45 Penberth Cove

45 Penberth Cove

It was Cordelia Bradley who answered the bell. She was a tall, pale-complected woman of perhaps fifty with windblown reddish

hair and eyes the color of the cloudless Cornish sky. She remembered Peel from the robbery investigation and greeted him warmly.

Gabriel she regarded with astonishment.

"Forgive me, Mr. Allon, but you are the last person I expected to see on my doorstep."

She invited them inside and closed the door. Peel, while standing in the entrance hall, asked whether her husband was at home

and had a moment to talk.

"Yes, of course. But what's this about?"

"Mr. Allon is completing a research project that Professor Blake was working on at the time of her murder. He's hoping that

Mr. Bradley might be able to help him."

"Why Leonard?"

It was Gabriel who answered, untruthfully. "I found his name and telephone number in her notes."

"That's strange."

"Why is that?"

"Because Leonard and Charlotte were at Oxford together and spoke on the phone regularly. There's no reason in the world why

she would write down his number. It was stored in her contacts." She paused, then added, "As was mine."

She led them along a central corridor to a pair of French doors overlooking the sea. Near the edge of the cliff was a separate

cottage with walls of glass.

"My husband's office," said Cordelia Bradley. Then she plucked a phone from her pocket and smiled without parting her lips.

"I'll let him know you're coming."

***

The cottage was reached by a manicured gravel footpath. Leonard Bradley, alert to danger, waited in the doorway. He was a

slender man with a fine-boned face and dark hair. His clothing was casual but costly. His smile was artificial.

"You've caught me in the middle of a rather complex trade, gentlemen, but please come in."

Gabriel and Peel followed Bradley into the cottage. His office was an architectural showpiece, the realm of an alchemist who

magically made money from money. He settled behind his large glass desk and invited Gabriel and Peel to sit in the two modern

chairs opposite. They remained standing instead.

An awkward silence ensued. Finally, Bradley looked at Gabriel and asked, "Why are you here, Mr. Allon?"

Gabriel exchanged a long look with Peel before answering. "Charlotte Blake."

"I gathered that."

"The two of you were close friends." Gabriel lowered his voice. "Unusually close."

"And just what are you implying?"

"Let's skip this part, shall we? I've read the text messages."

Bradley's face drained of color. "You self-righteous bastard."

"I am neither, I assure you." Gabriel glanced deliberately around Bradley's magnificent office. "Besides, you know what they

say about people who live in glass houses."

The remark lowered the temperature, but only slightly. Leonard Bradley posed his next question to Peel. "Am I a suspect in

Charlotte's murder?"

"You are not."

"Is this an official proceeding?"

"No."

"In that case, Detective Sergeant, why are you here?"

"I'll leave, if you like," replied Peel, and started toward the door.

"Stay," insisted Bradley. Then he looked at Gabriel and asked, "Won't you please sit down, Mr. Allon? You're making me terribly

uncomfortable."

Gabriel lowered himself into one of the chairs, and Peel sat down next to him. Bradley stared intently at his computer screen,

his hand hovering over the keyboard.

"You wanted to ask me something, Mr. Allon?"

"Professor Blake was conducting a sensitive provenance investigation at the time of her murder."

"Yes, I know." Bradley's gaze settled briefly on Gabriel. "Untitled portrait of a woman by Pablo Picasso."

"When did she tell you about it?"

"A few days after she obtained a copy of the sales records from Christie's. They revealed that the painting was in the hands of an offshore shell corporation called OCC Group, Limited. Charlotte wanted to know whether I could discover the name of OOC's beneficial owner."

"And what did you—"

Bradley raised a hand, requesting silence, then tapped his keyboard once. "I just earned three million pounds for my investors

on a multitiered currency play. It's the sort of thing I do, Mr. Allon. I bet on tiny fluctuations of the markets and leverage

the trades with large sums of borrowed money. Sometimes I hold my positions only for a moment or two. Charlotte thought it

was a truly ridiculous way to earn a living." He paused. "As do you, I imagine."

"Glass houses," repeated Gabriel.

The remark brought a smile briefly to Leonard Bradley's face. "We were at Oxford together, Charlotte and I. She was from Yorkshire,

and working class to the core. Her accent was atrocious back then. The posh crowd were quite cruel to her."

"But not you?"

"No," said Bradley. "I was always fond of Charlotte, despite the fact that I was considered rather posh myself. And when I

bumped into her late one afternoon while walking along the South West Coast Path..." He was silent for a moment. "Well,

it was as though we were undergraduates again."

"And when she asked for your help?"

"I conducted a routine corporate search into the company known as OOC Group, Limited. And when my search turned up nothing

useful, I put Charlotte in touch with an old friend who's more familiar with the world of offshore financial services. I'm

afraid she was even less helpful than I was, but they had a good chat nevertheless. Charlotte was raving about her afterward."

"Can you tell me her name?"

"Yes, of course. It was Lucinda Graves."

"The wife of the next British prime minister?" asked Gabriel.

"So they say." Bradley stepped from behind his desk and showed them out. They stood at the cliff's edge for a moment admiring

the view of Penberth Cove. "Your first visit to Cornwall, Mr. Allon?"

"Yes," he lied. "But I'm sure it won't be my last."

Bradley gazed westward toward Porthchapel Beach. "Did you really read Charlotte's text messages?"

"I'm afraid so."

"Why was she walking along the coast path after sunset on a Monday afternoon? Why wasn't she in her car headed back to Oxford?"

Gabriel made no reply.

"I thought that would be your answer," said Leonard Bradley, and returned to his house of glass.

***

During the drive back to Land's End, Timothy Peel engaged in a running discourse on the imminent demise of his once promising

career as an officer of the Devon and Cornwall Police. Gabriel waited until the homily had reached its conclusion before assuring

the young detective sergeant that his fears were overblown.

"I'm sure it's nothing, Timothy."

"Are you really?"

"Reasonably sure," said Gabriel, amending his earlier statement. "After all, Lucinda Graves is the wife of the next prime

minister."

"Does her name appear in the files you stole from Harris Weber?"

" Stole is an ugly word."

"Borrowed?"

"No. Lucinda Graves's name does not appear in the files. But all that means is that she isn't a client."

"What else could she be?"

"Harris Weber gets most of its clients from wealth managers at big banks or from smaller firms like Lucinda's. It's entirely

conceivable that she's in business with them."

Peel swore softly. "I have to tell my chief constable everything we know, preferably before he hears it from Leonard Bradley."

"Leonard isn't going to say anything to anyone. And neither are you."

Peel turned into the car park at Land's End. Ingrid was sitting on the bonnet of the Bentley, her back against the windscreen.

"Where did you get the car?"

"Borrowed," said Gabriel.

"What about the girl?"

"Stolen."

"I suppose she's married."

"No."

"Involved with anyone?"

"I wouldn't know."

"Think she might be interested in having a drink with a handsome country policeman when this is over?"

"Probably not."

Peel unlocked the doors of the Vauxhall. "What now?"

"I'm going to find out whether the wife of the next prime minister is a criminal."

"And if she is?"

Gabriel climbed out without another word and dropped behind the wheel of the Bentley. Ingrid, after sliding off the bonnet,

ducked into the passenger seat. Peel shadowed them eastward as far as Exeter, then pulled onto the verge and flashed his headlamps.

Gabriel flashed his lights twice and was gone.

***

It was Leonard Bradley's habit, at the conclusion of each trading day, to pull on a pair of Wellington boots and walk the

cliffs alone. The time away from his desk and computers, he told Cordelia and the children, was an essential part of his work.

It gave him a chance to clear his head of clutter, to reflect on his successes and console himself over the occasional market

misstep, to see around the next corner, to quite literally look beyond the horizon.

Until recently, the sojourns along the cliffs had also provided Bradley with the opportunity, perhaps once or twice a week,

to spend a few moments with Charlotte. They would pretend to bump into one another near Porthchapel Beach. And if no one else

was in sight, they would steal away to the thick wood near the old St. Levan Church. The hurried encounters, with their impassioned

kisses and desperate clutching at clothing, only fed their desire. Yes, their affair had been a long one, but seldom did they

actually complete the sexual act. Their problem was logistical in nature. Bradley lived and worked in the isolated manor he

shared with his wife and children, and Charlotte divided her time between Oxford and gossipy little Gunwalloe on the Lizard

Peninsula. She forbade Bradley from ever calling on her there. Her neighbors, she said, watched her like hawks.

Especially Vera Hobbs and Dottie Cox. If they ever see us together, we'll be the talk of Cornwall...

For a long time after Charlotte's murder, Bradley had ventured only eastward, oftentimes wandering as far as the fishing village of Mousehole. Now he headed westward into the glare of the declining sun, down to Logan Rock, over to Porthcurno Lookout, across the car park of the Minack Theatre to the cliffs above Porthchapel Beach. He half expected to see Charlotte waiting there, a wicked smile on her face. "Haven't we met somewhere before?" she used to say. And Bradley would reply, "Why yes, I believe we were at Oxford together." Bradley had been posh and Charlotte had been northern and poor. Posh boys like Bradley did not marry poor girls from the north. They married girls like Cordelia Chamberlain.

He cast his gaze toward the thicket of trees near St. Levan Church and imagined the final dreadful seconds of Charlotte's

life. It was obvious that Gabriel Allon and the young detective did not believe that she had been murdered by the serial killer

known as the Chopper. She was killed because of her investigation into the Picasso—and Bradley, in one way or another, had

had a hand in her death. Now, to make matters worse, he had managed to entangle the wife of the next prime minister in the

matter. After carefully weighing his options, he concluded he had no choice but to warn her that she would soon be hearing

from none other than Gabriel Allon.

He placed the call while standing on the windblown cliff above Porthchapel Beach, a few hundred yards from the spot where

Charlotte had been murdered. Much to his surprise, the wife of the next prime minister answered straight away. "Listen, Lucinda,"

he said with an air of false indifference. "I know you must be terribly busy at the moment, but you'll never guess who dropped

by to see me today."