The English Girl

“Homesick?” asked Gabriel.

“Occasionally, I like to hear the sound of my native language.”

“You’ve never been back?”

“To England?”

Gabriel nodded.

“Never,” answered Keller. “I refuse to work there, and I’ve never accepted a contract on a British subject.”

“How noble of you.”

“One has to operate by a certain code.”

“So your parents have no idea you’re alive?”

“They haven’t a clue.”

“Then you couldn’t possibly be Jewish,” admonished Gabriel. “No Jewish boy would ever allow his mother to think he was dead. He wouldn’t dare.”

Gabriel turned to the most recent entry in Madeline Hart’s personnel file and read it silently as Keller drove. It was a copy of a letter, sent by Jeremy Fallon to the Party chairman, suggesting that Madeline be promoted to a junior post in a ministry and groomed for elected office. Then he looked at the snapshot of Madeline sitting at an outdoor café with the man they knew only as Paul.

Keller, watching him, asked, “What are you thinking?”

“I’m just wondering why a rising young star in Britain’s governing party was sharing a bottle of champagne with a first-rate creep like our friend Paul.”

“Because he knew she was having an affair with the British prime minister. And he was preparing to kidnap her.”

“How could he have known?”

“I have a theory.”

“Is it supported by fact?”

“A couple.”

“Then it’s only a theory.”

“But at least it will help to pass the time.”

Gabriel closed the file, as if to say he was listening. Keller switched off the radio.

“Men like Jonathan Lancaster always make the same mistake when they have an affair,” he said. “They trust their bodyguards to keep their mouths shut. But they don’t. They talk to each other, they talk to their wives, they talk to their girlfriends, and they talk to their old mates who’ve found work in London’s private security industry. And before long the talk reaches the ears of someone like Paul.”

“You think Paul is connected to the London security business?”

“He could be. Or he could know someone who is. However it happened,” Keller added, “a piece of information like that is gold to someone like Paul. He probably put Madeline under watch in London and hacked into her mobile phone and e-mail accounts. That’s how he found out she was coming to Corsica on holiday. And when she arrived, Paul was waiting.”

“Why have lunch with her? Why take the risk of showing his face?”

“Because he needed to get her alone so he could get her cleanly.”

“He seduced her?”

“He’s a charming bastard.”

“I don’t buy it,” said Gabriel after a moment of reflection.

“Why not?”

“Because at the time of her abduction, Madeline was romantically involved with the British prime minister. She wouldn’t have been attracted to someone like Paul.”

“Madeline was the prime minister’s mistress,” Keller countered, “which means there was very little romance in their relationship. She was probably a lonely girl.”

Gabriel looked at the photo again—not at Madeline but at Paul. “Who the hell is he?”

“He’s no amateur, that’s for sure. Only a professional would know about the don. And only a professional would dare to knock on the don’s door to ask for help.”

“If he’s such a professional, why did he have to rely on local talent to pull off the job?”

“You’re asking why he doesn’t have a crew of his own?”

“I suppose I am.”

“Simple economics,” Keller responded. “Maintaining a crew can be a complicated undertaking. And invariably there are personnel problems. When work is slow, the boys get unhappy. And when there’s a big score, the boys want a big cut.”

“So he uses freelancers on straight fee-for-service contracts to avoid having to share the profits.”

“In today’s competitive global business environment, everyone’s doing it.”

“Not the don.”

“The don is different. We’re a family, a clan. And you’re right about one thing,” Keller added. “Marcel Lacroix is lucky Paul didn’t have him killed. If he’d dared to ask Don Orsati for more money after completing a job, he would have ended up on the bottom of the Mediterranean in a cement coffin.”

“Which is where he is now.”

“Absent the cement, of course.”

Gabriel glared at Keller in disapproval but said nothing.

“You’re the one who ripped his earring out.”

“A torn earlobe is a temporary affliction. A bullet through the eye is forever.”

“What were we supposed to do with him?”

“We could have run him over to Corsica and left him with the don.”