Heron's Cove (27 page)

“What about her father?”

“She never knew him. That’s what she told me, anyway.” Ursula straightened, as if she had just made up her mind to say what she came to say and get it over with. “There was this one incident. It was a few months ago—late June or early July. A man was here. He was Russian. Tall, very fit. I mean, you and I are fit but this guy…” She gave a little shudder. “He must have been some kind of bodyguard, a soldier. Something.”

“A police officer, maybe?”

“No. I don’t know that, of course, since I have no idea who he was, but—no. He wasn’t a police officer. Tatiana knew him. She seemed happy to see him, but surprised, even awkward.”

“She didn’t introduce him to you?” Lucas asked.

Ursula shook her head. “I was in the back room. I started to come out when I saw him, and I immediately realized it was a private, personal meeting and stayed in back. He was only there a few minutes. I didn’t tell you until now because I didn’t think of it, and because—well, frankly, I didn’t think it was any of your business. I’m still not sure it is. Sorry.”

“Not a problem. So why did you tell me?”

“I spoke to Tatiana last night. I called. She didn’t call me.” Ursula grabbed her bag, hoisted it back onto her shoulder. “She wasn’t herself. I’m worried about her.”

“Did you tell her about me?”

“Yes, but I was already worried. She’s not telling me something. To be honest, I’ve felt that ever since she decided to make this trip to the U.S. I know her, Lucas. I get that she doesn’t want to talk about her past, that it’s complicated—that she was a child at an exciting but turbulent time in Russia. She’s built a good life for herself here in London.”

“I understand,” Lucas said.

Ursula seemed calmer. “She left London in such haste. She gave me a key to her apartment, in case she needed me to get in while she was away. To water her plants or check on things. You know.” Ursula glanced toward the busy hotel entrance, as if the doormen might call the police on her, then reached into a side pocket of her bag, pulled out a set of keys and handed them to Lucas. “I have a packed schedule today. Perhaps you could check on Tatiana’s apartment for me.”

He folded the keys into his palm. “Happy to.”

“I’m trusting you, Lucas.”

“For good reason. I’m trustworthy.” When she didn’t smile at his remark, he added, “I’ll return the keys to the Firebird when I’ve finished.”

“Give them to me personally.” She attempted a smile. “Well. I’ll see you, then.”

Ursula seemed marginally reassured as she crossed the lobby and left the hotel. Lucas took the elevator back up to his room. He checked his map of London. Tatiana’s apartment was within reasonable walking distance, and it was another beautiful day in London. He packed his bag but didn’t check out, and in a few minutes was on his way.

It wasn’t even dawn yet in Heron’s Cove. He would call Emma later. Ursula’s description of the Russian who visited Tatiana Pavlova at the Firebird was worth noting but not worth getting his sister out of bed.

Regardless of whose bed she was in, Lucas thought with a wince.

He found Tatiana’s quiet residential street without making a wrong turn or, he was reasonably certain, without being followed. He wasn’t an expert at spotting a tail but once he moved off busy Park Lane, he would have noticed anyone—thug or otherwise—taking the same route he was. Tatiana’s apartment was located on the second floor of a town house on the corner, with window boxes trailing ivy and a glossy red-painted door.

There was no doorman, and Lucas let himself into the vestibule with one of the keys, then walked up the stairs. He didn’t run into anyone before he unlocked Tatiana’s door and went in.

Tatiana Pavlova, he noticed right away, was not a neat freak at home, either.

The apartment was small, with decent natural light and a whimsical flair to the furnishings. The wood floor was almost entirely covered with an off-white rug and a gold-edged mirror hung above a low, off-white sofa. The sofa was overflowing with throw pillows, their owner’s artistic eye in the mix of bright colors, patterns and textures. A painted drop-front desk was stacked with books on Russian fairy tales, fables, folktales, legends and mythology.

Above the desk hung large framed black-and-white photographs of Paris 1900, the world’s fair that celebrated the turn-of-the-century and was dominated by Art Nouveau. The City of Light illuminated its famous landmarks with electric lights, including, for the first time, the Eiffel Tower. The exhibition was also known for bringing together the luxury artists and craftsmen of the day, including legends Carl Fabergé, Louis Comfort Tiffany, René Lalique, Henri Vever and Siegfried Bing, who gave the short-lived but influential Art Nouveau movement its name with his Paris shop,
L’Art Nouveau.
Tatiana undoubtedly would have studied their work in developing her own vision and style.

Given how messy she was, Lucas couldn’t tell if the place had been ransacked, but he saw no indication of a break-in or intruder. He supposed Ursula Finch could have slipped the keys to someone else, or had a look around before giving them to him, but he didn’t really think so. She seemed torn between wanting to help Tatiana and wanting to keep anything she was into from harming their upscale boutique.

He lowered the desk’s drop-front, sketch pads, loose papers and envelopes falling out, as if she’d had them out and shut them up inside without putting them away first. The open cubbies were all likewise stuffed and overflowing.

Lucas grimaced. It would take hours to go through everything just in the desk.

He closed it and checked the bedroom, big enough for a small lamp table and a double bed with a slender, white-painted four-poster iron frame. The bed, surprisingly, was neatly made. The coverlet was white, with white lace-edged pillows and one decorative pillow with a cheerful red heart stitched against a white background. Chubby Russian nesting dolls were lined up in a row on the windowsill.

Lucas noted the stack of magazines and books on the small table, the heap of laundry on the floor at the foot of the bed. He peeked in the closet—lots of oranges, rusts, deep blues and turquoise, almost no black, and a gigantic mess.

He shut the door and checked the bathroom. A pedestal sink was covered in bottles and tubes, white towels hung haphazardly from a single bar and a family of rubber ducks was lined up on the edge of the tub.

How could a woman who had rubber ducks be a danger to anyone?

Lucas returned to the living room and crossed into the separate kitchen. Sunlight streamed through a filmy curtain on a double window overlooking the street. The cabinets, countertops and walls were white, the towels and pot holders were red, complemented by framed illustrations of Russian fairy tales next to copper-bottomed pots on hooks.

The top of the farmhouse table was buried under computer printouts of internet articles. Lucas flipped through them, stiffening as he saw they were all on either Dmitri Rusakov or Vladimir Bulgov, including one from the
Los Angeles Times
on Bulgov’s arrest in June on multiple charges.

Lucas thought of the visit from the Russian that Ursula Finch had mentioned. Had one of Vladimir Bulgov’s men come to warn Tatiana? Talk to her about his arrest? Threaten her?

Who the hell was she? Bulgov’s ex-lover, a friend, a relative—one of the Russian arms trafficker’s many enemies?

Where did Dmitri Rusakov fit in? The printouts on him were mostly about his energy businesses and lifestyle. As far as Lucas could see, the Russian tycoon hadn’t been arrested and wasn’t under suspicion for any criminal conduct. Some of his business decisions were controversial, and he was often at odds with Russian politicians.

Lucas dug through more of the papers on the table. Maybe Tatiana had her own axes to grind with her compatriots.

He came to a sketch pad and opened it, discovering pencil drawings of Russian nesting dolls in Tatiana’s unique style. She had jotted notes about colors and materials, but it was the scrawl at the bottom of one of the drawings, underlined several times, that caught Lucas’s attention:
Vladimir Bulgov wants them by July 1!!!!!

It was as if she were giving herself a little goose to make sure she finished the nesting dolls on time.

Vladimir Bulgov was under arrest in the U.S. and living in a federal cell on July 1.

So when had he commissioned Tatiana Pavlova to create a set of Russian nesting dolls?

Damn good question,
Lucas thought as he shut the sketch pad.

He locked up and took the stairs back down to the main floor, then walked toward his hotel. Did Ursula Finch know about Tatiana’s work for Bulgov? Had Ursula given Lucas the key to her apartment hoping that he would find out on his own, without her having to tell him?

He decided to make a detour to the Firebird Boutique. He was so preoccupied with what he found in Tatiana’s apartment that he forgot to check to make sure he wasn’t being followed. He paused at a busy corner and looked around him.

Just down the street, a man with a shaved head stopped and crouched down, as if to check a loose shoelace. He was in a suit and looked more like a banker than a thug, but Lucas was convinced it was the same man he had seen outside the pub and then at his hotel. He couldn’t get a good look at the man’s face without drawing attention to himself.

Lucas put his hand on his phone, ready to call the London police if he needed to, and abruptly crossed the street, dodging a cab, the driver swearing at him through an open window.

Maintaining his brisk pace, Lucas zigzagged through a small park, then ducked down another street. He glanced behind him but didn’t see the man he had spotted—or anyone else—following him.

He passed upscale Mayfair shops he didn’t recognize. He hoped he wasn’t getting himself lost, but he had a decent sense of direction and ended up at the Firebird—without, he was fairly certain, a tail.

Ursula Finch opened the door herself but didn’t seem that happy to see him. “I didn’t expect to see you again so soon,” she said. “Have you been to Tatiana’s apartment?”

“Just coming from there.” He handed her the keys as he followed her into the elegant showroom. “Vladimir Bulgov commissioned Tatiana to do a set of Russian nesting dolls. Did you know?”

“Yes,” Ursula said, her voice clipped.

“Is he a Firebird client?”

“No. Absolutely not.” She was emphatic as she stood behind the desk. “It was a onetime private arrangement between him and Tatiana.”

“You okayed it?”

Ursula gave a tight nod. “I’m sure Tatiana had no idea at the time that he was—well, a gangster. I didn’t, but I didn’t like him from the start. People say he’s charming but he rubbed me the wrong way. He came here with bodyguards. Not unusual among our very wealthy clients, but they were…” She hesitated, working a simple silver ring on her finger. “I don’t think they wanted to be here, or wanted him here. It wasn’t anything they said. Just a feeling.”

“Why nesting dolls?”

“I don’t know. Tatiana never explained and I didn’t ask. It wasn’t any of my business.”

“Did she work on them here? Did she finish them?”

Ursula exhaled, avoiding Lucas’s eye as she traced a finger across the gleaming desktop, obviously just to have something to do. “Yes. Tatiana worked on them here, and she finished them. They’re incredible—some of her best work. Mr. Bulgov never came for them, of course, since he was arrested.”

“Had Tatiana finished the dolls before his arrest?”

“I think so, yes. They’re locked away in her studio.”

“When was he last here?” Lucas asked.

“In April. I looked up the date last night.” She raised her gaze to him. “In case you asked.”

“You had to let me find out on my own.”

“It’s unsettling. Telling you myself would make me feel more involved, and I’m not. Not really.” She straightened, getting some of her starchy demeanor back. “I’m sure you understand.”

Lucas thought he did. “I know this is difficult for you, Ursula, but I need to understand what’s going on.”

She seemed slightly less uncomfortable and defensive. “You’d like to think you’d sniff out a dog like that, wouldn’t you? Tatiana is a designer, Lucas. She’s not mixed up with Russian or any other organized crime. I can’t imagine she even knows anything about weapons, except maybe Russian medieval swords and such.”

From his quick search of Tatiana’s apartment, Lucas couldn’t imagine she was criminally involved with arms traffickers, either.

Ursula scowled, took a step back from the desk. “One would think the FBI is more concerned with Bulgov’s interest in shoulder-fired missiles than in Russian nesting dolls.”

“What about Dmitri Rusakov?” Lucas asked. “Did Tatiana have anything to do with him?”

“I know nothing about him, I’m afraid. Except who he is. He’s not a client, and he wasn’t with Mr. Bulgov when he came to see Tatiana, at least not that I know of.”

Lucas nodded toward the back room. “I’d like to go up and take another look at her studio,” he said, not making it a question.

Ursula sighed, then reluctantly led him up to the messy creative room where Tatiana Pavlova spent much of her time.

“I’m going to take a closer look,” Lucas said, a hand on the edge of her main worktable.

“Do what you have to do.” Ursula crossed her arms and paced, clearly impatient, even nervous—and annoyed. “I believe in Tatiana. I hope that whatever you find will help ease your suspicion of her.”

“I’m not suspicious. I just need to know what’s going on.”

“I don’t like feeling like a snitch.”

“Understood.”

Lucas glanced at the messy worktable, no idea of where to begin. Then he noticed a pendant in the shape of a nightingale on top of a small lacquered box, as if it were perched there. It sparkled with clusters of gleaming gems.

He lifted the nightingale between two fingers and turned to Ursula. “Is this genuine?”

Ursula lowered her arms to her sides as she frowned at the pendant. “I’ve always assumed it’s a replica.”

“It’d be worth quite a lot if it’s real,” he said.

“More than Tatiana could afford on her own,” Ursula added.