Free The Apothecary by Maile Meloy Page A

Garden,” I said. “From the gardener.”
    He turned to Benjamin, who still had the towel over his face. “This is true?”
    “No!” Benjamin said, his voice muffled. “I don’t know what she’s talking about! She doesn’t know what she’s talking about!”
    “It’s true,” I said. “On Sunday, you passed a message to Benjamin’s father. Then those men came for him. Who are they?”
    Mr Shiskin stared at me. His face turned an ashen grey as the blood drained from it. Then he switched on a radio on the kitchen counter and turned up the volume. “Stupid children!” he hissed, under the sound of cheery dance music. “You think no one is listening?”
    I knew about houses being bugged, but it hadn’t occurred to me that this one might be. Shiskin was right: We were stupid children. How had I thought we were equipped to conduct an interrogation?
    Under cover of the music, Shiskin whispered, “This is where I have seen you—in the park. Is Marcus Burrows your father? Take down this ridiculous towel.”
    Benjamin lowered the towel. “He is.”
    “Who else knows you have connected him to me?”
    “Only the gardener.”
    “Did you see your father taken?”
    “We were hiding in the cellar. We heard German voices.”
    “Did you see a man with a scar?”
    “ We’re supposed to ask the questions here!” Benjamin said.
    “You have no idea the danger you are in!” Shiskin whispered hoarsely.
    “The man with the scar was there,” I said. “Who is he?”
    “He is a member of the Stasi,” Mr Shiskin said. “The East German secret police. But he is working under the command of Soviet security, the MGB. They must have discovered the apothecary.” He slumped into a chair and put his head in his hands. His eye fell on the dented samovar on the floor.
    “You know what other thing ‘samovar’ means, in Russia?” he asked. “It is a word for the soldiers who lost their arms and their legs in the war, from shells and exploding mines. Because they look like teapot with no arms and legs, you see? The Soviets sent them to Siberia so people would not see them and know how terrible is the war. My brother was one of these, until he died there. They took his body and then they punished him for it. Losing my own leg, I could accept. But I could not forgive what they did to my brother, a war hero. When he died, I decided to help your father.”
    There was a silence while we absorbed the horror of this confession. The dance music jangled along.
    “Help my father with what ?” Benjamin finally asked. “Why did the Soviets want him?”
    Mr Shiskin fought the urge to answer; I could see the muscles in his neck distend. There was a loud trumpet solo on the radio. “There are two other scientists working with your father,” he said. “They have come to London to take part in his plan.”
    “Is Jin Lo one of them?”
    Mr Shiskin was purple with the effort not to speak. “Please stop asking questions. I don’t wish to compromise your father. If he and Jin Lo have been captured, I am in grave danger from both the British and the Soviets. So is your gardener. And so are you. I beg you to stay away from my son.”
    “But Papa, they can’t!” Sergei said. “We’re on the science team together!”
    “There is no science team!” Mr Shiskin barked. “They lie to you!”
    Sergei cowered for a moment, then said meekly, “Then they could join chess club instead.”
    “Mr Shiskin, I need to find my father,” Benjamin said. “Tell us how to do that, or we don’t leave Sergei’s side. It’ll be science team practice all day long. And we’ll join chess club.”
    Shiskin hesitated, but the combination of truth serum and blackmail must have been too much for him. “I don’t know where he is,” he said. “We are to meet in two days, at the Port of London. If your father is not there, we will be finished.”
    “Finished how ? And what’s the plan?”
    Shiskin shook his head, reached into his pocket and produced a