The Lost Labyrinth

TWENTY-SEVEN
I

Mikhail Nergadze unwrapped a butterscotch as he came into Nadya's line of sight, popping it into his mouth, discarding the scrunched-up foil onto the carpet. He sucked hard twice to flood his mouth with the sweet sticky saliva, before pushing it to one side with his tongue, the better to talk. He was holding her purse, she saw, and now he opened it up, pulling the credit cards out of their sleeves one-by-one, examining them for a moment, then pushing them back in. 'Nadya Ludmilla Petrova,' he said. 'How I hoped it would be you. When I heard that a woman called Nadya was after me, a woman with a limp.'

There was no way for Nadya to know how much he knew about her. Best to assume he knew nothing, lest she give him anything for free. 'After you?' she asked. 'What are you talking about? Who are you?'

'It's a real honour for me, this. I mean that sincerely. I'm one of your biggest fans. I've been living in America these past few years, you see. They think Georgia is where the Atlanta Braves play baseball. So I've been starved of home news. I used to read your blog avidly.' He waved his hand. 'Everyone else, all the so-called serious media, they merely reprint the official press releases then go off for their long lunches. But not you. Typical, isn't it? The only Georgian with the balls to tell it as it is, and she's a woman.'

'What do you want with me?'

'You know what I want, Nadya. I want to know why you've made it your business to interfere with my business. I want to know why you hired a detective to wait outside the airport for my family plane last night, then follow my guests to my house. I want to know why you tailed us out to Eleusis earlier, and why you interfered with my effort to talk with Daniel Knox. And please don't bother to deny it. Your detective called me earlier and volunteered everything. You really should pick your help more carefully next time.'

That damned Sokratis! She should have known he'd betray her. She tried to recall how much he'd have heard and could have passed on. 'Investigating campaigns is what I do,' she said. 'You must know that, if you read my blog.'

'And what do I have to do with any campaign?'

'I'm not here because of you. I'm here because of a man called Boris Dekanosidze. He's one of Ilya Nergadze's most important advisers, you know.'

'Is he now?' laughed Mikhail. 'Very well, then. Why are you after him?'

'Because the first thing you learn in this business is that you never get scoops from following the candidates; they're too well protected. It's always the right-hand men who lead you to the real story.'

'Ah! The secret of your success!' he mocked. 'The herd trails haplessly after the leaders; but you go after the consigliore?'

'It led me to you, didn't it?'

'And why should you consider that a result? Why should you think I matter?'

Nadya blinked at her own impetuosity. She needed to be sharper than that if she was to get out of this. 'I'm still working on that.'

'You're lying,' said Mikhail. 'You know exactly who I am. You knew before you flew out here. In fact, you flew here looking for me.'

'I assure you I-'

'Don't lie to me, Nadya. You'll regret it if you do.'

'I'm not lying,' she said. 'It's the truth. I needed something good on Ilya Nergadze. Something juicy. My readers were starting to accuse me of being in the tank for him.'

'It was that press conference, wasn't it?' asked Mikhail. 'The way you looked at me, I knew we must have met before. I just couldn't place you. It was only when we picked you up earlier that I was sure.' He stood tall again. 'How unlucky can a man be? Back in Georgia for two days, and I run into one of my widows.'

'One of your widows!' Despite her predicament, his callousness shocked her out of her pretence. 'What kind of monster are you? What had Albert ever done to you?'

'Don't you know?' answered Mikhail. 'He stuck his nose into our family business. We had to flee to Cyprus because of him.'

'But he had nothing to do with that,' she protested. 'It was the Americans.'

'The Americans!' said Mikhail contemptuously. 'And just who do you think told them? Unfortunately for your husband, one of the people at Justice was on our payroll.' He shook his head at the ways of the universe. 'We needed him silenced; we needed him punished. I was in Cyprus at the time, the only one of the family not under twenty-four hour surveillance, so my grandfather asked me home. I'm good at that kind of thing.'

'You shit!' she spat.

'Now, now,' he smiled. 'This is scarcely the time to be hurling insults, is it? I don't kill unless I have to. Not people I admire, at least. And I do admire you, Nadya. So I wouldn't do anything to jeopardise that if I were you.' He walked around her, as though assessing her. 'Tell me something,' he said. 'Are you left or right-handed?'

'What?'

He produced a pair of pliers from his pocket. 'I'm asking for your own good,' he said, when she didn't answer. 'No? Very well. You're wearing your watch on your left wrist, so I'm going to assume you're right-handed. Do tell me if I'm wrong.' He took her left thumb, wrenched it away from her fingers, pinched it between the pliers' blunt jaws.

'Don't!' begged Nadya, twisting in her chair. 'Please!'

He didn't listen, he began to squeeze. She braced herself and closed her eyes, as though that could help; but she couldn't close her ears to the crunch of bone and the sickening liquid noise of crushed and twisted gristle. Then the pain came at her, spikes being hammered up her arm, making her arch and twist in the chair, shrieking and shrieking because shrieking was all she could do until finally she was over the hump of it and coasting down the other side, the pain still exquisite and intense but now at least lessening and manageable again, capable of being contained. She glanced down at her hand, she couldn't help herself. Her knuckle was a gruesome mangled pulp, already turning purple and black, the nail bulging from the pressure of blood beneath, a red crescent around its edge. She knew with certainty that she'd never be able to use it properly again.

Mikhail crouched down again in front of her, hands upon his knees, and regarded her with curiosity, a zoologist encountering some unfamiliar species. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed her eyes. He smiled almost sympathetically as he took her left index finger.

'Please,' she sobbed, as the fear engulfed her. 'I'll do anything, I swear I will. Just tell me what you want.'

Mikhail frowned, a little disappointed at her obtuseness. 'I want to hurt you,' he said.