The English Assassin

part of the island, like the Englishman, but two valleys to the south in the shadow of Monte d’Oro. It had been twenty years since he had been to the Englishman’s valley. Such was the rhythm of life on the island.
    The conversation turned to the arson fire that had ravaged the Englishman’s valley the previous dry season. “Did they ever find out who did it?” Matteo asked, helping himself to some of the Englishman’s wine. When the Englishman told him the authorities suspected the separatists from the FLNC, the Corsican lit a cigarette and spit smoke at the ceiling. “Young hotheads!” he growled, and the Englishman nodded slowly in agreement.
    After an hour he bid Matteo good night and returned to his cabin. In his suitcase was a small radio. He listened to the midnight newscast on a Marseilles station. After a few minutes of local news, there was a roundup of foreign stories. In the West Bank, there had been another day of fighting between Palestinian and Israeli forces. In Spain, two members of the Basque terror group ETA had been murdered in the town of Vitoria. And in Switzerland, a prominent banker named Augustus Rolfe had been found murdered in his home in an exclusive Zurich neighborhood. An unidentified man was in custody. The Englishman switched off the radio, closed his eyes, and was immediately asleep.

3
    ZURICH
     
    T HE HEADQUARTERSof the Stadtpolizei Zurich was located only a few hundred meters from the train station on the Zeughausstrasse, wedged between the smoke-colored Sihl River and a sprawling rail yard. Gabriel had been led across a stone central courtyard into the aluminum-and-glass annex which housed the murder squad. There he was placed in a windowless interrogation room furnished with a table of blond wood and a trio of mismatched chairs. His luggage had been seized, along with his paints, brushes, and chemicals. So had his wallet, his passport, and his mobile telephone. They had even taken his wristwatch. He supposed they were hoping he would become disoriented and confused. He was confident that he knew more about the techniques of interrogation than the Zurich police did.
    He had been questioned three times by three different officers: once briefly at the train station, before being taken into custody, and twice more in this room. Judging by clothing and age, the importance of his interrogators was getting progressively greater.
    The door opened and a single officer entered the room. He wore a tweed coat and no tie. He called himself Sergeant-Major Baer. He sat down opposite Gabriel, placed a file on the table, and stared at it as if it was a chessboard and he was contemplating his next move.
    “Tell me your name,” he blurted in English.
    “It hasn’t changed since the last time I was asked.”
    “Tell me your name.”
    “My name is Mario Delvecchio.”
    “Where do you reside?”
    “Port Navas, Cornwall.”
    “England?”
    “Yes.”
    “You are an Italian, but you live in England?”
    “That’s not a crime the last time I checked.”
    “I didn’t say it was, but it is interesting, though. What do you do in Port Navas, England?”
    “I told the first three officers who questioned me.”
    “Yes, I know.”
    “I’m an art restorer.”
    “Why are you in Zurich?”
    “I was hired to clean a painting.”
    “At the villa on the Zürichberg?”
    “Yes.”
    “Who hired you to clean this painting? Clean? Is that the word you used? Peculiar word: clean. One thinks of cleaning floors, cleaning cars or clothing. But not paintings. Is that a common expression in your line of work?”

    “Yes,” said Gabriel and the inspector seemed disappointed he did not elaborate.
    “Who hired you?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I mean it was never made clear to me. The arrangements were made by a lawyer in Zurich and an art dealer in London.”
    “Ah, yes—Julius Isherwood.”
    “Julian.”
    With a Germanic reverence for paperwork, the detective made a vast show of expunging the offending word and carefully penciling in the correction. When he had finished, he looked up triumphantly, as if awaiting applause. “Go on.”
    “I was simply told to go to the villa. I would be met there and shown inside.”
    “Met by whom?”
    “That was never made clear to me.”
    Isherwood’s fax was in the file. The detective slipped on a pair of half-moon glasses and held the fax up to the light. His lips moved as he read. “When did you arrive in