Page 168 of King’s Ransom

She said nothing, which was itself an answer.

I pressed, ‘Did you want to win Aristo back? Get him to return to this new you?’

Winnie Tan said nothing.

Again her silence said everything.

‘But Yasmina Ivanova was in your way.’

She said nothing.

I pressed, ‘You’d never met Yasmina, but you despised her because she had something you wanted: Aristo King. So you found a company on the darknet, Modern Alchemical Solutions, and submitted your proposal to them, a proposal to get her out of Aristo’s life. And Modern Alchemical Solutions took on your case.’

When I was finished, Winnie Tan did something that I didn’t expect.

She didn’t shout at me.

She didn’t call over her butler/bodyguard to kick me out of her home.

She just looked over my shoulder and said, ‘You said he was clever. Solve this. Now.’

I turned around.

And my heart nearly stopped.

Three figures stood—eerily still—in the doorway behind me, blocking the way back into the mansion.

Their hairstyles had changed since December 21st.

But not their facial features.

I recognised all three of them.

On the left was a chunky man of perhaps fifty who I knew as the superintendent from 59West—‘Lenny Grossman’—only now his bushy black moustache had been shaved off and instead of all-white coveralls, he wore a worn sheepskin-lined jacket.

He gripped a Glock 19 pistol with an extended mag in his right hand.

I guessed he was Uri.

On the right was the woman who’d introduced herself to me at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery as Maria Dubrowski, the female gardener with long red hair.

Today, her hair was black and short.

This must be Vasha.

She wasn’t wearing gardening attire today. Just denim overalls and a woollen sweater. Looking at her now, I saw that this woman had also been the driver of 59West’s courtesy van.

(I’d pondered earlier whether ‘Vasha’ had been the gardener at the cemetery or the van driver at 59West: turned out, she’d been both.

As I looked at her now, I imagined she must’ve felt pretty darned smug at the cemetery: she’d brought the three drugged Russians there—the patsies to take the blame for all the crimes of that day—and, disguised as a gardener, she’d stayed and made sure those patsies had been killed by one of us. I wondered how Merritt Garrett would feel when (if) he discovered this.

And it didn’t stop there, this woman had even allowed herself to be interviewed by the FBI as a witness. Only a very cool customer could pull that off.)

Her eyes were blank as she stared at me now, gripping a Czech-made CZ 75 pistol in one hand.

In between them was a taller man.

Their leader.