The faint smile was back, her fragility evaporating.
“My name is Field.”
“That’s not much of a name.” Her voice was husky, like a singer who has spent too much time performing in smoke-filled nightclubs.
“Richard. But most people call me ‘Field.’ ”
“How unromantic.”
Field gestured with his pen. “Can I take your name?”
“Medvedev.”
He waited. “And your first name?”
“I don’t think we’re on first-name terms, do you?”
Field wasn’t certain how to respond to her teasing, and couldn’t tell whether it was gentle or barbed.
“Natasha,” she said. “Natasha Medvedev. But most people call me Natasha.”
“You found the body about an hour ago?”
“Yes.” She removed her arms from her shoulders, and for a moment her dressing gown parted sufficiently to reveal the curve of her breasts. His face reddened as he realized she saw the direction of his gaze.
“You went around for milk?”
“I’d run out.”
“So you knocked, but there was no answer?”
“That’s right, Officer.”
“There was no answer, so you went in?”
“We’ve just been through this.”
Field looked at her. “I’m sorry. Perhaps I’m being stupid. You went around to get milk, you knocked, there was no response, so . . . then what?”
She didn’t answer.
“It’s just, if you hardly knew the woman, it would seem more logical to turn around and come back to your own flat.”
Natasha was looking at him as if he were the stupidest man she’d ever met. “The door was open.”
“So you went in to see if you could borrow some milk?”
She didn’t bother to answer.
“Then what?”
“Then I found the body.”
Field stopped writing. “How did you do that?”
“Inspector, I think this conversation has gone as far as—”
“I’m not an inspector.”
She sighed. “No, well . . .”
“Was it the smell?”
She screwed up her face in disgust.
“It’s just,” Field said slowly, “that I don’t see how you got to the bedroom when the kitchen is the other side of the living room.” He pointed. “The same layout as here.”
Natasha Medvedev stared at him, and he held her gaze. He had no idea what he saw there. Contempt, perhaps. What he didn’t understand was that it would have been very easy to make up a convincing lie, and she wasn’t bothering to do so.
Field was still standing close to the photographs, and he took a step toward the bookshelf as one at the back caught his eye. Natasha was standing on what looked like the dance floor of a nightclub. She wore a figure-hugging dress with a plunging neckline, her unfashionably long hair tumbling over her shoulder just as it did now, her face impassive. By contrast, the woman next to her—not in the same league as her friend and with too much makeup, but an open, friendly face—was smiling.
Field held it up, pointing to the second woman. “Lena Orlov.”
Natasha Medvedev shook her head. “No, another friend.” As she said it, she was transformed again, clutching herself once more, dropping her head, so that her hair fell forward.
“Oh God,” she muttered under her breath.
Field did not know what to do. He took a pace toward her, then another. He shut his notebook and slipped it back into the pocket of his jacket.
“I’m sorry, Miss Medvedev.”
She did not respond.
“Is there anything I can get you?”
