‘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?


He arrived in Kiev late at night. Even so the air was several degrees warmer than in Moscow. After living in the Arctic Circle for so long, it hit him like a warm bath. Picking up his case, provided by Leo to contain his new clothes, he made his way to a cheap hotel. Leo had given him money, more than he deserved, but he wasn’t sure how long he would have to make it last and so was careful with it. Next morning he continued his journey and by evening found himself once more looking down the Petrovsk main street. The view had not changed, except for being more run-down than ever. He booked into the dilapidated hotel, ate a lonely meal and went to bed early. He tired easily these days and the journey had taken it out of him, which was surprising since it was nothing like as long as the journey from the gulag to Moscow, but put the two together, one after the other, and he seemed to have been travelling half his life. In a way, he supposed he had, and he wasn’t at the end yet.

The next morning he set off on foot for the woodman’s hut, telling himself the man had been getting on in 1939 and people died young if they never had enough to eat and not to be surprised if he had gone. But Ivan was there, chopping wood as if he had been doing it non-stop ever since Alex had last seen him. His white hair had thinned to almost nothing and his beard, left untrimmed, came well down on his chest. His cheeks had fallen in and his bony hands were covered in dark-red veins. He wore an old leather jerkin, a fur hat with ear flaps and long felt boots. He put down his axe and stared at the newcomer. ‘Major Alexei Simenov,’ he said, sinking onto a tree stump, shaking his white head in disbelief. ‘Surely not?’

Alex laughed. ‘So you remember me?’

‘I remember you. Did you find my little Lidushka?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is she well? What are you doing back here?’

‘I found her and I’m here because we never found the baby.’

‘Ahhh.’ It was a long drawn-out sigh. ‘You had better come in.’ He indicated the door of the hovel. ‘I’ll make tea.’

Alex preceded him into the only room. The thatch on the roof was wearing thin and he could see the sky through one spot. ‘You sound as if you know something. Do you know where he is?’

‘He’s at Kirilhor. They came back here in 1947.’

‘My God! I never thought to find him here.’ And then another thought struck him, making his heart race. ‘They? Surely not Lydia?’

‘No, I never saw her again.’ He busied himself over the stove. ‘I mean Olga Denisovna. She brought the boy up.’

‘She’s here too?’

‘Yes, though not quite right in the head, if you understand me – violent sometimes, though not with Yuri, never with Yuri. But, excuse me – if you did not expect to find the boy here, why have you come?’

For the second time in three days Alex found himself telling the story, while they sipped tea from cracked glasses and he ate a little bread dipped in salt. At the end of the tale, the old man grunted. ‘You should have stayed away. You won’t be welcome and Olga Denisovna has wits enough to denounce you.’

‘I’ve served my time and been given a pardon, she has no grounds for denouncing me.’

‘No?’ The old man gave another of his grunts. ‘What about attempting to lure a Soviet citizen out of the country to be indoctrinated by the West?’

‘I never said I intended to do that.’

‘She will make it sound as though you did.’

Alex sipped tea. There was a lot of sugar in it. ‘What about the boy?’