Tom Cain - The accident man

"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."