“It’s okay, Mam,” said Helen gently, knowing her mother was worried that the mere mention of a relationship might set her off brooding again. “I can cope. Really. And I know what you mean. Irina’s a bit intense sometimes. Lived on her own too long.”
“Yes,” said her mother, looking relieved. “That is what I meant.” She kissed her daughter on the cheek. “Anyway, chérie, listen, I’ve really got to write up some of my Moscow notes this afternoon, so if you don’t mind being left on your own for a bit …”
“Course I don’t,” said Helen affectionately. “I’ve got big plans of my own. Like – how about a cake for dessert tonight?”
Her mother beamed. “Great idea. Look forward to it.” And she left her daughter to it and went upstairs to work.
It was only recently that Helen had felt like cooking again. Humming to herself, she mixed up ingredients for a berry fruit cake. It was a lovely process, every ordered step of the way, each gesture a little ritual, and while she was doing it, she didn’t think of anything other than the sheer sensual pleasure of it.
There. The cake was made, and in the oven. It would take forty minutes or so to bake. Time to do something else. Her gaze fell on the bookshelves.
There was a bit of fiction, but most of the books on Irina’s shelves were non-fiction volumes about myth and folklore. Much of it was dry and academic but Helen found an illustrated book on Russian folklore that was written in a lively and interesting way, and she soon became absorbed in it.
Back at Changeling, they’d once produced a special documentary on the mythological allusions behind Harry Potter. She’d done some of the basic research for it. She’d loved it – she’d always been into fairytales as a child and it had been like plunging back into that heady enchanted world. Now the same kind of fascination returned as she happened almost at once on the answer to Irina’s parting riddle.
For domovoi wasn’t a person but a thing. A house-spirit. Something like a house-elf in Harry Potter, only domovoi were most certainly not meek and cringing, and you couldn’t enslave them or even expect them to work for you. In fact, unlike the industrious tailor elves of Western folk tale, domovoi were damn lazy. It was you who worked for them. You who had to leave bits of food for them near the stove or in the cellar, where they usually lived. You who had to be polite and ask after their health. Your visitors who had to duck their heads in greeting to the domovoi when they entered your house, or he’d give them a nasty crack on the head. If you didn’t do these things, he’d take his revenge. Send things flying around the place. Trip you up. Upend pots and pans. Spoil sauces. Send plagues of mice and insects to eat your stores. So you had to be very careful. And if you moved house you had to ask your domovoi to come with you or you’d get bad luck. Sometimes they didn’t feel like moving and then if the next person brought along their own domovoi, there’d be a real brawl between them. But the important thing was to ask. Nicely.
She read on, about other sorts of spirits, many much less homely than the domovoi: the bannik, who lived in the steambath-house, and might suffocate or burn you if you bathed without his permission or after midnight; the leshii, who lived in the forest, ranged from dwarfish to gigantic, and could set bears and wolves onto you; the vodyanoi, who manifested in the form of a hideous old man and whose main purpose in non-life was to drown people and animals and who you had to placate with gifts ranging from vodka to dead chickens. And the unhappy, dangerous Rusalki. She remembered Sergey mentioning them. But a Rusalka was considered a bit differently to other dangerous spirits, because as well as fearing her, people pitied her, as she once had been a human being. Rusalki were most active around a time called “Rusalka week”, the week just before the religious feast-day of the Trinity, or Pentecost, as it was known in the West.
Trinity – the Rusalka curse. Yesterday, Sergey’s story had spooked her. Today, with the image of the Trinity heir flashing through her mind, she tingled with curiosity. She wished she’d asked Sergey questions. But she couldn’t wait till the next time he turned up. She’d have to google it on her smartphone, right now.
*
Most of the stuff on the Internet about the so-called “Rusalka Curse” was in Russian. But there were also a few articles in English, with the most useful being from an Australian newspaper which had reported on Ivan Makarov’s death, two months previously, in March.
MYSTERIOUS DEATH SPARKS SPECULATION
TRINITY FOUNDER DIES IN GOLD COAST CANAL
The mysterious drowning death of wealthy expatriate Russian businessman Ivan Makarov, 47, in a canal near his Gold Coast home, has stunned the Russian community in Queensland. Makarov, whose body was found in the early hours of yesterday morning by a local dog walker, is believed to have died sometime during the previous night.
No signs of violence were found, apart from a bump on the head, which investigation indicates is probably accidental, due to Makarov slipping and striking his head on the bank, possibly after a sudden heart attack. The last person to see Makarov alive, a waitress in a local restaurant the businessman frequented, said he’d left the establishment around 10 pm, saying he was walking home as it was a fine night.
A founder and director of the secretive Moscow-based investigative company, Trinity, Makarov had been living in Australia for the last eleven years, but retained property in Russia, and flew several times a year to Moscow for board meetings. Police have confirmed that he was due to fly to Moscow again next week.
Mr. Makarov is the last of the company’s three founding directors to die in unusual circumstances. Semyon Galkin, 47, and Sergey Barsukov, 48, who were co-founders of Trinity with Makarov twenty years ago, also drowned. Galkin died in a remote Finnish lake while on a hunting trip two Junes ago, while last year in May, Barsukov was found floating in the pool of a luxury hotel in Nice, France, where he was holidaying.
In each case, autopsies showed that the men were probably unconscious when they hit the water, but in none was there a sign of violence, and toxicology reports were negative. It is believed that Galkin had a history of heart problems which could have contributed to his losing consciousness and drowning, but there was no such indication in Barsukov’s case. Despite the heart attack report, Makarov had also been given a clean bill of health by his doctor a few months before.
No witnesses to the men’s deaths have come forward, and in each case they are believed to have been alone at the time.
Makarov’s only surviving child, his 24-year-old son Alexey, a music graduate, who was interstate when his father died, has inherited all Trinity shares and assets outright.
Under the article were readers’ comments. Helen skimmed a few.
sjholmes11: Probably a Russian Mafia job. Rumor has it they’ve been after Trinity for some time. Apparently the Makarov kid is not interested in running it and it’s likely to be sold off.
Truthteller: More likely somebody in the secret services got rid of those guys. Probably been sitting on some dangerous secrets. Easy to disappear in Russia if you offend powerful people.
Georg75: Read in Russia Today that some people say there’s something weirder than that going on, they’re calling it “The Rusalka Curse” after the mermaid who lures guys to their death.
Frappyman: People believe in that shit, no wonder Russia’s screwed man.
Helen clicked out of the comments and looked at the photo illustrating the article. It showed the three dead Trinity partners at some function. Of all of them, Barsukov looked the most classically dangerous, like a character out of some underworld film – big, tall, with a bald bullet head and unsmiling black eyes, massive shoulders under a smart suit. Galkin was small and wiry as a jockey, with a thin face and restless eyes. But Ivan Makarov looked ordinary, like someone you might pass in the street and hardly notice – gray eyes, dark brown hair, average height. Helen thought of the face she’d glimpsed in the Mercedes. Ivan Makarov’s son, Trinity heir. Alexey. He didn’t look much like his father. Perhaps he took after his mother. But she
wasn’t mentioned. Was she dead, or just absent? And the article had also said he was the “only surviving child”, which implied there must have been others, once. So the young man had ended up alone, far from home, living behind high walls, his father dead in suspicious circumstances, minders around him, shadowy enemies lurking in the wings, and a question mark over his future. And yet he’s only a little older than me, thought Helen. She shivered, remembering the young man she’d fleetingly glimpsed in the car. How lonely it must be for him, despite the extravagant trappings of wealth.
Chapter 4
The next day dawned clear and blue and at breakfast Therese announced an intention to go and visit the cathedral of Saint Dimitri. “Would you like to come?” she asked Helen.
“Would you mind awfully if I didn’t? We did see a lot of churches in Moscow.”
Her mother laughed. “Sure, no problem. You take it easy. I’ll be back around lunchtime.”
“And I’ll have some lunch ready when you get back,” said Helen, brightly.
“Formidable! I certainly think I’ll stay in this hotel again.” Her mother blew a kiss to her and set off.
Left alone, Helen wandered for a while in the garden, picking flowers for the table, watching bees buzzing around the blossoms, peeking in at the window of Irina’s study – a pleasant room with tall filing cabinets and a big desk with everything in its place, not at all like Mom’s untidy desk back home. That made her think of what Irina had said, about the “magical stream” in the wood. She’d go exploring, see if she could find it. Her grandfather in France had a farm by the edge of a similar small wood and she loved it there. And Irina had said there were no bears there.
Walking down the track, she breathed in the pine-scented air, delightedly taking everything in: the sun shining through leaves making green-gold coins on the path, the silver gleam of birch trunks, a bright flurry of fragile flowers, and whispery clouds of butterflies. A few mosquitoes, too, but nowhere near as bad as by the river. She startled a hare sitting bolt upright in the middle of the path. He took off like the wind, lolloping off through the trees. A little further on, a squirrel bounded up a tree at her approach. There were birds, too – a cuckoo calling coolly from the depths of the woods, pigeons cooing, little birds twittering.
And then, coming around a bend, she saw something on the track ahead. It was a magpie, injured by the looks of it, flapping, uttering little cries. “Oh you poor thing,” whispered Helen, approaching it carefully, so it wouldn’t get scared. Closer up, she could see a silver tag around one of its legs. “My God,” she breathed, “it’s you …”
She bent down. Reached out a hand, and …
The roar of a powerful engine burst behind her. She only just had time to fling herself sideways before the big red motorbike went racing past in a stinging cloud of dust and pebbles.
“Effing pillock!” she screamed at the black-clad, black-helmeted rider’s back. She dashed to where the magpie had been, fearing the worst. But not only was there no pitiful mash of blood and bone and feathers, there was nothing. The magpie had vanished. It must have flown away. She couldn’t believe it. She was sure it had been injured. Stunned, at least. It couldn’t just have …
She jerked her head up. Down the track, the biker had turned his machine around and was heading straight for her! Half-blinded by panic, she plunged into the undergrowth, not seeing the fallen sapling till it was too late. She went sprawling, coming down painfully on her right ankle. “Fuck it!” she yelled in pain, trying to scramble up.
Too late. The biker had already jumped off his machine and came towards her, minus the black helmet that had made him look so alien and menacing.
“Oh hell, I’m so sorry.” He must have heard her cursing, for he spoke in perfect English, with an unusual accent highlighting a deep voice. He bent down to her, his leathers creaking. “Are you okay?”
She’d only caught a glimpse of him yesterday. Up close he was gorgeous. High cheekbones, straight nose, tough jaw: hard, masculine lines, but softened and brightened by an extraordinary pair of blue-green eyes, framed in short dark lashes under that thatch of thick blond hair. She’d seen faces like his in paintings in the Tretyakov art gallery in Moscow: great knights and princely warriors from Russian history and legend, an impression reinforced by the black leathers he wore. But the painted faces did not have a fraction of the stunning vitality, the warmth of his. Trying desperately to recover her scattered wits, she said, tartly, “Hardly. My ankle hurts. I think it could be sprained or even broken.”
“Oh God. I’m so sorry.” He hesitated. “Can I – can I check your ankle, see what’s wrong?”
“Are you a doctor or something?” she said, truculently. Then she relented. “Okay. For all the good it’ll do.” She winced involuntarily as he pushed back her sock, exposing the ankle. It was throbbing now, really hurting.
His touch was light, gentle, but it made her tremble. And then it happened. She felt a jolt as his fingers touched her skin. He glanced quickly at her. There was an extraordinary expression in his eyes, surprise mixed with joy, and it made her heart race. His fingers held still on the ankle for a moment more, and a flood of warmth rushed through her. Then he took his hand away, and with a shock she realized that her ankle had stopped throbbing and that the pain had gone. She looked at him, but before she could speak, he said, rapidly, “It was only twisted, thanks be to God. Can I help you up?”
Part of her longed to ask what exactly had happened when he had touched her ankle. But another part of her didn’t want to know. Something very weird was going on. She couldn’t believe it. Correction, she had to believe it. She just didn’t know what to make of it. And it wasn’t just her ankle, though that was strange enough. It was the startling power of her own reaction to him.
Her mind was flapping around like the injured magpie. That hadn’t been injured after all, but only ... She shivered. “Thanks,” she muttered, “but I can get up by myself.”
But her ankle was still weak, as she soon found out, and so he helped her anyway. He said, “I don’t think you should walk on that yet. Can I give you a lift somewhere?”
“On that machine?”
He laughed. “I’m afraid so. But I promise to be careful this time.”
They looked at each other, and in that moment something came into Helen’s mind, an image so startlingly vivid and sharp that it was as if it was something right before her, and yet as otherworldly as a dream.
There was a crossroads. Two paths. One on the right. One on the left. A tingle rippled coldly over her, a tremor part excitement, part fear. For she had no idea where the vision had come from: but she knew it was important. And she knew exactly what it meant.
Take the right-hand path: the safe path. Say no thanks, it’s okay, I’m fine, I’ll make my own way back, and it would be business as usual. Take the left-hand path: the dangerous one. Say yes, get on the back of his motorbike, and then – God only knew.
She took a deep breath. And plunged into the left-hand path. “I’ll hold you to that,” she said.
A smile lit up his face. “Fair enough.” He held out a hand. “I’m Alexey, by the way. Alexey Makarov.”
“Hello. I’m Helen. Helen Clement.” She returned the shake, but withdrew her hand quickly.
“I saw you yesterday,” he said.
“Yes – yes – we had just arrived from Moscow, we’d gone for a little walk, we’re here on holiday, my mother’s a travel writer.” She knew she was speaking too much but was unable to stop. “We’re staying with Professor Irina Bayeva, in a house just near here. Maybe you know her.”
He shook his head. “I think I’ve heard the name, but I haven’t met her. I haven’t lived here very long. And I’m not always here. Have to go to Moscow quite often. So I’m not really up with the locals.” He gave her a wry sidelong glance. “But, as I expect you already know, the locals are well up on me.”
She looked away. “Er – yes.”
“You’re English, righ
t?” he said, smiling a little at her discomfiture.
“No. That is, not technically speaking,” she said, hastily. “My mother’s French, my dad’s American. I live in London. Have done since I was about nine. And you – your accent …”
“Russian with an Aussie veneer, I guess,” he said, “which is why it probably sounds weird. Lived in Australia from the age of twelve till now, see. Well, we’re quite a mixture, then, aren’t we, you and I?” he added, lightly.
Helen swallowed, and trying to match his light tone, said, “I guess so. But then lots of people are now.”
“You’re right,” he said, with a little smile that Helen knew had nothing to do with what she’d said and everything to do with what he’d seen in her eyes when he’d said “you and I”.
She said, sharply because she was feeling so nervous, “Well, now we’ve been properly introduced and all, how about that lift?”
The smile didn’t leave his face. “Sure thing, Helen.” Picking up the bike, he sat astride. He handed her the helmet. “Here, put this on.”
“But you …”
He brushed that aside. “I don’t need it. Okay, you comfy?”
“Sure.”
“You can put your arms round my waist if it helps,” he said. “I won’t bite, I promise.”
She stammered, “It’s okay, I can hang onto the sides here, it’s fine.”
“No worries,” he said, calmly. “Whatever you want.”
Chapter 5
As soon as they drew up outside Irina’s cottage, Helen hastily dismounted. Taking off the helmet, she handed it to Alexey. “Would you – would you – er – like to come in for a drink or something? I think there’s beer in the fridge.”
Trinity: The Koldun Code (Book 1) Page 3