Something hot flared in Lydia ’s chest. ‘We danced, that’s all. Rather badly.’

‘No. That wasn’t all.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You know exactly what I mean.’

‘No, I don’t. Anyway, Dmitri, you seem to be forgetting that you have a beautiful wife at home.’

‘Ah yes, my Antonina. But you’re wrong, Lydia, not for one second do I ever forget my beautiful wife.’ There was a sadness, grey and soft as a shadow in his voice. ‘In fact it was she who suggested that, as I couldn’t help you in any other way, I should come over with these gifts.’

‘How convenient.’

He smiled politely.

Lydia tried to ignore the elegance that hung on him as effortlessly as his leather coat, and the fiery red hair that triggered all sorts of memories of her father. They ran like ripples under her skin. For some reason she couldn’t understand, when she was in the presence of this man her life in China seemed oddly opaque and far away. That annoyed her more than she cared to admit.

‘Comrade,’ she said with an abrupt change of tone, ‘thank you for your generosity but I cannot accept these gifts.’ Yet her hand was treacherous. It hovered there, touching the bulges of the brown paper bag with the same caress it used to fondle Misty’s ears. She snatched it away.

‘I’m trying to help you, Lydia. Remember that.’

‘In which case tell me, Dmitri, please, which street prison 1908 is in.’

‘Oh Lydia, I would if I knew.’

‘Maybe you don’t want to know.’

‘Maybe.’

If she was going to find her father she needed Malofeyev, needed his knowledge and contacts and familiarity with the prison system. It unnerved her to think that someone a rung above him on the Soviet ladder was stamping on his fingers.

‘Who knows you’re here?’ she asked.

He didn’t answer the question but picked up the tea that was growing cold on the sill beside him, sipped it with a quiet delicacy as if lost in his thoughts and replaced it. Only then did he focus on Lydia and immediately she could see a change in him. His gaze was fixed and fierce and reminded her that he’d very recently been the Commandant of a prison camp.

‘ Lydia, listen to me. Soviet Russia is still just a child. It is growing and learning. Every day we are drawing closer to our goal: a just and well-balanced society where equality is so taken for granted that we will be astonished at what our fathers and grandfathers were stupid enough to put up with.’

She didn’t react, didn’t look away. The pulse in her wrist was racing and the dying light from the window behind him seemed to be setting fire to his hair.

‘And the prison camps?’ she asked. ‘Is that how you teach this growing child of Soviet Russia to behave?’

He nodded.

‘Through fear?’ she demanded. ‘Through informers?’

‘Yes.’ He rose from the sill, a slow casual movement that nevertheless made Lydia watchful. He’d grown taller and suddenly darker as he stepped away from the window. ‘The people of Russia have to be taught to rethink themselves.’

He came closer.

Her heart thumped. ‘Jens Friis is not even a Soviet citizen,’ she pointed out. ‘He’s Danish. What good can teaching him to rethink possibly achieve?’

‘As an example to others. It demonstrates that no one is safe if they indulge in anti-Soviet activities. No one, Lydia. Not one single person is more important than the Soviet State. Not me.’ He paused, his words suddenly soft. ‘And not you.’

She tried to slow her breathing but couldn’t. Abruptly he seized both her wrists and shook her hard. Wordlessly she fought to break free but his fingers held her with ease so she ceased her struggles.

‘Let me go,’ she hissed.

‘You see, Lydia,’ he said calmly, ‘how fear changes people. Look at yourself now, wide-eyed with fear, a little lion cub eager to claw my throat out. But when I release you, you will have learned something. You will have learned to fear what I might do – to you, to your friends, to Jens Friis, even to that damn Chinese lover of yours – and it will hold you in check. That’s how Stalin’s penal system works.’

He smiled, an uneven twist of his mouth that offered no threat, just a warning. She stared straight into his grey eyes. With a cautious nod of his head, he uncurled his fingers. She didn’t move. With no hesitation he leaned forward and kissed her mouth, hard and hungry. His hand touched her breast. She took a step backward, away from him, and he didn’t stop her.

‘Fear,’ he said, ‘is something you have to learn how to use. Remember that, Lydia.’ He gave her a playful tilt of his head, the easy charm back in place. ‘I meant you no harm. I just wanted you to know.’

She was too angry to speak. But her eyes never left his.

‘You can slap my face if it would make you feel any better,’ he offered with a light laugh.

She turned her face rigidly to one side, no longer able to look at him. Without another word he walked out, shutting the door quietly behind him. She started to shake. Anger raged inside her, hot and painful, burning her throat. She hurried to the window and watched the tall figure of Dmitri Malofeyev stride through the gloom of the courtyard, his back towards her and one hand raised in farewell. Without even turning round, he’d known she’d be there, watching.

As he disappeared under the archway she sank her forehead against the glass, trying to freeze out the thoughts in her head. But not the anger. She needed that. Because it was not anger at Dmitri Malofeyev, it was at herself. She groaned long and loud and thumped her forehead against the pane as if she could force the images away. The feel of his lips. The spicy scent of his cologne. The hot flutter of his breath on her face. His fingers gentle on her breast.

Where did it come from, this treacherous pleasure she’d felt? She hated him. But worse, she hated herself.

The bathroom was cold, so cold Lydia could see her breath. A naked light bulb hung from the ceiling like a dull yellow eye and a finger of damp was creeping down one wall, blistering the paint, as if something was living under it. It wasn’t Lydia ’s evening for a bath, the use of which was on a strict rota, so she stood on her towel to keep her feet warm and stripped off her clothes.

Her skirt. Her cardigan. Her blouse. Her undergarments. She dropped them in a haphazard pile on the floor and stood naked in front of the washbasin. Her eyes meticulously avoided the small square of mirror above it because she couldn’t bear to see up close what betrayal looked like. What colour it was. What shape it took. What holes it chiselled in a person’s face. She ran the cold water and started to wash herself.

At the end of ten minutes her skin was sore and she was shivering, but her hands finally stilled. She’d realised it wasn’t the dirt on the outside that mattered, it was the dirt on the inside and she didn’t know how to get at it.