A Death in Cornwall

Sarah Bancroft, a former CIA operative and art curator, is married to an officer in the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), Christopher Keller, who goes by the name Peter Marlowe. Sarah hears on the news that the Chopper has killed Charlotte, whose book Sarah owns. After hearing other news about an upcoming election, Sarah prepares to attend an event where Van Gogh’s stolen painting Self-Portrait With Bandaged Ear will be returned to the Courtauld Gallery. She is the first to arrive at Isherwood Fine Arts that morning, and Julian Isherwood comes in shortly thereafter. They talk about Charlotte’s death. A journalist from ARTnews calls and asks Sarah for a comment on Gabriel’s work restoring the Van Gogh after it was recovered.

Gabriel and his wife, Chiara, talk about Amelia March, the reporter who called Sarah, and Irene, their daughter, a young climate activist. They also talk about Gabriel’s latest restoration project in a church in Murano and how they hope business will pick up after March’s article comes out. While they have lunch, Gabriel teases Chiara about a bartender at Cupido who has a crush on her. After lunch, he buys her some clothes. They have sex in their hotel room before the event at the Courtauld Gallery. As they arrive, Gabriel gets a phone call from Timothy Peel and agrees to meet in Port Navas the following afternoon.

At the event, various guests, including Nicholas Lovegrove and Olivia Watson, gather around Gabriel to talk about his impressive art restorations. The arrival of Hugh Graves, the British home secretary in line to become the next prime minister, and his rich wife, Lucinda, takes the guests’ attention away from Gabriel. Lucinda funded the event and is one of the members of Courtauld’s board. Gabriel briefly talks to Graves about the election and then talks to Julian Isherwood about the Van Gogh painting. Gabriel and Lucinda unveil the painting. After having a drink, Gabriel and Chiara leave to go out to dinner. They talk about the phone call he got from Timothy Peel.

Gabriel prepares to drive to Port Navas, and Chiara berates him for being rude when he first went to Cornwall under the guise of Giovanni Rossi. They talk about the Chopper and Charlotte’s death. Once in Port Navas, Gabriel boards “a wooden ketch” (34), a sailboat that Gabriel gave to Timothy. The two men talk about the property that Gabriel used to rent in the little town and Timothy’s family. Timothy then tells Gabriel that he thinks someone other than the Chopper killed Charlotte.

Timothy tells Gabriel about Vera seeing the light in Charlotte’s cottage. Timothy found Charlotte’s car at an amusement center in Land’s End, but he hasn’t found her phone. He thinks that a copycat of the Chopper killed Charlotte, but the other people working the Chopper case wouldn’t like his theory, so he called Gabriel. As they drive to Charlotte’s cottage, Timothy suggests that Gabriel spend the summer in Cornwall.

As they walk through the crime scene at Charlotte’s cottage, Timothy and Gabriel talk about how Picasso’s paintings are frequently forged and stolen. There is evidence that Charlotte left the cottage in a hurry. Gabriel offers to crack the password on Charlotte’s laptop, but Timothy refuses the offer. After discovering that Charlotte was researching paintings stolen by the Nazis, they look at her notes about a particular painting, identified in the notes as an “[u]ntitled portrait of a woman in the surrealist style, oil on canvas” (45). Gabriel also notes that Charlotte included an acknowledgment of Naomi Wallach, an art expert, in her book.

Samantha Cooke, a writer for The Telegraph, waits for information from a source. Eventually, an A4 envelope is dropped on a bench at the embankment. It contains financial information about the Conservative Party’s fundraising. Her source communicates via text and calls themself Nemo.

Gabriel meets Naomi at the Louvre. They discuss a mutual friend and the Nazi practice of looting art from the homes of Jewish people during the Holocaust. Gabriel mentions Augustus Rolfe, father of a famous violinist, as a collector of art from Jewish people who were murdered in the Holocaust. Naomi admits that she is the one who asked Charlotte to research the “[u]ntitled portrait of a woman” (52). The request was from the family of Bernard Levy, whose art was stolen after he died in Auschwitz. His grandson, Emanuel Cohen, saw the painting in the Geneva Freeport, and Charlotte agreed to take his case. Gabriel can’t interview Emanuel because he died after being pushed down some stairs in Paris, on the rue Chappe.

The death of Emanuel was ruled an accident—a fall down the stairs—rather than a murder. Gabriel talks to a waiter, Henri, about where Emanuel was found. Near the stairs, Gabriel meets a street vendor, Amadou Kamara. In exchange for several hundred euros, Amadou tells Gabriel that he saw someone push Emanuel. He also admits that he stole Emanuel’s phone and gave it to his employer, Papa Diallo. Emanuel takes Gabriel to meet Papa, who demands €1,000 for the dead man’s phone. Gabriel pays him after making a withdrawal at a cash machine.

Back in London, Gabriel calls Sarah and says that he needs the gun he left at her house. When they meet, Gabriel tells her about the painting, the murders, and the phone. He uses a phone-hacking malware program called Proteus to get into Emanuel’s phone. It contains the number for the “Galerie Edmond Ricard SA” in the Geneva Freeport (68). Gabriel asks Sarah if she knows anyone familiar with Ricard, and she arranges a lunch with Nicholas Lovegrove.

On their way to lunch, Gabriel and Sarah talk about a news story revealing that Lord Michael Radcliff accepted a political contribution from corrupt Russian oligarch Valentin Federov, with the knowledge of Prime Minister Hillary Edwards. Edwards will have to step down because of the scandal. Lovegrove is excited to meet Gabriel. Gabriel asks him about Ricard, and Lovegrove requires a trade for information. Gabriel agrees to clean Lovegrove’s “Gentileschi” in exchange for the details (73). Lovegrove hides the identity of his client but mentions that the client had Lovegrove examine a Rothko painting that Galerie Ricard was selling. The painting was owned by a company called OOC, which stands for Oil on Canvas. After buying the painting, Lovegrove’s client kept it in the Geneva Freeport and then sold it after owning it for two months. Lovegrove’s client dropped him right after giving Lovegrove his cut of the sale.