“Don’t you think you should slow down a tad?”
“I wouldn’t want you to miss your flight.” She turned onto the B3315. It was two lanes instead of one. “What do you suppose would have happened to me if I smashed your lovely new Range Rover into a tree?”
“Fortunately there are no trees on this road.”
“And what if I had been drinking?” asked Chiara. “Do you think the Devon and Cornwall Police would have looked the other way?”
“I do have a considerable amount of sway with them, but I wouldn’t have used it. Driving under the influence is a serious infraction. A definite no-no.”
“I would have been forbidden to drive a motorcar in the United Kingdom for several years.”
“At the very least. But it’s also possible that you might have been barred from entering the country.”
“An undesirable foreigner?”
Gabriel laid a hand along her thigh. “I wouldn’t go that far.”
“So why did the police turn a blind eye to Alice’s vehicular misdeeds?”
“It might have something to do with the fact she’s married to one of the richest men in Britain.”
“Billionaires get to play by different rules?”
“Haven’t you figured that out by now?”
She removed Gabriel’s hand. “For the moment, I’m more interested in why Alice got behind the wheel of that car in the first place.”
“Timothy was under the impression there had been a domestic disturbance.”
“I wonder what it could have been.”
“Perhaps Edward heard a rumor about his wife and another man.”
“What did he expect when he married a girl like Alice Winter?”
“Wedded bliss and monogamy, I imagine.”
“Their relationship began with an extramarital affair,” Chiara pointed out.
“So did ours.”
“There were extenuating circumstances.”
“I’m sure Edward told himself the same thing.”
A helicopter appeared before them, traveling east to west across the cloudless sky. It sank toward the green Cornish horizon and vanished from view.
Chiara glanced at her wristwatch. “Right on time.”
She turned onto the A30 and followed it to the old Quaker burial ground. Land’s End Airport was a mile to the north. They arrived to find the helicopter resting on the tarmac, rotor blades drooping. It was a Sikorsky executive model, sleek and black. The cabin door hung open, held by a man wearing dark trousers and a white shirt with epaulets on his shoulders.
“Be sure to write,” remarked Chiara.
“I’ll be back in a day or two.”
“Where have I heard that before?”
Gabriel kissed Chiara and his two silent children, then, bag in hand, headed into the little wooden terminal building. Liam Higgins, Edward Knight’s personal assistant, was waiting inside, immaculately attired in an overly fitted suit that lent him the appearance of a hotel concierge. He offered Gabriel a pale, manicured hand.
