Page 44 of A Death in Cornwall

“Really? Where?”

“The Geneva Freeport.”

***

The villa was white as a sugar cube and perched atop the cliffs rimming Saint Lazarus Bay. There were four bedrooms, two soaring great rooms, a fitness center, and a large swimming pool. They shared a bottle of Greek white wine outside on the terrace while watching the sun sinking into the Aegean. The evening air was blustery and cold, but there was not a butane gas heater in sight. Ingrid, like Gabriel’s young daughter, was a climate alarmist.

“The Anna Rolfe?” she asked.

“I’m afraid so.”

“She’s a friend of yours?”

“You might say that.”

“Do tell.”

“It’s possible that Anna and I had a brief romantic entanglement about a hundred years ago.”

“What happened?”

Gabriel reluctantly provided Ingrid with a heavily redacted version of the story. It was better she heard it from his lips, he reckoned, than from Anna’s.

“How could you?” asked Ingrid at the conclusion of his account.

“Wait until you get to know her better.”

“Is she as difficult as they say?”

“Much worse. She fires her personal assistants almost as frequently as she changes the strings on her violins. I’m confident, however, that you’ll be able to handle her.”

“When do I start?”

“Anna would like you to meet her in Oslo on Thursday. You will then accompany her to Prague for the final three appearances of her winter tour, after which you will assist her in the sale of six paintings at Galerie Ricard in Geneva.”

“Six paintings that will be forged by you?”

“Forged is an ugly word, Ingrid.”

“You choose one instead.”

“The paintings will be pastiches of existing works, and I will make no attempt to profit from their sale. Therefore, I am not, technically speaking, an art forger.”

“Pastiche is a much nicer word than forgery, I’ll grant you that. But it doesn’t change the fact that Anna Rolfe will be engaged in criminal activity. And so will I.”

“When have you ever worried about that before?”

“I happen to be wanted for a number of rather large scores in Switzerland. And if your little charade goes sideways, I might have to spend the next several years in a Swiss prison cell.”

“Your scores, as you call them, are nothing in comparison to the stunts I’ve pulled on Swiss soil. I nevertheless have powerful friends in the Federal Police and security service. For that reason, I’m confident that you won’t spend more than a year or two behind bars if you are charged as my accomplice.”

She laughed quietly. “So how good are you, Mr. Allon?”

“With a paintbrush? Better than I am with a gun.”

“Based on personal experience, I find that hard to believe. But there is an easier way to get that Picasso back, you know.”

“Steal it?”

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