“My photograph has not been in the newspapers” she said “but you have read about the deranged girl so besotted with Grigori the sex murderer that she married him in prison? Through eyes brimming with tears she watched Dmitri go to the kitchen to pour himself a drink, drink a silent toast to her – of course, he knew that she was watching – and then return with more nettles. She squeezed his arm tighter. After a while, she found the courage to lift her head and look around. Alexandra smiled back, and shyly put out a hand to stroke his thick hair. Alexandra trembled deliciously. This time he stood facing her. He groaned. “Help me find the Yellow Sign” she begged from between his knees. “I may be your murderer,” he said, “why might I not be your rapist”? “But she simply vanished, After the ceremony there is no trace of her in the archives – they lost track of her”. Putting the handwritten note back into his pocket, Dmitri squared his shoulders and stepped out of the shadows into the pool of sodium lamp-light next to the decrepit, brick outbuilding.
