“I can check that.”
“Well, check it, then.”
“Was Lena his girl . . . I mean his exclusively? Did he let her go with others?”
She shook her head in anger and frustration.
“Did he give her to someone as a favor, or a reward?”
She stared at both of them. “Have you finished?”
Caprisi hesitated. “Lena Orlov was stabbed. You saw the body. You were—”
“Friends, yes, but life has to go on.” The hostility disappeared and Field saw again in her eyes the same deep hurt and fragility that he’d witnessed the day before. “Lena did what she had to do, that’s all.”
Natasha dropped her head again, her long hair tumbling down and obscuring her face.
Caprisi stood, but instead of moving to the door, he went to the window and looked out toward the racecourse. “Lena was stabbed almost twenty times.” He put his hands in his pockets and turned toward her. “In the stomach and in the vagina. It looked worse after they’d cleaned off all the blood.”
Caprisi looked at Field.
“You know, some of the wounds . . . Around the top of the vagina, for example, there were so many, so close together, that they created deep craters, right down to the bone.”
Natasha appeared transfixed by a point on the wall opposite.
“Lena was Lu’s girl, Miss Medvedev, as you certainly know. Can you be sure you or one of your colleagues won’t be next? With that level of anger . . .”
She shook her head, then turned to look at Field. Her eyes glistened with unshed tears. Perhaps Caprisi was moved by this, too, because he appeared thoughtful and suddenly more sympathetic. He pulled out Lena Orlov’s notebook and walked over to hand it to her. “We found this hidden inside one of the leather-bound volumes in her bookcase.”
Natasha took it and glanced over the entries, wiping her eyes. She did not look at Field again.
“It’s a list of ships, departure dates, and destinations,” Caprisi explained. “There’s one leaving at the end of this month.”
She handed the notebook back to him.
“You’ve no idea why Lena would have been hiding this?”
She shook her head again.
“There is a note at the bottom: ‘All payments in ledger two.’ What could that mean?”
Natasha shrugged.
“What is ledger two?”
“I don’t know.”
“You never heard Lena talk about any shipments?”
“No.”
“Was she involved in any way in any kind of activity that you think this might refer to?”
“I don’t know.”
“You never talked about anything like this?”
Natasha shook her head.
“What do you think ‘ledger two’ might be a reference to?”
“I’ve no idea.”
“Speculate.”
She shrugged.
“It just seems odd, doesn’t it? Notes that were sensitive enough to be hidden. Shipments of something that obviously suggests some kind of criminal activity, and a reference to ‘payments.’ You must be able to make a guess.”
Natasha looked straight at Caprisi. “You can go on asking all day, but I’ve already told you. I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”
Caprisi stared at her. “We’ll leave you, Miss Medvedev,” he said quietly, walking to the door. “I can understand your distress, but . . . I’ve been doing this a long time.” He sighed. “And I sense you could help us more than you’re letting on.”
Eleven
Downstairs, Field almost choked on the thick, sulfurous air. The wind had changed direction again and strengthened, bringing thick fumes from the factories across the river.
They climbed straight into the car and wound up the windows. Caprisi took out a white handkerchief and put it across his mouth. “This city is a cesspit,” he said as the driver turned the car around. “Can’t you tell your uncle?”
