucy didn’t argue. The setting had to be right. Unobtrusive but congenial. The time didn’t matter.

Volkov couldn’t be won without careful preparation. He had to accept this strange emissary, to trust her. And she needed a place where they could meet without attracting attention.

She arranged to view the apartment the next day and went on a brief tour of the city. That evening she sought out the proprietress. Unlike many Swiss, Madame liked to gossip. She accepted Lucy’s explanation that she was a journalist on a popular English women’s magazine.

A journalist with a special assignment. Her curiosity was aroused. A film star? There were plenty living in the region. Pop singer, perhaps? No, Lucy said, hesitating before she let Madame in to her secret. Professor Volkov, the famous Soviet dissident who had been exiled from Russia—her magazine wanted an interview with him that would exploit the women’s angle. Nothing political, Lucy shrugged that aside. Just domestic details. How he’d adjusted … what were his hobbies? That kind of thing.

Madame nodded her agreement. Just the sort of thing she would like to read about someone so well known. ‘But, he never gives interviews. Never been seen on TV,’ she said. ‘I remember there was an uproar in the Press when he came here first … must have been several years ago. But he wouldn’t see anyone or talk to anyone. His wife said he was too ill. I don’t think anyone bothers him now. When people settle here they soon become private citizens, never mind who they are. It’s our way. His wife’s a doctor; she works in a very exclusive clinic up in Cologny. Only very rich people can afford to go there.’

‘I’ve got to try and talk to him,’ Lucy confessed. ‘It would make all the difference in the world to my job if I could write something about him.’

‘You could try his wife,’ Madame suggested. ‘But she’s never encouraged the Press.’

‘I wouldn’t want to bother her,’ Lucy answered. ‘If I could just bump into him. He must go out sometimes. They’re not in the telephone directory, I looked.’

Madame was sympathetic. She was such a pretty girl and so friendly. It would be a pity if she went back with nothing.

‘I can ask around if you like,’ she offered. ‘Hoteliers all know each other; I’ve got relatives in the business. Everyone goes to bistros and bars at some time. A lot of Swiss have regular places where they eat every day. Let me see if I can find out anything for you. After all, he’s a well-known figure.’

Next day, Lucy took a taxi to Petit Saconnex and viewed the apartment. It was in a pleasant block on the Chemin de la Tourelle. She rented it, but she didn’t move in. And the next morning, when Lucy came down to take breakfast, Madame hurried over looking pleased with herself.

‘I’ve got some good news for you,’ she said. ‘Apparently he’s a regular at the Bistro St Honoré! It’s a pleasant little place by the lake on the Place de Trainant. He goes there every morning for his coffee.’

‘Oh, how kind of you, Madame!’ Lucy exclaimed. ‘I can’t tell you how grateful I am! At least if I go along I can see him.’

‘Smile nicely, my dear, and I expect he’ll talk to you,’ the older woman said. What man wouldn’t? she thought privately.

Lucy didn’t finish her breakfast. She took a bus to Quay Gustav Ador and walked along. The Bistro St Honoré was small, as Madame had said. Clean and bright like all Swiss cafés and restaurants, with tables where the customers could sit out, sipping their coffee and watching the passers-by.

She took a table set back a little and ordered coffee. The waiter lingered over the order. She was a foreigner and very pretty. He had picked up foreign girls before, by offering to show them the sights after work.

‘You on holiday, Madame?’ he asked.

‘Working holiday,’ she replied. ‘I’m doing some articles for an English paper. It’s my first visit to Switzerland. It’s very beautiful.’

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘You staying long?’

‘I’m not sure,’ Lucy answered. ‘Tell me,’ she said, ‘is that Professor Volkov?’ She nodded towards an old man reading a newspaper. He was old enough to be Volkov’s father.

‘Oh no. That’s Monsieur Fritche. He’s one of our regulars, like the Professor. He hasn’t been in since last Thursday. Maybe he’s sick or something. He’s here most days.’

‘I’ve read so much about him,’ Lucy prompted. ‘What’s he like?’

The young man shrugged. ‘Quiet, doesn’t talk to anyone. Just sits around. Wanders off after a couple of hours.’ He hesitated, but she had a beguiling smile. He really hoped she might meet him one evening after work. He lowered his voice and said, ‘He’s drunk most of the time. He starts on the cognac as soon as he gets here. Never causes trouble, though.’

‘How awful,’ she said. There was a sick feeling in her stomach. Drunk! It couldn’t be. And the waiter said he hadn’t been into the café since Thursday. Sick or something. Starts on the cognac as soon as he gets here.

‘Talk of the devil,’ the man said. ‘Here he is!’

She recognized him at once from the faded photographs. The tall, slight figure. The face with the distinctive Slavic cheekbones and broad brow. He looked ill. There were bags puffed under his eyes; his dark hair straggled over his collar. He walked with his shoulders stooped under an invisible weight.

‘He’s pissed,’ the waiter whispered. ‘Same as usual. I better take his order. He still brings in the gawkers now and again.’

Lucy sat very still. She watched him take his place at a table under an umbrella. She saw the careful movements as he shifted the chair and lowered himself into it. As if he were in pain.

‘Oh God,’ she murmured quietly to herself. ‘What am I going to do?’ She was close enough to hear him speak. She started at the sound of the voice. It was deep and heavily accented. It reminded her of Yuri. She flinched at the memory.

‘Some coffee—and a cognac. Lovely morning.’

And the sneering waiter, writing down the order, looked briefly across at her and winked.

She took a deep breath to calm herself. Her father’s life-long dream, the hopes of so many helpless people, the saving power of the Relic that men had died in torment to protect … all to be abandoned, sacrificed in vain because a great man was drowning himself in drink.

She ignored the waiter. She pushed back her chair and walked up to his table. She stood in front of him and he looked up.

‘Professor Volkov?’

‘No,’ he shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, you’re mistaken.’

‘No, I’m not,’ Lucy said firmly. ‘I know who you are. Can I sit down?’

He frowned for a moment. She thought suddenly, he isn’t drunk. That oaf was wrong. He’s been drunk, but he isn’t now.

‘If you’re a journalist, you’re wasting your time. I don’t give interviews. Please go away. I don’t mean to be rude, but go away.’

She pulled out a chair and sat opposite him. She leaned towards him. ‘I’m not a journalist,’ she said in Russian. ‘Please can I talk to you? Just for a few minutes?’

Immediately the shutters came down. Suspicion, fear, then blankness. ‘I’ve nothing to say,’ he said. ‘If you don’t leave me alone, I’ll call the management.’

Lucy shook her head. She spoke gently. ‘Professor, you needn’t be afraid of me. I just want to talk to someone I’ve admired all my life. That’s all. Please believe me.’

The waiter arrived, bringing the coffee and a large cognac. Lucy looked up at him. ‘Coffee for me, too,’ she said. Behind Volkov’s back he pulled a face and winked again.

She said to Volkov, ‘Thank you for not getting him to throw me out.’

‘Who are you? What do you want?’ He reached for the cognac; his hand was shaking. He said defensively, ‘I’m not frightened of you. I need this because I’ve got a hangover.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘Why not take some coffee? It’s better for you.’

‘How do you know?’ he demanded. ‘You don’t know anything about me!’

She answered quietly. ‘I know everything about you, Professor. I’ve read every word you’ve written. I know your speeches by heart. I’ve had your photograph on my wall since I was twenty. The waiter told me you were drunk when you arrived. My name is Lucy Warren. Will you at least listen to me?’

‘Why should I?’ he asked. ‘I don’t know you. I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t talk to anyone from home.’

‘I’m English,’ she explained. ‘I’ve never been to Russia. My father was Ukrainian; he taught me to speak Russian. His name was Varienski.’

‘Means nothing to me,’ Volkov said. ‘I never knew anyone with that name.’ He fumbled in his pocket and brought out a packet of Disque Bleu. He put one in his mouth and searched for matches. On the second attempt he lit it.

‘There’s no reason why you should know him,’ Lucy answered. ‘He wasn’t famous, like you. He was an exile who loved his country and thought you were the bravest man in the world. He worshipped you, Professor, and he brought me up to feel the same. He’s dead now, but just before he died, I promised him I’d come and see you. That’s why I’m here.’

‘Well,’ he looked down, fiddling with the coffee cup. ‘Well, you’ve kept your promise. You’ve seen the great Volkov at close quarters. At bit pissed from the last three days. Got the shakes. So you can go now and leave me alone.’

‘I’ve come all the way from England,’ she said. ‘Just to meet you. Here, let me give you some sugar.’

‘I don’t take it,’ Volkov muttered.

‘It’ll give you energy. Try one spoon.’

‘You must be English,’ he said. ‘English women are so bossy.’

‘If you really hate coffee with sugar, have mine instead.’

‘No, no. It doesn’t matter. Now will you please go away?’

‘No,’ Lucy said. ‘I won’t. You said to the waiter it’s a lovely morning. Can’t we just sit together and enjoy it. I won’t talk if you’d rather not.’

He’d been trying not to look at her. He didn’t want to see her, she realized that. With his eyes lowered, he felt safe. Now he gave in and met her eye to eye. His head ached and his nerves clamoured for more alcohol. But she was pretty, with piercing blue eyes like the lake water when the sun shone.

Why would they send her? Why would they try and trap him after all this time? They’d nothing to worry about from the wreck he’d become.

‘Are you real?’ he said. ‘They use pretty girls to trick people into saying things. Are you sure you’re not one of those?’

‘No,’ Lucy said firmly. ‘I’m not. My name is Lucy Warren. I was born in England and, as you said yourself, I’m bossy. You really can trust me, Professor.’

Suddenly, he smiled. It was brief, but it lit the sad, dark eyes.

‘I was locked up for a year,’ he said. ‘You learn not to trust anyone after that. I’ve been very rude. Most people would have gone away.’

‘I’m not most people.’

‘I can believe that,’ he said. His cigarette had burned out in the ashtray. He lit another, blew out the smoke, and stared at her. The coffee and the cognac were soothing; he felt better. He thought, She has the most beautiful eyes. She keeps staring at me. I wish she wouldn’t.

Lucy let the silence continue. Under the table her hands gripped one another tightly with tension. So far so good. He hadn’t got up and walked away. For a brief moment she had made him smile. He had drunk the sugared coffee. But one ill-judged word, one mistake and their flimsy contact would be broken.

The waiter was hovering. She avoided his enquiring glance.

‘Anything else, Sir, Mademoiselle?’

‘Have you had breakfast, Professor?’

Volkov shook his head.

‘Would you mind if I had something? I’m starving.’

‘I don’t mind. It’s bad to be hungry.’

She ordered croissants and more coffee. She didn’t want them. Her throat was tight and her stomach knotted. Anything to keep him there, even food that she doubted she could swallow. She said gently, ‘Why don’t you eat anything in the morning? Isn’t there anyone to get it for you?’

He drained his cognac.

‘My wife leaves early. I’m asleep. It doesn’t matter. I haven’t felt hungry for a long time. When I was in prison I tried to eat the straw out of the mattresses. They stopped my bread ration for five days.’ He put down the empty glass and looked at her.

Lucy couldn’t help it. Her eyes filled with tears. One slipped on to her cheek and she tried to brush it away. But Volkov saw it. He leaned a little towards her.

‘Don’t cry,’ he said. ‘Nobody cries for me any more.’

‘I was crying for all the people like you, Professor Volkov,’ she said slowly. ‘The ones who died and the ones who are still locked up.’

He made no reply.

‘Are you forbidden to talk?’ she asked him. ‘Did they make you promise?’

‘My wife promised for me. I wouldn’t co-operate. Now.’ He raised his hand for the waiter.

‘Don’t have any more to drink, Please!’ Lucy said.

‘That’s what she says,’ Volkov nodded. ‘“Don’t drink, Dimitri. Stop feeling sorry for yourself.” Please don’t sound like my wife.’

He let his hand fall. He had been a handsome man once; but the face was now drawn and hollow-cheeked, the fine eyes sunken and bloodshot. He looked so desolate that Lucy almost gave up.

‘I’m being a nuisance,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Why is it so important for you to sit and talk to a drunk who’s opted out?’

After a moment Lucy answered him. ‘My father said you couldn’t be bribed or threatened into keeping quiet. When they were sending dissidents to mental hospitals, you drew the world’s attention to what was being done. I had no right to speak to you that way. Please forgive me. If you want a drink so badly, Professor Volkov, I’ll go to the bar and get you one myself.’

‘If I’m not going to get drunk,’ he said. ‘I’d better go for a walk. We’ll pay the bill and I’ll say goodbye.’

‘I’ll pay the bill,’ Lucy said. ‘And if you don’t mind, I’ll walk with you.’

They walked slowly and in silence for most of the time. Once Volkov paused at the lakeside. Seagulls were swimming close to shore, looking for titbits. He felt in his pocket absentmindedly.

‘I forgot,’ he said. ‘I normally take some stale bread from the café. I like to feed them.’

‘We’ll get some tomorrow,’ Lucy suggested. ‘I won’t forget. At home we have a plague of seagulls; they come screaming in over the garden. If you’re not careful they’ll snatch the food out of your fingers.’

‘You live by the sea?’

‘I live on an island,’ she said. ‘Jersey, it’s very beautiful.’

‘I’ve never heard of it. You said you lived in England.’

‘It’s one of the Channel Islands; they’re English. The Germans occupied them during the war. I was born in England. We only moved there because my father had a heart attack and had to retire. It was cheap and he had made a little money. You pay hardly any tax there.’

Lucy could sense him drifting away from her. She caught his arm, and felt him start nervously.

‘There’s a seat over there. Could we sit down for a while?’

‘If you like.’

They sat and he lit another cigarette. He offered her the packet.

‘Do you smoke?’

‘I never really liked it.’

‘My wife chainsmokes. Only Russian cigarettes. They get sent over specially.’

‘You don’t smoke them?’

‘I hate the smell.’

‘Why?’

His attention was focused again. He can’t relate to anything outside his own experience. I mustn’t talk about myself or he’ll drift away.

‘My interrogator used to smoke them. He’d say, “You’d like one, wouldn’t you, Volkov? You’d like a cigarette and a hot meal and some coffee … and shoes? Your feet are cold, aren’t they?”’

He gazed out over the placid water.

‘Your wife should give them up,’ Lucy said quietly. ‘It’s unkind when she knows it upsets you.’

‘She loves me.’ He turned his head and looked at Lucy. ‘If it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t be here now. They took my shoes away when I was arrested. I got frostbite.’

‘I don’t know what to say,’ she murmured. ‘I’ve read what happens to prisoners, but hearing you say it makes it so much worse.’

‘There’s someone coming,’ Volkov said. ‘I hope he doesn’t sit down here. What’s the time? I forgot to put on my watch this morning.’

‘Nearly twelve,’ she said. ‘I think he’s going to sit here. Shall we go? I’m not tired any more.’

The man’s shadow fell on them, directed by the bright sunlight. Lucy glanced up at him. He was elderly, grey haired, well dressed. He looked ill. He didn’t speak. He sat at the far end of the seat and stared out over the lake.

‘Ready?’ Lucy whispered.

‘Yes,’ Volkov muttered.

They got up and as they did so, the man glanced at them without interest. In turn, their shadows fell on him.

Adolph Brückner had been walking. There was an hour to kill before his appointment. He believed in taking exercise, but his head was starting to ache and he was tired. He saw the seat in the distance with a man and woman sitting on it. He would have preferred to sit down alone, but there might not be another seat for some distance. His head was now throbbing. It wasn’t the skull-splitting pain that immobilized him for days on end. Just the warning of the agony that was to come.

He had told his secretary that he was going on a short holiday. His wife knew the truth. She was so worried about him. Adolph was touched by her concern. She loved him in spite of their age difference. He had promised to phone and let her know what happened after the first consultation.

He came up to the seat and sat down, as far from the couple as possible. The last thing he wanted was a casual conversation with strangers. His doctor was a woman. He didn’t like the idea of that; he had old-fashioned ideas about the female role, but she was said to be the best. His friend, Peter Müller, had recommended her. He trusted Müller’s judgement in this, as he did his knowledge of antiques and works of art. He glanced up briefly as the couple got up. The girl was blonde and pretty. He liked beautiful women and beautiful things. Collecting was his passion. He watched them walk away together.

He stared out over the lake; he couldn’t appreciate the splendour of the view. His mood was bitter because he was afraid. Afraid of the headaches, afraid of submitting to a science he had derided as the refuge of fools and weaklings—psychiatry.

He had tried everything else. Brain scans showed nothing. No tumours, no abnormalities. Business pressure was blamed and he went on a long cruise with his wife and his adopted children. It was useless. He lay in his cabin and groaned aloud with the intolerable pain. There was no rhythm in the attacks. They came without warning and as suddenly they stopped, leaving him shocked and exhausted. He had taken his head between his hands, crushing the temples as if he could drive out the excruciating agony. At times he had thought of suicide.

He had been forced to this as a last resort. Switzerland. He muttered the word to himself. Cuckoo clocks and numbered bank accounts. Watches and ski resorts … and clinics. Clinics as discreet as the banks.

A group of children passed by, laughing and shouting. He winced at the noise. He loved children, but he couldn’t father any. His first marriage had broken up because he was sterile, and his wife wouldn’t adopt. Eloise had been different. He had worn his second wife like a jewel. Thirty years younger, elegant, intelligent, she was a medal Adolph Brückner had awarded himself for his phenomenal success. But his wealth and his power couldn’t help him now. Here he was, the famous West German industrialist with his millions, and his influence from the Bundesbank to the Bundestag, sitting on a seat, alone and vulnerable, while the headache tuned up for a terrible concert of relentless pain.

Clinics and cuckoo clocks. The words chased each other round his brain like some idiot jingle. He looked at his watch. He sighed. He had left his car and chauffeur while he walked. They were waiting on the road.

It was a short drive up the hillside. The clinic was built on a promontary, with spectacular views across the lake to the distant Jura mountains in their bridal wreath of clouds. He went up the steps and in to the reception.

It was a handsome modern building, with lots of glass. Cool colours, plenty of air. Pastel flower arrangements and smiling faces coming to greet him. Empty eyes and painted smiles. To soothe the mad, he thought savagely. Am I, Adolph Brückner, mad? What is it, inside my head, that all the skill of technological science cannot find?

A nurse guided him to a silent lift that stopped at the third floor without seeming to move. She came with him and he read the name plate. Dr I. Volkov. The nurse knocked, and then opened it for him. Her smile was painted, too. He stepped inside.

He had formed a mental picture of the famous Russian doctor. He was expecting a big, butch woman, with spectacles and shorn hair. The woman who came to meet him was slight, fair haired and in her thirties. She wore a well-cut blue dress and a gold necklace. She smiled at him and held out her hand, as if it were a social encounter.

‘Monsieur Brückner. Good morning. Do come and sit down, please. Make yourself comfortable.’

A big leather armchair faced her across her desk.

‘Do you smoke?’

He shook his head. ‘Thank you, no.’

‘Very sensible,’ she said and smiled. ‘But I’m afraid I do. If you don’t mind.’

‘I don’t mind.’

She wasn’t a health freak; that helped. He had no time for the anti-alcohol and tobacco lobby. People should make their own decisions about what was bad for them. And he had interests in the tobacco companies.

‘I’ve been looking through your notes,’ she said. ‘You’re a very healthy man. No illnesses apart from a remedial operation for a war wound.’

‘I was shot in the leg on the Russian front,’ he said. ‘Army surgeons cocked it up. I walked with a limp till it was put right.’

She nodded. She wore her blonde hair in a short swinging bob. The colour of corn swaying in a light breeze. Fields and fields of corn as they rumbled through, cutting across them, scything down the crops.

‘But you have this one problem,’ he heard her say. ‘Headaches. Acute attacks lasting for days, sometimes. Clinical investigations show no malignancy or physical cause. Migraine has been eliminated. Psychological stress is the diagnosis, but the attacks occur as frequently when you’re on holiday or during leisure activities. You play golf, I see.’

‘And I ski,’ he added. ‘I keep myself fit.’

‘Well,’ the doctor said; she put out her cigarette. ‘I’ll start by asking you some routine questions. Do you have any secret anxieties that you can’t discuss with anyone? Any business problems? Personal relationships? Money?’

He said no, to each one.

‘Sex?’ she enquired and smiled at him, as if it were a foolish question.

‘I’m seventy-one,’ he said. ‘I’m still able to perform, if that’s what you mean.’

‘I’m sure you are.’

He knew he was being aggressive; she didn’t seem to mind. ‘No aberrations, no perversions you’re ashamed of? Don’t think you can shock me. I’ve heard everything. I’ve great sympathy with problems of that kind.’

‘I’m not a sado-masochist, paedophile or anything else,’ he said. ‘And I don’t want to fuck men, or dress up in women’s clothes.’

‘Would you like a cup of coffee?’

It was a gentle put-down, and he knew it. She had a slight accent, not very thick, but with the lilt he recognized from all those years ago. He said, ‘Doctor, I didn’t come here to drink coffee. What can you do for me?’

‘It’s what you can do for yourself,’ she said. ‘Your headaches are self-induced, M’sieur Brückner. You are punishing yourself. I don’t know why, but you do.’

He glared at her. ‘That’s nonsense. I’m not listening to a lot of psychiatric crap.’

‘Then get up and walk out of here,’ she suggested. ‘I guarantee you’ll have the worst headache of your life.’

He didn’t move. He rubbed one hand against his forehead. There was sweat on his palm.

‘What am I to do?’ he said at last.

‘You can trust me,’ she said quietly. ‘Try to think of me as a friend. Let me help you in the way I think best. I’d like to give you an injection, something to help you relax and make it easy to talk.’

He jerked suspiciously. ‘Sodium Penthadol? I’m not having the truth drug!’

‘No, you’re not,’ she assured him. ‘You’ve been reading too many spy novels, M’seiur. That’s a lot of nonsense. I’ll give you something called Buscopan which simply relaxes the muscles and stops you feeling tense. It will hold that headache at bay for a little while. Now, why don’t we start. Would you prefer to lie down?’

He grimaced. ‘No couch for me, thank you.’

‘If you’re comfortable, you’re just as well sitting up. Take off your jacket and roll up your right sleeve, please.’

She straightened up. He hadn’t even felt the needle go in. ‘You won’t feel drowsy,’ she assured him. ‘Just loose, not uptight. So,’ she went behind her desk and lit another cigarette. He remembered the smell. Strong, scented Balkan tobacco. ‘Tell me about yourself. From the beginning.’

It was the third time Volkov had said goodbye. They’d been walking aimlessly, stopping to sit and gaze at the lake and the passers-by, mostly in silence. There was a bar up a side street. Lucy saw him glance towards it and then stop.

‘Time for me to go home,’ he said.

‘And I must go back to my hotel,’ Lucy said. ‘It’s lonely when you don’t know anybody. There’s a café over there. I wouldn’t mind a glass of wine and a sandwich. Then I’ll say goodbye. I promise.’

He didn’t argue. They left the quayside and crossed over; Lucy asked if she could take his arm.

‘I’m not used to the traffic yet.’ She knew he didn’t want the contact, but he was not going to refuse. He was a naturally gentle man, she realized that. A kind man. The courage, the self-respect might have been stripped from him, but his natural kindness remained. He guided her across the stream of traffic.

‘This is a nice little place,’ Lucy remarked. ‘Do you come here every day?’

‘If I walk this way. I have a routine, you see. I have a drink at the St Honoré, then I walk to the end here and sit down for a bit in the Jardin Anglais. I stop off here occasionally. There are bars and cafés everywhere. The Swiss like their food and drink.’

They sat down; the bar was already full of people eating snack lunches, drinking beer and coffee. The waitresses were busy. Volkov fidgeted.

Lucy said quickly, ‘What do you do when it rains?’

‘I go to the Bibliothéque in the Place aux Vivres and borrow a book. Or I go to the cinema.’ He was looking around, trying to attract attention.

Lucy waved at a passing waitress. ‘The menu please and a glass of cognac. Bring the cognac right away, my friend’s not feeling very well.

‘Why did you do that?’ he said suddenly.

‘I know you need a drink,’ she said quietly. ‘Tell me, what sort of books do you like?’

‘I’m reading about Buddhism at the moment. Ah, thank you.’ He took the brandy and sipped it.

Lucy waited. ‘Do you believe in Buddhism?’

‘I don’t believe in anything. I live in a vacuum. Rather, I exist … There was a Protestant pastor in prison with me. He was a good man. He said I’d find it easier if I was a Christian. I wonder what’s happened to him … If he ended up in a labour camp he’s probably dead. He wasn’t very strong.’

‘But you survived,’ she pointed out. ‘That’s what’s important.’

Finishing the brandy, the sense of not being, not caring, spread through him. She had such a delicate face, such an innocent intensity …

‘You’re a nice person, Lucy Warren. But you’re wasting your time with me. I’ve nothing more to give. So, for the last time, go away and leave me in peace. Please.’

‘All right,’ Lucy stood up. ‘All right, I’ll go. But I’ll be back tomorrow and the day after and the day after that. You’re not going to get rid of me, Professor. Because I’m damned if I’m going to let them win!’

Then she was gone. He watched her walk away down the street. It was peaceful now she had gone. And suddenly, lonely. The day ahead of him seemed very long, but he knew the remedy for that.

Back at the rented apartment, Lucy felt tired and drained. Despair was creeping up on her. The hero didn’t exist; the fiery orator, the fearless protester against injustice and oppression had become a lost soul. Introverted, withdrawn, a drunk.

This man was no Andrei Sakharov, who, after years of exile, could enter politics and rally the opposition. Volkov was dying visibly, without even a martyr’s crown. It was hopeless, and cruel to harass him. As he had said himself, he had nothing left to give.

She sat down and closed her eyes. All for nothing. Her father’s dream of a crusade, her hopes, the trust of Mischa and the friends who had lobbied and marched in protest all over the world when Volkov was arrested. A year in prison. That was all that was needed to break his spirit.

She opened her eyes and sat up slowly. A year wasn’t very long. Others had survived much worse and come out stronger and more determined. Was Volkov fundamentally weak? He hadn’t seemed so when the world was watching. Ringing statements of defiance had been smuggled out of his cell in the Lubianka prison and published, to the rage of the Soviet authorities.

Lucy got up and opened the window. She took deep breaths of the clear Swiss air. I’ll be back tomorrow and the day after and the day after that. For as long as it takes until I reach him. If his wife is part of what’s happened to him, then she’s not going to win, either.

She slammed the window shut so hard that the glass rattled.

Adolph Brückner was relaxed. The chair was comfortable. He had no sense of drowsiness or lack of control. It was natural to talk about himself; the doctor was so unobtrusive. She just asked an occasional question to concentrate his mind.

He’d had an unremarkable childhood, devoid of traumas. His parents were affectionate, his home life stable. He was the only son; he got on well with a younger sister. Yes, he’d joined the Hitler Youth. It was compulsory, after all. And not a bad training either, he insisted. Discipline, physical exercise, pride in achievements. The present generation of young Germans could benefit from such a system. He wasn’t a Nazi, no, he rejected that. He was a patriotic German.

The army, Irina Volkov prompted. Tell me about the army. What was it like being a soldier? She was sitting just out of his view, a disembodied mentor. She could see his reflection in a cleverly placed mirror in the wall.

He tensed. His jaw clenched. He shifted in the chair. He didn’t want to talk about the army.

‘There’s nothing to tell,’ he snapped back. ‘War is filthy. I survived with a bullet in my leg and that got me out of it and home.’

‘You were lucky,’ she remarked. ‘Millions of Germans never got back at all.’

‘Ten million,’ Brückner said. ‘Ten million dead. Don’t talk to me about war.’

She had lit another cigarette. Her eyes narrowed against the smoke. ‘Twenty million Russians,’ she amended. ‘If you went through that campaign, no wonder you get headaches.’

‘It’s got nothing to do with that! I was invalided out by the end of forty-two.’ He was visibly disturbed; sweat was trickling down his face in the air-conditioned room.

Irina stood up. ‘I think that’s enough for today, Monsieur Brückner. You’ve made a good start.’

He was up, pulling on his jacket, running his tie in to place under his collar. He was anxious to get away.

‘I don’t see there’s any point in going on with this. All I’ve done is waste time talking about myself.’

She said quietly, ‘Do you have a headache?’

He paused. ‘No.’

‘One was beginning when you came here, wasn’t it?’

‘Perhaps; yes, it was throbbing slightly.’ The fear came back, swamping him.

‘Well, it’s not hurting now, is it?’ she said firmly.

‘No. No, it isn’t.’ He was buttoning his jacket. He wiped his damp face with a handkerchief. ‘I may not have another attack for weeks.’

‘I wouldn’t like to bet on that.’ Her voice was very cool. ‘I’d like you to come back tomorrow. Unless you want to wait till you get another headache.’

He raised his voice. He was used to shouting at employees and servants when they frustrated him in any way.

‘What good can all this talking do me? I’m busy. I’ve a business to run, I haven’t time to waste on a lot of clap-trap.’

She was quite unmoved. She shrugged slightly. ‘It’s up to you. I can’t do anything for you except help you to help yourself. If you want to come back, there’s a ten o’clock appointment reserved for you. Believe me, M’sieur, I have a waiting list of patients. I’m only seeing you because I know it’s urgent.’

He went to the door. He turned the handle. Irinia Volkov didn’t move. He opened the door; then he turned back and said, ‘All right. Ten o’clock tomorrow then.’

She left her desk and came to him. She smiled and nodded in a friendly way. ‘I’m glad,’ she said. ‘You’ve made the right decision.’ She gave him her hand to shake and gently closed the door on him.

Then, she bent down to the recorder hidden under his chair and pressed the button to rewind the tape.

There were four more appointments that afternoon. It was already dusk when she closed up her office. Just before she left she checked with her secretary. Yes, Monsieur Brückner had confirmed the ten o’clock session.

Irina drove home, taking her time. She wasn’t in a hurry to get to the apartment. She knew what she would find there. It was a lovely evening; Geneva was beautiful in the springtime. On impulse, she stopped outside the Hôtel Beau Rivage. She felt like relaxing with a drink before going home. And it was a good place to make her telephone call.

She knew she was attractive. Men glanced at her appreciatively. She gave no encouragement. She ordered a glass of Moselle, smoked a cigarette and watched people come and go without much interest. She was thinking about her patient, Adolph Brückner. She knew the type, A number had come to the clinic over the years. Arrogant, greedy products of the capitalist society that she hated. Their women were no better. Their children, spoilt and neurotic, were typical.

She loved her work; the mysterious mechanism of the human psyche fascinated her. She was euphoric when she dismissed a patient, cured and ready to resume a normal life; depressed when she failed and the solution eluded her. It was like winning or losing a chess game at championship level. She played chess as a hobby. She had been trained to regard human beings in her care as no more involving than amoeba under a microscope. Without a professional attitude, she couldn’t have worked at the Lenin Institute.

Brückner was different. Brückner wasn’t there to be cured of his agonizing affliction. Peter Müller had sent him, as he’d sent others over the past five years. Müller hadn’t made one mistake in his selection so far. Brückner was going mad with guilt. He was driving himself to the point of suicide.

A ruthless opportunist who had fought his way to riches and power in post-war Germany must have something dreadful gnawing at his subsconscious to torture himself like that.

Irina stubbed out her cigarette and asked for the bill. And for a telephone. She dialled a number in Munich, closing the cubicle door. It rang for some time, and she exclaimed impatiently. Where was he? He was expecting the call. At last it was answered. She heard Peter Müller’s voice.

‘It’s me,’ she said. ‘I’ve been ringing for ages. Are you having a party? There’s a lot of noise … All right, so long as you can hear. Our friend came today. You’re right, I’m sure we’re on to something. I didn’t rush him. He’s coming again tomorrow … Yes, of course, I’ll keep him in. Can you come up at the weekend? What an awful row. You must have hundreds of people!’

It irritated her trying to talk against a background of cocktail-party noise. It was unprofessional of Müller. She didn’t like him from the beginning. He was too smug, too sure of himself. Now she had reason to hate him. But he was good.

‘Oh, have you? That’s nice for you. Make it Friday. I’ll know a lot more by then.’

She rang off. He was celebrating, he said. A very big sale to some American collectors. She checked her watch. It was late. Time to go home.

Volkov was sober when the front door opened. He’d slept off the afternoon drinks, showered and made himself coffee. He didn’t switch on the lights. He sat in the deepening gloom and thought of the girl who had come into his empty life that morning, and refused to go away.

When he was released he’d been plagued by waking nightmares; often reality and fantasy became indistinguishable. Irina’s care had got him through the worst period. Her care and her medical skill. She’d healed his damaged lungs, insisting that he rest and avoid all mental and physical stress. No interviews with the clamouring Western media, no Press conferences till he was stronger. He was so weak he didn’t resist. His will seemed to ebb away; the fighting courage that had sustained him even when they forced him on the Aeroflot plane in handcuffs to fly him out of Russia, had deserted him.

He was in Irina’s hands. Something in him had broken. Not in the cruel misery of cold and deprivation in his cell, but in the comfort of the Swiss environment. For many months he’d lived only to hear the door open and her step in the hall.

He had depended on her like a child. Irina loved him. Irina had fought for his release and finally persuaded the authorities to let him go. It was a long time since he had discovered the terms negotiated for that act of mercy. That was when he started to drink. He felt the helpless rage well up within him. And the despair.

She switched on the lights.

‘Dimitri, what are you doing sitting in the dark?’ She came towards him; he wasn’t drunk and gratefully she bent and kissed him on the cheek.

She loves me, he said to himself. She takes me in her arms in bed and I can’t bear to touch her.…

‘What did you do today?’ It wounded her when he flinched from her embrace. She bit her lips, as if one pain would drive out another.

‘Went for a walk. Had a few drinks.’ He heard her sigh. ‘Came home again.’ He didn’t say, I met this strange girl who told me how brave and wonderful I was and wouldn’t go away. And she’ll be there tomorrow. He said, ‘I won’t ask what you were doing.’

‘I’m going to change. You might pour me a drink instead of being nasty, darling. It doesn’t do any good.’

She went in to the bedroom and stripped off the smart dress. He has to hurt me, she told herself. He has to punish me. I must try not to mind. If only, if only that swine Müller had kept his mouth shut.

He hadn’t moved when she came back. She poured herself a glass of wine. ‘I’ll make some dinner in a few minutes,’ she said. ‘Unless you’d like to go out?’

‘I’ve been out,’ he said. ‘And I’m not hungry.’

Irina looked at him. ‘I wish you’d try,’ she said suddenly. ‘We could still be happy. We could have a good life here together.’ She leaned close to him; he saw a film of tears in her eyes. ‘It’s all over now, darling. It’s all in the past. You could stop drinking and start on your book. Don’t you realize how things have changed at home? We could go back one day.’

‘There’s nothing to stop you going,’ he remarked. ‘You’ve given them enough victims by now, haven’t you? Not to mention me. Why don’t you go?’

‘And leave you here to drink yourself to death alone?’

He shrugged.

She said desperately, ‘I still love you, that’s the reason. We go over and over it and nothing changes. You can’t forgive me and you won’t try. All you want is to destroy yourself and blame me.’

She got up, fighting back tears. At the door of her room she turned back to face him. But he wasn’t even looking at her. She slammed the door.

He might have been able to forgive her. He still loved her in those days. He might have been moved by her distress. He might have accepted her explanation. If it hadn’t been for Peter Müller.

‘Peter, darling, the Baxters are going. Come and say goodbye to them. Who was on the telephone at this hour?’

Peter Müller followed his wife back to the party. The Baxters were rich American clients; they specialized in early German Gothic carvings and enamels. He had sold them a highly important ivory tryptich for an incredible sum of money. His wife, like all clever American women, had made a friend out of Mary Baxter and organized the party in their honour. She was a great help in the business. They had been married for twenty-two years and they were happy together.

‘Who was it?’ she whispered, the smile already in place on her lips as they emerged from his study.

‘Only a runner,’ he said. ‘Thinks there’s something to be looked at in Geneva. I chewed him up for calling so late. Ah, Joe, Mary—do you really have to go so soon?’

He had a wonderful warm manner. A typical Bavarian, cultivated, charming. Not at all like a German. Mary Baxter felt he was a friend. And that wonderful, wonderful tryptich! She couldn’t wait to see it in their house in San Francisco. Thirteenth century, and the crispness of the carving! Joe loved their collection. It had made them famous, introduced them to interesting people in the art world. There’d been a whole profile on them in American Connoisseur.

They were escorted to the door, handed in to their car. Peter Müller kissed her hand.

‘Enjoy your treasure, Mary,’ he said. ‘There’s only one other like it and that’s in the Getty Museum.’

‘I wish we’d known you then,’ Mary Baxter said. ‘We’d have bought both!’

The party didn’t break up for some hours. The Baxters were flying to London early the next morning en route for the States. The Müllers’ friends settled down to enjoy themselves and talk about their clients and their businesses. He saw a slim, elegantly dressed woman getting a drink from one of the waiters and went towards her. She was thin and dark, and had been a photographic model in her youth.

‘Eloise, my dear,’ he said. ‘Aren’t you being looked after? You’re always surrounded with admirers!’

‘Not so many at my age,’ she smiled at him. He made a gesture, dismissing the idea as absurd.

‘My dear, a mature woman is more attractive than any girl. Have you heard from Adolph?’

‘I spoke to him before I came this evening,’ Eloise Brückner said.

‘And how was he?’ he asked. ‘It must be so worrying for all of you.’

‘He said he’d had one consultation. He was grumpy. You know what he’s like. But no headache, thank God. I’m so grateful to you for persuading him to go and see this doctor. He’d never have listened to me!’

‘I couldn’t see an old friend suffer like that,’ Peter Müller said. ‘I’ve known a number of people who have seen this woman; they swore by her. It can’t do any harm. Please God, may it help him.’

‘I do hope so,’ she said. ‘Thank you, Peter. You’ve been wonderful.’

She didn’t include his wife, Susan. The omission amused him. The two women didn’t like each other. They were good at disguising it for the sake of their husbands.

It was past two o’clock when the last guest left. Susan Müller looked round the room. It was littered with empty glasses, plates of half-eaten canapés, full ashtrays. The staff were being slow about clearing up.

‘Well,’ she said. ‘Let’s hope it was worth all the expense. I’ve made a note of the spongers who come here and never buy a goddamned thing! Next time, they won’t get an invitation!’

‘From what we made out of that Baxter sale we could give a party every night for the next ten years,’ Peter reminded her. She was always irritable after a party. She resented the expense. ‘Come on, it was very successful. Let’s go to bed.’

Before she went to sleep, she turned on her back and said, ‘Peter? Is there something in Geneva?’

‘There may be,’ he said. ‘I might fly up on Friday and take a look.’

‘What is it? Why don’t I come, too?’

‘Because it’s silver and most likely a fake. I’ll only go for the day.’

‘I don’t know why you bother,’ his wife said. ‘There’s no real market for silver at the moment.’ She was far more dedicated to business than he was. Unfortunately, she had no natural feel or sympathy with beautiful things. She only saw the price tag.

He heard Susan’s deep breathing. He lay beside her till he was sure she was asleep, then he got up and slipped out of the bedroom. He made some hot milk in the kitchen and sat down to drink it. The debris of the party was cleared away. The kitchen was its clean, clinical self.

He had known Adolph Brückner for nearly ten years. Brückner was a big prize for any antique dealer. He had a large fortune, and taste and knowledge acquired over years of collecting. He was an expert on early Russian art. Müller was as shrewd in his business as he was in his other profession. He set out to charm the wife. Eloise Brückner was a beautiful woman and he found he liked her very much. He didn’t flirt; she wouldn’t have welcomed that. He was astute enough to realize that she loved her husband. He wooed her in a different way, by praising Brückner’s knowledge. She began inviting him to parties.

He thought back to that first party in the sumptuous Munich house. The big drawing room was set out like a museum, with rare Italian masters expertly lit and displayed, and, what caught his attention instantly, a large cabinet filled with Russian works of art. Fabergé boxes, photograph frames, copies of Japanese netsukes in various hardstones, with tiny jewelled eyes. And, in pride of place, glittering with frosty diamonds and translucent green enamel, a desk set from the Russian Imperial collection. A clock and an exquisite calendar. He noticed that the original Russian date card had not been changed. The set was priceless.

He cultivated Brückner carefully. He wasn’t a man to be rushed into friendship. He didn’t try to sell him anything. He flattered him by asking his advice and soon Brückner was consulting him. First one expensive rarity was found and purchased, then others followed. Brückner and his wife became close friends of the Müllers. Müller made a lot of money out of that friendship. And, one day, by chance, he caught Adolph Brückner out in a lie. They had discussed the collection of Fabergé at length. He had been allowed to handle the treasured clock, listen to the delightful silver chimes, adjust the calendar. And he had accepted Brückner’s story without question. He had discovered the desk set in Paris after the war. He had named a famous French dealer, long since dead.

It was a lucky coincidence, a one-in-a-million chance that brought Müller on a buying trip to Sotheby’s in New York, in pursuit of a Fabergé Easter egg made for a rich Russian merchant in 1912. He was acting for Adolph Brückner, who wanted this exquisite rarity for his collection. The estimate was over a million pounds sterling. Müller had his authority to go above the top estimate to buy it. He failed. The buyer was a New York dealer with a French name. The same name, he remembered, as the dealer in Paris who had sold Brückner his desk set. He had approached the man after the sale and introduced himself on behalf of his client. If the egg had not been bought on commission, might he be interested in an immediate profit from the under-bidder?

And Müller added the story of his client’s purchase from the French namesake. No namesake, the American said, but his grandfather! The desk set rang no bells with him, he added. And he knew every important item of stock his grandfather had bought and sold. The old man had kept a meticulous record stretching over forty years. He’d check, but he would surely have remembered something so unique. Müller got a call from him that evening at the Sherry Netherland Hotel.

There was no desk set listed. He’d been through the ledgers. The name Brückner was not on his grandfather’s list of clients, either, and he was equally meticulous about them. And he regretted that the egg was not for re-sale. His tone suggested that he regarded Müller and his offer as highly suspect. That was when, as Müller put it, he changed hats.

Adolph Brückner had lied about the Fabergé set, which meant that he had come by it dishonestly. And dishonesty was another commodity that excited Müller’s interest. Theft, sexual delinquency, scandal—Müller traded in all of them. He had been working for Moscow Centre since 1957, using his contacts in the art world to supply them with agents. And for the last five years he had routed several highly important potential victims via the Geneva clinic—and Doctor Irinia Volkov. Müller alerted Moscow. Brückner would be a very useful tool.

He finished his hot milk, grimacing because he had sat there letting it get tepid. Eloise had told him about Brückner’s headaches. No physical cause had been diagnosed. He wouldn’t accept that it was psychological. She was in despair. Müller promised to talk to him.

He waited till he knew that Brückner was recovering from a terrible attack. Then, in glowing terms, he recommended the Russian psychiatrist to Brückner. Between them, he and Eloise persuaded him to consult her. It was possible his lies about the Fabergé treasure was part of something far more serious. Once in Doctor Irina’s hands, he’d make a good confession. Thinking that, Müller grinned. He had been brought up a Catholic and it was the old injunction to children on the weekly visit to the priest: make a good confession, Peter. Brückner would confess, but there’d be no comforting absolution at the end of it.

He rinsed out his cup and went back to bed. Susan was lying on her back, snoring lightly. She had no idea of his other life. No idea of the bank account in Lichtenstein that was topped up so generously every time he pleased his Soviet masters. His controller over the last eight years was at the present moment leading a trade delegation in Berlin.

The Russian was an enigma to Peter Müller. Over the years he had surfaced in the West under a number of aliases and jobs. When Müller first came under his control, he was a military adviser to the East German army. He wore a moustache and cultivated a hard-nosed image, dour and stiff necked. A year later, he appeared as a naval commander attached to the Soviet Embassy in Paris. No moustache and a very different personality. A fun-loving, pro-Western Russian, with an eye for the ladies and the good life.

He had told Müller once that the French Intelligence, SEDECE, had tried to recruit him. He was much amused by the incident. He had, in fact, recruited one of their senior officers who’d been caught in bed with one of Rakovsky’s young naval lieutenants.

He left Paris to re-emerge as a respected official in the Soviet Trade Ministry. And, this time he used his own name and assumed his real identity. The cloak-and-dagger days were over. He still ran a few selected agents like Müller, but in the new age of Gorbachev and glasnost, intelligence work was more specialized. A lot of the action men, as the assassins were called, and the sleepers waiting to be activated, would have to be retired.

As Müller would be one day, he realized. That made the nest egg in Lichtenstein so important. When Müller talked of retirement to his wife, he wasn’t thinking of their pleasant Munich apartment and a holiday house on the Baltic coast. He had the golden shores and sunny skies of the Caribbean in his mind’s eye.

He’d make the trip to Geneva on Friday. By that time Irina Volkov would have opened Brückner’s skull to see if there were worms inside. He drifted off to sleep.

He was late. Lucy looked at her watch again. It was nearly midday. The same smirking waiter had given up trying to talk to her.

She had slept badly and woken with a sense of apprehension. He wouldn’t come. Then, just as she was giving up, he came in to view.

He walked slowly, a traveller without a destination. If there was a ravine at the end of the road instead of a café, he’d step over the edge without looking down. She got up to meet him.

‘I’m so pleased to see you,’ she said. ‘Where do you want to sit?’

‘I didn’t mean to come. I thought you’d have given up,’ Volkov said.

‘I never give up,’ Lucy told him. ‘And you wanted to see me again. What would you like? Coffee?’

‘If you like. It’s hotter today.’

‘Then let’s go into the shade,’ she suggested. ‘I’ve been thinking so much about you.’

‘I wish you wouldn’t,’ he said.

‘Do you always feel so sorry for yourself?’

It was a quietly spoken question and it took him by surprise.

‘I enjoyed talking with you yesterday. Why are you being unkind?’

‘I didn’t mean to be,’ Lucy answered. ‘It’s just that I’m not sorry for you any more. There’s nothing wrong with you now, Professor. Nothing really wrong, or you wouldn’t have come back here.’

‘It’s my favourite café,’ he said. ‘And I think I’d like a cognac.’

‘I’ll have one with you,’ she said.

‘There’s no need. I’m used to drinking alone.’

Lucy opened her bag. ‘I brought these,’ she said. ‘Copies of the speech you made about the Helsinki Agreement and the article published just before you were arrested. I was reading them last night.’

He took the photocopies from her almost absent-mindedly. He didn’t want to read what he’d said and written when he was in Russia. But a phrase caught his eye.

‘Liberty is the life of the human soul. The system that denies that to its people must be resisted even at the cost of that life.’ He put the page down.

‘Why are you doing this? Why are you trying to revive a corpse?’

She said quietly, ‘Because you owe a lot of people. Like my father, who spent his time and his money campaigning for you. And all his friends. And your friends, Professor!’

She reeled off half a dozen names. Members of the human rights movement. Imprisoned, dead, driven insane.

‘You got out,’ she declared, ‘but they didn’t. What would they say if they could see you now, if they were able to speak for themselves?’

He hadn’t touched the cognac. He looked at her; there was a tinge of colour in his face.

‘I don’t have to listen to any of this.’

‘No,’ she agreed. ‘No, you don’t. You can turn your back on me, just like you’ve done with them! But you won’t. You need me. If you’re dead, Volkov, then I’m going to bring you back to life.’

‘Where are we going?’ he asked her.

She had hold of his arm. She’d been walking quickly, forcing the pace. Now she hailed a taxi cab.

‘To my apartment. It’s not far now. I’ve just moved in. I want to show it to you.’

When they got out at the entrance to the block he paused. ‘Why am I doing this?’

‘I told you,’ Lucy said. ‘Because you need me. We need each other.’

He followed her through the front door, into the apartment. It was a large sunny room, pleasing to the eye.

‘You’re very beautiful,’ he said.

She put her arms around his neck and gently touched his lips. After a moment she parted them.

He said, ‘I’d better warn you. I’m impotent.’

‘You won’t be with me.’

The blinds in the room were drawn; a single light shone on the ceiling above the bed. Adolph Brückner lay on his back and looked at it. He couldn’t see Irina; he couldn’t see his surroundings. He saw only the little circle of light over his head; it held his concentration.

He felt weightless; there was no pain, no sensation in his body. He had been talking, answering questions that unlocked doors he had kept closed for fifty years.

Irina’s voice was cool and distant.

‘You were sent ahead to scout the land,’ she reminded him. ‘What happened?’ The tape recorder by the bed was taking it all in.

‘We went too far. Boris wasn’t looking for partisans. He was looking for some place to loot. I was scared. I thought we’d run into a Red Army patrol. He only laughed at me. He was like a bull. He didn’t give a damn about anything.’

She had heard a lot about Boris, the big Ukrainian who’d volunteered to fight with the Germans when they entered his village. A powerful brute who couldn’t wait to put on a uniform and rob his own people.

‘We went through a wood,’ the monotonous voice continued. ‘We saw this house. Boris said, “We’ll get some pickings in here! Come on, let’s take a look!” We had our sub-machineguns out; Boris could move like a cat. He didn’t bother being quiet. He’d seen through the window. We just shoved the door open and went in. There was a woman. With long blonde hair. She stared at us.’

As he talked he became a spectator. He saw it all happening again, as if it were a play. The blonde woman, terror contorting her face, backing away from him and Boris.

‘She turned and ran in to a room, slamming the door. Boris laughed.’ The laugh was ringing inside Brückner’s head.

‘Oh no, you don’t. I’ll get you, you bitch!’ And Boris hurling himself at the door and bursting it open. He saw himself following; Boris had the woman by the hair. He was bending her backwards onto the bed, one hand ripping her skirt off. He felt the sexual excitement rise in him all over again as he watched Boris expose her naked thighs and the round belly. She had been silent until then. The scream echoed in his head as the man fell on top of her, his breeches dropped round his ankles. He was thrusting into her, grabbing at her breasts, shouting at Brückner to shut her up … to sit on her head.

Sweat was pouring down his face. He saw himself pinning the woman down, half-smothering her while Boris heaved and grunted, ripping her blouse away.

From far away he heard the doctor’s voice.

‘You held her down while he raped her. How many times was she raped?’

‘Boris did it twice. Then turned her over and buggered her. He was like an animal. Then he said, “Here you are, kid. Now you get stuck in.”

‘She was still struggling, kicking out. He held her for me while I got on top. She managed to scream once. It was so loud … like a trapped animal.’

‘Next thing there was a boy in the room. He was punching at me, trying to pull me off by the leg. He was yelling. Boris picked up his gun and smashed him over the head. I heard the skull crack. It made me finish too quickly.

‘She was bleeding. She was bleeding all over the bed. I looked down and saw the boy was dead. I said to Boris, “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

‘“Get your pants up,” he said to me. “That little bastard spoiled a good fuck for you.” He kicked the boy’s body. Then he started pulling open drawers. Throwing stuff out, looking for money or jewellery.

‘I ran out of the bedroom, I was watching out of the window. I was so scared someone might come and find us. The place was miles from our main force. I was scared of the partisans. I heard a shout from Boris and he came out holding a cross. Holding it up. It was big and flashing with red stones. I thought, “My Christ! He’s got something there.”

‘“Well now, get a look at this,” Boris was laughing. He was excited. “The Red bitch’s been robbing a church! This might be worth a few roubles, eh? Gold and jewels, lad; gold and fucking jewels!”

‘He told me to go back in and pick up some ornaments he’d found.’

In the shadows Irina sipped water. Her hand shook. She said, ‘What did you steal, Adolph?’

On the monitor his pulse rate had steadied. He was past the worst trauma of the rape and the murder of the child.

‘My desk set,’ he answered.

‘Volkov,’ Lucy whispered. ‘Wake up.’

He was lying across her, his head pillowed on her breast. She stroked the dark hair, trying to rouse him gently. He stirred and lifted himself, gazing at her. She reached up and kissed him on the lips.

‘I want you to make love to me again,’ she said softly.

He said in Russian. ‘You’re a witch. A white witch.’

It had been an extraordinary love-making. Compulsive, mindless and without words. Words might have given him time to doubt … to remember the empty shell his body had become. She didn’t let him speak; she kissed him till his mouth burned and suddenly his tongue thrust fiercely back against hers. They undressed each other, still in silence.

There was no sophistication in their love-making. She opened herself and grasped him to her and he reached a swift and violent climax. He fell into an exhausted semi-sleep, while Lucy lay passive under his weight and held him in her arms. He was spent, but he was a whole man. She had made him whole. No failure, no impotence with her.

The second time was leisurely and there were many words, even laughter, between them. They were intimates now, finding out about each other, exploring their bodies with sensitive touching.

‘You’re wonderful,’ Volkov told her. ‘You smell like flowers.’

And he made love with subtlety and tenderness, stifling her sharp cry of pleasure with a gentle hand over her mouth.

Then they both slept in one another’s arms. It was dark when they awoke. They lay and watched the lights blink and flicker from the window and Lucy said, ‘I’m going to make you love me, Volkov. I’m going to make you want me and love yourself because I love you. That’s a promise!’

He smiled at her. ‘And you keep your promises, don’t you, Lucy?’

‘I keep them,’ she said. ‘Are you hungry?’

‘No. Are you?’

‘Ravenous. Stay there and I’ll make something for us.’

‘You’re always hungry! You wanted breakfast the first time we met.’

‘I didn’t. I only ordered it to keep you talking to me. Do you want a drink? I’ve got some wine.’

He lay back against the pillows, watching her. She put on a dressing gown. She switched the light on and drew the curtains.

‘I might get drunk,’ he said. ‘I’m always drunk by now.’

She paused by the door. She said, ‘You’ll never get drunk again. You’re not alone any more. We’ll have a glass of wine together!’ She sat on the bed and they touched their glasses in a silent toast.

She made sandwiches and they ate them crosslegged on the bed, finishing the wine together.

‘Why aren’t you married?’ he asked her.

‘I never met anyone I wanted to marry,’ she said.

‘But you’ve had lovers?’

‘Only two. There was a student at the college in London where I was studying interior design. It lasted about a year. It wasn’t serious; we were both very young. Then there was a man in Jersey. I decorated his house and we became involved, but that didn’t work out either.’

He said slowly, ‘I don’t want to hurt you, Lucy. I don’t want to disappoint you. But I must go home before my wife gets back.’ He sat forward, not touching her.

‘Tell me about your wife,’ Lucy said. ‘Talk to me about her. You said she loved you.’

‘She calls it love,’ he answered. ‘She’s tried in bed with me for a long time. I can’t bear to touch her. She says we could start again. The other night she said we could be happy. There have been nights when I lie there, listening to her breathing beside me and I think of killing her.’

‘Why? Whatever did she do to you?’

He lay back and she moved close to him, taking his hand in hers.

‘When I came here first I had TB. I caught it in prison. I was ill, I couldn’t concentrate, I couldn’t see people or face interviews. I didn’t know what was the matter with me. Then I had an accident. I hadn’t left the flat for so long. I remember it was sunny outside. I wanted to go out, to walk on the street alone. The flat was like a prison. I didn’t get far. I fell and knocked myself out. Someone called an ambulance and I woke up in hospital. They found the pills I was taking twice a day. I believed they were for my lungs. My wife, Irina, prescribed them. They were drugs, mind-numbing sedatives. The dosage was so strong the doctor at the hospital said it was no wonder I fell down.

‘They kept me in overnight. I wouldn’t let them send for Irina. I wouldn’t see her. By the time I went home I’d thought it out. My wife had been controlling me, just like they do with the poor devils in the special wards. Keeping me quiet, doping me so I didn’t talk to journalists, give interviews … turning me into a sleepwalker who’d never cause Moscow any trouble. I threw the bottle of pills at her.

‘She tried to lie. But the hospital had X-rayed my lungs and they were clear. She’s not the sort of woman who cries, but she did. She begged me to forgive her, to understand that she’d had to promise to do it before they’d let me out of prison.’

‘She kept saying, “You’d have been dead of TB if I hadn’t agreed to what they wanted.”’

‘You couldn’t forgive her,’ Lucy said at last.

‘I could have forgiven her for what she did to me,’ he said. ‘I’d escaped total addiction; that was lucky. I wouldn’t let her even give me an aspirin for a headache, so I had a drink when I got withdrawal symptoms. I could have let her persuade me, I suppose. She’d given up so much to follow me. She had a brilliant career; she was dedicated. Her father was a powerful Party man with friends in the Politburo. She’d worked hard to get me released. In the end, I could have come to terms with the way she’d betrayed me.

‘I would have forgiven her. Until I found out why she was really in Geneva.

‘I thought of killing myself many times. But I didn’t. I gave up on life and went on living. Drinking! Making Irina suffer.’

‘What exactly is she doing?’ Lucy asked him. ‘Can you tell me?’

‘She works for the KGB,’ he said. ‘She has special patients at the clinic. She tortures them with drugs; she breaks them into little pieces so they can be blackmailed into doing whatever Moscow wants. It was part of the deal she made when they let me go.

‘I said I’d denounce her. She just looked at me and said, “I got you out of prison. I’m doing it for you. Go on, have me arrested. I’ll get twenty years under Swiss law.”

‘I couldn’t betray her, Lucy, and I couldn’t speak out on the old issues unless I did. So I opted for the Russian alternative. I got drunk.’

After a time he said, ‘You despise me, don’t you? You wouldn’t have compromised.’

‘I would have done the same as you,’ Lucy said. ‘She saved your life; you couldn’t have denounced her. You’re not that kind of man.’

She put her arms around him. He saw how pale she was. The blue eyes blazed.

‘I hate her for what she’s done to you. But you’re free of her now, Volkov. You won’t feel guilty and you won’t drink. And very soon the world will hear your voice again. Don’t go back tonight. Stay with me.’

‘I want to,’ he said slowly. ‘But it wouldn’t be wise. She mustn’t know about you. She’d find some way to hurt you.’

‘Where do you live?’ she asked him.

He told her. ‘You mustn’t try to contact me,’ he said. ‘You must be careful.’

‘I’ll wait for you outside, tomorrow,’ she said quietly. ‘If you don’t show up I’ll know there’s something wrong. I’ll come up and get you.’

He held her tightly, kissed her hard and hungrily. ‘She leaves for the clinic before nine,’ he said. ‘There’s a flower shop on the corner. I’ll be there at ten o’clock.’

He let himself out of the apartment. Lucy watched him from the window. He turned, looked up and waved. Then he disappeared from view.

‘I won’t take any calls this afternoon. I’m having a long session with Monsieur Brückner.’

‘Yes, Doctor,’ the nurse said.

At the door of Brückner’s room, Irina Volkov paused.

He’d been given a light sedative after the morning; she’d watched him drift off to sleep. He’d laid his bloody ghost to rest. Or so he thought.

While she wrote up her notes and locked the first of the tapes in her desk, she thought of the woman, violated and degraded and the child who had tried to save her. She opened the door and went in. He was still drowsy. She prepared another injection, pinched up a vein and shot the drug in to him. Then, after checking her watch to let it take effect, she slapped him hard across the face.

‘Wake up! Wake up!’

She had hit him so hard there was a red mark on his cheek. Her own hand stung. She lit a cigarette and took her seat. He was awake and muttering in confusion. She reached over and switched on the powerful light above his head.

‘Look at the light! Look at it, or I’ll have to slap you again. Good. Now, Boris had killed the woman. The boy was dead and you’d stolen the desk set. Tell me, Adolph. Tell me what you did then.’

‘Boris was gloating over the cross,’ the voice was low and slurred. ‘He kept rubbing the red stones and holding it up to the light. “Gold and jewels,” he said over and over. “It’s worth a fortune. Boris, you’re in luck, you clever fucker! You’ll be rich when this war’s over.”

‘I was wrapping the clock and the calendar in a skirt I’d found in the bedroom. He’d thrown everything on the floor, emptied the drawers. I wanted to get out, take the stuff and get the hell away from the place. I remember I was so scared I was peeing myself, thinking what would happen if a Red Army patrol caught us coming out of that house. Then I heard a moaning noise.

‘I shouted at Boris. He heard the moaning, too, and he shoved the cross in to his jacket. He picked up his gun. “Watch outside,” he told me and he went back in to the bedroom. I thought we’d killed her, but she was still alive. I stood by the window looking out again. The sun was shining in. Then I heard a noise. It was coming from a big cupboard by the door. I got ready to open fire and then I opened it.’

Irinia noticed that the monitor attached to his wrist showed a violent rise in his pulse rate.

‘Tell me,’ she said. ‘What was in the cupboard?’

‘Two kids. A boy, holding a baby. He had his hand over its mouth to stop it crying. He just stared up at me.’

‘Did you kill them, too?’

‘No. I heard shots in the bedroom. I knew Boris had finished off the woman. I made a sign to the boy to stay quiet and I shut the door. I didn’t say anything about them to Boris. I knew what he’d do. I used to dream of that kid’s face and the eyes, staring up at me. I had nightmares about it for a long time.’

‘Didn’t you have nightmares about the woman and the boy being murdered? Didn’t that worry you?’

‘Not so much. I’d seen a lot of corpses by then. We always looked for women when we took a village. Everybody did it. She wasn’t the first one I’d had. But the boy in the cupboard, holding the baby. I couldn’t get it out of my mind. The way he looked at me.’

‘That must have been his mother then, and his brother,’ Irina remarked. ‘She tried to save them by hiding them in the cupboard. She didn’t have time to save herself.’

Brückner’s mouth trembled, and tears spilled out and ran down his cheeks.

‘It was the war! It was the same everywhere. I wasn’t the only one! I could have shot them. Boris would have done it! I just couldn’t. That boy staring up at me. I couldn’t. Oh Jesus, my head hurts.’ He began to sob.

Irina stood up. She looked down on him. Remember, remember your training. You are not involved. You are objective, unemotional. It means no more to you than a test-tube experiment. You struck him because you had to wake him up. You had to demonstrate your power over him. You are a scientist, a rationalist. You are superior to feelings of hatred and rage.

She switched off the tape recorder, put the tape in her pocket, shut down the harsh overhead light and rang for the nurse. Brückner was moaning, holding his head and tossing to and fro.

The nurse came in and Irina said, ‘We’ve had a very good session. Very productive. But he’s experiencing some distress.’

‘Yes, I can see. What medication shall I give him, Doctor?’

Irina paused on her way out. She said coolly, ‘None. He’ll just have to suffer through it. It’s part of his therapy. If necessary, restrain him. I’ll be in early tomorrow morning.’

She closed the door.

Volkov saw her car draw up and turn into the garage space reserved for residents in the apartment block. She was late; another special patient. He hurried in ahead of her. I must be careful, he kept saying to himself. She’s clever, she’s trained to observe people. She mustn’t notice any difference in me. He wondered if it showed—wasn’t a man who’s found his sexual powers after five years of flaccid impotence, visibly changed? Isn’t it obvious when a dead man comes to life? Won’t she see at a single glance that something has happened? Part of him wanted to flaunt it. Part of him wanted to taunt her.

What did you do with yourself today? She always asked that question, never expecting an answer, only the same sullen negative. Nothing. I walked, I had a few drinks. But not this time.

How much he hated her, he realized, waiting for Irina to let herself in. Perhaps it’s because I loved her so much in the beginning. I wanted to change her, to open her heart and mind to the goodness and the truth in human beings. I failed. I couldn’t change her. The only thing that touched her soul was love for him. And that’s why he tried to kill it. That’s why, if it weren’t for Lucy Warren, he’d cut her heart out tonight. So long as she loves me, I’m not free of her, he thought. I’m tainted with her cruelty, her heartless commitment to the Soviet ideal.

‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Sorry I’m late, darling. How was your day?’ She wasn’t really listening. She was making herself a drink, frowning, absorbed in something far from her surroundings.

He shrugged. He didn’t answer. She didn’t notice.

‘Oh!’ she exclaimed impatiently. ‘I forgot. I said we’d have dinner with the Schmidts tonight. I’d better hurry up or we’ll be late.’

The Schmidts were her friends. He was a lawyer, his wife a research chemist. They tolerated Dimitri, ignoring his drinking. They were sorry for Irina, with such a burden to carry.

She had a circle of acquaintances. They all treated him as if he were some kind of mental defective who had to be humoured. Poor Volkov. Just a shell. Put him in a corner with a bottle and forget about him.

‘I don’t feel like going,’ he said. ‘You go. They won’t mind.’

Irina didn’t mean to lose her temper. She didn’t realize how the sessions with Brückner had frayed her nerves. She wanted to relax, regain her professional composure. She liked the Schmidts. Dimitri didn’t like anyone. He had no friends. He lived in a limbo of his own making.

She swung round on him.

‘They’re expecting you. Frieda’s cooking dinner. What am I supposed to say at the last minute?’

‘I’m drunk,’ he suggested.

Irina glared at him. She was trembling.

‘You’re not,’ she countered. ‘You’re just being swinish. I’ve had a long day and I’m not going to play games with you. We’re going out to dinner and that’s the end of it. Get drunk if you like. They won’t be surprised! Now I’m going to change.’

He said, ‘I don’t like them. He’s a bore and she talks about animal experiments. She makes me sick. I’m not going, Irina. I’m not going out with your friends any more.’

She paused then. She made a great effort not to lose control. He was challenging her in a way he never had before. Not with the petulance of the weak; not striking a feeble blow that she could ward off easily. She was used to his gestures of defiance, tokens of independence that meant nothing.

‘What’s the matter with you? Why are you suddenly saying all this?’

‘Because I’m sick of being put on display. Here’s Irina with that poor dummy of a husband … Wasn’t he something to do with the human rights movement in Russia? Never sober. Must have had a hard time in prison. Only it wasn’t prison, Irina. It was you! I wouldn’t make me go if I were you.’

And then he said, from the comfort of his armchair, ‘What kind of a hard day did you have? Found some poor devil to set up for those bastards back home?’

She snapped. She stood facing him and shouted. She was shaking with anger.

‘I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you about the poor devil! I spent my day listening to how he helped to rape and murder a Russian woman and her child in the war. How he held her down while she was sodomized by another brute. A Ukrainian, one of the scum who joined the Germans. Ukrainians like you! He robbed her and he’s got the loot out on display in his nice big mansion! He’s going to pay for it. And I’m going to see that he does!’

She rushed into the bedroom and slammed the door. She stripped off her clothes, changed into a silk dress, put on earrings and a necklace. She took deep breaths, urging herself to be calm. She dialled the Schmidt’s number and said she’d be a little late. And Dimitri wasn’t too well, so she was afraid he might not make it.

She lit a cigarette and walked out to face him. He was reading. There was a glass full of cognac beside him.

‘I’m going,’ she said. ‘I made up some excuse for you. I’m sorry I shouted. Forget what I said. It’s nothing to do with you anyway. It’s my problem. Try not to drink too much.’

‘Have a lovely evening,’ he said, putting the book down.

She turned her back on him and left the apartment.

Volkov waited. He went and watched from the window till he saw her car edge out from the garage, its headlights raking the road, then turn and speed away. He took the glass of brandy in to the kitchen and poured it down the sink.