“What should I call you?”
“How about David?”
“David?” Peel shook his head. “Doesn’t suit you.”
“In that case, you should call me Christopher.”
“Much better.” Peel glanced at the rucksack. “What have you got in there, Christopher?”
“Zeiss night-vision field glasses, two Glock pistols, several spare magazines of nine-millimeter ammunition, a couple of secure phones, and a box of McVitie’s.”
“Dark chocolate?”
“But of course.”
“I’d kill for one.”
He fished the tube of biscuits from the rucksack and handed one to Peel. “Cornwall lad, are you?”
“Mostly.”
“Which part?”
“The Lizard.”
“Port Navas, by any chance?”
Peel’s head swiveled to the left. “How did you know?”
“A friend of mine used to live there. The old foreman’s cottage overlooking the quay. An art restorer by trade. A spy in his spare time.”
Peel returned his eyes to the road. “My mother and I lived in the house at the head of the tidal creek. We were neighbors.”
“Yes, I know. He told me the story one night when we were holed up in a safe house and the telly was on the fritz.”
“Where was the safe house?”
“Can’t seem to remember. But I do recall the fondness with which he spoke about the little boy who used to signal him with a torch from his bedroom window each time he returned to Port Navas. You meant a great deal to him, Timothy. More than you’ll ever realize.”
“He made me the person I am.”
“We have that in common, the two of us.” Christopher lowered his voice. “Which is why I came here tonight.”
“What’s in Petton Cross?” asked Peel.
“A cellular mast that detected the presence of Gabriel’s phone about two hours ago. It is my profound hope that he and his friend Ingrid are somewhere in the near vicinity.”
“What happened?”
“They were abducted in London this afternoon. A car park in Garrick Street, very professional. About an hour before it happened, Gabriel paid a visit to Lucinda Graves’s office in Mayfair. I was wondering if you knew why.”
“Professor Charlotte Blake.”
Christopher pointed toward the exit for the A38. “You’d better slow down, Timothy. Otherwise, you’ll miss your turnoff.”
* * *
It was smaller, even, than tiny Gunwalloe, just a handful of cottages and farms clustered around the intersection of four small roads. One led due north. Peel followed it for a few hundred yards, then turned into a narrow lane that carried them up the slope of a low hill. To their right, barely visible over the dense hedgerow, a single red light shone atop a cellular mast.
There was no verge, and no turnout in sight, so Peel slowed the Vauxhall to a stop in the center of the lane. The immediate proximity of the hedgerows required him to shimmy sideways from behind the wheel. In the boot was a pair of Wellingtons, a necessity for police work in rural England. He pulled them on and played the beam of a torch over the hedgerow. It was impenetrable to light.
“Surely there’s a gap somewhere,” said Christopher.
“Not on this road, there isn’t.”
“Then I suppose we’ll have to go through it, won’t we?”
Christopher slung his rucksack over his shoulder and walked through the hedgerow as though it were an open door. By the time Peel managed to extract himself, the SIS man was halfway across the meadow on the other side. Peel clambered after him awkwardly in the Wellingtons and was gasping for air when he finally reached the brow of the hill. Christopher was breathing normally despite the freshly lit Marlboro jutting from the corner of his mouth.
He pulled the night-vision field glasses from the rucksack and, rotating slowly at the base of the mast, searched the land in every direction. A few lights burned here and there, but otherwise this corner of Devon was still sleeping soundly.
At last he lowered the glasses and pointed toward the northeast. “There’s a rather grand property a couple of miles in that direction. You wouldn’t happen to know who owns it?”
“That’s Somerset, sir.”
“And?”
“Not my jurisdiction.”
