7 Gunwalloe
Gunwalloe
Gabriel waited until morning to pack a bag. He left it in the entrance hall of the cottage, then made the hour-long drive
around Mount’s Bay to Gunwalloe, a tiny hamlet on the western side of the Lizard Peninsula. He parked the Range Rover along
the stretch of road that passed for the village high street—it had neither a name nor a numeric designation—and purchased
the London papers at the Corner Market, which wasn’t on a corner at all. Next door was one of Cornwall’s better bakeries.
The proprietor, a spherical woman named Vera Hobbs, greeted him warmly.
“And what brings you back to Gunwalloe, Mr. Allon?”
“A craving for one of your famous Cornish pasties.”
“What a coincidence. Your old friend told me the same thing.” Her eyes settled briefly on the man sitting alone at a table
against the window. His name was Timothy Peel. He wore a dark suit of moderate quality and an open-necked dress shirt. There
was no mistaking him for anything other than what he was, a detective for the Devon and Cornwall Police. “You’re not in any
trouble, I hope.”
“None beyond the usual, Vera.”
“Devil,” she whispered.
“I’ve been called worse.”
“Not by me, Mr. Allon. I always adored you. Even when you were pretending to be that rather unpleasant Italian fellow. His name escapes me.”
“Me too,” quipped Gabriel.
Vera Hobbs plucked a square of tissue paper from the dispenser. “Beef, chicken, or veggie, my long-lost love?”
“How’s the chicken today?”
“I’m offended you would ask.”
“And might I trouble you for a cup of tea as well?”
“For you, my prince, it would be no trouble at all. Have a seat. I won’t be but a minute.”
Gabriel turned away from the counter and sat down with Timothy Peel. The detective had the face of Michelangelo’s David and
looked younger than his thirty-six years. He consulted his wristwatch at length, as though to indicate that Gabriel was late,
then directed a policeman’s wary gaze toward the luxury sport-utility vehicle parked on the opposite side of the road.
“Nice sled,” he remarked. “Almost as nice as your new sailboat.”
“Am I the target of an investigation, DS Peel?”
“I’m a detective inspector now, remember?” Peel had received the promotion for his role in the apprehension of a serial killer
whom the newspapers had christened the Chopper. Never mind that it was Gabriel who had put two and two together. “And no,
Mr. Allon, you are not the target of an investigation.”
“I’m relieved to hear that. But how did you know about the Beneteau?”
“I was investigating a robbery at a shop in Wharf Road, and a lovely new sailing vessel in the harbor caught my eye. Naturally
I was curious as to the identity of its owner.”
“Don’t you need a court order for that sort of thing?”
“My inquiry was unofficial in nature.”
“Who ratted me out?”
“It was Ronnie Mills.”
President of the local sailing club and keeper of the hard-to-come-by moorings in Penzance Harbor. “And did Ronnie Mills allow
you to board my vessel?”
“He might have.”
Gabriel frowned. “I have another tip for you, DI Peel. It concerns the identity of the burglar who broke into that shop in
Wharf Road.”
“Ronnie’s alibi checks out.”
Vera Hobbs appeared with Gabriel’s order.
“Breakfast of champions,” said Peel.
“Cornish champions, at least,” added Gabriel, and sliced into the flaky crust of the pasty.
“Chicken,” said Peel disapprovingly. “Always the chicken.”
“You have something against chicken, Timothy?”
“I’m quite fond of it, actually. But you might try the beef on occasion.”
“I do.”
“In all the years I’ve known you, I have never once seen you eat a beef pasty.”
Timothy Peel had been all of eleven years of age when Gabriel first made his acquaintance. They had lived next door to one
another in the Lizard town of Port Navas. Peel was the neglected son of divorced parents, and Gabriel was the reclusive foreign
gentleman who spent his nights restoring paintings and his days sailing the Helford River on a lovingly restored wooden ketch.
He had bequeathed the boat to Peel when his old service called him out of retirement, thus the new Beneteau.
He poured a few ounces of milk into his cup and added the hot tea. Timothy Peel sighed. “Tea first, Mr. Allon. Then the milk.”
“It is a scientific fact that milk first produces a superior cup of tea.”
Peel took out a detective’s notebook. “Shall we? I haven’t got all day.”
“By all means. I wouldn’t want to keep you from your appointed rounds.”
“This conversation never happened. Are we clear?” Peel opened the notebook. “Your friend Edward Knight has no criminal record
whatsoever. He has, however, been the target of numerous investigations by His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs regarding his
payment of taxes, or lack thereof.”
“I’m shocked to hear that.”
“As was I,” added Peel archly.
“What about Wickham House?”
“He paid sixty million for it—in cash, by the way. The owner of record is the Knight Group Limited.”
“Does he own any other properties in our little corner of Britain?”
“A shopping center in Plymouth and another one in Exeter. He also owns a large tract of land along the North Devon coast.”
“What about Alice?”
“I’m not sure whether anyone owns her.”
“I was referring to run-ins with the authorities.”
“Two arrests,” said Peel. “Both while she was a student at Cambridge.”
“For what?”
“Political protests. The Iraq War, Palestine, the usual. She should have been arrested a third time, but the DI handling the
case was overruled by his chief constable.”
“When did the incident occur?”
“Four months ago. The night of February the twelfth, to be precise.”
“In Devon?”
Peel nodded.
“And the officer who wasn’t allowed to bring charges?”
“Detective Inspector Timothy Peel.”
“I assume it wasn’t a political protest.”
“An automobile accident. Her third, as it turned out. She wrapped her Aston Martin roadster around a tree about a mile from
Wickham House.”
“I spent last evening reading everything I could find online about Alice Winter, and there was nothing about a serious road
accident.”
“That’s because no record of the accident exists.”
“How is that possible?”
“I’m getting to that, Mr. Allon.”
The accident, Peel continued, occurred at approximately two fifteen in the morning, but it would be nearly an hour before another motorist happened upon the scene.
Alice, semiconscious and disoriented, was taken by ambulance to the A&E ward at Devon and Exeter Hospital and treated for a concussion, a scalp laceration, and two fractured ribs.
Peel had been working a late-night stakeout in Perceval Road—a major drug case involving four of Exeter’s finest—and headed over to the hospital to take charge of the inquiry.
He arrived to find a dazed and bruised Alice Winter resting comfortably in a private room, accompanied by her husband and his barrister.
She was in no condition to answer questions, so Peel posed them to her husband instead.
They were polite in tone, nothing confrontational or accusatory.
Namely he wanted to know what a wealthy socialite like Alice Winter was doing behind the wheel of an automobile at two o’clock in the morning.
“And the answer?”
“She was on her way back to London, or so Edward Knight claimed.”
Peel then attempted to ascertain why that was the case. At which point Knight’s barrister declared that his client would be
answering no further questions.
“Sounds to me as though the barrister and his client were hiding something.”
“Nothing gets by you, does it?”
“What could it have been?”
“Why does any woman leave her twelve-bedroom manor house in the middle of the night?”
“They must have been quarreling.”
“That was my distinct impression. The question is, what were they quarreling about?”
Peel decided not to press the matter—Knight, after all, had not been in the vehicle at the time of the accident—so he went
to have a quiet word with the physician who had treated Alice, a courtly chap called Dr. Rajiv Singh.
“And what do you suppose the good doctor told me?”
“That Alice had been under the influence at the time of the accident.”
Peel nodded. “That was his suspicion.”
Over the strenuous objections of Edward Knight and his lawyer, a uniformed PC administered a field breathalyzer test at half
past six that morning, some four hours after the accident. It indicated that Alice was slightly below the legal drink-drive
limit of thirty-five micrograms of alcohol per one hundred micrograms of breath.
“Which meant she was probably over the limit at the time of the accident,” said Gabriel.
“One would think,” agreed Peel. “But higher authority instructed me not to pursue the matter further.”
“What happened to the records?”
“Expunged. It was as if it never happened.” Peel closed his detective’s notebook. “Why are you so interested in Edward Knight?”
“I’m restoring a painting he intends to purchase.”
“And?”
“Let it go, Timothy.”
Peel took up his phone and typed. “Isn’t that strange,” he said after a moment. “It’s been a week since Alice’s last post
on Instagram.” He set aside the phone. “Missing, is she?”
“Did I say that?”
“Didn’t have to.” There was a brief silence. “Anyone looking for her?”
“The Spanish police.”
“You’re going to help them?”
“Something like that.”
“Theory of the case?”
“Haven’t got one.”
“Gone astray?” suggested Peel.
“Maybe.”
“Dead?”
“Could be.”
“That leaves one other possibility.”
“I suppose it does,” agreed Gabriel, and finished the last of his chicken pasty.