43 Wickham House
Wickham House
For the second time that summer the art world in all its glory came rolling through the gate of Edward Knight’s estate in
Devon. The official guest list had some four hundred and fifty names, but an untold number simply showed up at Knight’s door
uninvited like revelers drawn to Gatsby’s house in West Egg. Smiling young girls from Bonhams granted them admission regardless,
the evening’s host having decreed that no one was to be turned away. Once inside the grand entrance hall they ran a gauntlet
of dark-suited private security types with earpieces and wrist mics and handheld magnetometers. Some of the attendees bristled
at the intrusive searches, but most opened their bags and blazers without complaint. Edward Knight, they told themselves,
had good reason to be concerned about security.
So dense was the throng that most of the attendees never caught so much as a glimpse of him.
Fifteen minutes before the scheduled start of the auction he was circulating through the crowd outside on the terrace, casually but smartly attired, surrounded by no fewer than six bodyguards.
“I’ll get her back,” he was overheard telling one well-wisher after ignoring the man’s outstretched hand.
“I know she’s out there somewhere.” No one had the courage to tell him that his faith was misplaced.
“Poor Edward,” said the heiress to a British supermarket fortune who, if the tabloids were to be believed, had once tried to murder her philandering husband with a butcher knife.
“He doesn’t seem to realize that dazzling Alice is never coming back. ”
But even the supermarket heiress, whose eye was keener than most, had no sense that something might be afoot. For a start,
the bodyguards surrounding Edward Knight were not employees of a private security firm; they were in actual fact officers
of Her Majesty’s Secret Intelligence Service. The same was true of the two figures hovering vigilantly at the billionaire’s
side. One was a ruggedly handsome man with sun-bleached blond hair, the other a boyish-looking bloke with the aspect and manner
of a vicar. Someone in the know said the younger of the two men, the one who looked as though he belonged in a pulpit, was
Knight’s new personal assistant. “Poor lamb,” said the heiress. “I don’t envy him.”
In the far corner of the terrace was an oddball assembly of London art world figures, including the former fashion model who
now ran a contemporary art gallery in King Street. She was whispering something into the ear of a reporter from ARTnews, who in turn was attempting to console the inconsolable chief auctioneer from Christie’s. A petite Scandinavian woman in
a Givenchy jacket was gently fending off the advances of a corpulent art dealer with pink cheeks, much to the bemusement of
the general manager of the most prominent restoration company in Venice. Her husband, the world-renowned art conservator who
had spoken at the last Wickham House gathering, was searching the crowd with those unusually green eyes of his, as though
trying to locate an old friend. Sarah Bancroft, who was standing at his side, raised a martini glass to her lips and said,
“A perfect night for an assassination, don’t you think?”
“All we need now,” replied Gabriel, “is our assassin.”
“Any candidates?” asked Sarah.
He nodded toward a man who bore a striking resemblance to Russia’s foreign minister.
“That’s James Hargrave, you dolt. The shipping baron.”
Gabriel indicated another prospective candidate.
“Roger Gordon,” said Sarah. “Construction equipment.”
“I suppose that leaves him,” said Gabriel, and directed his gaze toward Christopher.
“Perhaps you should ring him.”
Gabriel took out his secure SIS phone and dialed. Christopher, on the opposite side of the terrace, answered at once. “If
you’re wondering whether I’ve spotted the guest of honor,” he said, “the answer is no. In my professional opinion it’s a thoroughly
British crowd. My colleagues are of a similar mind.”
“I think we should wait a few more minutes before starting the auction. Our guests seem to be enjoying the champagne and canapés.”
Gabriel rang off and turned to Chiara. “Let’s mingle, shall we?”
She glanced at Ingrid, who had yet to extract herself from the clutches of Oliver Dimbleby. “What about her?”
“She can look after herself.”
“That’s what I’m worried about.” Chiara threaded her arm through Gabriel’s and they set off across the broad terrace. “No
sign of him?” she asked.
“Or her,” replied Gabriel. He took two glasses of champagne from the tray of a waiter and handed one to Chiara. In the process
he scrutinized a man who was eyeing her from the garden below.
“Well?” she asked.
“Just one of your many admirers.” They carried their champagne through a pair of open French doors into a congested drawing room. Gabriel’s eyes moved left and right. “I can barely breathe in here. Let’s see if the next room is a little less crowded.”
It wasn’t. Nor was there any sign of a Russian assassin. The supermarket heiress caught Gabriel’s eye and summoned him with
the wave of her jeweled left hand. In her right she held the remnants of a Beefeater and tonic.
“How lovely to see you again, Mr. Allon. What brings you to our little soirée?”
“You, of course.”
She made a skeptical face. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re a terrible liar?”
“Never,” he answered truthfully.
She directed her gaze toward Edward Knight. “What do you think? Did he do it?”
“Murder his wife? Come now,” said Gabriel.
“He’s as guilty as the day is long. Everyone says so.”
“As I recall, they said the same about you.”
“It happened to be true.” A chime sounded, signaling that the auction was about to begin. “Have you a favorite?” she asked.
“The Bellotto is quite fine.”
“How much should I pay for it?”
“Twelve million. Not a pound more.”
The chime sounded a second time, and the pretty girls from Bonhams began prodding the crowd toward the great hall, which had
been transformed into a replica of the auction house’s New Bond Street salesroom, complete with a rostrum, a video wall, cameras,
and a bank of phones for remote bids. Edward Knight sat down in the first row, with Christopher on one side and Nigel Whitcombe
on the other. Gabriel and Chiara settled into their reserved seats in the fourth row. Sarah and Ingrid joined them a moment
later.
“You might have warned me,” said Ingrid.
“About Oliver?” asked Gabriel. “He’s really quite harmless.”
“But I’m not,” she replied, and handed over a gold Longines wristwatch. Gabriel in turn gave the timepiece to Chiara, who
slipped it into her handbag.
“We can’t take her anywhere,” she said.
The first painting to go under the gavel was the luminous landscape by Claude Lorrain that for many years had hung in the
exhibition room of Isherwood Fine Arts. Jeremy Crabbe, a mere art world bureaucrat, conducted the proceedings with a matador-like
flair that impressed even Simon Mendenhall, universally regarded as the most dashing auctioneer in the business. Oliver Dimbleby
put a toe in the water at three and a half million but appeared to develop a sudden case of paralysis in his right arm when
a telephone bidder went to four. Nicky Lovegrove, bidding on behalf of one of his clients, pushed the price to four and a
quarter but retreated to safer ground when the supermarket heiress tossed her hat into the ring. She went three rounds with
the telephone bidder before throwing in the towel.
“The bid is now six point two with Clarissa on the telephone. Fair warning now. Last chance.” Jeremy cast his eyes around
the room, then brought down the gavel for the first time. “Sold to Clarissa’s bidder for six point two million pounds, which
represents a record price for Claude at auction.”
It was, everyone agreed, a fine start to the evening.
The next painting was another landscape, this one by Rubens.
As two Bonhams employees placed it upon the display pedestal, a dozen or so late arrivals, none of whom looked to Gabriel like a Russian assassin, took their seats in the makeshift salesroom.
And ten minutes later, after Nicky Lovegrove bagged the Rubens for one of his clients, four additional attendees were granted admission.
One was a bespectacled man with a full head of gray hair and a neatly trimmed gray beard.
He was six feet tall at least, wore a three-piece bespoke suit, and walked with the aid of an ebony cane, which he held in his right hand.
The seat into which he lowered himself with some difficulty gave him an unobstructed view of Edward Knight.
He cast a glance around the room, then watched as the next painting, a portrait by Frans Hals, was placed on the display pedestal.
“What do you think?” asked Ingrid.
“It could go for as much as two and a half,” replied Gabriel.
“I was talking about the chap who just arrived.”
“I have a feeling he doesn’t need that cane.”
“Oldest trick in the book,” she agreed.
Gabriel pointed out the man to Christopher via text message as Jeremy Crabbe opened the bidding for the Frans Hals. Christopher
phoned Gabriel five minutes later, after the Hals had fetched two point seven in the room.
“He showed up without an invitation. The Bonhams girls, as instructed, welcomed him with open arms.”
“Did they happen to get a name?”
“Walter Klein.”
“Accent?”
“Maybe German.”
“He had a good long look at your client after taking his seat.”
“Trust me, it didn’t go unnoticed.”
“He’s not carrying a gun, is he?”
“Only that walking stick.”
“I’m not crazy about it.”
“That makes two of us.”
The fourth painting of the auction was now on the display pedestal. “An absolutely stunning portrait of Princess Mary by Sir
Anthony van Dyck,” purred Jeremy Crabbe. “Do I have one million?”
The first bidder signaled his intentions by holding aloft a handsome ebony cane.
“One million with the gentleman to my right. Do I have any interest at one and a quarter?”
He bowed out when the bidding shot past two million, then waged a valiant campaign for the Bronzino, only to step from the
field of play late in the contest. After sitting out the Cavallino, he fought tooth and nail for a striking Roman tavern scene
by Valentin de Boulogne, once again in a losing effort.
“Are you sensing a pattern?” asked Ingrid.
Gabriel nodded. “He’s a bidder, not a buyer.”
“I wonder why.”
“Perhaps he came here for another reason.”
The final lot of the auction was the Bellotto. During his introduction, Jeremy Crabbe made certain to mention the name of
the conservator who had carried out the painting’s recent restoration. The gray-haired man used his handsome ebony cane to
cast three bids but once again capitulated as the contest grew heated and the price soared beyond expectations. In the end
it went to the supermarket heiress for fourteen million pounds.
“I know, I know,” she told Gabriel in the excited scrum that follows any auction, large or small. “But when I heard that you
were the one who restored it, I couldn’t let it slip through my fingers.”
“I’m honored,” he replied, one eye on the well-turned-out man with the ebony walking stick.
He was having a word with Niles Dunham. Edward Knight, flanked by bodyguards, was granting a post-auction interview to the crew from CNN.
Julian Isherwood, a hopeless romantic, was flirting with Clarissa the telephone girl.
“Who do you suppose he is?” asked the heiress.
“I’m sorry?”
“The one who made a vast show of bidding, only to get a case of cold feet at the altar.”
“I haven’t the foggiest.”
“Whoever he is, he’s definitely disreputable.”
“Isn’t everyone in the art world?”
“Everyone but you, Mr. Allon.”
The CNN crew now had its lights and cameras trained on Olivia Watson. Clarissa the telephone girl was laughing at something
Julian had said, and Simon Mendenhall was graciously congratulating Jeremy Crabbe on a job well done. Gabriel, after bidding
the heiress a pleasant evening, rejoined Chiara and Ingrid. Together they watched the gray-haired man advancing laboriously
across the room toward Edward Knight, each step an effort, or so it appeared.
“Spare me,” said Ingrid.
“He could be disabled, you know.”
“Have I ever been wrong about anything?”
Gabriel nodded toward Oliver Dimbleby, who was staring mystified at his left wrist. The gray-haired man was making slow but
steady progress toward Edward Knight, who was accepting the condolences of the well-preserved countess from Kent.
“Do you remember the Georgi Markov case?” asked Gabriel.
“Can’t say that I do,” replied Ingrid.
It was Chiara who explained. “Markov was a dissident Bulgarian playwright who worked for the BBC in London. He was waiting for a bus near the Waterloo Bridge one morning when he felt a sharp sting in his right thigh. Four days later he was dead.”
“Of what?”
“The sting,” said Gabriel, “was a small pellet of ricin entering his leg. It was no larger than the head of a pin.”
“How was it administered?”
“An umbrella.”
They all three stared at the man with the ebony walking stick. “Perhaps Edward should take his leave now,” suggested Chiara.
Gabriel shook his head. “We have to let the guest of honor sign his name first.”
“At least warn Christopher.”
It wasn’t necessary; he had already unbuttoned his suit jacket, thus making it easier to access his concealed Heckler & Koch
nine-millimeter pistol. The rest of the security detail was on high alert as well. Knight, smiling, was having a quiet word
with fellow billionaire Roger Gordon, unaware of the approaching Russian assassin. He was shouldering his way through the
crowd that had convened around Knight and his entourage. There was no sign of the previous leg ailment. He held the ebony
walking stick not in his left hand but in his right.
“Seen enough?” asked Chiara.
“More than enough,” replied Gabriel.
And so had Christopher. He raised his wrist to his lips, and the six-man SIS detail closed around Edward Knight and frog-marched
him from the room, much to the astonishment of the knot of attendees gathered around him. It happened so quickly, so thoroughly,
that one startled onlooker wondered aloud whether the billionaire had just met with the same fate as his wife.
Gradually the small crowd dispersed, leaving only Christopher and the Russian assassin behind.
The two men eyed one another for a moment, cordially, it seemed.
Then the Russian gave a small, stiff bow and joined the parade of attendees filing out of the room.
His limp had returned, his ebony cane was once again in his left hand.
It was, thought Gabriel, a fine end to the evening.