The English Girl: A Novel

the Iranians and their friends in Hezbollah wanted to happen.”
    “I can’t imagine what it must have been like when you saw those pillars for the first time.”
    “To be honest, Graham, I didn’t have time to enjoy the moment. I was too busy trying to keep Eli alive.”
    “How is he?”
    “He spent two months in the hospital, but he looks almost as good as new. He’s actually back at work.”
    “For the Office?”
    Gabriel shook his head. “He’s digging in the Western Wall Tunnel again. I can arrange a private tour if you like. In fact, if you’re interested, I can show you the secret passage that leads directly into the Temple Mount.”
    “I’m not sure my government would approve.” Seymour lapsed into silence while a waiter refilled their coffee cups. Then, when they were alone again, he said, “So the rumor is true after all.”
    “Which rumor is that?”
    “The one about the prodigal son finally returning home. It’s funny,” he added, smiling sadly, “but I always assumed you’d spend the rest of your life walking the cliffs of Cornwall.”
    “It’s beautiful there, Graham. But England is your home, not mine.”
    “Sometimes even I don’t feel at home there any longer,” Seymour said. “Helen and I recently purchased a villa in Portugal. Soon I’ll be an exile, like you used to be.”
    “How soon?” asked Gabriel.
    “Nothing’s imminent,” Seymour answered. “But eventually all good things must end.”
    “You’ve had a great career, Graham.”
    “Have I? It’s difficult to measure success in the security business, isn’t it? We’re judged on things that don’t happen—the secrets that aren’t stolen, the buildings that don’t explode. It can be a profoundly unsatisfying way of earning a living.”
    “What are you going to do in Portugal?”
    “Helen will attempt to poison me with her exotic cooking, and I will paint dreadful watercolor landscapes.”
    “I never knew you painted.”
    “For good reason.” Seymour frowned at the view as though it was far beyond the reach of his brush and palette. “My father would be spinning in his grave if he knew I was here.”
    “So why are you here?”
    “I was wondering whether you might be willing to find something for a friend of mine.”
    “Does the friend have a name?”
    Seymour made no reply. Instead, he opened his attaché case and withdrew an eight-by-ten photograph, which he handed to Gabriel. It showed an attractive young woman staring directly into the camera, holding a three-day-old copy of the International Herald Tribune .
    “Madeline Hart?” asked Gabriel.
    Seymour nodded. Then he handed Gabriel a sheet of A4 paper. On it was a single sentence composed in a plain sans serif typeface:
    You have seven days, or the girl dies.
    “Shit,” said Gabriel softly.
    “I’m afraid it gets better.”
    C oincidentally, the management of the King David had placed Graham Seymour, the only son of Arthur Seymour, in the same wing of the hotel that had been destroyed in 1946. In fact, Seymour’s room was just down the hall from the one his father had used as an office during the waning days of the British Mandate in Palestine. Arriving, they found the DO NOT DISTURB sign still hanging from the latch, along with a sack containing the Jerusalem Post and Haaretz . Seymour led Gabriel inside. Then, satisfied the room had not been entered in his absence, he inserted a DVD into his notebook computer and clicked PLAY . A few seconds later Madeline Hart, missing British subject and employee of Britain’s governing party, appeared on the screen.
    “I made love to Prime Minister Jonathan Lancaster for the first time at the Party conference in Manchester in October 2012 . . .”

5
    KING DAVID HOTEL, JERUSALEM
    T he video was seven minutes and twelve seconds in length. Throughout, Madeline’s gaze remained fixed on a point slightly to the camera’s left, as if she were responding to questions posed by a television interviewer. She appeared frightened and fatigued as, reluctantly, she described how she had met the prime minister during one of his visits to the Party’s Millbank headquarters. Lancaster had expressed admiration for Madeline’s work and on two occasions invited her to Downing Street to personally brief him. It was at the end of the second visit when he admitted that his interest in Madeline was more than professional. Their first sexual encounter had been a hurried affair in a Manchester hotel room. After