She was defensive, and he should have expected it. Honestly, though, he didn't expect any of this. He was critical of her, and at this point, he was unapologetic for it. He took the photo and looked for the first time into the face of his other daughter. He wasn't prepared for another child, but if he were to be, this wasn't the way he ever had wanted to meet one of his children.
Marcus knew he wasn't a saint. He was much too fond of firewhiskey, cigarettes, and sex. To his credit, though, he was a good father, a skilled intelligence officer, and an even better bodyguard. He had decent morals, and, despite the fact that he'd not been brought up as a Gryffindor, he had made peace with the fact that his work often asked him to toss himself in front of a hostile wand or whatever else the threat was for the sake of someone or something more important.
That almost always meant he could yank himself up by his own bootstraps to address the mission at hand. He studied the fine features of the tiny girl with light brown hair that matched his own shade, the eyes that were the same shade of blue, not brown like her mother's. Even the shape of her chin was Marcus's own.
"The only thing Pavel ever handled was his grip on a pint," Marcus said sarcastically as he studied the photo. He listened to her details about the child. Too small to have the crowd of Hogwarts friends that would have drawn her out. No place really to go. Nicked her mother's things? What was that about? Was she a delinquent or was it her anger at her mother? Or did she just like pretty things? Anger at Pavel would not provide that motivation, surely.
Something uncomfortable niggled at his brain when she said Pavel was nigh onto obsession about her most days. Obsession? With a ten year old? A child that didn't look even remotely like Pavel himself? That wasn't right. What thought was Ana using to coddle herself that things were alright? That Pavel loved the child even if he was living a sham with Ana? No, no. Surely they'd all been living an illusion for about as long as they'd been married. That was, after all, how she and Marcus had come together.
He had married the shrew. The funny, vivacious date that had become, the moment the gold band had settled on her finger, a nasally, shrieking, outrageous caricature of what Marcus had thought she was. The sound of her voice jangled his spinal cord now. Her own children didn't like her any better. The flash of her fiery red hair made him cringe, and the way she burned through money faster than fire in a sawmill, all at the expense of his children was unconscionable to him.
He'd come together with Ana when she was finding things with Pavel were not really any better than his own situation. Living in hell, they'd found a port in the storm in each other. Now, today, it rather sounded like those ports had suffered a perfect storm.
His eyes landed suddenly on the necklace that Poppy wore in the photo. He deliberately turned away, towards the window, as if he were merely getting a better look at the photo in the light. In point of fact, he needed a moment because his blood had just turned to ice in his veins. He'd seen that necklace just this morning in one of the most foul places in London, and in the singularly most foul murder scenes he'd ever witnessed.
"She's lovely," Marcus said quietly, deciding to ease into it, to try not to give off any clues. "Takes your things, does she?" he laughed gently. "Brooke rather likes some of my mother's antique jewelry too. Could just be a kid thing. Unusual necklace she has on. Can't say I've seen anything like it. One of a kind piece, is it?" He took the photo out of the frame and handed the empty frame back to Ana, pocketing the picture.
London. How the hell does a ten year old get to London?
"Got a wand, has she? Can she use one?" he asked. He strongly doubted a ten year old had any ability to apparated or port. It was well beyond her abilities. He went to the fireplace and knelt at the hearth, finding little piles of floo powder that looked like it had been clumsily dropped.
He stood up and drew the bowl off the mantel and looked in. He saw, in the fine powder, distinct shapes made by tiny fingers trying to dig deeply into the bowl for a large handful of floo powder, too much to fit in her little hand. Some had spilled out onto the hearth. An amateurish use of it, a harsh miscalculation on how much powder was needed. He doubted she'd ever tried floo powder by herself before.
"She went by floo," Marcus said, handing the bowl to Ana to see the little finger patterns in the dust. He pointed the patterns of powder on the hearth stones. "Quickly. Go up to her room and see if she took anything with her. I need to know," he said. "I can't lose time. I need to follow her." He deliberately didn't tell Ana that he knew where the child had been, somehow, earlier this morning. Nor that he honestly didn't know if she was still alive--or not.
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