Page 89 of The Dead Come to Stay

Dmytro nodded. “Me and Artem. We’re the youngest boys, both of us. His brother and my father? They’re still fighting. Anje doesn’t even know where her father is, or if he’s alive. And I have sisters.” He wiped his dripping nose and MacAdams nudged Green to fetch him something for it. “Mr. Foley said there were ways to get them out.”

MacAdams hadn’t got his notepad; he didn’t want anything to disturb the moment. He leaned forward in his chair, speaking as gently as he dared.

“Dmytro? You’re saying Foley told you he could bring people to this country—but not using the charity, as Sophie wanted to do? How?”

“He said there were ways to make it go faster. And he could do the same thing for my family. I just had to do a little work for him. A year, he said. To pay their way. I could save them.”

MacAdams felt his stomach drop. There were names for this sort of contract: human trafficking, indentured servitude. “What did you do for Ronan Foley?” he asked.

Dmytro looked up, his eyes wide and glassy. “It wasn’t drugs or anything. It was juststuff.Statues and things. Mr. Foley called it ‘refugee art.’”

“Come again?” Green asked. “He told you it had been made by asylum seekers?”

Dmytro shook his head. “No, the art—the pots and things. They’re refugees. Like us. We were rescuing it.” He sniffed and rubbed his nose. “But then Ms. Wagner said I was stealing.”

“Your boss at the golf club?” MacAdams asked.

Dmytro nodded. “That’s what she said. When she caught me at it.”

“Caught you—when?”

“On Friday.”

***

MacAdams burst out of the interview room and into the hall, nearly colliding with Green.

“I can’t find tissues—”

“Forget that. I want Sophie Wagner.”

“What about Anje and Artem?” Green asked.

MacAdams kept walking, adrenaline making him forget he’d just sprinted a half mile.

“Wagner knew what Dmytro was up to the night of the murder. I want her. Now.”

“Boss—” Green started, but MacAdams shook his head.

“I want her in a room if it takes an arrest, and I want Burnhope down here, too, lawyer and all.”

“Boss, I know. I’m trying to tell you, Sophie Wagner just called. She wants you to meet her at the club.”

***

MacAdams didn’t like the turnabout. He wanted Wagner on his turf, in a wired interview room walking distance from overnight cells. Instead he walked into a busy club, buzzing with golfer bar-flies... then walked into her business office, a plant-draped oasis against Hammersmith white walls. She stood up when he entered.

“You are aware that we have arrested Dmytro.”

“I am.” Sophie lowered herself to the chair and placed her hands in front of her, every movement seemingly thought out. “He shouldn’t have run. I could have helped you understand.”

MacAdams sat down. “You cannot explain this away, Ms. Wagner,” he said.

Sophie shook her head violently, her mane of hair showering both shoulders. “It’s not—it’s not hisfault. He’s vulnerable.”

“No doubt that’s what made him so attractive to you and Foley,” MacAdams said flatly.

Wagner drew herself up. “I had nothing to do with this!Hedid this.He’sthe start of everything going wrong! I didn’t know—none of us knew—until—”