Last Violent Call (Secret Shanghai, #3.5)(64)
“Do we tell Vodin about this?” Benedikt scratched his wrist. Then his arms, every inch of skin prickling with an unnerving sensation.
“What would we say?” Marshall asked. “?‘Surprise, officer. If you find any evidence that Lourens has been in contact with us this past year, we’re the ones most likely to be the killer’?”
Marshall was right. There was no comprehensible way that this discovery slotted into their investigation. It only sent everything into a bizarre tailspin.
“Then let’s forget it,” Benedikt decided firmly. He closed all the directories, one after the other. “Pack your bag. We want to move fast once we stop in Irkutsk. We could still find Lourens in time.”
Marshall nodded in agreement. While he turned to gather up his clothes and tidy the various items he had flung around the compartment, Benedikt decided to take the directories back into the dining carriage. They were too heavy to carry more than three at a time, so after he put the first three away, he came back for a second trip.
Just as he was holding the remaining two in his arms and pushing out from the compartment again, he rammed into someone in the passageway, making a flurry of motions before narrowly regaining his balance.
The two directories scattered to the floor. As did Benedikt’s wristwatch. The poor combatant whom he had struck wasn’t as fortunate as he was to remain upright and had sprawled onto the carpet.
“My deepest apologies,” Benedikt managed, hurrying forward to give Yeva Mikhailovna a hand up. “I didn’t see you there.”
“Oh, no, no,” Yeva hurried to assure him. She nudged a lock of blond hair out of her eyes. Unlike all the other times he had seen her around the train, her hair was curly today, falling down her back. The sight sent a vague feeling of recognition through Benedikt, though he couldn’t place why. It reminded him of someone, but when he tried to identify whom or make sense of where the similarity was coming from, his mind tried to correct him with the usual image of Yeva with her straight hair brushed back.
“I have a habit of ducking my head when I walk,” Yeva went on. She looked as if she had just woken up, her necklace dangling over a collar that was nearly fraying into loose threads. “It’s a direct contributor to how often I slam into people.”
“Nevertheless”—Benedikt got her to her feet—“do accept my apologies.”
“Accepted and forgiven. Let me help you with that.”
Just as Benedikt was bending down to retrieve the two directories, Yeva picked up his wristwatch. He didn’t realize that she was holding it until he had the directories settled in his arms and straightened up again, but by then his hands were too full to do anything except let Yeva turn his watch over curiously.
Benedikt’s heart dropped to his stomach. She was staring at the engraving carved into the back of the watch face.
Монтагов
“?‘Montagov,’?” she read aloud. Immediate confusion crossed into her expression. Before Benedikt could hope that she didn’t recognize the name, she was already asking, “Like the ones in Shanghai?”
“I have never heard of them,” Benedikt lied immediately. He hoped his face wasn’t twitching. “I got that watch from a street vendor. In Moscow.”
Yeva was quiet for a moment, still staring at the engraving. There was no reason to suspect otherwise, right? Nothing that would give away the truth and reveal the watch as an old heirloom in actuality.
“They are not around anymore, so I suppose that’s fair enough,” she said. “People say the Montagovs are all dead.”
Benedikt’s pulse was still racketing with alarm in his chest. He digested her words slowly.
“People say?” he repeated. “That seems like you don’t believe it.”
Either Yeva didn’t notice his panic or Benedikt was a better actor than he thought. She offered him his watch back, but seeing that his arms were occupied, she gestured that she could help him secure it onto his wrist. Benedikt angled his arm for her.
“Oh, I don’t know about the state of the family at large, of course,” Yeva said nonchalantly. She flipped the wristwatch around. “I have only met one of them, most certainly still alive. Maybe this watch belonged to him once. I wish him and his wife only the greatest happiness.”
The wristwatch clicked back into place. Yeva gave his arm a satisfied pat.
“Thank you.” Benedikt’s voice sounded bewildered to his own ears. Yeva seemed to make nothing of it and only smiled before proceeding wherever she had been going before.
As soon as she departed through the doors, Benedikt hurried back into his compartment, setting the two directories on the floor and entirely abandoning his intention of returning them to the dining carriage.
“What was that about?” Marshall asked. He was standing over his luggage case, hands on his hips while he eyed his progress. “I heard bits and pieces.”
“I just had the oddest encounter with Yeva Mikhailovna,” Benedikt answered. “I… think she was trying to say she’s met Roma before.”
Marshall looked up with a frown. “In Shanghai?”
Benedikt didn’t think so. Not if she had mentioned his wife, because Roma hadn’t married his mortal enemy from the rival gang until the night before they faked their own deaths.
“You know,” Marshall went on when Benedikt stayed silent, his attention drifting back to his packing, “you and Yeva kind of look alike in certain lights.”