“Wait until you get to know me a little better.”
“Any chance of that?”
“That depends on the rest of your story.”
It was the kind of story, she said, that used to grace the pages of her old magazine—the mansions in Knightsbridge and Devon, the private jet, the yacht, the celebrity friends. She and Edward were much in demand and were seen in all the right places, with all the right people. She began to chronicle their remarkable life on social media, and her notoriety grew. Edward did not discourage her habit, quite the contrary. Dazzling Alice was good for Edward’s business.
But by then he was already ensnared in a relationship with a Kremlin-connected oligarch from which he could not extract himself. Alice knew nothing of Edward’s ties to Dmitri Savin—that is, until Dmitri met a beautiful young Russian model and decided to divorce his wife of twenty-eight years. The wife, who was called Masha, retained a powerhouse London law firm to represent her and came to the first meeting armed with a trove of documents she had downloaded from her husband’s computer.
“Those documents painted a true picture of Dmitri’s enormous net worth. They also contained a list of companies in which he held a controlling stake. One of the companies was the British real estate firm known as the Knight Group.”
“Oh dear,” said Gabriel.
“I’m afraid it gets better. You see, the law firm that Masha chose to represent her is the same firm where my friend Sophie Maxwell practices. In fact, dearest Sophie was assigned to Masha’s legal team.”
“She saw the documents?”
Alice nodded.
“And then she told you about them?”
“That would have been unethical, Mr. Allon. But let’s just say thatI was made aware of Dmitri Savin’s relationship with my husband. Never mind how.”
“And your reaction?”
“I rang my friend Ella Burns. And what do you suppose Ella told me?”
“That HSBC stopped doing business with your husband in 2009.”
Alice placed a forefinger against the end of her nose.
“Did she have documents as well?”
“Chapter and verse.”
“And where are those documents now?”
“Stored on a carefully hidden external hard drive, along with Dmitri Savin’s treasure trove. And they can be yours if you can somehow get me out of this mess.”
“We’re not there yet, Alice. In fact, we’re not even close.”
“You want to know why I staged my own abduction in order to embezzle a half billion dollars from my husband?”
Gabriel didn’t bother with a reply.
“For a start,” said Alice, “there was the prenuptial agreement.”
“How much would you have received?”
“I’d rather not say.”
“I’d rather you did.”
“A lousy ten million.”
“You would have been practically penniless,” said Gabriel acidly.
“It’s not easy to be poor after you’ve been rich.”
