The Rembrandt Affair

fescue. Behind it rose a sloping field crisscrossed by hedgerows; to the right stretched a crescent beach where an old shipwreck lay sleeping just beneath the treacherous surf. Far too dangerous for bathing, the cove attracted few visitors other than the occasional hiker or the local fishermen who came when the sea bass were running. The stranger remembered this. He also recalled that the beach and the cottage bore an uncanny resemblance to a pair of paintings executed by Monet in the French coastal town of Pourville, one of which had been stolen from a museum in Poland and was missing to this day.

The inhabitants of Gunwalloe were aware of none of this, of course. They knew only that the stranger had taken the cottage under highly unusual circumstances—a twelve-month lease, paid in full, no muss, no fuss, all details handled by a lawyer in Hamburg no one had ever heard of. Even more perplexing was the parade of strange cars that appeared in the village soon after the transaction. The flashy black sedans with diplomatic plates. The cruisers from the local constabulary. The anonymous Vauxhalls from London filled with gray men in matching gray suits. Duncan Reynolds, thirty years retired from the railroad and regarded as the most worldly of Gunwalloe's citizenry, had observed the men giving the property a hasty final inspection the evening of the stranger's arrival. 'These lads weren't your basic ready-to-wear security men,' he reported. 'They were the real thing. Professionals, if you happen to get my meaning.'

The stranger was clearly a man on a mission, though for the life of them no one in Gunwalloe had a clue what it was. Their impressions were formed during his brief daily forays into the village for supplies. A few of the older ones thought they recognized a bit of the soldier in him while the younger women admitted to finding him attractive—so attractive, in fact, that some of their menfolk began to dislike him intensely. The daft ones boasted about having a go at him, but the wiser ones preached caution. Despite the stranger's somewhat small stature, it was obvious he knew how to handle himself if things got rough. Pick a fight with him, they warned, and chances were good that bones would get broken. And not his.

His exotic-looking companion, however, was another story. She was warmth to his frost, sunlight to his gray clouds. Her exceptional beauty added a touch of class to the village streets, along with a hint of foreign intrigue. When the woman's mood was upbeat, her eyes actually seemed to emit a light of their own. But at times there was also a discernible sadness. Dottie Cox from the village store speculated that the woman had lost someone close to her recently. 'She tries to hide it,' said Dottie, 'but the poor lamb's obviously still in mourning.'

That the couple was not British was beyond dispute. Their credit cards were issued in the name Rossi, and they were often overheard murmuring to one another in Italian. When Vera Hobbs at the bakery finally worked up the nerve to ask where they were from, the woman replied evasively, 'London, mostly.' The man, however, had maintained a granite silence. 'He's either desperately shy or he's hiding something,' Vera concluded. 'I'd wager my money on number two.'

If there was one opinion of the stranger shared by everyone in the village, it was that he was extremely protective of his wife. Perhaps, they ventured, a bit too protective. For the first few weeks after their arrival, he never seemed to stray more than a few inches from her side. But by early October, there were small signs that the woman was growing weary of his constant presence. And by the middle of the month, she was regularly making trips to the village unescorted. As for the stranger, it seemed to one observer that he had been sentenced by some internal tribunal to forever walk the cliffs of the Lizard alone.

At first, his excursions were short. But gradually he began taking long forced marches that kept him away for several hours at a time. Cloaked in his dark green Barbour coat with a flat cap pulled low over his brow, he would troop south along the cliffs to Kynance Cove and Lizard Point, or north past the Loe to Porthleven. There were times when he would appear lost in thought and times when he adopted the wariness of a scout on a reconnaissance mission. Vera Hobbs reckoned he was trying to remember something, a theory Dottie Cox found laughable. 'It's obvious as the nose on your face, Vera, you old fool. The poor dear isn't trying to remember anything. He's doing his very best to forget.'

Two matters served to raise the level of intrigue in Gunwalloe still higher. The first concerned the men who always seemed to be fishing in the cove whenever the stranger was away on one of his walks. Everyone in Gunwalloe agreed they were the worst fishermen anyone had ever seen—in fact, most assumed they were not fishermen at all. And then there was the couple's only visitor, a broad-shouldered Cornish boy with movie-idol good looks. After much speculation, it was Malcolm Braithwaite, a retired lobsterman who smelled perpetually of the sea, who correctly identified the lad as the Peel boy. 'The one who rescued little Adam Hathaway at Sennen Cove but refused to say a word about it,' Malcolm reminded them. 'The odd one from Port Navas. Mother used to beat the daylights out of him. Or was it the boyfriend?'

The appearance of Timothy Peel ignited a round of intense speculation about the stranger's true identity, most of which was conducted under the influence at the Lamb and Flag pub. Malcolm Braithwaite decreed he was an informant hiding out in Cornwall under police protection, while Duncan Reynolds somehow got it into his head that the stranger was a Russian defector. 'Like that bloke Bulganov,' he insisted. 'The poor sod they found dead in the Docklands a few months ago. Our new friend better watch his step or he might meet the same fate.'

But it was Teddy Sinclair, owner of a rather good pizzeria in Helston, who came up with the most controversial theory. While trolling the Internet one day for God knows what, he stumbled upon an old article in the Times about Elizabeth Halton, the daughter of the former American ambassador, who had been kidnapped by terrorists while jogging in Hyde Park. With great fanfare, Sinclair produced the article, along with an out-of-focus snapshot of the two men who had carried out her dramatic Christmas-morning rescue at Westminster Abbey. At the time, Scotland Yard had claimed that the heroes were officers of the SO19 special operations division. The Times, however, reported that they were actually agents of Israeli intelligence—and that the older of the two, the one with dark hair and gray temples, was none other than the notorious Israeli spy and assassin Gabriel Allon. 'Look at him carefully. It's him, I tell you. The man now living in Gunwalloe Cove is none other than Gabriel Allon.'

This prompted the most uproarious outburst of laughter at the Lamb and Flag since a drunken Malcolm Braithwaite had dropped to one knee and declared his undying love for Vera Hobbs. When order was finally restored, a humiliated Teddy Sinclair wadded the article into a ball and tossed it into the fire. And though he would never know it, his theory about the man from the far end of the cove was altogether and entirely correct.

IF THE STRANGER was aware of the scrutiny, he gave no sign of it. He watched over the beautiful woman and hiked the wind-swept cliffs, sometimes looking as if he were trying to remember, sometimes as though he were trying to forget. On the second Tuesday of November, while nearing the southern end of Kynance Cove, he spotted a tall, gray-haired man standing precariously on the terrace of the Polpeor Cafe at Lizard Point. Even from a long way off, he could tell the man was watching him. Gabriel stopped and reached into his coat pocket, wrapping his hand around the comforting shape of a Beretta 9mm pistol. Just then, the man began to flail his arms as though he were drowning. Gabriel released his grip on the gun and walked on, the sea wind roaring in his ears, his heart pounding like a kettledrum.

4 LIZARD POINT, CORNWALL

'How did you find me, Julian?'

'Chiara told me you were headed this way.'

Gabriel stared incredulously at Isherwood.

'How do you think I found you, petal?'

'Either you pried it out of the director-general of MI5 or Shamron told you. I'm betting it was Shamron.'

'You always were a clever boy.'

Isherwood added milk to his tea. He was dressed for the country in tweeds and wool, and his long gray locks appeared to have been recently trimmed, a sure sign he was involved with a new woman. Gabriel couldn't help but smile. He had always been amazed by Isherwood's capacity for love. It was matched only by his desire to find and acquire paintings.

'They say there's a lost land out there somewhere,' Isherwood said, nodding toward the window.