He studied me. “Have you told the police he’s missing?”
“Yeah, they’re gonna care that some random American won’t answer his sister’s texts. Or that his cat’s been kidnapped and a dog has stolen her collar.” The thief in question was now dozing, emitting fitful dog snores. “Nope. I’m gonna throw in my lot with you, Kingsley-if-that’s-even-your-name.”
“Not entirely your call,” he said.
“I can be persuasive.”
“Persuade me.”
“I’ve got a gun in my purse,” I said. “Once you catch up to your Russian friend, the one we’re following to Norwich, it could come in handy.”
An eyebrow went up. “Nicked that too, did you? From the tunnel?”
“Yeah. Which wasn’t easy, given that I was in the dark, in a hurry, and hauling a dog.”
“Is that it, then?”
“I’ve also got your wallet. You’re flat broke.”
The other eyebrow went up. “Pinch any bullets?” he asked, and held out his hand.
“You didn’t give me much time.” I passed him the wallet and our fingers touched.
He smiled. “Fair enough. Even a nonloaded weapon is a weapon.”
The countryside out the train window raced by, deeply green, with hills so rolling they looked fake, accessorized by contented-looking sheep. To someone used to the parched fields of Southern California, it was downright exotic. Kingsley, in the seat opposite, had a view of coming attractions, while I watched what we were leaving behind.
Kingsley and I had steaming cups before us, thanks to the Greater Anglia Railway dining coach. Kingsley was a far cry from “Mirko” — unrecognizable, even — but even so, it took confidence to risk running into the guy he was tailing just for a cup of tea. Not that I was complaining; he’d brought me back a black coffee. I didn’t ask how he knew my beverage preferences. Perhaps I had a speck of ground espresso on my earlobe.
“I’m a consultant,” Kingsley said, stirring his milky tea. “I was hired to investigate the clandestine dealings going on at the shop of Mirko Rudenko. Having tapped his phone, I heard Mirko converse with a woman named Sarah Byrne, in a dialect called Surzhyk, a hybrid of the Russian and Ukrainian languages in which I am conversant but not fluent. So when Sarah Byrne made an appointment with Mirko, I rang up your brother to come eavesdrop with me.”
I blinked. “Robbie’s a spy? You guys are spies?”
“No, a consultant,” he repeated. “Robbie, of course, knows Eastern European dialects the way a sommelier knows wine. I needed his expertise.”
“Okay, whatever. Go on.”
“We met outside the shop — ’round the back — and listened through the flap of a dog door as Sarah Byrne and the Renowned Mirko had cream tea and a tarot card reading. All nonsense, of course, the tarot business, but then talk turned to gemstones.” Kingsley’s eyes lit up. “Mirko told Sarah he’d recently acquired a red diamond for a client. ‘Come,’ he said. ‘I’ll show you.’ But when she stood, she was suddenly unwell. Mirko expressed concern. We heard the sound of creaking wood, people moving about, and then — silence.”
“They’d gone into the tunnel.”
“They had. If Mirko suspected foul play, he’d certainly avoid the front door. Robbie and I let ourselves in and found no one in the shop but a French bulldog. He was clawing at the bookcase so near the point of entry they may as well have posted a sign saying, PRESS HERE FOR SECRET PASSAGEWAY.”
I glanced down at the snoring Gladstone.
“Although it did take me seven minutes to find my way in,” he went on. “Embarrassingly slow. I left Robbie in the shop, as a safety measure. I’ve been locked in cellars once or twice and wasn’t keen to do it again.”
“And did you find Mirko and Sarah Byrne?” I asked.
“No, but I could hear them, at the far end. The woman was growing hysterical. I listened for their exit and then moved fast. Do you recall the tunnel’s final meters, where the brick floor ended and the last bit was dirt?”
“No.”
“Try to be more observant,” Kingsley said crisply. “Fresh footprints, one of them a lady’s spike heel, size four — six to you Americans — told me she was short, plump, vain, and increasingly unsteady on her feet. Mirko half carried, half dragged her those last meters and up the stairs, through Tesco’s and onto the street. Which is where I found them. I helped them into a taxi, and in the process managed to acquire Mirko’s mobile and the remote that opened the tunnel door. You’re not alone in your pickpocketing skills. By this point Mirko was also feeling seriously ill, so I accompanied them to London City Hospital.”
“Didn’t they think that was odd?” I asked.
“Not once I saw who Sarah Byrne was. She wore an absurd black wig that fell off as we bundled her into the taxi, revealing her to be as blond as you are. I recognized her at once as Yaroslava Barinova. I had only to profess myself her greatest fan and beg the privilege of helping her. Frankly, they were both too sick to care.”
Poison, I thought. “And who is, uh, Yaroslava—?”
Kingsley sighed. “The greatest mezzo-soprano since Frederica von Stade. I saw them to the hospital, got them admitted, and texted your brother with an update.”
“And?”
He looked at me steadily. “I’ve heard nothing from Robbie since that day.”
I stared at him.
“Breathe,” Kingsley said, and I realized I’d stopped. “I found his mobile on Mirko’s bookshelf, its battery dead. Not in itself a sign of trouble; your brother’s careless about such things. I returned it to his flat, by the way.” He frowned at me. “Stop leaping to dire conclusions. We haven’t sufficient data, and you’ll be no use to me in Norwich if your amygdala hijacks your cerebral cortex.”
“That’s an oversimplification of cognitive processes,” I snapped.
“Don’t quibble with me; I wrote a monograph on the subject.”
I said, as casually as I could, “So what happened to Mirko and the mezzo-soprano?”
The pause scared me as much as the words that followed. “They were poisoned, of course,” Kingsley said at last. “They’ll be dead by the weekend.”
Norwich, the end of the line, had an actual train station, old and stately. Kingsley and I strolled through it side by side, with Gladstone waddling between us. “Look relaxed,” Kingsley said, “but prepare to move quickly. We’ll soon need a taxi.”
Our quarry was Igor, the Russian who’d come to the shop.
Igor had been the first call on Mirko’s cell phone, after it was in Kingsley’s pocket and Mirko off to the hospital. Kingsley could tell, from Igor’s Russian and his use of the formal pronouns, that the man hadn’t met Mirko. This gave Kingsley the confidence to impersonate the psychic when Igor offered to come round and collect a red diamond and hand off a suitcase of rubles.
“He had one moment of doubt,” Kingsley said, “but I’m extraordinarily convincing as a gemologist.”
“Old-school money laundering,” I said.
“A refreshing change from offshore banking,” Kingsley said.
“Delightful,” I said. “But what’s Igor got to do with my brother?”
“With luck, nothing. But we must eliminate the impossible.”