‘I’m glad. One day Moscow will be more advanced than any other city. The doma kommuny, the huge communal blocks of rooms, will teach people how to live their lives collectively, and Moscow will become the symbol for future socialist societies.’

‘Is that so?’

‘Yes, it is, I promise you. So tell me why you like this city.’

‘I love its energy. It’s unpredictable. I like its new monumental buildings and,’ – she smiled as the car swept past a Chinese laundry with a picture of a shirt on its signboard and two Chinese women with broad faces and smooth skin chattering to each other on the front step – ‘I like its trams.’

He laughed and shook open the newspaper. She liked the way he gave it his full concentration. It meant she could be alone with her own thoughts while he read the Rabochaya, so she almost missed it: his sudden intake of breath. Cut off abruptly. Without appearing to hurry, she turned her head to look at him and saw that his attention was focused on an inside page.

‘What is it?’

He appeared not to have heard.

‘Something important?’ she asked.

He raised his grey eyes and the way he looked at her made her blood pulse beneath her skin. ‘Important to you, yes.’

She withdrew a hand from under the fur rug, rested her fingers on her chin to hold it still. ‘Tell me,’ she said quietly.

‘It seems your timing is impeccable.’

She waited.

‘It says here,’ he rustled the paper, ‘that a delegation from China has arrived in Moscow.’

She could hear her own heart stop. He held out the paper for her to inspect the front page.

‘See,’ he said, ‘there’s a photograph. There’s to be a reception for them this evening. In the Hotel Metropol. Take a look to see if you recognise any…’

She reached for it and blinked hard. Six blurred figures in a grainy photograph. Her eyes scanned each face hungrily but the one she was searching for wasn’t there. Her heart started up again, sluggish and painful. At first she thought that all the figures in the photograph were men, each one dressed in a heavy cap and bulky padded coat, but as she studied them in detail she realised that two were female.

‘Do you recognise any of them?’ Dmitri asked.

She started to shake her head but stopped. ‘Possibly. The one on the end.’

‘The girl?’

‘Da.’ High cheekbones, determined dark eyes, cropped hair. She was sure it was the Chinese girl she’d seen with Chang An Lo last year in Junchow. ‘I think I saw her at a funeral once.’

‘Does she also know this Chinese Communist you are trying to contact?’

‘Yes.’

Something in her voice must have alerted him because his mouth grew solemn, his eyes gentle. ‘Too well, perhaps?’

Lydia could find no response. Too well, perhaps.

‘Let me see.’ He took the paper from her hand and studied the names printed under the photograph. ‘Tang Kuan. Is that her?’

‘Yes.’

‘She would know where he is?’

‘She might.’

There was another pause. A horse-drawn wagon piled high with barrels lumbered dangerously across their path and the car had to brake harshly.

‘Don’t look so distraught,’ Dmitri said.

‘I’d like to ask her myself tonight.’

‘Where?’

‘At the Metropol.’

‘No, Lydia.’

‘Don’t let’s go through this again, Liev. Dmitri Malofeyev has invited me.’

‘No.’

‘It’s my only way of finding out where Chang is.’

‘No.’

‘I don’t want to argue with you, Liev.’

‘No.’

‘Just saying no over and over isn’t going to convince me.’

‘No. Or I’ll break your skinny neck.’

‘Now that’s a much more persuasive argument.’ Lydia stomped off to the communal kitchen. She heated up a pot of potato and onion soup which she’d made the day before, and returned tight-lipped to their room. Elena was looking out the window and Liev was slumped in the chair, knocking back vodka straight from the bottle. She put the bowl of soup on his lap.

‘I’m coming with you,’ Popkov announced.

‘No, of course you can’t.’

‘I’m coming.’

‘No, don’t-’

Lydia was going to say No, don’t be absurd. Look at you. But she stopped herself in time. It was the expression trapped in his black eye that silenced her. It was dull with fear and she knew it wasn’t for himself.

‘No, Liev,’ she said gently, ‘you can’t. Malofeyev is only obtaining an invitation for himself and me. Anyway you would be too… conspicuous. You’d draw attention to us.’

Popkov grunted and turned his back on her in the chair. End of conversation. She wasn’t sure who had won.

‘What will you wear?’ Elena asked to break the silence. Lydia was grateful to her.

‘My green skirt and white blouse, I suppose.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s the best I have, so it’ll have to do.’

‘But the women will be all dressed up in evening gowns and-’

‘It doesn’t matter, Elena. I’m only going there for one reason. To speak to Kuan.’

‘You’ll look out of place.’

Lydia stared wretchedly at Liev’s uncommunicative back. ‘Wherever I go I seem to be out of place,’ she muttered.

The broad back hunched and his shoulder blades shifted under his coat like tectonic plates.

‘I have a silk scarf you can borrow,’ Elena offered.

‘Spasibo.’

‘And this.’

Lydia glanced across at her. She was standing by the dividing curtain, one hand holding on to it, her bosom heaving slightly as though breathing had for some reason suddenly become an effort. Her other hand was stretched out towards Lydia and on its upturned palm lay a bundle of white ten-rouble notes.

‘Enough for a smart new skirt,’ she said, her tone offhand. ‘Or at least a blouse from somewhere decent. You can use my zabornaya knizhka, my ration card.’

Lydia’s gaze fixed on the money. She wanted to snatch it, stuff it into her bodybelt. Chyort, it was tempting. Forget skirts or blouses, just concentrate on adding it to the escape fund. She swallowed awkwardly and out of the corner of her eye she could see Liev move round and stare too. Not at the roubles. At Elena’s face. Her cheeks had coloured to a vivid pink but her mouth was pulled in a pale, defiant line.

‘Spasibo,’ Lydia said again. ‘Elena, you are too kind to me. I am grateful.’

Elena jerked her head, as if rearranging the thoughts inside it.

‘But,’ Lydia continued, ‘I can’t accept it. I’ll go to the party in my own skirt and blouse. They’ll have to do.’

Elena stepped forward and slammed the money down on the table with a force that vibrated the floor.

‘It’s not dirty,’ she snapped, snatching her coat from a hook on the wall. ‘And neither am I.’ She pulled open the door and yanked it closed behind her. Her footsteps sounded loud as she hurried down the corridor, but inside the room the air felt thick and unbreathable.

‘Go after her, Liev,’ Lydia whispered, her voice tight. ‘Tell her that’s not what I meant.’

They compromised.

Lydia agreed to allow Liev to accompany her as far as the hotel steps. She had declined Malofeyev’s offer of a car to pick her up because she wanted to keep secret where she lived. It was dark outside and sleeting fitfully when they set off, and the Hotel Metropol was some distance away near the Kremlin.

They travelled across the city by tram. Lydia adored the trams. Muscovites took them for granted but to Lydia they were exotic and quaint. She would have happily ridden up and down in one all day watching the people, finding out in their faces what it meant to be Russian.

She and Liev hopped on through the rear door and paid the conductress fourteen kopecks each for the fare. Three spools of differently priced tickets hung from the woman’s neck, bouncing on her ample bosom, and as she shouted out, ‘Move on down. Move on down!’ Lydia saw her give Popkov an unabashed wink. What is it about this greasy old bear that gets women so heated up? Everyone shuffled towards the front of the tram. It was cold on board and Lydia stayed close to Liev, tucked in against his bulk, shivering. She was nervous.