“All of the firm’s sensitive attorney-client information is stored offline on an external hard drive. And the hard drive is locked in a safe inside the firm’s offices in Monaco.”

“How much data are we talking about?” asked Ingrid.

“Three terabytes, at least.”

“Does the safe have a door on it?”

“Of course.”

“That’s a relief,” said Ingrid. “Combination or keypad?”

35

Villa Orsati

Philippe Lambert’s external hard drives contained more than merely a list of the shell companies created by the law firm of Harris Weber & Company. He had also saved the contents of Charlotte Blake’s missing mobile phone—the metadata, the geolocation data, the Internet browsing history, the emails and text messages. They left no doubt that she had been involved in an affair with Leonard Bradley, a wealthy high-frequency trader who owned a substantial clifftop home not far from the spot where she was murdered.

There was also a copy of Professor Blake’s provenance for an untitled portrait of a woman, oil on canvas, 94 by 66 centimeters, by Pablo Picasso. It was purchased, she discovered, from Galerie Paul Rosenberg in June 1939 by the businessman and collector Bernard Lévy. In July 1942, one week after the Paris Roundup, Lévy entrusted the painting to his lawyer, Hector Favreau, and went into hiding in the south with his wife and daughter. Favreau kept the painting until 1944, when he sold it to André Delacroix, a senior official in the collaborationist Vichy regime. The painting remained in the Delacroix family until 2015, when it was put up for sale at the venerable Christie’s auction house in London. It fetched a mere fifty-two million pounds, in part because of concerns about its past. The buyer was OOC Group, Ltd., of Road Town, the British Virgin Islands. Charlotte Blake, a former employee of Christie’s, had a photocopy of the sales agreement to prove it.

But how had Trevor Robinson known of Professor Blake’s explosive findings? The most likely explanation was that Robinson had been tipped off by someone, probably in mid-December. Gabriel searched the professor’s emails and text messages but found nothing to suggest she had shared the information with anyone. The phone’s geolocation data indicated that she had spent the long winter academic break in isolation at her cottage in Cornwall. Her only travel during this period was a three-day visit to London, where, on the afternoon of December 15, she spent ninety minutes at the Courtauld Gallery.

It occurred to Gabriel that Sarah Bancroft, a member of the Courtauld’s board of trustees, might know something about Professor Blake’s visit to the gallery. He reached her at Isherwood Fine Arts, where she was showing a painting to a prospective buyer. She sounded relieved to hear his voice.

“Please tell me you didn’t kill him,” she said.

“Who?”

She delivered her answer in a stage whisper. “Monsieur Ricard.”

“We should probably postpone this discussion until I get back to London.”

“Where are you now?”

In coded language, Gabriel informed Sarah that he had borrowed her husband’s villa on Corsica. Then he told her about the ninety minutes that Professor Charlotte Blake had spent at the Courtauld Gallery in mid-December.

“I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation,” she said.

“Like what?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps she wanted to see a painting.”

“As far as I can tell, she was in one spot the entire time.”

“And you’re sure it was the fifteenth?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I was at the Courtauld the same day. Bloody board meeting. Three hours of unmitigated tedium, after which I went home and crawled into my empty bed.”

“Is it still empty?”

“Don’t even think about it,” she said, and rang off.

*  *  *

At one fifteen that afternoon Gabriel unleashed Proteus on Trevor Robinson’s mobile phone. In less than an hour, the hacking malware had seized control of the device’s operating system. After downloading the former MI5 officer’s emails and text messages, Gabriel instructed Ingrid to locate and delete Philippe Lambert’s inferior Macedonian malware. Armed with Proteus, it took her all of five minutes.

“Would you mind if I made a copy of this stuff for myself?”

“I would, actually. But you can have this.” Gabriel handed Ingrid the HK tactical pistol. “I have to run an errand. Shoot anyone who comes within fifty meters of the villa.”

Outside, Gabriel climbed into the damaged rental car and set off down the unpaved track. Don Casabianca’s wretched goat was reclining in the shade of the three ancient olive trees. The beast remained there, vigilant but motionless, as Gabriel braked to a halt and lowered his window. He addressed his adversary in French.

“Listen, I don’t know what my friend said to you earlier, but nothing about this situation between us is my fault. In fact, this is one of the few disputes in my life where I am entirely blameless. Therefore, I am the one who is owed an apology, not you. And tell your master, the loathsome Don Casabianca, that I expect him to pay for the damage you inflicted on my automobile.”

And with that, Gabriel raised his window and rolled away in a cloud of dust. He followed the road over the hill and into the neighboring valley, and a moment later slowed to a stop at the entrance of the grand estate. The two guards regarded the front of the car with expressions of mild bemusement. They did not bother to ask for an explanation. Gabriel’s long feud with Don Casabianca’s ill-mannered caprine was now part of the island’s lore.

The guards opened the gate, and Gabriel headed up a long drive lined with Van Gogh olive trees. Don Anton Orsati’s office was located on the second floor of his fortresslike villa. As usual, he received Gabriel while seated behind the heavy oaken table he used for his desk. He wore a pair of loose-fitting trousers, dusty leather sandals, and a crisp white shirt. At his elbow was a bottle of Orsati olive oil—olive oil being the legitimate front through which the don laundered the profits of his real business, which was murder for hire. Gabriel was one of only two people who had managed to survive an Orsati family contract. The other was Anna Rolfe.

Rising, Don Orsati offered Gabriel a granite hand. “I was beginning to think you were avoiding me.”

“Forgive me, Your Holiness. But I had to attend to an urgent matter.”

The don regarded him skeptically with a pair of black eyes. It was like being studied by a canine. “The urgent matter wasn’t that pretty blond woman, was it?”

“The man in the back seat.”

“Rumor has it you gave René Monjean a thousand euros to get him out of Marseilles.”

“What else does rumor have?”

“A worker at a vineyard north of Saint-Tropez stumbled on a body early this morning. A motorcyclist, no identification or phone. The police seem to think someone must have run him off the road.”

“Do they have a suspect?”

The don shook his head. “It’s quiet up there this time of year. Apparently, no one saw a thing.”

Gabriel wordlessly tossed the German passport onto the tabletop. Don Orsati opened it to the first page.

“A professional?”

“Quite.”

“Were you the target?”

“The man in the back seat,” replied Gabriel. “He’s a computer hacker who works for a dirty law firm in Monaco.”

“Who wanted him dead?”