The accident man sc-1

by Tom Cain

  He was watching her sleeping, slumped against the side of the carriage, when she slowly opened her eyes, still halfasleep, caught him staring, and gave him a lazy smile that turned into a yawn.

  "What were you thinking?" she murmured, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

  "Oh, I don't know…"

  She perked up, her eyes now awake, looking directly at his own. "Were you wondering what it would be like to have sex with me?"

  Carver drew in a sharp breath. "Bloody hell, you don't mince words, do you?"

  She laughed, her expression filled with the satisfaction of a woman who looks down upon the single-minded simplicity of men in general, yet is proud to have that power over one man in particular. "It wasn't so hard to know, the way you were looking at me."

  "You reckon? I wish it were that simple."

  That surprised her. "What do you mean?"

  "I mean maybe I was thinking about you. But I was also asking why I've put myself in the position where I can have those thoughts. I'm trying to work out just how much of a risk I'm taking, letting you into my life."

  She nodded. "Hmmm, that is a lot of thinking."

  Now it was his turn to smile. "Well, maybe I'm just more thoughtful than I look."

  "Is that so? Well, I'm too sleepy to worry about your thoughts right now." She stretched her arms wide, loosened her shoulders, then settled back into her seat.

  "Wake me up when we get there," she said. "Wherever 'there' is."

  Carver waited until he was sure Alix was asleep again before rising from his seat and walking down the carriage to the well of empty space between the exit doors. Then he pulled out his spare phone and dialed a London number. A woman answered. She said, "Hello?" in a tired, brittle voice. Carver could hear a baby wailing in the background.

  "Hi, Carrie," he said. "It's Pablo. Is Bobby around?"

  "I'm fine, thank you," she answered. "And yes, I'd be delighted to tell you everything I've been up to in the three years since you last bothered to call."

  "I'm sorry, Carrie. You know, I'd really love to talk, but not now. Can I have a word with Bobby?"

  "I'll get him for you."

  Carver could hear her shouting, "Darling! Phone for you!" then the click as an extension was picked up. A man's voice called out, "Hang on a second." Then there was another muffled shout of, "I've got it," and the background sounds of mother and baby were silenced.

  "Sorry, that's better," said the man.

  "Hi, Bobby, it's Pablo."

  "Christ! Good to hear from you. What the bloody hell have you been up to? It's been ages."

  "Yeah," said Carver. "Look, sorry to be antisocial, but I haven't got much time. Do you have a number for Trench? Need a word with him, and I heard he'd retired."

  Bobby chuckled. "Retired? Well, he's not the CO anymore, but I'm not sure I'd call it retirement. Security consultancies here, company directorships there-the old man's quite a mover and shaker. So why do you need him? Looking for a job?"

  "Something like that. Listen, do you have the number or not?"

  "Oh sure, absolutely. Hang on a minute." There was a brief pause and then, "Okay, here it is…"

  "Thanks, mate. Look, I know we should, you know, catch up with things. Sounds like you guys have been busy, anyway. I'm happy for you; I always thought you'd make a great dad. But I really can't talk now. Speak later, yeah?"

  Carver ended the call. He thought about the last time he'd seen Colonel Quentin Trench, the man who'd been his commanding officer, his friend, even his father figure. Back then, he was Paul "Pablo" Jackson, recently resigned from the Royal Marines, a former officer and a gentleman, turned self-destructive, brawling drunk. He'd spent the night in a cell, courtesy of the Dorset Police. He'd become a regular customer of theirs.

  "Hello, Pablo. This isn't very clever," Trench had said, stepping past the copper at the door and looking around the cell.

  "Not very, no," he'd replied, ashamed to let Trench see him this way, knowing he'd let the old man down as much as himself.

  "Still feeling touchy, eh?"

  "Yeah."

  "Why don't you take it out on someone your own size, then?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "You could put your talents to better use than scrapping with beer-sodden louts. Let me get the word out. You never know, something may come up."

  Three weeks later, the phone had rung. The caller didn't give his name. Nor did he ask for Carver's. "We can agree on names later," he said.

  The man represented a group of rich, powerful, civicminded individuals based in London. His employers solved certain problems that lay beyond the reach of government agencies, restricted by treaties and laws. "I was told you might be able to help," he added. "You come very highly recommended."

  As the call was ending, the man had said, "Tell you what, why don't you call me Max?"

  "All right," he'd replied. "And you can call me Carver." It was his birth-mother's name. The Jacksons had told him that much, soon after his twenty-first birthday. They felt he had a right to know. Later on, when he set about creating an entire new identity for himself, he settled on Samuel for a first name. No particular reason why, he just liked the sound of it. Now Carver dialed the number Faulkner had given him. Another woman answered the phone, her voice older, with a diction that spoke of finishing schools and debutante balls long ago. Pamela Trench, the colonel's wife, told Carver that her husband had gone grouse shooting in the Scottish highlands for the weekend. 'I'm awfully sorry, but he's out of reach of a telephone. Can I take a message?"

  "No, don't worry."

  There was a moment's silence, then Mrs. Trench spoke again. "I'm glad you called, Paul. It's just that, well, we never had the chance to speak after that poor girl…"

  The well-meant words blindsided Carver, hitting him like a body blow before he had time to steel himself against the memories. "I know," he muttered.

  "It must have been ghastly for you."

  "Yeah, it wasn't too great."

  "Well, I just wanted you to know, we were all thinking of you."

  Carver managed to say thanks before he snapped the phone shut. He struggled to suppress the images that filled his mind: two cars, two accidents, two innocent women dead because of him. He was gripped by a shame that was soul deep, a stain that could never be erased. And with it came a cold, hard rage, an implacable need for revenge and retribution against those who had sent him, unknowing, to commit an evil act. He would make them pay for the damnation they had visited upon him.

  But he couldn't afford to lose his self-control now. His life and that of another woman depended on that. So he sucked in his anger, along with everything else, and walked back to his seat. Alix was still fast asleep.

  25

  Carver woke Alix just before the train pulled into Lausanne on the north shore of Lake Geneva. They changed trains and arrived in Geneva at ten forty-five, bang on time, then caught a bus through the business district. It crossed the river Rhone, past the Jet d'Eau fountain that sent a plume of water more than 150 feet into the sky. Close to the river, the buildings were faceless modern offices, shops, and banks. It could have been any central European city. But behind them rose the hill that led up to the city's cathedral of Saint Pierre. This was the Old Town, the heart of a city that dated back two thousand years: the real Geneva.

  "Here's where we get off," said Carver.

  He led Alix uphill along winding streets and through narrow alleyways between looming old apartment buildings.

  "They always built tall in Geneva," commented Carver, seeing Alix gaze upward, following the rows of shutters toward the distant sky. "The original town was surrounded by walls. It couldn't spread out. So the only way to go was up."

  "My goodness, a history lesson."

  Carter looked apologetic, almost bashful: "Sorry, didn't mean to lecture."

  "No, it's okay. I like it. I didn't know you cared about things like that."

  They passed a second-hand bookstore with two
arched windows set in a wood-paneled facade. The shop was closed, but there were shelves on the outside, open to the street, filled with old hardcovers and paperbacks. Alix stopped for a second, amazed at the bookseller's confidence.

  "But anyone could steal them," she said.

  "Come off it, this is Geneva. We've got UN buildings stuffed with bent officials and banks filled with dollars ripped off from Third World aid. No one bothers to steal books. They steal whole countries here."

  Alix looked at him. "What are you trying to tell me?"

  "Just that there are people cruising around this city with diplomatic plates and fancy suits who make what I do look like charity work. Come on."

  There was a small cafe next to the bookstore, with a few plastic tables out on the cobblestoned street and some steps down to a tiny, low-ceilinged room within. Carver walked in.

  Alix followed, then watched as the owner came out from behind the counter and gave Carver a bear hug before launching into a torrent of high-speed French. She couldn't follow it, but it sounded as though the man called Carver "Pablo." After a while, he disappeared into the kitchen and reappeared carrying a plastic bag filled with provisions. Carver tried to pay. The man wouldn't let him.

  The cafe owner then glanced in Alix's direction and grinned. He looked her up and down, and said something to Carver with a wink and a nudge in the ribs. She didn't need to speak French to know what that was about.

  "I'm sorry about Freddy," said Carver once they'd started walking again. "He gets a bit overexcited in the presence of an attractive woman. If you saw his wife, you'd know why. Anyway, he's a good bloke." He held up the bag. "At least we won't starve."

  They climbed a flight of stone steps that led into a cobblestoned yard, set against the side of the hill. External staircases and covered passages wound around the buildings that surrounded the yard like the endless stairways of a Maurice Escher drawing. "Well," said Carver, "Here we are. I'm afraid I'm on the top floor."

  Alix looked up again, this time with a look of dread. "Do we have to climb all those stairs? Please tell me there's an elevator inside."

  "Sorry. The local authorities wouldn't allow it. Said it would ruin the historic character of this fine four-hundred year-old building. At least it keeps me fit."

  He grinned and Alix smiled back, enjoying this other, lighter side of Carver's character.

  She had no idea what to expect when they got inside Carver's apartment. The killers she'd known in Russia were either total slobs or hygiene freaks. The first group lived in porn-strewn pigsties where the only things that ever got cleaned were the weapons and the only decoration was the inevitable wide-screen TV. The second group were anally retentive and emotionally barren. They lived in sterile environments filled with steel, chrome, leather, and black marble. The only thing the two groups had in common was the widescreen TV.

  There was a third group, of course, the men who gave the killers their orders. They tended to have expensive mistresses and trophy wives. They let the women do the decorating. It kept them occupied during their occasional breaks between shopping expeditions.

  Carver did not live like a Russian. He lived like Alix's idea of a proper Englishman. The apartment had exposed beams and wooden floors covered in old, faded, slightly worn rugs. There were bookshelves filled with biographies and works of military history alongside paperback thrillers. There were old vinyl records, CDs by the hundred, and rows of videos. The living room had a pair of enormous old armchairs and a huge, battered Chesterfield sofa arranged around an open fireplace. Alix imagined herself here in the winter, curled up on one of those chairs like a cat, basking in the warmth of the fire.

  Carver had disappeared into the kitchen next door. Alix could hear his voice through the wall: "I'm just fixing some coffee. Would you like an espresso? Cappuccino?"

  "You can make that?"

  "Of course. I'm not a total savage. What would you like?"

  "Cappuccino, please. No sugar."

  There was a painting above the fireplace, a seaside scene, dated 1887 and painted in a bright, not quite impressionist style. A group of friends were standing at the water's edge. The men had their trousers rolled up; the women were lifting their skirts just enough to be able to dip a toe into the sea.

  "It's Lulworth Cove," said Carver, walking back into the living room with two cups of coffee in his hands. "It's on the Dorset coast, just a few miles west of my old base."

  "It's very beautiful." She smiled. "What was this base?"

  Carver laughed. "I can't tell you that. You might be a dangerous Russian spy."

  "Oh no," said Alexandra Petrova. "I'm not a spy. Not anymore."

  Carver looked at her pensively. "So, are you going to tell me that story? The long one you were talking about?"

  She sipped her coffee and licked a splash of white foam from her top lip.

  "Okay. But there are things I must do first."

  "What kind of things?"

  "Well, all I want to do now is wash."

  "Fair enough. The bathroom's just down the corridor, on the right. You go and do whatever you've got to do. I'll make us something to eat. And then you can tell me your story."

  26

  Papin was making slow progress. There weren't too many photo-composite artists prepared to answer the telephone on the last Sunday morning in August. At last, he tracked someone down, but the picture was not ready until past ten a.m. Then he had to find someone willing to put it on the air.

  On any other day, the threat of an English killer and his sexy blond accomplice would have led the news bulletins and been splashed on the front page. But this was not an ordinary day. The networks in France, like everywhere else in the world, had only one subject under discussion: the death of the princess. And so, ironically, they relegated the man who had killed her to a brief few seconds and a hastily displayed facial composite photo. Marceline Ducroix, who had served Carver his pastries and coffee in the twenty-four-hour joint in Chatelet-les-Halles, saw the picture on the TV in the back office, where her father and uncle were sitting watching the news. The two men were engaged in a loud argument over whether the car crash was an accident or the result of a typically evil Anglo-Saxon plot. Their conversation distracted her.

  The English killer wanted by the authorities sounded like the polite, well-dressed man who had spoken perfect French to her that morning. Even so, she wasn't sure it was him. "Then don't go to the cops," said her father, when Marceline asked his advice. "They are all sons of whores. The less you have to do with them, the better." Jerome Domenici got home at eight thirty after his night shift at the pharmacy. By then he had already heard about the tragedy in the Alma Tunnel. Everyone who had come into the shop had been talking about it. He caught about ten minutes of the TV news before he fell asleep on his couch.

  It was lunchtime when Jerome woke up again. He was fixing himself some bread and cheese, with one eye on his plate and the other on the TV, when he saw the composite photo. The man looked familiar. He called the number on the TV screen. Papin was already at the Gare de Lyon when he heard that a man in a gray jacket, fitting Carver's description, had been spotted in a pharmacy on the Boulevard de Sebastopol, buying hair color and scissors. But he'd been alone. And he'd bought three colors: brunette, red, and black. Papin was fairly certain that the woman had used the dye, but which color?

  Meanwhile, there had been multiple sightings of an Englishman answering Carver's description at the Gare de Lyon. Papin had established that the man had bought two tickets to Milan, shortly after seven a.m. That meant he must have caught the seven fifteen, but it had already arrived in Milan, the ticket collector had been interviewed by local police and did not recall seeing anyone resembling either composite photo. On a journey between France and Italy there was no passport control, so there were no border records. There was no way of telling whether Carver had ever got on the train, or with whom. And if he had got on, there was no way of establishing where he'd got on without canvassing every si
ngle station along the route.

  Before he did that, Papin decided to check the CCTV footage from the cameras dotted around the station. The coverage was patchy, but Papin did spot a bespectacled man in a gray jacket leaving the ticket office at 7:05. He was carrying a black bag over one shoulder: the computer.

  "Is that him?" Papin had asked the operations director.

  "It could be. Without the glasses that could easily be Carver."

  "Okay. But now look. We have him here at 7:05. The next time we find him he is approaching the gate for the Milan train at 7:09."

  "Yes… He bought a ticket, he got on the train. So?"

  "So, where has he been? It only takes a few seconds to walk across the concourse. He did something in the meantime. What?"

  "I don't know. Maybe he went to the bathroom. Maybe he bought a newspaper."

  "Or maybe he bought another ticket, to a different destination. Carver is good. He must have known he would be spotted at the ticket office, so he used that to create a diversion. Then he got the other tickets at the automatic machines. Merde! There is no video footage covering them. Someone will have to check the machines for all the purchases made between 7:05 and 7:09. And meanwhile, I will do something else."

  "What's that?"

  "Find the girl."

  27

  Freshly showered, Alix came into the kitchen, where Carver was fixing them both some food. She had one towel wrapped around her body, another around her hair.

  "Do you have an old shirt or something I can wear?" she said, with a self-conscious smile. "None of my…"

  "Shhh." Carver held up a hand.

  Alix was about to argue. Then she saw that there was a small television on a bracket on the kitchen wall. Carver was watching a satellite news program.