Kate Furnivall - The Russian Concubine

She switched her gaze back to the master and abruptly the cogs inside her brain turned faster. She recognised him. From the Chinese funeral Chang had taken her to. He was the one in white prostrating himself behind the coffin. Yuesheng’s brother, Feng Tu Hong’s son. It was Po Chu himself. She spat at him, the man who tortured Chang An Lo. He hit her hard and growled something. ‘Ni ei xi xue hui vhun.’

‘You learn respect,’ the boy translated.

‘Release me,’ she hissed, tasting blood inside her cheek.

‘You answer questions.’

‘I am the daughter of an important British newspaper tycoon. Release me immediately or the British Army will come with their rifles to…’

‘Bao chi!’

‘Silence,’ the boy echoed.

The man’s hand seized a hank of her hair and twisted her head back. He shouted in her face, his breath sour with alcohol, and his dark gaze roamed over her breasts and throat, down to her thighs and… She shut her eyes to block him out.

That was when he released her hair, reached down, and yanked out a piece of her pubic hair. The pain was sharp but brief and she didn’t cry out. He held up the copper curl as a trophy for all to see, and the men around the walls cheered. Instead she thought of how Chang An Lo had twirled those same hairs around his good fingers and called them her fox flames. But what disturbed her more was the glimpse she got of her forearm when she struggled to free her hands. The skin was covered in bite marks. They were the marks of her own teeth where in the dark inside Box she’d been gnawing at a limb. Like a fox in a trap. That frightened her.

She made herself stand straight. ‘Sir Edward Carlisle will skin you all alive for this.’

The boy translated. Po Chu laughed. ‘Zai na? Where Chang An Lo?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Yes. You know. You say.’

‘No. I don’t know. He ran away when the Kuomintang troops came.’

‘You lie.’

‘No. Bu.’

‘Yes.’

Each time the words came from Po Chu, with the boy echoing softly in English.

‘Tell truth.’

This time the question came with a slap.

‘Tell truth.’ Another slap. ‘Tell truth.’ Slap. Slap. Slap. Again. Again. She lost count.

Her lip split. The space inside her head turned red. Her ears hummed.

Slap. Slap.

Harder. A knife point nicked the corner of her left eyelid and started to slide along the bottom of her eye as if to pop it out.

‘He’s dead.’ She screamed it.

The knife froze. The slaps ceased. She breathed. Small panicky gasps.

‘When dead?’ Po Chu demanded. In English. But she barely noticed. Her mind was struggling.

‘How dead?’ He ran the knife blade in a circle around one breast, and she felt the sting and the trickle of blood.

‘From sickness.’

‘Shen meshi hou? When?’

‘On Saturday. I took him to the docks. Nursed him… In an old shack… he died.’ Tears started to pour down her cheeks. It wasn’t hard.

The boy translated, but it was the tears that seemed to convince Po Chu. He stepped back with a shrewd smile, flicked the knife spinning up into the air, and as it fell caught its ivory handle with an easy sweep of his fist. He stared at her.

‘Guo lai.’

‘Come,’ the boy said.

Po Chu seized the rope attached to her neck and dragged her across the room toward a screen that closed off one corner. Her eyes fixed on its panels inlaid with lapis and coral, ivory and mother-of-pearl, and she burned them into her memory. If this bastard was going to blind her, she had to make her last moment of sight go a long way.

‘See, gi nu.’ Po Chu thrust the screen aside.

She saw. And wished she’d drowned inside Box.

On a table, neatly laid out like precision instruments of surgery in an operating theatre, were two rows of tools. Heavy tongs and blades, some serrated and some with needle-sharp points, and beside them lay small blunt hammers, chains and leather collars and cuffs. Her eye was drawn to a piece of iron with a long narrow shovel end and stout wooden handle. Not in her wildest dreams could she begin to guess its purpose.

Her inner organs turned to liquid. Nothing worked anymore. Her breathing stopped. She felt warm fluid dribble down the backs of her thighs and she knew her body was trying to flush out the fear. She felt no shame. She’d left that behind long ago.

‘See, gi nu,’ Po Chu repeated. ‘Putrid whore. See.’

Her ears still worked. They heard the anticipation in his voice.

‘Tell truth.’

She nodded.

‘Where Chang An Lo?’

‘Dead.’

He picked up a pair of heavy iron-teethed tweezers, casually weighed them in his hand, lowered his thick black eyebrows in a frown of concentration, and clamped the metal teeth round her nipple. He squeezed.

She screamed.

Blood, bright red like paint. A burning pain in her breast. She screamed her anger and her hatred at him, bellowed it in his face, and would have hurled herself at him and bitten his eyes out if the rope around her neck had not been pulled tight from behind.

‘Good.’ Po Chu smiled coldly, a spatter of her blood on his chin. ‘Now tell truth.’

They handled him roughly. Grey uniforms all over him like dung flies. A blow to the ribs, a boot in the groin, but Chang An Lo did not retaliate. Only when they thudded a rifle butt down on his damaged hand did he spit, but that was all. The headquarters was in a new concrete blockhouse on the edge of old Junchow, tucked into the shadow of the great stone walls, its entrance guarded by two fresh-faced young Chinese officers eager to impress their superiors. When Chang suddenly appeared before them out of the morning mist, their eyes widened in surprise. They stamped their boots and raised their rifles, expecting trouble, but when none came they led him quickly into their captain’s office.

‘You are the Communist dog we have been hunting,’ the Kuomintang officer said with relish. ‘I am Captain Wah.’

He removed his cap, tossed it to one side, and rummaged through the chaotic piles of paper on his desk. After a moment’s confusion, he pounced on a sheet that he held up at arm’s length to inspect. It was an indistinct portrait of Chang’s face, skilfully sketched, obviously sent out to all Chinese troop centres and police stations. Chang wondered bitterly which of his friends had obliged and for how much.

Captain Wah stared at Chang with cool, sad eyes and lit himself a thin cigar. ‘You will be interrogated first, gutter rat, and then a magistrate will order your execution. All you Communists are cowards who slither on your bellies, like worms under our feet. Your execution is certain, so do not add to the pain of China by worthless loyalty to a cause that is doomed. By great Buddha, we shall rid our country of you vermin.’

Even with wrists handcuffed and the fever in his blood, Chang knew he could kick this man’s teeth down his throat before the soldier at the door could draw his gun. It was tempting. But what good would he be to Lydia with a bullet in his brain?

‘Honourable Captain,’ he said with a humble bow, ‘I have information to give, as you so wisely suspect, but I will give it only to one man.’

Captain Wah’s mouth narrowed with annoyance. ‘You would be wise to give it to me,’ he said in a sharp tone. He rose to his feet, tall and rangy in his dusty grey uniform, and leaned forward threateningly over his desk. ‘Do as I order, or you will die slowly.’

‘One man,’ Chang said quietly. ‘The Russian. The one whose words the Kuomintang listen to.’

A change came over the officer. His cheeks sucked in, he rubbed a hand across his pockmarked chin, and his eyes grew more thoughtful. He bit the end off his cigar and spat it at the floor.

‘I think,’ he said, ‘I will execute you right now.’

‘If you do, I promise you the Russian will have you whipped to the bone,’ Chang murmured with a bow.

Theo stepped inside the Rolls-Royce as it purred to a halt at the kerb, and he inhaled the rich odour of leather and money.

‘Good day to you, Feng Tu Hong.’

‘You asked for my time, Willbee. I am here. I am listening.’

Theo slid onto the comfort of the maroon rear seat beside Feng and studied his enemy. Feng was wrapped in a long grey coat with a wide silver fur collar and pale grey kid gloves, but even in all his finery he still had the look of a buffalo ready to charge. Theo smiled.

‘You are looking well, Feng.’

‘Well, but not well pleased.’

‘I appreciate your sparing a few moments from your busy day.’

‘Every day is busy for a man like myself who has so many matters to attend to and no son at his right hand.’

Theo stared through the glass partition at the back of the chauffeur’s head. Outside a few flakes of snow swirled in the wind. Feng had given him the opening but he had to tread with care.

‘It grieves me to hear that Po Chu is no longer one of your household. A father’s heart must hang heavy when his only son departs with harsh words.’

‘Daughter or son. A father’s heart bleeds.’

‘It is about Po Chu I came to speak.’

‘He is a worthless beetle fit only for the sewers.’

‘I fear he will soon be in prison rather than in the sewers.’

Feng sank his neck deeper into the fur collar and glared at Theo. ‘You lie.’

‘No, Feng Tu Hong, I speak the truth. Your son has kidnapped a fanqui girl. She is the daughter of a British journalist who will bring the might of the British Army down on Chinese heads in Junchow if the girl is not released immediately.’

Feng’s huge hand gripped the ivory cane he carried across his lap. Theo knew from Li Mei that it was a swordstick, though he had never seen the thin blade himself. Nor did he care to. Feng breathed heavily but said nothing.

‘Such antipathy,’ Theo continued, ‘between our people would be bad for your… business.’

Feng snorted. ‘What is it you want, Willbee?’

‘I want to know where Po Chu is hiding her.’

‘Hah, you take my daughter and now you would take my son. Be careful, Englishman, that I do not take your head.’

‘No, Feng. It is the girl I want, not your son. If I can retrieve her quickly, Po Chu will not be harmed. I came to warn you of the danger he is in.’

Feng turned his sombre face away and stared unseeing out of the side window. On the pavement opposite, an acrobat was balancing on stilts while a stick-thin monkey in a scarlet jacket was holding out a cup for money. The chauffeur tossed in a coin.

‘My son disobeyed me, Willbee. The way his brother, Yuesheng, did before him, and my daughter before that. He is banished from my house but… it grieves me, Willbee, because I can father no more sons however young and luscious the maidens I pleasure. My stalk is still willing but the seeds are shrivelled and dry though I eat tiger meat. I grow old.’ He ran a hand over his sleek hair, touching the greying temples with distaste. ‘I need my son.’

‘The British courts will hang him.’

Feng swung back to confront Theo and his eyes were dull with despair. ‘I want him alive, worthless as he is.’

‘There is a chance for him still if I can find her quickly before the authorities get involved.’

Feng leaned close to Theo, and Theo had to work hard to keep his own anger off his face. He did not choose to forget that this was the man who had put Li Mei through so much pain and caused Theo’s own problems with Mason.

‘Very well, Willbee. I trust you because I have no other choice. Po Chu is far too cautious to let any of my people come near, but you are different. Maybe you can speak with him because he will see you as no threat.’ He heaved a deep sigh that shuddered through the bunched muscles of his body. ‘My secret eyes tell me he and his followers are hiding in a farmhouse. Out near the Seven Woods to the east of town.’ His black gaze fixed on Theo. ‘Save him, teacher-man. For me. For his father.’

Theo nodded. ‘When this is over, if Po Chu lives, I will name my price.’ He climbed out of the car.

‘Alfred.’

‘Thank the Lord you’ve come, Theo.’ Alfred’s normally neat exterior was rumpled, his jacket creased and dark circles forming behind his spectacles. ‘Any luck?’

‘I have news.’

‘You’ve found her?’

‘Not yet.’ Theo shook his head and accepted the whisky Alfred held out to him. ‘How’s her mother?’

‘Beside herself with fury. Dear God, I can’t bear to see her in such agony. The police are worse than useless, they’re so slow.’

‘You shouldn’t have involved them yet.’

‘Sorry, old man, but I had to. But look, I didn’t mention that Lydia’s Chinese friend was a Communist fugitive, so you should be safe from any charges. Quickly now, what’s this news you have?’