The Troika Dolls - Miranda Darling [144]
Stevie took another gulp of her mud root tea to quell the nervous fluttering in her ribcage. She made a face. ‘This needs vodka.’
‘Do we have a plan, Stevie?’
‘Just to get close and see what we can discover—or instigate.’
‘Room for improvisation then?’
Stevie put down her cup and rummaged about in the pocket of her robe. ‘I just had another idea. I’m calling Rosie.’
‘Who’s Rosie?’
‘Josie’s twin. She works on Fleet Street.’
Stevie pulled out her tiny, tiny phone. She saw she had missed a call from David Rice. Her heart sank. How could she explain all this? He would have to wait.
Rosie answered her mobile, snappy and businesslike. She was the less nonsensical of the twins.
Stevie began her buttering but Rosie cut her off. ‘Look, Stevie, I know your tricks. Josie tells me everything and I don’t have the time. What do you want, and what’s in it for me? Simple question, give me a simple answer.’
‘Okay, Rosie. I need you to plant a story in your paper. In return, you will get the scoop on something huge. It’s quid pro quo.’
‘Details, Stevie. What’s my scoop?’
She thought fast. ‘Remember the dead infants in Novgorod Oblast?’
‘The contaminated milk powder from China?’ Rosie’s voice was sharp with interest.
‘The powder was made in China,’ Stevie went on, ‘but sold through a broker who specialises in dodgy goods from the People’s Republic. He sets up factories there to make whatever people order. Mainly I think it’s fake pharmaceuticals and dietary supplements. By the time the buyers discover the goods are faulty—or even deadly—this guy has vanished and his factory is already making something else.’
‘So he knew this infant formula was deadly when he sold it?’
‘Put it this way, he didn’t intend for the children to die, but he couldn’t care less that they did.’
‘Name?’ Stevie could hear Rosie tapping away on her computer as they spoke.
‘Heinrich Hahanyan. I think he’s from Chelyabinsk originally.’
‘Is that it?’
‘It’s big, Rosie. And, in return, I need you to run a story on a guy they call “The Man from Chernobyl”. If the story you plant for me—’
‘—will try to plant—’
‘—has the desired effect, you’ll have a much bigger story about another monster.’ She filled Rosie in on the details and hung up.
Now all she needed was a photo of the man.
Valery Kozkov’s funeral was being televised that evening. Stevie knew Henning felt awful about not being in Moscow for it. She felt she should be there too, to pay her respects to Irina and Vadim. But she and Henning had discussed it and decided that what Kozkov would have wanted, over and above the presence of two more warm bodies overlooking his cold one, was the safe return of his little girl.
Stevie had tried to comfort Valery’s friend. After all, funerals, she had reminded him, were for the living, not the dead.
Now she and Henning sat on the end of his bed, waiting for the broadcast to begin. It was to be a state funeral, with all the pomp and ceremony involved, and a mass of important mourners.
‘I wonder if his killers are watching.’
‘Will we ever know who they are?’ Henning was staring blankly at the television screen, now showing a rose-petal-filled advertisement for a luxury hotel chain in Asia.
He turned the volume down and said to Stevie, ‘Even if we find Anya, justice for Valery won’t have been served. All it will be is damage control—righting one wrong amongst so many.’
Stevie had never seen Henning upset. It stirred her heart and made her want to hold him close. She put her hand on his arm instead.
‘Sometimes that is all we can do, and sometimes that has to be enough. We can’t fix everything that is wrong with the world.’ Stevie had often struggled with the same thoughts herself.
‘Most of the time,