“I happen to be wanted for a number of rather large scores in Switzerland. And if your little charade goes sideways, I might have to spend the next several years in a Swiss prison cell.”

“Your scores, as you call them, are nothing in comparison to the stunts I’ve pulled on Swiss soil. I nevertheless have powerful friends in the Federal Police and security service. For that reason, I’m confident that you won’t spend more than a year or two behind bars if you are charged as my accomplice.”

She laughed quietly. “So how good are you, Mr. Allon?”

“With a paintbrush? Better than I am with a gun.”

“Based on personal experience, I find that hard to believe. But there is an easier way to get that Picasso back, you know.”

“Steal it?”

“Steal is an ugly word.”

“I’ve been inside the Freeport on two separate occasions,” said Gabriel. “A heist isn’t possible. The only way to get that painting is to convince Monsieur Ricard to give it to us.”

“You seem to be forgetting that I pinched a top-secret directive from the personal safe of the second most powerful man in Russia.” Ingrid watched the sun slipping below the horizon. “You never told me how many of those border guards you killed that morning.”

“I believe it was five.”

“And how many shots did you fire?”

“Five,” said Gabriel.

“While running downhill through knee-deep snow? That was rather impressive, Mr. Allon. But how did you get me across the Finnish border?”

“You don’t remember?”

“No,” she answered. “I don’t remember anything that happened after the Range Rover crashed into that tree.”

Gabriel gazed at the darkening sea. “Lucky you.”

18

Great Torrington

The Chopper struck again later that same evening, this time in the town of Great Torrington, his first foray beyond the borders of Cornwall. The victim, a twenty-six-year-old employee of the Whiskers Pet Centre in South Street, was set upon sometime after 10:00 p.m. while walking home from the Black Horse pub, where she had been drinking with friends. She was felled by a single blow to the back of the head. Her assailant made no attempt to conceal the body.

Two of the friends with whom the victim had been drinking were male. Both had remained behind at the Black Horse after the victim departed, but both fell within the contours of the altogether useless psychological profile developed by a consultant to the Devon and Cornwall Police. Timothy Peel therefore questioned the two men at length before eliminating them as suspects. Their only misdeed, he concluded, was allowing an inebriated young woman to walk home alone after dark.

Peel also interviewed the victim’s female drinking companions, her distraught parents, and her younger sister. The information he developed compelled him to pay a late-night call at the residence of a physically abusive former boyfriend. The interview established that the thirty-two-year-old mechanic was not a hatchet owner and that he wore a size eleven shoe, a size and a half larger than the footprints discovered at the crime scene. They had been made by a pair of Hi-Tec Aysgarth III walking boots. Police Constable Elenore Tremayne discovered two sets of identical prints—one incoming, the other outgoing—traversing Bastard’s Lane, a narrow road on the town’s northeastern fringe. It suggested to Peel that the killer had hiked into Great Torrington across the surrounding farmland and, after finding his prey, had departed by the same route.

It was nearly 5:00 a.m. when Peel toppled into his bed in Exeter. He slept for an hour, then drove out to Newquay to reinterview one of his favorite hatchet owners—a forty-eight-year-old schoolteacher, never married, slight of build and physically fit, who lived alone in a semidetached cottage in Penhallow Road. He had purchased his hatchet, a Magnusson Composite, twenty-five pounds plus VAT, at the B&Q in Falmouth. Peel caught him on his way out the door. They went inside for a cup of tea and a quiet chat.

“Why do you need a hatchet?” asked Peel as he looked out upon the treeless rear garden.

“You asked me that question the last time you were here.”

“Did I?”

“Home defense,” said the schoolteacher.

“Where were you last night?”

“Here.”

“Doing what?”

“Grading papers.”

“That’s all?”

“A film on television.”

“What was it called?”

“The Remains of the Day.”

“Are you sure you didn’t pop over to the Black Horse in Great Torrington for a pint?”

“I don’t consume alcohol.”

“Ever take long walks in the countryside?”

“Most weekends, actually.”

“What sort of boots do you wear?”

“Wellingtons.”

“Do you happen to own a pair of Hi-Tecs? Size nine and half?”

“I’m a ten.”

“Mind if I have a look in your closet?”

“I’m late for work.”

“I’ll need to see that hatchet of yours as well.”

“Do you have a warrant?”

“I don’t,” admitted Peel. “But I can get one in about five minutes flat.”

*  *  *

Peel left Penhallow Road at half past eight with the hatchet sealed in an evidence bag. While driving back to headquarters, he listened to the news on Radio 4. Not surprisingly, the Great Torrington slaying was the lead story. There was mounting pressure on the Metropolitan Police, which held legal jurisdiction throughout England and Wales, to take control of the investigation. Were that to happen, Peel would return to normal duty at the CID. His typical caseload consisted of narcotics investigations, sexual and physical assaults, antisocial behavior, and burglaries. The Chopper case, for all its gore and long hours, had been a welcome break in the monotony.

The headquarters of the Devon and Cornwall Police were located in Sidmouth Road in an industrial section of Exeter. Peel arrived a few minutes before ten and headed straight for DI Tony Fletcher’s office. Fletcher was the lead detective on the Chopper investigation.