“Very impressive, Inspector.”
“And very generous on your part.”
“I wish that were the case, but the money wasn’t mine.”
Gabriel’s phone pulsed with an incoming text. It was from Sarah Bancroft in London. Her message was two sentences in length. Gabriel’s reply was briefer still. He tappedsendand gripped the phone tightly in his hand. Gazing absently out his window he asked, “Who was the victim?”
“I’m sorry?”
“In your one and only abduction case.”
“A child,” replied Inspector Aragón after a silence.
“How old?”
“Eleven.”
“Boy or girl?”
“What do you think?”
Girl...
“And what went wrong?” asked Gabriel.
“Everything.”
“He killed her?”
“He raped her for a few days. Then he killed her and threw her body into a river up in the Pyrenees. She was eleven, Señor Allon. Eleven.”
“Did you get him?”
“Eventually. And guess how many other girls he had killed?”
“I’d rather not.”
“Six,” she answered. “And those are the ones we’re sure about.”
Gabriel was silent.
“Do you have children?” she asked.
“A boy and a girl.”
“How old are they?”
“Eleven.”
Another silence, longer than the first. “It’s time for you to face facts, Señor Allon. Alice Winter wasn’t kidnapped, she was murdered.”
“With all due respect, you’re mistaken. Alice was definitely abducted.”
“How can you be so certain?”
“Because her kidnappers just made contact with her husband.”
13
