A Death in Cornwall

The police hide the guestbook that lists Anna and Gabriel entering the gallery, the sales agreement for the forged paintings, and all other evidence of Anna and Gabriel’s visit to Geneva. Gabriel and Ingrid lie low, staying in cheap hotels because Ingrid has committed theft at the luxury hotels that Gabriel prefers. Ingrid gets into the Freeport network within 24 hours but is held back by a password. The following day, she cracks the password and is able to access the Freeport’s security system. A few hours after that, she makes a copy of the security footage and promptly falls asleep. Gabriel takes a look at Ricard’s killer. Then, he shares the make, model, and registration of the killer’s car with Bittle. Bittle discovers that the man traveled out of the country and into France.

Gabriel and Ingrid travel to Paris on a train. Ingrid discovered that, within the security system, all of the Freeport clients are hidden behind company names. The vault that held the Picasso is owned by Sargasso Capital Investments. After they find another hotel where Ingrid hasn’t committed theft, she works on locating the hacker who erased the footage of Ricard’s killer. Meanwhile, Gabriel meets with Jacques Menard, the commander of the art theft police squad in France. Menard reveals that he has been tracking Gabriel’s recent visits to France. Gabriel shows Menard the images of the killer going by the name Andreas Hoffman. Gabriel then reveals that he believes this assassin killed Emanuel Cohen in addition to Ricard. He also tells Menard about the missing painting.

Back at the hotel, the Cheval Blanc, Ingrid talks to Gabriel about his wife. He says that Chiara is used to him working closely with beautiful young women as part of his intelligence work. Chiara was once a “female escort officer” who accompanied him on missions (169). Then, they talk about Ricard making the deal with Anna without talking to the owner of the painting. Ingrid asks to visit the Memorial de la Shoah, and she cries as she learns about the Paris roundup of Jewish people in 1942. Gabriel takes her to the nearby Jewish district, and they talk about the tragedy. Menard calls Gabriel, and they meet in a cafe. Menard has discovered that the assassin, Klaus Muller, killed Charlotte as well as Ricard and Emanuel. However, Menard doesn’t have enough hard evidence to go after Muller through official channels. Ingrid says that she has a lead on the hacker in Cannes.

Gabriel and Ingrid go to Rue d’Antibes and get rooms in a hotel across from the building that the hacker’s signal is coming from. They go for a walk. Ingrid buys a webcam and sets it up in the hotel looking at the hacker’s building. She sends the video feed to her phone before going out to dinner with Gabriel. The place she chooses happens to be the site of one of Gabriel’s previous missions, but he stays despite his initial discomfort. Back at the hotel, they surveil the apartment building to see who enters and exits their apartments. Gabriel follows a woman and discovers that she is a real-estate agent named Fiona. When he is walking back to the hotel, Ingrid is also on the street. Her body language signals that Gabriel shouldn’t approach her.

He goes into a pharmacy, buys a few things, and goes back to the hotel. After watching the recorded video from when he was out, he realizes that Ingrid is trailing the resident of apartment 3B, who is likely the hacker. They talk over the phone while Ingrid continues to follow the hacker as he does a little shopping and walks back to his apartment. She comes back to the hotel room.

Ingrid checks the local Wi-Fi networks and eventually figures out which one the hacker is using. She plans to hack into his network before breaking into his apartment. Gabriel and Ingrid drive to Grasse to get a bump key and a lockpick gun from one of Ingrid’s associates. They also purchase a screwdriver and tape, and they watch the residents of the apartment as they punch in the code for the main gate. After a few hours, Ingrid gets into the hacker’s network. Later that night, she practices breaking open the door between her and Gabriel’s hotel rooms. After she sleeps for a few hours, they have coffee and surveil apartment 3B until the hacker leaves. Ingrid disables his alarm, and they go out for coffee.

While Gabriel sits at a café across from the building, Ingrid breaks into the hacker’s apartment. She takes pictures of his various computers, phones, and notebooks. Gabriel sees the hacker, Philippe Lambert, coming back toward the building, and he warns Ingrid to get out. When Lambert sees a motorcycle approaching, he becomes flustered and can’t get the gate open. Gabriel runs up to Lambert and tells him the gate code. As Lambert punches it in, Gabriel sees the man on the motorcycle draw a gun and point it at Lambert. Gabriel pushes the hacker out of the gunman’s line of sight and into the building. Lambert thanks him and introduces himself.

Ingrid opens the door to Lambert’s apartment as he and Gabriel approach it. Once inside, Gabriel introduces himself as Klemp and frisks Lambert but doesn’t find a weapon. Gabriel tells Lambert that he knows he hacked into the Geneva Freeport. Lambert denies it and refuses to answer more questions until Gabriel reveals his real name. He does, and Lambert asks for protection from the assassin in exchange for information about who hired him to break into the Freeport. As Lambert packs up some computers and wipes others, Ingrid checks out of the hotel.

Gabriel, Ingrid, and Lambert get into a car and are followed by the motorcyclist. Gabriel says that he might have forgotten to pack a gun. During the pursuit, Gabriel comments that it is hard to shoot a target from a moving vehicle. When the assassin draws his gun, Gabriel brakes and sends the car into a spin. To avoid crashing into Gabriel’s rental car, the motorcyclist swerves and drives off the road into a valley far below, near Saint-Tropez. Gabriel pulls over and checks that the dead man is the same person who was on the cameras outside of Ricard’s gallery: Klaus Muller. After showing the assassin’s passport to Ingrid, Lambert says that Muller worked for a man named Trevor Robinson.

Muller’s phone gets a text asking about a flower delivery, which is code for completing the murderous task. Ingrid says that Gabriel should’ve left the assassin’s gun at the scene, but he disagrees, saying that it is foolish to go to Marseilles without a gun. On the Quai de Rive Neuve, Gabriel visits a fisherman, Pascal Ramaeu, who arranges to get rid of their car and for them to meet up with Rene Monjean. Monjean, an old friend of Gabriel’s, owns a yacht and takes them out to sea. Ingrid claims to be a better thief than Monjean. Gabriel is evasive when Lambert asks where they are going. Lambert reveals some information about Robinson. They have dinner and sleep on the yacht.

In the morning, Ingrid smells the rosemary and lavender, or macchia, of Corsica. In Haute-Corse, a girl makes a sign to ward off the evil eye when she sees Ingrid’s blond hair. Gabriel says that people must go to “the signadora” to remove the evil eye if it is on them (205). They go to a valley full of olives, owned by Don Casabianca, where olive oil is made. A goat stands in the road in front of Gabriel’s car. Ingrid suggests that Gabriel honk his horn, but when he does, the goat rams the car. Gabriel says that the goat “has the occhju” (206), or evil eye. Ingrid gets out of the car and talks to the goat in Danish, and it moves out of the way.

In Don Casabianca’s villa, Lambert tells Ingrid and Gabriel about working for France’s foreign intelligence service, the DGSE. His career included providing tech support for Gabriel’s Israeli intelligence group. Eventually, he left the DGSE to work for a Swedish corporate security firm. While working there, Lambert was approached by Trevor Robinson, a former MI5 officer who works for the Harris Weber & Company law firm (often referred to as Harris Weber). The founders, Ian Harris and Konrad Weber, specialize in hiding money for the super-wealthy in offshore locations. Lambert currently does electronic intelligence collection for a company called Antioch Holdings, reporting to Robinson. Harris Weber creates “limited liability shell companies” for extremely rich clients (212). The clients can operate anonymously through these companies and avoid paying taxes. Many of the clients are criminals and politicians who are involved with real estate. Charlotte was targeted because she discovered too much about Harris Weber through the provenance of the Picasso painting.

Ian Harris was the one in the company who instigated using “art as a means of laundering and concealing wealth” (215), as well as moving that wealth to tax havens. Rich clients, hiding behind shell companies, send their art to Geneva Freeport to avoid paying taxes on it. When they sell it at the Freeport, they avoid taxation in that transaction as well. Ricard was there to wash money. Harris Weber created fake art sales to move money between rich clients, using the company name OOC Group, which stands for Oil on Canvas. Charlotte had discovered the name OOC, and Robinson asked Lambert to hack her devices. He discovered that the painting should have belonged to Emanuel Cohen and that she was having an affair with Leonard Bradley, a married man. Robinson had Lambert text Charlotte, pretending to be Bradley, and arrange a meeting. After this, Charlotte was dead.

Lambert, however, wasn’t involved in Cohen’s death; he was working on a different case for Robinson at the time. Robinson then had Lambert hack the Geneva Freeport. He discovered that Ricard was trying to trade the Picasso painting for Anna’s (forged) paintings. Harris Weber tried to stop the deal from going through, but Ricard ignored their requests, so they hired the assassin to kill him as well. When Lambert discovered that he had been part of another murder, he started to gather files from Harris Weber. However, the files he could get contained only the names of the shell companies; the list of real client names are in the company’s offices in Monaco.

Lambert shows Gabriel the provenance for the Picasso that he found on Charlotte’s computer. It details how the painting was stolen and passed to Harris Weber. Lambert also has evidence that Charlotte visited the Courtauld Gallery, and Gabriel calls Sarah Bancroft to ask about this visit. Sarah says that Charlotte was in a board meeting at the gallery. Gabriel uses the Proteus software to hack into Trevor Robinson’s phone. He leaves his gun with Ingrid and talks to Don Casabianca’s goat on his way out. Then, Gabriel visits the villa of Don Anton Orsati. They talk about the death of the assassin, and Don Orsati burns his passport. Then, Gabriel tells Orsati about Lambert, asking for protection for Lambert until the heist at the Harris Weber offices is over. Orsati isn’t happy that Gabriel is working with the police, but he agrees. He suggests that Gabriel get Christopher Keller to take part in the heist.

In Porto, Gabriel asks Monjean to take part in the heist. He agrees and asks how Gabriel and Orsati met. Gabriel explains that Orsati was hired to kill Gabriel. The goat does not attack Gabriel’s car when he and Monjean return to the others. When they first meet, Ingrid steals Monjean’s phone. The group travels to Monaco and checks out the office building where Harris Weber is located. Lambert hacks into the security cameras and shows the others images of the main file room and the secure file room. He assures Gabriel and Ingrid that he can open all the doors and deal with the countermeasures of the secure room. Ingrid says that she can crack the safe in the secure room, but she needs a rare earth magnet. Monjean says that an associate crushed a finger using one of those, but the score was worth it. Ingrid also needs a “computerized automatic dialer” (236). Lambert learns that everyone leaves the building after nine o’clock in the evening. Monjean suggests using his boat for their escape. Christopher Keller arrives at the villa.

Gabriel and Christopher met in 1989 at a lecture that Gabriel was giving in Tel Aviv. Christopher told Gabriel that they would meet again. He went on to become successful in the Special Air Service, doing undercover work in Ireland and investigating the Irish Republican Army for MI5. He fought in Iraq in 1991 and was thought to be dead after an attack on his squadron. Christopher survived, however, and became an assassin for Don Orsati. Christopher was supposed to kill Gabriel but didn’t, and in return, Gabriel got Christopher a job at the SIS. When Christopher married Sarah Bancroft, Gabriel escorted the bride. In the present moment, Gabriel tells Christopher about the heist. Christopher implies that Gabriel and Ingrid might be romantically involved, at which point Ingrid shows up and embarrasses Christopher. After she goes on a run, Christopher claims that he won’t take part in the heist, but Gabriel gives him the time to meet up at Monjean’s yacht, the Mistral.

Ingrid gets lost on her run and walks into the village. At a cafe, a girl who looks like Ingrid gives her an invitation from the signadora. The signadora tells Ingrid information about herself, including that she is part of a heist, and she gives Ingrid the combination to the safe in the Harris Weber secure file room. Then, the signadora has Ingrid dip her finger in some oil and drop the oil in some water. The oil droplet “shatter[s] into a thousand tiny droplets” and disappears (247). This causes the signadora to declare that Ingrid has the occhju on her. It is the cause of her compulsion to steal. The signadora chants in Corsican, yelps, cries, and passes out. When she comes to, she says that the occhju is on her now. When Ingrid repeats the ritual with the oil and water, the oil drop is normal for her but shattered for the signadora.

Back at the villa, Ingrid tells Gabriel what happened and berates him for not warning her about the signadora. He believes that the signadora truly knows the code to the safe, and he notes that the signadora’s apprentice, Danielle, resembles both Ingrid and his own daughter. Ingrid and Gabriel spend the afternoon looking through the documents that Lambert stole from the company. Through the security cameras that Lambert hacked, they listen to Robinson’s phone calls and watch the employees leave the office. Lambert stays at the villa when Ingrid, Gabriel, and Monjean leave. Ingrid has to talk to the goat in Danish in order for them to pass. Christopher is at the Mistral when the others arrive. The sea is rough and stormy. Christopher apologizes to Ingrid for joking that she and Gabriel are having an affair.

The group arrives at the port. Monjean and Ingrid disembark and go shopping as a way to scope out the area surrounding the offices. Christopher drinks on the boat as “part of his elaborate cover” (257), while Gabriel picks up the rare-earth magnet for Ingrid. Monjean and Ingrid joke about stealing clothes, but Ingrid doesn’t feel her usual compulsion to steal. They sit at a cafe while Ingrid tells Monjean about her previous scores in Monaco. Soon, the targets of their surveillance arrive: Dubois, Ian Harris, and Robinson. After seeing them go into the building, Ingrid buys external hard drives for the files they are stealing and convinces Monjean to buy some clothes. They go back to the Mistral for lunch. While they are eating, they continue to surveil their targets. Ingrid takes a nap and dreams about a moment from her youth that the signadora knew about. She gets up in time for a little surveillance until the last employee leaves the offices of Harris Weber that evening. As they leave the yacht, Ingrid is surprised that she still doesn’t feel the compulsion to steal.

Christopher goes to sit outside at La Royale, near the offices of Harris Weber. He calls Gabriel, who says that the plan is going ahead, and watches Ingrid and Monjean enter the office building. Lambert opens all the doors for Ingrid and Monjean. The combination that the signadora gave to Ingrid unlocks the safe. As Ingrid starts to copy the files, Monjean considers stealing the cash in the safe. Ingrid feels no desire to do so. When La Royale closes at 11 o’clock, Christopher leaves and gets an outdoor table at the Cafe de Paris. There, he orders food. Meanwhile, the electronic documents are copying, and Ingrid takes photos of the physical documents from the safe. Monjean eventually decides not to steal the piles of cash. When Christopher leaves the cafe, he goes into the Casino de Monte-Carlo. Gabriel calls Christopher and warns him that Robinson is headed to the office. Christopher needs to distract him so that the files can finish copying.

Christopher approaches Robinson, introducing himself as Peter Marlowe, an old acquaintance of Robinson’s. There are about four minutes remaining to copy the files. Christopher continues to stall, asking for Robinson’s business card. Robinson starts to get suspicious but doesn’t enter the office until after Ingrid and Monjean have left with the files copied. The group board the Mistral and watch Robinson unload cash from the safe on the security feed. Gabriel begins looking at the files, which contain the names of very rich and powerful people.