Page 88 of A Death in Cornwall

“Quite.”

“Were you the target?”

“The man in the back seat,” replied Gabriel. “He’s a computer hacker who works for a dirty law firm in Monaco.”

“Who wanted him dead?”

“The dirty law firm.”

“What about the pretty blond woman?”

“She used to be a professional thief.”

“And now?”

“Hard to say, really. She’s still a work in progress.”

The don held up the passport between two thick fingers. “Are you keeping this for any reason?”

“Sentimental value, mainly.”

“In that case, perhaps we should get rid of it.” Don Orsati carried the passport over to the large stone fireplace and dropped it on the stack of macchia wood burning on the grate. “And how can we at the Orsati Olive Oil Company be of service to you?”

“I require protection for the computer hacker.”

“For how long?”

“Long enough for me to pull a heist at the dirty law firm.”

“And if the heist goes sideways?”

“I’m confident it won’t.”

“Why?”

“The pretty blond woman.”

***

Gabriel told Anton Orsati the rest of the story outside on the terrace, over a bottle of pale Corsican rosé. He omitted none of the salient details, including the fact that he was working in collusion with two European police forces and the security and intelligence service of Switzerland. The don, who made his living in part by avoiding entanglements with law enforcement, was predictably appalled.

“And when the police ask their star witness, this Philippe Lambert fellow, where he went into hiding after the attempt on his life? What happens then?”

“It is my hope, Don Orsati, that it doesn’t come to that.”

“We have a proverb here on Corsica about hope.”

“And for nearly every other occasion as well,” added Gabriel.

“He who lives on hope,” said Don Orsati, undeterred, “dies on shit. And he who answers the door to the police lives to regret it. Especially if that person is in my line of work.”

“I’m quite certain that’s not an actual Corsican proverb.”

“Its sentiments are sacred and correct, all the same.”

“But he who sleeps,” said Gabriel, quoting a proverb of his own, “cannot catch fish. And he who seeks, finds.”

“And what exactly are you hoping to find at the law firm of Harris Weber & Company in Monaco?”

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