Free The Eyes of Lira Kazan by Eva Joly Page A

got a few questions about Sergei Louchsky. You must have come across that name during your enquiries. He owns a uranium mine in your country.”
    â€œThe name means nothing to me.”
    â€œCould you at least tell me what you know of any contracts with the Russians. Half an hour would be enough.”
    â€œListen, I’ve only been here for a few weeks. It was a difficult journey, very stressful. My youngest child cried for two hours without stopping in the hold of a boat. The others were quiet but they were afraid too. Now we’ve got a nice house not far from here, the children are at school, I’ve got a job. I can’t destroy all that.”
    He was walking fast, and she ran beside him along the empty corridor. His stiff expression betrayed the fact that he hadn’t really given up at all. She carried on.
    â€œI repeat, I won’t quote you. I’ve come a long way. I heard a bit of what you were saying just now to your students.”

    He stopped and stared at her. She shouldn’t have admitted to eavesdropping.
    â€œWell then, you’ve had your half-hour. Goodbye, madam.”
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    She trailed slowly back to the station. The setback was mitigated by a message from Polina with the time of her arrival in London in a couple of days’ time. The promise of a bit of light-hearted fun, perhaps a shopping binge at Topshop, cheered her up. Polina was a child of her time, bubbly, sharp and restless. She didn’t read her mother’s articles – she might do so later, or perhaps not. For the moment she protected herself, avoiding dark areas. She could certainly guess at the seriousness of events around her; when she was little she used to overhear conversations on the other side of the partition – her parents shouting at one another, her father yelling that her mother was sacrificing her family to her work. And she probably agreed with him then. Now all she wanted was to be happy. Lira smiled when she thought about her. She had let her daughter grow up and go away without ever trying to stop her. They had argued as mothers and daughters do, but not about permission to go out – more about random remarks, a question, an over-insistent piece of motherly advice. One day Polina had cracked: “No one is ever up to scratch with you – it’s a drag, I’ve had enough.” After that Lira had understood that her desire to get everything right had made her daughter too fearful of getting anything wrong.
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    The half-empty train gradually filled up at each station. Passengers from the suburbs joined the train as it travelled past the graffiti-laden bridges, the lines of parked wagons, the hoardings: every inch of land was covered. The Thames became thicker and dirtier and soon they were in London, that blend of old and new, curves and cubes, with the big wheel in the distance that seemed to say “This is where we have fun”. Lira loved the city. She had loved it long before
ever coming here, thanks to the tapes passed around, hidden beneath coats, when she was fifteen. For her it was the home of the Clash, who had given a rhythm to the rage of youth. She had gazed at the graffiti of the time, in those days far more politically driven than now. She had studied albums, photos, the names of the studios; she had learnt the words by heart, pronouncing them perfectly. Listening to rock music and dressing in Western clothes from second-hand stalls had been her own form of resistance as she grew up. Her father would sigh at the sight of her in tight, worn-out black Levi’s, not because they represented the great capitalist Satan – he believed that even less than she did – but more because they were so distant from true elegance and high culture, the real thing. That music was just noise, he would say. Lira had spoken to him just before leaving for England and he hadn’t even asked her what she was going to do there. All he had done was