Daniel Silva - The English Assassin

“What do you think you’re doing? What’s your name?”

The assassin brought the blade across her throat in a slashing movement. He stepped back to avoid the initial geyserlike burst of blood; then he knelt before her and watched the life draining out of her eyes. As she slipped away he leaned forward and whispered his name into her ear.

THE Englishman spent the rest of the day driving: the fast road from Vitoria to Barcelona, then the coast highway from Barcelona across the border to Marseilles. Late that evening he boarded a passenger ferry for the night crossing to Corsica.

He was dressed like a typical Corsican man: loose-fitting cotton trousers, dusty leather sandals, a heavy sweater against the autumn chill. His dark brown hair was cropped short. The poplin suit and brimmed hat he’d worn in Vitoria were resting in the rubbish bin of a roadside café in Bordeaux. The silver wig had been tossed out the car window into a mountain gorge. The car itself, registered to a David Mandelson, one of his many false identities, had been returned to the rental agent in town.

He went below deck to his cabin. It was private, with its own shower and toilet. He left his small leather grip on the berth and went up to the passenger deck. The ferry was nearly empty, a few people gathering in the bar for a drink and a bite to eat. He was tired after the long drive, but his strict sense of internal discipline would not permit him to sleep until he had scanned the faces of the passengers.

He toured the deck, saw nothing alarming, then went into the bar, where he ordered a half-liter of red wine and fell into conversation with a Corsican named Matteo. Matteo lived in the northwest part of the island, like the Englishman, but two valleys to the south in the shadow of Monte d’Oro. It had been twenty years since he had been to the Englishman’s valley. Such was the rhythm of life on the island.

The conversation turned to the arson fire that had ravaged the Englishman’s valley the previous dry season. “Did they ever find out who did it?” Matteo asked, helping himself to some of the Englishman’s wine. When the Englishman told him the authorities suspected the separatists from the FLNC, the Corsican lit a cigarette and spit smoke at the ceiling. “Young hotheads!” he growled, and the Englishman nodded slowly in agreement.

After an hour he bid Matteo good night and returned to his cabin. In his suitcase was a small radio. He listened to the midnight newscast on a Marseilles station. After a few minutes of local news, there was a roundup of foreign stories. In the West Bank, there had been another day of fighting between Palestinian and Israeli forces. In Spain, two members of the Basque terror group ETA had been murdered in the town of Vitoria. And in Switzerland, a prominent banker named Augustus Rolfe had been found murdered in his home in an exclusive Zurich neighborhood. An unidentified man was in custody. The Englishman switched off the radio, closed his eyes, and was immediately asleep.

THE HEADQUARTERS of the Stadtpolizei Zurich was located only a few hundred meters from the train station on the Zeughausstrasse, wedged between the smoke-colored Sihl River and a sprawling rail yard. Gabriel had been led across a stone central courtyard into the aluminum-and-glass annex which housed the murder squad. There he was placed in a windowless interrogation room furnished with a table of blond wood and a trio of mismatched chairs. His luggage had been seized, along with his paints, brushes, and chemicals. So had his wallet, his passport, and his mobile telephone. They had even taken his wristwatch. He supposed they were hoping he would become disoriented and confused. He was confident that he knew more about the techniques of interrogation than the Zurich police did.

He had been questioned three times by three different officers: once briefly at the train station, before being taken into custody, and twice more in this room. Judging by clothing and age, the importance of his interrogators was getting progressively greater.

The door opened and a single officer entered the room. He wore a tweed coat and no tie. He called himself Sergeant-Major Baer. He sat down opposite Gabriel, placed a file on the table, and stared at it as if it was a chessboard and he was contemplating his next move.

“Tell me your name,” he blurted in English.

“It hasn’t changed since the last time I was asked.”

“Tell me your name.”

“My name is Mario Delvecchio.”

“Where do you reside?”

“Port Navas, Cornwall.”

“ England?”

“Yes.”

“You are an Italian, but you live in England?”

“That’s not a crime the last time I checked.”

“I didn’t say it was, but it is interesting, though. What do you do in Port Navas, England?”

“I told the first three officers who questioned me.”

“Yes, I know.”

“I’m an art restorer.”

“Why are you in Zurich?”

“I was hired to clean a painting.”

“At the villa on the Zürichberg?”

“Yes.”

“Who hired you to clean this painting? Clean? Is that the word you used? Peculiar word: clean. One thinks of cleaning floors, cleaning cars or clothing. But not paintings. Is that a common expression in your line of work?”

“Yes,” said Gabriel and the inspector seemed disappointed he did not elaborate.

“Who hired you?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean it was never made clear to me. The arrangements were made by a lawyer in Zurich and an art dealer in London.”

“Ah, yes-Julius Isherwood.”

“Julian.”

With a Germanic reverence for paperwork, the detective made a vast show of expunging the offending word and carefully penciling in the correction. When he had finished, he looked up triumphantly, as if awaiting applause. “Go on.”

“I was simply told to go to the villa. I would be met there and shown inside.”

“Met by whom?”

“That was never made clear to me.”

Isherwood’s fax was in the file. The detective slipped on a pair of half-moon glasses and held the fax up to the light. His lips moved as he read. “When did you arrive in Zurich?”

“You have the stub of my train ticket. You know that I arrived this morning.”

The detective pulled a frown that said he did not like suspects telling him what he did and didn’t know.

“Where did you go after you arrived?”

“Straight to the villa.”

“You didn’t check into your hotel first?”

“No, I didn’t know where I was staying yet.”

“Where were you planning to stay?”

“As you can see from the note that was left for me at the villa, arrangements had been made for me to stay at the Dolder Grand Hotel.”

Baer overlooked this seeming misstep and carried on.

“How did you get from Hauptbahnhof to the villa?”

“By taxi.”

“How much was the fare?”

“About fifteen francs.”

“What time did you arrive at the villa?”

“Two minutes after nine o’clock.”

“How can you be so certain of the time?”

“Look at the fax from Julian Isherwood. I was told to arrive at precisely nine o’clock. I don’t make a habit of being late for appointments, Sergeant-Major Baer.”

The detective smiled in admiration. He was a prompt man, and he appreciated punctuality and attention to detail in others, even if he suspected them of murder.

“And when you arrived at the villa?”

“I used the security phone, but no one answered. So I called Mr. Isherwood in London. He told me that the person who was supposed to meet me had been called out of town suddenly.”

“Is that what he said? ‘Called out of town’?”