Tom Cain - Assassin

Carver, meanwhile, had just watched his whole life falling apart around him. Alix Petrova, the woman he loved, had told him she’d married another man. She swore that someone had told her Carver was dead. It was a complicated story. But then, he thought, everything about his relationship with Alix had been a complicated, painful, impossible bloody story.

Madeleine had been sitting by the bar, watching the whole charade of his conversation with Alix and her subsequent departure. Left alone and defeated at his table, Carver had been too lost in his own self-pitying misery even to notice another woman. He’d walked up to the bar to get a double whisky and it was only then he heard someone say, ‘So it didn’t work out, huh?’

He turned and saw an immaculately glossed and painted brunette, whose scarlet dress was perfectly cut to reveal the swell of her breasts, the slenderness of her waist and the flawless line of her caramel-tanned thighs. That much Carver caught at a glance. It took him a while to notice the knowing, feline tilt of her eyes or the sharp, dry mind that lay behind them.

Since both their partners had let them down, they decided to find out how well they could make it work together instead. Pretty well was the answer, but it had only ever been the one night. A fair amount of time had passed, long enough for Carver and Alix to get back together, try to make it work and fail. Since then he’d exchanged occasional texts and emails with Maddy. It had all been friendly, but nothing more than, and they’d never got round to meeting up again. Maybe it was time to change that. He made the call.

‘Hello?’ Her voice was sleepy. Damn! Had he woken her up?

‘Hi, it’s Sam… Samuel Carver… You texted me a while back. I couldn’t get back to you till now.’

‘Sam…? Oh, Sam! Hey, great to hear from you. Where are you?’

‘I’m at Richmond airport, Virginia, thought I’d take a plane to Chicago. Fancy some brunch when I get there?’

‘No, I don’t think that would be possible…’

Carver was shocked to discover how sharp the pain of disappointment felt. ‘Oh… Right… Look, I’m sorry if I disturbed you, I-’

‘No, it’s fine, you didn’t disturb me at all…’ He could hear the smile in her voice as she admitted, ‘OK, you did, but I don’t mind. It’s just I’m not in Chicago.’

He gave an exhausted, ironic laugh. ‘Oh God, I don’t believe it… Where are you then?’

‘On my ranch. It’s a few miles out of Cascade, Idaho. It’s where I come from. I told you, remember?’

‘Yeah, maybe, I think so. But excuse my ignorance, where exactly is Idaho?’

‘Where’s Idaho?’ She sounded outraged by his ignorance. ‘I should put this phone down, right now, just for that.’

‘Seriously, how do I get to you?’

‘You’d do that? Really?’

Now he detected something else: she wanted him to make the effort.

‘Sure. In the past twelve hours I’ve parachuted 25,000 feet, swum about a thousand yards and driven 120 miles. What’s one extra flight?’

She laughed. ‘OK, action hero, when do you get to O’Hare?’

‘About eleven.’

‘Perfect. There’s a United flight to Boise, that’s the closest airport to me. It leaves around midday, gets in early afternoon. Why don’t you take that?’

‘Sounds like a plan.’

‘And if you’re very good, I’ll meet you at the airport.’

Now Carver knew his luck was in. As the first call for passengers was being made he dialled a number in Oslo, Norway. It belonged to Thor Larsson, the eccentric Norwegian who was both his closest friend and the supplier of much of the surveillance equipment, computer hard- and software and assorted gadgets Carver needed to carry out his assignments.

‘Hi, it’s me,’ Carver said when the call was answered. ‘Look, I’m sorry it’s taken me a while to get back to you. I’ve been under the radar. Just wanted you to know that little gizmo you just made me – the one with all the red ink… Yeah, that one. Well, it worked a treat… No, I can’t tell you where I used it, not unless you want us both to get shot!… Of course I haven’t forgotten your wedding. Unless you’re telling me the bride changed her mind. Can’t say I’d blame her…’

Carver smiled as he heard what the voice on the other end of the line had to say. ‘Well, that’s good news. I’d better start working on my speech… Yeah, I’m great, just off to Boise, Idaho, if you can believe that…

‘What do you mean, you don’t know where that is?’ He laughed. ‘Miles from anywhere, that’s where! And yes, of course there’s a woman involved. Why else would I go to Boise bloody Idaho?’

Damon Tyzack was back in London, sitting at a table outside a café on Brompton Cross. He watched the glossy Eurotrash girls passing by, babbling into their mobile phones, while bankers’ wives and trust-fund totties wandered in and out of Joseph and the Conran Shop as if they’d never even heard the word ‘recession’. These were the women he had been born and raised to possess.

He should have been properly settled by now, with a family in the home counties, a flat and a mistress in town, and an agreeable life all round. Instead, he’d suffered disgrace, been disowned by his family and forced to spend years doing squalid work for ignorant, lowlife scum. And that had all been Samuel Carver’s fault. His small-minded attitude – a determination to play by the rules and regulations that was, quite frankly, proof that he was common as muck, for all his attempts to pretend otherwise – had cost Tyzack everything he held dear. Now that, entirely through his own efforts, he was in a position to exact some measure of revenge, Tyzack intended to make the most of it. Years ago, he might have acted out of anger or bitterness. But now, having had plenty of time to reflect, he was going to treat the whole thing as a game, a treat to be savoured and enjoyed.

A waitress came to take his order. She was a pretty enough thing, with blue eyes and an engaging smile. Carrying about five to seven pounds of extra weight, Tyzack estimated, but tighten up that stomach a little and firm up the jawline, stick her in a studio flat off the Gloucester Road and you’d be looking at two to three hundred quid an hour, twelve hundred for an overnight.

When the girl asked if he was ready to order, Tyzack’s face broke into a friendly, open smile and he looked at her as if there were no one in the world he was happier to see standing in front of him than her.

‘Absolutely,’ he said. ‘I’ll have scrambled eggs and smoked salmon, brown toast, a nice big glass of fresh orange juice and a double espresso, please.’

As she was writing it down he asked, ‘What’s your name?’

The girl smiled shyly. ‘Agnieszka.’

‘What a lovely name. Where do you come from, Agnieszka?’

‘From Lód, in Poland.’

‘Well, I feel very sorry for all the boys from Lód, then.’

She frowned, not quite sure where he was going, but unable to resist the obvious question: ‘Why?’

‘Because they don’t have a beautiful girl like you to look at any more! Still, very good news for us boys in London, isn’t it?’

The lines were ridiculously corny, but it didn’t matter. Tyzack had charm, a gift that stupid people always saw as a sign of warmth, when so far as he could see it simply involved a cold-blooded knack for sensing what other people wanted and then giving it to them.

Agnieszka giggled, right on cue, flashed him a coy, heavy-lidded glance and walked away with an extra little swing in her step.