The Troika Dolls

by Miranda Darling

  Stevie was glad she had Sandy and Douglas to draw inspiration from.

  Henning became placatory. ‘No one will insure you, darling. A stint here ought to fix that. You’ll go home with your body—and your reputation—cleansed. Quite virginal.’

  ‘I don’t give a hoot for my reputation. I want a martini and a pink pill—and a tattoo,’ added Stevie in a flash of inspiration.

  Henning ignored her.

  ‘You have one.’ Stevie pointed to Henning’s bare arm, her tone petulant.

  She had never seen Henning with his shirt off. He was finely muscled, no more than an ounce of fat on him, strong but not big. On the underside of his forearm he had a tattoo of an owl in full flight. It was quite stunning.

  ‘What does the owl mean?’ She touched the tip of its wing lightly.

  ‘It’s my star sign,’ Henning replied with a smile.

  Stevie paused for a moment. It was now or never.

  ‘I saw two men, you know, with the most extraordinary tattoos,’ she went on, her voice bold in the way of someone who has never been concerned about drawing too much attention. ‘When I was out walking this morning. I think they were Russians. They sounded like Nicole Kid-man in Birthday Girl, only male. One guy had a skull in the middle of sniper sight, like on 24 with Keifer Sutherland. And some words on the bottom—I think they were Spanish: malo mori something.’

  ‘Malo mori quam foedari,’ said Henning quickly. ‘Death before dishonour.’

  He hastily added, remembering his cover, ‘It’s Rambo’s motto.’

  ‘Whatever. The other guy had his sleeve pushed up and he had a wolf’s head with horns.’ Stevie shrugged and examined her nails. ‘If you ask me, it’s a bit de trop on the hands, don’t you think?’ Stevie sighed and pulled out her compact. ‘Just look at me in these hideous goggles, Henning.’

  Dragoman was definitely listening; she could see him in the compact mirror, reflected over her shoulder.

  ‘No wonder those Russians didn’t recognise me!’

  ‘I told you not to talk to anyone,’ Henning said wearily.

  Stevie pouted. ‘They talked to me. And anyway, they weren’t interested in me. They wanted to know if some friend of theirs was here—’

  Stevie adjusted her bikini bottoms. ‘At least I think that’s what they wanted. I could hardly understand their English and I don’t understand a word of Russian except vodka.’ Stevie laughed inanely at her joke. ‘Anyway, I told them I didn’t mix with the other guests and I left.’

  Behind her, Stevie heard Dragoman click his fingers and felt the shadow detach from the back wall and approach. Dragoman spoke in Russian. After every third or fourth word, he stopped and panted, as if fighting for air.

  Something was jogging her memory but . . .

  Stevie listened as he repeated her description of the men with tattoos in rapid Russian, confident the two idiots in front of him wouldn’t understand a word. The shadow then disappeared.

  A loud clapping of the hands and a chuckle announced the arrival of Heini. He was dressed in his own bathrobe, a shiny black affair printed in the yellow-and-black horse insignia of Ferrari. The ginger barbarian bodyguard followed him in then went and stood by the door. The pugs had been made to wait outside.

  ‘It’s bad for their eyes.’ Heini smiled with his huge lips. He really was a singularly unattractive man, thought Stevie.

  Dragoman did not reply and Heini settled himself on the lounge beside him. Stevie could hear them clearly.

  ‘Who’s the primrose? A lovely specimen. Ochin krasivo.’ Very pretty.

  There was no reply from Dragoman.

  ‘Not enough meat on her for me though.’

  Stevie could almost feel the leer creeping over her shoulder. She shuddered at the thought of Heini’s lips anywhere near her.

  ‘I hope,’ he went on, ‘that she will be present at my celebration— she is after all a guest here and we have no primroses in our lovely bouquet of flowers.’

  ‘You know I detest—breathe—your ridiculous metaphors, Heini. They—breathe—reveal a florid, philistine mind.’

  All at once, Stevie remembered the phone call in the dacha— hadn’t Kozkov said the man on the other end was ‘out of breath’?

  Heini’s chuckle turned into a deep cough.

  ‘Felix, you just need to get yourself a girl—heh heh—or boy.’ He coughed again then continued his train of thought, oblivious to the dangerous chill in Dragoman’s voice. ‘It’s not natural to go without sex. If I was in your line of work I would go crazy just trying to sample every piece of merchandise—crazy.’

  ‘I don’t know what you are referring to.’

  That sleazy chuckle again. ‘Please tell me you get “high on your own supply”, as they say, every now and then!’

  Heini slapped a meaty thigh. ‘Heh heh, you know, dip your wick?’

  There was no reply from Dragoman.

  ‘Heh.’ The huffing Heini ran out of steam. For such a callous killer, he certainly could come across as a buffoon, thought Stevie. That, perhaps, was part of his success: to have people constantly underestimate him.

  He dropped his robe and settled his fat, round belly on the deck-chair. He pulled out a cigar from his robe pocket. ‘Now, where’s that cigar?’ Stevie could hear him fumbling about, the crackle of cellophane.

  ‘So, how’s business?’

  Now it was Dragoman’s turn to speak. ‘That is my business.’ His voice was slick and dangerous. It made Stevie think of an eel. ‘I hear you had a problem in Novgorod Oblast . . . ‘

  ‘A minor flutter of a sparrow’s heart. Nothing serious, Felix.’

  ‘Sixteen infants dead. The authorities must want you badly. Very bad for international relations with our country if those in power don’t squash you very, very publicly. We are on our way to becoming a world power again. The eyes of the world are upon us.’

  Heini belched softly. ‘Heh. I didn’t know the milk powder was poisonous. Who could know that? Stinking great Chinese factories— can’t understand a word they say, hate the place. I am just the middle man, passing on the product, trying to butter my crust, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘You’re a profiteer, Heini. Don’t operate under any illusion. No one else does.’

  Heini lit a match; Stevie could smell his cigar, hear him puffing out clouds of tobacco smoke. ‘Do I care about anyone else? Don’t be ridiculous, Felix. Anyway, the right people have been, shall we say, rewarded to make me vanish from the scene like a whore’s panties, heh. The Chinese are in the bad books. They made the stuff. It’s not my responsibility if no one tests it at the other end.’

  He cleared his throat noisily. ‘My only problem has been that sonofabitch Kozkov shutting down my bank and freezing my money— my money!’ Heini was sounding furious and getting loud. ‘If you hadn’t got to him first, I would have gone and done it myself!’

  Dragoman’s voice was quiet, soft, dangerous. ‘I had nothing to do with it. It came as a great inconvenience to me. I needed him alive.’

  ‘Well I need my money and your friends in the Kremlin have a lot to answer for, letting this happen. Kozkov should never have got that far!’

  ‘Control yourself. What’s done is done.’ Dragoman’s voice was ice.

  ‘Why don’t you share your contacts with me? Turn your marriage, heh, into a ménage à trois?’

  ‘We have no need for a third party.’

  Stevie could hear Heini puffing angrily now. ‘My business isn’t good enough for you and your Kremlin friends?’

  ‘Stop talking and listen. I have an opportunity for you to make at least three times as much as you lost. But you need to be invisible and untraceable.’ Dragoman’s voice was low and Stevie, in front, had to strain her ears to hear.

  Heini calmed down a little. ‘I can do anything for the right price.’

  ‘I need anti-malarials, as many as you can produce. I have a contract to supply the entire UN mission in Africa.’

  Heini s
eemed to be digesting this for a moment. ‘Under a front, I presume. Heh heh. The UN wouldn’t do business with a man like you.’

  ‘You may be attributing scruples where there are few—it’s a simple case of supply and demand. The market has no morals, only people do. And they are getting fewer. You, Heini, know that as well as anyone. But my contracts are not your concern. And get me anti-retrovirals, as many as you can manufacture in those vile Chinese hell-pits of yours.’

  Heini tried to whistle but it came out like a wet, whooshing sound. ‘As well? You must be making quite a fat chunk of elephant out of those contracts. Bravo, Felix. But it will be expensive for you . . .’

  ‘Don’t get greedy, Heini. I won’t pay real medicine prices for fake pharmaceuticals. And I don’t have patience for games. Or do you want to follow Yuschenko in the beauty pageant?’

  Heini was quiet. Stevie, engrossed in a gossip magazine, winced at the memory of the poor Ukrainian and his cyst-pitted face.

  Dragoman continued in his strange, breathy voice. ‘Let us not quarrel when there is no reason to. Our interests are aligned.’

  He coughed. Stevie smelt rubbing alcohol. ‘I even have a birthday gift for you, Heini, to show my good intentions in bringing you this deal.’

  ‘I am more interested in your money than your gifts.’

  Out of the corner of her eye, Stevie saw Dragoman’s shadow flit to him with his robe.

  ‘My lawyer in Geneva is holding the amount of money I am prepared to pay you for your services. A phone call from me and the funds will be wired to any account you choose. I am sure that will be satisfactory for you.’

  With that, he left Heini to continue his UV bath.

  15

  In the pale light of the winter afternoon, Stevie and Henning found themselves back by the windows of the main hall, staring out. This time there were a lot more than snowflakes to watch.

  Armed men were crawling around the hillside, and even on the castle walls. They had passed three men in boots and guns on the way up from the treatment rooms.

  The guests had been told, through the in-house PA system, that a security exercise was taking place with their safety in mind. The matter was routine and ought to cause no one concern.

  Danke, und wir wünschen Ihnen einen angenehmen Tag.

  ‘Security exercise . . .’ Stevie sat across her chair, with the backs of her knees resting on the arm. She watched as two men outside frisked a holly bush. ‘I would say those men are looking pretty hard for something— or someone.’

  ‘Two men perhaps?’ Henning gave a wry smile. ‘With tattoos belonging to the Russian Special Forces?’

  ‘Trouble is, the tattoos I described were criminal tattoos. I don’t think anyone on a covert mission from Moscow would announce themselves with tattoos on their hands.’

  ‘Well the description certainly got Dragoman fired up.’ He shrugged. ‘You told me yourself that the siloviki use the mafia for all sorts of things—why not use them for killing? That way it’s all utterly deniable.’

  ‘As long as Dragoman sees it that way.’ Stevie fidgeted nervously with the antimacassar on her armchair.

  Henning gestured to the window. ‘There’s your evidence. You’ve hit a paranoia button somewhere. That’s a small victory in itself. Dragoman obviously lives with the very real threat of assassination. It is not something far-fetched for him.’

  Stevie stared at the commotion outside. ‘Maybe the plan is working.’

  ‘These things tend to gather a momentum of their own, Stevie, particularly when you are dealing with more paranoid personalities.’

  She nodded. ‘I hope you’re right. At least we did find out for certain that Dragoman didn’t order Kozkov’s death, and that he was almost certainly the man Kozkov spoke to on the phone in the dacha.’

  Stevie called the waiter and ordered a mud root tea.

  ‘Sounds very appetising, Stevie. One of your poisons?’

  ‘Almost.’

  She had done a quick search of a toxins database that morning, hoping to find a way around the coffee ban. When the tea arrived, the smell wafting from the pot was of stagnant water mixed with head lice killer.

  ‘I’ve discovered that you can get a buzz off this if you drink enough—almost like caffeine. In the sanatorium, its use is restricted to narcoleptics and the obese, but I’ve managed to convince them I need it for my mental health.’

  She downed two cups in swift succession. She grimaced, then poured a third cup. ‘It tastes worse than it smells.’

  Henning wrinkled his nose, offended by the odour. ‘Is that possible?’

  They went back to watching the armed guards.

  The waiter reappeared, this time with an envelope on his silver tray. He offered it to Henning.

  Inside the envelope, the notepaper was embossed with a gold crest—a dragon slaying a knight—and was as thick as cardboard.

  ‘The reverse of the legend of St George,’ said Henning.

  ‘And it’s addressed to you.’

  Henning read aloud:

  Dear Miss Duveen,

  I am giving a dinner in the ballroom tomorrow evening for the occasion of Heinrich Hahanyan’s 65th birthday. All the guests are invited. It would please him greatly if you and your companion would do us the honour of joining us.

  8 pm.

  FD

  Stevie took a gold-tipped cigarette from the slim, black box. ‘Surely that man is too hideous for birthdays?’

  ‘Inviting all the guests.’ Henning raised an eyebrow. ‘How old-fashioned.’

  ‘It’s rather delightfully “captain’s table” of him, I agree.’ She put a match to the end of her cigarette and drew on the ember. ‘But what does one wear to such a thing? I ought to write in to Vogue: Dear Style Surgery, I hope you can help. I have been invited to a mass murderer’s birthday party. It is to be hosted by an arch villain and I am uncertain what to wear. Are feathers too provocative? Yours sincerely, Stevie Duveen.’

  Stevie took another gulp of her mud root tea to quell the nervous fluttering in her ribcage. She made a face. ‘This needs vodka.’

  ‘Do we have a plan, Stevie?’

  ‘Just to get close and see what we can discover—or instigate.’

  ‘Room for improvisation then?’

  Stevie put down her cup and rummaged about in the pocket of her robe. ‘I just had another idea. I’m calling Rosie.’

  ‘Who’s Rosie?’

  ‘Josie’s twin. She works on Fleet Street.’

  Stevie pulled out her tiny, tiny phone. She saw she had missed a call from David Rice. Her heart sank. How could she explain all this? He would have to wait.

  Rosie answered her mobile, snappy and businesslike. She was the less nonsensical of the twins.

  Stevie began her buttering but Rosie cut her off. ‘Look, Stevie, I know your tricks. Josie tells me everything and I don’t have the time. What do you want, and what’s in it for me? Simple question, give me a simple answer.’

  ‘Okay, Rosie. I need you to plant a story in your paper. In return, you will get the scoop on something huge. It’s quid pro quo.’

  ‘Details, Stevie. What’s my scoop?’

  She thought fast. ‘Remember the dead infants in Novgorod Oblast?’

  ‘The contaminated milk powder from China?’ Rosie’s voice was sharp with interest.

  ‘The powder was made in China,’ Stevie went on, ‘but sold through a broker who specialises in dodgy goods from the People’s Republic. He sets up factories there to make whatever people order. Mainly I think it’s fake pharmaceuticals and dietary supplements. By the time the buyers discover the goods are faulty—or even deadly—this guy has vanished and his factory is already making something else.’

  ‘So he knew this infant formula was deadly when he sold it?’

  ‘Put it this way, he didn’t intend for the children to die, but he couldn’t care less that they did.’

  ‘Name?’ Stevie could hear Rosie tapping away on her computer a
s they spoke.

  ‘Heinrich Hahanyan. I think he’s from Chelyabinsk originally.’

  ‘Is that it?’

  ‘It’s big, Rosie. And, in return, I need you to run a story on a guy they call “The Man from Chernobyl”. If the story you plant for me—’

  ‘—will try to plant—’

  ‘—has the desired effect, you’ll have a much bigger story about another monster.’ She filled Rosie in on the details and hung up.

  Now all she needed was a photo of the man.

  Valery Kozkov’s funeral was being televised that evening. Stevie knew Henning felt awful about not being in Moscow for it. She felt she should be there too, to pay her respects to Irina and Vadim. But she and Henning had discussed it and decided that what Kozkov would have wanted, over and above the presence of two more warm bodies overlooking his cold one, was the safe return of his little girl.

  Stevie had tried to comfort Valery’s friend. After all, funerals, she had reminded him, were for the living, not the dead.

  Now she and Henning sat on the end of his bed, waiting for the broadcast to begin. It was to be a state funeral, with all the pomp and ceremony involved, and a mass of important mourners.

  ‘I wonder if his killers are watching.’

  ‘Will we ever know who they are?’ Henning was staring blankly at the television screen, now showing a rose-petal-filled advertisement for a luxury hotel chain in Asia.

  He turned the volume down and said to Stevie, ‘Even if we find Anya, justice for Valery won’t have been served. All it will be is damage control—righting one wrong amongst so many.’

  Stevie had never seen Henning upset. It stirred her heart and made her want to hold him close. She put her hand on his arm instead.

  ‘Sometimes that is all we can do, and sometimes that has to be enough. We can’t fix everything that is wrong with the world.’ Stevie had often struggled with the same thoughts herself.

  ‘Most of the time,’ she went on softly, ‘I can believe that the main thing is to be struggling towards the good, rather than sliding with indifference down the scale towards evil. I cling to that.’