The Accident Man

28

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 So Papin’s composite photo of Petrova was already out of date.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.