Alix pulled her arm away and stopped walking. “For God’s sake, isn’t it obvious? The same thing I always did. My clients were Russian, very rich, very powerful. Sometimes I was more like a girlfriend, staying with the same man for months at a time.”

Carver wanted to stop. He knew there was nothing to be gained by digging deeper. But he couldn’t help himself. “Like that guy in the club, with the two blonds?” he added, and now there was an edge to the question.

Alix looked at him with the sort of acid contempt he had not seen since that first night in Paris. “Yes, like Platon. Before those girls it was me sitting next to him in clubs, laughing at his jokes, letting his hands grab my tits, going down on him, fucking him. Okay? Are you satisfied now? Or would you like me to be humiliated a little more?”

“No, I get the picture.”

“Do you? Do you understand what it is to be a woman in Moscow today? There is no law, no security. The choice is not between a good life or a bad one, it is between surviving or dying. I did what it took to, as you say, get the job done. Then Kursk came to me, talking about a job in Paris, saying he needed a woman. I thought maybe there was a chance to escape and start again, a new life.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

There was real pain on her face now, anger giving way to resignation. “How could I tell you the whole truth? I invented my respectable lover and my respectable job because I hoped maybe you would respect me a bit more. But I lied. I am not respectable. Are you happy now?”

Carver took her shoulders in his hands. “Alix, I don’t give a damn whether you’re ‘respectable.’ Of all the people in the world, I’ve got the least right to judge you. I just want to know what’s true.”

She looked up at him. “Does it matter? Can it ever be any different than this, between you and me?”

They were all talked out now, nothing left to say as they walked up the hill, lost in their own thoughts.

From the Swisscom van, Girgori Kursk saw them come up the final block. Alexandra Petrova wore a brown wig and clothes he’d never seen on her before, but it made no difference. He’d seen her in so many wigs, so many disguises, he could see right past them, recognize her purely from the set of her body and the way she walked.

He smiled when he saw the man next to her. The Englishman had hurt Kursk’s body and his pride alike. He had let himself get suckered into a high-explosive trap, and though he hadn’t let a hint of discomfort or vulnerability show to his men, every breath he took sent a sharp pain stabbing into his cracked and bruised ribs. Now he was going to enjoy his revenge.

He called Dimitrov, who’d taken his place in the Irish pub, and the two other men he’d left near Carver’s apartment. His message was the same. “They’re here. Be ready for action. And remember, we take them both alive.”

A door opened a fraction, throwing a sliver of blue white neon light across the charcoal gray cobblestones.

“Psst! Pablo! Come inside!”

Carver was dragged from his introspection like a man being woken from a deep sleep. He looked around and saw the source of the voice.

“Not tonight, Freddy. Sorry, mate, we’re not in the mood.”

“Just come inside. This is serious!”

The urgency in Freddy’s voice made Carver stop. He glanced at Alix but saw no response from her, one way or the other. “What is it?”

They walked past several outside tables into the little, low-ceilinged café. There was one other person in the place, an old man hunched over a bowl of minestrone. Carver nodded in his direction: “Bonsoir, Karl, ça va?” The old man grunted a noncommittal reply and returned to his soup. “He’s in here every evening, last customer of the night, always a bowl of minestrone,” said Carver, though Alix wasn’t paying any attention.

He turned back to Freddy. “What’s the problem?”

Freddy gave the serving counter a flick with the cloth he kept tucked into his white apron. “No problem, not yet. But later, I don’t know. There are people looking for you, Pablo. First a Frenchman: He came here this morning saying he was working for the federal interior ministry. Obviously a lie. He was a cop of some kind, I’m sure. Then an English-woman, very polite, charming, but asking questions.”

“Describe her.”

“Typical English, you know. Not so chic, not elegant, but quite attractive.”

“Hair? Clothes?”

“Er, let me see…” Freddy frowned. “Okay, she had pale brown hair, like a mouse. And she was wearing a skirt with some kind of pattern on it, flowers maybe.”

Carver nodded. “She’s sitting about fifty meters back down the road in a blue Opel Vectra. There’s a man with her. When we walked by she grabbed his hand and looked in his eyes, pretending to be lovers. What did she want to know?”

“She spoke to Jean-Louis when my back was turned. He told her about the other men too.”

“What other men?”

“I don’t know. I did not see them. But Jean-Louis saw some men get out of a black car this afternoon. Then the car went away, but not all of the men were in it. They may still be around.”

“How many men were there?”

“I don’t know. Wait a moment.” He walked to one side of the room, opened a door, and poked his head through. “Jean-Louis!”

A child’s voice came from an upstairs room. “Oui, Papa?”

“Come here, son.”

There was a scurrying of footsteps down a staircase, then a small bundle of energy rocketed into the room, saw Carver, and shrieked, “Pablo!”

His father glowered at him, trying to look stern. “Tell Monsieur Pablo what you saw this afternoon. You know, the funny men.”

“The ones the English lady asked me about?”

“Yes, them.”

“There were three of them, or maybe four. They looked funny. They had big coats on, even though it was nice and warm outside.”

Carver got down on his haunches to look Jean-Louis in the eye. “Could you see if they were carrying anything under their coats?”

“No, they were all buttoned up. They must have been boiling.”

“Yes, they must. But thank you, that’s very useful. Now, did you see where they went?”

The child nodded. “Some went toward your house. But some didn’t. I don’t know what happened to them. I had to come in because Maman said it was time for my dinner.”

“Well, don’t you worry. You did very well. I think you could become a famous detective one day. Don’t you agree, Freddy?”

Freddy looked shocked. “My son? A flic? That’s not funny, Pablo.” He crossed himself in mock horror, then turned to his son. “Okay, now, back up to bed. Come on, up you go. I’ll be up soon to read you a story. Go!”

Carver watched the boy scamper from the room, then turned back to Freddy.

“There’s a Swisscom van up the street, on the other side of the road. How long has that been here?”

Freddy gave an exasperated sigh. “Merde! How would I know that? Truly, Pablo, you are no better than a cop yourself.”

“I’m sorry, but this could be important. Just try to remember back earlier in the day, when you went out to serve people at the tables. Was the van there this morning? Were there telephone engineers doing work anywhere?”

Freddy thought for a moment, his eyes closed. “No, there was no van there, no engineers. It must have arrived late in the day.”

“So either there’s been some last-minute phone crisis, or it’s got nothing to do with Swisscom. We’ve got to assume it’s the latter. So now we’ve got the Frenchman, the English-woman and her pal in the car, and a gang of men in big coats who used to have a black car that’s now disappeared, and a van’s arrived. And it doesn’t look like any of them have got anything to do with the others. Jesus…”

Alix looked at him. “So now what?”