The Troika Dolls

by Miranda Darling

  Something in Stevie’s eyes must have changed the fawn’s mind. She shrugged. ‘She won the competition one week. I don’t even know her name. But I was at the club that night.’

  Stevie relaxed her grip. ‘Who owns the club?’

  The girl was getting impatient with Stevie’s questions. ‘Look, lady, I don’t know why you want to know all this. There’s nothing to tell. It’s simple. We want to find rich boyfriends and you have to go to parties like this to find them. The men buy us expensive presents, we dance for them, sometimes we sleep with them—it’s better than stripping in the clubs. Does it matter where we are, or who the men are? They’re all the same. They want sex and we want money.’

  The girl eyed Stevie defiantly. She would have been all of eighteen.

  ‘And the other girls?’ pressed Stevie. ‘Do they feel the same way?’

  ‘We look out for each other a bit: word gets around who’s bad news, who the traffickers are . . .’ The girl exhaled a plume of smoke from the side of her mouth. ‘Some girls don’t even care about that they want to get out so bad.’

  ‘What do you mean “traffickers”?’ Stevie said quickly. ‘People traffickers?’

  The girl stopped fidgeting and suddenly looked frightened. Had she said too much?

  Stevie watched her face closely and decided to take a gamble: ‘Dragoman?’

  The girl shook her head and squeezed her lips tight. Stevie wouldn’t get another word.

  Out they popped from the butler’s pantry. Stevie led the now-quiet girl over to Douglas and Arik, introducing her as Olga Brolga because she realised she didn’t know the fawn’s name.

  Douglas smiled politely, his eyes primly on her face, not her chest. He had, after all, cast himself as a family man and he took his role seriously. Arik, however, was quite taken with Olga Brolga.

  ‘Olga is an actress and a friend,’ Stevie beamed. ‘She’s been very helpful to me so be good to her. She’s not a toy.’ Then she left a very happy Olga to the grins of Arik Joel.

  Dragoman. Stevie rolled the name around in her mind as she soaked in a hot bath. Her best thinking was usually done in the bath and, in any case, she was frozen to the bone. The right track was always clear and simple when you came across it. She hunted for it now.

  Kozkov had made the existence of his secret list known. This made him too dangerous to keep alive, for the siloviki. Stevie doubted Dragoman would have as much to fear by being linked to Kremlin power players as they to him.

  The order to assassinate him would have needed approval from the top. Kozkov was too important to be annihilated without it, something they had avoided doing up until now.

  The siloviki must have assumed that Kozkov had shared that valuable information with Stevie, and now the shadows had come after her. What was another body to them? Better to be safe than sorry. The only reason they hadn’t just shot her dead was because they were in Switzerland, not Russia, and a point-blank assassination in this peaceful country would cause a massive stir.

  A thought occurred: had Kirril given her away? It was a possibility. She would probably never know. It didn’t really matter. What did was that the assassins would certainly try again.

  Stevie would not be safe until the siloviki decided she no longer mattered, or until they simply forgot about her. Trouble was, they had long memories and a wide reach. The mysterious deaths of prominent Russian émigrés who criticised various prominent politicians were evidence of that, no matter what the official line was.

  But you couldn’t just go charging up against the red walls. Kozkov must have been on the right track or the siloviki—it had to have been them—wouldn’t have suddenly had him killed after all this time.

  Cui bono? she asked herself. Who benefits from his murder? Not Dragoman. If he had wanted Kozkov dead, he wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of holding Kozkov’s daughter hostage.

  Stevie needed to find Anya. She was hoping that Dragoman would want to keep Kozkov’s daughter close, savour the satisfaction of his revenge. Holding Anya hostage was more than business to him: it was pleasure. And he would want to feel that every day.

  Stevie also needed to get the wolves off her tail, but the trouble was, she didn’t know who the wolves were. And if she found them . . . well, she didn’t think she was the sort of girl who could kill a man.

  She slid her head under the warm water and listened to the blood rushing in her ears. Then it came to her:

  Set a thief to catch a thief.

  It was the only way.

  She couldn’t unveil the identity of the siloviki. It would be close to impossible without seeing the list—wherever it was. Hunting for it would take more time and resources than she had, and it wouldn’t help get Anya back. But Felix Dragoman would have to know who the siloviki were. He would no doubt already be annoyed that they had killed Kozkov under his nose and possibly already suspicious of their motives. If he thought his friends in the Kremlin had turned on him, he would go after them himself. Stevie would never have to show her hand.

  She lathered her hair with chamomile shampoo. Didi used to wash her hair with it when she was a child and Stevie still used it. How bad could things be when the world still smelled of chamomile?

  Once Dragoman started hunting them down, the siloviki would be certain to retaliate in kind. There was a good chance they would kill each other . . .

  It wasn’t the most sophisticated of plans, it was vague, it was uncertain, but it could just work. With everyone at each other’s throats, hopefully she and Anya would become the least of either side’s concerns.

  Stevie was, however, due on the helicopter out that afternoon. What could she do in a day? And if she refused to leave, would she be brave enough to carry out a plan on her own? To risk losing her job—losing David Rice? She decided to find out what she could in the meantime and let fate decide.

  Stevie rang London and asked for Josie Wang in Confidential Investigations.

  ‘What is it now, Stevie?’ Her voice, as ever, was sharp and impatient.

  Stevie worked closely with Josephine because of the woman’s uncanny recall of the predilections and peccadillos of the continent’s most notorious faces, from politicians to arms dealers to B-grade pop stars. Her ‘greenhouse of human nature’ she called it, collecting new specimens like orchids or ferns.

  It had been Josie’s recall of the Romanian crime boss and his harridan wife’s obsession with Swarovski crystals that had rung alarm bells for Stevie when Mr and Mrs Boldo Balan and the Swarovski heiress had been holidaying in the same resort.

  ‘We are drawn to what we know.’ Josie’s theory was that even crime bosses are unconsciously influenced in their choices by distant associations . . . it had all seemed easier then.

  Stevie hoped Josie hadn’t been instructed to report back to Rice if Stevie called.

  ‘Josie, I need to find a man named Felix Dragoman.’

  ‘I know the name.’

  ‘What do you know about him?’ Stevie asked cautiously. ‘As a person I mean, not operations.’

  ‘Off the top of my head,’ Josie began, ‘I can tell you he is as hard as they come. He did some years in a Soviet prison camp—you can imagine what that does to someone and what kind of person can survive it.’

  Stevie nodded to herself. Dragoman would be a completely brutalised human being. Of that there was no doubt. ‘Go on,’ Stevie urged.

  ‘The man is a trader,’ continued Josie. ‘He doesn’t discriminate towards what it is he buys and sells, nor to whom. The CIA and MI5 keep tabs as best they can lest he start offloading nuclear material to the Iranians or terrorist groups. Neither of which he would have a moment’s scruple doing.’

  ‘Any foibles, weaknesses, obsessions?’ The more Stevie knew about him, the more she could work on his suspicion.

  ‘His health, mainly,’ Josie replied. ‘And his appearance in general. Mr Dragoman has acquired a taste for the things that money can buy, including an impeccable designer wardrobe and a fresh new
complexion. He had his face lasered and all his prison tattoos removed at the same time.

  ‘His big weakness is his vanity. He prides himself on his appearance above anything else and spends half the year and much of his fortune maintaining his face and body, remodelling, trying the latest surgical procedures from the States, monkey hormones from South America, you name it, he’s tried it.’

  Stevie marvelled for the millionth time at Josie Wang’s extraordinary power of recall. The woman was a phenomenon. ‘What about women?’ she asked.

  ‘Only as decoration. I don’t think he’s interested, women or men. People mean nothing to him. He seems to have formed no attachment of affection that any source can recall.’

  ‘No pets then?’ Stevie ventured lightly.

  ‘No. He’s a total germophobe—’

  ‘—just like Nicolai Ceaucescu and his terrifying wife.’ Stevie remembered seeing photographs of the murderous couple’s terrifying purple bathroom, with its myriad sinks and bidets and baths.

  ‘Only he does have real health issues,’ Josie went on crisply. ‘He has someone researching his health full time. Mr Dragoman inhaled radioactive dust after all. I’ve seen the military medical records—they’re stamped UNFIT. Apparently he’s grown a fleshy lump in his lung that shows up on X-rays whenever they check for tuberculosis. It’s apparently benign—only a deformity.’

  ‘I guess he’s luckier than some that he can wear his disfigurement on the inside, but it must feel odd to know it was there.’ Stevie was trying to imagine what the lump would look like.

  ‘The records say he suffers from sleepless nights, and sometimes he can feel it throbbing on the left side, under his heart.’

  Then the image came strongly to Stevie, the man in his bed, the heavy swelling in his chest, pounding, like a second and corrupted heart.

  Josie’s voice broke into her thoughts. ‘Look, you could speculate that he has a classic case of “messiah complex”—the deformity makes him feel like a monster or a freak, but it also makes him feel different, special, somehow singled out. Look at what it did to Asahara.’

  Shoko Asahara, leader of the Aum Shinrikyo cult in Japan. Bioterrorist. He was born partially sighted and sent to a school for the blind. There he had been special, singled out, different because he could see where the others could not. Several failed bioterror attacks culminated in a sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway that, fortunately for the intended victims, went wrong.

  Josie was right—it could explain a lot.

  ‘I’ve got to run, Stevie.’

  ‘Thanks, Josie. I owe you.’

  ‘You certainly do and I won’t forget.’

  ‘One more thing, Josie.’ Stevie hesitated. ‘Where can I find him?’

  ‘Impossible. Everyone’s looking for him.’

  ‘But surely,’ Stevie persisted, her voice warm, ‘the big agencies might miss the detail that a fine mind like yours . . .’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know . . . fawn and flatter.’ Josie huffed impatiently.

  ‘I’ll get onto it. See if I can trace him. It’ll have to be from a different approach. I could try tracking down his health researcher for a start.’

  ‘And if he’s as vain as you say,’ Stevie added, ‘he will be getting beauty treatments, maybe plastic surgery, procedures of all kinds. Try the spas, the private hospitals . . . Start with Switzerland. It’s a national industry here. I have a friend who might be able to get the names of a few likely clinics.’

  Stevie was thinking of Paul and his beautifully manicured hands. He was sure to know. ‘If Dragoman is in the wilds of Chechnya or in the middle of the Caspian, it’s useless,’ she conceded. ‘But he’s got to surface at some point. Good manicures are hard to get in Baku—believe me, I tried once.’

  ‘I’ll give that angle a try, but Stevie, you’re not going to go and find him if I do know where he is, are you?’

  ‘Why would I do that?’

  Silence on the other end as Josie tried to decide what exactly St–evie meant by that.

  13

  Anya had tried hard to keep track of time since she had been kidnapped, but it always seemed to be night outside and she had given up soon after the phone call to her father.

  Where was she now?

  It was a bedroom in a tall house, an old house. The bedroom was small and, through the tiny barred window, she could see she was three storeys up, looking over a neglected winter garden, all frozen mud and dead leaves and faded wooden fence posts. It could have been the countryside, it could have been a derelict suburb anywhere. Thanks to Dasha and Ludmilla, Anya knew she was on the outskirts of Bucharest, Romania.

  The two girls had been in the room when Anya woke up. For a second, she had felt relief—no blindfold, a proper bed, two pretty girls in jeans . . . perhaps she had been rescued in her sleep.

  But in the next second she realised that happy girls don’t huddle over their knees and ooze black trickles of mascara from their eyes. It was very cold in the room and neither had taken their jackets off.

  The door was locked. There were two single beds and a plastic chair; behind a paper-thin door there was a tiny toilet and basin. A hole had been kicked in the bottom of the door and the door handle was broken. Two shabby flannels hung stiffly on a rail.

  The girl in the bright pink jacket spoke. ‘We can’t even throw ourselves out of the window—it’s barred.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Anya whispered.

  She turned to Anya as if seeing her for the first time. ‘You would rather live as a prisoner? A prostitute? At the mercy of terrible men? I would rather die. But now we don’t even have the freedom to choose that. Our lives are no longer our own.’

  ‘Shut up, Ludmilla. Don’t say these things.’ The girl in the yellow jacket spoke, looking pointedly at Anya. ‘While we are alive there is hope.’ Then she said, ‘My name is Dasha. This is Ludmilla. We are from Belarus.’ She did not smile but she had a kind face.

  The girls wore makeup and heels and Anya thought they looked quite grown up. But why had Ludmilla mentioned prostitutes? They didn’t look like prostitutes. They would have been about nineteen.

  ‘My name is Anya Kozkov and I am from Moscow.’

  The door rattled, a key in the lock. All three girls shrank back from it as if from fire. An old woman appeared with a tray, behind her the shadow of a large man in boots. She put the tray down on the floor and the door was quickly closed, locked again.

  There were three cups of tea, some slices of black bread curling dry at the edges, a jar of pickles, and something that might have been cheese. The girls drank the tea while it was still warm and began to tell their story.

  Ludmilla and Dasha were school friends. They had answered an ad on a flyer taped to a lamp post: A Better Future Is Waiting! Needed: girls to work in Turkey as nannies for wealthy families.

  Dasha and Ludmilla answered the ad. They were ambitious for a better life and longing to travel far from the muddy streets of their one-taxi town. They were young, pretty and invincible and the world was at their feet.

  That feeling hadn’t lasted long. At the Ukrainian border, they had handed their passports over to the men supposedly escorting them to Turkey. They had soon realised that they were not getting the passports back; they had also realised that the way to a better future had turned into a dark path through a nightmare.

  No one had touched Dasha or Ludmilla yet—apart from a few hard slaps to the face when they had demanded their passports back. Dasha’s lip had split and Ludmilla saw stars but they knew it was nothing compared to what could happen to them. They had heard the horror stories of girls being trafficked into dirty brothels all over the world and now expected the worst. And, they said, there had been others—four other girls in the van with them. Perhaps they were in the house, they didn’t know. So far they were staying quiet to stay alive, hoping a window would present itself to escape, hoping they would not be separated.

  ‘We started this together and we will finish
it together.’ Dasha took Ludmilla’s hand. Anya wished she would take hers, too, but Dasha didn’t.

  Instead, Dasha opened her tiny backpack and pulled out two bottles of nail polish, one pink, the other purple.

  ‘I’m training to be a beautician.’ She shrugged. ‘It might help us think of something else for a moment.’

  Dasha took Anya’s hand and painted the nail on her index finger pink, the one on her thumb purple.

  ‘They’re cheerful colours together, don’t you think?’

  Anya nodded.

  ‘You can do mine when I finish,’ added Dasha. ‘I’ll show you how.’

  And so, in a garret on the outskirts of Bucharest, two terrified girls began painting each other’s nails pink and purple.

  Ludmilla watched them for a moment then closed her eyes and began to pray.

  The Hammer-Belles were sleeping late before helicoptering back to London. Stevie was in turmoil, having not slept at all the previous night.

  Henning was still not answering his phone, which only made things worse: Stevie was beginning to worry about him in earnest.

  She did some callisthenics, hoping to calm herself. It was not successful. The helicopter was arriving that afternoon and she could see no way out of her bind. She needed to clear her head with mountain air and exercise, and she needed some sensible advice. Fortunately, she knew exactly where she could find some.

  Stevie pulled on her canary yellow ski suit, grabbed her skis from the boot room and headed outside. It was misty and cold, not a day to be outdoors and few people were. She would have the mountain to herself.

  The valley disappeared into the mist as the cable car crept upwards. There were only two other passengers. One was a woman in her seventies in a purple and silver snow suit that made Stevie’s look conservative, and a determined expression on her face. The other was a younger man carrying a pair of touring skis, his legs in yellow lycra, a backpack strapped to his shoulders.

  Brave day to go touring, thought Stevie. It was hard enough tele-marking in good visibility. He must be fit. Yellow goggles obscured his eyes as he scanned the mountain below.