The Accident Man (17 page)

“Oh, come on,” Carver interrupted. “I don’t believe that.”

“No, really. I was not a pretty girl, and my eyes they… how do you say it when eyes point in the wrong direction?”

“Cross-eyed?”

“Yes, I was cross-eyed.”

“Oh, that explains it.”

“Explains what?”

“Your eyes. There’s something just a tiny bit uneven about them.”

Alix started as if someone had slapped her. Carver cursed himself.

“I’m sorry, that was incredibly stupid of me. What I meant was, I think you have amazing eyes. They’re beautiful. And they’re kind of hypnotic. I can’t stop looking at them and, er, now I know why.”

Carver waited to see whether he would be forgiven.

“You were saying…”

“I was saying that my squint was not so — what did you say? —
hypnotic
when I was a lonely little girl. I had to wear spectacles with really ugly, thick frames. So the other children made fun of me, the boys, and the girls also. Later, I grew up. My body was good, I knew that, but my face, forget it.”

“So how did the ugly duckling turn into a beautiful swan?”

She gave a quick nod of the head that simultaneously acknowledged and dismissed his compliment.

“I belonged to Komsomol, the Young Communists League. I did not love the Party. I did not care about politics. But you had to join, and there were benefits: summer camps, places at better colleges. You know. So, anyway, they had a literary competition. Even under the Communists it was important to be
kulturny
….”

“Cultured?”

“Yes, like playing a musical instrument really well, or dancing ballet or, for me, being able to write a long essay on Chekhov. I said he exposed the decadence and emptiness of the bourgeoisie in Imperialist Russia, proving the need for the revolution. Total bullshit! But it won a trip for me to a big Komsomol convention in Moscow. There were young athletes, scientists, artists, and academics. We did not know it, but the state used these conventions to select the best young people to be trained for all the different agencies.”

“Aha!” Carver raised a finger in the air, like some corny old TV detective solving a mystery. “So this was where they selected you to be a dangerous Soviet spy!” His voice turned more serious: “What were you, an analyst? Or did you do fieldwork?”

“You could call it that. A woman came up to me at the convention. She said, ‘Do you mind?’ She took off my glasses and looked at me, saying nothing, like someone at a museum who is looking at a painting, trying to decide if she likes it. I did not know what to do. My face went red.

“We went to a small side room. There were two men sitting behind a desk. I had just been reading my essay to the judges of the literary competition. These men looked exactly the same, like they were going to judge me. The woman said, ‘Take off your clothes, my dear.’ I was very shy. I had never shown my body to any man. But I also knew I had to obey orders.

“The woman told me not to worry, this was no different than seeing a doctor. I stripped to my underwear and then the three of them started talking about me. It was terrible, so humiliating, like I was a farm animal at market. They were talking about my legs, my breasts, my ass, my mouth, my hair, everything. Then one of the men said, ‘We will have to do something about the eyes, of course.’ And the other said, ‘That is no problem, a simple procedure.’

“I could not believe it. All my life, the doctors in Perm had said they could do nothing for me. They said my problem was not serious enough to justify the cost of an operation. Anyway, the woman told me to get dressed again. The men talked quietly for a moment. Then one of them told me I had been selected for a great honor. That September, I would return to Moscow to receive special training at an elite academy. I would learn to undertake duties that would be of great service to the motherland. If I completed the training satisfactorily, I would be given the finest clothes and my own Moscow apartment. My parents too would be granted improved accommodation.

“It was incredible, like a fairy tale, like becoming a movie star. When I told my mother, she burst into tears. She was so proud. Even my father cried for joy. That summer, I had my operation at last, carried out by the same doctor who had told me it would be impossible. I threw away my glasses. When I got on the train for Moscow, I was sad to be leaving home. But I was so excited also. I could not believe that fate had chosen me for such great fortune.”

Carver shifted position on the sofa, cleared his throat. “What happened when you got to Moscow?”

“My academy was the Feliks Dzerzhinsky University. It was run by the KGB. I was assigned to the second chief directorate, which monitored foreigners within the Soviet Union. I was taught English. I was educated in art, western culture, film, even politics, so that I could hold a conversation with the most sophisticated visitors to our country. And then I discovered what I was really being trained to do. Have you heard of the term
honey trap
?

“Sure.” Carver nodded. “A guy meets a pretty girl in a bar. They go back to his place. They have sex. The next day someone shows him the pictures. Either he tells them what they want to know, or wifey sees the snaps. Your lot went for honey traps in a big way. So, you were one of those girls, huh? The ones us Westerners were always warned about.”

“I was the honey in the trap, yes. You want to know the truth? I was a prostitute for the State. When I went to Moscow, I was a virgin. I had not even kissed a boy. By the time I graduated, there was nothing I did not know about attracting a man and giving him pleasure. Every trick, every perversion… and you know, we were always told to be as dirty as possible because a man will talk much more if he is filmed on his knees being whipped or taking a dildo up the ass than if he is simply putting his dick in the mouth of some cheap whore.

“And I was good, you know. When Alexandra Petrova was sent on assignment, all the boys at headquarters would gather around to see the photographs and the videos. And naturally, the senior officers liked to ensure that my work was of the highest quality. So they invited me out to their dachas for the weekend and I… I… Well, you can imagine what happened.”

She blinked three or four times and looked away.

Carver sat up and held out a handkerchief. “Hey, come on. Stop beating yourself up. You were a kid. You lived in a dictatorship. You didn’t have any choice. I mean, what would have happened if you’d said, ‘No, I refuse to do this’?”

“If I was lucky I would have been transferred to some small, cold town in Siberia. If not… What happens to whores who anger their pimps? They get raped, beaten, killed…”

“It’s not your fault, then.”

She gave him a tired smile. “You mean, I’m a whore the same way you’re a killer?”

“That’s one way of looking at it. I suppose there could be others.” Carver didn’t know what else to say. He could feel his defenses falling apart with every word she said, every time he looked at her face.

Alix loosened her arms and stretched her legs. She smoothed the T-shirt down over her thighs. Then she leaned forward and stared Carver straight in the eye, as if issuing a challenge.

“Perhaps. But I will not know that until I have heard your story too.”

“Well, I need a drink before I start spilling my guts.” Carver got up and started walking toward his kitchen. “How about a glass of wine? Let’s pretend we’re normal, have a nice, cold bottle of Pinot Grigio on a summer afternoon.”

She thought for a second. “Pinot Grigio, an Italian wine. Also known in America as Pinot Gris. Not a classic wine but, as you say, very refreshing.” A smug smile. “See? I was trained well.”

Carver paused in the doorway. He looked at the beautiful woman in the ratty old T-shirt. “Yeah,” he said. “I can believe that.” Then he went to get the wine.

Pierre Papin brewed a large pot of very strong coffee, found a fresh pack of cigarettes, and got to work. The Englishman he knew as Charlie had returned to England, still dressed for the weekend in his corduroy pants and knitted sweater. He’d told Papin that he needed to talk to his boss and decide what they should do. Doubtless they would use their own means to track down their missing operatives. Papin was determined to beat them to it. And then he would take advantage of whatever he discovered.

It amused him to think that no one else in Paris shared his interest in the couple’s fate. The TV stations had stopped showing the composite photos by early afternoon. The death of the princess had become a global tidal wave, swamping all other news in a mass of grief, speculation, and sheer curiosity. The police had been happy to let the other events of the night be swept under the bureaucratic carpet.

So much the better for Papin. He had no competition. Yet he knew Charlie worked for men who would very much like to find Carver, the girl, and that precious computer. And all Papin’s instincts told him these men would not be alone. Others would also be searching. After all, if his bet was right and Petrova was Carver’s new partner, she must have a boss in Russia. He’d be wondering where she’d got to and what she was doing. If Papin could get information that both sides wanted, he could drive the price sky high. So he commandeered all the tapes from the Gare de Lyon and took them back to his unmarked, unnumbered office.

His first task was to identify Petrova. The hair color Carver had bought must have been intended for her, because he had not used it himself — that much was clear from the CCTV images of him they’d already identified. So Papin’s composite photo of Petrova was already out of date. He decided to start again from scratch.

Papin looked at every person seen walking toward the platform for the Milan train between six forty-five and its departure at seven fifteen. Thankfully, at that hour on a Sunday morning, the station was relatively quiet. He ignored all single males, families with children, anyone who was obviously under eighteen or over forty. All he wanted was young female adults traveling alone.

Twenty-two fit the bill, so Papin printed up stills of all of them. Then he started the process of elimination again.

Papin approached the problem logically. Petrova had persuaded a trained assassin to forget all his basic field craft. He should have killed her. Even if he had spent the night with her, he should have killed her afterward. He could not afford to let a potential witness live. Yet he had. Clearly this was an exceptional woman.

It took a matter of seconds to flick through the pile of stills and get rid of all the obviously dumpy, plain ones; the backpackers with bulging thighs; the short-sighted, buck-toothed, flat-chested wallflowers; the anonymous young women whose destiny was to always remain invisible to men. That left seven. Beauty, thought Papin, was indeed a rare commodity.

Not that all seven of them were beautiful. But one had to be careful. This woman had been through a tough night. She would be tired, not looking her best. And a closed-circuit camera was not the most flattering lens. Papin looked again, more closely. Four more pictures hit the trash can.

Now there were three finalists in Pierre Papin’s contest. The first was a pretty little blond in tight jeans and a lacy white peasant top. Papin smiled to himself. This one would certainly tempt any man. But her golden hair fell to her shoulders. And why had Carver bought hair color and scissors if not to get rid of such distinctive locks?

That left two. One was a redhead. Despite the hour and the day, she was smartly dressed, an ambitious young executive, heedless of weekends and holidays. Papin examined her sharp features and the tight, dark slash of her lipsticked mouth. He could imagine what she would be like in bed: fiery, controlling, neurotic. This one would be easy to anger and difficult to control. A man would have to play Petruchio to her shrew. She hardly looked like the seductive model Charlie had described.

The third woman wore a short, pale blue dress. Papin paused to imagine the way it would look as she walked, stretched across her ass, flicking around her slender thighs. He paused to let himself enjoy that thought. It was just business, he told himself. He had to put himself in Carver’s shoes.

Charlie had said Petrova looked like a model. Well, this girl had the body for it and the fine, haughty features. Even in the blurred, grainy video still that much was obvious. Papin looked at her raven black hair. It was roughly cut, like an urchin’s. A coiffure like that could cost a fortune in a smart Parisian salon, or you could get the same effect for free. With a pair of cheap scissors and a bottle of dye from a pharmacy shelf.

Yes, thought Papin, this was the one. It was a gamble to eliminate all the other possibilities, but he was prepared to go all-in. He believed he had found Mademoiselle Petrova.

They were both on the sofa now, sitting at either end, with the empty bottle of wine in an ice bucket on the floor below them. Carver had showered too. Now he was wearing a loose-fitting white T-shirt and a pair of faded blue linen pants. He looked good. Alix had seen the way he’d been looking at her from the moment they’d first met. She wondered when he’d make his move.

“Your turn,” she said.

“Must I?”

“Yes! I did. And anyway, I want to know how you became who… what you are. I have met lots of people who kill. But I never met one before who made me omelettes, or listened to anything I had to say. I guess I never met a killer with manners.”

“You don’t want to be taken in by manners. Having manners doesn’t necessarily mean you care about other people. Sometimes it just hides the fact that you couldn’t give a damn.”

She looked at him. “Can you give a damn?”

“About what?”

She said nothing.

“Yes, I give a damn.”

All he had to do was lean toward her, break the invisible wall between them. Her pulse rate started to rise. Her breathing deepened. Her back arched fractionally. Her lips relaxed, ready to receive his.

But Carver didn’t move.

Alix felt like an idiot. Then her temper flashed. How dare he play games with her? How dare he look at her with those cool, assessing eyes?