The Third Woman. Mark Burnell

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      ‘Sorry. I didn’t know.’

      ‘I’m surprised. All that travel, all those hotels. This can’t be your first time.’

      ‘My first time?’

      ‘Being approached. In a bar. By a woman.’

      His smile was the wry badge of the world-weary. ‘I guess that depends on where you’re going with this.’

      Stephanie smiled too. ‘That’s very neat.’

      ‘You didn’t answer the question.’

      ‘Maybe this is what I do. Approach strange men in hotel bars.’

      ‘I doubt it.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘You don’t have the look.’

      ‘What look’s that?’

      He sipped some vodka. ‘Desperate predatory allure.’

      Stephanie arched an eyebrow. ‘Desperate predatory allure? I like that. But it puts you at risk of sounding like an expert.’

      ‘Well, you’re right, of course. I’ve been in many bars. There have been many … situations. And they never fail to disappoint.’

      ‘No value for money?’

      ‘I quit before it gets to that.’

      ‘Naturally.’

      ‘You don’t believe me?’

      ‘Well, I’m not sure. I wouldn’t expect you to admit it.’

      He took his time, sizing her up, deciding about her. ‘You always this direct?’

      ‘Only with complete strangers.’

      ‘Because you can be, right?’

      ‘Yes. Liberating, isn’t it?’

      He nodded, comfortable with her; neither threatened, nor encouraged. She hoped he wouldn’t spoil it by saying something crass.

      ‘I guess that’s the game we’re playing.’ He rolled his glass a little, watching the oily liquid swirl. ‘Strange how that works, though. That you can say anything to someone you’ve never met before. The kind of things you wouldn’t say to someone you know.’

      ‘It only works when you think you won’t see them again.’

      ‘Like now?’

      ‘Yes. Like now.’

      Newman said, ‘Scheherazade.’

      ‘What?’

      ‘I’m sorry. You’re going to have to excuse me.’

      Stephanie turned round. A woman had appeared on the far side of the bar. She had beautiful thick black hair. A dark, liquid complexion set off the gold choker at her throat. Slender with curves, she wasn’t tall, perhaps only five-four, but she had poise and presence. Heads were turning.

      ‘Your date?’ Stephanie asked.

      How typical, she thought, that she should be the one to be crass. Newman seemed to find it amusing.

      ‘It’s been a pleasure, Claudia. A rare pleasure.’

      And then he was gone. Stephanie looked at the woman again. She recognized the face but couldn’t remember her name; high cheekbones, large dark eyes, a wide mouth, which now split into a smile, as Newman crossed the floor to meet her.

      The phone behind the bar began to ring.

      Scheherazade who?

      They embraced, his hand staying on her arm. She glanced at Stephanie then whispered something to him. They laughed and then settled on the only spare sofa.

      ‘Excusez-moi …’

      She turned round. The bartender was holding the phone for her. She took it and pressed the receiver to her ear. Over the crackle of bad reception, she heard an engine. Car horns blared in the background. ‘Yes?’

      ‘This is Fyodor Medvedev.’ His American accent was clumsy, words shunting into one another like old rail wagons in a verbal siding. ‘I’m sorry to be late. I’m in traffic. Not moving.’

      ‘At least I know you’re in Paris.’

      He didn’t get it. ‘I will be at hotel in ten minutes. Mr Golitsyn wants to see you now. Is okay?’

      ‘Sure.’

      ‘Room 41. Emile Wolf suite. He waits for you.’

      As she handed the phone back to the bartender, the name came to her. Scheherazade Zahani. A favourite of Paris-Match and the gossip columns. Usually seen at the opera, or stepping out of the latest restaurant, or on the deck of her one-hundred-metre yacht at Cap d’Antibes.

      The daughter of a rich arms-dealer, she’d married a Saudi oil billionaire. Stephanie had forgotten his name but remembered that he’d been in his sixties. A student at Princeton, highly academic, very beautiful, Zahani had only been twenty-two or twenty-three. There had been a lot of carping comment. Fifteen years later, following her husband’s death in Switzerland, Zahani had moved to Paris, several billion dollars richer. Since then, the French press had attempted to link the grieving widow with every eligible Frenchman over thirty-five. If she was bored by the facile coverage she received, she never let it show. She seemed content to be seen in public with potential suitors but they rarely lasted more than a couple of outings. There had been no affairs, no scandal.

      It was only in the last five years that her business acumen had become widely acknowledged. Now she was regarded as one of the shrewdest investors in France. As Stephanie watched Scheherazade Zahani and Robert Newman, she wondered whether they were discussing the only thing she knew they had in common.

      Oil.

      I know something’s wrong the moment I enter Leonid Golitsyn’s suite on the fourth floor. I knocked on the door – there was no bell – but got no reply. There are no Ving cards here either, so I tried the handle and the door opened.

      Golitsyn is in the bedroom, lying on the floor at the foot of the bed. A large Thomson TV throws flickering light over his body. A game show is on, the volume high, amplified laughter and applause. A large maroon flower has blossomed across his chest. Blood is seeping into the carpet beneath him. There are drops of it on his face, like some glossy pox.

      He blinks.

      I circle the room slowly and silently, then check the bathroom. The second body is in the bathtub, one trousered leg dangling over the lip. On the floor is a gun. I pick it up, a Smith & Wesson Sigma .40, a synthetics-only weapon, the frame constructed from a high-strength polymer. It hasn’t been fired recently.

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