THE HELICOPTER WAITING ON THE pad at Battersea was a Westland Sea King transport with Rolls-Royce Gnome turboshaft engines. It bore Gabriel and Keller across the width of southern England at 110 knots, just shy of its top speed. They reached Plymouth at six, and a few minutes later Gabriel spotted the lighthouse at Lizard Point. The pilot wanted to set down at Culdrose, but Gabriel prevailed upon him to go straight to Gunwalloe instead. As they passed over the cottage, the rotating blue lights of police cruisers flashed in the drive and along the road from the Lamb and Flag. Light shone in the cove, too. It was crime-scene white. Gabriel felt suddenly ill. His beloved Cornish sanctuary, the place where he had found peace and restoration after some of his most difficult operations, was now a place of death.

The pilot dropped Gabriel and Keller at the northern end of the cove. They came down the tide line at a sprint and stopped at the crime-scene lamps. In their harsh downward glow lay the corpse of a man. He had been shot repeatedly in the chest. The tight dispersal suggested the gunman had been well trained. Or perhaps, thought Gabriel, the killer had been a woman. He looked up at the four men standing over the body. Two were wearing the uniform of the Devon and Cornwall Police. The other two were plainclothes detectives from the Major Crime Branch. Gabriel wondered how long they’d been present. Long enough, he thought, to light up the cove like a football stadium at night.

“Do you really have to use those arc lamps? It’s not as if he’s going anywhere.”

“Who’s asking?” replied one of the detectives.

“MI6,” said Keller quietly. It was the first time he had identified himself as an employee of Her Majesty’s Secret Service, and the effect on his audience was instantaneous.

“I’ll need to see some identification,” said the detective.

Keller pointed toward the Sea King at the end of the cove and said, “That’s my identification. Now do what the man says and turn off the damn lights.”

One of the uniformed officers turned off the arc lamps.

“Now tell the cruisers to kill their flashers.”

The same officer gave the order over his radio. Gabriel looked up toward the cottage and saw the blue lights go dark. Then he stared down at the corpse lying at his feet.

“Where did you find him?”

“Are you MI6, too?” asked the plainclothes detective.

“Answer his question,” snapped Keller.

“He was at the water’s edge.”

“He’d been fishing?” asked Gabriel.

“How did you know?”

“Lucky guess.”

The detective turned and pointed toward the cliffs. “The shooter was over there. We found twenty shell casings.” He looked down at the body. “Obviously, most of them found their target. He was probably dead before he hit the water.”

“Any witnesses?”

“None that have come forward.”