An awkward silence ensued. Finally, Bradley looked at Gabriel and asked, “Why are you here, Mr. Allon?”
Gabriel exchanged a long look with Peel before answering. “Charlotte Blake.”
“I gathered that.”
“The two of you were close friends.” Gabriel lowered his voice. “Unusually close.”
“And just what are you implying?”
“Let’s skip this part, shall we? I’ve read the text messages.”
Bradley’s face drained of color. “You self-righteous bastard.”
“I am neither, I assure you.” Gabriel glanced deliberately around Bradley’s magnificent office. “Besides, you know what they say about people who live in glass houses.”
The remark lowered the temperature, but only slightly. Leonard Bradley posed his next question to Peel. “Am I a suspect in Charlotte’s murder?”
“You are not.”
“Is this an official proceeding?”
“No.”
“In that case, Detective Sergeant, why are you here?”
“I’ll leave, if you like,” replied Peel, and started toward the door.
“Stay,” insisted Bradley. Then he looked at Gabriel and asked, “Won’t you please sit down, Mr. Allon? You’re making me terribly uncomfortable.”
Gabriel lowered himself into one of the chairs, and Peel sat down next to him. Bradley stared intently at his computer screen, his hand hovering over the keyboard.
“You wanted to ask me something, Mr. Allon?”
“Professor Blake was conducting a sensitive provenance investigation at the time of her murder.”
“Yes, I know.” Bradley’s gaze settled briefly on Gabriel. “Untitled portrait of a woman by Pablo Picasso.”
“When did she tell you about it?”
“A few days after she obtained a copy of the sales records from Christie’s. They revealed that the painting was in the hands of an offshore shell corporation called OCC Group, Limited. Charlotte wanted to know whether I could discover the name of OOC’s beneficial owner.”
“And what did you—”
Bradley raised a hand, requesting silence, then tapped his keyboard once. “I just earned three million pounds for my investors on a multitiered currency play. It’s the sort of thing I do, Mr. Allon. I bet on tiny fluctuations of the markets and leverage the trades with large sums of borrowed money. Sometimes I hold my positions only for a moment or two. Charlotte thought it was a truly ridiculous way to earn a living.” He paused. “As do you, I imagine.”
“Glass houses,” repeated Gabriel.
The remark brought a smile briefly to Leonard Bradley’s face. “We were at Oxford together, Charlotte and I. She was from Yorkshire, and working class to the core. Her accent was atrocious back then. The posh crowd were quite cruel to her.”
“But not you?”
“No,” said Bradley. “I was always fond of Charlotte, despite the fact that I was considered rather posh myself. And when I bumped into her late one afternoon while walking along the South West Coast Path . . .” He was silent for a moment. “Well, it was as though we were undergraduates again.”
“And when she asked for your help?”
“I conducted a routine corporate search into the company known as OOC Group, Limited. And when my search turned up nothing useful, I put Charlotte in touch with an old friend who’s more familiar with the world of offshore financial services. I’m afraid she was even less helpful than I was, but they had a good chat nevertheless. Charlotte was raving about her afterward.”
“Can you tell me her name?”
“Yes, of course. It was Lucinda Graves.”
“The wife of the next British prime minister?” asked Gabriel.
“So they say.” Bradley stepped from behind his desk and showed them out. They stood at the cliff’s edge for a moment admiring the view of Penberth Cove. “Your first visit to Cornwall, Mr. Allon?”
“Yes,” he lied. “But I’m sure it won’t be my last.”
Bradley gazed westward toward Porthchapel Beach. “Did you really read Charlotte’s text messages?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Why was she walking along the coast path after sunset on a Monday afternoon? Why wasn’t she in her car headed back to Oxford?”
Gabriel made no reply.
“I thought that would be your answer,” said Leonard Bradley, and returned to his house of glass.
* * *
