The Troika Dolls Read Online Free PDF Page A

wings like shy children. The winterscape appeared to mirror a general heartlessness everywhere that was not evil but simply did not care enough.
    Stevie dropped a rock into the river. He just doesn’t love you. It was that easy and that hard all at once.
    She looked around for another rock but there were none. Girls should not be alone in parks at night. Silly thoughts and possibly greater dangers lie in wait.
    Stevie hurried along, past the gold stature of Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s tribute to her beloved husband when he died from typhoid at the age of forty-two. Truly, thought Stevie, this is a monument to behold. For all the stiff upper lips and morals and disguise of feelings for which her reign was known, for Queen Victoria to commission a monument the size of the giant Afghan Buddha of Bamiyan was a glorious and unfettered public declaration of love. It was a thing to be greatly admired.
    The evening drizzle was turning to sleet. Her toes were squelching. Stevie crossed the road, passed the Albert Hall, fluttered down through Queens Gate and into her hotel.

2
    MOSCOW , THAT SAME NIGHT
    So far, Valery Kozkov remained unconvinced of Henning’s idea.
    ‘What reasonably can a young woman do here in Moscow on her own?’ he asked his long-time friend. ‘She won’t make it. Or she’ll get someone killed.’
    ‘The alternative is to wait—’
    ‘I can’t wait. I am the rat in the trap.’ He spoke with his eyes closed. Henning could hardly hear him. ‘Why is no one contacting me?’
    ‘I don’t know, Valery. I can only assume they are waiting for the pressure to build. You have a reputation, deserved, for being incorruptible . . .’
    The other man opened his eyes, rimmed red, swollen with strain. ‘The police are corrupt or inept. The politicians are corrupt or inept—no one can trust anybody. For all I know, either could be behind this.’
    ‘I don’t promise you Stevie can do anything,’ Henning said. ‘But she has some experience in this sort of thing. She is not perfect but she is someone you can trust. That must be worth something.’
    Kozkov’s head fell forward and hung there, too exhausted to finish the nod.
    __________
    Stevie was early for her meeting with David Rice but she couldn’t face sitting alone in her room. She ordered a gin and tonic at the hotel bar. The barman at the Gore was quick and generous with his gin. It was one of the many small reasons that Stevie liked to stay there.
    Her home was Zurich but she was in London so often on assignment that the Gore, despite being unfashionably sandwiched between an art school and the run-down Bulgarian embassy, felt almost like a second home. It was also within easy walk of the dinosaur skeletons at the Museum of Natural History and the Serpentine River, and she was highly unlikely to run into anyone she knew. Him especially.
    Not that she cared.
    The high-vaulted ceiling, the wooden floors and walls, the carved staircase, the worn leather furniture felt almost Gothic. The fire was the brightest light in the room. Stevie settled herself in an armchair, stretching her frozen feet out towards the flames.
    Two men in shirtsleeves and braces were sitting on a sofa on the other side of the room. They were staring at her.
    She had always looked quite odd by firelight. Her skin was so pale that she absorbed the glow of the flames and appeared translucent. Her shoulders were sharp and her silhouette narrow; in the shadows she could become invisible. It was a quality she often used to her advantage.
    Stevie took a sip of her gin, sank into her chair and disappeared. The two men looked away, puzzled at having completely lost her.
    Suddenly David Rice appeared, overcoat slung over his arm, striding to her rescue.
    ‘Ah, Stevie! Hiding?’
    ‘I didn’t feel like talking to anyone.’
    ‘You rarely do.’ He sat down, rested his cane on the armchair and ordered a whisky. ‘Perhaps it’s the weather.’
    He looked at her with his grey eyes.