61 Cornwall–Venice
Cornwall–Venice
The chief constable issued her carefully worded statement at two fifteen that afternoon. It said that the real estate investor
of an imminent arrest. No, the chief constable said pointedly in response to a reporter’s question, there appeared to be no
link whatsoever between Edward Knight’s murder and the recent abduction of his wife, the socialite Alice Winter.
Also absent from the chief constable’s statement was any reference to the killing, later that same morning, of the billionaire’s former personal assistant.
The cause of death was a single gunshot to the left side of his head.
The weapon was a Glock 19 nine-millimeter, the standard pistol carried by Authorized Firearms Officers of the Devon and Cornwall Police.
The distance of the shot was approximately thirty-five yards, though this would never be determined with any degree of forensic certainty because elements of British intelligence, acting under the authority granted to them by the Official Secrets Act, laid claim to the decedent’s corpse before a postmortem could be carried out.
The remains went up in smoke forty-eight hours later at the Putney Vale Crematorium, and the ashes were scattered to the four winds.
As for the billionaire’s missing wife, she assumed her new identity and once again disappeared, this time for good.
The London papers followed the events surrounding Edward Knight’s murder with intense interest, but for the most part Gabriel
averted his gaze. With Timothy Peel’s help, he replaced the two ruined doors at the Gwennap Head cottage with exact duplicates
and repaired the shattered woodwork. Then, with a can of glossy white paint and a two-inch brush, he carried out one of the
most important restorations of his long career. It was a bit heavy-handed, he judged, but masterful all the same. Not even
his eagle-eyed wife would ever be able to tell the difference. Indeed the only clue as to what had transpired in her absence
was the seascape he left on the easel in his studio, a view from the cliffs above Pordenack Point, painted from the depths
of his memory.
He took the Beneteau out for a final sail, then instructed Ronnie Mills to put it up on the rack for the winter. The Range
Rover he entrusted to Peel, provided he agree to shuttle Gabriel to Heathrow. He caught the four o’clock flight and arrived
in Venice as the sun was setting on a perfect late-summer day. During the water taxi ride into the city he wondered whether
any of it had really happened, whether it was only just a dream.
The driver dropped him at the Grand Canal entrance of the palazzo, and he climbed the stairs to the apartment. Irene was lying
on the floor of the sitting room, a pencil in her hand, a tiny fist pressed to her porcelain brow. Her brother, having completed
his schoolwork, was sketching away at something in a Strathmore pad.
Chiara was in the kitchen, singing along to the silly Italian pop song playing on the Bluetooth. She poured Gabriel a glass
of bloodred Barbaresco and asked about his flight. It was fine, he assured her. Everything was fine.