The Troika Dolls - Miranda Darling [164]
‘They decided they would rather jump and die free.’ Anya was staring at her hands. ‘At least then you know what is going to happen to you.’ She looked up at Stevie. ‘They’re dead, aren’t they?’
Stevie nodded. ‘No one could survive a fall from that height. I’m sorry, Anya.’
The river was fast and deep. The bodies would probably get swept down the mountain and either catch under a rock, or end up at the bottom of a lake. It was unlikely they would ever be found.
No one spoke again until they reached the street lamps of Zurich and the safety of Stevie’s home by the woods.
Things felt better after hot showers and fresh clothes. They were sitting in Stevie’s tiny kitchen, around her even tinier kitchen table. Her flat was above the lake, by the edge of the woods. The floors were polished parquet and the shared garden below was full of apple trees—naked in the winter light. In the summer, pots of red geraniums flowered on the balcony.
Stevie made Anya a warm Ovomaltine with milk then lit the gas under her metal coffee pot.
Henning had called Irina and Vadim. Aware that the telephone of Kozkov’s widow and son might be monitored, Henning had merely called to offer condolences for Valery’s passing, then added ‘but there are so many reasons to be happy,’ and urged them to visit him and see for themselves. They had understood from this that Anya was safe and they were on their way to Zurich on the first plane out of Shermetyevo airport.
Anya had not been able to speak to her mother, but that would come later. Everyone was just happy to be alive.
Stevie toasted slices of Walliser mountain bread under the grill and put butter, a pot of blueberry jam, and a large slice of Emmenthal cheese on the table.
Anya, warmed by the shower and the hot drink, was beginning to relax a little. Stevie and Henning asked her gentle questions, not wanting to press too hard, knowing she would be exhausted from her ordeal.
She told them how she had gone with Petra to Zima in Moscow and they had been offered work as models. Petra had pressed her to meet the men the next day at GUM. She had ordered a tea with lemon, and the next thing she could remember she was locked up and blindfolded. Stevie guessed the kidnappers had probably been drugging Anya’s tea with Rohypnol, which would explain why she could not remember much, just this series of confusing and terrifying images.
Mostly, Anya said, she had been worried for her family. She remembered she cried a lot, and read the magazines her captors sometimes gave to her. She had liked the interviews at home with the stars the best. She had no idea how long she had been captive.
Stevie then told Henning about the nurse, the syringe of Midazolam and the ginger barbarian, then their flight to the boot room.
She jumped up as the coffee pot boiled. ‘Dragoman must have been looking for us when he ran into the car park.’
‘I left in a bit of a hurry,’ Henning added. ‘They must have got suspicious.’
‘Well, the men from GROM were a good distraction.’
Stevie sipped her coffee—too hot—and felt a glow of pleasure. After so many days on the horrid ‘green’ diet it was heaven to slather butter on toast and drink hot coffee.
Anya looked up from her breakfast. ‘Were the men there to rescue me?’
‘No.’ Stevie poured out another cup of coffee and thought how beautiful the wintery trees looked gathered at her doorstep. It felt so good to be home. ‘They were there to kill Felix Dragoman. And me. They thought I had your father’s secret list and that I had passed it on to him, that Dragoman and I were working together. Actually Valery didn’t tell me anything, but the siloviki weren’t to know that.’
‘But why would Dragoman want the list anyway?’ Anya asked, her eyes deep and round with fatigue. ‘Doesn’t he know who his partners are?’
Stevie shot a look at Henning. He was particularly attractive that morning, she thought, all freshly shaved and full of purpose.
‘Of course,’ she nodded to Anya, ‘but he doesn’t have the meticulously gathered evidence of their corruption that would be his most powerful