“Glorified being the key word,” added Gabriel. “The Knight Group owns a large portion of Sussex, several office buildings in the City of London, and huge tracts of housing in places like Notting Hill, Shepherd’s Bush, and Battersea. And those are the properties we know about. Knight’s business is notoriously opaque. He’s fond of anonymous shell companies and brass plate trusts, which allow him to conceal the true scale of his empire.”
“So he could be much richer thanThe Timessuggests?”
“He didn’t bat an eye at dropping twenty million on the Bellotto.”
“A million of which will flow to you?”
“Upon completion of the restoration,” said Gabriel sheepishly.
Chiara set aside the bowl of ravioli filling and took up her phone. Her thumbnails clicked against the screen.
“May I ask what you’re doing?”
“Reviewing Alice’s social media feeds.” She shook her head slowly in dismay. “One wonders how she found the time for all this. It’s really quite juvenile.”
“I post, therefore I am.”
Chiara turned the phone in Gabriel’s direction. On the screen was a photograph of a suntanned Alice Winter flanked by two thirtysomething women. They were seated at a beachside restaurant on Ibiza.
“Sophie Maxwell and Ella Burns,” said Gabriel. “Her classmates from Cambridge.”
Chiara swiped to another photograph. “And this, I assume, is Phoebe Chadwick?”
Gabriel nodded.
“Interesting, don’t you think? Phoebe Chadwick leaves Ibiza in a huff, and a day later Alice vanishes.”
“Are you suggesting that a relief coordinator from a respected global aid organization somehow engineered the disappearance of one of her closest friends?”
Chiara dragged a forefinger across the screen and showed Gabriel a new photograph. “What about him?”
It was Edward Knight, his arm around the slender waist of his attractive young wife. He wore the expression of a man who did not like to have his picture taken.
“He has a rather airtight alibi,” Gabriel pointed out. “After all, he was sitting next to you when he learned that his wife’s rental car had been discovered.”
“So he says.” Chiara laid a second sheet of pasta atop the first and began slicing perfect squares of ravioli with a daggerlike knife. “For the record, I couldn’t hear a thing that assistant of his whispered into his ear.”
“You don’t really think he had something to do with his wife’s disappearance?”
“The husband of a murdered wife is always the leading suspect.”
“She isn’t a murder victim yet. And if Edward Knight were somehow connected to his wife’s disappearance, the last person in the world he would ask to find her is me.”
“Youarequite good at finding things,” said Chiara. “Lost Leonardos, ancient temples, even the odd terrorist.”
“You forget to mention trouble.”
“That too. Which is why you should tell Edward Knight to hire another investigator.”
“The twenty million he spent on the Bellotto would indicate he has his heart set on me.”
“At least have a look under Knight’s fingernails before you go running off to Ibiza,” said Chiara. “You’re liable to find something unpleasant.”
“And how am I supposed to do that?”
“Why don’t you phone one of your many friends in the British government?”
“You can be certain that Edward Knight has friends in HMG too.”
