The Hunt for Sonya Dufrette by R.T. Raichev Page B

become infatuated with him, which had been a terrible bore. Once an unmarried titled lady had developed quite an obsession with him. She had bought him a Bentley and, when he sent it back, had threatened to shoot a senior member of the Danish royal family, whom she had been entertaining at her country seat; she had finally tried to hang herself in her private chapel but made a botch of it. She had continued writing him notes on perfumed paper from her hospital bed. Now that had been scary. That was the kind of insane thing that happened to celibate priests and popular actors, his late wife had joked - he should have been one or the other.
    It was three o‘clock in the afternoon when he walked through St James’s to Green Park underground station and got on the Piccadilly line. It took him thirty minutes to get to Arnos Grove, a pleasant enough residential area, if not a particularly leafy one. It was most certainly not what one would associate with plutocratic excess of any sort. Well, the nanny didn’t seem to conform to the popular idea of the newly rich. He had left his A-Z behind, consequently he got a cab outside the station.
    Suburban semi-detached houses. Miss Haywood couldn’t have had an extravagant bone in her body. She hadn’t allowed her sudden riches to go to her head. Or could her ill-gained fortune have run out? Or had she felt so guilty about what she had done that she hadn’t taken full advantage of the hush money -
    ‘This is it, boss,’ the cab driver said. ‘There’s the church.’
    Startled, Payne blinked. ‘Church? What church?’
    ‘Ravenscraig Road, you said, didn’t you? This address is a church.’
    ‘It can’t be.’
    But of course it was. It didn’t look like a church from the outside, though it said so above the door. Church of the Tenderness of the Mother of God. Underneath an inscription in Greek conveyed the same information. The door was open and he could smell incense.
    Greek Orthodox, not Catholic. Crucifixes as well as incense were among the trappings of both religions. He stood in the doorway somewhat disconcerted, tugging at his tie, trying to rearrange his ideas. Andrula Haywood had given this as her address, though she couldn’t live here, surely? Or could she? The church encompassed two semi-detached houses that had been knocked into one.
    He walked through the door and was at once enveloped in a mist of sorts. He felt a wave of warm air - a smell of tapers was added to the incense. His impression was that there were hundreds of little lights, flickering like fireflies; thin wax candles sticking out of candelabras that had been positioned at various points around the spacious room. There were curtains or blinds across the narrow windows, so it was difficult to see things clearly, though he did make out an iconostasis and a heavy curtain at one end, also icons in gilded frames on the walls. But for him, the place seemed to be empty.
    Then he saw her: a smallish woman dressed all in black, kneeling in front of a large icon. This showed a bearded saint who, judging by his expression, couldn’t make up his mind whether to look stern or benevolent. (I mustn’t be flippant, Payne reminded himself. Causing offence won’t open the gates of confession.)
    He stood very still, watching her profile. He rubbed his eyes, which had started smarting. Despite the inadequate lighting, he recognized her at once from Antonia’s description - the sallow complexion, the slightly crooked nose, the chunky golden crucifix on a chain around her throat. The hair was no longer blonde and done in a fringe, but dark, streaked with grey, parted in the middle and pulled back. Though she couldn’t be more than in her middle forties, she looked older, much older. The face was lined, haggard, and there were dark circles around her eyes, which were shut. Her lips were pressed tightly together. She looked at least fifty-seven or eight, if not older. She had aged prematurely, that much was