The Accident Man

21

The operations director tried to rub the exhaustion from his bloodshot eyes. The job was falling apart around him. He was standing with Papin in the street outside the mansion. The city would soon be waking up to discover the horrors that had taken place while it was asleep.

“Okay,” said Papin. “Let’s go through it from the beginning. Forget for the moment whatever happened in the Alma, concentrate on what happened here. No French citizens have been harmed. We will do our best to make it all disappear. But if I am to help you, I must know what happened. And you must deal with any – what do you say? – loose ends. So, to begin. Who owns the house?”

“I don’t know. I imagine that when your people start trying to trace the ownership, they will find a mass of shell companies in different tax havens. But I don’t know who owns them. And even if I did, I couldn’t tell you.”

“How can I help if you play games with me?”

“I’m not playing games. I honestly do not know. And I guarantee that any names I gave you would not appear on any ownership documents anywhere.”

“Okay, I understand. Next problem: Who did this?”

The operations director thought for a moment. Then he breathed a plume of smoke into the early-morning air and said, “Carver. It has to be. He knew about the explosives in that flat because he put them there. Kursk had no idea. If he’d gone in, he’d have been killed, and the woman with him.”

Papin nodded. “Okay, so we know a man and a woman went into that apartment. We agree the man must have been Carver. So could the woman be Petrova? Are they working together now? If so, they must have come out together too, because no one died in the explosion. Next question: Did they come here? Well, we have evidence of two weapons. The simplest explanation for that is two shooters. Do we have any other suspects? No. Did Carver have any other female accomplice?”

“No.”

“Eh bien, let’s assume that Carver and Petrova were responsible for the killings here. Clearly, they must be eliminated before they cause any more trouble. We need descriptions. So tell me, Charlie, are you sure you do not know what Carver looks like?”

The operations director ground his cigarette stub under his heel. “We had him watched on a couple of his early jobs. It was an obvious precaution. He’s a shade under six feet tall. Call it a meter eighty; maybe seventy-five kilos in weight; dark hair; thin face, intense looking. Other than that, no distinguishing features that I know of. Actually, there is something else…”

“What?”

“Max wasn’t wearing his jacket when he died. And it wasn’t where he’d left it, the last time I saw him, hanging on the back of his chair. Carver could have dumped the black jacket and taken Max’s. It’s a gray one, same fabric as the trousers.”

“Okay. And the woman?”

“All I know is her reputation. She’s meant to be a blond model type.”

Papin raised his eyebrows knowingly. “Now we have a reason why Carver might want to be with Petrova. But if she was Kursk’s partner, what is she doing on the back of a motorcycle with the man who killed him? Why is she running in and out of apartments with Carver? Why is she joining him in a gunfight?”

“How the hell would I know? She’s a bloody woman. Maybe she fancies him. Maybe she changed her mind.”

“Or maybe she hasn’t.” Papin smiled. “What is it you English say about the female of the species?”

“It was Kipling. He said the female of the species is more deadly than the male.”

“Alors, an Englishman who understands women. Incroyable!”