“You didn’t keep a small service charge for yourself? After all, Quinn would have never known.”

“You obviously don’t know Eamon Quinn.”

Keller asked whether Quinn had ever stolen into Belfast to see his family.

“Never.”

“And they never traveled outside the country to see him?”

“He was afraid the British would follow them. Besides,” Walsh added, “they wouldn’t have recognized him. Quinn had a new face. Quinn was someone else.”

Which returned them to the subject of Quinn’s surgically altered appearance. Gabriel and Keller had in their possession the images that the French had captured in Saint Barthélemy—a few frames of airport video, a few grainy still photos captured by storefront security cameras—but in none was Quinn’s face clearly visible. He was a mop of black hair and a beard, a man to glimpse once and quickly forget. Liam Walsh had the power to complete Quinn’s portrait, for Walsh had sat across from him six months earlier, in a Spanish hotel room.

Gabriel had produced composite sketches under challenging circumstances, but never with a witness who was blindfolded. In fact, he was quite certain it was not possible. Keller explained how the process would work. There was another man present, he said, a man who was as good with a sketchpad and a pencil as he was with his fists and a gun. This man was neither Irish nor an Ulsterman. Walsh was to describe Quinn’s appearance for him. He could look at the man’s sketchpad, but under no circumstances was he to look at his face.

“What if I look accidentally?”

“Don’t.”

Keller removed the duct tape from Walsh’s eyes. The Irishman blinked several times. Then he stared directly at the figure seated on the opposite side of the table behind a sketchpad and a box of colored pencils.

“You just violated the rules,” said Gabriel calmly.

“Do you want to know what he looks like, or not?”

Gabriel picked up a pencil. “Let’s start with his eyes.”

“They’re green,” replied Walsh. “Like yours.”

They worked without a break for the next two hours. Walsh described, Gabriel sketched, Walsh corrected, Gabriel revised. Finally, at midnight, the portrait was complete. The Brazilian plastic surgeon had done a fine job. He had given Quinn a face without character or a memorable feature. Still, it was a face Gabriel would recognize if it passed him on the street.