always the fail-safe option.’
‘Both men?’
‘There would be no other way to be sure.’
‘Cute.’
‘Believe me, the world wouldn’t miss either of them.’
‘Which makes it okay?’
‘If you spared yourself the pretence of a conscience, you’d see that it makes it better.’
Stephanie couldn’t be bothered to argue the point. ‘Could Koba have killed Marshall and Rogachev?’
Alexander shot her a withering look. ‘I don’t know. You tell me.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
He looked back at the images of the dead men on the screen. ‘There was one assassin, two shots per victim. Neither had time to react. In the panic that followed, the assassin escaped easily. There were witnesses but their accounts varied wildly. It was raining hard at the time. It was a dark afternoon. The killer was dressed in black or blue or grey, and wearing some kind of dark jacket with a hood to obscure the face. An anorak, maybe. There might have been an umbrella for extra cover. Physically, we have almost nothing to go on. A slim build, between five foot six and six foot tall – let’s say five foot nine, for the sake of argument. In other words, about your height.’
With the conference room lights dimmed, part of his face was hidden in shadow. She could see the flickering screens reflected on his eyeballs.
‘Might have been a man.’ He held her gaze completely. ‘Could have been a woman.’ Alexander leaned into a cone of pale light. ‘Is any of this starting to sound familiar?’
Stephanie was incredulous. ‘You think I had something to do with this?’
‘There’s a rumour going around …’
‘You’re out of your mind.’
‘Really?’
‘If you provided me with the date, I could probably tell you.’
‘Let me guess. Masson would vouch for you. I was with her the night before and the night after. But from where you live, Paris is a day trip.’
‘You’re serious?’
‘Always.’
‘You can’t prove it, though, can you?’
Alexander’s smile was cold. ‘I don’t need to. You’re the one with something to prove.’
The hijack at Malta was my last job for Magenta House. In the chaos of its aftermath, I vanished. That should have been it. Instead, for the next two and a half years, I was Petra Reuter, more than I ever was before. Life imitated art and I became the professional assassin.
Today, sitting in this room, I can look at the way Magenta House originally transformed me into Petra Reuter and I can understand that process, even though I’m repelled by it. What I don’t understand is why I chose to embrace her so completely once I was free of her. Alexander doesn’t understand it, either. Which is why he’s wondering whether I killed Oleg Rogachev and James Marshall. Two years ago, I wouldn’t have hesitated, as long as the contract was right. So why not now?
I can see where this is leading. I need to find the culprit in order to prove that it’s not me. Although Alexander says he needs Koba and the disk, what he really wants is the Parisian assassin. He craves revenge because he feels responsible for Marshall’s death and this is the only way he can deal with that. Somebody else must pay. A life for a life. That’s what Magenta House trades in.
‘You chose to learn Russian. Why?’
‘For professional reasons. I was led to believe there’d be plenty of work for me – for Petra – in Russia. Or at least from Russian criminals.’
‘And was there?’
‘Actually, no. I never took a contract from a Russian, although I came into contact with quite a few.’
‘Where?’
‘Serbia, Cyprus, Latvia. In Paris and Zurich, too.’
‘Who led you to believe that learning Russian might be a good idea?’
‘Stern.’
‘You were in contact with Stern?’
The surprise in his voice was, itself, a surprise to Stephanie. ‘Yes.’
‘Do you know who Stern is?’
‘Of course not. That’s the whole point of him.’
Stern, the information broker. A man who existed only in the ether of the Internet, trading secrets and rumours for cash. Some said he was Swiss, others thought he was German. Or Austrian. Or even American. Like Alexander, a man with no first name. Or perhaps with several. Stephanie had always called him Oscar when they communicated. It had been his suggestion but she’d never believed that was his real name. He might once have been a spy although no one could agree for whom. Others said he’d been a journalist, or a mercenary. Stephanie had heard a theory that Stern didn’t exist at all, that he was a collection of people. Or perhaps a single woman.
‘Tell me about him.’
‘After Malta, I scanned all the old websites looking for messages for Petra. I didn’t expect to find anything but there he was, casting into the dark. I replied and we began to correspond, both of us cautious at first. Eventually, he told me he had work for me, if I was interested.’
‘How did your relationship evolve?’
‘We came to an arrangement. I agreed to let him act on my behalf. Essentially, he became my agent. It worked well because it meant I never met the client face-to-face. And no one ever met Stern. Everyone’s anonymity was protected. Stern used to joke that it was a perfect example of practical e-commerce. He said the Internet was invented for people like us.’
‘Sounds as though you two were made for each other.’
‘It was a relationship with no downside.’
‘You paid him, I suppose?’
‘He took fifteen per cent of the fees he negotiated on my behalf. On top of that, he offered other services, which I bought separately.’
‘Such as?’
‘Information, general or specific. Or reliable contacts in strange cities. That kind of thing.’
‘You never worried about that?’
‘Not unduly. If anything happened to me, he stood to lose money. And Stern hates to lose money.’
‘Don’t we all?’
His tone took her by surprise, so she stayed silent.
‘You
