“What happened to her bras after she died?”
“I gave some to a thrift store, though you could see they were scandalized. I threw out the rest. But that couldn’t have been it. Her bras were these skimpy, lacy, silky things. You couldn’t even hide a nipple in them.”
“Oh, yeah,” he said, with enough of a shade of meaning to make it obvious he was remembering his personal experience.
Alice scoffed at him. “I suggested we hide stuff in fake mascara bottles in the book, but she rejected it as amateurish.”
“I drilled into her to keep her pocket litter pristine, unless she absolutely had to carry something, and even then to get it to me as soon as she could, so I could slip it to the embassy. I once caught her hiding something up her sleeve—literally—and told her never to do it again. Even post-Cold War, in a hostile environment like Moscow it was too risky, especially for her.” He was pacing now—a dizzying sight in such a small room. “You said earlier that you boxed up her possessions?”
“Mostly clothing, which I gave to Kimberly or to charity stores. There were a few designer pieces Nika was proud of—American designers, so I’m guessing she bought them locally. Everything else was packed up in the blue bag in her room.”
“That’ll be the first thing the authorities took—the second thing, after your computer. I don’t suppose she mentioned a secret bank vault, and how she accessed it?”
“Sorry, no. She had a regular bank account—that’s how she paid the rent—but I can’t see her having stored anything online,no matter how secure. When I cleaned up her room, I found a modest stack of cash under the mattress, which I gave to my lawyer for safekeeping, along with her passport. She certainly never seemed worried about money, though I never knew her to buy anything. She did say, not long before she died, that she would need a new winter coat eventually but she was holding out because she didn’t know if she would be…”
He nodded, saving Alice from finishing the sentence.
“Could she have destroyed this evidence?” Alice said. “Handed it over? Or maybe she was bluffing about it to get into the U.S.?”
“I don’t see bluffing as a possibility. If she didn’t have anything concrete or couldn’t prove it, they would have laughed her off. She was always so thorough, so earnest. And why would she destroy her insurance? She told me, just before we left Moscow: ‘I was dispensable, so I made myself indispensable.’”
“You think she kept it hanging over whoever she was blackmailing, to keep herself safe?”
“The way she’s talking, it sounds like she still has this stuff and she’s telling you where to find it, but she keeps losing her train of thought.” He stopped pacing and hunched slightly to look out the window, compulsively rapping his fingers on the log wall beside it. “I’ll get back to listening. Maybe she’ll say something else. And we need to get to Randolph—see what more he can tell us.”
“Won’t the FBI expect you to go to him? Though I guess he’s on your side in this, given that I impugned the two of you relatively equally.”
“Randolph is always on Randolph’s side, but as long as that aligns with our side, we should take advantage. Especially if he thinks there’s something we have that he wants. It’s likely that whoever knows about the kompromat is the person overwhom it was held, though others might know too. But I’ll take precautions, all the same.”
Carter picked up the earbuds and dictaphone, sat at the table and resumed listening. The birds outside had hushed, leaving just his steady breathing and a quiet hum from the fridge. Since Nika’s death, Alice had avoided silence—she would play upbeat music or switch on the TV. She settled for picking at the remains of her wrap. She signaled Carter to ask if he wanted a coffee, and he gave a thumbs-up. As she was heating the water, his voice sounded, right behind her.
“She’s talking about someone called Tatiana. Sorry,” he added with a laugh when Alice startled. “Didn’t mean to scare you.” He oh-so casually rubbed her arms, which was presumably supposed to settle her nerves, but it did anything but.
“All good.” Alice kept her focus on the coffee maker.
“You didn’t have a character by that name.”
“No. Could it be one of her sources in the Kremlin?”
“Possibly. I never knew their names.”
He leaned back on the counter beside her, crossing his arms. His eyes looked drawn. Given the small proportions of the kitchen, it was hard to avoid brushing past him as she prepared the coffees, but she valiantly managed it.
“We have no milk,” she said. “Or sugar. I didn’t think about it when I was at the store. But if you’re good with drinking it black and bitter, like…?”
“Like Anderson Holt? Yeah, thanks. Long time since anyone’s made a coffee for me, outside of a coffee cart or a truck stop. I barely make them for myself.”
“I don’t get to do it very often these days, except for Kimberly and Malik, occasionally.”
“You don’t have a boyfriend, a partner.” He said it as though it was a curiosity.
“I don’t really do boyfriends.”
“Girlfriend?”
“Nothing that interesting, sorry. I mean, I’m not celibate or anything, but when you’re a high school teacher and there are eyes everywhere, and you don’t get out of town much, there aren’t a lot of options. I don’t do relationships, so…” She shrugged.
“Me neither.” He sounded surprised to discover they had this in common.
