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.
29
They were both on the sofa now, sitting at either end, with the empty bottle of wine in an ice bucket on the floor below them. Carver had showered too. Now he was wearing a loose-fitting white T-shirt and a pair of faded blue linen pants. He looked good. Alix had seen the way he'd been looking at her from the moment they'd first met. She wondered when he'd make his move.
'Your turn,' she said.
'Must I?'
'Yes! I did. And anyway, I want to know how you became who… what you are. I have met lots of people who kill. But I never met one before who made me omelettes, or listened to anything I had to say. I guess I never met a killer with manners.'
'You don't want to be taken in by manners. Having manners doesn't necessarily mean you care about other people. Sometimes it just hides the fact that you couldn't give a damn.'
She looked at him. 'Can you give a damn?'
'About what?'
She said nothing.
'Yes, I give a damn.'
All he had to do was lean toward her, break the invisible wall between them. Her pulse rate started to rise. Her breathing deepened. Her back arched fractionally. Her lips relaxed, ready to receive his.
But Carver didn't move.
Alix felt like an idiot. Then her temper flashed. How dare he play games with her? How dare he look at her with those cool, assessing eyes?
'You didn't finish your story,' he said.
Alix didn't reply.
'Tell me about Kursk. What was the offer he made you? The one you could not refuse.'
'I told you, I have said enough. Now you tell me something.'
'What?'
'I don't care. Anything. Just so long as it is true.'
Carver looked away. He put a hand up to his face. He leaned back and gazed at the ceiling.
'Fair enough. I'll tell you why I didn't kiss you just now.'
Alix was silent, but her eyes narrowed as she looked at him.
'I was scared. I was afraid that if I opened myself up, even that much, I would not stop until I had given myself away, every bit of me. Is that true enough for you?'
'Yes,' Alix whispered.
She had been watching Carver's eyes as he spoke. Something in them had changed, as though a curtain had been drawn aside to reveal a distant view of the man he really was. But now she could see him closing up again. When he spoke again, that other man had vanished.
'So… Kursk?'
She wanted to scream at him: Forget Kursk! She longed to get the hidden Samuel Carver back. But she had to find the patience to wait, to let him emerge of his own accord. So she gathered her thoughts and said, 'It was very simple. He blackmailed me.'
'What do you mean?'
She sighed. 'May I smoke?'
She could see him hesitate for an instant. There was a fastidious, disciplined side to Carver. It probably came from his years in the military. All the videos on his shelves were in alphabetical order, all the cooking implements in his kitchen were immaculately arranged. He would not like anyone smoking in his apartment.
As if he knew what Alix was thinking, Carver laughed. 'Sure. Go ahead. Then talk.'
Alix inhaled deep into her lungs, then let out a long, slow stream of smoke that curled and eddied in the shafts of afternoon light that shone through the apartment's deep-set windows.
'I had been in the KGB for less than two years when the wall came down. Suddenly, all our old allies were rebelling against us, kicking our soldiers out of their countries. It was humiliating. Everything any of us had known was falling apart.
'For a while, we carried on in Moscow as if nothing had happened. In some ways it was easier. More Westerners were coming to the city. They thought that the cold war was over and they had won, so they did not care what girls they screwed, or what they said to us. But then Gorbachev was deposed, Yeltsin took over, and suddenly there was no money to pay anyone. The whole country was run by gangsters. However bad it had been before, now it was one hundred times worse. We had nothing. We had to live somehow.'
'You sound like you're expecting me to judge you. I'm in no position to do that.'
'Maybe. Anyway, I was lucky. Because I can speak English I got a job at a hotel, the Marriott, working at the reception desk. I found a good man, a doctor. He was not rich or handsome, but he treated me with respect.
'For a long time, I thought I was okay. Then Kursk started coming to the hotel. He had worked with the girls as a 'bodyguard.' That was what they called it. The real reason was to make sure we did not do any business for ourselves, or try to run away with a rich foreign client. Kursk liked to remind me that he knew who I was and what I had done. He could expose me at any time. Everything I had worked for would be ruined. I offered him money to go away, but he turned me down. He was happier teasing me, just keeping me like a fish on the end of a line. I knew that sooner or later he would pull on the hook.
'That's what happened. Kursk came to the hotel on Friday morning. He said he needed a partner on a job. He wanted a woman. People would be distracted by her and pay less attention to him. He told me to leave work, tell my supervisor I was feeling sick. If I came with him, he would pay me ten thousand dollars, U.S. And if I did not…'
'Let me guess. He still had some of your old photographs. You would be caught by your own honey trap.'
Alix nodded.
'So what happened to the doctor?'
'He is still there. He wants to marry me.'
'What do you want?'
'He will give me a home, maybe a family. I will be a respectable woman.'
'But?'
'But I do not love him. I would just be selling myself again.'
