“She sends her regards.”

“I hope she isn’t angry with me.”

“Chiara? Only at me,” Gabriel assured him. “But that’s usually the case.”

A silence fell between them. Gabriel listened to the gentle slap of wavelets against the port side of his old boat. Memories of that night in Vienna were stirring. He held them at bay.

“All right, Detective Sergeant Peel, now that we’ve had a chance to become reacquainted, perhaps you should tell me why you dragged me all the way down to Cornwall.”

“Charlotte Blake,” said Peel. “Professor of art history from the University of Oxford.”

“And the fifth victim of the serial killer known as the Chopper.”

“Maybe, Mr. Allon. Or maybe not.”

6

Port Navas

Detective Sergeant Timothy Peel, an eight-year veteran of the Devon and Cornwall Police, was assigned to the Chopper case after the second killing, joining a team of four senior officers. His first assignment was to identify and question everyone in southwest England, regardless of age or gender, who had recently purchased a hatchet. Late Tuesday afternoon he was crossing names from his list when a call came through on the dedicated tip line. It was from a resident of Gunwalloe.

“Which one?”

“Vera Hobbs. Who else?”

“What seemed to be the problem?”

A light burning in the window of Professor Blake’s cottage. Admittedly, Peel didn’t think much of it at the time, so he contacted a few more hatchet owners before ringing his colleagues at the Thames Valley Police. As it turned out, they were already looking into the matter.

“TVP had made entry into Professor Blake’s home in Oxford and checked all the hospitals in its jurisdiction. There was no sign of her.”

“What about her car?”

“I was the one who found it.”

“Where?”

“The car park at the Land’s End amusement center.”

“If memory serves, there’s a credit card kiosk there.”

“The chit was displayed on her dashboard. The time stamp was 4:17 p.m. on Monday.”

Gabriel cast his eyes to the west. “Less than a half hour before sunset?”

“Twenty-eight minutes, to be precise.”

“Did anyone see her?”

“A receptionist arriving for work at the Land’s End Hotel spotted a woman setting off along the coast path alone. We assume it was Professor Blake.”

“At four seventeen in the afternoon?”

“It’s a beautiful spot at that time of day. But under the circumstances . . .”

It made no sense at all, thought Gabriel. “The newspapers were a bit vague as to the exact location of the crime scene.”

“An overgrown hedgerow north of Porthchapel Beach. It looked as though the killer tried to conceal the body. Which is interesting,” added Peel. “The previous four victims were left where they had fallen, with the backs of their skulls split by a single blow. They were probably dead before they hit the ground.”

“And Professor Blake?”

“He made a real mess of her. He also seems to have made off with her mobile phone.”

“Did he take the phones of the other victims?”

Peel shook his head.

“Theory of the case?” asked Gabriel.

“My colleagues think Professor Blake must have heard the killer stealing up behind her. And when she turned around, she sent him into a rage.”

“Which would explain the overkill.”

“But not the missing mobile.”

“She might have dropped it somewhere.”

“We’ve swept the entire coast path and the area surrounding the hedgerow where the body was discovered. We found three old mobile phones, none of them belonging to Professor Blake.”

“And it’s not emitting a signal?”

“What do you think?”

“I think you should make sure she didn’t leave it in the car.”

“I know how to search a car, Mr. Allon. The phone is gone.”

Gabriel smiled in spite of himself. “And what about you, Detective Sergeant Peel? What’s your theory?”

He ran a hand over the gunwale of the ketch before answering. “We’ve always been a bit cagey about some of the details of the killings. The number of blows, the location, those sorts of things. It’s standard procedure in a case like this. It helps us weed out the cranks and kooks.”

“What about copycats?”

“Those, too. After all, how could someone imitate the Chopper if he doesn’t know his exact methods?”

“Do you believe Professor Blake was killed by a copycat?”

“I’m willing to entertain the notion.”