The Concubine's Secret - By Kate Furnivall Page 0,2

dark arched eyebrow shot up. ‘Why?’

Lydia shrugged. It was too late to take the words back. ‘The usual. My mother and I were poor, so we needed money.’

‘And now?’

Lydia shrugged once more, a gesture her brother was always pointing out made her seem unthinking. Was he right? Did it? She stared thoughtfully at the neat maroon slippers.

‘It became a habit?’ the woman asked.

‘Something like that, I suppose.’ She glanced up and caught the woman’s gaze intent on her, saw it slide away self-consciously from Lydia’s smooth pale hands to her own scuffed ones. In the mirror reflection, she saw something falter deep in the dark eyes, a crack open up somewhere. Lydia gave her a smile. At this unearthly hour of the morning normal rules of conduct didn’t quite apply. The woman returned the smile, lifted her arm from the water and gestured towards a smart leather bag on the windowsill.

‘Feel free to steal from me, if it helps,’ she offered.

‘Don’t tempt me,’ Lydia smiled.

The woman laughed and reached for a pristine square of white towelling that was draped ready over one shoulder, but in doing so she tugged too hard and it tumbled to the floor. Lydia watched the pale face crumple in panic.

‘It’s all right,’ she reassured the woman quickly and stooped to pick it up. ‘The floor’s clean. It’s just been washed.’

‘I know. I washed it. I washed everything.’

Lydia spoke soothingly, with the same tone she had used to her pet rabbit when he was nervous. ‘Don’t worry, no harm done. You can use the other side of the towel, the side that didn’t touch the floor.’

‘No!’

‘There’s a hotel towel on the wall over there.’

‘No. I can’t touch that . . . thing.’ She said the last word as if it were covered in slime.

‘Do you have another one?’

The woman breathed out. Nodded and pointed to her bag. Lydia immediately went to it, removed a small paper package from its depths and opened it up to reveal another pristine square of white. Without actually touching the material anywhere, she held it out to the woman but kept a good arm’s length away from her. Any closer she knew would be too close. For both of them.

‘Thank you. Spasibo.’ She patted her dripping arms, meticulously dabbing at each spot, and Lydia noticed scarlet hairline cracks in the skin.

‘You need cream on them,’ she said matter-of-factly.

‘I have gloves.’

The woman walked over to the leather bag and, using only forefinger and thumb, carefully extracted a pair of long white cotton gloves. She slid her hands into them and released a soft sigh of relief.

‘Better?’ Lydia asked.

‘Much.’

‘Good. I’ll say goodnight then.’ She moved towards the door.

‘Do svidania. Goodbye and . . . thank you.’ Lydia had opened the door when the woman asked quietly, ‘What’s your name?’

‘Lydia. And yours?’

‘Antonina.’

‘Get some sleep, comrade.’

Slowly the woman’s head started to move from side to side. ‘Nyet, no, I have no time to sleep. You see . . .’ For an awkward moment no words came, then she murmured, ‘I am the wife of the camp Commandant, so . . .’ The words stopped again. With an uncertain frown, she stared for a long moment at the pure white gloves.

In the silence Lydia whispered, ‘The camp? You mean Trovitsk prison camp?’

‘Da.’

Lydia shuddered. She couldn’t help it. Abruptly she left the washroom. But as the door closed behind her, she heard the taps start to run once more.

2

That evening nothing had changed. The same confusing hotel, the same people moaning about the cold when really all they wanted to complain about was the lack of a reliable railway system. All waiting for the same train that never came. Lydia’s feet ached from standing on a frozen station platform all day, but now she pushed it from her mind. It was time to concentrate.

In the heart of the hotel the bar stank. Stank like a camel pen because there had been a delivery of dung today to burn on the fire. It was a big shambling place, packed with too many vodka-stained eyes and too much greed. Lydia drew a slow breath and watched carefully. She felt the greed throb in the air around her, crawling like a living thing from one man to another, creeping through their mouths and nostrils down into their empty bellies and their crusted lungs. She had to time it right. Just right. Or Liev Popkov’s arm would break.

Money was thrust into hands. Men shouted across the room and spirals of cigarette