Unlike the majority of Russians, Ola had always been a practising Catholic, something she kept to herself and only shares with me and the churches we visit when we are away from our homeland. When I sensed she had finished her prayers I gathered up our bags and nudged her slowly out of the church.
From there we made our way towards my destiny.
“Ola, should we be doing this? I’m having second thoughts. What if it all goes horribly wrong and this is some sort of set-up where they have been sent to extract money from Nikolai after taking me captive?” I had let my imagination run free.
“Then how do you explain the photo I found?” asked Ola.
“I don’t know, maybe it is all true but they have come to arrest you and Nikolai in some sort of international sting operation coordinated by the CIA and the KGB!”
At that Ola burst out laughing.
“I doubt it, Katya. If they wanted to arrest Nikolai they would have made sure he came too, you silly girl.”
At that moment a voice from behind yelled out: “Katya … Katya what the hell are you doing here!”
I turned around and to my horror I saw Nikolai leaning out of his black Mercedes looking concerned.
I looked at Ola quickly and she leapt into action.
“We are on our way to the airport, Katya, did you not leave Nikolai a note?” she reprimanded me.
The car pulled over causing a back up of traffic on the rue de Rivoli.
Nikolai’s chauffeur got out and opened the passenger doors for us.
“Why did you not order the car? Get in you two and tell me what you are up to.”
We obeyed, handing our bags to the chauffeur and Ola taking the front seat next to him while I slid in next to Nikolai who was looking at me sternly.
“Tell me, Katya, what is going on? I come around to surprise you and take you out to lunch and you are not there. I rang Bailey and he says he is not expecting you even though that is where your note said you were headed. Surely you are not heading off somewhere without telling me, my sweet?” he leaned over and held my hand.
I felt sick. He was angry with me and I had to think fast. Perhaps Ola was right and he knew about Jane and my meeting with her. Perhaps he was going to kill us all.
“Nikolai, how silly of me to try to pull the wool over your eyes,” I laughed. “I really should know better.”
“She is a naughty girl, no?” Ola played along from the front seat. “I told her you would catch her out but no she insists on going.”
“Going where, Katya?” questioned Nikolai, his voice dropping an octave.
Where? Indeed. My mind was racing to come up with a story he would believe. God, I was hopeless at this. Where was my Madonna when I needed her for guidance?
“Can a girl have no secrets?” I stalled for time, turning on my most coquettish smile. “You really must allow me to keep myself interesting, Nikolai,” I twinkled, doing my best to be mysterious.
“You have no need to run away without telling me where you are going, surely. And I must insist you tell me. Where … were … you … going!” his voice was raised now, he was almost shouting and I could see the tattoos on his knuckles spread as his fists clenched.
“You better tell him, Katya,” said Ola. “He would have noticed anyhow.”
I knew she was trying to throw me a lead but I had no idea what it was.
“You tell him, Ola,” I responded. If she’s so clever she can come up with an alibi, then she can reveal it too.
“Ah, how unlike you to be so shy, my darling,” she returned quick as a flash.
“Nikolai, it was supposed to be a surprise for you and the other gentlemen. We were heading off to the clinic, the cosmetic surgery clinic. Katya was going to have her breasts enhanced for you. From a B to a D. She thought it would make a nice present.”
I turned to Nikolai and grinned sweetly. “Ah well there it is. And you only have yourself to blame for being so nosy,” I leaned across and tweaked him on his nose.
He grinned. At first he wasn’t too sure but then, as Ola knew it would, the pictures in his head got the better of him and he was blessing the entire car with a huge toothy grin.
“Oh my goodness, Katya, you silly girl. I love your breasts as they are, but then, I guess a little more won’t hurt,” he laughed. “I hope it is not going to be too painful for you. Have you chosen the best people to do it?” he continued suddenly concerned.
“Oh yes, Nikolai, you need not worry and now we had better hurry or we will be late, and I haven’t been able to eat anything since last night because of the anaesthetic.”
Ola instructed the chauffeur to drop us off at a nearby cosmetic surgery clinic we once went to for some collagen lip injections. Thank goodness she remembered where it was.
As we pulled up Nikolai grabbed my hand and looked at me lovingly and longingly.
“Katya, you will never know how much I love you. This is such a wonderful thing to do for me,” and with that he leant over and kissed me on the lips for the last time.
I couldn’t help it, tears welled in my eyes and before I knew it I was sobbing on his shoulder. How could he know how much I would miss him, how much I wanted so much to believe he had no part in the story I was about to be told.
“There, there, my darling. I will see you in two days. Ola will look after you,” and with that he pecked me on the cheek and ordered Ola to call him as soon as the operation was over.
As we waved goodbye on the curb outside the surgery I couldn’t believe we had pulled it off.
“Ola, you are a genius,” I whispered.
“That was very close,” she said nervously and only then I noticed that she was shaking like a leaf.
“Quick, let’s walk inside just in case he doubles around the block and then we will call a taxi to L’Hôtel. We can’t afford for anything else to go wrong.”
29
Marco and I had slept little since seeing the girl I now believed, beyond a doubt, was my Charlotte. I lay between the crisp white hotel sheets and sumptuous cashmere comforter and replayed my meeting with Charlotte in the powder room over and over again. I was still unable to pin down exactly what it was about her which made her so familiar to me, so much a part of me. Was it the blue eyes like my father’s or the way she held her head, or the long legs like mine? These things I could not answer, but I knew, deep down that I had found her.
“Still convinced?” were the first words Marco said that morning as we finally gave up on sleep and opened the curtains to reveal a grey old Parisian day.
“Of course I am, you know that,” I answered as I picked up the phone to order coffee and the newspapers.
“Well, what shall we do then? Are you happy to wait and see if she rings here? Why didn’t you give her your mobile number then we could at least go out and distract ourselves,” he said.
“Marco, I was in a hurry, I just grabbed the first thing my hand found in my purse. I was just trying to keep her there in that powder room, to keep her talking.” And then I was crying, sobbing my eyes out.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Jane.That was insensitive of me. This is such a weird, amazing, shocking time we are having. I guess during all those 15 years we have hoped that she might be out there we never thought much about what we would do if she turned up,” he said reasonably.
“I just always saw myself hugging this little girl,” I mumbled. “Not a grown-up princess like that. I just can’t help thinking who that man was, where did she learn that grace and poise, how did she become so refined, so sophisticated, so obviously rich?”
“Well, hopefully we will find out and at least you can be assured she has obviously ended up being well looked after. Some of the scenarios we have discussed over the years have not been so positive.”
Marco was referring to the mounting press reports on paedophile rings throughout the world which we had read and absorbed over the years with dread. The thought that my daughter could have been abducted for sex, at the age of five, just wouldn
’t compute. I couldn’t allow my brain to go there.
“Well, we have three more days in Paris, and I know we had some wonderful things planned to do together before you headed back to work but I, for one, am not leaving this room,” I said, determined.
“For three days,” said Marco, incredulous. “You are going to stay in here for three days, while we are in the most beautiful city in the world? Don’t be ridiculous. Let’s hang around this morning, by all means. That makes sense. And then I’ll have a word to the front desk and if a call comes in for you, any call at all I’ll get them to transfer it to your cell phone. How would that be?”
Ten minutes later there was a knock at our door.
30
The concierge at L’Hôtel in the Rue Beaux Arts looked at the tall blonde and the old Russian woman carrying overnight bags and I could tell what he was thinking. He was used to Russian call girls coming and going from the hotel, but not usually with their mothers. Some people were really twisted, is what he was thinking.
Ola and I had decided not to ring Jane Lyndhurst for two reasons. First, I could remember the room number she had given me and second, Ola was a great believer in the element of surprise.
“You never want to give anyone warning. You can tell a lot by that first moment they open the door and look at you. It will tell me a lot about the character of this woman and the man she is with. We will just turn up,” she said triumphantly.
We made our way past the snotty concierge, into the lift and rode it to the fourth floor.
“At least they are staying in a nice hotel,” I commented to Ola, simply to fill in the silence and keep my nerves steady. “This is where Oscar Wilde died, I think, it’s just been renovated.”
“I don’t care about such things, Katya, and neither should you. Some of the best people I know came from nothing, are nothing and will be nothing. But they have good hearts and souls and that is all that counts.”
“Spare me the lecture, Ola,” I said annoyed that she had chosen the moment I was possibly about to be reunited with my real mother to impart to me her views on material worth.
We reached the fourth floor and Ola marched out ahead of me. In charge, not lingering a moment for me to change my mind, as she knew I was quite capable of doing.
Before I knew it she was hammering on the door of room 408.
“Use the buzzer!” I hissed, deeply ashamed that she was being such a peasant.
And then the door opened.
It was the man, the Italian looking man from in the restaurant last night. He looked at Ola and then he looked up at me and a huge grin swept across his face.
“I thought you were coffee,” he said. “Oh, I’m sorry what a silly thing to say, we are expecting coffee, obviously, but there you are, oh my there you are … oh please … please do come in. Now. Come in!” he said stepping back and ushering us into the suite which was luxurious, plush and so Parisian.
“Why do all hotels in Paris have to look like Marie Antoinette’s boudoir?” I wondered to myself, again unable to concentrate on the most important moment in my life.
The room was empty. I swung around half expecting the man to lock the door and armed police to leap out and arrest Ola, but he simply went over to the double mahogany doors which led into the bathroom and knocked on them, with a huge smile on his face.
“Jane, we have visitors.”
He turned to us and continued to smile his gawky smile while we stood awkwardly holding our bags.
“Oh, I’m sorry, how rude. Let me take your bags, were you on your way somewhere? A holiday perhaps? Venice is great this time of year,” he chattered nervously. “I’m Marco by the way, Marco Wilson and I think I know who you are.”
Ola was suddenly lost for words. Her English has never been good and she looked at me to start the conversation suddenly looking every bit the old Russian peasant, vacant and helpless. She’d be pulling out the vodka next, I thought.
“Ah yes, we didn’t have a chance to meet last night,” I said, finding my voice. “I am Katya Trubetskoy and this is my nanny, well actually my companion, well the only mother I’ve known … Ola Kotisiyenko.”
“Pleased to meet you both,” he said politely before the woman from last night appeared at the double doors with a towel around her wet hair.
“Oh my Lord!” she exclaimed when she saw us. “Look at me, I’ve just got out of the shower and here I am all wet and oh this is awful, what must you think of me. But oh how lovely, how fucking fantastic you came. Oh excuse my language, I’m sorry, I’m just so overwhelmed, I’m just … ” and with that she looked at Marco as if he would make everything alright.
Which he did.
“Right, let’s see, what to do. How about you two ladies take a seat over here on the couch, I’ll just put your bags over there by the window and make yourself comfortable. We had just ordered coffee — would you like some too?”
“That would be nice,” I said more out of politeness than any desire to drink it.
“And now, Jane … oh Jane you haven’t met Ol … I’m sorry, is it Ola?”
Ola nodded suspiciously at Jane who smiled eagerly back at her as water dripped down her face from her towel turban.
“And, of course you met Katya … her name is Katya, last night.”
“I did, I’m so sorry if I scared you, but I just knew I had to act on my instincts,” she blurted out before rushing over and settling in the arm chair opposite me. She seemed unable to take her eyes off me and had not realised that not only was her turban about to topple off her head but her dressing gown had gaped open.
“Um darling. Jane,” said Marco attempting to get her attention. “Why don’t you slip off and get dressed and we’ll chat while you do.”
“Oh yes, good idea. Sorry Charl … I mean Kat … Katya … won’t be a moment.”
As she disappeared into the bedroom I took note of the way she walked, her legs, her arms and felt a strange familiarity with what I saw, although I couldn’t pin it down to anything specific.
There was another knock at the door and as Marco answered it to receive the coffee and order some more, Ola and I took the opportunity to exchange a few words in Russian.
“He is not Italian, he speaks English like her, he must also be a New Zealander,” she said, eager to display her keen observational skills.
“They seem nice,” I said hopefully.
“They are nervous, how can you tell?” she snapped back.
“Well, you’re not in handcuffs, that’s a good start,” I joked before turning my attention back to Marco who was now sitting opposite us on the other armchair.
“My apologies for talking Russian with Ola, Marco, it is just she does not speak good English.”
“That is absolutely fine, feel free, this must be a strange situation for you … and us,” he smiled before pouring us both a cup of strong coffee each.
When Jane reappeared she had totally transformed herself. She had hastily dried her hair, applied some make-up and was wearing a tasteful black polo neck with black Capri pants and ballet slippers. I was reassured to see this woman had taste.
She sat back on the armchair opposite me, tucked her feet up under her and began to talk.
“Okay, so I’m not sure where to start but probably the best thing to do is if I tell you a little about myself and how you went missing and then you can tell me about yourself because I am dying to know all about you, Katya,” she said suddenly matter-of-fact.
“But first I have to ask, do you believe that you may be my daughter?”
Before I knew it I had reached inside my purse and pulled out the photo Ola had given me that morning. I stood up and took it over to her, holding it out for her to see.
She looked at it in my hand, looked at me, looked at Marco and was out of her chair and hugging me so hard I had to fight for breath.
The first thing I noticed was that we were the same height, our arms went around each other and we just fitted somehow. Our bodies see
med to meld together the right way, the way they do when you are with someone you have known and loved all your life. The way they must do when a mother hugs her grown daughter. Less a hug, more a cuddle.
After what seemed like an hour we released our hug and drew back to have a look at each other, but Jane would not let go of my hand.
She held it up to her face and started examining it finger by finger, turning it over to look at the palm.
“There it is!” she exclaimed. “The very thing that binds us … look!”
She placed the palm of her hand on mine and finger by finger we matched. Our palms were exactly the same size but that didn’t prove anything as far as I was concerned. Until she pointed at the mole beneath my ring finger knuckle and then pointed at an identical mole in exactly the same spot on her ring finger.
“My mother has one too,” she said laughing. “We used to call it the curse of the Callaways, that’s her family, they were Scottish.”
Marco had meanwhile gently dislodged the photo from Jane’s hands and was standing there looking at it in wonder.
“So it is you, Charlotte, after all these years,” he said thoughtfully. “If only you knew how many times I have wanted this to happen for Jane, how she never gave up on the hope that you were still alive, even if she never found you. She always believed you were out there somewhere … and here you are.”
What a nice man, I thought. But who was he again?
“But I take it you are not my father,” I asked
“God, no!” he exclaimed rather strongly I thought. “Sorry, no I am not your father, but Jane and I have been together since … well, since you disappeared really.”
At that moment Jane released my hand and sat back down to start telling me about her life. I discovered she was a journalist, a successful magazine editor, a workaholic, until I was abducted and then she sought solace in Venice and Marco.
The Road from Midnight Page 23