The King in Yellow Chapter Twenty-One

THE KING IN YELLOW

Some hours later, Dmitri and Grigori set down their glasses of tea and went upstairs. Shortly after nightfall the others had taken the broken blonde back to Mirenberg leaving the two friends to play a few moves of chess and recover their strength, and now they were curious to see what Alexandra had done with the prodigal.

“Perhaps it really is possible for her to disappear” suggested Grigori as they climbed the narrow staircase to the servant’s room. Dmitri turned around.

“We daren’t dream of it” he said, simply. Grigori shrugged, and together they went through the low doorway into Alexandra’s dormer room. They had expected to find Elena strapped to the bed, at the least, but both women were sitting at Alexandra’s computer desk. They presented an incongruous spectacle; Elena was at the keyboard, her hair tied back in a ponytail, wearing black jeans and a v neck while Alexandra perched next to her, naked but for collar and high-heeled sandals, delicate silver chains trailing from the rings in her nipples to those in her labia. Before Dmitri could open his mouth to speak, Alexandra turned to him with shining eyes.

“You must see what Elena has done for us” she beamed “It’s wonderful”! She laid a tiny hand on the other’s shoulder, “Show them” she urged.

“I think you should” said Dmitri, and Elena showed them The King in Yellow site.

“This site is not generally known, and should not be,” she explained, her brisk, business-like manner contrasting with Alexandra’s girlish enthusiasm, “although it is impossible to link it to us. It connects to an encrypted network of criminals and fraudsters…” She caught Dmitri’s raised eyebrow “I worked in security,” she explained “until today”. Continuing, she explained how the screen would capture the totality of an individual’s identity, from their state identification number to their financial records to their membership of social and cultural groups. These would be then sold on to be cloned by disparate criminal gangs who would, between them, create a false trail so chaotic as to defy the most intensive of missing persons investigations. It was highly unlikely, she went on, that even a perfunctory investigation would take place because all the evidence would point to the submitted person having simply run off to start a new life abroad, like so many others. Financial assets would be laundered through many layers in many continents and ultimately fund the whole process. Alexandra became excited again at this point.

“We have women submitted already.” she blurted out “We already have everything we need!” Dmitri silenced her with a glance, but he turned to Elena with new interest.

“See here?” said Elena “This is The King in Yellow as only we can view it. There are five victims listed in this column and here a sixth – newly submitted and yet to be processed. The five have already completely vanished from their previous lives; they are variously thought to be missing at sea, travelling abroad, dead in the terrible 271 air disaster – none of them is being sought by the authorities. Their combined wealth, including life insurance payments and so forth, is deposited in this trust”. She opened a fresh screen and Grigori gave a low whistle. The room went quiet.

“And we have a property” Alexandra interjected. Dmitri and Grigori turned the bed around to sit facing the screen. Elena’s work was displayed before them. They were now the anonymous tenants of a deconsecrated convent – the only building in a Svitavian mountain valley, serviced periodically by agencies and leased in perpetuity through an offshore holding company. Alexandra stroked Dmitri’s hair and breathed into his ear.

“I trust her. We should go to see it”. She was trembling. “There are four victims there, waiting to be killed. And there will be more. This is real”. Dmitri held up a hand for silence and sat in thought for a long while.

“I have many questions” he rumbled “but for now I need only one answer. You say there are five victims disappeared, but only four waiting in his place. Where is the other”?

“I am here” Elena said “I am the fifth. I have not been seen since a ticket was bought with my credit card in a railway station at the western border two days ago. Records show that the motorcycle I rode here was scrapped last month”.

“I had assumed that you were the sixth, the newly-submitted” he said. Then Alexandra took his hand and kissed it.

ELENA’S SUBMISSION

The following morning, Dmitri, Alexandra and Elena packed into Grigori’s jeep and he drove to the convent, Elena directing him because the location was unknown to satellite positioning. They travelled for over an hour through increasingly wild and desolate landscapes before finally taking a cart-track high into the foothills. Dmitri questioned Elena patiently but incessantly throughout the journey, but she satisfied his concerns at every turn. They drove through scrub and mountain pines for some miles, passing a solitary ruined dacha and scattering a flock of wild goats, and finally reached the convent at midday. Although its grounds were overgrown and its outbuildings falling into ruin the main building – hall, chapel and dormitory wing – was still sound and habitable. The tyres crunched on weed-choked gravel as Grigori drew up in front of the building. The party gathered before the oak door of the main hall and paused, expecting Elena to lead them inside. Instead she took off her clothes, leaving them carefully folded, and stood naked but for black stockings and boots with her eyes meekly downturned and her hands behind her back. Dmitri understood and strode forward to throw open the doors and march into his new domain.

Dmitri paused, and answered Katya’s question before it left her lips. “Yes, you have been taken to the old convent – twice” he told her.

The hall was a stark and brutal space, bare stone walls and stone flags lit by high windows that cast heavy shadows and pools of cold light. A warmer glow came from the log burning in the huge fireplace, where four women were lined up awaiting them.