The Troika Dolls - Miranda Darling [116]
She lathered her hair with chamomile shampoo. Didi used to wash her hair with it when she was a child and Stevie still used it. How bad could things be when the world still smelled of chamomile?
Once Dragoman started hunting them down, the siloviki would be certain to retaliate in kind. There was a good chance they would kill each other . . .
It wasn’t the most sophisticated of plans, it was vague, it was uncertain, but it could just work. With everyone at each other’s throats, hopefully she and Anya would become the least of either side’s concerns.
Stevie was, however, due on the helicopter out that afternoon. What could she do in a day? And if she refused to leave, would she be brave enough to carry out a plan on her own? To risk losing her job—losing David Rice? She decided to find out what she could in the meantime and let fate decide.
Stevie rang London and asked for Josie Wang in Confidential Investigations.
‘What is it now, Stevie?’ Her voice, as ever, was sharp and impatient.
Stevie worked closely with Josephine because of the woman’s uncanny recall of the predilections and peccadillos of the continent’s most notorious faces, from politicians to arms dealers to B-grade pop stars. Her ‘greenhouse of human nature’ she called it, collecting new specimens like orchids or ferns.
It had been Josie’s recall of the Romanian crime boss and his harridan wife’s obsession with Swarovski crystals that had rung alarm bells for Stevie when Mr and Mrs Boldo Balan and the Swarovski heiress had been holidaying in the same resort.
‘We are drawn to what we know.’ Josie’s theory was that even crime bosses are unconsciously influenced in their choices by distant associations . . . it had all seemed easier then.
Stevie hoped Josie hadn’t been instructed to report back to Rice if Stevie called.
‘Josie, I need to find a man named Felix Dragoman.’
‘I know the name.’
‘What do you know about him?’ Stevie asked cautiously. ‘As a person I mean, not operations.’
‘Off the top of my head,’ Josie began, ‘I can tell you he is as hard as they come. He did some years in a Soviet prison camp—you can imagine what that does to someone and what kind of person can survive it.’
Stevie nodded to herself. Dragoman would be a completely brutalised human being. Of that there was no doubt. ‘Go on,’ Stevie urged.
‘The man is a trader,’ continued Josie. ‘He doesn’t discriminate towards what it is he buys and sells, nor to whom. The CIA and MI5 keep tabs as best they can lest he start offloading nuclear material to the Iranians or terrorist groups. Neither of which he would have a moment’s scruple doing.’
‘Any foibles, weaknesses, obsessions?’ The more Stevie knew about him, the more she could work on his suspicion.
‘His health, mainly,’ Josie replied. ‘And his appearance in general. Mr Dragoman has acquired a taste for the things that money can buy, including an impeccable designer wardrobe and a fresh new complexion. He had his face lasered and all his prison tattoos removed at the same time.
‘His big weakness is his vanity. He prides himself on his appearance above anything else and spends half the year and much of his fortune maintaining his face and body, remodelling, trying the latest surgical procedures from the States, monkey hormones from South America, you name it, he’s tried it.’
Stevie marvelled for the millionth time at Josie Wang’s extraordinary power of recall. The woman was a phenomenon. ‘What about women?’ she asked.
‘Only as decoration. I don’t think he’s interested, women or men. People mean nothing to him. He seems to have formed no attachment of affection that any source can recall.’
‘No pets then?’ Stevie ventured lightly.
‘No. He’s a total germophobe—’
‘—just like Nicolai Ceaucescu and his terrifying wife.’ Stevie remembered seeing photographs of the murderous couple’s terrifying purple bathroom, with its myriad sinks and bidets and baths.
‘Only he does have real health issues,’ Josie went on crisply. ‘He has someone researching his health full time. Mr Dragoman inhaled radioactive dust after all. I’ve seen the