The Troika Dolls - Miranda Darling [117]
‘I guess he’s luckier than some that he can wear his disfigurement on the inside, but it must feel odd to know it was there.’ Stevie was trying to imagine what the lump would look like.
‘The records say he suffers from sleepless nights, and sometimes he can feel it throbbing on the left side, under his heart.’
Then the image came strongly to Stevie, the man in his bed, the heavy swelling in his chest, pounding, like a second and corrupted heart.
Josie’s voice broke into her thoughts. ‘Look, you could speculate that he has a classic case of “messiah complex”—the deformity makes him feel like a monster or a freak, but it also makes him feel different, special, somehow singled out. Look at what it did to Asahara.’
Shoko Asahara, leader of the Aum Shinrikyo cult in Japan. Bioterrorist. He was born partially sighted and sent to a school for the blind. There he had been special, singled out, different because he could see where the others could not. Several failed bioterror attacks culminated in a sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway that, fortunately for the intended victims, went wrong.
Josie was right—it could explain a lot.
‘I’ve got to run, Stevie.’
‘Thanks, Josie. I owe you.’
‘You certainly do and I won’t forget.’
‘One more thing, Josie.’ Stevie hesitated. ‘Where can I find him?’
‘Impossible. Everyone’s looking for him.’
‘But surely,’ Stevie persisted, her voice warm, ‘the big agencies might miss the detail that a fine mind like yours . . .’
‘Yes, yes, I know . . . fawn and flatter.’ Josie huffed impatiently.
‘I’ll get onto it. See if I can trace him. It’ll have to be from a different approach. I could try tracking down his health researcher for a start.’
‘And if he’s as vain as you say,’ Stevie added, ‘he will be getting beauty treatments, maybe plastic surgery, procedures of all kinds. Try the spas, the private hospitals . . . Start with Switzerland. It’s a national industry here. I have a friend who might be able to get the names of a few likely clinics.’
Stevie was thinking of Paul and his beautifully manicured hands. He was sure to know. ‘If Dragoman is in the wilds of Chechnya or in the middle of the Caspian, it’s useless,’ she conceded. ‘But he’s got to surface at some point. Good manicures are hard to get in Baku—believe me, I tried once.’
‘I’ll give that angle a try, but Stevie, you’re not going to go and find him if I do know where he is, are you?’
‘Why would I do that?’
Silence on the other end as Josie tried to decide what exactly St–evie meant by that.
13
Anya had tried hard to keep track of time since she had been kidnapped, but it always seemed to be night outside and she had given up soon after the phone call to her father.
Where was she now?
It was a bedroom in a tall house, an old house. The bedroom was small and, through the tiny barred window, she could see she was three storeys up, looking over a neglected winter garden, all frozen mud and dead leaves and faded wooden fence posts. It could have been the countryside, it could have been a derelict suburb anywhere. Thanks to Dasha and Ludmilla, Anya knew she was on the outskirts of Bucharest, Romania.
The two girls had been in the room when Anya woke up. For a second, she had felt relief—no blindfold, a proper bed, two pretty girls in jeans . . . perhaps she had been rescued in her sleep.
But in the next second she realised that happy girls don’t huddle over their knees and ooze black trickles of mascara from their eyes. It was very cold in the room and neither had taken their jackets off.
The door was locked. There were two single beds and a plastic chair; behind a paper-thin door there was a tiny toilet and basin. A hole had been kicked in the bottom of the door and the door handle was broken. Two shabby flannels hung stiffly on a rail.
The girl in the bright pink jacket spoke. ‘We can’t even throw ourselves out of the window