need to be told, and without all the evidence, how can I solve anything? ‘
Lefevre took a brown leather briefcase from the floor and removed a file.
‘What’s that?’ Alvarez asked, looking at the file.
‘For you,’ Lefevre explained, ‘everything we have so far. All the evidence.’
Alvarez picked up the file. He asked a simple question. ‘Why?’
‘As I said, because you can do more with it than I can. I would prefer one of us to succeed than us both to fail. Justice matters more to me than credit. People are dead. They deserve to be avenged. For this, I am deferring to you. All I ask in return,’ Lefevre said, ‘is that you tell me, off the record, when you are successful.’
It was a small price to pay. ‘I will,’ Alvarez said and meant it.
Lefevre gestured to the file. ‘Inside you’ll find the fingerprints of the American woman. I suggest you start by finding out who she really is.’
‘I don’t know how to thank you.’
Lefevre smiled. ‘You don’t have to.’
CHAPTER 63
Nicosia, Cyprus
Thursday
23:49 CET
Rebecca sat on the end of the bed, flicking through the hotel’s satellite-television channels. It was a bizarre mix of both English and Greek language channels with local Cypriot TV. Tesseract was packing his backpack. Her curiosity had made her ask what the equipment was for and, to her surprise, he’d told her. First there was a portable high-capacity hard disk to clone the contents of computer hard drives. Next a transmitter, radio receiver, and sound recorder to bug a phone should he not find what they needed. Items she didn’t need explained were screwdrivers, pliers, a wrench, hexagon keys, pencils, and paper. Lock-picking tools, a glass cutter, and a suction cup were placed together in a separate small bag, which was then added to the backpack.
‘Do you think you’ll need all that?’ Rebecca asked.
He shook his head. ‘But better I take what I might not need than find myself without what I do need.’
When everything was securely packed away, he took a set of clothes with him into the bathroom and closed the door. It wasn’t closed all the way, and through the crack she could see his reflection as he changed. She glimpsed his bare arm, lean but with ridges of hard muscle. She continued watching to sneak a peek at the rest of his body but instead flinched at what she saw.
She caught a glance of his torso and the scars that marked his flesh. A huge circular bruise the size of a fist dominated the centre of his chest. She saw two scars that could have been bullet wounds and more that she guessed were caused by blades. There were others, but she didn’t look long enough to identify them. Rebecca turned her head away, shocked and horrified.
‘That pretty?’
She looked up and saw he was looking at her through the mirror. Her face flushed with embarrassment, and she averted her eyes. Before she had worked up the courage to respond, he closed the door fully. She heard the bolt slide across.
He came out a few minutes later, and she watched him take the folding knife from the bedside table and slip it into his pocket. He’d bought it from town. Trying to find a gun would have attracted too much attention, he’d told her.
‘I expect you hate instant coffee as much as I do,’ Rebecca said. ‘So I made us both a tea.’
He took the mug from her and sipped. It must have been okay because he took a longer sip a second later.
‘I still think I should go with you,’ she said.
He didn’t look at her. ‘I work alone.’
‘That hardly matters. I-’
‘Besides,’ he said, interrupting her. ‘It’s safer for you if you stay here.’
She sighed. It was useless trying to argue with him. He was like a child. Stubborn and narrow minded, too used to doing things his own way to accept that someone else might be able to help.
‘Remember,’ he said, ‘don’t leave the room until morning. If I’m not back by sunrise, something has happened to me, and I’ll never be coming back. Get off the island straight away and disappear. Take a boat not a plane-’
‘I know, I know. We’ve been through this once already.’
‘And we’ll keep going through it until I’m convinced you understand everything.’
‘It would be nice if you could give me some credit.’
He looked at her for a moment. ‘This is what I do.’
Rebecca could see she was breaking through the wall he surrounded himself with, even if the only way to penetrate it was to make him lose patience. She wanted to chip away more at that wall, but instead she found herself saying something else.
‘And why do you do it?’
He looked at her blankly. ‘What?’
‘I said, why do you do what you do?’
Rebecca examined his face while he struggled with her question. She’d expected some kind of quick retort or dismissal or downright refusal to answer. Not this. He looked confused, pained even, and she instantly regretted asking him.
‘It’s okay,’ she said, trying to lighten the mood. ‘You don’t have to say.’
‘It’s the only thing I’ve ever been any good at.’
She could see that it hadn’t been a justification or even an admission. It had been a confession. He turned his head away and grabbed the backpack from the bed. She watched him, finding herself starting to see the man instead of the killer.
‘How do you manage to sleep at night?’
‘First I close my eyes,’ he explained, deadpan. ‘The rest comes naturally.’
Her nostrils flared. ‘I thought you didn’t make jokes.’
‘I’m learning.’
She saw the trace of smugness in his face. He was pleased with himself, but she saw his responses for the avoidance they were. ‘Tell me your name.’
‘What?’
‘I’ve known you for almost a week,’ she said. ‘And I still don’t have an actual name to call you.’
Rebecca had wanted to ask him before but had never been brave enough to do so. Now, she found she didn’t need courage. She saw the vulnerability in him, the fear she had put into him by making him talk about himself.
She watched him fidgeting with the backpack, acting as if he was checking something. ‘You don’t need to call me anything.’
‘Just tell me.’
He stopped what he was pretending to do and looked up at her. ‘If you want to call me something, call me Jack.’
‘That’s not your real name.’
‘I go by whatever name is on the passport I’m using.’
She frowned. ‘So I should start calling you Jack?’
He slung the backpack over his shoulder. ‘At least until I change passports.’
Rebecca stood up and faced him from across the bed. ‘If you go by so many other names, what difference does it make if you tell me your real name?’
‘I am whoever my passport says I am,’ he explained. ‘I’m more convincing if I think of myself as that person.’
‘You say that like you’re trying to convince yourself more than you are me.’
