The door opened and a woman stood there.

“Yes?”

The smell of borscht and a wave of heat from the wood stove.

“I would like to see Comrade Kirinski.”

She studied me with large limpid eyes, taking her time and remaining perfectly still, finally throwing the dark curve of hair back from her face and asking:

“Who is it?”

“My name — ”

“Excuse me,” she broke in and turned away quickly: there were sounds of the borscht boiling over. In a moment she called from the kitchen that I should come in.

Good furniture, Chinese rugs and heavy curtains: the couch didn’t come from the State store, nor did the inlaid cabinet. Of course they might have been left to them by someone, possibly a grandparent

“What name was it?”

She came back, shaking her hair away from her high cheekbones. The camel hair sweater wasn’t from the GUM either, nor the soft suede boots. She too had money, or power, or blat. Or perhaps just Alexei R. Kirinski, Geological Engineer.

“My name is Andreyev Rashidov.”

She waited for me to produce my card, in the manner of the bourgeoisie; but I wasn’t going to do that. Now that I’d seen the jade I wanted to convey an air of discretion.

“Kirinski is not here.”

“I know.” I waited for her to take that in. “But I’d like to see him. Can you make an appointment for me?”

She went on looking at me with this stillness of hers. Her eyes were deep and her mouth was sensual, a down of dark hair shadowing the curved Slav lips; my awareness of her as a female of the species was getting in the way and I’d have to forget it because this place could be a death-trap.

“Is it an official matter?”

That didn’t mean very much: in this country almost every aspect of life is official.

“No.”

There were a dozen pieces, some of them a foot high, one of them a blue-green slab lying below the window, where it caught the light. Beyond it, through the window and through the black boughs of the trees in Union Square I could see the glitter of a headlamp reflector against the snow, and the blurred outline of the car itself. I shouldn’t have left it there, in that particular spot; but there had been no way of knowing which side of the building the apartment was situated. “Have you already met my husband?”

“No. I’m interested in minerals.”

Her eyes moved slightly to the block of jade on the massive sideboard near where we stood. “How did you come to hear of my husband?”

I turned away, noting other things while my eyes were out of sight: the number on the telephone dial, the brass-framed photograph of the woman in nurse’s uniform — From Liova, with love — and the two bolts on this side of the door where I’d come in.

“I was crossing the border,” I said and turned back in time to get her reaction, “at Zaysan, and Kirinski’s name came up in a conversation I had with some engineers who were coming through.”

This was strictly ground bait — there was jade within forty miles of the frontier in Sinkiang and the Russians had mining concessions, Kirinski was a geological engineer, his apartment was full of rough cuts so forth — but there was a lot of info coming through because she didn’t seem surprised at what I’d told her.

“Who were you talking to?” That was an easy one.

“We didn’t exchange names — there was a hold up while they were searching some vehicles.” A throwaway with a lot of top-spin: “You know what the border’s like in winter.”

She was really very good. I couldn’t tell whether she knew or not: she just went on watching me, perfectly still, while the borscht vibrated the saucepan lid in the kitchen.

“He won’t be here until tomorrow.”

“Has the snow held him up?”

That didn’t work either. She moved for the first time, going over to the mirror and reaching up, pushing her dark hair back and showing me how hard her breasts were, under the camel hair sweater. I hadn’t expected that.

“The snow didn’t start again,” she said, “until yesterday.” She was watching me in the mirror. “You’ll be glad to see him again.”

Not ground bait this time. She knew what we were talking about and I knew what we were talking about, because of the way she’d reached up like that, and the way she was watching me now.

“It’s lonely,” she said, ‘when he’s away.”

The whiteness coming in from the window, lighting half her face; the heat of the wood stove filling the air; the brass glow of the samovar in the mirror; the stillness.

“I can well imagine,” I said. “But of course you’ve got friends.” The quiet bubbling of the saucepan out there, with its sound of comfortable domesticity; the heaviness of the curtains; the weight of the minutes.

“Not many,” she said, and moved again, this time towards the samovar.

“Would you like some tea, Comrade Rashidov?”

“I wish I had time.” I touched the piece on the table, outlining the jade with one finger. “Perhaps I could come again, before tomorrow, to discuss the proposal I have for Alexei.”

She considered this, as she considered everything before she spoke. We stood within three feet of each other, across the low table; her back was to the windows now and her body was in silhouette.

“If you wish.”

“Thank you.”

“I shall be here this evening.”

“Very well.”

I bowed slightly and turned away, and she came with me to the door, opening it for me and waiting, perfectly still. This would have been the moment but I let it go and went into the passage and walked to the staircase without looking back. The door didn’t close until I was going down past the third floor.

The old dezhurnaya called something to me as I went out through the hall but I didn’t stop: there was a minimal risk I had to take care of as a matter of routine and time was running out.

The Mercedes started on the first go and I put the lever into drive and pulled out as the Wolga swung into the mirror and then slowed, giving me room.

Time check: it was four minutes fifteen seconds since I’d turned away and walked down the passage to the staircase because I’d looked at the time then: the minimal risk phase had begun running at that point.

The Wolga didn’t have a transmitter aerial of the conventional sort but it might have something more sophisticated slung underneath or built into the body work and I assumed it could send and receive at short range. There wasn’t anything stuck on top of the Union Building but it had a flat roof and there could be a deep enough parapet to conceal a whole array of antennae. Or of course she could simply have picked up the phone.

Traffic was light: they’d thrown sand along the main streets but everywhere else I was driving on snow and the snow was becoming ice as the traffic packed it down. The automatic gears were going to be a nuisance on this kind of surface because I wouldn’t have any control over the back end but I couldn’t just let them sit there because they’d got my licence number already and they could bring in a mobile police net as soon as they wanted to push the button. I started by using the truck just ahead of me and went into the first intersection with enough acceleration to give me steerage but they knew what they were doing and the Wolga was still in the mirror when I slewed out of the camber and straightened up along the street to the right of the square.

There wasn’t any point in pretending I hadn’t seen them or didn’t mind being followed because I minded very much indeed: I’d only just got into the target area and it was going to waste a lot of time if I let them do a snatch and put me into the KGB headquarters for grilling, strictly no go because there was also the risk that I might not be able to get out again.

Two trucks and I got between them by swinging deliberately wide and hitting some piled snow at the roadside and bouncing off and getting enough traction across the ruts to put on a little speed before I had to start slowing in time to stay clear of the truck still in front. At this point there weren’t any brakes because on this stuff you could go just as fast with the wheels locked and I had to keep turning across and across the ruts in a series of zigzags to break down the speed. One of the trucks had started hooting because I wasn’t making the conditions any easier for them and I saw their point but hoped to Christ they didn’t decide to take a swing at me.