Chapter 7
The Irregular Auditor
On the fourth floor of Interpol's headquarters in Lyon, a whiteboard held six photographs and a lot of string.
"I don't like the string," said Idris Kamara.
"It's what they do on television," said Tess Marchand. She was twenty-seven, small and quick, and spoke in short bursts like a telegram.
She pointed at a map. "Vienna, nine years ago. A hotel night watchman says a man in a dark coat walked past him at two in the morning and said, 'Good evening. David Morgan. I'm afraid I'm robbing you.' The guard thought it was a fire drill. Then Marseille, a customs boss. Zurich, a private banker. Lisbon. And Istanbul." She gave a short laugh. "Ninety-four million, wired out of Doruk's own company to a survivors' fund. Doruk has been in hospital since Thursday. And his chief of staff has resigned."
She handed him a faxed letter from Selin Aydın. He read the last paragraph.
The man who took the key was in my custody for forty minutes. I looked at his hands for a full minute. He did not look at me as a thief looks at a policewoman. He looked at me as though he were sorry. I should like to meet him again, in a room, with a table. I should like to ask him how he knew.
He folded it into his pocket. "What have you found that the newspapers haven't?"
Tess lifted four plastic sleeves from a table. Each held a white card. They had warmed them, as he suggested, and a number rose on each.
AF-0411 — MRS. AF-0416 — ZRH. AF-0417 — LIS. AF-0431 — IST.
"A number and a place," she said. "I ran AF against everything. I found an angling society in Leeds."
"It's not an organisation. I think it's a prefix. A small, discreet firm that managed money for men who preferred not to be seen to own it would give each client a reference, and put its own initials at the start." He laid a finger on the card. "He isn't leaving us account numbers. He's leaving us client numbers. Of the men he's robbed. They all belong to one firm."
Tess stared. "Why would he do that?"
"I don't know. I think that's the question."
Deputy Director Marcus Lindqvist's office had a view of the river and a model of a ketch on the sill. He was sixty-one, pink and white-haired, and he had taken Idris on fifteen years ago, when no one else would have him. He pushed over a tin of Swedish ginger biscuits.
Idris told him everything: the cards, the ink, the numbers, the Return, and the private security firm that had arrived within thirty hours.
"Halyard," said Lindqvist, raising his eyebrows. "Gideon Strake. A capable man. I'd stay on friendly terms. But not too friendly."
"I intend to."
"The Director is nervous. Five governments, and a thief who's apparently on the side of the angels. They don't know whether to arrest him or give him a medal." His blue eyes were kind. "Take a small team. You'll report to me alone. A thing like this leaks. I'd like to be told everything, Idris, as you find it. I'll handle the politics. What shall we call it?"
Idris thought of the white cards warming in his palm. "Blank Card."
"Operation Blank Card." Lindqvist wrote it on a form. "I like it. It sounds like nothing at all."
He was home at half past seven. Their flat on the Croix-Rousse hill smelled of cumin and floor wax. From the other room, a high voice recited the seven times table.
"Mama, Baba's home."
"I can hear him breathing," said his wife Yasmin, coming out of the kitchen in an apron. She was a paediatrician, tall and brisk, in a saffron headscarf. "There's soup."
"There is always soup."
"It's winter, Idris. It's the law. Amina has a request. I advise you to say yes."
His daughter was eight, with two plaits, standing in the middle of the rug like a diplomat. "Baba. Can I ask you something, and you don't say 'we'll see'? Can you do a trick? A magic one, like a coin. Ayesha's uncle does a coin. It comes out of her ear. He's a dentist."
"I'm an accountant, my love."
"But you're catching a magician! So you must know how they do it."
It was hard to argue with. He sat on the floor and took a one-euro coin from his pocket. He closed his hand over it and made a solemn gesture. He opened it. The coin was exactly where it had been.
"You didn't do anything."
"It was extremely difficult. The trick is to make people look at the other hand. And I've never been able to find the other hand."
Amina looked at him a long minute. Then she sat in his lap, which she hadn't done for a year, and patted his knee.
"It's okay," she said. "You can practise."
Tess rang at ten.
"Sir, I've been going through the money. The Return. It's the cleanest thing I've seen all year, so I followed it backwards. In every country the money goes back within forty-eight hours, to the exact people it was taken from. In Portugal, the two hundred and six households. In Turkey, the survivors' families. And there's a small deduction, never more than four per cent, for costs, and it's itemised. Down to the train tickets. Somebody has kept a ledger, and it reconciles." Her voice shook slightly. "It's not what a thief does. It's what an accountant does. It's what you'd do."
On the kitchen table lay a blank card. It had warmed under his thumb, and the faint brown figures AF-0417 — LIS were fading again.
"Yes," said Idris. "I know."
"So what is he?"
Through the wall, his wife was putting a child to bed. He listened to the low murmur and the high one, the endless argument about socks.
"I think we've been looking for the wrong kind of man," he said. "I think we aren't chasing a thief at all. I think we're being followed, very politely, by the most irregular auditor in the world."