The Accident Man

79

Gstaad is the Saint-Tropez of ski resorts, a beautiful old home for crass new money, a place where age and cash meet youth and beauty, then make a deal that suits them both. Back in the seventies and eighties, Arabs awash with petrodollars swapped sand for snow and rushed to Gstaad. Now it was the Russians’ turn.

The very smartest hoteliers, desperate to preserve at least the illusion of class and exclusivity, had tried to exclude Moscow’s oligarchs and mafiosi, wringing their hands, bowing apologetically, and explaining that the best suites in high season were booked up months, even years in advance. But someone had to buy the jeroboams of vintage Cristal champagne at 7,500 Swiss francs a pop, down in the GreenGo Club beneath the Palace Hotel. Someone had to send their sable-coated lovers teetering, around the jewelers and antique shops. And no one did that quite as willingly, exuberantly, and downright flagrantly as the winners in Russia’s new gangster economy.

Even the Russians, however, tended to go elsewhere in September. Many hotels closed down for a three-month break between the end of the Alpine summer and the first heavy snowfalls of winter. No one came to Gstaad to see the leaves turn red. So Zhukovski’s arrival had not gone unnoticed.

His name was not in any telephone directory or on any property register. But Thor Larsson had only sat down in his second bar of the evening when a big, bearded German Swiss in an immaculately clean and well-pressed pair of workman’s overalls overhead his question to the bartender and growled, “Zhukovski? That Russian? He’s got a big place in Oberport, right out on the edge of town, up there in the forest, heading out toward Turbach.”

That had been three hours ago. Now Larsson was sitting in his scruffy old Volvo, looking down at the shadowy bulk of the chalet, set on the side of a steep hill like a Heidi house on steroids. The main entrance was at the back of the property, up by the tree line. That made sense, Larsson, thought. You’d walk through the chalet to the main reception rooms at the front, with spectacular views down the mountainside, looking right across the whole valley in which Gstaad lay.

There was a large circular driveway and parking area by the door. To the left of the property, a drive made its way downhill, curled around, and then led to a garage directly underneath the ground floor. So a chauffeur could leave his employers by the main entrance, then drive on to take the cars out of sight. And that, Larsson felt sure, was the way Carver had been brought in. It didn’t seem too likely that there’d been a butler waiting to greet him at front the door. Carver wouldn’t be leaving by the front exit, either: he and Alix saying a polite farewell to Yuri Zhukovski, then heading on their way. When you looked at it like that, it was obvious this meeting was going to turn sour.

Even so, Larsson had great faith in Carver’s powers of survival. He clung to the image of him dashing from the chalet, guns blazing and in need of a quick getaway. When that happened, he’d be waiting, engine running.

It was past midnight and he was sitting alone in the darkness, waiting for something to happen, though he didn’t know what or when. The Grateful Dead were playing on the stereo. He had a stone-cold slice of pizza and an even more frigid cup of black coffee. All things considered, it was just like home.