The Third Woman. Mark Burnell
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Banque Damiani. Under the circumstances in which she might want access to the box, carrying a key – or even collecting a key – might not be possible.
Inside the box was Helen Graham; a thirty-one-year-old Canadian, born in Vancouver, now living in Chicago. Passport, identity card, driving licence, credit-cards, euros, dollars, a pair of glasses, a small case with two sets of coloured contact lenses (grey), a cheap plastic wallet containing thirteen family snapshots, and an insulin pen. Containing, instead of insulin, a strain of engineered tetrodotoxin, a substance found naturally in puffer fish, designed to act instantly by closing down the sodium channels in the nerves, thus rendering them useless, leading to death by paralysis of the breathing muscles.
Helen Graham was a member of the Magnificent Seven. She was one of five exit identities Stephanie had spread across Europe. The others were in Frankfurt, Valencia, Bratislava and Trondheim. Each was held in a safe-deposit box in an institution where the means of access was carried solely in the memory. Beyond Europe, there were versions of her in Baltimore and Osaka.
Over the years, these identities had been rotated. New ones were established, old ones destroyed, nearly always intact. This was only the third time she’d had to activate one. The last time had been in Helsinki and that had been almost four years ago. Since then, she’d only interfered with the identities once. Two months after the introduction of the euro, she’d visited all the European safe-deposit boxes to swap bundles of condemned deutschmarks and francs for pristine euro notes.
The Magnificent Seven had been established as an insurance policy. Created by Jacob Furst’s protégé, Cyril Bradfield, without the knowledge of her former masters, their existence had, until now, been more of an expensive comfort than a practical necessity.
The door opened and a man in a dark grey double-breasted suit entered, holding in his left hand a leather clipboard. Olive-skinned, black hair flecked with silver at the temples, he stood an inch shorter than Stephanie.
In clipped German, clearly not his first language, he said, ‘Welcome. A pleasure to see you again.’
Stephanie had never seen him before. He was speaking German because she was Stephanie Schneider, although no one at the bank was likely to mention the name in conversation with her.
‘I’m Pierre Damiani. Sadly, my uncle is abroad this week. He will be upset to have missed you.’
She doubted that. She hadn’t met him, either.
‘I hope I can be of some assistance to you. Sophie told me why you are here. Before we proceed, I would just like to take this opportunity to say that this bank and my family regard the interests of our esteemed customers as absolutely sacrosanct.’
Said with conviction, nothing obsequious about it.
‘I don’t doubt that,’ she replied.
He nodded curtly, then gave her the leather clipboard. On it was a cream-coloured card with the bank’s name and crest embossed across the top. Beneath, there were three boxes for the numbers and password.
‘You are familiar with the procedure?’
‘I am.’
‘Please read the sheet below.’
Stephanie lifted the card. The message was handwritten in blue ink: Your safe-deposit box has been contaminated. The front of this building is being monitored. Your appearance here has already been reported. In a moment, I will leave the room. Please do not go until then. Take the door on the opposite side of the room to the one I use. At the far end of the passage, there is a fire-exit. It’s unlocked. Our cameras are recording us – I hope you understand – so could you sign the bottom of the declaration form then fill out the card, as normal. Please understand that it is not safe for us to talk. With our sincerest apologies, your faithful servants, Banque Damiani & the Damiani family.
Ten-forty. The easyInternetCafé on boulevard de Sébastopol was busy. Stephanie settled herself at her terminal and sent the same message to three different addresses.
> Oscar. Need to speak. CRV/13. P.
She’d followed Pierre Damiani’s escape route without a problem. What more could they have done for her? Our cameras are recording us – I hope you understand. A plea more than anything else, meaning perhaps: our cameras are recording us … and who can say who will see this? Some entity with powers to sequestrate such recordings?
Yesterday she’d had security in numbers: Stephanie, Petra, Marianne, the Magnificent Seven. Now she was down to one. But which one? Or was it worse than that? Perhaps she was no one at all.
Generally, the deeper the crisis, the deeper she withdrew into Petra. Which fuelled the contradiction at the heart of her; Stephanie was only ever extraordinary as Petra and the more extraordinary Petra was, the more Stephanie resented it. Now, however, Petra seemed marginalized, her confidence faltering.
Helen Graham was useless to her now. That meant the rest of her Magnificent Seven were contaminated by association. Which prompted an unpleasant thought: Cyril Bradfield was the only other person who’d been aware of their existence. She tried to think who might have penetrated their secret. And, more worryingly, how. Through Bradfield himself? What other way could there be? The possibility made her nauseous. Magenta House had to be the prime candidate. Which was faintly ironic, since the identities were designed to protect her from them.
Magenta House was the organization for whom she’d once worked. Based in London, if an entity that doesn’t exist can be based anywhere, it had no official title; Magenta House was the nickname used by those on the inside. Created to operate beyond the law, it had never bothered to recognize the law. In that sense, it was a logical concept, especially if one accepted that there were some threats that could not be countered legally. Somebody has to work in the sewers, Stephanie. That’s why people like you exist.
They’d created her, they’d tried to control her and, in the end, they’d tried to kill her. Which, paradoxically, made them unlikely candidates now. They’d let her go. There had been a change. One era had ended, another had begun, and Petra had been consigned to history.
Nothing that had happened in the last twenty-four hours bore any trace of Magenta House. They shied away from spectaculars. They didn’t plant bombs in public places. Instead, they liquidated the kind of people who did. Quietly, clinically, leaving no trace, and sometimes no body. They deleted people from existence. If they’d wanted to kill her and they’d discovered where she was, they wouldn’t have bothered luring her to Paris.
On the screen, a reply directed her to a quiet confessional in the ether.
> Hello Oscar.
> Petra. Bored already?
The cursor was winking at her, teasing her.
> I’m in Paris.
> Not a good choice for a vacation at the moment.
> Especially not in Sentier.
> You were there?
> Yes. Has anybody been looking for me?
> You’re always in demand.
> I need help, Oscar. I’m running blind.
There was a long pause and Stephanie knew why. This was the first time Stern had encountered Petra in trouble.
> What do you need?
> Something. Anything.
> Give me two hours. We can meet here again.
She terminated the connection. Out on the street she buttoned her denim jacket to the throat and pressed her hands into the pockets. Which was where her fingers came into contact with the keys that Adler had given her. In the other pocket was Marianne Bernard’s mobile phone. She cursed herself for not dumping it earlier; when a mobile phone was switched on, it was a moving beacon. But she’d heard a rumour that it was now possible to track a mobile phone when it was switched off. She dropped the handset into the first bin she