The Troika Dolls - Miranda Darling [101]
She poured herself a whisky from the minibar, added a splash of water and sat back on the bed. The most likely answer was still a maid or maintenance worker—faulty light bulb or some such requiring attention. She rang down to housekeeping and was assured no one had been in and no maintenance work had been ordered.
She put the phone down and sipped her drink.
Could David Rice still have her under surveillance? It was possible, but would his men do a room search if they were just keeping an eye on her safety? Could it be someone who had seen her with the Kozkovs in Moscow? But whatever for? She was no longer involved. Her ineffectiveness in resolving the matter would surely protect her from interest.
That left Yudorov’s security detail. His people would have had the skills to enter the room unnoticed, search invisibly (almost), and they had a motive. They might feel they needed to find out more about the Hammer-Belles’ ‘security overseer’ for their own protection: Was she who she claimed to be? Was she armed? Did she have any links to Yudorov’s enemies?
Stevie felt a rush of anger and quickly shook it off. No point.
Anger restricted consciousness and clouded thinking. As intrusive and rude as it was, Yudorov had to be cautious. He had a lot of enemies.
Enormously rich Russians invariably did. Anyway, his spies wouldn’t have found much of interest.
She had taken her knife with her. One passport was with the front desk, the other in her pocket. Her underwear, well perhaps that might have been of some interest . . . She smiled at the thought of thugs sniffing about her panty drawer, looking for dangerous secrets and contraband weapons.
Let them look to their heart’s content. There was nothing to find.
She checked that the front door was locked, jammed a chair under the handle for extra peace of mind and fell into a deep sleep.
The phone rang at ten minutes past one, startling Stevie out of a dream about elves on a beach.
‘Hello?’ she croaked into the receiver.
‘Stevie, it’s Paul. I’m sorry to wake you, but I thought you might want to know sooner rather than later.’
‘Know what, Paul?’ Stevie was trying to shake the sleep from her mind.
‘Well, at dinner you asked me to tell you if anyone asked questions about specific individuals?’
Stevie was suddenly wide awake. ‘Yes?’
‘Well, I was talking to one of my receptionists, Evi, who has just finished her shift. I mentioned that she should keep a lookout for anyone making detailed inquiries about our guests or other high-profile personalities in town—nothing serious, just passing the word around.’
‘Good thinking, Paul, but who was asking?’
‘One of the Russians who is staying in the suites on the eighth floor, name of Sergei Lazarev.’
‘The ones with all the girls?’
‘Exactly. Evi speaks some Russian and Mr Lazarev approached her and handed her two hundred francs. Apparently he wanted to know if the Hammer-Belles were going to be at the polo. He said he was a big fan of theirs. Evi refused the money of course and told him she was, unfortunately, unaware of the names of the invitees.’
Stevie felt a rush of adrenaline.
‘Please, Paul, can you scan Lazarev’s passport photo and send it to me?’
‘I’ll do it now.’
Stevie re-examined Lazarev’s portrait over breakfast, committing the face to memory: rectangular with pale, pitted skin; short dark hair.
Nothing remarkable, except that the ears had unusually large and fleshy lobes.
Stevie had sent the picture to Josie last night with instructions to find out what she could. Whoever this man was, he wouldn’t get near the couple, Owen Dovetail would make certain of that.
Stevie poured a cup of scalding black coffee and dipped a slither of burnt toast into her boiled egg. She hoped she would find the time to catch up on a little sleep before Yudorov’s party that night. It would not be the sort of affair that finished before dawn and she would have to be alert.
The polo match, the grand final of the Cartier Polo World Cup on Snow, was to take