Assassin

20

As soon as he had returned to his car, Jake Tolland got out his BlackBerry and sent a brief summary of the conversation to MI6. Selsey mailed him back with congratulations and one simple instruction: 'Essential NO mention name Carver in story.' Minutes later, Selsey was in Jack Grantham's office.

'It was Carver,' he said. 'I just heard from Tolland. She also said he told her to call him Pablo.'

'You hadn't primed him in advance?' Grantham was groping for straws.

'No,' Selsey insisted. 'I gave him the names of the woman who ran the refuge and the girl. But I didn't say a dickie-bird about Carver, or Pablo. The only way he could know that name is from the girl.'

'And the only way she could know…' Grantham conceded.

'I've managed to get the bank information out of the Swiss,' Selsey went on, ramming home his advantage. 'A man answering Carver's description recently opened a new account. He gave his name as Dirk Vandervart, which is-'

'Another one of Carver's known aliases,' Grantham cut in.

'Exactly. And four hundred thousand US dollars have been deposited in that account, in two payments. The first, two weeks before the Dey poisoning, the second on the day he died.'

Grantham nodded. 'OK, you win, Carver's gone back on the game. I can't say I'm too bothered about him hitting a piece of work like Tiger Dey. And I don't foresee a problem with the Dubaians, not in the short-term, anyway. We'll just tell them we have no criminal records for a James Conway Murray. But I don't want Carver running around bumping people off whenever the mood takes him. So I'm going to tell you what my mum used to tell my dad when she thought I was up to no good.'

'What was that, then?'

'Find out what that boy's doing. And tell him to stop it.'