The nanny had arrived. She was an older woman with a no-nonsense attitude that I appreciated immediately. Olya’s eyes narrowed on her with undisguised disdain—a territorial response I noted and chose not to address. She nodded when I showed her around and said little, which I took as a reasonable sign.
“She is a Dragunov,” I said, stopping in the doorway.“You will ensure no harm befalls her. The consequences of failure will not be pleasant.”
I said it stiffly because no matter how many checks Valentin had run on her, there was no guarantee. There never was. That was simply the reality of trusting anyone with something irreplaceable.
Her brown eyes widened and she began assuring me of her competence at some length.
When she carried a crying Runa away to change her nappy I was tempted to follow. I stopped myself. Snapped my fingers. Tikhon moved forward immediately.
“Keep a close eye on my daughter,” I said, then reached into my pocket for the keys to the new basement.
It was time to visit my uncle.
I hadn’t reached the basement door when my phone rang. I answered without checking who it was.
“Pakhan. Mrs Dragunov is at the cemetery.”
I stopped walking.
“What is she doing?”
“She brought flowers. Cleaned the grave and—” He cleared his throat.
“What?” I said, my voice flat.
“Sir, she’s been lying on top of it crying for the past twenty minutes.”
The image arrived before I could stop it.
“Was that so hard to say?” I snapped.“Keep watching her. I wouldn’t put it past her to rob the gravesite.”
I slipped my phone into my pocket and unlocked the basement door.
I didn’t have time for her dramatics.
??????
I sat in the chair, observing the haggard old man.
He had lost considerable weight. His pallor had taken on a grey tinge—the colour of a man whose body had decided to begin the work of dying before the mind had fully committed to it. The room offered him a thick blanket and a squat toilet and nothing else. He had tried to kill himself and remove himself from the equation once already. Like everything else in his life, it had been a failure.
“Come on, old man,” I said, drawing on my cigarette.“Let me put you out of your misery. All you need to do is give me a name.”
His head moved. Slowly. The eyes that found mine had sunk deep into their sockets, the skull beginning to assert itself beneath the skin.
“He is all that’s left of me,” he whispered, his voice barely there.“He needs to live.”
“Now, now, uncle.” I exhaled slowly, watching the smoke drift toward him.“That’s rather double standards, isn’t it? You tried to eliminate my father’s entire lineage. You murdered my son.”
“That was Tolam,” he rasped.
“How convenient.” I tapped the ash.“It’s always easy to blame the dead man. He knew too much, uncle. You fed him the information to cause maximum damage. That’s why he’s dead and you live beneath the ground.”
He grunted. Said nothing.
I studied him—the bones that had healed badly, some not set at all. The wounds reduced to a landscape of scar tissue. The wild overgrown hair that had once been trimmed and maintained with the vanity of a man who considered his appearance a form of authority.
Gone was the polished man in designer suits.
