The Troika Dolls - Miranda Darling [130]
You could at least have bought something in my size, maybe tailored, and in a fabulous steel grey wool . . .’
‘A child-sized bomber jacket would hardly have done the job, Stevie.’
‘I don’t mean to be ungracious. I’m very grateful to you for smuggling me out. I must have weighed a ton!’
‘The fur weighs more than you do.’ Henning’s mouth twitched with amusement.
‘And so expensive. All I meant is that is seems a shame to waste it. I wonder what poor animal it used to belong to . . .’
‘I’m guessing orang-utan. It was the only thing big enough, and I’m sure it will come in useful before this is all over.’
Stevie turned and looked out the back window. The road behind them was empty. ‘So far so good, Henning. No police, no suspicious Russians. I’ll have to use my British passport at the clinic.’
‘Yes, I’m sorry we had to leave your Swiss one behind.’
Stevie shrugged. ‘I’ll get it back. A foreign passport is less suspicious anyway. The Swiss rarely use their own sanatoriums. They’re too healthy to need rest cures. They’ve always been patronised mainly by foreigners, especially the English.’
Stevie flipped down the passenger mirror and examined her face. She felt ghastly. Dark rings had collected under her eyes overnight and her pallor was frightening.
‘What do you think?’ She turned to Henning. ‘A Scottish lass with tubercular tendencies perhaps? I’m certainly pale enough.’
‘You don’t think being poisoned by a taipan is enough?’ Henning’s blue eyes were glued to the icy road.
‘I think it might be too exotic. We don’t want to draw attention to ourselves.’
‘Could Dragoman recognise us? They may have been watching the Kozkovs, seen us with Vadim.’
Stevie nodded slowly. ‘It’s possible, but it’s a risk we have to take.’
‘Speaking of risk, I still think you’re mad to do this and I wish I could stop you.’ Henning spoke quietly, his face impassive. ‘The only reason I’m helping you is that I guess—I know—that you would go ahead and do it without me. And I got you into this mess in the first place. I might even be useful.’ He turned and glanced at Stevie. ‘But you’re still mad.’
Stevie watched a lone langlaufer swoosh his way across the frozen lake, half hidden by the snowstorm. She thought of the Russian with the rifle.
‘I’m glad you’re coming with me, Henning.’ She said it softly but she meant it.
Henning looked over at her again and gave her a small smile. ‘Me too, Stevie. Me too.’
Stevie looked away. ‘You don’t like my cover story . . .’
‘I’m just not convinced about the tuberculosis.’
‘But it is so old-world glamorous,’ Stevie protested. ‘The consumptive coughing up blood by the shores of the Swiss lake.’
‘Perhaps if you had recently been to China or Latin America it might make more sense. In wealthy countries, TB remains a disease of the poorest. Perhaps if you had a malnourished housemaid . . . Haven’t you got anything that we can get fixed?’
Stevie thought for a minute. ‘My middle toe is longer than my big toe . . .’
Henning raised an eyebrow. ‘Anything else?’
‘I’m allergic to peppermint, and maraschino cherries.’
‘Right.’
Henning watched Stevie, who was busy drawing her initials with the tip of her finger on the misted window. In the half-dark, the fur around her shoulders edging her jaw, her profile could have belonged to a 1940s movie star.
‘Well,’ he said finally. ‘What do your celebrity clients complain of?’
Stevie frowned. ‘Exhaustion usually, which is code for drug and alcohol abuse.’
‘Ah yes, the old “tired and emotional”. That might do nicely. But won’t Meinetzhagen have put the details of your poisoning in the reference?’
‘For that, I am counting on the borderline obsessive discretion of the Swiss.’
Stevie pulled out the doctor’s reference. She read the three lines quickly.
‘The good doctor has gone with a simple “rest cure recommended, your sincerely”.’
‘So,’ Henning said. ‘Exhaustion it is.’
Stevie nodded. ‘Yes, I’ll be a film starlet on a “cleanse” before the release of her new movie.’
Henning thought for a minute. ‘But won