Gabriel Allon 01 - The Kill Artist Read online

  The Cromwell Road at midnight: the dreary corridor connecting Central London to the western suburbs had never looked so beautiful to Jacqueline. The bleak Edwardian hotels with their flickering neon vacancy signs seemed enchanting to her. She watched the changing patterns of traffic lights reflected in the wet pavement and saw an urban masterpiece. She lowered her window a few inches and smelled the air: diesel fumes, damp, cheap fried food cooking somewhere. London at night. Spectacular.

  They had switched cars, the blue Vauxhall for a gray Toyota with a cracked windshield. The Vauxhall had been driven by a good-looking boy with his hair drawn back into a ponytail. Sitting behind the wheel now was an older man—at least forty, she guessed—with a narrow face and nervous black eyes. He drove slowly.

  Yusef murmured a few words to him in Arabic.

  Jacqueline said, “Speak French or English or nothing at all.”

  “We are Palestinians,” Yusef said. “Arabic is our language.”

  “I don’t give a shit! I don’t speak Arabic. I can’t understand what you’re saying, and it’s making me uncomfortable, so please speak fucking English, or you can find someone else.”

  “I was only telling him to slow down a little.”

  Actually, Yusef, you were telling him to make certain we aren’t being followed, but let’s not get hung up on the details.

  On the seat between them lay a small suitcase. Yusef had taken her to her flat and helped her pack. “There won’t be time to go to baggage claim,” he had said. “If you need more clothing you’ll be given money to buy more clothing.” He had watched her pack carefully, inspecting each item she placed in the bag. “How should I dress?” she had asked sarcastically. “Warm climate or cold? Are we going to Norway or New Zealand? Sweden or Swaziland? What’s the dress code? Formal or casual?”

  She lit a cigarette. Yusef took one out too and held out his hand for Jacqueline’s lighter. She gave it to him and watched him light his cigarette. He was about to hand it back when something made him stop and inspect the lighter more carefully.

  Jacqueline felt as if she had forgotten how to breathe.

  “This is very nice.” He turned it over and read the inscription. “ ‘To Dominique, with affection and fond memories. ’ Where did you get this cigarette lighter?”

  “I’ve had it for about a hundred years.”

  “Answer my question.”

  “It was a gift from a man. A man who didn’t send me off with a complete stranger.”

  “He must have been very kind, this man. Why have I never seen this?”

  “You haven’t seen a lot of things. That doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Should I be jealous?”

  “Look at the date, you idiot.”

  “ ‘June nineteen ninety-five,’ ” he recited. “Is this man still in the picture?”

  “If he was, I wouldn’t be with you.”

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “June nineteen ninety-five, with affection and fond memories.”

  “He must have been very important to you. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have kept his lighter.”

  “It’s not his lighter—it’s my lighter. And I kept it because it’s a good lighter.”

  She thought: Gabriel was right. He suspects something. I’m going to die. He’s going to kill me tonight. She looked out her window and wondered whether the Cromwell Road on a wet winter’s night was going to be her last snapshot of the world. She should have written a letter to her mother and locked it in a safety deposit box. She wondered how Shamron would break it to her. Would he explain that she had been working for the Office? Or would they cover up her death in some other way? Would she have to read about it in the newspapers? Jacqueline Delacroix, the Marseilles schoolgirl who rose to the peak of European modeling before a precipitous decline, died under mysterious circumstances. . . . She wondered if the journalists she had treated with such contempt while she was alive would rise up en masse and savage her in death. At least Rémy would write well of her. They had always been cordial. Maybe she could get something nice out of Jacques. Perhaps even Gilles—No, wait. Remember the party in Milan, the argument over the coke. Christ, Gilles was going to rip her to shreds.

  Yusef handed her the lighter. She dropped it back into her purse. The silence was appalling. She wanted to keep him talking; somehow talking made her feel safe, even if it was lies. “You never answered my question,” she said.

  “Which question is that? You’ve had so many tonight.”

  “When this is all over, am I going to see you again?”

  “That’s entirely up to you.”

  “And you’re still not answering my question.”

  “I always answer your questions.”

  “Do you? If you’d told me the truth in the beginning, I doubt I’d be flying off with a complete stranger in the morning.”

  “I had to keep some things from you. And what about you, Dominique? Have you been completely honest with me? Have you told me everything about yourself ?”

  “Everything of consequence.”

  “That’s a very convenient answer. You use it very effectively when you want to avoid talking anymore.”

  “It also happens to be the truth. Answer my question. Am I ever going to see you again?”

  “I certainly hope so.”

  “You’re full of shit, Yusef.”

  “And you’re very tired. Close your eyes. Get some rest.”

  She leaned her head against the window. “Where are we going?”

  “Someplace safe.”

  “Yes, you’ve told me that, but how about telling me where?”

  “You’ll see it when we arrive.”

  “Why would we need someplace safe? What’s wrong with your flat? What’s wrong with my flat?”

  “This place belongs to a friend of mine. It’s close to Heathrow.”

  “Is your friend going to be there?”

  “No.”

  “Are you going to stay the night?”

  “Of course. And in the morning I’ll fly with you to Paris.”

  “And after that?”

  “After that you’ll be in the company of our Palestinian official, and your journey will begin. I wish I could be in your shoes. It would be such an honor to be with this man on this trip. You have no idea how lucky you are, Dominique.”

  “What’s his name, this great man? Maybe I know him.”

  “I doubt you know him, but I still can’t tell you his name. You will refer to him only by his cover name.”

  “And that is?”

  “Lucien. Lucien Daveau.”

  “Lucien,” she said softly. “I’ve always liked the name Lucien. Where are we going, Yusef ?”

  “Close your eyes. It won’t be long now.”

  Shamron answered the telephone in the listening post before it could ring a second time. He listened without speaking, then gently replaced the receiver as if he had just been informed of the death of an old adversary. “It looks as though they’ve settled for the night,” he said.

  “Where?”

  “A council estate in Hounslow near the airport.”

  “And the team?”

  “In place, well hidden. They’ll spend the night with her.”

  “I’d feel better if I were there.”

  “You have a long day ahead of you tomorrow. I suggest you get a few hours’ sleep.”

  But Gabriel went into the bedroom and returned a moment later, jacket on, nylon rucksack over his shoulder.

  Shamron said, “Where are you going?”

  “I need to take care of something personal.”

  “Where are you going? When will you be back?”

  But Gabriel walked out without another word and followed the stairs down to the street. As he walked past the front of the building, he thought he saw Shamron eyeing him through a slit in the blinds. And as he moved closer to the Edgware Road, he had the uncomfortable feeling that Shamron had one of his teams watching him to
o.

  34

  HOUNSLOW, ENGLAND

  The Toyota dropped them and then sped away. A car park bathed in yellow sodium light, a colony of stout redbrick council flats that looked like an industrial complex fallen on hard times. Jacqueline offered to carry her own bag, but Yusef wouldn’t hear of it. He took her hand and led her across the car park, then across a common strewn with crushed beer cans and bits of broken toys. A red wagon with no front wheels. A headless baby with no clothing. A plastic pistol. Gabriel’s pistol, thought Jacqueline, remembering the night in the hills of Provence, when he had tested her ability to shoot. Seemed like ages ago. A lifetime ago. A cat spit at them from the shadows. Jacqueline grabbed Yusef’s elbow and nearly screamed. Then a dog began to bark, and the cat scampered along the sidewalk and slithered beneath a fence.

  “This is lovely, Yusef. Why didn’t you tell me you kept a place in the country?”

  “Please don’t talk until we’re inside.”

  He led her into a stairwell. Dead leaves and old newspaper in the corners, lime green walls, yellow light fixture overhead. The collision of color made them both look nauseated. They climbed two flights, then passed through a connecting door and walked the length of a long corridor. A cacophony of disharmonious sounds greeted them. A child screaming for its mother. A couple quarreling in Caribbean-accented English. A crackling radio blaring a play on the BBC, Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing. Yusef stopped in front of a doorway with the number 27 mounted below a security peephole. He unlocked the door, led her inside, switched on a small parchment-shaded lamp.

  The living room was empty except for one molting armchair and a television set. Its cord wound across the linoleum like a dead garden snake. Through a half-open door she could see a bedroom with a mattress on the floor. Through another doorway a small kitchen, a bag of groceries resting on the counter. Despite the absence of furnishings, the flat was impeccably clean and smelled of lemon air deodorizer.

  She opened the window; cold air poured in. Below the window ran a fence, and beyond the fence lay a football pitch. A half-dozen young men, dressed in colorful warm-up suits and woolen caps, kicked a ball about in the headlights of a car parked along the sideline. Their long shadows played over brick walls below Jacqueline’s window. In the distance she could hear the soggy grumble of the motorway. An empty train rattled past on an elevated track. A jetliner screamed overhead.

  “I like what your friend’s done with the place, Yusef, but it’s not really my style. Why don’t we check into one of the hotels at the airport? Someplace with room service and a decent bar.”

  Yusef was in the kitchen, unpacking the bag of groceries. “If you’re hungry I can make you something. There’s some bread, cheese, eggs, a bottle of wine, and coffee and milk for the morning.”

  Jacqueline walked into the kitchen. There was barely enough room for the two of them in the cramped space. “Don’t be so literal. But this is a shithole. Why is it empty?”

  “My friend just got the place. He hasn’t had a chance to move his things. He’s been living with his parents.”

  “He must be very happy, but I still don’t know why we have to stay here tonight.”

  “I told you, Dominique. We came here for reasons of security.”

  “Security from who? Security from what?”

  “Perhaps you’ve heard of the British security service, better known as MI5. They make it their business to infiltrate exile and dissident communities. They watch people like us.”

  “Like us?”

  “Like me. And then there are the guys from Tel Aviv.”

  “You lost me there, Yusef. Who are the guys from Tel Aviv?”

  Yusef looked up and stared at her incredulously. “Who are the guys from Tel Aviv? The most ruthless, murderous intelligence service in the world. A gang of hired killers might be a more appropriate description.”

  “And why would the Israelis be a threat here in Britain?”

  “The Israelis are everywhere that we are. National boundaries are of no concern to them.”

  Yusef emptied the bag and used it to line the waste-basket. “Are you hungry?” he asked.

  “No, just extremely tired. It’s late.”

  “Go to bed. I have some business to take care of.”

  “You’re not leaving me here alone, are you?”

  He held up a mobile phone. “I just have to make a couple of calls.”

  Jacqueline put her arms around his waist. Yusef drew her forehead to his lips and kissed her softly.

  “I wish you wouldn’t make me do this.”

  “It’ll just be for a few days. And when you come back, we can be together.”

  “I wish I could believe you, but I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

  He kissed her again, then placed a finger beneath her chin and lifted her face so he could look into her eyes. “I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it. Go to bed. Try to get some sleep.”

  She entered the bedroom. She didn’t bother to turn on the light; it would feel less depressing if she had only a vague sense of her surroundings. She reached down, grabbed a handful of the bedding, and sniffed. Newly laundered. Still, she decided to sleep in her clothing. She lay down and carefully placed her head on the pillow so that it touched no portion of her face or neck. She left on her shoes. She smoked a last cigarette to cover up the overpowering smell of the disinfectant. She thought of Gabriel, her dance school in Valbonne. She listened to the jetliners and the trains and the resounding thump of a foot making solid contact with a leather ball out on the football pitch. She watched the shadows of high-stepping athletes dancing on her wall like marionettes.

  Then she heard Yusef, speaking in a low murmur over his mobile phone. She couldn’t quite make out what he was saying. She didn’t care. Indeed, her last thought before drifting into a feverish sleep was that Yusef, her Palestinian lover, probably did not have long to live.

  Isherwood opened the door of his home in Onslow Gardens a few inches and eyed Gabriel malevolently through the security chain. “Do you have any idea what time it is?” He unchained the door. “Come inside before we both get pneumonia.”

  Isherwood wore pajamas, leather slippers, a silk dressing gown. He led Gabriel into the drawing room, then disappeared into the kitchen. He returned a moment later with a pot of coffee and a couple of mugs. “I hope you take your coffee black, because I’m afraid the milk in the fridge was purchased during the Thatcher government.”

  “Black is fine.”

  “So, Gabriel, my love. What brings you here at”—he paused to look at his watch and grimaced—“Christ, at two forty-five in the morning?”

  “You’re going to lose Dominique.”

  “I guessed that when Ari Shamron rolled into my gallery like a poisonous cloud. Where’s she off to? Lebanon? Libya? Iran? What was her real name, by the way?”

  Gabriel just sipped his coffee and said nothing.

  “Hate to see her go, actually. An angel, that one. And not a bad secretary once she got the hang of things.”

  “She won’t be coming back.”

  “They never do. I have a way of driving away women. Always have.”

  “I hear you’re in final negotiations with Oliver Dimbleby to sell the gallery.”

  “One doesn’t really negotiate when one is tied to the railroad tracks, Gabriel. One grovels. One begs.”

  “Don’t do it.”

  “How dare you sit there and tell me how to run my affairs? I wouldn’t be in this mess if it weren’t for you and your friend Herr Heller.”

  “The operation may be over sooner than we expected.”

  “And?”

  “And I can get back to work on the Vecellio.”

  “There’s no way you can finish it in time to save my neck. I am now officially insolvent, which is why I’m negotiating with Oliver Dimbleby.”

  “Dimbleby’s a hack. He’ll ruin the gallery.”

  “Frankly, Gabriel, I’m too tired to give a shit at this
point. I need something stronger than coffee. You?”

  Gabriel shook his head. Isherwood shuffled over to the sideboard and dumped an inch of gin into a tumbler. “What’s in the bag?”

  “An insurance policy.”

  “Insurance on what?”

  “Against the possibility that I’m unable to complete work on the Vecellio in time.” Gabriel handed the bag to Isherwood. “Open it.”

  Isherwood set down his drink and unzipped the bag. “My God, Gabriel. How much is it?”

  “A hundred thousand.”

  “I can’t take your money.”

  “It’s not mine. It’s Shamron’s, via Benjamin Stone.”

  “The Benjamin Stone?”

  “In all his glory.”

  “What the hell are you doing with a hundred thousand pounds of Benjamin Stone’s money?”

  “Just take it and don’t ask any more questions.”

  “If it’s really Benjamin Stone’s, I think I will.” Isherwood raised his glass of gin. “Cheers, Gabriel. I’m sorry for all the miserable things I’ve thought about you during the past few weeks.”

  “I deserved it. I should have never run out on you.”

  “All is forgiven.” Isherwood stared into his drink for a long moment. “So where is she? Gone for good?”

  “The operation has moved into its final stages.”

  “You’ve not put that poor girl in any danger, have you?”

  “I hope not.”

  “So do I, for her sake and yours.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You know, I’ve been in this lousy racket for almost forty years, and in all that time, no one’s ever managed to sell me a forgery. Dimbleby’s had his fingers burned. Even the great Giles Pittaway has managed to buy a fake or two in his time. But not me. I have the gift, you see. I may be a lousy businessman, but I can always tell a fraud from the real thing.”

  “Are you coming to the point of this?”

  “She’s the real thing, Gabriel. She’s golden. You may never get another chance like this. Hang on to her, because if you don’t, it will be the biggest mistake of your life.”