East of the Sun (3 page)

‘Tell me I’m not hallucinating!’ Ratna shrieked as she saw Amelia appear in the doorway.

‘You’re not hallucinating.’

She allowed herself to be pulled into Ratna’s hug, but when her old friend’s arms stayed around her, she suddenly felt awkward in the long embrace. Her body had become stiff over the previous months, no longer used to physical contact of this nature. For a moment she didn’t know how to respond, but then, briefly, let herself enjoy the motherly warmth of Ratna’s ample body.

‘I can’t believe you’re here! When did you arrive?’ Ratna didn’t pause to hear Amelia’s answer. ‘It’s amazing to see you! You’re far too thin, of course.’ Finally she took a breath and stood back to look at Amelia. ‘Sit down, sit down!’

‘I’m here for a short visit,’ Amelia said when Ratna had settled down a little. She repeated the same vague story she’d given Patrick of a trip to tie up loose ends.

‘Well, I know it can’t be because you’ve missed this place,’ Ratna said more soberly, not mentioning the nightmare of the previous year.

Amelia looked around at the outer of two offices, and then towards the door that led to the ambassador’s office. The last time she was here, Robert had still occupied that room. He had walked in and out of this office so many times. She could almost see him come through the door and smile at her, almost waited for his familiar footfall.

She turned back to Ratna. ‘Nothing seems to have changed here.’

Ratna leaned her elbow on the desk with a sigh. ‘Absolutely nothing!’ She pulled a comical face and grinned.

Amelia recalled the amusement and profound relief she’d felt upon first meeting Ratna. The initial culture shock of living in Russia had been softened by Ratna’s warmth, sense of humour and fearlessness. The daughter of Indian immigrants to Canada, Ratna had been raised in Toronto according to the new country’s principles of independence. Her parents had automatically believed their daughter would still practise her culture, and could never have imagined that she would become so fiercely self-sufficient that she would forget all about the old notions of obedience and servility and kick out her lazy husband after three short years of marriage. Undeterred by the protestations of all involved, she’d continued to raise her son by herself. Frighteningly efficient, she’d been a crutch for Robert and a friend to Amelia in Moscow. Since the events of the previous year, they’d exchanged a number of e-mails, but, for reasons not entirely clear to herself, Amelia wanted to keep from Ratna some of the more complex reasons behind her visit.

‘What’s he like?’ Amelia asked, nodding towards the door of the inner office.

‘He’s fine. It’s been eight, nine months and he’s doing just fine. Not nearly as handsome and dynamic as Robert, of course,’ Ratna said, flashing a smile.

Amelia felt the urge to hug her again – for mentioning Robert’s name and for conjuring up his image without the tentative caution everyone seemed to use when talking about him.

‘That would be impossible,’ she agreed, and paused, wondering if her next request would be suspicious. ‘I’d really like to see him,’ she said gently.

Ratna frowned lightly. ‘He’s quite busy today.’

‘Oh, no, no, that’s fine. I didn’t expect to just waltz in and demand an audience,’ she said, trying to sound light-hearted.

Ratna scrolled through his diary on her computer screen. ‘Can you wait a few days? Let me see – how’s Monday morning for you? I can put you in for eleven o’clock.’

‘Sounds good. Thank you.’

Ratna entered the details of the appointment with the speed of lightning and then looked up at Amelia.

‘Are you up for a glass of wine sometime while you’re here?’

‘Of course. Fortunately some bad habits never die.’ Amelia smiled again, realising as she did so that she’d smiled more in one day than the previous twelve months put together. ‘I’ll call you.’

The silent hotel room was a welcome retreat after seeing so many familiar faces and places reminding her of Robert. She switched on the television and clicked through the mainly Russian channels before settling on a Discovery programme about orphaned elephants in Kenya. Vaguely she could hear the normal hotel noises – the muffled sounds of footsteps and the occasional opening and closing of a door.

The visit to the embassy had left her feeling drained. It had always been Robert’s domain and it hadn’t felt right to see others move about that space so freely, without missing him, or paying some kind of daily tribute to him. On her way out his photo on the corridor wall had briefly stopped her in her tracks, his familiar, beloved face smiling into space. The shock of seeing him had been physical and she’d been unable to stop herself from saying his name.
Robert, what happened to you?
But she’d moved away as soon as she’d heard footsteps coming towards her, realising that she had a far better chance of being helped if she didn’t appear to be the unbalanced wife of the previous ambassador.

When she’d stepped outside the embassy, the cold air had helped to clear her head. Snow had started to fall lightly and without thinking, she’d started to walk. In reality it had been too cold to walk so far, but by the time she’d crossed New Arbat and turned onto Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street, she’d been numb and had decided to press on until she reached the hotel at the bottom of Tverskaya Street.

She was awoken by a soft knock on the door, but didn’t immediately identify where the sound had come from and was still half asleep when the chambermaid entered.

‘
Prastitye
. . . I am sorry,’ the young woman said as soon as she saw Amelia’s sleepy face lift from the pillows. Apologetically she started backing out of the room, but Amelia jumped up and gestured for her to come back inside. Quickly the woman disappeared into the bathroom with a stack of fresh towels and just as quickly she was gone again with a brief nod. Fully awake now, Amelia stood purposelessly in the room for a minute and then remembered that she still had to call Mara, the one person she could trust with the truth about her return to Moscow.

As she lifted the receiver, there was another knock on the door. The maid must have forgotten something, she thought, but when nobody entered, Amelia put the phone down again and went to open the door. The passage was empty, and an envelope lay at her feet.

Puzzled, she bent to pick it up, wondering why the delivery person hadn’t waited. She returned to the desk and with the telephone wedged between her shoulder and ear, she opened the thin, cream-coloured envelope.

Inside was a piece of paper, a bright yellow square folded over into a triangle and then into another. There was no doubt about the tone of the message:

It is too late. Go home.

3

T
he time difference between London and Moscow was insignificant – a mere three hours – and there was no real reason for Amelia to wake up, but it came as no surprise when she did. Only recently had she started experiencing the bliss of sleeping through the night again, but it had been a fragile new milestone she had known not to trust. And now there was something else that added to her restlessness. A message that couldn’t have been any clearer:
It is too late. Go home.

She was unnerved by it, yes, but in a way it also confirmed that her gut feeling to return was the right one. Someone had a reason for not wanting her here. That much was obvious. Was it because they, whoever they were, wanted to keep something hidden?

As she lay in the dark, the uncomfortable pounding in her chest told her it was useless to try and let herself drift back to sleep. She reached for her mobile phone: the glowing screen showed it was only a few minutes before four. She held her breath and listened. The hotel was quiet, so quiet that she didn’t want to disturb the silence with the noise of the television, but without the aid of a distraction there was no chance she would be able to sleep again. Being back in Moscow had stirred up too many memories of the person she had once been and a life that no longer belonged to her.

The reading light cast a soft yellow light on the folder she’d left untouched next to the bed a few hours earlier. Out of it she pulled a wad of newspaper clippings and print-outs. By now the first article was so familiar she could quote from it, so she picked up the next one and scanned through the information:

. . .
three years ago Sibraz, a Russian mining company with extensive operations in Siberia, identified what it believed to be a prospective diamond deposit, but the company was unable to explore the deposit on their own and had to look for a partner to share the exploration costs. There were more than enough interested parties, but, according to industry sources, the list dwindled as it became clear just how protective Russians are of their exploration licences. It was rumoured that their conditions were extreme and that they were unwilling to share much control with any future partner. The winner, or rather, survivor, was Prism, a medium-sized Canadian mining exploration company with a reputation for taking big risks and more often than not earning big returns from those risks.

A joint venture was formed between Prism and Sibraz and exploration on the Kola Peninsula was supposed to commence six months later. However, things were slow to start and countless rumours surfaced about the fragility of this particular JV. There were even hints of the deal falling through last summer, but the stories disappeared until a week ago when Prism unexpectedly announced that it had sold its stake in the joint venture for an undisclosed sum to European Mining & Exploration (EME), a UK-listed junior mining company.

The next several articles gave more or less the same account. All mentioned the fact that the joint venture was never very stable and all speculated about the reasons behind the sudden sale. One of the last clippings contained a comment from Prism’s CEO.

When asked if it was true that the Canadians had decided to pull out because the relationship between the partners had deteriorated too much, and if the Russian company had proven too difficult to work with, CEO Bruce Jennings and his head of Operations, Carl Riverton, denied the rumour and would only say that the deal no longer made sense when considered as part of their other operations.

‘It is simply not true. We felt very honoured to work with Sibraz, but when it became clear that this specific JV would not complement our long-term goals for the company, Sibraz agreed that we could sell our stake to the party of their choice. It was a difficult decision to make, but it was a step we took in the interest of Prism and its shareholders. We are confident that this will be a flourishing partnership and we wish them every success.’

The final articles contained comments from industry analysts. Almost all of them pointed out that forming joint ventures required a significant amount of work and were never entered into lightly.

These things typically take several years to get off the ground and it is unusual for this one to collapse so soon after formation, especially given that exploration activities in northern Russia are limited to the summer months each year
, one commentary read. Others went further and asserted that Prism would have lost a lot of money by exiting the partnership prematurely, and that shareholders would not be satisfied with the limited explanation given so far.

Amelia sighed. The stack of articles contained depressingly scant details; in fact, they just added more questions. The only positive thing about them was that she felt somewhat justified about her own suspicions. If so many industry insiders smelled a rat, surely there had to be one. But how was she ever going to be able to unearth all that was hidden?

Finally, reluctantly, she pulled an envelope from the bottom of the pile of articles. She knew what was inside, knew its contents only too well, but pulled out the single clipping anyway. It was dated a little over a year before and the words were no easier to read now than they’d been then:

The Canadian Embassy in Moscow issued a statement yesterday confirming the disappearance of the Canadian ambassador, Robert Preston, on Thursday night of last week. Their statement added few details to what is already known about the shocking incident. All that has been acknowledged at this stage is that Ambassador Preston was apparently kidnapped on his way home after a function at the Marriott Grand Hotel on Tverskaya Street. His deserted car was found only a few blocks away from the Canadian Embassy and ambassador’s residence. Both the Ambassador and his driver are missing. No one has claimed responsibility and no demands have been made. The lack of communication from the kidnappers has caused security specialists to fear the worst, but according to detective Alexander Kiriyenko, who is currently in charge of the investigation, all leads will be pursued vigorously.

Several statements were released by members of the international community in Moscow today, all expressing shock and dismay and all praising Mr Preston as a valuable leader in the diplomatic community in Russia.

The Ambassador’s wife, Amelia Preston, has issued no statement and was not available for comment.