The Accident Man

50

A door opened a fraction, throwing a sliver of blue white neon light across the charcoal gray cobblestones.

“Psst! Pablo! Come inside!”

Carver was dragged from his introspection like a man being woken from a deep sleep. He looked around and saw the source of the voice.

“Not tonight, Freddy. Sorry, mate, we’re not in the mood.”

“Just come inside. This is serious!”

The urgency in Freddy’s voice made Carver stop. He glanced at Alix but saw no response from her, one way or the other. “What is it?”

They walked past several outside tables into the little, low-ceilinged café. There was one other person in the place, an old man hunched over a bowl of minestrone. Carver nodded in his direction: “Bonsoir, Karl, ça va?” The old man grunted a noncommittal reply and returned to his soup. “He’s in here every evening, last customer of the night, always a bowl of minestrone,” said Carver, though Alix wasn’t paying any attention.

He turned back to Freddy. “What’s the problem?”

Freddy gave the serving counter a flick with the cloth he kept tucked into his white apron. “No problem, not yet. But later, I don’t know. There are people looking for you, Pablo. First a Frenchman: He came here this morning saying he was working for the federal interior ministry. Obviously a lie. He was a cop of some kind, I’m sure. Then an English-woman, very polite, charming, but asking questions.”

“Describe her.”

“Typical English, you know. Not so chic, not elegant, but quite attractive.”

“Hair? Clothes?”

“Er, let me see…” Freddy frowned. “Okay, she had pale brown hair, like a mouse. And she was wearing a skirt with some kind of pattern on it, flowers maybe.”

Carver nodded. “She’s sitting about fifty meters back down the road in a blue Opel Vectra. There’s a man with her. When we walked by she grabbed his hand and looked in his eyes, pretending to be lovers. What did she want to know?”

“She spoke to Jean-Louis when my back was turned. He told her about the other men too.”

“What other men?”

“I don’t know. I did not see them. But Jean-Louis saw some men get out of a black car this afternoon. Then the car went away, but not all of the men were in it. They may still be around.”

“How many men were there?”

“I don’t know. Wait a moment.” He walked to one side of the room, opened a door, and poked his head through. “Jean-Louis!”

A child’s voice came from an upstairs room. “Oui, Papa?”

“Come here, son.”

There was a scurrying of footsteps down a staircase, then a small bundle of energy rocketed into the room, saw Carver, and shrieked, “Pablo!”

His father glowered at him, trying to look stern. “Tell Monsieur Pablo what you saw this afternoon. You know, the funny men.”

“The ones the English lady asked me about?”

“Yes, them.”

“There were three of them, or maybe four. They looked funny. They had big coats on, even though it was nice and warm outside.”

Carver got down on his haunches to look Jean-Louis in the eye. “Could you see if they were carrying anything under their coats?”

“No, they were all buttoned up. They must have been boiling.”

“Yes, they must. But thank you, that’s very useful. Now, did you see where they went?”

The child nodded. “Some went toward your house. But some didn’t. I don’t know what happened to them. I had to come in because Maman said it was time for my dinner.”

“Well, don’t you worry. You did very well. I think you could become a famous detective one day. Don’t you agree, Freddy?”

Freddy looked shocked. “My son? A flic? That’s not funny, Pablo.” He crossed himself in mock horror, then turned to his son. “Okay, now, back up to bed. Come on, up you go. I’ll be up soon to read you a story. Go!”

Carver watched the boy scamper from the room, then turned back to Freddy.

“There’s a Swisscom van up the street, on the other side of the road. How long has that been here?”

Freddy gave an exasperated sigh. “Merde! How would I know that? Truly, Pablo, you are no better than a cop yourself.”

“I’m sorry, but this could be important. Just try to remember back earlier in the day, when you went out to serve people at the tables. Was the van there this morning? Were there telephone engineers doing work anywhere?”

Freddy thought for a moment, his eyes closed. “No, there was no van there, no engineers. It must have arrived late in the day.”

“So either there’s been some last-minute phone crisis, or it’s got nothing to do with Swisscom. We’ve got to assume it’s the latter. So now we’ve got the Frenchman, the English-woman and her pal in the car, and a gang of men in big coats who used to have a black car that’s now disappeared, and a van’s arrived. And it doesn’t look like any of them have got anything to do with the others. Jesus…”

Alix looked at him. “So now what?”

“You stay here while I go and work out what the bloody hell’s going on.”

“Oh, you’re going to leave me, the helpless woman?”

“No, I just don’t want to fight anyone else if I’m busy fighting with you at the same time. That would be a distraction. I’m going to find out who’s out there, deal with them, then we can carry on with whatever it is we’re doing. If that’s what you want.”

Freddy rolled his eyes and left the room. “I’ll just go and, er, finish cleaning up the kitchen,” he said over his departing shoulder.

Carver and Alix glowered at each other for a moment, neither wanting to give way. Then she gave a quick shrug of concession. “Go. Freddy can look after me.”

Carver said nothing, just looked at her. Then he turned and walked toward the kitchen.

“Hey, Freddy!” he called out. “Is there a back way out of this place?”