The Troika Dolls

by Miranda Darling

  Henning’s face was grave. His grip on Stevie’s hand tightened a little but he did not interrupt her story.

  ‘The assassin at the polo—Lazarev—was probably ex-KGB. He may be working for the siloviki now, who knows? They’re hardly going to flinch at a little extracurricular poisoning, not if it means protecting even a shred of political or economic power.’ Stevie swallowed. ‘They’d also have access to all the exotic poisons, remembering that the KGB used to specialise in assassinations—dissenters, deserters, compromised targets—using unusual and often undetectable poisons.’

  Henning rubbed his forehead. ‘You’ve got to disappear for a while, Stevie. This is too dangerous. I know people who can make you invisible. It will appear that you have simply vanished from the earth. Eventually, whoever is after you will forget about you.’

  ‘They won’t forget, Henning. You know that as well as I do. I would just be buying time.’

  Henning brushed a lock of hair lightly from Stevie’s face. ‘Time is not a bad thing.’ His hand cupped her face.

  Stevie didn’t know how to respond. She saw the concern. ‘Thank you, Henning. You are kind, but I’ve thought about it. This is something I can’t run away from. As much as I might like to,’ she added quietly.

  Henning looked at her long and hard. ‘So, what do we do?’

  Stevie smiled. ‘Pour me a drink and I’ll tell you.’

  That evening, reception rang to say the police were on their way up to interview them both.

  ‘Oh goodness,’ Stevie’s hand shot to her mouth. ‘I completely forgot Doctor Meinetzhagen was going to ring the police. What do we do?’

  ‘We’ll just tell them the bare facts: drinking coffee by the fire, felt woozy, fell down. They might let it go at that.’

  ‘Only they know me from the polo.’ Stevie made a face. ‘They’re sure to want to ask a lot more questions—about the Russians and so on. A man was killed, also poisoned by an exotic reptile. Two poisonings in as many days is just too suspicious to pass over. You know how thorough the Swiss are.’

  Stevie’s mind ticked frantically. ‘The only thing to do is feign unconsciousness.’

  ‘I don’t think—’

  A knock on the door interrupted Henning’s protest.

  Stevie slumped into the pillows, her head hanging loosely to one side, her breathing shallow.

  From behind closed eyelids, she heard Henning open the door, then two voices as polite and brisk as a shoe brush. They spoke in Schwiizerdütsch but quickly switched to very correct Hochdeutsch when Henning excused himself, saying his Swiss German was poor.

  Henning quickly explained that Fräulein Duveen was heavily sedated and could not be roused—even if this were physically possible— due to strict instructions left him by Herr Doktor which specified in no uncertain terms that the Fräulein’s heart was not to be excited. The sight of two such important-looking policemen, for such a delicate creature, well . . . the officers must imagine . . .

  The policemen reassured Henning that they had no intention of unduly disturbing the patient, although the one with the deeper voice did suggest, most respectfully, that perhaps Fräuelein Duveen’s fragility could be overestimated. She had, it must be remembered, last been seen hunting down a would-be assassin on horseback . . .

  ‘—and most successfully,’ added his partner.

  ‘Indeed, gentlemen,’ Stevie heard Henning reply in his most elaborate German. ‘However, it is possible to see lions hiding where there are only small, defenceless kittens, wouldn’t you agree?’

  Having little idea what Henning was talking about, the policemen merely murmured politely in agreement.

  Stevie had to concentrate on her breathing to avoid giggling.

  The policemen approached her bed and stood looking at her— Stevie could feel their scrutiny. Henning must have noticed Stevie’s struggle to remain composed and quickly suggested that he was prepared to be most cooperative but that perhaps it might be best to talk downstairs, so as not to disturb the patient.

  When the policemen had gone, Stevie picked up the phone and called Doctor Meinetzhagen.

  ‘Sincere apologies, Herr Doktor, for calling you after hours . . .’

  ‘Not at all, Fräulein. I am still in surgery. What is it you require?’

  ‘I have been giving your prognosis a lot of thought,’ Stevie said gravely, ‘and I think I would be foolish to try to rush a recovery. I was thinking a fortnight or so in a sanatorium might ensure I rest properly and don’t overdo it. I tend to be rather high-strung, you see.’

  ‘A most enlightened idea. I can recommend several—’

  ‘Oh Herr Doktor, thank you,’ Stevie said quickly. ‘I rather had my heart set on Hoffenschaffen . . . I think it’s in the mountains above Sargans . . . A friend of mine was a patient there for a month and emerged transformed and with the highest regard for the staff.’

  ‘I know it by reputation.’ There followed a somewhat terse silence. The doctor cleared his throat. ‘I do not feel confident I can be responsible for recommending Hoffenschaffen to you.’

  ‘Oh I quite understand, Herr Doktor. However, I have the utmost confidence in my friend’s opinion. I would just need a note of referral from you . . .’

  Stevie held her breath.

  ‘That I would be willing to provide.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Stevie’s relief was real. ‘I hate to impose but it’s rather urgent. You know how full these places get. Time is of the essence.’

  ‘Of course, Fräulein. I will leave a referral at the front desk for you on my way home.’

  Stevie hung up and bit her lower lip. Step one of the plan was in place.

  She dialled Josie in London and told her she had been overcome with exhaustion and probably some horrible bug. She was going to rest at a sanatorium for a few days. Would she please reassure David . . .

  ‘I absolutely will not reassure him, Stevie. I can guess exactly which sanatorium you have in mind and it’s a stupendously bad idea.’

  ‘It’s not what you think, Josie.’

  ‘Of course it is. I’m not stupid. David doesn’t want any heroes around here.’

  ‘Well, I’m certainly not that,’ Stevie replied quietly. ‘It’s just a few days and I’m only looking.’

  There was a very long silence.

  ‘Josie?’

  ‘I’ll pass on the message.’ And she hung up the telephone.

  14

  Where guests of the Suvretta might once have stopped at the sight of a man carrying an enormous red-brown fur coat through the foyer, extravagant behaviour on the part of those who could afford it was back in fashion and Henning’s passage went unremarked.

  The coat had been purchased on impulse the evening before. Henning had just finished loading the two policemen with a nightmarishly detailed account of the fateful coffee—including particulars such as the size of the cake slices and the colour of the cups—when he had spotted the coat in one of the lobby shops.

  It was enormous, made to fit an Atlas of a man, and particularly hideous. The sort of thing King Henry VIII might have chosen for himself. Henning had thought it perfect.

  It was snowing heavily that morning. Henning’s Jaguar was parked right outside the entrance, under cover, boot open. The XK8 didn’t have a great deal of trunk space and so the fur was deposited in the passenger seat. The car, midnight blue with ivory leather seats, had been fitted with fat snow tyres for the mountain roads.

  All this was duly noted by the concierge, who had strict instructions from the police that Stevie Duveen was not to leave the hotel. She was urgently wanted for further questioning. Her companion was free to go. In any case, thought the concierge, he had her passport in the safe and she could hardly leave without that.

  Henning had paid both his bill and Stevie’s earlier that morning, leaving a very large tip for the concierge. Had the man been a little less preoccupied with how he would spend his windfall he might have noticed, as Henning strode past with the ho
rrible fur in his arms, the tiny tip of a ballerina slipper—singed at the toe—protruding from one end.

  The Jaguar purred through the hotel gates and began to gather speed on the road that wound past the frozen lake. The snow was falling thick and heavy, veiling the grey light of early morning.

  ‘Iii ifff waaahf,’ said the fur.

  ‘Stevie, I can’t understand you.’

  After a brief, furry struggle, Stevie’s head emerged from the depths of the fur.

  ‘I was asking if it was safe.’

  ‘Oh. Yes, I think so. Not many people about on a morning like this.’

  A snow plough, its huge lights almost blinding them, crawled past on the other side of the road, shovel raised like a prehistoric jawbone. A coach full of teenagers puttered along behind it, belching smoke in frustration. No one else seemed to be about.

  Stevie struggled to free her arms. ‘What a hideous fur, Henning.

  You could at least have bought something in my size, maybe tailored, and in a fabulous steel grey wool . . .’

  ‘A child-sized bomber jacket would hardly have done the job, Stevie.’

  ‘I don’t mean to be ungracious. I’m very grateful to you for smuggling me out. I must have weighed a ton!’

  ‘The fur weighs more than you do.’ Henning’s mouth twitched with amusement.

  ‘And so expensive. All I meant is that is seems a shame to waste it. I wonder what poor animal it used to belong to . . .’

  ‘I’m guessing orang-utan. It was the only thing big enough, and I’m sure it will come in useful before this is all over.’

  Stevie turned and looked out the back window. The road behind them was empty. ‘So far so good, Henning. No police, no suspicious Russians. I’ll have to use my British passport at the clinic.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry we had to leave your Swiss one behind.’

  Stevie shrugged. ‘I’ll get it back. A foreign passport is less suspicious anyway. The Swiss rarely use their own sanatoriums. They’re too healthy to need rest cures. They’ve always been patronised mainly by foreigners, especially the English.’

  Stevie flipped down the passenger mirror and examined her face. She felt ghastly. Dark rings had collected under her eyes overnight and her pallor was frightening.

  ‘What do you think?’ She turned to Henning. ‘A Scottish lass with tubercular tendencies perhaps? I’m certainly pale enough.’

  ‘You don’t think being poisoned by a taipan is enough?’ Henning’s blue eyes were glued to the icy road.

  ‘I think it might be too exotic. We don’t want to draw attention to ourselves.’

  ‘Could Dragoman recognise us? They may have been watching the Kozkovs, seen us with Vadim.’

  Stevie nodded slowly. ‘It’s possible, but it’s a risk we have to take.’

  ‘Speaking of risk, I still think you’re mad to do this and I wish I could stop you.’ Henning spoke quietly, his face impassive. ‘The only reason I’m helping you is that I guess—I know—that you would go ahead and do it without me. And I got you into this mess in the first place. I might even be useful.’ He turned and glanced at Stevie. ‘But you’re still mad.’

  Stevie watched a lone langlaufer swoosh his way across the frozen lake, half hidden by the snowstorm. She thought of the Russian with the rifle.

  ‘I’m glad you’re coming with me, Henning.’ She said it softly but she meant it.

  Henning looked over at her again and gave her a small smile. ‘Me too, Stevie. Me too.’

  Stevie looked away. ‘You don’t like my cover story . . .’

  ‘I’m just not convinced about the tuberculosis.’

  ‘But it is so old-world glamorous,’ Stevie protested. ‘The consumptive coughing up blood by the shores of the Swiss lake.’

  ‘Perhaps if you had recently been to China or Latin America it might make more sense. In wealthy countries, TB remains a disease of the poorest. Perhaps if you had a malnourished housemaid . . . Haven’t you got anything that we can get fixed?’

  Stevie thought for a minute. ‘My middle toe is longer than my big toe . . .’

  Henning raised an eyebrow. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘I’m allergic to peppermint, and maraschino cherries.’

  ‘Right.’

  Henning watched Stevie, who was busy drawing her initials with the tip of her finger on the misted window. In the half-dark, the fur around her shoulders edging her jaw, her profile could have belonged to a 1940s movie star.

  ‘Well,’ he said finally. ‘What do your celebrity clients complain of?’

  Stevie frowned. ‘Exhaustion usually, which is code for drug and alcohol abuse.’

  ‘Ah yes, the old “tired and emotional”. That might do nicely. But won’t Meinetzhagen have put the details of your poisoning in the reference?’

  ‘For that, I am counting on the borderline obsessive discretion of the Swiss.’

  Stevie pulled out the doctor’s reference. She read the three lines quickly.

  ‘The good doctor has gone with a simple “rest cure recommended, your sincerely”.’

  ‘So,’ Henning said. ‘Exhaustion it is.’

  Stevie nodded. ‘Yes, I’ll be a film starlet on a “cleanse” before the release of her new movie.’

  Henning thought for a minute. ‘But won’t the sanatorium staff wonder why they’ve never heard of you? Are you going to assume the identity of some Hollywood gal-about-town?’

  ‘That would be difficult for two reasons, Henning: one, we don’t have time to rustle up any false documents and the Swiss always need to see a passport; and two, I don’t look remotely like anyone famous.’

  ‘So . . .’ Henning looked at her questioningly.

  ‘So, we tell them that I’m big in television and that my new film is about to come out and when it does I am going to be huge.’

  ‘Huge?’

  ‘HUGE.’

  Henning grinned and touched his GPS screen. A map of Switzerland spun into view.

  ‘We go down all the way to Chur, then along the valley past Bad Ragaz, then Sargans. Hoffenschaffen is in the mountains above it, at the end of a valley.’

  ‘Meaning no-through traffic.’ Stevie pointed to the spot on the map. ‘Anyone coming in or out of the valley will be noticed. A good spot to choose if you’re security conscious.’

  Henning nodded. ‘It’s also right on the border with Liechtenstein, a stone’s throw from Austria. Easy to just slip out of the country if things turn.’ He gave Stevie a look. ‘We’ve got about two hours before we reach Hoffenschaffen. You should try to rest a little. Remember, you are poisoned and a genuine convalescent.’

  ‘I’m fine. Anyway, it will just make me more authentic. Paul said they do vitals when a patient checks in. I can’t be too healthy.’

  Henning shook his head. ‘You’re not. What else did Paul tell you about the clinic?’

  ‘It’s very exclusive—not many guests. I think they can take a maximum of twenty-five patients/guests at a time. The staff-to-inmate ratio is very high.’

  ‘If they are that cautious,’ Henning mused, ‘I suppose I’ll need a cover, too.’

  Stevie thought about this, scanning her memory for scenarios they might use. She found one.

  ‘Last year, there was an up-and-coming young music star. She checked into a clinic citing “exhaustion and dehydration” after a horse tranquilliser binge brought on by the pressures of a stalker—who turned out to be her estranged father, by the way. Anyway, the details aren’t important but she had a special “Health and Image” supervisor. He was a sort of manager, drug dealer, fashion stylist and yes-man all at once—’

  ‘That sounds like a role tailor-made to fit me, Stevie,’ Henning said with considerable scepticism. ‘Especially since I know nothing about show business, have never even worn a pair of jeans, and smoke and drink, possibly excessively.’

  ‘But that’s the point,’ Stevie gestured emphatically. ‘No one in Hollywood is who they say they are.’

&nb
sp; ‘But this isn’t Hollywood. This is a very particular Swiss clinic. The staff won’t believe it.’

  ‘Of course they will,’ Stevie insisted. ‘In my dealings with divas, I have realised anything is possible and the most outrageous demands are rarely questioned.’

  With that, she rested her head against the window and fell into a deep sleep.

  As they rounded the last rocky precipice that hid this valley from the one before, the sanatorium came into view.

  It had been built towards the end of the nineteenth century, when the railways had opened Switzerland to tourists, most notably the English, coming in search of healthy air. The building was rather imposing, eight stories high, built in grey stone and peppered with windows, their wooden shutters painted forest green. Four small towers rose in each corner, their tops crenellated. A Swiss flag writhed around on a flag pole.

  Hoffenschaffen perched on a granite rise, its back to a jagged granite cliff. A thick pine forest circled the rise like a felt skirt. The cliff face was bearded with milky blue icicles several stories high, once-quick rivulets and waterfalls that had frozen to smooth, still fingers of ice.

  At the bottom of the precipice, where the sun’s rays would never reach, there flowed an indigo river only a couple of metres wide. It was a forbidding place, even from a distance.

  ‘Not the sort of place one immediately associates with good health and sparkling vigour, is it?’ Henning lifted a wry eyebrow.

  Stevie wanted to say something light in reply but the shadows, the stone, the ice, seemed to have taken away her sunshine.

  The sanatorium disappeared as they rounded another bend, then reappeared closer as they circled up in wide loops towards the granite rise. This time it was possible to see several cars—all dark, gleaming, expensive—parked in a gravel lot at the front; a helicopter waited patiently on a helipad, its rotors moving slowly to stop them icing up.