“I’d love to.”
Holland lifted the receiver of his phone and dialed an internal number. “Hello, Simon. Geoffrey calling. Pull up the video from four o’clock on the afternoon of December fifteenth. I need to have a look at something straight away.”
* * *
“Four twelve, you say?”
“On the dot.”
“Do you mind if I ask how you know that, Mr. Allon?”
“I would, actually.”
Simon Eastwood, a former Metropolitan Police detective who now served as the Courtauld’s chief of security, rattled the keyboard of a computer in his office, and a still image of the museum’s lobby appeared on the screen.
“Do you see her?”
“Not yet.”
Eastwood set the scene in motion with the click of his mouse. When the time stamp in the lower right corner of the screen read 4:12:38, Gabriel asked the security chief to pause the recording. Then he pointed toward the woman coming through the doorway, wearing a Burberry overcoat and scarf against the December cold.
“There she is.”
Eastwood resumed the playback. As Gabriel predicted, Professor Charlotte Blake headed directly to the Courtauld’s café and placed her order at the crimson counter. The table she selected was in a deserted corner of the room. After shedding her coat, she pulled a book from her bag and began to read.
It was 4:25 p.m.
“You see,” said Geoffrey Holland. “She merely popped into the café for a cup of tea and a scone.”
“On the same afternoon that you were meeting with the museum’s board of trustees.”
“I don’t see how that’s relevant.”
“Do you remember what time the meeting ended?”
“If memory serves, it dragged on until nearly five.”
Gabriel asked Simon Eastwood to advance the recording to 4:55 p.m. and increase the playback speed. Charlotte Blake sat with the stillness of a figure in a painting while patrons and employees buzzed like insects around her.
“Pause it,” said Gabriel when the time stamp reached 5:04:12. Then he pointed to one of the figures in the tableau. “Do you recognize her?”
“Yes, of course,” replied Geoffrey Holland.
It was Lucinda Graves.
Gabriel asked Simon Eastwood to resume the playback at normal speed. Eastwood looked to Geoffrey Holland for approval, and Holland, after a moment’s hesitation, nodded his head solemnly. Then they watched in silence as the wife of the soon-to-be prime minister sat down opposite a woman who in a month’s time would be dead. By all appearances their conversation was cordial. It concluded at 5:47 p.m. They were the last customers to leave the café.
“May I have a copy of this video?” asked Gabriel.
Eastwood looked at Geoffrey Holland, who delivered his ruling without delay.
“No, Mr. Allon. You may not.”
* * *
“Perhaps it slipped her mind,” said Ingrid without conviction.
“It didn’t. She invited me to her office to pump me for information and then lied to my face. Quite well, I might add. Lucinda Graves is the link between Charlotte Blake and Trevor Robinson. Lucinda is the reason that Charlotte was murdered.”
They were walking westward along the Strand toward Trafalgar Square. “When you think about it,” said Ingrid, “it would explain a great deal.”
“Beginning with the Federov scandal,” added Gabriel. “It was manufactured by Lucinda and her friends at Harris Weber in order to force Hillary Edwards to resign. It was a coup directed against a sitting British prime minister.”
“None of which we can prove.”
“With one important exception.”
“The ten-million-pound payment from Valentin Federov to Lord Radcliff?”
“Exactly.”
They rounded a corner into Bedford Street and headed toward Covent Garden. Ingrid asked, “How much does Radcliff know about the plot?”
“If I had to guess, he knows everything.”
“Which means his lordship is a most dangerous man.”
“So am I,” replied Gabriel.
