“Were it not for me,” she replied, “handsome Hugh would never have become an MP in the first place. I made him who he is.”
A worldwide embarrassment, thought Gabriel.
Finally, the protection officer moved away from the door, and the gray Range Rover eased forward. Lucinda increased the volume. The BBC’s presenters and political analysts were struggling to make sense of the drama unfolding before their eyes.
“You won’t forget our deal, will you, Mr. Allon?”
“For better or worse, Lucinda, I am a man of my word.”
She rose to her feet, looking suddenly drained. “May I ask you a question before you leave?”
“You want to know what I’m doing with Trevor Robinson’s phone?”
Lucinda’s eyes were vacant. “I’m sorry, but I’m not familiar with anyone by that name.”
“That makes two of us,” replied Gabriel, and went out.
* * *
The Bentley was parked in a loading zone at the southern end of Old Burlington Street. Gabriel slid into the back seat next to Ingrid, and the car rolled away from the curb. The team on Radio 4 was at a loss for words, surely a first in the history of British broadcasting.
“I assume you had something to do with this,” said Christopher.
“It was Lucinda’s idea. I just helped her reach the best decision for the sake of the country.”
“How?”
“By promising her that she would face no charges in the murder of Charlotte Blake.”
Christopher looked at Peel. “Do you think you can manage that, Timothy?”
“That depends on whether or not I still have a job.”
“Not to worry. I’ll explain everything to your chief constable.”
“Everything?”
“Maybe five percent of everything.” Christopher turned into Piccadilly and glanced at Gabriel in the rearview. “Are you quite finished?”
“I certainly hope so. I’m exhausted.”
“What are your plans?”
“The two o’clock British Airways flight to Venice. If it departs on schedule, I’ll be home in time for dinner.”
“I’ll drop you at Heathrow on the way to Exeter. But what about your partner in crime?”
“She’s coming with me.”
Ingrid looked at Gabriel with surprise. “I am?”
“When those documents from Harris Weber are made public, several hundred very rich people are going to be extremely angry, including a few Russians. I think it would be a good idea for you to stay in Venice until the storm blows over. If you can behave yourself, that is.”
Frowning, Ingrid drew her phone. “I’ve always been fond of the Cipriani.”
Gabriel laughed. “Perhaps you should stay with us instead.”
Part Four
The Cottage
59
London
The 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers convened in Room 14 of the Palace of Westminster at two o’clock that afternoon and in a unanimous voice vote elected former prime minister Jonathan Lancaster the new Conservative Party leader. He met with the King at Buckingham Palace an hour later and at 4:00 p.m. addressed a shell-shocked Britain from the doorstep of 10 Downing Street. He promised competence, stability, and a return to decency. The Whitehall press corps, having just witnessed the most turbulent day in modern British political history, was justifiably dubious.
Inside, Lancaster met for the first time with his hastily assembled Cabinet. Stephen Frasier stayed on at the Foreign Office, but Nigel Cunningham, a brilliant lawyer before entering politics, became the new home secretary. Cunningham’s successor as chancellor of the Exchequer was none other than Hillary Edwards. Her family’s personal possessions, having been extracted from Number Ten earlier that very morning, were carted into her new official residence next door.
The press declared the move a masterstroke on Lancaster’s part, and one prominent columnist from the Telegraph went so far as to predict that a return to normalcy was possible, after all. He was forced to backtrack a few hours later, though, when his colleague Samantha Cooke published another explosive article, this one detailing the size and scope of the plot against Hillary Edwards. The epicenter of the conspiracy was Harris Weber & Company, a little-known law firm that specialized in offshore financial services. But executives from Britain’s largest banks and investment houses, including Lambeth Wealth Management, were also involved. They were motivated by a desire to keep the so-called London Laundromat open for business. So, too, was Valentin Federov. According to the Telegraph, the Russian oligarch had taken part in the scheme at the behest of his president, who had used the London Laundromat to bury tens of billions of dollars in the West.
The next morning brought yet another shocking development. This time the news was delivered by the chief constable of the Avon and Somerset Police and concerned the discovery of five bodies at an estate near the hamlet of Raddington. Preliminary ballistics analysis indicated that the victims had been killed with two separate nine-millimeter weapons. Four of the men were former soldiers who made their livings as private security contractors—a description that covered all manner of sins—and the fifth was a former MI5 counterintelligence officer employed by Harris Weber & Company. More intriguing still was the nominal owner of the property where the incident had occurred: Driftwood Holdings, an anonymous shell company controlled by Valentin Federov. Prime Minister Lancaster, in a brief appearance before reporters outside Number Ten, said the available evidence suggested Russian involvement. With the exception of the mendacious Kremlin spokesman, no one took issue with the statement.
Calls to the Monaco office of Harris Weber & Company received no answer. Neither did a pro forma email, sent three days later, offering the firm’s founding partners the opportunity to comment on a story that would soon appear on the website of the Telegraph. Written by Samantha Cooke and four other seasoned investigative reporters, the exposé detailed how the secretive law firm had helped some of the world’s wealthiest people conceal their riches and evade taxation by using anonymous shell companies registered in offshore financial centers. Armed with millions of sensitive attorney-client documents supplied by an unidentified source, the newspaper was able to peel away the layers of secrecy and identify the real owners of the vaguely named corporate entities. Moguls and monarchs, kleptocrats and criminals. The richest of the rich, the worst of the worst.
Within hours of the story’s publication, protesters poured into the streets of capitals around the world, demanding higher wages for workers, higher taxes for billionaires, and justice for autocratic rulers who enriched themselves at the expense of their people. The largest protest took place in London’s Trafalgar Square and included a tense standoff with police at the gates of Downing Street. Prime Minister Lancaster, a man of means himself, pledged sweeping reforms of Britain’s financial services industry and real estate markets. The remarks briefly sent the FTSE into a tailspin. The City moneymen, fearful the music was about to stop, tut-tutted their disapproval.
Follow-up stories appeared almost daily. One detailed how Harris Weber & Company had helped a Middle Eastern potentate secretly purchase more than a billion dollars’ worth of real estate in Britain and the United States. Another explored how the firm used an elaborate scheme known as “the art strategy” to move clients’ money from its country of origin to offshore tax havens. A key player in the fraud was Edmond Ricard, the murdered art dealer whose gallery had been located within the boundaries of the Geneva Freeport. Using an internal Freeport document, the source of which was never revealed, the story identified more than a dozen billionaire collectors who stored paintings in the facility. The multibillionaire chairman of a French luxury goods conglomerate, outraged by the disclosure, announced plans to move his enormous collection to Delaware. And when the French government commenced a review of the chairman’s most recent tax returns, he threatened to take up residence in lower-tax Belgium. Much to the dismay of his countrymen, the Belgians suggested he remain at home.
