57 Wiltons
Wiltons
By then it was September, and the start of the Italian school year was fast approaching. Irene and Raphael, after spending
three months in a remote corner of West Cornwall, were eager to resume their life in Venice, an enchanted place where one
never encountered motorcars or lorries—or sheep or bovines, for that matter—and where one walked to dinner, then, after a
stop at Venchi in the Rialto for gelato and butter cookies, one walked home again. Their mother was likewise anxious to return
to the city of her birth, for she had two new restoration projects requiring her immediate attention. She was mildly displeased,
therefore, that the esteemed director of her paintings department, having ruined his summer holiday searching for a missing
British socialite who wasn’t really missing, had decided to remain in the United Kingdom for another week in order to tie
up a few loose ends.
She was more annoyed, admittedly, that he had nearly been blown to bits by an exploding Russian drone along with his friends Sarah Bancroft and Ingrid Johansen.
But this, she reminded herself yet again, was the man she had married.
He was a restorer of all things—paintings, old sports cars, British socialites, even thieves and contract killers—who could never seem to leave well enough alone.
Still, when all was said and done, he had come through his latest adventure in remarkably good condition, nothing more than a few scrapes and bruises and a nasty dog bite on his left ankle.
Oscar was the perpetrator’s name. Leave it to Gabriel Allon to be bitten by a deer-red German pinscher called Oscar.
On the last day of their summer holiday they rose before dawn and sailed the Beneteau to the Isles of Scilly. So rough was
the return trip that Chiara, once safely ashore in Penzance, swore she would never again set foot on a boat—a vaporetto or
water taxi, perhaps, but not a vessel powered by the wind. Next morning she helped the children pack their bags and loaded
them into the Range Rover for the drive to Heathrow. Gabriel brought along a garment bag with a dark suit and a sober tie.
He had an appointment with the committee of inquiry in the morning and wanted to look his best.
“And what exactly,” said Chiara, “are you going to say to them?”
“As little as possible.”
“And when the members of the committee of inquiry inquire as to how it was you got mixed up in this affair in the first place?”
“Alice Winter, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“My SIS-appointed lawyer will intercede on my behalf and change the subject.”
“So the truth will never come out?”
“Never,” replied Gabriel.
“A shame, don’t you think? After all, you and your friends Sarah and Ingrid were the ones who saved Number Ten.”
“With help from Christopher,” Gabriel pointed out.
“And the Dutch,” added Chiara.
“Let’s not forget Alice. If she hadn’t arranged for her own abduction, we never would have known about her husband’s involvement
with the Russians.”
“It was a crime, you know.”
“Staging one’s own abduction? A very serious crime.”
“And yet for her punishment,” said Chiara, “she will receive immunity from prosecution and a new British identity.”
“But not housing. In fact, she’s about to be evicted from Wormwood Cottage.”
“Parish and Miss Coventry have finally had enough?”
“A new arrival,” said Gabriel.
“Where are they going to put her?”
“They’ve offered her temporary use of another safe house, but it wasn’t up to her standards.”
“Balmoral wasn’t available?”
“Apparently not.”
“Perhaps she can go stay with her fellow criminal Ingrid in Denmark.”
“Ingrid is back on Mykonos. And Alice doesn’t have a valid passport yet.”
“Well,” said Chiara, “I’m sure the great minds of the Secret Intelligence Service will think of something.”
“Yes,” agreed Gabriel. “They always do.”
Their flight departed Heathrow at half past four. Gabriel dropped them outside Terminal 5, then, after swearing that he would
undertake no new assignments during their absence, bade them farewell. Alone, he drove into central London and settled into
a corner table at the bar at Wiltons and watched the parade of art world figures traipsing through the door—tubby Oliver Dimbleby,
tweedy Jeremy Crabbe, suntanned Simon Mendenhall, ravishing Olivia Watson, Amelia March of ARTnews, slick Nicky Lovegrove, art adviser to the vastly rich.
Sarah and Julian arrived last. Julian took up his usual post at the end of the bar, and Sarah joined Gabriel at her usual table.
A three-olive Belvedere martini, Saharan dry, Siberian cold, appeared as though it had been conjured out of thin air.
She raised the frosted glass to her lips. “Off safely, are they?”
“Venice bound,” he replied.
“So, I have you all to myself?”
“What about your husband?”
“The one who shot down the Russian drone?”
“Yes, that one.”
“He left London this morning. Evidently he’ll be gone for ages.”
“Mind if I crash at your place tonight?”
She raised an eyebrow provocatively. “I’d love nothing more.”
“I have an early call in the morning.”
“Your appointment before the inquisition? I don’t envy you.”
“You’re welcome to join me.”
“Thank you, no. I have enough problems as it is.”
“What problems do you possibly have?”
She glanced at Olivia Watson.
“It was a long time ago, Sarah.”
“Not as long as the two of us.”
“I’ll never forget the first time I laid eyes on you,” said Gabriel. “You were walking along P Street near Dupont Circle.”
“The dew was still on me.” Smiling, she surveyed the art world figures lining the bar. “It’s a wonderful way for our story
to end, don’t you think? A late-summer evening, a corner table at the bar at Wiltons, all our old friends.”
“It’s not over yet, Sarah.”
“You promise?”
Gabriel smiled. “Cross my heart.”
His appointment before the committee of inquiry was at 9:00 a.m. The setting was a safe-speech room deep within Vauxhall Cross. SIS’s chief legal officer, a man called Drake, sat by his
side throughout. The questions were polite in tone, respectful, even, and Gabriel answered them to the best of his ability,
which was limited. Indeed, whenever the inquisitors strayed onto dangerous ground, Drake the legal officer would mumble something
that sounded like an incantation, and the inquisitors would dutifully move on. Thus they learned nothing from their star witness
that they did not already know—nothing about Alice Winter and her husband Edward Knight, nothing about Alice’s Cambridge friends
Sophie Maxwell and Ella Burns, nothing about the staged abduction or the half-billion-dollar ransom payment or the chalet
in Switzerland or the dog that had taken a chunk out of Gabriel’s ankle in Lower Austria.
Which left the inquisitors little choice but to focus their attention on the day of the attack itself. Why, they wanted to
know, had Gabriel made forcible entry into the house in Wilton Crescent? And who were the two women who entered the home with
him? A glance at Drake and a mumbled magic spell made both questions disappear. He was more forthcoming, though, about what
he had found on the roof of the house—and how he had managed to disable one of the drones. The lead inquisitor wanted to know
why the toppled drone had detonated. Gabriel answered with what amounted to informed speculation.
“It was an assassination attempt.”
“Who was the target?” asked the inquisitor.
“I was.”
When the session finally ended, Gabriel headed to the SIS’s private bar for a quick drink with Graham Seymour and was behind the wheel of the Range Rover in time to beat the London evening rush.
The sun was setting by the time he reached Dartmoor.
About a mile past the old Warren House Inn was the turnoff for Wormwood Cottage.
He stopped there long enough to collect a single passenger.
Parish the caretaker and Miss Coventry the cook, for all their forbearance and decency, were not sorry to see her go.
She was, they assured themselves, someone else’s problem now.