The English Girl: A Novel

depends.”
    “You know,” she said provocatively, “the very fact you’re in London asking questions is quite a story.”
    “That’s true,” Gabriel admitted. “But you would never dare to report it or even mention our conversation to anyone.”
    “Why wouldn’t I?”
    “Because it would prevent me from giving you a much better story in the future.”
    Samantha Cooke smiled and looked at her wristwatch. “I’d love to spend about a week talking to you, but I really have to be going. I have a piece in tomorrow’s paper.”
    “What are you writing about?”
    “Volgatek Oil and Gas.”
    “The Russian energy company?”
    “Very impressive, Mr. Allon.”
    “I try to keep up with the news. It helps in my line of work.”
    “I’m sure it does.”
    “What’s the story?”
    “The environmentalists and the global warming crowd are upset about the deal. They’re predicting all the usual calamities—major oil spills, melting polar ice caps, oceanfront property in Chelsea, that sort of thing. They don’t seem to care that the deal will generate billions of dollars in licensing fees and bring several thousand badly needed jobs to Scotland.”
    “So your piece will be balanced?” asked Gabriel.
    “They always are,” she shot back with a smile. “My sources tell me the deal was Jeremy’s pet project, his last big initiative before leaving Downing Street to run for Parliament. I tried to talk to him about it, but he spoke two words that I’d never heard come out of his mouth before.”
    “What were they?”
    “No comment.”
    With that, she gave him a business card, shook his hand, and disappeared through the arched passage that connected the courtyard to the Strand. Gabriel waited five minutes before following. As he turned into the street, he saw the man and woman from the gallery attempting to hail a taxi. He walked past them without a glance and continued to Trafalgar Square, where a thousand protesters were engaged in Two Minutes Hate directed against the State of Israel. Gabriel plunged into the throng and moved slowly through it, pausing now and again to see whether anyone was following. Finally, a heavenly cloudburst sent the demonstrators scurrying for cover. Gabriel fell in with a troupe of pro-Palestinian actors and artists who were heading off to the bars of Soho, but in Charing Cross Road he broke away and ducked into the Leicester Square Underground station. As he was riding the escalator downward into the warm earth, he called Keller.
    “We need a car,” he said in rapid French.
    “Where are we going?”
    “Basildon.”
    “Any particular reason?”
    “I’ll tell you on the way.”

34
    BASILDON, ESSEX
    I t had been created after World War II as part of a grand scheme to reduce overcrowding in the bombed-out slums of London’s East End. The result was what the central planners called a New Town—a town without a history, without a soul, without a purpose other than to warehouse the working classes. Its commercial center, the Basildon town plaza, was a masterpiece of neo-Soviet architecture. So, too, was the tower of council flats that loomed menacingly over one flank, like a giant slab of burnt toast.
    A half mile farther to the east lay a tattered colony of apartment blocks and terraced houses known as the Lichfields. The streets all had agreeable names—Avon Way, Norwich Walk, Southwark Path—but cracks split the pavements and weeds thrived in the courts. A few of the houses had small front lawns, but the tiny unit at the end of Blackwater Way had only a patch of broken concrete where a worn-out car was usually parked. Its exterior was pebbledash on the ground floor and brown brick on the second. There were three small windows; all were curtained and dark. No light burned over the inhospitable little front door.
    “Does anyone work?” asked Keller, as they drove slowly past the house for a second time.
    “The mother works a few hours a week at the Boots pharmacy in the plaza,” answered Gabriel. “The brother drinks for a living.”
    “And you’re sure no one’s in there?”
    “Does it look occupied to you?”
    “Maybe they like the dark.”
    “Or maybe they’re vampires.”
    Gabriel eased the car into a common parking area around the corner and switched off the engine. Just beyond Keller’s window was a sign warning that the entire area was under twenty-four-hour CCTV surveillance.
    “I have a bad feeling about this.”
    “You just killed a man for