Lost - Michael Robotham [132]
“A long while ago Kirsten told me that she would never cross Aleksei Kuznet or if she did she’d be catching the first plane to Patagonia. She missed her flight.”
Aleksei’s name has shaken her calmness.
“Didn’t Kirsten tell you? She tried to rip him off. You must realize how much danger she’s in …” I pause, “… how much danger you’re both in.”
“I haven’t done anything.”
“I’m sure Aleksei will understand. He’s a reasonable man. I saw him only yesterday. I offered him a deal—two million pounds’ worth of diamonds if he left Kirsten alone. He didn’t take it. He sees himself as a man of honor. Money doesn’t matter and neither do excuses. But if you haven’t seen Kirsten, that’s fine. I’ll let him know.”
Ash falls from her cigarette and smudges her dress. “I might be able to ask around. You mentioned money.”
“I mentioned diamonds.”
“It might help me find her.”
“And I had you pegged as a humanitarian.”
Her top lip curls. “You see a limousine parked outside?”
Her eyelids seem to work on wires attached to the top of her forehead. I’ve heard it called a Croydon face-lift—pulling back your hair so tightly that everything else lifts.
Drawing out my wallet, I peel off three twenties. She counts with her eyes.
“There’s a clinic in Tottenham. It patched her up. Expensive. But discreet.”
I put another two twenties on the stack. She has the money in her hand and it vanishes down her cleavage as if part of a conjuring trick. She tilts her head as though listening to the rain.
“I know all about you. You’re a Gypsy.” My surprise pleases her. “They used to say your mother had a gift.”
“How do you know her?”
“Don’t you recognize a kindred spirit?” She cackles hoarsely, claiming to be a Gypsy. “Your mother told my fortune once. She said I would always be a great beauty and could have any man I wanted.”
(Somehow I don’t think she was talking quantity.)
Daj had a gift all right—a gift for doing cold readings and predicting the bleeding obvious. She took people’s money and tapped their spring of eternal hope. And afterward, having ushered them out of the door, she ran to the liquor store and bought her vodka.
There’s a sound from upstairs: something falling. Mrs. Wilde looks up quickly.
“It’s just one of my old girls. She stays sometimes.”
Her milky blue eyes betray her and her hand shoots out to stop me from rising. “Let me tell you the address of the clinic. They might know where she is.”
I brush her hand aside and move up the stairs, leaning out to peer between the banisters above me. On the first landing there are three doors, two open and one closed. I knock gently and turn the handle. Locked.
“Don’t touch me! Leave me alone!”
It sounds like the voice of a child—the same one I heard on the phone during the ransom drop. I step away, bracing my back against the wall, with only my hand protruding past the door frame.
The first bullet hits six inches to the right of the handle at stomach height. I sit heavily letting my feet hit the opposite wall, letting out a low groan.
Mrs. Wilde yells up the stairs, “Is that my door? If that’s my bloody door you’ll be paying for it.”
A second bullet rips through the wood a foot above the floor.
Mrs. Wilde again: “Right, that’s it! From now on I’m taking a fucking deposit.”
I sit quietly, listening to my own breathing.
“Hey, you out there,” says the voice, just above a whisper. “Are you dead?”
“No.”
“Are you wounded?”
“No.”
She curses.
“It’s me, Vincent Ruiz. I’m here to help you.”
A long silence follows.
“Please let me come in. I’m here alone.”
“Stay away. Please go.” I recognize Kirsten’s voice, thick with phlegm and fear.
“I can’t do that.”
After another long pause: “How’s your leg?”
“Half an inch shorter.”
Mrs. Wilde calls up the stairs. “I’m calling the police unless someone pays for my door!”
Sighing heavily, I tell Kirsten, “You can keep the gun if you shoot your landlady.”
Her laugh is cut short by a hacking cough.
“I’m