Kholodov's Last Mistress Read Free

started forward.
    Hannah walked slowly outside; there was a chill to the spring air now, and the sky had darkened to a steely grey.
    She was really trying hard not to panic. She normally wasn’t a panicker, tried to see the best in everything and everyone.
    Only now it was getting dark and she had no money, no passport, no options. She could call a friend, as the woman had advised, but Hannah resisted that option. She’d have to reverse the charges of the telephone call, and then explain her awful predicament, and then whomever she called—and no names sprang readily to mind—would have to drive fifty miles to Albany to wire the money, and that money would have to be hundreds of dollars at the very least. Passport fees, hotel stays, food, perhaps even another plane ticket. It could be
thousands
of dollars.
    She didn’t have friends with that kind of money, and she didn’t have that kind of money either. She’d used the last of her own savings to fund this trip, knowing it was foolish, impulsive, everything she never was. Except maybe she
was
foolish, and stupid even, as that man in Red Square had so obviously thought, because if she had any sense at all she wouldn’t be standing on the steps of the American Embassy, people and traffic streaming indifferently, impatiently all around her, with no place to go, no idea what she could do. Nothing.
    She swallowed the panic that had started in her stomach and was now steadily working its way up her throat. She wasn’t completely lost. She had a little money in the bank, enough to give her some time—
    And then?
    ‘There you are.’
    Hannah blinked, focused in the oncoming dusk, and then stared in surprise as the man from Red Square strode towards her, his leather coat billowing blackly out behind him, a scowl on his face. He looked like an avenging angel, his blue eyes blazing determination and maybe a little irritation as well. Still, she could not stem the unreasonable tide of relief andgratitude that washed over her at the sight of him. A familiar face.
    ‘What are you doing here?’
    ‘I wanted to make sure you’d sorted out your papers.’
    ‘That was very kind of you,’ she said, cautiously, because three months of travel had taught her to be, if not cynical, then at least sensible. ‘And unnecessary.’
    ‘I know.’ The corner of his mouth quirked very slightly, so slightly that it couldn’t be called a smile in the least. Yet still the sight of it made Hannah feel safer, and stronger, even as she felt a shiver of awareness. He was, she acknowledged, a very attractive man. ‘Did you get your passport sorted?’ he asked and she shook her head.
    ‘No. I got a form.’ She waved the paper half-heartedly. ‘Apparently I’m to go to the police department and file a report there.’
    ‘They’re all disorganised.’ He shook his head in disgust. ‘Or corrupt. Usually both. It could take hours.’
    ‘Wonderful.’ Her plane left in three hours. Clearly she wasn’t going to be on it.
    ‘Do you have any money at all?’ the man asked abruptly and Hannah shrugged, not wanting to admit just how much trouble she was in. ‘A little,’ she said. ‘In the bank.’ But not enough to pay the passport fee, and a hotel, and meals and other expenses besides. Not nearly enough.
    ‘A credit card?’
    He must have been speaking to the woman in the embassy. Or maybe he just knew everything. ‘Um … no.’
    He shook his head with that rather contemptuous incredulity she was coming to know so well. ‘You embark on international travel, to Russia of all places, without even a credit card, and clearly no savings?’
    ‘Put like that, it does sound pretty stupid, doesn’t it?’ Hannah agreed. She wasn’t about to explain how she hadn’twanted this trip to send her into debt, or why she was wary of credit cards. ‘It was just,’ she explained quietly, ‘this trip was kind of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.’
    He looked sceptical. Of course.