4 Gwennap Head
Gwennap Head
To call the Allon residence at Gwennap Head a cottage was a misnomer. In truth it was a substantial nineteenth-century farmhouse
set upon fifteen of the most picturesque acres in the southwest of England. Adjacent to the main dwelling, reached by a flagstone
walk, was a refurbished outbuilding that Gabriel had converted into his studio. Its floor-to-ceiling windows gazed across
a meadow of purple thrift and red fescue. The towering lighthouse atop Wolf Rock, so named for the howling sound of its deadly
gales, shone nine miles out to sea.
On the morning after the Wickham House fundraiser, he set off along Cornwall’s famed Coast Path toward Penzance, a rucksack
over one shoulder, Irene and Raphael at his side. For twenty minutes, as they made their way along the sea cliffs, he was
subjected to a litany of complaints regarding one Cecily Newton, the delightful, mild-mannered Cornish girl from Sennen Cove
who had looked after the children the previous evening.
“She was mean to us,” insisted Irene.
“Was she really?”
“Cruel, even.”
“I rather doubt that. In fact, it sounds to me as though you’re upset that you weren’t invited to the fundraiser.”
“It wasn’t nice to leave us at home alone.”
“You weren’t alone, you were with Cecily. But please speak English while we’re in Cornwall.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s quite possible that you will attend university here in England, and you have to learn to speak English without
such a pronounced Italian accent.”
“We’ll speak English only if you promise never to leave us with Cecily again.”
“I shall make no such commitment.”
“Then Raphael and I shall continue to speak in Italian,” huffed Irene. “With our pronounced Venetian accents.”
The children marched along the footpath at a stoic clip, trying gamely to keep pace with their father, but they began to tire
as they approached the Tater Du Lighthouse. Chiara met them at Lamorna Cove, and they had a bite to eat at the little beach
café. Gabriel checked the ARTnews website and saw that Amelia March had posted her story about the fundraiser. It took nearly two minutes for the article to
download. They were in the middle of a cellular dead zone, one of several along the Cornish coast, including one at Gwennap
Head.
“Well?” asked Chiara.
“The real Gabriel Allon,” he replied. “In his own words.”
“And yet the world didn’t come to an end.”
“We’ll see about that.”
Chiara and the children headed back to the cottage in the Range Rover, and Gabriel, alone, made the six-mile trek to Penzance Harbor, where he took delivery of a new Beneteau sailboat.
The vessel was thirty feet in length and nine feet across the beam, smaller than the Bavaria 42 he kept in Venice but large enough to accommodate a family of four comfortably.
He ran it across Mount’s Bay on the prevailing southwesterly wind and was back in Penzance in time for dinner.
Chiara and the children met him at a quayside restaurant called the Boatshed.
Irene and Raphael, after reviewing the menu, placed their orders in English.
“How did you manage that?” Gabriel asked Chiara quietly.
“I threatened them, darling. How else?”
The children spoke only English for the remainder of dinner and over breakfast the following morning, which dawned cloudy
and cold. Gabriel read a book by the fire until eleven o’clock, when he spotted a white transit van bumping up the property’s
long drive. Inside, entombed in a protective wooden coffin, was View of the Grand Canal with the Rialto Bridge, oil on canvas, 136 by 242 centimeters, by the eighteenth-century urban landscape painter Bernardo Bellotto. Gabriel disassembled
the crate, then, with Chiara’s help, secured the enormous painting to a pair of Italian-made studio easels.
He pointed toward the terra-cotta palazzo on the left side of the canvas. “Your other home,” he said. “The one I’m still paying for.”
“Lovely, isn’t it?”
“Quite. But I’m afraid it needs a bit of work.”
“And the rest of the painting?”
“I won’t know until I strip it.”
“How long do you suppose it will take?”
“Suffice to say,” replied Gabriel, “I won’t be spending much time aboard my new sailboat.”
In the lexicon of art conservation, to strip a painting meant removing the dirty varnish and the overpainting of previous restorations.
It was a mind-numbing task that involved cleaning the surface of the canvas with hand-fashioned swabs of cotton wool dipped in a carefully calibrated solution of acetone, methyl proxitol, and mineral spirits.
Most conservators were trained in basic chemistry, but Gabriel, who had no formal education, relied on instinct and experience when preparing his solvent.
The mixture had to be strong enough to dissolve the unwanted material but not so strong that it damaged the underlying painting.
Each swab could clean about a square inch of the surface before it became too soiled to use.
Then Gabriel had to fashion a new swab and start again.
By early evening he had cleaned the facade of the terra-cotta palazzo and the two gondolas moored along the landing. He took
a break for dinner, worked late into the evening, and was back in his studio before Chiara and the children had awakened.
The skies poured with rain all morning, but by midday the sun was shining brightly and the wind was blowing fifteen to twenty.
Deserving of a break, or so he assured himself, he sailed the Beneteau out to Wolf Rock, then, after rounding the lighthouse,
returned to Penzance.
He adhered to a similar schedule on Wednesday and Thursday—toil at the canvas in the morning, take to the sea in the afternoon—but
on Friday he became so engrossed in his work that he lost track of time. At two fifteen, as he was removing the dirty varnish
from Bellotto’s rendering of the Rialto Bridge, he became aware of a motorcar advancing up the drive. It was an unusual sight;
the cottage was isolated, and a prominently displayed sign at the entrance read private. Also unusual was the vehicle itself. It was a Rolls-Royce saloon model, silver and midnight blue in color. The car eased
sedately to a stop outside Gabriel’s studio, and the engine died. Then, into the crystalline Cornish sunlight, stepped none
other than Edward Knight.
He was dressed for a day in the countryside in a zippered pullover, corduroy trousers, and stylish chukka boots. Spotting Gabriel emerging from his studio, he flung an arm into the air as though hailing a taxi.
“Allon,” he called out genially. “I hope I’m not intruding on your work.”
“As a matter of fact, you are,” said Gabriel with a smile. “Mind telling me how you managed to find my house?”
“You’re the famous spy. You tell me.”
“You either searched the property records, or you asked Julian Isherwood. I’m betting it was the latter.”
“He assured me that you wouldn’t mind if I dropped by.” Knight surveyed the cottage with a practiced eye. “What a lovely place
you have here. Very charming indeed.”
“It’s not exactly Wickham House, but we’re quite fond of it.”
Knight glanced toward the entrance of Gabriel’s studio. “Do you allow visitors?”
“Never.”
“Julian seemed to think you would make an exception in my case.”
“Did he?”
“I’m interested in acquiring the Bellotto,” explained Knight. “Julian said you would allow me to have a look at it.”
“He didn’t mention it.”
“It must have slipped his mind.” Knight took out a mobile phone. “We can ring him, if you like.”
Gabriel planned to place the call himself, though not in the presence of Edward Knight. He did not know why the billionaire
real estate investor had driven himself to deepest Cornwall, but he suspected it had little to do with View of the Grand Canal with the Rialto Bridge by Bernardo Bellotto.
Together they headed up the flagstone walk and through the open door of the studio. The painting was awash in the searing white light of two halogen lamps. Knight planted himself before it, hands on his hips, elbows splayed.
“Extraordinary, don’t you think?”
“It would certainly be a worthy addition to your collection.”
“How much do you suppose it’s worth?”
“Julian would know better. I’m only a conservator.”
“Come now, Allon. Modesty doesn’t suit you.”
He gave it a moment of thought. “View of Verona with the Ponte delle Navi fetched ten and a half at auction not long ago. I think this painting is better.”
“How much better?”
“It might go for as much as twelve.”
“And what would be your share of the proceeds?”
“You don’t expect me to answer that, do you?”
“Ten percent?” persisted Edward Knight.
“More like five.”
“And if the painting went for twenty million?”
“You would be vastly overpaying.”
Knight set off on a slow tour of the studio, pausing at Gabriel’s stainless-steel trolley. “The tools of your trade. One of
them, at least.”
“I only have one trade these days.”
“You don’t expect me to believe that, do you?”
“Believe what you like, Mr. Knight.”
“I believe you still find time to dabble in your old line of work.” Knight returned to his original position before the canvas
and folded his arms in thought. “And what if I required your services, Allon? How much would it cost me?”
“That depends on the size, condition, and approximate value of the work in question.”
“She’s five feet ten inches tall and worth an extraordinary amount of money.”
“Your wife?”
Edward Knight nodded gravely.
“Current condition?” asked Gabriel.
“Gone,” answered Knight. “Vanished without a trace.”