The Troika Dolls - Miranda Darling [76]
She jumped to her feet. ‘My God, what happened? Are you alright?’
‘Does it look that bad? It’s only a graze.’
‘Did they—’ Henning shook his head gingerly. ‘It wasn’t Maraschenko—they didn’t spot me. Let’s sit and I’ll tell you everything—or rather, nothing.’
Stevie’s spirits fell. She realised all this time she had been hoping for a miracle.
‘Let’s go up to my room. It’s more private,’ her attention still on his face. ‘Do we need to get you to a doctor?’
‘I’m absolutely fine.’
Stevie didn’t think he looked at all fine. She was surprised at how much the sight of his battered face affected her. She was not generally over-sensitive to blood and bumps.
As she closed the hotel room door behind them, Henning groaned and Stevie instinctively shot a hand out to take his. She was rewarded with a big smile and felt suddenly self-conscious. She retracted her hand.
‘I think we need food. And some ice.’ She ordered blinis and a small bottle of vodka on ice, then looked expectantly at Henning.
‘It all began well. I flagged down a car outside The Boar and paid the driver an obscene amount to follow Maraschenko’s car. We could stay quite close behind him in the city, but the minute we got to the suburbs, the traffic thinned down to almost nothing and we had to keep our distance. We followed the car to a massive housing estate in the northwest of the city.’ Henning broke off. ‘Would you light me a cigarette, darling Stevie?’ She did as he asked, placing it gingerly between his lips. ‘It’s a monstrous place,’ he continued, ‘all concrete and dereliction of the most unexciting kind. There are five towers of apartment buildings—Soviet-bloc style—each would hold three or four hundred apartments. I was nervous about going in too close so we parked a little way off.’
The waiter arrived at the door with the blinis, and the vodka in a silver bucket of ice. He seemed inclined to linger in the room, his eyes on Henning’s face. Stevie sent him on his way with some roubles and a rather fierce glare. She quickly folded a handful of ice into the linen napkin and handed it to Henning.
‘Thank you.’ He held the ice gratefully to his face. Stevie noticed the knuckles on both hands were swollen, some bleeding. She felt a lump grow in her throat.
‘Maraschenko and his mob went into the second tower block. I paid the driver another small fortune to wait for me and I followed as soon as I thought it was safe. But there’s got to be around twelve, fifteen hundred people in there, and it’s not the sort of place where people put their name on their letterbox: graffiti, clumps of wolfish teens, the smell of piss. I didn’t think knocking on doors would be such a good idea, just in case the word got back to Maraschenko that someone was looking for him.’
Stevie considered a moment. ‘It sounds like the ideal place to hide a young girl. There’s no way she can climb out of a window or yell for help, for starters. If the place is teeming with people, one more or less is not going to be noticed.’ She poured out two small glasses of vodka. ‘What happened to your head, then?’
‘My ride, of course, had vanished by the time I got out. I was stranded, so I started walking towards the highway. I had to walk through an underpass and I was jumped by three guys—one hit me from behind with a bottle. That’s the face. Luckily I didn’t lose consciousness and I managed to get rid of them.’ Both of his eyes were now bloodshot.
‘You got rid of them, just like that?’ Stevie raised a neat eyebrow.
‘Well, it took a little rough stuff.’ Henning flexed his strong, damaged hands painfully.
‘You took on three guys armed with bottles with your bare hands?’
Stevie’s horrified look seemed to have the opposite effect on Henning.
He began to laugh. ‘Just because I try to dress well doesn’t mean I’m going to lie down and cry if three kids want to cause a bit of trouble.’
Stevie didn’t share his merriment and Henning grew serious again.
‘What did Maxim have to say?’
Stevie told all, keeping a very close eye on Henning. He looked awful. The welt was worse and dark circles had pooled