The Troika Dolls - Miranda Darling [152]
Stevie craned her head to get a better look; it had an insignia on the handle: a black bat set on a blue globe of the earth. It was familiar but Stevie couldn’t place it.
Dragoman obviously could. He turned pale, then two red spots of rage began to burn on his cheeks.
Henning put an arm around Stevie and pulled her away.
‘You’re too delicate for this, Stevie. Think of your health, your fans, darling.’
‘I just want to see what—’
One of Dragoman’s men stepped menacingly forward brandishing a Kalashnikov. Dragoman raised his little finger, the ruby ring glowing like an eye, and the man stopped. The arch villain’s eyes stayed hard on Stevie and it was all she could do to keep her expression moulded into one of slightly bovine curiosity. He made her feel suddenly frightened, chilled inside.
The manager hurried to smooth things over. ‘There has been a terrible accident, Fräulein Duveen—a climber.’
The Swiss really were bad liars, thought Stevie.
‘Oh dear,’ she whispered. ‘Is he dead? You know I once played a sexy forensics person in a TV series. They dyed my hair red. Maybe I can help, you know, time of death . . .’
She knelt quickly on the snow.
The dead man wore a long leather overcoat and only one muddy black boot. No one climbed in a leather overcoat.
Stevie examined his face. Even without the goggles she recognised him immediately: the langlaufer from St Moritz, the Russian with the rifle who had been hunting her on the ski slope.
You didn’t forget the face of a man who had been sent to kill you.
He was freshly dead, his head drooping at an odd angle and the bruise on the neck suggesting some violent pressure had snapped it. Dragoman’s men would have known better than to fire a shot.
The man with the Kalashnikov shouted at Gunnar Gobb in Russian and he began to physically usher Stevie away, a hand gripping her upper arm.
‘Please, Fräulein Duveen, this is no place for a woman in your condition.’
Stevie allowed herself to be led away, stumbling slightly from the shock.
‘How awful.’ She held a pale hand to her mouth. ‘How terribly, terribly awful. I’ve never seen a real dead body before . . .’
Henning thanked the manager and took over the ushering, cooing, ‘There, there, darling. He’s only unconscious, only sleeping, darling.’
To keep up appearances, Stevie and Henning had gone down to the steaming Hadean swimming pool and swum a good few laps. Lunch had been an uninspiring affair, some kind of vegetable timbale soaked with filthy vinegar, and a bran mousse. They were now back in Stevie’s room.
‘I’m almost looking forward to this birthday dinner for the food alone,’ Stevie said. ‘Do you think they will serve steak? Or maybe venison, with a little red cabbage—oh and what if they had foie gras with small brioche toasts?’
Henning raised his maddening eyebrow at her and she scowled in reply. ‘Well, you don’t know what it’s like being on this diet of stable muck.’
Stevie lit a cigarette and sipped her mud root tea. ‘Henning, I feel quite awful.’
‘I could smuggle you some pain au chocolat if you like . . .’
‘Oh, yes please. But I don’t mean that. I mean, I got that man killed today.’
‘That man was an assassin, Stevie. He was trying to kill you, remember?’
‘Yes, but he didn’t succeed. I did.’
‘Would you have wanted it the other way around?’ Henning asked quietly.
Stevie stared out at the black-and-white pines, the deep black trench, that lay just outside the window. Backlit by the cold light, the smoke from her cigarette formed tendrils of thought around her head.
If one Russian assassin really had followed their tracks from St Moritz and been stalking the castle, then there could be others. Either way, it was prudent to assume that he would have made contact with his controllers back in Moscow before being killed. Surely Dragoman would assume the same thing . . .
‘So, how do we play it tonight?’ Henning was dressing, buttoning his shirt closed over his rather perfect chest.