Cleo had been worried; she could see the exhaustion in Katerina and the tremor in her hands, but didn’t dare push further for fear of having her head snapped off.
Now, as she approached, she saw Katerina reach too far forward and try to lift a chunk of rock. There was a sudden cry, a sharp thud, then silence.
‘Katerina!’
Cleo raced towards her as fast as she could and knelt beside her while she checked her pulse. Her breath was coming in shallow, rasping gasps. Her head had struck stone and a thin trickle of blood darkened her temple.
‘Help!’ Cleo called, but no one could hear over the noise of the building work.
Momentary panic flared in her chest until she reminded herself of her training. She could do this. Removing the sweatshirt tied round her waist, she quickly placed it over Katerina’s body, like a blanket, before checking her airways were clear.
Then she applied gentle pressure round the head wound to stop the bleeding while she looked round desperately again for assistance.
She knew only too well that serious head injuries required urgent medical assessment, preferably in hospital.
Katerina groaned. She was still just about conscious, then. While Cleo whispered soothing words, she noticed a very thin, frail, stooping figure with a stick walking towards them as fast as his trembling legs would allow.
Konstantin.
For a moment, Cleo hesitated. Of all the people who could help, he was the last one Katerina would have chosen. As Marina had explained in no uncertain terms, she despised him. She carried the wound of what his father had done like a scar, carved deep into her heart.
Yet now, seeing him approach, fragile yet determined, Marina’s strange words came back to Cleo and she thought she understood something. Perhaps this was the moment neither of the old people had ever expected but both needed.
She rose and stepped aside.
‘Konstantin,’ she said softly to the old man. ‘She’s hurt. Please help her while I go for assistance.’
He knelt with surprising steadiness for someone in their nineties, lowering himself beside Katerina. His gnarled, veiny hands trembled as he brushed away the blood from her temple with the corner of his sleeve.
‘Katerina, it’s me,’ he murmured. ‘Hold on, my dear. You’ve had a tumble but you’re going to be all right.’
Her eyelids fluttered open and confusion clouded her gaze. Then she realised who it was.
‘You,’ she whispered, in a voice full of old pain. ‘Why are you here?’
‘Because you fell,’ he said simply. ‘Because you need someone.’
Oddly, they spoke in English. It was almost if they wanted Cleo to understand and bear witness, she thought. She felt strange and ill at ease, caught up in a situation she didn’t fully comprehend but that she knew was important.
Her nurse’s training was telling her to fetch help immediately but something was holding her back and she couldn’t move; she was glued to the spot.
‘I need nothing from you or your family,’ Katerina said now, trying to push Konstantin away, but her arm fell weakly to her side.
He winced, not at the movement but at her words.
‘I know what you think of me, what you’ve always thought. Perhaps I deserve your anger. But I swear to you, Katerina, my father never meant for your father to die. He thought… he thought if he told them what he already knew, they might spare the rest of us. He was a fool, a coward, perhaps, but not a traitor.’
Her breath caught in her throat. ‘That’s what cowards always say.’
Cleo stood back, silent, her heart thudding. Once again, she told herself she should run for help, but she was frozen to the spot.
Just then, Ingrid appeared behind her, her face sweaty and smeared with dirt.
‘Find a doctor and get an air ambulance – quick,’ Cleo barked.
Ingrid took one look at Katerina, nodded wordlessly – and ran.
Cleo returned to Katerina and Konstantin, who seemed barely to have registered Ingrid, so wrapped up were they in each other’s presence.
