‘We’re not fighting, Tamara my darling.’ Gregori tried to soothe the savage beast. ‘Not fighting. I just can’t believe a handbag could be worth that much and—’
‘It shows how ignorant you are. It’s not an ordinary handbag—it’s a
Birkin
bag.’
‘But Tamara, my darling, it costs $85,000—’ ‘It has pavé diamonds on the handle.’
‘You have beautiful bags—what about all the other ones I bought you that you had to have?’
The air crackled with fury.
Gregori again, placating. ‘Tamara, if we do the whole thing ourselves, maybe we can get much more—’ ‘Gregori, you will only screw it up like you screw up everything. Have you even read the statistics? Ninety-eight per cent of these things go wrong at the handover—it’s by far the most dangerous and difficult part. Do you really think you can beat the odds? Frankly, I don’t and—’ There was something muffled Anya couldn’t quite make out and then the voices became clear again.
‘—cash is a sure thing and there is zero risk.’
‘I’m thinking of our future, Tamuschka. We could buy a small house in the country and—’ ‘I don’t want to live in the fucking country! I want a Birkin bag.’
Anya almost felt pity for Gregori at that point. Almost. Tamara was a horrible woman. She wondered if they were talking about her. They always seemed to be buying and selling and trading something. Probably stolen goods.
She heard Gregori reply, ‘Alright. I’ll call him tonight, Tamuschka. I’ll make him the offer.’
Anya stiffened. Did Gregori mean her father? Was he going to call her father? Her father would pay, and then she could go home. The nightmare would be over.
Irina had a Borshoi hound
named Saskia. She was so slender—as Borshois are—that she was hard to see front-on. Her long, ash-brown fur hung like the fringing on a Persian carpet. At one end drooped a melancholic tail; at the other, a slim, pointed face peeped from under stringy ears, small, sad eyes searching the room with a gentleness that was heartbreaking.
‘She’s looking for Anya,’ said Irina. Saskia gave a little whimper at the name before turning herself in a neat circle three times and settling at Stevie’s feet. She laid a hand on the tiny head to comfort the elegant creature and turned to Irina.
‘I’m sorry about Petra. People are capable of the most thoughtless cruelties.’
They were both sitting on the sofa. Irina’s eyes were swollen and scanned the empty grey sky outside, looking for answers.
‘She used to come for dinner occasionally. I preferred to have her here than for Anya to go to Petra’s house. Her parents are different people,’ she told Stevie. ‘They value things because of how much other people want them. Life for them is a competition and they can’t be without the gaze of other people on them. They teach Petra these values.’
Irina refilled their tea glasses from the samovar and laced both with good whisky. It would, she had promised, chase Stevie’s cold away.
‘I remember the morning of the day Anya disappeared, and I remember I was angry at my manicurist because she had overbooked and had to cancel my appointment. I had a lunch with my friends. It was inconvenient. That evening my world changed. I can still remember that I was angry about my manicure, but now I can’t remember how that felt—to be able to be angry about my nail polish. Now I just feel numb.’
Stevie reached out and took Irina’s tiny hand, cold despite the warm tea glass. ‘Irina, it’s a terrible time, the waiting. It will take an enormous toll on you, and on your husband, and on Vadim. I’ve seen it before. You must be gentle with yourself. And most of all, remember that Anya was taken by criminals and that they are to blame for all of this. There was nothing you could have done, and it has nothing to do with being angry about a small thing like your nails.’ She gave Irina’s hand a tiny, reassuring squeeze.
‘It’s the way of the world. All things coexist: manicures and earthquakes and burnt toast and nuclear bombs and red balloons and civil wars. Does that make sense?’
Irina nodded and lit a cigarette. She sat back into the sofa, turning her face to the ceiling so that the tears in her eyes could not escape.
‘She is so precious to me, Stevie.’
Stevie wanted to get to know the family as much as possible before negotiations with the kidnappers began. It would help predict how each member would react and how much they could handle. Potential problems or disagreements could be warded off well before the critical hours. It would also help the family trust the negotiator.
One person and one person only had to be elected to deal with the kidnappers. It should not be a member of the immediate family because they were too emotionally involved. It was also vital to present a totally united front. Any dissent detected by the kidnappers would open windows for experienced ones to demand more, and for inexperienced ones to panic and perhaps kill the victim.
Stevie was frightened at the prospect of being even partially responsible for Anya’s safe return. She would feel a lot better once Constantine Dinov arrived to take over.
‘Do you want to hear her play?’ Irina got up and put a new disk in the CD player. ‘Anya recorded this in the summer. It’s the melody from
Adagio in G minor
—Tomaso Albinoni.’
Stevie and Irina sat smoking in the pale daylight as a violin began to sing of fathomless longing as plaintively as any human voice. It was as if Anya was there in the room with them, speaking to them, telling them of all the things she felt and dreamed and still wanted to do and see.
Backlit by the winter light from the window, white snakes of smoke curled in the air above their heads, writhing in exquisite agony with every note drawn from the invisible bow. They expressed all the things that the two women had no words for.
____________
Stevie tumbled, literally, into her
hotel room. Her Slavic virus had made her slightly light-headed and Irina’s whisky tea seemed to be wrestling it with vigour. The velvet curtains had been drawn but Stevie pulled them back. She wanted to watch the snow spiral out of the sky.
She had never seen such flakes, the size of a baby’s palm.
By the orange light of the street lamps, it seemed like the snow would never stop falling. It ought to have felt like Christmas, with sleigh bells and singing and cinnamon biscuits shaped like angels and stars. But tonight, in Moscow, the interminable fall that covered everything in white felt like an erasure. It was obliterating and obscuring—white, as black, impenetrable. It was burying everyone alive, imposing silence. Each snowflake absorbed the words, the noises, swallowed them, left nothing. Like evil. Stevie wondered if it would ever be summer again.
Melancholy and a weeping nose were bad signs. Stevie ordered room service—vodka, black toast, and
Salade Russe
, for one.
When in Russia . . .
Her grandmother made
Salade Russe
on every Sunday after October the twentieth, the date she claimed as the day the ‘indoor season’, as she called it, officially began: diced carrot, potato (boiled, waxy, hard), peas and a mayonnaise dressing, the odd gherkin if she was feeling particularly spry.
Stevie pulled out her phone and rang Zurich. There was still no answer. On a whim, she tried Didi’s mobile. Stevie had bought it for her two years ago, despite great resistance on her grandmother’s part. Stevie had tried to reason with her: ‘It’s all very well to be independent, Didi, but do you also have to be unreachable?’
‘I don’t need to be monitored, Stevie darling. I’m quite capable of taking care of my own old bones. I’ve done it for eighty-two years.’
Stevie tried a different line. ‘Well, what if I need you? What if it’s me who needs help and I can’t find you?’ At that, Didi had relented and agreed to carry the phone with her. It was rarely switched on.
However, tonight, after six long rings, Stevie’s grandmother answered, a cautious ‘Yes?’
‘Didi! It’s Stevie. Where are you?’
‘In the mountains, darling. I thought Peter could do with a rest cure, so we left Zurich this morning and now we’re snug in
Im Heimeli
.’
Didi owned a tiny wooden chalet outside Sils Maria, in the Enga-dine valley.
Im Heimeli
, the chalet, had an enormous wood-burning stove—a
Kachelofen
—and goose-down duvets on little wooden bucket-beds. But it had no phone. That was something Stevie loved about it when she was there, but it used to worry her when her grandmother was there alone. If she needed to speak to Didi, Stevie used to have to ring the post office and they would send a man through the snow or the mud or the wildflowers to deliver the message. Her grandmother would then walk to the post office and place a call. Now Didi had the mobile it was a little easier to get in touch.
‘How is Peter coping?’
‘Asleep on the
Kachelofen
as we speak. He hasn’t moved from there since we arrived.’
Stevie smiled. Being involuntarily hairless, he would be feeling the cold.
‘And how are you, Didi?’
‘Couldn’t be better! Mountain air does wonders for the constitution. I’m going to see if I can persuade Peter to come
langlauf
ing with me around the lake tomorrow morning.’
Stevie laughed. ‘I don’t like your chances!’ The vision of Peter floundering after her grandmother through the snowdrifts as she swooshed past on her ancient cross-country skis was charming. Stevie found she was missing both the lady and the cat terribly. Her grandmother and some gold-tinted memories were everything that she had left of life with her parents.
‘I hope I’m just like you, Didi, when I’m eighty.’
‘Eighty-two, darling. It’s been a good long life—I can’t complain.
Well, there’s only one thing I would change, but then, if I changed that, I might not have you so close to me, so . . .’
‘You mean my mother.’
Of course she did.
Stevie’s mother—Didi’s daughter—Marlise had been Swiss, a beautiful bohemian who smiled at the world and wore bangles on each wrist that tinkled whenever she moved. Stevie’s father, Lockie, was Scottish, a charming, disarming
bon vivant
, at home everywhere and anywhere, full of curiosity, the life of every party. They travelled the world with great style and flair, collecting rare and beautiful furnishings from all over the globe for their rich and discerning clientele.
Sometimes Stevie went with them. She had memories of sitting on a bathing elephant in Sri Lanka, flying a kite in Rajasthan, monkeys in a Moroccan bazaar. Other times she stayed at home with her grandmother, and her parents had brought something back for her: a Bedouin lamp made of camel skin, a ceramic tiger, a small dragon from Bhutan. These precious objects had made her long for the world. She still had them all.
When Stevie was five years old, she had gone with her parents to Algeria. It was hot—she remembered the heat burning her lips with every breath, scorching her feet through her thin rubber-soled shoes. They were driving through the desert in their jeep, the rush of the wind felt good on her face and she grew sleepy with the jolting of the dirt road and the sound of her parents’ muted chatter.
Little Stevie lay down on the back seat and stared at the empty white sky above. The sun was still high and it hurt her eyes. Her mother pulled an embroidered crimson shawl from her bag and covered her, shielding her from the glare. Stevie felt safe and happy under the shawl and soon fell asleep.
She woke with a jolt, unsure what had disturbed her. She heard a thundering by her head—horses’ hooves galloping—and there were shouts. The jeep stopped abruptly, the momentum shoving Stevie’s body forward and off the seat. She landed heavily on the floor, smashing her elbow.
Loud bangs like firecrackers, then her mother screamed. It was the most frightening sound Stevie had ever heard.
Everything went still and quiet.
Her elbow throbbed but she was too afraid to move. Better not to move or breathe; if she stayed still enough, the bad thing might go away.
Stevie lay there for hours. The sunlight filtered through the cover over her eyes and made it glow red like blood. It was so hot and it was hard to breathe. Mamma and Pappa weren’t talking anymore and she didn’t want to know why. She was too afraid of what her little instincts told her was the truth.
The sunlight faded and it grew cold. Stevie knew she was all alone in the desert and no one was coming to find her. She let her bones absorb the stillness and the silence and the cold, and surrendered to the universe.
But Stevie survived. She was found semiconscious three days later by the French Foreign Legion, although she couldn’t remember any of it.
She was told she was lucky to be alive and sent to live with her grandmother in Switzerland.
For six months, Stevie didn’t speak. Her grandmother took her to the mountains and set about trying to piece back together her granddaughter’s tiny shattered heart.
She remembered David Rice visiting occasionally. He and Didi would talk late into the night in serious voices. One spring, he brought news: the Algerian investigating authorities found that Marlise and Lockie had been mistaken for important symbols of European power and assassinated. The area was thought to have been safe. The motive for the killing was later changed to ‘robbery’ by the officials. The killers were never found.
Stevie had been too young to be more than horribly confused at the time, but the light in her little life went out. The confusion had remained until she grew old enough, then it was replaced by a sense of waste. The sadness had never eased.
The murder of her parents had made her very aware of the possibility of sudden death as a child. She would still climb that tree or ski off the cliff anyway, but she always did it with a full calculation of the dangers involved. She became fascinated with both random and strategic— and strategically random—violence.
It was only natural, she supposed, that she had been drawn to the field of risk assessment. She felt she needed to keep people safe so that what had happened to her never happened to someone else’s child. Those hours alone under the shawl in the back seat had hot-fused into her brain. She never forgot how alone you could be, how terrifying it felt to be abandoned and surrounded by the violence of strangers.