The Troika Dolls - Miranda Darling [77]
‘I still think a doctor might be a good idea, Henning, indestructible dandy or not,’ she told him when she’d finished telling her story.
‘Stevie, I assure you—’ As he stood to emphasise his point, his leg gave way and he clutched the table.
Stevie leapt to her feet and grabbed Henning tightly round the waist, supporting him. ‘You’re swooning like a maiden. I’m calling one.
You don’t want to die of a brain haemorrhage before we find Anya.’
‘Well, I’m not going to hospital.’ Henning scowled. ‘I’d be better off rolling around in rusty barbed wire.’
‘Come on.’ Stevie pulled on his arm. ‘We’ll call Kozkov on the way.’
In less than an hour, Henning was lying in a bed in a private clinic under close observation. The doctors feared swelling of the brain. Henning feared the doctors. He looked over at Stevie, with her pale worried face by his bed.
‘I’m fine,’ he tried to reassure her. ‘It’s you I’m worried about.
Have you looked in the mirror?’
Stevie got up and stared in the glass. Her cheeks were hot pink and, above them, her eyes were rimmed with white from where the goggles had protected her skin from the intense UV exposure. Even the parting in her hair had scorched.
Laughter came from the bed. ‘You look like an angry raccoon.’
Stevie had not slept after returning from the hospital, but she felt surprisingly alert. There was too much to do for sleep. In her room, she did some strength exercises—she called them her callisthenics—lunging until her legs shook, pulling herself up on the edge of the door frame, and stretching her whole body. Then she showered (only when pressed for time would she eschew the glories of the bath) and dressed quickly in a navy knee-length skirt made of heavy, swinging wool, a wide crocodile belt, pulled tight, and a crisp white shirt.
Today was a day for pearl earrings, she felt, and put on her biggest single pearls, a gift from some Japanese clients with headquarters in Kawasaki. The rings around her eyes she could do nothing about. She looked like she had just spent a week dog-sledding across Alaska.
Stevie cinched her belt a little tighter and, feeling sufficiently pulled together, called for a double breakfast of eggs and caviar and toast, and a large pot of coffee.
She pulled out her tiny telephone and dialled David Rice in London. She hated the thing and had chosen the smallest model possible, hoping somehow to reduce its annoyance. It was the size of a matchbox and consequently often impossible to find in her handbag.
‘I hope you’re calling me with your flight details home.’ His voice was jovial—for Rice—and although London was three hours behind Moscow, Stevie knew she had been lucky enough to catch him during, rather than before, his early breakfast. ‘The Hammer-Belles are very pleased you’re joining them in Switzerland,’ he added.
He would be sitting by the window in his robe, the Times folded into a neat oblong, a perfectly boiled egg waiting in its cup and a pot of hot coffee ready. In every way, his life was solid and elegant.
Stevie sometimes wished she could belong in it, that she could get further than the polished hall of the lovely Chelsea flat. She also knew she never would.
‘I am ringing about the Hammer-Belles, actually.’ Then she told Rice about the Romanians and the possible kidnap plot. ‘This is just a rumour, but then, rumours in the underworld—’ ‘Are like rumours in the other,’ Rice finished abruptly. ‘But possibly worth paying attention to. Who gave you this information, Stevie?’
‘Maxim Krutchik.’
There was a pause on the line.
‘Stevie, why do you know Maxim Krutchik?’
‘He’s a friend of Henning’s.’
There was a longer silence.
‘I’m not sure I like this Henning chap.’ Rice’s voice had sharpened.
‘He seems determined to drag you into all sorts of trouble. Is he there with you now?’
At half past eight in the morning? Stevie knew what Rice must be thinking and rushed to set him straight.
‘It’s not like that. No. He’s just a friend. He is in hospital actually.
He was attacked.’
Rice exploded. ‘For God’s sake, Stevie! What are you doing?