8 Cornwall–Ibiza
Cornwall–Ibiza
“Are they ever going to speak to me again?”
“Only in their Venetian-accented Italian.”
“It’s come to that, has it?”
“A showdown,” said Chiara.
She was behind the wheel of the Range Rover. Irene and Raphael were in the back seat, long-faced, mute.
“I should have walked to the airport,” said Gabriel.
“In those clothes?”
He was wearing a sport jacket, gabardine trousers, and suede derby footwear. “I’m flying private and staying at the Ibiza
Gran.”
“How will you possibly manage?”
Chiara sped past a collection of stone outbuildings belonging to their neighbor, a sheep farmer called Twigg. The road was
scarcely wide enough to accommodate the Range Rover, and lined on both sides by dense hedgerows.
“Don’t you think you should slow down a tad?”
“I wouldn’t want you to miss your flight.” She turned onto the B3315. It was two lanes instead of one. “What do you suppose
would have happened to me if I smashed your lovely new Range Rover into a tree?”
“Fortunately there are no trees on this road.”
“And what if I had been drinking?” asked Chiara. “Do you think the Devon and Cornwall Police would have looked the other way?”
“I do have a considerable amount of sway with them, but I wouldn’t have used it. Driving under the influence is a serious
infraction. A definite no-no.”
“I would have been forbidden to drive a motorcar in the United Kingdom for several years.”
“At the very least. But it’s also possible that you might have been barred from entering the country.”
“An undesirable foreigner?”
Gabriel laid a hand along her thigh. “I wouldn’t go that far.”
“So why did the police turn a blind eye to Alice’s vehicular misdeeds?”
“It might have something to do with the fact she’s married to one of the richest men in Britain.”
“Billionaires get to play by different rules?”
“Haven’t you figured that out by now?”
She removed Gabriel’s hand. “For the moment, I’m more interested in why Alice got behind the wheel of that car in the first
place.”
“Timothy was under the impression there had been a domestic disturbance.”
“I wonder what it could have been.”
“Perhaps Edward heard a rumor about his wife and another man.”
“What did he expect when he married a girl like Alice Winter?”
“Wedded bliss and monogamy, I imagine.”
“Their relationship began with an extramarital affair,” Chiara pointed out.
“So did ours.”
“There were extenuating circumstances.”
“I’m sure Edward told himself the same thing.”
A helicopter appeared before them, traveling east to west across the cloudless sky. It sank toward the green Cornish horizon
and vanished from view.
Chiara glanced at her wristwatch. “Right on time.”
She turned onto the A30 and followed it to the old Quaker burial ground. Land’s End Airport was a mile to the north. They
arrived to find the helicopter resting on the tarmac, rotor blades drooping. It was a Sikorsky executive model, sleek and
black. The cabin door hung open, held by a man wearing dark trousers and a white shirt with epaulets on his shoulders.
“Be sure to write,” remarked Chiara.
“I’ll be back in a day or two.”
“Where have I heard that before?”
Gabriel kissed Chiara and his two silent children, then, bag in hand, headed into the little wooden terminal building. Liam
Higgins, Edward Knight’s personal assistant, was waiting inside, immaculately attired in an overly fitted suit that lent him
the appearance of a hotel concierge. He offered Gabriel a pale, manicured hand.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Allon. Follow me, please.”
Together they crossed the apron and boarded the Sikorsky. Higgins settled into the leather chair on the port side of the cabin,
Gabriel on the starboard. “Just so there’s no misunderstanding,” he said as the helicopter lifted from the tarmac, “I work
alone.”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Allon. So do I.”
“In that case, why are you here?”
“A bit of housekeeping, that’s all.”
On the floor of the cabin were a pair of attaché cases, black in color, identical in shape and size.
Higgins opened one, removed a file folder, and handed it to Gabriel.
Inside was a printout of Alice Winter’s credit card charges during her brief stay on Ibiza.
It ran to several pages—restaurants, bars, nightclubs, a pharmacy, a hair salon, the Louis Vuitton boutique near the marina.
The last transaction was a twelve-euro charge for parking. The time was 2:56 p.m.
“Is this the only card she used?”
“None of her other credit cards show any sign of activity.” Higgins handed over another file. “Those are the emails and text
messages she sent and received while she was on Ibiza and for the week preceding the trip. You can see her social media posts
for yourself.”
“How did you access her data?”
“Her personal computer at Wickham House.”
“And if I wanted to see her emails and text messages for, say, the previous six months?”
“You would have to take that up with Mr. Knight.”
Higgins returned the attaché case to the floor, then handed the second case to Gabriel. Inside were bundles of newly minted
hundred-euro banknotes.
“What am I supposed to do with this?”
“I believe the Americans call it walking-around money. Use it as you see fit.”
“How much is there?”
“A half million. Any money left over is yours to keep.”
Gabriel closed the attaché case. The housekeeping, it seemed, had reached its end. At length he asked, “How long have you
been working for him?”
“Mr. Knight?” Higgins made a show of thought. “It’s been four years now.”
“And before that?”
“I served as the personal assistant to another successful businessman.”
“Anyone I know?”
“I doubt it,” said Higgins, and picked a fleck of imaginary lint from the sleeve of his jacket.
Gabriel gazed out his window at the green Cornish countryside below. To be continued, he thought.
It was Gabriel’s abiding fear that Edward Knight’s factotum planned to accompany him on the flight to Ibiza. He passed the
two-and-a-half-hour journey in solitude, though, without so much as a cabin attendant to see to his needs. Alice Winter’s
emails, text messages, and credit card charges served as his reading material. A quick tally revealed that she had managed
to spend more than fifty thousand euros during the six days she spent on Ibiza, all while receiving and dispatching text messages
at an astonishing rate. She was especially prolific during the small hours, was disdainful of punctuation, and fond of profanity
and puerile three-letter abbreviations. She messaged her husband sparingly, as though conscious of not bothering him with
trivial matters. There was nothing in the exchanges to indicate tension in their marriage. Nor did Gabriel notice anything
to suggest that Alice was involved in an extramarital affair. But then these were only her iMessage texts. Unfaithful spouses,
like spies and terrorists, tended to do their communicating via encrypted or clandestine means.
It was a few minutes after seven o’clock when Edward Knight’s Bombardier plopped onto the runway at Ibiza Airport.
Higgins had arranged for a car to take Gabriel to his hotel, a modern edifice overlooking a bone-white boulevard lined with palm trees.
While crossing the crowded lobby he was gripped by an unshakable sense that he was being watched.
The young woman at reception, after inspecting his passport, handed him a room key and a telephone message.
It was from a certain Inspector Aragón of the Policía Nacional.
“Perhaps I should find another hotel,” said Gabriel.
The receptionist raised an eyebrow. “Is it serious?”
“Could be.”
“In that case, Senor Allon, you should probably hide out here. We’ll take good care of you.”
He asked the receptionist to dial the inspector’s number. She complied with the request and handed him the receiver of her
landline phone. Placing it to his ear, he heard the lethargic pulse of the Spanish ringback tone. He also heard, from somewhere
in the cavernous lobby, the simultaneous bleating of a mobile phone. The bleating ceased at once, as did the ringback tone.
He returned the receiver to the receptionist and headed upstairs to his suite. It had a comfortable sitting room and a private
terrace with a small infinity pool. He placed most of the cash in the room safe and left the rest in the attaché case, which
he concealed in the drawer of the credenza. The phone on the writing desk rang as he was hanging his clothing in the closet.
It was his friend from reception, informing him that Inspector Aragón was waiting for him downstairs in the lobby.
Leaving his room, he engaged the privacy light and wedged a tiny slip of paper into the doorjamb—a telltale, in the lexicon
of his previous trade. As the elevator carriage descended he produced a quick mental sketch of the Spanish detective awaiting
him in the lobby. Dark suit, formfitting white pullover, ash-blond hair, fair skin, thirty-five at most. The shoes were low-heeled
pumps, functional but stylish. Not the sort of footwear worn by most Spanish cops. Not at all what Gabriel had been expecting.