The Troika Dolls

by Miranda Darling

  Stevie thought about how obscure, too, was the picture of the events around her. She had on her hands a villain who traded people, weapons and drugs like canned corn, his partners in crime—who happened to be politically connected heavyweights of indeterminable identity—and who were now convinced apparently that she, Stevie, was party to the inconvenient truth and ought to be buried. The young girl who had sparked off the whole debacle was still missing, presumably in the clutches of the villain, who could be anywhere. Her father was dead and Stevie was about to run off back to London and leave her to her fate.

  Should she have tried harder to dissuade Kozkov? Had she made a terrible mistake in going to Kirril?

  She thought suddenly of those signs in china shops: You break it, you own it. Only how did one pay for this?

  The mountain was almost deserted. The cloud was cold and uninviting. Stevie left the piste and headed for the tree line. She did two quick turns then bent low, disappeared under the skirts of a large pine and waited. No movement, no people, no sound except the rumbling of a distant snow plough and, across the valley, the booming of the avalanche cannons. It was safe.

  The fresh powder felt like silk on her shins and she glided along without a sound, bending and rising with her knees, turning her skis without effort through the half-buried pines, breathing in their resiny scent, filling her lungs with clean air. She let her body sail through the turns, swooping in wide arcs, enjoying the freedom of a bird, the silence of the forest. She felt her body relax and her mind clear. The mountain was working its magic; there was peace in this.

  Didi loved the mountains and she had taken Stevie up high at every opportunity. They spent spring tramping along the wanderwegs, surrounded by fields of wildflowers and streams of melted snow; then skiing and ice skating and sledding as soon as the first snows fell. The mountains were home to Stevie as much as anywhere.

  Im Heimeli appeared below her, the sloping roof heavy with snow, the small stone chimney smoking away. A hand thrust open the wooden shutters of the single upstairs window and a white duvet was thrust out to air. Stevie’s heart did a little dance. Didi was up.

  Minutes later, Stevie was seated on the stone top of the kachelofen—the woodburning stove—drinking a bowl of coffee and milk.

  Peter, the gentleman cat, lay curled politely next to her, his tail sallying forth every now and then to stroke Stevie’s hand.

  Didi sat in her favourite chair by the window and smiled at her granddaughter. She was a tiny woman who compensated for her bamboo-like frame by wearing tweed trousers and a thick, caramel-coloured cashmere jumper, a large cameo brooch pinned at the shoulder. She had swept her white hair into a loose and elegant bun, and on her feet she wore tiny sheepskin slippers. A pair of old leather hiking boots stood drying by the stove.

  ‘What a delightful surprise, Stevie,’ Didi clapped her hands together. ‘We didn’t even know you were back in Switzerland.’

  ‘I missed you,’ said Stevie, smiling. ‘And I wanted to see what mischief was brewing at Im Heimeli.’ She looked around at the tea towels drying above the stove, the loaf of mountain bread on the breakfast table and sighed. ‘Nothing ever changes here. It’s marvellous.’

  The interior of the chalet was all made of wood—Arve, with its fresh pine scent—and the smell sent Stevie right back to her childhood. She had spent hours warming herself on that same stove, Didi in the same chair by the window, drinking coffee.

  Stevie’s bowl had been full of milk and honey then—Didi refused to give her coffee: ‘You won’t grow if you drink coffee, azizam—my darling!’

  Stevie had stayed small anyway, but whenever she reminded Didi of this, her grandmother would say, ‘Imagine how much smaller you would be if you hadn’t taken my advice!’

  ‘Well, Peter and I are both as well as could be,’ said Didi. And indeed, the old lady radiated health and sparkles.

  ‘I can see that,’ Stevie laughed. ‘Peter’s even grown a little fur!’

  ‘The fresh mountain air does him good—it can fix anything.’

  ‘Does he ever leave the stove?’ Stevie stroked the gentleman’s new fluff. ‘I can’t see him stalking about in the snowdrifts.’

  ‘Of course he does. Yesterday, we went out walking. I wrapped him in my shawl and he sat on the sled while I towed him.’

  Stevie raised an eyebrow at Peter who pretended, very convincingly, to be fast asleep.

  ‘I think he might be onto a good wicket with you, Didi.’

  ‘Well, you can hardly expect the poor man to wander out without his coat—’ Not wanting to offend her guest, Didi’s voice dropped to a whisper. ‘Even his paws are still hairless.’

  She looked closely at her granddaughter. ‘And how are you little azizam? You look a touch pale.’

  Stevie shrugged lightly. ‘I haven’t slept much. There are ghosts keeping me awake at night.’

  ‘Ghosts,’ Didi repeated. ‘They only haunt the people who can see them, the people who give them attention. It’s what they feed on, you know.’

  ‘I tried not to see them, Didi, but, well, one of them popped up at a party last night . . . Joss Carey.’

  ‘Oh dear. I really hoped he had fallen off the edge of the earth.’ Didi took a small rock hammer from a drawer in the table. ‘I found some beautiful old tiles the other day, look.’

  She laid out several tiles in varying shades of blue—teal, aquamarine, indigo, ice-blue—and began to smash them into little pieces with the hammer. Didi liked to make mosaics.

  She spoke in between hammer blows. ‘The best way to forget a man’—BANG—‘is in the arms of another.’ BANG. ‘Nothing mends a broken heart quite like falling in love again.’ BANG.

  Stevie shook her head. ‘I don’t think I’m up for all that right now.’ The mere thought of romance exhausted her. ‘I’m perfectly happy flying solo.’

  ‘Rubbish,’ Didi declared, exasperated, the tiles on the table now a sparkling carpet of blue shards. ‘So you picked the wrong man: a mistake, but not a tragedy. It’s certainly not something you should allow to alter the course of your life.’

  Stevie drummed her heels on the side of the stove, her stocking feet soaking up the warmth.

  ‘Well, I haven’t met anyone yet. I can’t help that.’

  Didi’s long fine fingers sorted the ceramic bits into their separate colours. ‘As long as your eyes are truly open,’ she said finally. ‘Often it’s right there in front of you and you just have to recognise it. Love is not quantum physics, it’s a matter of clarity.’

  She reached for the coffee pot and carefully refilled her bowl. ‘One can meet the most divine people in the world, but if one doesn’t recognise them as such, well, one might as well hang with filth.’

  Didi took up the hammer and smashed a large piece of tile for emphasis.

  ‘I am clear. I think love was clouding everything. Finally I’m free of it.’

  ‘Joss wasn’t real love, Stevie,’ Didi said gently, putting down the hammer. ‘He was a sort of . . . romantic infatuation, and the two are very different things. When one is in love, one feels it is quite enough to be oneself.’

  Stevie blushed. Her grandmother’s mind often had the uncomfortable accuracy of a precision-guided missile.

  ‘Anyway,’ continued Didi lightly, dangerously. ‘Who is this Henning fellow you went to Moscow with?’

  Stevie blushed even deeper. ‘A friend—and just a friend. Don’t get ideas, Didi. In the modern world, men and women can be just friends.’

  ‘Oh I agree. I have men friends. Only at my age things are usually a little less complicated than at yours.’

  Stevie understood, but it was different with Henning. They had grown close as friends . . . she was suspicious and he was mysterious . . . it would never work.

  ‘He’s—’ Stevie struggled to describe Henning. She watched as the cat stretched—more panther now than domestic feline, extending his claws—then leapt to the floor. ‘Well, he’s a bit like Peter really.’
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br />   ‘A hairless cat?’ Didi and Peter were both looking at her with a degree of scepticism.

  ‘A gentleman,’ Stevie laughed. ‘Unusual looking, very independent, agile, quite unpredictable, but very kind.’

  Didi held an ice-blue shard of tile up to the light. ‘Kindness is a quality most often underrated. I think it is also one of the most important in anyone close to you. Is he in risk as well?’

  ‘He says he catalogues rare books for museums and libraries, hunts down lost literary treasures and curiosities all over the world.’ Stevie swirled the last of her coffee around the bowl. ‘He ends up in the most unlikely places—Istanbul, Kamchatka, Hyderabad . . .’

  Stevie watched the caramel liquid spin. What did she know about Henning?

  ‘Sounds rather romantic.’

  ‘Yes,’ Stevie said slowly. ‘But I rather suspect he has something else in his past. He knows too many unlikely people for an academic, and he slips in and out of places like a ghost.’

  ‘Perhaps he’s a spy.’ Didi’s eyes shone. She had seen her fair share of covert operations in the war. She had been a code breaker and translator for the Allies when she was only nineteen.

  Stevie shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. He’s too—human. But there’s something there.’

  Didi stared at her granddaughter a moment. ‘Yes,’ she said finally. ‘I think there might be.’

  Stevie hopped off the stove and went to sit opposite her grandmother. She picked out a teal shard and turned it in her fingers. She knew she couldn’t stay long but Didi and Peter were hard to leave.

  ‘What would you do, Didi, if you knew something terrible was going to happen?’ Stevie asked quietly. ‘If a girl might be murdered, and you thought you might be able to help, but you were forbidden to even try?’

  Didi said nothing, her gaze on the shards, her fingers busy. Then she looked up, her eyes grave. ‘Helping would put you in danger?’

  Stevie nodded.

  ‘In the war, our commanding officer used to say: your first duty is to survive; your second is to do your duty.’

  ‘David Rice doesn’t see it as my duty to help,’ Stevie said. ‘I do.’

  ‘Dear David worries about you, always has. He blames himself because he told your parents Algeria was safe. And it was. Until they were killed. He never got over that.’

  Didi’s explanation made sense—poor David. Stevie knew from personal experience how heavily the guilt must weigh on him. Protecting Stevie was probably the only way he could find of atoning for his mistake.

  ‘Stevie, this poor girl won’t be the last one you can help—if you don’t get yourself killed.’ Didi’s blue eyes were dark with worry. ‘Do what you can without unnecessary risk, but don’t be foolish.’

  Didi reached over the broken tiles and took her granddaughter’s hand in hers.

  An hour later, Stevie was back on the mountain, making her way back to the Suvretta. The visit to Didi had sorted the broken shards in her mind. They fell like this: Stevie was in danger whether she pursued Anya or not; therefore her duty was to save Anya because there was a chance she could and no one else would; she would defy David and hunt the girl.

  Halfway down the other side of the mountain, Stevie felt the vibration of her telephone in her pocket. She was expecting Josie’s call.

  ‘I hope I’m not interrupting you on the ski slopes, Stevie—’ Josie’s sarcasm bit through the phone.

  How did she know? Well, that was the thing about Josie . . .

  ‘Good morning, Josie. How are you?’

  ‘The questions should really be about you. Rice is in an uproar and no one dares go near him. I’m guessing it has to do with you and this whole Russian debacle. He would never get this upset about anyone else.’

  ‘Really?’ Stevie flushed.

  ‘Stevie, I know you’re half in love with David—’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Josie,’ she said sharply. ‘He’s the boss, a family friend, I respect him and—’

  ‘Well, whatever you want to call it, no one will ever measure up. Isn’t that why your relationships never work out?’

  ‘You might remember that the last one failed because he was sleeping with another woman,’ she reminded Josie with a snap, hoping to get her off the topic.

  ‘Ah yes. Joss Carey, artistic phoney. But you pick them that way, subconsciously.’

  ‘What is this, Josie, therapy hour?’

  ‘Listen, you want favours from me, deal with it. I’m telling you what you need to hear. No one else will.’

  ‘Josie, my mind couldn’t be further from thoughts of love,’ Stevie said, lying just a little. ‘And if I was having thoughts, they certainly wouldn’t involve David Rice.’

  ‘What about this Henning I hear about? Rice is furious with him too . . .’ Josie delighted in the hearts of others and she didn’t bother to hide the curiosity in her voice. ‘Do you want me to run him through the machine?’

  ‘Don’t you dare,’ Stevie almost yelled, terrified Josie might do just that. ‘I want you to concentrate on finding Dragoman.’

  ‘Rice will kill us both if he finds out.’

  ‘Josie, please. I’ll be forever in your debt.’

  ‘You already owe me—twenty-four hours’ sleep and a lot of butt kissing.’ Josie definitely had a way with words.

  ‘You found him?’ Stevie asked, hardly daring to believe it.

  ‘Turns out he is a silent partner with the controlling interest in a number of health resorts stretching from the Bahamas to Hungary. He uses his connections to get hold of often experimental, unapproved pharmaceuticals. Some people apparently are desperate enough to try anything—they’ll take the risk and happily pay through the nose for it.’

  ‘Where is he now?’ Stevie whispered into the tiny phone.

  ‘Right now, he’s in Switzerland. He rarely spends more than a couple of nights in one place. He has that many enemies. But he’s going to be at the Verjuengung Klinik, a rejuvenation clinic in Hoffenschaffen, sometime within the next five days. That’s as close as I could get.’

  ‘You’re brilliant. How many f’s in Hoffenschaffen?’

  Josie hissed in frustration. ‘I’ll send it through by text. I don’t have time.’

  ‘Only you could have done it, Josie—I’m eternally grateful.’

  ‘Dinner at Nobu would be better, thanks, Stevie. I’ll make reservations when you get back.’ She paused. ‘If you get back.’ The next moment, Josie’s voice lost its hard edge and sarcasm. ‘Stevie, the more I looked, the closer I got, the more dangerous your man became. Don’t provoke him. You won’t live to tell me about it, I can promise you that.’

  Stevie felt the bile of fear rise in her throat. She swallowed. ‘You’ve done a marvellous thing. Make those reservations soon, Josie. This will be quick.’

  Stevie hoped she sounded braver than she felt. Not that it would fool Josie.

  A walking track crossed the ski slope below her. Stevie was about to set off when she heard the soft jingle of bells. A horse-drawn sleigh was approaching. Stevie waited for it to appear. She loved watching the horses plod silently past, their breath in little white puffs—like dragons— their passengers rugged up to the neck in sheepskins, noses bright red.

  Hoffenschaffen. Now she knew where Dragoman was, things seemed more possible. And frightening. She only had a few hours left until she was supposed to leave—still time to change her mind, obey David. And yet there was a chance—even if it was a miniscule one—that Anya was with Dragoman. She could be as close as a few hours’ drive . . .

  The horses came into view on the track below, both speckled grey and white. The driver was talking to them softly, encouraging them, keeping them company with his voice. There were two children in the sleigh, aged maybe five and seven—Stevie could never really tell ages— in little mittens and hats. She waved with one of her poles.

  The older one leaned out and pointed his arm like a rifle. ‘Bang!’ he yelled. ‘Bang! Bang!’


  Stevie lowered her pole, suddenly reminded she was still prey.

  The fog had rolled in, veiling the pines in white and stifling every sound. In the corner of her eye, Stevie caught movement. She stood still and peered into the cloud. Along the sleigh track came the cross-country skier from the gondola, skating in his lycra tights.

  He stopped just below her, where the walking track met the ski run, and looked about. Stevie was about to push off down the mountain towards him when she saw the high-powered rifle slung over his shoulder.

  Bang, bang . . . The children must have seen him. What was he doing with the rifle? Surely target shooting was forbidden in the public areas . . .

  The man pulled out a walkie-talkie.

  ‘I can’t see a goddamn thing in this shitting weather. It’s hopeless. Better to track a bear to its lair, my friend. I’m going home.’

  Stevie froze, a wash of adrenaline pouring into her body. Not the most threatening words—Stevie would have agreed—had they not been spoken in Russian.

  She felt the mist’s icy bite on her neck and her tiny hairs stood like antennae. Dropping to her knees, she was grateful for the uphill advantage. As silent as a mole, she waited in the snow as the man cleared his throat and spat into the snowdrift, then finally skated on.

  Stevie couldn’t know for certain . . . but as she set off down the mountain, she felt eyes behind every tree trunk. Terror whipped her heart as she raced through the trees in fast, tight turns, spraying plumes of snow in her wake.

  He is hunting you.

  She sped up, moving far faster than was prudent through the forest, but knowing that speed was her ally and that the man on touring skis could not match her on a slope. When Stevie reached the bottom, the mist was so thick she could hardly see her hand in front of her face.

  The chair lift clanged above her, the seats empty. No one was waiting in line. Shaking and red-cheeked, she breathed deeply. It was pure luck that the assassin had not spotted her. She needed to get off the mountain, go somewhere with people. There was some safety in numbers. Of sorts.

  Back at the Suvretta, the skis safely stored, Stevie found a spot by one of the fireplaces and stretched out her legs. They felt wooden and a little wobbly—she had taken the last run very fast.