a photo of Valentina.’
Eloise unsnapped the tiny handbag, dug inside and pulled out a glossy print. ‘This one is very recent.’ It showed a pretty dark-haired child with lots of light and joy in her sparkling hazel eyes, pictured by the lake. Eloise said, ‘There are more pictures in her room. Would you like to see it?’
Ben said yes, anything was useful. With her uncle in tow, Eloise led Ben quickly from the salon, through the gleaming labyrinth of marble and priceless rugs and furniture, and up a grand staircase to a bedroom on the first floor. Valentina’s room was the size of a luxury penthouse apartment, with its own bathroom and dressing room and a walk-in wardrobe fit for Marie Antoinette. Everything was pink, from the silk on the walls to the canopy of the Cadillac-sized four-poster bed to the teddy bears clustered on the pillows, and the pillows themselves. There were books everywhere, a precarious stack of them piled on a pink bedside cabinet: Dostoyevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov, a collection of short stories by the same author, Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin and a volume of poetry by Mikhail Lermontov. Ben wondered how many twelve-year-old girls were so heavily into Russian literary classics.
Eloise saw him looking at the books and explained, ‘She adores reading. And her goal is to become completely fluent in Russian before her father’s fortieth birthday next April, so she can surprise him.’ Eloise let out a deep, shuddering sigh and screwed her eyes shut, shaking her head in anguish. ‘What has he done? What has he done?’
‘She’s a clever kid,’ Ben said, to keep it light.
‘A little genius,’ Kaprisky weighed in, voice heavy with emotion. ‘She already speaks Dutch, German and English and has come on greatly with her French since moving here. Naturally, she is also proficient in mathematics, and developing a strong interest in science. She could be anything she wanted. She is such a talented actress, too. She does the most incredible impressions of people.’
‘But most of all she loves animals,’ Eloise said. ‘She wants to be a vet when she grows up.’
Which made sense, judging by the pictures on the walls. Every inch of available space was crammed with framed photographs of a variety of dogs and cats and horses. Kaprisky held back tears as he told Ben what a keen little photographer his grandniece was, among her many talents, constantly snapping shots of animals everywhere she went. Other framed pictures that hadn’t been taken by Valentina featured her hugging various puppies, kittens and ponies, each time with the same dazzling smile on her face.
Eloise couldn’t look at the pictures of her daughter without bursting into tears once again. Wiping her eyes she went to a little pink chair and picked up a little pink gilet jacket that was neatly hung over its back. She caressed the material with a sob. ‘She has another one exactly the same as this, which she was wearing when she left. Tailor-made especially for her. Pink is her favourite colour, as you might have noticed.’
‘That’s all good to know,’ Ben said. ‘What about her father?’
Eloise looked confused. ‘No, he hates pink.’
Kaprisky’s mouth gave a twitch. ‘Please forgive my niece,’ he said in French so that Eloise wouldn’t understand. ‘With such parents I can’t begin to imagine where her daughter gets her intelligence from.’
Ben smiled patiently and said to Eloise, ‘I mean do you have a photo of him?’
Eloise went from confused to blank, then her cheeks flushed. ‘No, but I think Valentina keeps one in her bedside drawer.’
She hurried over to look. While she was rooting through all the usual paraphernalia that twelve-year-old girls keep in their bedside drawers, even academically brilliant multilingual genius ones, Ben added, ‘It’d also be useful to know all you can tell me about your ex-husband.’
Eloise looked up with a frown. ‘Like what?’
‘Like who his friends are, where he hangs out, habits, hobbies and interests. I realise details of current girlfriends might be difficult, but the more information I have, the more it could help provide a clue to his present whereabouts.’
She chewed her lower lip and shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t help you. Even before Yuri moved back to Russia, I couldn’t have given you the name of a single friend, or anyone he kept company with. He has no interests, no hobbies I know of, no activities outside of his work. Only his religion. He’s Catholic, and attends church quite often.’
‘That’s handy information,’ Ben said. As long as he could stake out every Catholic church in Russia on the off-chance of Yuri wandering inside to worship. There couldn’t be more than a few thousand of them. He asked her, ‘Would you happen to have his mobile number? That could be useful to me, as well.’
‘I haven’t spoken to Yuri by phone in a long time,’ Eloise said, still rooting around in the bedside drawers. ‘Not that I would want to, because it would only end in arguments. All I have is an email address. From what Valentina says, he’s changed phones a dozen times since I last had a number for him. Ah, here it is.’ She pulled out the photo she’d been looking for. It was obvious she didn’t want to look at it, and quickly passed it to Ben with barely a glance.
The picture was an old family snap of when Eloise and Yuri were still together. Valentina was much younger and smaller, with gaps where her baby teeth had fallen out. Eloise had a different hairstyle, and looked rosy and happy. Yuri Petrov stood with his arm around his wife’s shoulders, smiling broadly. He had lots of shaggy jet black hair, a broad, craggy but not ugly face, a solid jaw and pronounced cheekbones. His eyes were dark and not as stupid-looking as Ben might have expected, given Kaprisky’s account of him.
‘He has a bit more weight around the middle now,’ Eloise said. ‘And Valentina says his hair is longer, and he grew a beard.’
‘What a deadbeat,’ Kaprisky muttered in the background.
‘Can I keep this?’ Ben asked.
She shuddered. ‘Please, take it out of my sight. I don’t want to see his face ever again.’
The Kaprisky staffer who drove Ben to the Aéroport Le Mans-Arnage appeared to be an ex-racing driver of some kind, with special dispensation from the French police to deliver his passenger to their destination as fast as possible, irrespective of public safety. By the time the black Mercedes S-Class had screeched to a halt at the private terminal, the Gulfstream G650 had already taxied out of the huge Kaprisky Corp hangar and was on the runway approach, fuelled and prepped for takeoff, its lights twinkling in the falling dusk.
Ben was greeted on the tarmac by a sombre Adrien Leroy and Noël Marchand. ‘Every time we meet,’ Leroy said as he shook Ben’s hand, ‘it’s in unfortunate circumstances. I can’t believe this is happening. Poor kid. Everyone adores her.’
‘How well do you know Petrov?’ Ben asked. With so few clues to go on, he needed to fish for all the scraps he could get.
Leroy shook his head, barely able to contain his anger. ‘I’ve seldom even laid eyes on the bastard. He’s never there to collect her. But I’ll tell you, if I do ever see him again I’ll smash his teeth down his throat.’
So much for fishing. Leroy went off to attend to
