‘He’s always being plagued by people who knew him years ago. The whole population of Russia seems to think he owes them a favour.’

Alex straightened his back and lifted his head. ‘I am not the whole population of Russia. I am Alexei Petrovich Simenov.’ It was said with all the authority he could muster, and it worked. The man sighed heavily and picked up the telephone.

‘Wait here,’ he said when he put it down.

It seemed he had been standing in the street for ages and was beginning to think he might as well walk away, when Leo himself came hurrying out to meet him. ‘My dear man, how good it is to see you again,’ he said, giving Alex a great bear hug, much to the astonishment of the gatekeeper. ‘Come along, you look as though you could do with a good meal.’ Leo himself obviously never went short of a meal. He had been plump before, now he was rotund. ‘And you need some clothes. You can’t go about looking like that.’

Alex breathed a huge sigh of relief. ‘I can’t stay in Moscow long. I’m supposed to leave within twenty-four hours, and I was wondering how I was going to manage it when I thought of you.’

‘Glad you did, Alexei, my friend, glad you did.’ He took Alex’s arm in a firm grip and led him inside the gate where a monster limousine stood with a chauffeur beside it, who sprang to open the rear door. Leo ushered Alex in and climbed in beside him. ‘GUM,’ he ordered the driver.

They went to the department store where a whole wardrobe of clothes was bought for Alex. ‘A suit and a shirt would have been enough,’ Alex protested.

‘Nonsense. Three lessons a week for two people for two years, at so much an hour, must come to a tidy sum.’

They left the store with Alex looking and feeling smarter than he had in years. ‘Now for something to eat,’ Leo said. ‘Then you can tell me everything.’

‘Everything?’ Alex queried.

‘Yes, you didn’t come to me to beg, I know you better than that.’

‘I thought you might remember the lessons.’

‘So I did, but there’s more to be told. We’ll go home, you’d like to see Katya again, wouldn’t you? And we won’t be overheard.’

In Alex’s experience, if there was one place in Moscow to be overheard it was at home where living quarters were shared and everyone lived cheek by jowl in rooms divided by paper-thin walls, so that it was impossible to have any privacy. But Leonid Orlov’s home was not like that. He had a privileged apartment in a block of flats in Granovski Street where he and his wife had six rooms all to themselves. It was here Alex had a warm bath, the first since that time with Lydia in that dreadful kommunalka with its filthy bath along the corridor. Even that room had been spacious and the bath a luxury compared with how he had lived afterwards. Not that he had cared at the time where he lived when he had Lydia with him, loving him, relying on him. Those times could never come again, neither the worst of them, nor the best of them.

‘Now, tell what’s been happening to you,’ Leonid said, after they had finished an excellent meal cooked by Katya. ‘I assume you have been set free?’

‘Yes, pardoned after review.’

‘Good. I am not going to have the police knocking on my door in the middle of the night, then.’ It was said with a chuckle.

‘Don’t joke about it, Leo,’ his wife said.

‘You can never tell,’ Alex said. ‘I can’t quite believe I’m free and they won’t find some other charge they’d forgotten.’

‘You are safe here for the moment,’ Leo said, making himself serious again. ‘Tell me what your plans are.’

‘It is a long story and I’m sure you don’t want to hear it.’

‘Oh, but I do. I might be able to help. That’s why you looked me up, isn’t it?’

Alex smiled. ‘I suppose it is.’

‘Were you hoping to go back to England? I can’t help you do that.’

‘No. I wouldn’t allow you to risk it anyway. It’s something else.’

‘Fire away, then.’ He opened another bottle of wine and refilled their glasses. ‘You are not in a hurry, are you?’

‘No.’ He paused, wondering where to begin. ‘Nearly fifteen years ago, I made a promise to someone I love very dearly, a promise to search for someone.’

‘In Russia?’

‘Yes. Her father was Count Kirilov. She left Russia in 1920, the only survivor of her family. Her father, mother and brother were all killed during the Civil War. She was taken to England and adopted by Sir Edward Stoneleigh. All she had of her old life was a piece of jewellery sewn into her petticoat.’

‘Oh, the poor thing!’ Katya exclaimed. She was even rounder than her husband.

‘She was luckier than some. Sir Edward is a great man. She adores him.’ This didn’t seem real, this warm room, his stomach replete, his head a little fuzzy with excellent wine and this charming man, who seemed to be listening attentively. He took a deep breath and confided the whole story.

Leo got up suddenly and left the room. When he came back he was carrying a large book. He sat down beside Alex and opened it. It appeared to be about the tsar’s court. ‘Here,’ he said, turning it to show him a photograph. It depicted an autocratic lady in a long straight evening dress, dripping with jewels, including a tiara. Standing on one side of her was a young man, still in his teens, in a white uniform, and on the other the tsar and tsarina.

‘Good heavens,’ he said, reading the Russian inscription aloud. ‘The Tsar and Tsarina with the dowager Countess Irina Kirillova and Count Mikhail Mikhailovich Kirilov at the ball at the Winter Palace, St Petersburg, to celebrate the New Year 1900.’

Alex pointed to the young man. ‘That must be Lydia’s father and that her grandmother. And that’s the Kirilov Star.’

Leo turned the page. ‘There is a little more here about the tiara. According to legend the centre stone was cut from a huge diamond found on the banks of the Ob River by a peasant who was fishing and had no idea of its worth. He could not afterwards remember exactly where he found it. In that region, there are no easy landmarks. He took it to the village priest, who thought it might be worth money and made the long journey to Tobolsk where he sold it to a silversmith who in turn sold it to a travelling merchant. It eventually ended up in Novgorod where Count Kirilov owned an estate. It is not known how much he paid for it, but it would not mean anything in today’s money, considering we are talking about the eighteenth century. He had it made into a tiara for his wife.’

‘And Sir Edward had it made into a pendant for Lydia. Oh, how she would love to see this book.’

‘I’ll have the page copied for you.’

Alex thanked him, but at that moment the likelihood of him ever seeing Lydia again seemed remote. Yet his efforts to find Yuri were based on that assumption. ‘How did the book survive the Bolsheviks?’

‘Heaven knows. By all the rules it should have been burnt but I found it years ago in an old bookstore that was closing down and selling off the stock. I bought it because I collect old books that depict precious stones.’

‘The Star is famous, then?’

‘It was, in the days before the Revolution. Like so much of Russia’s history it was repressed by the Bolsheviks. Your Lydia is lucky to have it still. It is as well Yuri knew nothing about it. He would have found it difficult growing up with a background like that.’

‘Do you think there’s any chance of finding him?’

‘She cannot possibly expect you to keep such a promise,’ Katya said, referring to Lydia.

‘I don’t know what she expects, but I will not rest until I’ve done all I can, though I have no idea how to go about it. Any contacts I might have had have long gone.’

‘How old would the boy be?’ Leonid asked.

‘He was born in April 1939.’

‘He’ll soon be sixteen then. Is he smart enough to go to university, do you think?’

‘I have no idea. His mother certainly was. Why do you ask?’

‘I sometimes lecture on engineering at the university and some of the cleverer students manage to get there as young as that, though I must say it is rare, especially if he’s had no one to give him a helping hand.’

‘As far as I know there is only Olga and she wouldn’t have influence, unless she married well. That’s a possibility, of course,’ Alex said thoughtfully. ‘On the other hand she may not have survived the war, and if she did, may not have been able to trace Yuri.’

‘It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack,’ Leo said. ‘Isn’t that one of the English sayings you taught me?’

‘Yes, along with “fire away”.’ Alex laughed. ‘Fancy you remembering.’

‘I remember it all, my friend. You make a good teacher. Do you think that’s what you’ll do when you go home?’

‘I don’t know. I haven’t thought that far. If I cannot find Yuri I am not sure I’ll go home, not to England anyway. Getting out of Russia won’t be easy. I have a feeling I will embarrass the British Embassy if I turn up there.’

‘First things first, then.’ Leo spoke cheerfully to dispel the gloom that had come over Alex. ‘I’ll try the education authorities.’

‘But there are thousands of schools and hundreds of colleges and universities in Russia, we can’t ask them all.’

‘There’s always the Moscow Central Archive,’ Katya put in.

‘Good thinking.’ her husband said. ‘Olga’s death or remarriage might be recorded there.’

‘Or if she had a criminal record,’ Katya said. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me.’ Without ever having met Olga, she was prepared to dislike her.

‘Is that open to the public?’ Alex asked in surprise.

Leo smiled knowingly and tapped his nose. ‘There are ways if you know the right people and have deep enough pockets.’

‘Oh, I see.’

‘It’s the way business is done,’ he went on. ‘You, of all people, should know that the wheels of officialdom turn at the pace of a snail and the only way to speed them up and get the information you need is to take an envelope full of banknotes with you whenever you make any sort of application. It you don’t, someone else will and you lose the deal you’re going after. It is the same for everything, not just business.’

‘I do know that. I meant I have no money.’

‘That isn’t a problem, Alexei. I owe you.’

‘But you’ve already paid for my clothes.’

‘Pshaw! A flea bite.’

‘And you are prepared to do this for me?’

‘Would you do it for me if the shoe were on the other foot?’

‘Yes, I expect I would.’

‘There you are, then.’

‘But I’ve got to get out of Moscow tomorrow, if I’m not to be arrested.’

‘You could stay here, as long as you didn’t venture out,’ Katya offered doubtfully.

‘No, certainly not.’ Alex was adamant. ‘I am not putting either of you at risk.’

‘Have you anywhere to go?’ Leo asked.

‘Yes,’ he said suddenly thinking of Kirilhor. ‘Petrovsk, in Ukraine. Lydia’s family had a dacha there. There’s a man there, Ivan Ivanovich, he’ll take me in.’

‘That’s nice and close,’ Leonid said with heavy irony. ‘Don’t you know anywhere nearer than that?’

‘No. Not as safe. You can send me word if you discover anything, and I’ll come back, or meet you somewhere.’

‘And if I can’t?’

‘Then I’ll have to make up my mind what I’m going to do.’

He stayed with them that night at their insistence, and early next morning, Leo took him to the railway station and bought his ticket, before seeing him to his carriage and bidding him goodbye. Alex had given him the address of the telegraph office at Petrovsk railway station. ‘I’ll be in touch,’ he said, as the carriage doors were slammed and the guard blew the whistle. ‘Don’t despair.’

It was all very well to tell him not to despair, Alex thought, sinking back into his seat. How could he not? He was probably on a wild goose chase, and how could he be sure Lydia would want the information even if he found Yuri? But deep inside him he did know she would never give up on her son, dead or alive. And dead could be a possibility. So many lives were lost in the war, why should Yuri have survived? Was he simply using the search as a distraction because he was too cowardly to go home and face whatever had to be faced? The journey was a very long one and he had plenty of time to think about that question, to remember going in the opposite direction with a distraught Lydia. Oh, how he had loved her, still loved her! But he was not the man he had been then, young, strong, confident. He had aged beyond his years, his hair was grey and he limped. What had happened to Lydia? Would there be any grey in her hair?