The Troika Dolls

by Miranda Darling

  Being blindfolded somehow made her feel braver than she might have felt if she had been able to see her captors’ faces. Initially it had been terrifying to be plunged into darkness but now it had become a comfort.

  When she knew or suspected someone was near her, she would begin to talk out loud and tell stories about her life, especially her childhood. It would, she hoped, help humanise her to the kidnappers. If they saw her as a human being rather than an object to be traded or used, they might be less likely to kill her. They might treat her better, or hesitate at the critical moment. The smallest thing could help.

  All the while, though, Anya was careful to preserve the anonymity of the captors. She asked no questions that might cause them to reveal who they were. This would not help her escape and it might make them kill her if they thought she could identify them later. So, in a way, she was grateful for the blindfold.

  Sometimes, during the arguments, she could make out words— there seemed to be a man and a woman. She heard the woman call the man an idiot once. ‘Valery Kozkov is not rich,’ she had screamed. Anya hoped the kidnappers wouldn’t ask for too much money. The woman was right. Her father wasn’t rich, not like the oligarchs. Anya thought she had better not say that though. In case they got angry.

  She tried to think practically, to tell herself she was coping well, to swallow the terror she felt. Her determination had got her into this mess; she hoped it would be enough to get her out.

  Only ever when she was in Russia did Stevie have caviar for breakfast. A soft-boiled egg filled with the grey roe, slithers of thin black toast on the side, was the consolation for much that was difficult in Moscow.

  When she had arrived back at the Metropole the night before, she had called Hazard and explained the situation to Betterman in K&R. Constantine Dinov, the negotiator, was on stand-by to fly in. She would do an ongoing assessment in the meantime so that Dinov would have as much information as possible on the family, the political situation on the ground, and the kidnappers—if possible—for when the time came to deal. Every little bit could help.

  Stevie only hoped David Rice didn’t hear of it. In any case, she was on leave. There was nothing to say.

  She poured herself a second cup of boiling black coffee and shook out the papers.

  Izvestia was full of news on energy, particularly the new Baku-–Tblisi-–Ceyhan pipeline that stretched from Azerbaijan to Turkey through Georgia. Armed guards were to be stationed every three metres to protect the underground pipeline from rebels threatening to blow it up as it passed through the Southern Caucasus.

  There was also news of battles with the Chechens that seemed to have been going on forever. Stevie remembered seeing the Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev announce on television that he had hidden a ‘dirty bomb’—a canister full of cesium—somewhere in Moscow.

  A ‘dirty bomb’ was a regular explosive, such as dynamite, mixed with radiological pellets or powder. Cesium was a radioactive substance that could, in certain isotopes, be produced by atomic energy plants as waste. The explosion was designed to disperse radiological dust as far as possible.

  Rather than cause mass casualties, like an atomic bomb, only those very close to the explosion would likely be killed. The radiation, however, was harmful to health, and would contaminate a large part of Moscow for a very long time. The main effect therefore would be mass panic, and a loss of any confidence that citizens had in the Russian government’s ability to protect them.

  Basayev had directed a television crew to Izmailovsky Park, where the device was found buried at the entrance, just as the rebel leader had described. The bomb was never detonated but the message had been heard loud and clear in the Kremlin: ‘We can reach right into your capital city, and we can do it with dirty bombs. No one is safe.’

  Even without detonation, the legitimacy of the politburo had taken a heavy blow. Four years later, under a new president, a second war was started in Chechnya, fought mainly by ill-equipped conscripts who were often more in danger of being bullied to death by their officers than being shot by enemy fighters. Since then, the Chechens no longer called in their bomb threats but just carried them out.

  On 24 October 2002, terrorists took over the Dubrovka theatre during a performance. The audience initially thought the fighters in fatigues and the women in black burqas—the Black Widows—were all part of the show. Until they showed their bodies, strapped with explosives. At least 129 hostages died after a bungled raid in which the Federal Security Service—the FSB—bombed the theatre with poisonous gas.

  Less than a year later, two suicide bombers—both women—blew themselves up in the middle of a rock concert at the Tushino Airport in Moscow.

  Then Beslan, on 1 September 2004. That day at School Number One haunts all Russians still: the terrified children, the faces of the parents watching the siege, the shootings . . . 186 children died that day.

  Russia was still angry about Beslan, angry at the men who had murdered their children, angry at the security forces who had bungled the raid to save them, and angry at the Russian government who had expended so much blood and treasure in Chechnya, to ‘keep them safe from the terrorists’ only to sustain the worst attack yet. And so young men were still being sent to wallow in icy mud and set off explosives and shoot at other young men who lived in bleak, rain-scoured villages. For both sides life was brutish.

  A deep voice jolted her from her unpleasant reverie.

  ‘Good morning.’ Into the breakfast room strolled the unmistakable Henning. He was rather gloriously dressed in a pale blue shirt, navy woollen trousers and a cardigan in deep purple. A blue tie with pale pink dots was perfectly knotted at his throat.

  Stevie poured him a cup of coffee and he leaned forward in his chair, revealing a flash of red sock.

  ‘Is it simply icy out there?’ she asked. ‘The papers are saying –40 degrees. Those sorts of temperatures are absurd. It’s all over Europe, too: the birds are stuck frozen on telephone wires in Paris, and the metal axles of trucks are snapping in Berlin.’

  Stevie had dressed in a dove-grey cashmere jumper and cream moleskin trousers. Knee-high riding boots and thick woollen socks would at least keep the bottom half of her legs warm.

  She handed Henning the cup. ‘I keep thinking about the poor birds with their tiny cold wings.’

  Henning took a sip of his coffee and put his cup down. ‘Stevie, Kozkov found something in his mailbox this morning.’

  She sat up at once. ‘From the kidnappers?’

  ‘He thinks so. It‘s Anya’s gold chain. It was just lying there when he checked, on the way to work.’

  ‘And it had definitely not been there before?’

  ‘Definitely. Irina collected the mail yesterday, she does it four or five times a day now, waiting for news of Anya.’

  Stevie folded the papers and pushed them aside, thinking. ‘It sounds like a prelude to some sort of communication. Hopefully this means they’ll contact Kozkov soon with a ransom demand.’

  ‘Do you really think they want money?’ Henning’s eyebrow hung, suspended with doubt.

  ‘It’s by far the most common motive for kidnapping the world over,’ she reasoned.

  ‘Kozkov is not a very rich man. There are so many others far richer.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Stevie took a quick sip of her coffee. ‘But the oligarchs and their children have lots of security—every big businessman in Moscow travels with bodyguards slinging AK-–47s in armour-plated 4WDs with flashing blue lights and bulletproof tyres. Kozkov doesn’t. It makes him a soft target.’

  ‘Could be amateurs . . .’

  ‘Possibly, although it takes nerve to hang on this long without communicating.’

  ‘If they are amateurs, it might be easier to get her back.’ Henning frowned. ‘It could be a positive thing.’

  Stevie said nothing. Amateurs were far more inclined to panic than professionals. That was how victims got killed.

  She thought for a moment then said, ‘I think
Anya’s kidnappers are waiting because they know it’s the best way to weaken Kozkov. He has a reputation for fearless incorruptibility, remember? I have a feeling they plan to demand the world from him.’

  Henning looked straight at Stevie, his eyes as steady and serious as steel rails. ‘Then let’s hope to God Kozkov is in a position to give it to them.’

  Irina held Anya’s necklace strung through her fingers like cat’s cradle.

  ‘I want to hold her so much.’ Her voice was a whisper, her eyes pink and watery. Vadim stood by his mother’s side.

  ‘She never took it off. The cross was her godmother’s, Katia. She drowned when she fell though the ice one spring.’

  Stevie carefully took the necklace from Irina and examined it. ‘It was ripped from her neck, I’m guessing. The clasp is a little bent. Gold is soft.’ She looked closely at the blue glass eye that twisted slowly this way and that.

  ‘People usually wear an evil eye to keep people’s bad thoughts away,’ Stevie said, half to herself.

  ‘The eye was a new thing,’ Vadim broke in. ‘I think it’s from a night club—like a membership badge or a promotion.’

  ‘It’s quite beautiful. What is the club called?’

  ‘Zima. These promoters run a new club named after each season:

  Zima in winter, Leto in summer, Vesna in spring and Osen in autumn.

  People in Moscow have very short attention spans. The nightclubs have to reinvent themselves every few months.’

  ‘Does Anya go to nightclubs often?’ Stevie was surprised. She was only fifteen.

  ‘It was her first time,’ Vadim said. ‘They run some model night there. Girls go to get discovered. She went to the club two nights before she disappeared, I remember. She told me afterwards or I would have stopped her.’

  ‘I didn’t know.’ Irina shook her head. ‘Anya likes classical music.’

  ‘Irina,’ Stevie asked gently, ‘can I see Anya’s room?’

  It was a comfortable room, a teenage room, with photos of her school friends, animals, a Coldplay poster, one of Vanessa Mae, signed. The single bed, neatly made with a pale pink quilt, reminded Stevie how young Anya was; and how horribly afraid she would be feeling right at this moment.

  ‘Was Anya happy? Did she mention any new friends, ideas, places in the last few weeks?’ she asked Irina.

  It was Vadim who answered. ‘She always talks about moving to America, or Paris. Living real life. She wants to be famous.’

  ‘I don’t suppose she keeps a diary?’

  ‘No. She expresses everything through music. She always says words deform true meaning.’

  Anya had papered the entire wall next to her bed with the covers of fashion magazines. Sandy Belle was on several of them. Her face stared down at Stevie, with her perky nose and flaming hair. Stevie wondered what dreams Sandy Belle had inspired in Anya.

  ‘Did Anya want to be an actress?’

  Vadim looked at his mother. She was far away, staring out the window at the white winter fog.

  ‘A model. But my parents thought it was a bad idea.’

  ‘She is too young.’ Irina woke from her reverie. ‘It’s not a nice world for her. She doesn’t need to do that. Modelling here is for girls who have no choices.’

  Anya’s music stand stood by the window like a lone winter tree.

  A violin case sat at the foot of the bed. Irina went over to the stand and started turning the pages of Anya’s sheet music.

  ‘She loves Tchaikovsky, and Shostakovich. She stands by the window here and plays over the people rushing below. Her godfather, Kirril, used to say that you could never be a truly great violinist until you experienced pure sorrow and pure joy. He said it changes the quality of the notes you play forever. Anya believed that, too.’

  Stevie knelt and opened the violin case, took out the elegant instrument. ‘Is she close to her godfather?’

  ‘She was once. He’s a conductor and he introduced Anya to music.

  Neither Valery nor I are musical.’ Irina gave a wry smile. ‘When she was younger, they would listen to music together and talk about it for hours.’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  Irina shook her head. ‘It has been years since any of us spoke to him. He no longer lives in Russia.’ She seemed about to say more but then just bowed her head and reached for the edge of the pink coverlet.

  Stevie suddenly felt like an impostor. ‘Irina, Henning tells me your husband doesn’t want to hire anyone local to help.’

  Irina shook her head. ‘It’s too dangerous. Everyone is corrupt.’

  ‘But when we start to negotiate, you need a trained professional. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Stevie replaced the violin with great care and closed the case. ‘I can recommend a man. His name is Constantine Dinov. He has done this many times before. In the meantime, I’m going to try to find out as much as I can about Anya and what happened so we can help Constantine get her back safely. That’s all the help I can offer, I’m sorry.’

  Vadim glanced at his mother, then Stevie. ‘Just by agreeing to try, you are helping,’ he said. ‘You give us hope. Without hope you can’t live.’

  Stevie bit her lip. ‘We need to go to that nightclub, Vadim. Tonight.’

  In the night world of Moscow the real New Russia is revealed. The winter’s day is short and unconfident. It exists to provide gaps between nights. Daylight is the only sense of order that survives here. The night world is created and inhabited by the night people. These are the thrillseekers, the young, the very newly very rich, and those who serve them. They have been partying apocalyptically since 1993, when the Soviet Union deflated and all things changed beyond recognition.

  The early years of freedom brought violence to the streets, assassinations, chaos; it injected energy into the existing desperation, celebratory hysteria, the uncertainty of utter hedonism. It created oligarchs and über criminals and vampire beauties to feed off them. Mostly the age was characterised by a complete lack of restraint. These qualities have remained intact.

  Every traveller into the underworld needs a guide. As Dante had Virgil, so Stevie called on her two Italian friends, Diego and Iacopo.

  She had met them on her first trip to Moscow and they could always be relied upon to find the best restaurant and the hippest club. Being Italian, they refused to adapt one iota to Russian ways and remained resolutely as they were. Even their tans stayed mysteriously summerish, as though Capri was just around the corner. Their cultural confidence was the root of their charm.

  The restaurant Diego and Iacopo chose was called Sushi Fusion.

  Henning was under strict instructions to remember anything of interest in the event Stevie got a little too drunk—which she wouldn’t—and not to leave her side. Bathroom breaks were excepted.

  Back at the Metropole she had a raging hot bath and emerged bright pink and steaming. Moisturiser—Louis Widmer, because she liked the pink bottle and it smelt of her childhood—massaged into the body, was vital in very cold weather, in heated rooms, or you risked drying out like a twig. Scent, always applied when naked, a very little on the neck and the wrists. Her grandmother, who knew everything, said it should only be detectable when you were being kissed—‘hello’ that is, of course.

  Hurry. Dress. You don’t want Henning ringing up from the lobby while you are still naked.

  Obeying her inner nanny, she layered carefully in her Hanro thermals. The Swiss made the best undergarments. These were a wool-silk mix, very fine, and her heavenly Didi swore by them. Then a midnight blue rollneck jumper in medium-weight cashmere, pearls on the outside; a cream woollen skirt, pressed invincibly into tiny pleats that opened like a Japanese fan. It was uncrushable and fabulous for dancing; tight black knee-high boots with a flat heel (you never knew what you might have to run from in a strange city at night; plus there was black ice); her trusty crocodile bag.

  Henning stood like a Christmas tree in the middle of the lobby in his herring
bone coat, a flat woollen cap, a white silk scarf knotted tightly at his throat and a smile for Stevie.

  ‘What are you so happy about? This is a work mission.’

  ‘You look tremendous.’

  Stevie frowned. ‘Thank you but that isn’t the idea. I’m blending in. Where’s Vadim?’

  ‘Buying cigarettes. There.’ Vadim strolled into the lobby. He would be essential for pointing out Petra, and anyone else Anya might have got close to. A brother’s questions were also less suspicious than a stranger’s.

  With Moscow restaurants, one never quite knows what to expect. Sushi Fusion was painted a lacquer black, the ceilings red, like an enormous bento box. A bar dimly lit ran the length of one wall. As the three of them disrobed in the entrance and handed in their coats, a family with two young children was being seated.

  Sweet, thought Stevie, a little family evening in such a mad city.

  She sometimes forgot children existed in Moscow. She so rarely saw any.

  Four go-go dancers were gyrating on the bar in feather bikinis, sequined hotpants and over-the-knee boots. Three had long blonde hair that they flicked about like whips with a crack of their necks. A fourth had short dark hair and a severe mouth.

  It was an odd combination: family restaurant (Stevie added a couple of grandmothers at a far table to the children) and erotic dance bar. But, she supposed, these were Moscow rules: anything goes.

  Sitting at their table, Stevie watched the dancers. It was the hips and breasts that moved, not the feet. That’s how they could dance without falling off. The girls had incredible bodies but no one else in the room appeared to be watching with any interest—not the two children, not Vadim.

  He smoked and stared at his glass of rum and coke. The cold air outside had angered the scar over his eye; it stood out livid in his pale face. Stevie wanted to ask what had happened but now was not the time.