The Accident Man (36 page)

“I lied.”

“What about Trench?”

“He’s dead. That bit was true.”

Malgrave did the math. He worked out who was next. Then he leaned forward in his chair, his eyes pleading, hands held out in supplication. “Oh God, no, please don’t. I’ll do anything!” He thought for a second. “I owe you money. Of course! I’ll pay you in full. Three million dollars. Plus interest!”

Carver let him burble on, his silence only making Malgrave all the more effusive.

“Look at me,” he said, once Malgrave had finally shut up.

The banker looked puzzled.

“Look at me,” Carver repeated. “Just shut up, look at me, and pay attention. I don’t want your blood money. And I’m not going to kill you. I’m a soldier, not a psychopath. I take life when there’s no alternative. You have an alternative. You can tell me about the Russians.”

“What Russians?”

“The ones in Paris. The ones you sent to kill me.”

Malgrave shook his head. “I don’t know anything about them, I swear to you.”

Carver was inclined to believe him. Malgrave didn’t have the nerve to be an accomplished liar. And his ignorance about the Russians tallied with Trench’s.

“Okay,” said Carver, “so what did you know?”

Malgrave wiped a silk handkerchief across his sweaty brow. “The chairman told me that he was planning to… you know… the princess operation. I mean, I didn’t like it, didn’t approve at all, argued strongly against the whole plan, in fact. But he said it was vital for the preservation of the monarchy, and besides, he’d committed the consortium, that we were being funded externally, millions of pounds from a foreign backer. The money was wired from Zurich, anonymous of course. I had no idea who’d sent it. So you’re saying it was Russians…”

Malgrave frowned, his panic subsiding a little as he considered the possibility. “But why would Russians…? I mean, what possible interest could they have in killing her?”

“I don’t know,” said Carver. “When I find them, I’ll be sure to ask. In the meantime, since no one else has a clue who these Russians are, why don’t you call your chairman and arrange a meeting? Now.”

“But that would be impossible.”

Carver opened his case and took out his gun. “Here’s the alternative. So call him. Say you need to see him, in person, immediately. If he asks why, tell him you can’t talk about it on the phone. Make something up. Then tell your chauffeur you need your car. We’re going for a drive. Got that?”

Malgrave nodded.

“Right,” said Carver. “Start dialing.”

Dame Agatha Bewley was back in MI5’s headquarters at Thames House, on the north bank of the river Thames. It wasn’t excitingly new. It wasn’t impressively old. It wasn’t provocatively ugly or inspiring in its beauty. It was just there, a Department of Works project from 1929. Millions of people drove to and fro in front of it along a crowded riverside route. Not one in a thousand ever wasted their time even looking at it. As a home for domestic spies, it really couldn’t have been better.

After her breakfast at the Travellers Club, she had been driven to work in her official black Jaguar, and on the way she’d thought about Sir Perceval Wake. Now that his services were not so regularly required by his country, had he gone into business for himself? What was it Grantham had said in that meeting, straight after news of the crash had come through? Something about Wake’s genius for black operations, his instinct for their execution and consequences. Wake had always disturbed her. She didn’t feel comfortable with a man whose desire for influence was so apparent but whose sexual and emotional needs were so well-masked.

Wake was a lifelong bachelor, with no known lovers of either gender. He’d been around so long, the chances were he hadn’t been security-vetted in decades. He could be hiding some secret shame that would leave him open to blackmail. He might equally well be asexual, of course, repelled by the thought of bodily contact. But a repressed sexuality was almost as dangerous as a perverted one.

So, what had he been doing for kicks? Dame Agatha knew she’d have to be careful. Wake was still connected all the way to the top. If he caught wind of any investigation, all hell would break loose. So she kept it discreet. A team had been dispatched to keep an eye on Wake’s home, his movements, and any contacts he made. She’d been summoned to the room where the operation was being controlled at around half-past twelve. Now she was leaning over a workstation, one hand on the tabletop, the other on the back of a chair. One of her agents was sitting there, running the communications system.

A voice came over the speakerphone:

“We have two males entering the building, both white, smartly dressed. One looks to be in his fifties, gray hair, florid complexion. The other is younger, probably late thirties, short-cropped hair, carrying a briefcase. We have pictures. Mark’s just setting up the link now, should be sending them through to you any second.”

Two grainy photographs, shot long distance through a telephoto lens, appeared on the computer screen at the center of the workstation.

“I know one of them,” said Dame Agatha. “Lord Crispin Malgrave, the chairman and major shareholder of Malgrave and Company. He’s a steward of the Jockey Club, receives regular invitations to the royal box at Ascot, and has donated at least five million to the Conservative Party.”

“You’re very well-informed, Agatha,” said her deputy, Pearson Chalmers, who was standing next to her, watching the same screen.

“I should be,” she replied. “The last time Lord Malgrave joined the royal family at Ascot, he had lunch beforehand in Windsor Castle. I was sitting next to him.”

“My, you do move in high circles.”

“Not often. But Lord Crispin lives in them. Now, who’s the man with him?”

“A bodyguard?” suggested Chalmers. “He has that military look.”

“Possibly.” Dame Agatha cast a skeptical eye over the figure on the screen. “But would a bodyguard carry a briefcase? Put him through the system. See if his face jogs the computer’s memory.”

She pressed a button on the workstation and spoke into a microphone. “Keep watching. Await further orders. Good work so far.”

Dame Agatha cut the conversation short with her field agents. She was thinking about the military man standing at Wake’s front door. Was this the killer Grantham had mentioned, coming back to England on the trail of his lost girl? It was a very long shot indeed, but if Wake really was involved, then the killer would certainly want to talk to him. But where did Lord Malgrave fit in? Dame Agatha decided to wait awhile and see if she could get to the mystery man without offending too many senior members of the British establishment.

She turned back to Pearson Chalmers. “You’d better call Jack Grantham at SIS. Tell him we may have something for him. If there’s an interrogation, he’ll want to sit in.”

Chalmers raised an eyebrow. “I’m all for interservice cooperation, but isn’t that taking it a bit far?”

Dame Agatha smiled. “No. We’ve both got our necks on the line. This time, for once, we’d better stick together.”

She pressed the button again and spoke to her agents in the field. “When Sir Perceval Wake’s visitors leave, I want a tail put on Lord Malgrave. But make it discreet. As for the other man, lift him and bring him back here. I’d like a word with our mystery guest.”

The first things Carver noticed were the photographs. On the bookshelves, on the mantelpiece, a couple on the desk itself — everywhere pictures of the man whose room this was. He was sharing a joke with Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, standing in a dinner jacket next to an evening-gowned Margaret Thatcher; he was drinking cocktails with JFK and Jackie by the pool at Hyannis Port, admiring the steaks on the Bush barbecue at Kennebunkport. There were dedications to “My good friend Percy” from Richard Nixon and, “
Mon cher Percéval”
from General Charles de Gaulle. There was even a greeting in Cyrillic script on a picture of the old Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev.

This man didn’t name-drop. He name-bombed.

Then Carver spotted a picture on a cabinet behind the desk. It must have been taken at a royal gala. The old man was standing in a reception line. He was talking to the guest of honor. She was wearing a long blue dress, and a diamond tiara was pinned in her feathered blond hair. The inscription at the bottom, written in a rounded, girlish hand, read: “Thank you so much for those wise words of advice!” The “so” had been underlined. Twice.

Unbelievable. The old boy had just had the princess killed, but he still wanted the world to know that they’d been pals.

Perhaps he thought they still were. Sir Perceval Wake struck Carver as the kind of man who believes that reality is whatever he says it is, whose lies are convincing because he genuinely believes them to be true. He still believed, for example, that he could call the shots. His tame commander was bobbing about in the Channel with his head blown away. His troops were filling up the morgues of Paris. The Russians clearly reckoned they had him under control. But in Wake’s mind, he was the chairman, and he was still the boss.

It still worked, for some people. When they’d arrived, a secretary had told Malgrave that the chairman wanted to see Carver alone. He’d been asked to wait outside the office. Malgrave had obeyed at once. If anything, he’d looked relieved.

Carver was asked to leave his case and gun with the secretary. He complied, then went into the office.

“You’ve got nerve coming here, Carver,” Wake said, as if his arrogance alone were enough to keep a killer at bay.

“Who’s the Russian?” asked Carver.

“Which particular Russian did you have in mind? As you can see” — Wake waved an arm airily at the walls — “I’ve known quite a few.”

“Really?” said Carver, walking up to a bookshelf and peering at the pictures in the silver, wood, and leather frames. “Which ones are the Russians, then?”

“Well,” said Wake, “let’s see now.” He rose from behind the desk and came over to where Carver was standing. He searched among the rows of happy snapshots. “Ah yes, that’s Nikita Khrush—”

Carver swung around to face Wake and jabbed the first and middle fingers of his right hand into the old man’s eyes, as hard and fast as the fangs of a snake. The old man yelped and bent double, his head in his hands. Carver grabbed Wake’s jaw and pulled it upward till their eyes met. He kept his grip tight and repeated, “Who’s the Russian?”

Wake looked up at him, blinking back tears. “Can’t tell you,” he said. “Just can’t…”

Carver didn’t have time to waste. He wrapped his right arm around Wake’s neck, standing behind him, his mouth by Wake’s right ear, the two men clasped in a warped intimacy. Then he started tightening.

“Who’s… the… Russian?” he hissed.

Wake’s hands flapped helplessly. His head rocked back and forth and his chest heaved as he fought for air. It occurred to Carver that he might be going too far. The old man’s heart might give out before he could talk. When he heard a croaking sound in Wake’s throat, he eased his arm a fraction. Wake took a ragged breath.

“Zhukovski,” he gasped. “Yuri Zhukovksi.”

“Who’s he?”

“One of the oligarchs, the men who own Russia. He’s got paper mills, aluminum smelters, armaments factories, assets everywhere.”

Carver frowned, “I thought the state still controlled all weapons manufacturing.”

“It does. But Zhukovski is a middleman. He finds buyers, collects payments in dollars, and passes it on to the Kremlin in rubles, taking a cut along the way.”

“Nice business.”

“That’s not all,” said Wake, relishing the small sense of control that his knowledge provided. “Back in Soviet times, many factories had parallel, black-market production lines, controlled by local party chiefs and gangsters. Those lines still exist. The armaments industry is no exception.”

“And oligarchs like Zhukovski have taken over from the gangsters?”

Wake attempted a superior, if somewhat battered smile. “Do you seriously think there’s a difference?”

“But what’s his interest in the princess?”

“You’re a bright young man, you work that out. He was prepared to pay millions to get rid of her. It was his idea.”

“And you agreed. Why?”

“Long story, goes right back to the old days…. I had no choice….”

Carver pulled his arm away from Wake’s throat, then shoved him back against the bookcase, pinning him there. “What exactly did Zhukovski do in the old days, then?” he asked.

“He worked for the State.”

“Everyone worked for the State. That’s what communism meant. What part of the State?’

Wake grimaced. “Dzerzhinsky Square.”

Carver understood. Dzerzhinsky Square was the headquarters of the KGB. So Zhukovski’s power over Wake went all the way back to the cold war days. The old bastard had probably been playing for the other side, just another one of Britain’s band of upper-class traitors. Zhukovski would have known and used the information as leverage. But that was ancient history. Carver had more important issues to deal with in the here and now.

“Has he got the girl?”

“I believe so.”

“Well, get on the phone and call him for me, then.”

Carver stepped back. Wake pushed himself away from the bookcase. It took him a second or two to find his balance, then he staggered back to his desk. He collapsed into his chair.

“You don’t believe in social niceties, do you?”

“Not when I’m working. Not when there are lives at stake.”

“You think you can actually save that girl? Ha!” The laugh came out as a bitter croak. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with.”

“Nor does he. Start dialing.”

Wake picked up his telephone and spoke to his secretary, trying to keep his breathing even and the pain out of his voice. “Please get me Mr. Zhukovski. I suggest you try his mobile number first.”

A few seconds later, the telephone rang. Wake answered it. He put on a fine performance. “Well,” thought Carver, “the chairman was hardly going to let this paymaster know that his whole operation was falling apart.”

“Yuri, my dear chap…. Yes, it’s good to speak to you too. I have someone here who wants to talk to you. His name is Samuel Carver.”