“My life is not my own.”
“There must be—”
“An escape?” She stared at him. “Don’t you think I have tried?”
“Dreams are what keep us alive.”
“When I was a girl,” she said, “my father took me to the circus. There was a hall of mirrors.”
“Yes.”
“There are no dreams here. Only illusions.”
“Then we can go somewhere else.”
“Where?” Her eyes narrowed. “Where do I belong now? Nowhere, and nowhere more than here. I have no passport, no money.”
“I can help.”
“No one can help.”
Field stared at her. His heart was thumping again.
“No one can help me. There is nowhere we can go. But I will do what you ask. I will try to help you.”
“Natasha . . .”
“Please. You may contact me by letter to tell me what you wish me to do. I will telephone when I am summoned to his house, but please do not come to the apartment again.”
“What about last night?”
“Richard . . .” Her eyes pleaded with him. “Last night was . . . it was not just for you.”
Natasha glanced across the road and suddenly stood. Field followed the direction of her gaze. Sergei was outside his apartment on the far side of the street, staring at them.
“Wait.”
“No.”
She walked away.
Field stood, then sat back down as she hurried past the window.
He lit another cigarette and smoked it. Sergei had gone.
Field left some money on the table and walked across the road. He climbed Sergei’s gloomy stairwell. At the top he knocked and waited.
Sergei opened the door a few inches. He was in a long white nightgown.
“Just getting in from work, Sergei?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve been talking to yet another of your compatriots who has told me nothing, but if you speak to Lu, Sergei, you can tell him I’ll get to one of you in the end.”
“I have nothing to do with Lu.”
“I’m pleased to hear it.”
Sergei shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “You looked very . . . close.”
Field stepped forward. “Want to see how close I can get?”
Sergei tried to shut the door, but Field pushed it open and barged his way in, forcing the Russian back to the center of the room. “You’re frightened of Lu, like the Medvedev woman and the rest of them.”
Sergei’s head drooped. “I’ve been working all night.”
Field looked at him, relieved. He did not think Sergei had seen anything that could have compromised them.
Thirty-one
Field walked into the station slowly and stood in the center of the lobby on the ground floor. He looked about him, as if taking in his surroundings for the first time.
A dial above the lift swung to indicate it was descending. He glanced up at the clock. It was half past seven.
Field stepped forward and surveyed the curved dome of the ceiling with its gables and ornate stonework. This was a grand building, but it felt gloomy and neglected, designed for a greater purpose than it had achieved.
Field hesitated before hitting the button for his own office on the fourth floor.
The room was empty, the frosted glass grudgingly letting in the daylight. Field walked to his desk, his footsteps noisy on the parquet floor. Yang had left two notes:
