‘When will that be?’

‘When I am given orders to go elsewhere.’

Why didn’t she believe him? Why did she think he had been lying to her all along? As a member of a subversive organisation, he was in constant danger, but he was far too complacent. Either he was a fool or there was something else going on, and she did not think he was a fool. ‘Kolya, just what are you up to?’ she asked. ‘What did you tell Grigori Stefanovich? He changed his mind about letting us stay after you spoke to him.’

‘None of your business.’

‘But I am your wife. Surely I should know.’

‘Better you don’t.’ He stubbed out his cigarette in a saucer. ‘Go and see to some food for us. I’m starving.’

She took some of the potatoes, cucumber, mushrooms and sauerkraut they had bought and made her way down to the kitchen. The other women had gone and the kitchen was empty. Thankful for that, she set about cooking.

She was in the middle of it when the outside door opened and a huge man with a shock of white hair and a white beard came in carrying a pile of logs. He dropped them in a basket beside the hearth and turned towards her. ‘You’re new here.’

She smiled, a little wanly because she had been crying. ‘Yes and no. This used to be my home, years ago, before the Revolution.’

He stared. ‘Lydia Mikhailovna. Is it you?’

‘Yes.’ She brightened to think someone knew her. ‘Did you know me then?’

‘Did I know you! Why I used to carry you on my shoulders. I took you to Simferopol that time…’

‘Ivan Ivanovich!’ His hair, which had been so black, was now white, and he was thinner than he used to be, but he was still the Ivan she had known, her saviour in the dark days of the Civil War. She ran to him and grasped both his hands. ‘Oh, how good it is to see you. How are you? And Sima and the little ones?’

‘All dead,’ he said. ‘They died in the famine. I earn my bread doing odd jobs and maintenance round the house. It’s not the same, not the same at all.’ And he shook his big head and sighed. ‘What are you doing here? Did you go to England?’

‘Yes. I am Lydia Andropova now.’ She turned from him to take the pan off the stove and sat at the table to tell him all that had happened to her.

‘You should not have come,’ he said when she finished. ‘If the authorities get to hear of it, you will be arrested.’

‘My husband has proper papers for us. Did you know my parents were arrested and executed?’

‘Yes. I’m sorry. It was on the day I took you to Simferopol. They were on their way to join you as arranged. They never knew about Andrei and Tonya.’

‘I’m glad of that. I was told they were denounced. Do you know who could have done that?’

‘I didn’t,’ he said sharply. ‘I would never have betrayed them.’

‘Of course not. Who else knew?’

‘Grigori Stefanovich. They went to visit him that day. They hoped he would give them travel documents.’

She was shocked. ‘You think it might be him? Why would he do such a thing? He is family.’

‘People betray their grandmothers nowadays. One boy betrayed his own father and was subsequently murdered by his grandfather for doing it. The boy is revered as a hero and the grandfather paid with his life.’

‘But what motive would Grigori have for doing that?’

‘He knew about the jewels sewn in their clothes.’ He gave a bark of a laugh. ‘I’ll wager only one or two ever reached the authorities.’ He stopped suddenly. ‘Do not trust him, Lidushka. Do not trust anyone. Get out of here, it’s not safe.’

‘I can’t. My husband won’t leave.’

‘Then I pity you.’ The sound of footsteps came to them and he hurriedly turned to leave. ‘I live in the woodman’s hut in the forest,’ he murmured. ‘Come to me if you are in trouble. I will do what I can to help, but it will be little enough.’ And he was gone.

She returned to her cooking, as Kolya came into the room. ‘I wondered where you’d got to. You’ve been a long time.’

She was about to tell him about meeting Ivan but changed her mind. If he could be secretive, so could she. ‘I’m not used to this stove. It’s ready now. Do you want to eat it down here or up in our room?’

‘Down here. Then I have some business with Grigori Stefanovich.’

‘I think I’ll write to my parents and tell them what’s happened.’

‘If you must,’ he said. ‘But be careful what you say. Everything is censored nowadays. I’ll see that it’s posted.’

They ate in silence and then he went off to find Grigori and she returned to their room to write her letter. She was dreadfully sorry about the way she had left, she wrote, and begged their forgiveness. She did not know how to describe Kirilhor without finding fault with the regime, but put as bright a view on it as she could. She hoped soon to come home. When it was done she took it downstairs, looking for Kolya.

She found him in the coach house talking earnestly to Grigori. ‘I think you’re mad,’ Grigori was saying. ‘You’re on a wild goose chase. If I were you—’ He saw Lydia and stopped speaking suddenly. ‘What can I do for you, Lydia Mikhailovna?’ he said, making Kolya, who had his back to her, swivel round to face her.

‘I was looking for Kolya. He said he would send this letter for me.’

‘Better let me have it,’ Grigori said, holding out his hand. ‘I can send it from my office in the town. That usually goes safely.’

She put it into his hand and thanked him. ‘I think I’ll go for a walk.’

‘Not a good idea,’ Grigori said. ‘If you are seen, questions might be asked. You would almost certainly be arrested.’

‘Whatever for? I’ve done nothing wrong.’

‘As the daughter of an aristocrat who was found guilty of subversive activity, you would be considered guilty by association.’

‘But I was only four years old the last time I was in Russia. At least, I thought I was four, I’ve never been sure.’

‘1920,’ he said. ‘Yes, you were four that April.’

‘April?’

‘Yes. You were born on Easter Day. I remember your father telling me. Very auspicious, so the old babushkas would have us believe. I can’t remember the actual date and Russia was still using the old calendar then.’ He gave a grunt of a laugh. ‘Thirteen days out, but what does it matter? What’s more important is you being here now. I’m risking my own skin harbouring you, so you stay out of sight.’

The matter of the date of her birthday could wait. ‘I can’t stay indoors all the time, and besides, I’ve changed my name since I was last here. Kolya is safe enough, isn’t he?’

‘We can’t even be sure of that.’

She turned to Kolya. ‘What have you done? What are you up to? We should never have come. I wish I hadn’t listened to you. I want to go home to England.’

‘All in good time,’ he said complacently.

‘I’ll go alone.’ It was said out of bravado.

‘How do you propose to do that? You are married to me and I’ve got your passport, papers and money in my safe keeping and that is where it stays.’

‘If you must go out, keep to the forest,’ Grigori said. ‘And get some different clothes. You are too conspicuous in that finery.’

It wasn’t finery; back in England the clothes she wore would be considered very ordinary. She turned and went back to her attic room in despair. She longed for Sir Edward and Margaret, who loved her, her comfortable apartment, her work and her friends. When her letter arrived would Papa realise she wanted to come home and manage to do something to rescue her? Perhaps he would wash his hands of her and who could blame him? If she didn’t hear from him, she would have to find her own way back. She wished she had not trusted Kolya with her savings because she would need those when the time came. If all else failed she would have to sell the Kirilov Star.

Afraid Kolya would take the Star from her, she took it to Ivan Ivanovich and asked him to hide it for her. ‘It will be safe with me,’ he told her, his old eyes lighting up at seeing her. ‘I’ll bury it where no one will find it.’

‘Thank you. I know I can trust you.’

He seemed a little uncomfortable at that and blurted out, ‘I took the rubies Andrei had in his clothes. I was going to keep them for the count when he came back, but he never did and when my little ones were starving…’ His voice faded. ‘I only got a few roubles for them in Cherkassy and dare not demand more for fear of investigation. I beg your forgiveness.’

‘Of course I forgive you,’ she said softly. ‘I do not blame you.’

‘It was a terrible time in Ukraine,’ he said, his dark eyes glistening with tears. He wiped them away with the back of his hand. ‘The army took all the grain to feed themselves and the industrial workers in the factories. Those who tried keeping anything back were shot. We were left with nothing and lived on berries and whatever we could scavenge in the forest. The villagers left in droves to find work in the city and died on the pavements there. When there was no one to bring in the harvest, Grigori Stefanovich took over Kirilhor and filled it with strangers.’

She laid a hand on his arm. ‘I am so very sorry, Ivan Ivanovich. I wish I could help you. Kolya has taken all my money and only allows me enough kopeks to buy food.’ Grigori had relented about letting her go into town because she had sold her clothes and was now wearing a thin cotton skirt and blouse and had covered her hair with a scarf, so that she looked the same as all the other women. ‘But you go no further than Petrovsk,’ he had warned.

‘I manage,’ Ivan said. ‘But you must go as soon as you can. I don’t trust that lot up at Kirilhor.’

‘I will if I can but it won’t be easy without money or papers. I might have to sell the Star.’

Knowing she had an ally, she returned to Kirilhor feeling a little more cheerful, prepared to put up with a life she had brought upon herself, enduring Kolya’s taunts, always hungry, always watchful, always listening for the knock on the door in the middle of the night. The rumblings about war in Europe were growing louder and she would have to move soon, but it would take some planning and she would say nothing to Kolya because he would stop her. She told Kolya she had lost the star. The chain had broken and it had slipped from her neck without her realising it. He was furious and demanded to know why she had been wearing it.

‘I thought it was the best way to keep it safe,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t have brought it to Russia at all, but if you remember, you said I might need it to prove my identity when or if I met my parents. I should have known Baron Simenov was telling the truth and they were dead. I don’t know why I let you persuade me…’

‘Because you were not sure, were you? There was always that niggling doubt. Admit it.’

‘I think it was more a need for confirmation.’

‘Well, now you’ve got it. But that’s beside the point. We were talking about the Star. Where were you when you last knew you had it?’

‘Walking in the forest and the garden.’

‘Then we had better go and look for it.’

The search went on for days, and when it could not be found, Kolya came to the conclusion someone had found it and was hanging onto it. It made him suspicious of everyone in the house and he instigated searches of all their belongings to no avail. The Star was lost. It did not improve Kolya’s temper. She had never seen him so angry.

Finding she was pregnant was the last straw.


It was good to be back in England, Alex thought, as a taxi took him to his London home. He was hardly in it these days. He was being employed as a sort of roving commissioner by the Foreign Office, intelligence gathering, which made him a sort of spy. It was not a label he liked, but he had been assured his work was necessary, and as he obviously spoke and read Russian, was fluent in German and had passable French, who better to do the work? Sir Edward knew what he did, but no one else did. His friends thought he was away on trade missions, which was the official reason for his absences abroad.

He had spent the last year in Germany, watching Hitler becoming ever more powerful and dictatorial, and some of the time in Russia trying to get at the truth of the purges taking place there. The NKVD, under the leadership of the ruthless Nikolai Yezhov, was waging war against so-called traitors in the Party, torturing them into confessing ridiculous crimes and betraying their friends. It had become a kind of frenzy which depleted the Comintern staff so that nothing could be done, no decision made, nor plans put forward. And it decimated the ranks of the officers in the army, from generals downwards. If there was war, they would never be able to wage it successfully. And he did not think war could be avoided in spite of the work done by Neville Chamberlain to appease Hitler and his declaration of ‘peace in our time’. It was a breathing space, no more.