The English Girl: A Novel (18 page)

“Is it finished?” Chiara asked, watching him intently.

“No,” replied Gabriel, still staring at the painting. “It’s just getting started.”

30

TIBERIAS, ISRAEL

T
hat evening was Shabbat. Shamron invited them to dinner at his home in Tiberias. It was not truly an invitation, for invitations can be politely declined. It was a commandment, chiseled into stone, inviolable. Gabriel spent the morning making arrangements to have the painting shipped to Julian Isherwood in London. Then he drove across Jerusalem to collect Chiara at the Israel Museum. As they sped down the Bab al-Wad, the staircase-like gorge linking Jerusalem to the Coastal Plain, Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip unleashed a barrage of rockets that landed as far north as Ashdod. There were only minor injuries in the attack, but it snarled traffic across the narrow waist of the country as thousands of commuters were rushing home for the Sabbath. Only in Israel, thought Gabriel, as he waited an hour for the traffic to budge. It was good to be back home again.

After finally reaching the flatlands of the Coastal Plain, they headed north to the Galilee, then eastward through a string of Arab towns and villages to Tiberias. Shamron’s honey-colored villa was a few miles outside the city, on a bluff overlooking the lake. To reach it required an ascent up a steeply sloped drive. As Gabriel and Chiara entered, it was Gilah who greeted them. Shamron was standing before the television, a phone pressed to his ear. His ugly metal spectacles were propped on his forehead, and he was pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. If they ever erected a statue of him, thought Gabriel, it would be cast in that pose.

“Who is he talking to?” Gabriel asked of Gilah.

“Who do you think?”

“The prime minister?”

Gilah nodded. “Ari thinks we need to retaliate. The prime minister isn’t so sure.”

Gabriel handed Gilah a bottle of wine, a Bordeaux-style red from the Judean Hills, and kissed her cheek. It was as smooth as velvet and smelled of lilac.

“Tell him to get off the phone, Gabriel. He’ll listen to you.”

“I’d rather take a direct hit from one of those Palestinian rockets.”

Gilah smiled and led them into the kitchen. Lining the counters were platters of delicious-looking food; she must have been cooking all day. Gabriel tried to snatch a piece of Gilah’s famous eggplant with Moroccan spice, but she playfully patted the back of his hand.

“How many people are you planning to feed?” he asked.

“Yonatan and his family were supposed to come, but he can’t get away because of the attack.”

Yonatan was Shamron’s eldest child. He was a general in the IDF, and there were rumors he was in the running to become the next chief of staff.

“We’ll eat in a few minutes,” Gilah said. “Go sit with him for a while. He missed you terribly while you were away.”

“I was only gone for two weeks, Gilah.”

“At this stage of his life, two weeks is a long time.”

Gabriel opened the wine, poured two glasses, and carried them into the next room. Shamron was no longer on the phone, but he was still staring at the television.

“They just launched another barrage,” he said. “The rockets should start landing in just a few seconds.”

“Is there going to be a response?”

“Not now. But if this keeps up, we’ll have no choice but to act. The question is, what will Egypt do, now that it’s ruled by the Muslim Brotherhood? Will it stand idly by while we attack Hamas, which, after all, is a wing of the Muslim Brotherhood? Will the Camp David peace treaty hold?”

“What does Uzi say?”

“At the moment, the Office is unable to predict with certainty how the Egyptian leader will react if we go into Gaza. Which is why the prime minister, at least for the moment, is willing to do nothing while the rockets rain on his people.”

Gabriel looked at the screen; rockets were beginning to fall. Then he switched off the television and led Shamron outside to the terrace. It was warmer here than in Jerusalem, and a soft wind from the Golan Heights was making patterns on the silvery surface of the lake. Shamron sat down in one of the wrought-iron chairs along the balustrade and immediately lit one of his foul-smelling cigarettes. Gabriel handed him a glass of wine and sat next to him.

“It’s done nothing for my heart,” Shamron said after drinking some of the wine, “but I’ve become fond of it in my dotage. I suppose it reminds me of all the things I never had time for when I was young—wine, children, holidays.” He paused, then added, “Life.”

“There’s still time, Ari.”

“Spare me the banalities,” Shamron said. “Time is my enemy now, my son.”

“So why are you wasting a minute of it involving yourself in politics?”

“There’s a difference between politics and security.”

“Security is merely an extension of politics, Ari.”

“And if you were advising the prime minister on what to do about the missiles?”

“It’s Uzi’s job to advise him, not mine.”

Shamron let the subject drop for the moment. “I’ve been following the news from London with great interest,” he said. “It looks as though your friend Jonathan Lancaster is well on his way to victory.”

“He is perhaps the luckiest politician on the planet.”

“Luck is an important thing to have in life. I never had much of it. Neither did you, for that matter.”

Gabriel said nothing.

“Needless to say,” Shamron continued, “it is our fervent hope that current electoral trends continue and Lancaster prevails. If that is the case, we are confident he will be the most pro-Zionist British politician since Arthur Balfour.”

“You’re a ruthless bastard.”

“Someone has to be.” Shamron looked at Gabriel seriously for a moment. “I’m sorry I ever let you get mixed up in this business.”

“You got exactly what you wanted,” Gabriel said. “Lancaster might as well be on the Office payroll. He’s the worst thing a leader can be. He’s compromised.”

“It was his doing, not ours.”

“That’s true,” said Gabriel. “But it was Madeline Hart who paid the price.”

“You have to do your best to forget her.”

“I’m afraid I said something to the kidnappers that makes that impossible.”

“You threatened to kill them if they harmed her?”

Gabriel nodded.

“Death threats are like vows of endless love whispered in the heat of passion—easily made, soon forgotten.”

“Not when they’re made by me.”

Shamron crushed out his cigarette thoughtfully. “You surprise me, my son. But not Uzi. He predicted you would want to go after them, which is why he’s already taken it off the table.”

“So I’ll do it without his support.”

“That means you’ll be out there in the field on your own, with no Office resources and no Office protection.”

Gabriel was silent.

“And if I forbade you to go? Would you obey me?”

“Yes, Abba.”

“Really?” asked Shamron, surprised.

Gabriel nodded in response.

“And if I permitted you to find these men and give them the justice they deserve? What would I get in return?”

“Must everything be a negotiation with you?”

“Yes.”

“What do you want?”

“You know what I want.” Shamron paused, then added, “And the prime minister wants it, too.”

Shamron drank some of the wine and then lit another cigarette.

“These are consequential and turbulent times we are living through, and the challenges are only going to grow more serious. The decisions we make in the coming months and years will determine whether the enterprise succeeds or fails. How can you pass up the chance to shape history?”

“I already have shaped history, Ari. Many, many times.”

“So put your gun on the shelf and use that brain of yours to defeat our enemies. Steal their secrets. Recruit their spies and generals as agents. Confuse and confound them. By way of deception, my son, thou shalt do war.”

Gabriel lapsed into silence. The sky above the Golan was turning blue-black with the coming night, and the lake was now nearly invisible. Shamron loved the view because it allowed him to keep watch on his distant enemies. Gabriel loved it because he had beheld it while reciting his marriage vows to Chiara. Now he was about to take a vow of another sort, a vow that would make an old man very happy.

“I won’t be a party to any sort of palace coup,” Gabriel said at last. “Uzi and I have had our differences over the years, but we’ve become friends.”

Shamron knew better than to speak. He had the interrogator’s gift of silence.

“If the prime minister decides not to appoint Uzi to a second term,” Gabriel continued, “I will consider an offer to become the next chief of the Office.”

“I need better odds than that.”

“They’re the best you’re going to get.”

“Negotiating with kidnappers has sharpened your edge.”

“Yes, it has.”

“Where do you plan to start?”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

“What will you do for money?”

“I found a few thousand euros lying around a boat in Marseilles.”

“Who did the boat belong to?”

“A smuggler named Marcel Lacroix.”

“Where is he now?”

Gabriel told him.

“Poor devil.”

“More to follow.”

“Just make sure you’re not one of them. I have plans for you.”

“I said I would consider it, Ari. I haven’t agreed to anything.”

“I know,” Shamron said. “But I also know that you would never mislead me to get something you wanted. You’re not like me. You have a conscience.”

“So do you, Ari. That’s why you can’t sleep at night.”

“Something tells me I’ll sleep well tonight.”

“Don’t get carried away,” Gabriel said. “I still have to talk to Chiara about all this.”

Shamron smiled.

“What’s so funny?” asked Gabriel.

“Whose idea do you think it was?”

“You’re a ruthless bastard.”

“Someone has to be.”

B
ut where to begin his search for Madeline’s killers? The most logical place was among the criminal organizations of Marseilles. He could locate associates of Marcel Lacroix and René Brossard, watch them, bribe them, interrogate them, hurt a few if necessary, until he learned the identity of the man who had called himself Paul. The man who had taken Madeline to lunch at Les Palmiers the day of her disappearance. The man who spoke French as though he had learned it from a tape. But there was one problem with that plan. If Gabriel went to Marseilles, he would surely cross paths with the French police. Besides, he thought, the man known as Paul was probably long gone by now. Therefore, he decided he would begin his search not with the perpetrators of the crime but with the two victims. Someone had known about the affair between Jonathan Lancaster and Madeline Hart. And someone had passed that information to the man known as Paul. Find that person, he reasoned, and he would find Paul.

For now, though, Gabriel needed to find someone else first. Someone who had followed Lancaster’s rise to power. Someone who knew the dynamics of Lancaster’s relationship with Jeremy Fallon. Someone who knew where the bodies were buried. He found that person the following morning while reading the coverage of the British election campaign. It would be complicated, dangerous even. But if it produced information that led Gabriel to Madeline’s killers, it would be well worth the personal risk.

He spent the rest of the morning preparing a detailed dossier. Then he packed an overnight bag with two changes of clothing and two changes of identity. That evening he flew from Ben Gurion to Paris, and by noon the following day he was once again on the island of Corsica. He needed one more thing before he could begin his search. He needed an accomplice. Someone extremely capable, utterly ruthless, and without a shred of conscience.

He needed Christopher Keller.

31

CORSICA

T
he island had been transformed since Gabriel’s last visit. The beaches were deserted, there were good tables to be had in the better restaurants, and the outdoor markets were free of the half-naked mainlanders who gawked admiringly but rarely reached into their wallets. Corsica was once again in the possession of the Corsicans. And for that, even the gloomiest of the island’s residents were grateful.

There were many other things, however, that remained unchanged. The same intoxicating scent of the
macchia
greeted Gabriel as he turned inland from the coast; the same old woman pointed at him with her index and little fingers as he drove through the isolated hill town; and the same two guards nodded menacingly as he sped past the entrance of Don Anton Orsati’s estate.

He followed the road until it turned to dirt, and then he followed it a little farther. And when he rounded the sharp left-hand bend near the three ancient olive trees, Don Casabianca’s wretched palomino goat was there to block his path. Upon seeing Gabriel, its expression darkened, as though it recalled the circumstances of their last encounter and now planned to return the favor. Through the open car window, Gabriel politely asked the goat to give way. And when the beast lifted its chin defiantly, Gabriel climbed out of the car, leaned close to the goat’s tattered old ear, and whispered a threat much like the one he had issued to the kidnappers of Madeline Hart. Instantly, the goat turned and beat a hasty retreat into the
macchia
. He was a coward, as most tyrants were.

Gabriel climbed back into the car and drove the rest of the way to Keller’s villa. He parked in the drive, in the shade of a laricio pine tree, and called up a greeting to the terrace that went unanswered. The door was unlocked; Gabriel walked from one beautiful white room to the next but found each of them unoccupied. Then he went into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. No milk, no meat, no eggs, nothing that might spoil. Only some beer, a container of Dijon mustard, and a bottle of rather good Sancerre. Gabriel opened the Sancerre and phoned Don Orsati.

K
eller was away on business. Mainland Europe, a country other than France—that was as far as the don would go. If all went according to plan, Keller would be back on Corsica that evening, the following morning at the latest. The don told Gabriel to stay at Keller’s villa and to make himself at home. He said he was sorry about what had happened “up in the north.” Keller had obviously given him a full account.

“So what brings you back to Corsica?” asked the don.

“I paid someone a large sum of money, and they didn’t deliver the merchandise as promised.”

“A very large sum,” the don agreed.

“What would you do if you were in my position?”

“I would have never agreed to help a man like Jonathan Lancaster in the first place.”

“It’s a complicated world, Don Orsati.”

“Indeed,” said the don philosophically. “As for your business problem, you have two choices. You can do your best to forget what happened to the English girl, or you can punish those responsible.”

“What would you do?”

“Here on Corsica we have an old proverb: a Christian forgives, an idiot forgets.”

“I’m not an idiot.”

“Nor a Christian,” said Orsati, “but I won’t hold that against you.”

The don asked Gabriel to stay on the line while he dealt with a minor crisis. It seemed a large shipment of oil to a restaurant in Zurich had gone missing. Gabriel could hear the don shouting at an underling in the Corsican dialect. Find the oil, he was saying, or heads will roll. At any other enterprise, the threat might have been dismissed as managerial bluster. But not at the Orsati Olive Oil Company.

“Where were we?” asked the don.

“You were saying something about Christians and idiots. And you were about to extract a steep price for the privilege of borrowing Keller.”

“He
is
my most valuable employee.”

“For obvious reasons.”

The don was silent for a moment. Gabriel could hear him slurping coffee.

“It is important that this be about more than just blood,” he said after a moment. “You have to recover the money as well.”

“And if I’m able to?”

“A small payment of tribute to your Corsican godfather would be in order.”

“How small?”

“One million should be sufficient.”

“That’s rather steep, Don Orsati.”

“I was going to ask for five.”

Gabriel thought about it for a moment and then accepted the terms. “But only if I can find the money,” he stipulated. “Otherwise, I’m free to use Keller as I see fit, at no charge.”

“Done,” said Orsati. “But make sure you bring him home in one piece. Remember, money doesn’t come from singing.”

G
abriel settled in on the terrace with the Sancerre and the thick dossier on the inner workings of Downing Street under Jonathan Lancaster. But within an hour he was restless, so he called Don Orsati again and asked for permission to walk. The don gave his blessing and told Gabriel where he could find one of Keller’s guns. A chunky HK 9mm, it was located in the drawer of a pretty French antique writing desk, directly beneath the Cézanne. “But be careful,” the don cautioned. “Christopher sets his trigger pressure very light. He’s a sensitive soul.”

Gabriel slipped the weapon into the waistband of his jeans and set out along the narrow track, toward the three ancient olive trees. Thankfully, the goat had yet to return to its sentry post, which meant Gabriel was able to proceed into the village unmolested. It was the uncertain hour between late afternoon and evening. The houses were shuttered and the streets had been abandoned to cats and children. They watched Gabriel with great interest as he made his way to the main square. On three sides there were shops and cafés, and on the fourth was the church. Gabriel purchased a scarf for Chiara in one of the shops and then took a table at the least forbidding-looking of the cafés. He drank strong coffee to counter the effects of the Sancerre; then, as the sky darkened softly and the breeze turned chill, he drank rough Corsican red wine to counter the effects of the coffee. The doors of the church hung ajar. From inside came the murmur of prayer.

Gradually, the square began to fill with townspeople. Teenage boys sat astride their mopeds outside the ice cream parlor; a group of men started up a hard-fought game of
boules
in the center of the dusty esplanade. Shortly after six, about twenty people, old women mainly, came filing down the steps of the church. Among them was the
signadora
. Her gaze settled briefly on Gabriel, the unbeliever; then she disappeared through the doorway of her crooked little house. Soon after, two women came calling on her—an old widow dressed head to toe in black and a distraught-looking girl in her mid-twenties who, doubtless, was suffering the ill effects of the
occhju
.

A half hour later the two women reappeared, along with a boy, about ten years old, with long curly hair. The women made for the ice cream parlor, but the boy, after pausing a moment to watch the game of
boules
, came over to the café where Gabriel was sitting. In his hand was a slip of paper, pale blue and folded in quarters. He placed it on the table before Gabriel and then scurried off as though he feared he might catch something. Gabriel unfolded the slip of paper and in the fading light read the single line that had been written there:

I must see you at once
.

Gabriel inserted the note into his coat pocket and sat there for several minutes debating what to do. Then he left a few coins on the table and headed across the square.

W
hen he knocked on her door, a reedy voice invited him to enter. She was seated sleepily in a faded wing chair, her head lolling to one side, as though she were still suffering from the exertion of absorbing the evil that infected her previous visitors. Despite Gabriel’s protests, she insisted on rising to greet him. This time there was no hostility in her expression, only concern. She touched Gabriel’s cheek without speaking and stared directly into his eyes.

“Your eyes are so very green. You have your mother’s eyes, yes?”

“Yes,” said Gabriel.

“She suffered during the war, did she not?”

“Did Keller tell you that?”

“I’ve never spoken to Christopher about your mother.”

“Yes,” said Gabriel after a moment, “terrible things happened to my mother during the war.”

“In Poland?”

“Yes, in Poland.”

The
signadora
took one of Gabriel’s hands in hers. “You’re warm to the touch. Do you have fever?”

“No,” said Gabriel.

She closed her eyes. “Your mother was a painter like you?”

“Yes.”

“She was in the camps? The one that was named for the trees?”

“Yes, that’s the one.”

“I see a road, snow, a long line of women in gray clothing, a man with a gun.”

Gabriel withdrew his hand quickly. The old woman’s eyes opened with a start.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“Why did you want to see me?”

“I know why you came back here.”

“And?”

“I want to help you.”

“Why?”

“Because it is important that nothing happens to you in the days to come. The old man needs you. So does your wife.”

“I’m not married,” Gabriel lied.

“Her name is Clara, is it not?”

“No,” said Gabriel, smiling. “Her name is Chiara.”

“She is an Italian?”

“Yes.”

“Then I will keep you in my prayers.” She nodded toward her table where a plate of water and a vessel of olive oil stood next to a pair of burning candles. “Won’t you sit down?”

“I’d rather not.”

“You still don’t believe?”

“I believe,” he said.

“Then why won’t you sit? Surely you’re not afraid. Your mother named you Gabriel for a reason. You have the strength of God.”

Gabriel felt as though a stone had been laid over his heart. He wanted to leave at once but curiosity made him stay. After helping the old woman into her chair, he sat opposite her and dipped his finger into the oil. Upon striking the surface of the water, the three drops shattered into a thousand before disappearing. The old woman nodded gravely, as if the test had confirmed her darkest fears. Then, for the second time, she took Gabriel’s hand in hers.

“You’re burning,” she said. “Are you sure you’re not unwell?”

“I was in the sun.”

“At Christopher’s house,” she said knowingly. “You drank his wine. You have his gun on your hip.”

“Go on.”

“You’re looking for a man, the man who killed the English girl.”

“Do you know who he is?”

“No,” she said. “But I know
where
he is. He’s hiding in the east, in the city of heretics. You must never set foot there. If you do,” she said firmly, “you will die.”

She closed her eyes, and after a moment began to weep softly, a sign that the evil had flowed from Gabriel’s body into hers. Then, with a nod, she instructed Gabriel to repeat the test of the oil and the water. This time the oil coalesced into a single drop. The old woman smiled in a way that Gabriel had never seen before.

“What do you see?” asked Gabriel.

“Are you sure you want to know?”

“Yes, of course.”

“I see a child,” she replied without hesitation.

“Whose child?”

She patted Gabriel’s hand. “Go back to the villa,” she said. “Your friend Christopher has returned to Corsica.”

W
hen Gabriel arrived at the villa, he found Keller standing before the open refrigerator. He wore a dark gray suit, wrinkled from travel, and a white dress shirt open at the neck. He withdrew the half-drunk bottle of Sancerre, gave it a demonstrative shake, and then dumped several inches of the wine into a glass.

“Rough day at the office, honey?” asked Gabriel.

“Brutal.” He held up the bottle. “You?”

“I’ve had quite enough.”

“I can see that.”

“How was your trip?”

“The travel was hell,” said Keller, “but everything else went smoothly.”

“Who was he?”

Keller drank some of his wine without answering and asked Gabriel where he had been. When Gabriel told him that he had been to see the
signadora
, Keller smiled.

“We’ll make a Corsican of you yet.”

“It wasn’t my idea,” explained Gabriel.

“What did she want to tell you?”

“It was nothing,” said Gabriel. “Just the usual hocus-pocus about the wind in the willows.”

“Then why are you so pale?”

Gabriel made no response other than to place Keller’s gun carefully on the countertop.

“From what I hear,” Keller said, “you’re going to need that.”

“What do you hear?”

“I hear you’re going on a hunting trip.”

“Are you willing to help me?”

“Frankly,” said Keller, raising his wineglass to the light, “I expected you a long time ago.”

“I had a painting to finish.”

“By whom?”

“Bassano.”

“Studio of Bassano or Bassano Bassano?”

“A little of both.”

“Nice,” said Keller.

“How quickly can you be ready to move?”

“I have to check my calendar, but I suspect I’ll be ready to go first thing in the morning. But you should know,” he added, “that Marseilles is crawling with
flics
at the moment. And half of them are looking for us.”

“Which is why we’re not going anywhere near Marseilles, at least for now.”

“So where are we going?”

Gabriel smiled. “We’re going home.”