The Troika Dolls - Miranda Darling [43]
This is only the third time I’ve thought about Joss since I came to Moscow.
But more important matters than Stevie’s unfortunately eager heart were at hand.
Vadim pushed open the door to Petra’s room. A girl lay back on the starched hospital pillows, like a dried flower in an envelope. She had long dark hair and a big bandage across the middle of her face. It could be the girl in the photo. Really, it was hard to tell.
‘Petra?’ Vadim asked, walking quickly towards her.
The mummy face turned. She had two swollen eyes, a deep shiny red like plums, and greenish-yellow bruising on the visible skin of her face. Poor girl, thought Stevie, and immediately wondered if she had been bashed. And by whom . . . The possibility that Petra would have something to add to Anya’s mystery was growing.
‘Vadim. Privyet!’ She tried a smile but that seemed to hurt her.
‘What happened, Petra? Did someone hurt you?’
‘No, Vadim,’ she said dismissively. ‘Don’t be stupid. Haven’t you ever seen a post-op nose job?’ She touched her bandages lightly. ‘My mum’s had three. And liposuction. If you want to see bad, that’s bad. But she looks hot at forty. I’m going to do the same, but I probably won’t wait till I’m forty.’
Petra obviously wasn’t feeling that bad.
‘I’m so happy you came to see me. Can you change the TV channel? The food in here sucks.’
‘Your dad paid for you to get a nose job?’
Stevie shared Vadim’s incredulousness but only sneezed twice, and said nothing.
‘Of course he did,’ the mummy answered scornfully. ‘Anyway, it only makes him look better in the end, doesn’t it? Hot wife, hot, hot daughter.’ Petra tried to smile again and winced with pain.
Vadim gestured with his hand. ‘This is my friend, Stevie.’ Petra glanced at Stevie, saw she was pretty and paid more attention. ‘She’s trying to help me find Anya.’
‘Oh my God. She’s still missing? What do you think’s happened to her? I thought she would have turned up by now.’ Petra swallowed with some difficulty and looked at the boy. ‘That’s really scary, Vadim.’
‘We need your help, Petra.’ Stevie sat down by her bedside. ‘We think Anya’s been kidnapped and we need to find out by whom. It will help us negotiate when the kidnappers make contact—are they professional, opportunists, politically motivated—so we know how to deal, and how far to push them.’
‘Totally.’ Petra looked away to the TV. ‘Umm . . . I don’t know anything I haven’t already told Vadim on the phone. Anya and I were shopping. We got coffee and I got up to pay and when I came back, she was gone. I tried her mobile but she didn’t pick up.’
‘We tried Anya’s phone all that night, too. But there was no answer.
Then it went dead.’ Vadim stood at Stevie’s shoulder. She could sense he didn’t much like Petra.
Petra kept batting her eyes at the pale boy. She, on the other hand, clearly had a giant crush.
‘Were you with anyone else, Petra?’
She shook her head.
‘Did you notice anyone watching Anya? Did anyone try to talk to you?’
Petra snorted. ‘Guys are always staring, trying to talk to us.’ She caught the look in Stevie’s eye and grew subdued. ‘But no one did that day. I didn’t notice anyone looking at us.’
Stevie turned to Vadim. ‘The people who snatched her would have got rid of the phone as soon as they took her. Too much risk that police could pinpoint a location if the phone was turned on or if Anya managed to make a call.’
‘Maybe she just ran away? You know she always wanted to model . . .’ Petra could see she was getting Vadim’s attention and continued eagerly along this track. ‘Maybe she was trying to sign up with an agency in New York. She always wanted to go there. She would have done anything to be a model.’
Stevie picked up the jealousy in Petra’s reasoning and pounced.
‘Petra, did anyone ever approach Anya about modelling?’
Petra began to pick at the blanket on her bed, ripping out the cotton threads