Carver

1

The Greek island of Mykonos

Pelicans honked. That was something Samuel Carver had never known before. But there was the pelican, its feathers a pale baby-pink, like an anaemic flamingo, and it was clearly honking.

‘I’m going to take its photograph. Want to come?’

Her name was Magda, but everyone called her Ginger, for reasons made obvious by one glance at her freckled skin and fiery hair. She had wide-spaced grey-blue eyes, soft, slightly pouty lips, and a little groove at the very tip of her nose. She admitted to being ‘about forty’, but looked no more than twenty-eight, and worked, she said, in corporate finance. Carver was driving a small, hired Japanese Jeep. He’d pitched up next to Ginger’s Porsche Boxster in the line of cars at the port of Piraeus, outside Athens, waiting for the ferry to Mykonos. Both cars had their tops down. Carver and Ginger had exchanged looks, started talking, and discovered they were two unattached adults who’d both chosen to spend a couple of weeks exploring the islands of the Aegean. It made sense to join forces and see how that worked out. So far it seemed to be going pretty well.

‘Thanks,’ said Carver, ‘but I think I’ll stay here and enjoy the view.’

‘Ah, yes,’ said Ginger with a knowing smile, ‘the famous windmills.’

‘Exactly,’ said Carver, and kept his cool, green eyes fixed on Ginger as she picked her way between the open-air restaurant tables in tiny Daisy Duke shorts that a woman her age had no business wearing so well. He smiled to himself as he realized he wasn’t the only man looking. A waiter was standing by the open door that led to the kitchen, leaning against a glass aquarium filled with live fish and lobsters, and nodding in appreciation as Ginger went by.

They were lunching at a waterfront joint called Little Venice, their table pressed right up against the waist-high sea wall, so close that they could feel occasional sprinkles of sea-spray against their faces. Ginger was about fifteen metres away now. She had reached the pelican and was crouching down on her haunches in front of it, with her camera to her face. The pelican seemed entirely untroubled by her presence, posing like a seasoned professional for a few seconds before opening its beak wide, its leathery throat pouch sagging beneath it like a fat man’s chins in expectation of a reward.

The first bullet blasted through the pelican’s neck, blowing the head right off its body. The second, third and fourth hit Ginger, the vivid scarlet eruptions on her chest lifting her off her feet and throwing her to the ground, where she lay quite still, sprawled on her back. The last echoes of the gunfire mingled with panic-stricken shouts and screams, and the clattering of chairs and tables as people made desperate attempts to get away. Carver remained still, committing the two shooters to memory. The first male was tall and blond, in a loose blue shirt and jeans; the second one shorter, darker colouring, all in black. Both were using handguns. Carver’s instinct was to go to Ginger’s side, but the two men were within a couple of metres of her now, and it would be a suicide run. They’d shoot him long before he ever got to her.

The men were scanning the restaurant, looking for someone, and Carver didn’t wait around to find out whether it was him. Keeping his movements as slow and unobtrusive as possible, he slipped below the surface of his table and scuttled away beneath the one directly behind him. All around him other crawling, scrambling people were fighting their way to the exit, men pushing women and even children aside without a second thought as the instinct for self-preservation overruled any patina of civilized manners.

There was a khaki baseball cap lying discarded on the floor, and Carver jammed it on his head to cover his short, dark hair and break up his silhouette. It was hardly much of a disguise, but anything that made identification even marginally tougher amidst the bustle of the town’s crowded streets might help.

He didn’t know for sure, of course, that they were looking for him. Ginger might have been the primary target, or simply the one person unlucky enough to be in plain sight and close range when they hit the restaurant. But life had taught Carver always to act on the basis of the worst-case scenario. That way any surprises would be pleasant ones.

Two more shots were fired. The stampede became even more desperate. From the sounds of the gunfire, Carver judged that the men had advanced further into the restaurant — under the awning that stretched over the tables between the building where the kitchen was housed and the sea wall. They were, he realized, driving the crowd of people ahead of them, shepherding them in one direction. That suggested they had a destination in mind, a point where the flock would be divided and the object of their attack singled out. Carver had other plans. He got to his feet, swivelled to his right and, keeping his head down, started forcing his way across the line of escaping customers towards the kitchen door.

Then the crowd suddenly cleared, leaving Carver exposed for a second or two. That was long enough. He heard a voice shout, ‘Over there!’ Then he was up and running full-tilt for the door, followed by the sound of rushing footsteps.

That answered one question. The men were after him. Now he just needed to know why.

Carver reached the fish tank, crouched down behind it, then shoved with the full force of his body against the weight of glass and water. It lifted a few centimetres, then a little more, until finally it toppled over and shattered against the floor. A slippery, slithering mass of fish and crustaceans poured out, blocking the pursuers’ path with flapping, claw-waving bodies.

In the second that diversion bought him, Carver darted through the door and down a short corridor towards the kitchen. There were more shots behind him. He felt the fizz of the rounds going by and saw the glass front of a wine cooler disintegrate up ahead.

Leaping over the shards of shattered glass, he careered into the kitchen itself. Two women were standing by the stove: one elderly and clad in black, the other barely out of her teens. They shouted unintelligibly at Carver as he looked around, searching for an escape route.

The men were only seconds behind him. The women were shrieking. The stress seemed to dull and confuse his vision, making it impossible to see clearly. Carver tried to stay calm, to concentrate on the immediate task in hand and ignore the voice in his head telling him he was soft and out of practice, reminding him of the days when he had never gone anywhere unarmed or unprepared.

Surely the kitchen would have a rear exit? If it didn’t, he was a dead man.