Sacred Sword (Ben Hope 7)

by Scott Mariani

  The little contingent had made the boat trip across to the villa several times since. They were well enough looked after, extremely well paid in crisp banknotes, of which there seemed to be no shortage, and there was always lots of wine and champagne. She was always with a different man. They seemed to come and go. Again, she never asked why.

  The phone call yesterday had come as no real surprise. Mr Lucas wanted to see Daria, alone. A car had come to pick her up at her apartment and taken her to meet the boat. The December weather was mild enough to wear a dress that was light without being too revealing. Mr Lucas had come to greet her at the gate of the villa. He was wearing a monogrammed satin dressing gown which she told him looked very raffinato.

  He appeared nervous at first, and Daria thought he seemed a little wired, as if he hadn’t been sleeping properly. A lot of her rich clients were highly stressed businessmen seeking a little relaxation. When she slipped her willowy arm through his and let herself be led into the cool white interior of the villa – plants and artwork and expensive antiques everywhere – he seemed to unwind. Meester Lucas – he loved the way his name tripped deliciously off her tongue. She giggled and apologised for her bad English. He smiled charmingly. ‘No, I adore the way you speak. And please call me Penrose.’

  Deep inside the villa, he took her to a plushly furnished office complete with a broad desk and a giant leather recliner chair. Kinky, she’d thought at first, until he showed her through a door into the adjoining bedroom. Daria got the strange impression that Mr Lucas spent most of his time in these two rooms. Who were all those other men? What did they do for him? He was obviously terribly wealthy and important. The bedroom was very luxurious, with a king-size bed and marble floor, beautiful things all around.

  Penrose sat on the bed and motioned at her dress. ‘Take it off,’ he said. She duly obliged. The silk pooled around her ankles and she stepped out of it in one of her many sets of lacy underwear. For this occasion she’d chosen red, to go with the red high heels.

  Penrose felt his heart quicken as he ran his eyes up and down her appreciatively. What a body. He’d already decided that he wanted to cover her with money first, stacks and stacks of lovely cash from one of the stuffed holdalls that were currently hidden under the bed, then make her take off the rest of her clothes, very very slowly, and then—

  The fantasy abruptly popped like a bubble. Penrose’s brow creased. He leaned forward on the bed, craning his neck to peer more closely at her. Was that … ?

  Yes, it was!

  He pointed. ‘Take that off,’ he said more sternly. ‘Take it off immediately.’

  Daria smiled, reached behind her and began undoing the clasp of her lacy bra.

  ‘No! Not that!’ he shouted. ‘That! That thing!’ Suddenly all the charm and refinement were gone. His face was turning red and he was scowling at her. Daria was confused. What had she done wrong? He kept pointing at her. ‘Get that bloody thing out of my sight!’ Frowning, she realised that his accusing finger was aimed at the little gold cross that she wore on a chain around her neck. She’d had it for most of her life, and believed that it protected her from evil.

  And maybe she needed protection today. Daria was beginning not to like the look of this Englishman at all.

  ‘Do you hear me, whore? You do what I tell you to do! Take it off!’

  Just because she was a whore, didn’t mean she let herself be treated like a dog, and she’d damn well wear her cross if she wanted to. Daria had a pretty fiery temper of her own, and she was happy to give him a healthy dose of it. She let off a rapid and very loud burst of Italian, telling him to watch his fucking mouth and she wouldn’t take her little cross off for anyone. If he wanted to screw her, he’d screw her with it on or else go and screw someone else, all right?

  Penrose couldn’t take his eyes off the cross twinkling against the honey skin of her throat. His face twisted. How dare this filthy Christian slut talk to him like this? A paroxysm of fury gripped him and he launched himself off the bed and straight at her, slapping her arms aside with one hand and making a grab for the necklace with the other. His fingers closed around the gold chain and he yanked hard, trying to rip it off her neck.

  Daria let out a cry as the chain bit into the back of her neck. She instinctively jerked away from him, tearing the little chain out of his fingers before he could snap it. She hurled another stream of Neapolitan invective at him. ‘That’s it. I’m leaving this place right now. Who do you think you are, you piece of shit? Take me back to the boat!’

  Penrose held his shaking hand up and stared at the blood running down his palm from where the chain had cut his fingers. The whore was screaming at him. She was crazy.

  She was a bitch. A filthy, filthy, repulsive little—

  Penrose’s eyes bulged. His jaws clamped tightly together so that the muscles bunched up in his cheeks. He thrust his bloody hand inside the folds of his dressing gown. It came out clutching his Coonan .357. The pistol gleamed under the lights. He’d been playing with it earlier, lovingly cycling rounds through its action and replacing them in the magazine, then oiling and polishing the stainless steel with a silk handkerchief, thinking of the power that he had, how he could do anything he wanted and nobody could ever stop him.

  Daria screamed when she saw the gun in his fist and the madness in his eyes as he pointed it at her. She tried to run for the door, but even as she turned to get away from him, the blast of the gunshot filled her world and the impact of the bullet hurled her brutally against the wall. She tumbled to the floor, her whole body quaking. She screamed again as she saw the dark blood welling fast out of the ragged hole in her side.

  It wasn’t a very good shot, Penrose thought, but then it was the first time he’d ever fired the gun. Now he knew what it felt like, and he decided he very much enjoyed the kickback of the recoil against his hand and up his arm. He’d like to feel that again. He stepped up to the screaming woman, held the gun closer this time so that he couldn’t miss, and pulled the trigger. The gun flashed and boomed. The spray of blood hit him in the face.

  The point-blank shot had blown Daria’s throat apart. Suddenly the screaming was a tortured gurgle. Her eyes rolled whitely in the mask of blood. Penrose fired a third shot and her head snapped back against the floor with a clean round hole between her eyes.

  Getting more accurate already. It just takes practice, he thought.

  A high-pitched tinnitus whine was singing in his ears from the gunshots and he could smell cordite in the air. He leaned over the body and gazed down in fascination at the way the third bullet had crumpled in her whole skull. Wow. Incredible. He smacked his lips and tasted the salty tang of Daria Pignatelli’s warm blood.

  Now, who was going to clean up this mess? Not him, that was for sure.

  Rex O’Neill had just been talking on the phone to Steve Cutter, who’d called from Jerusalem to say, predictably, that they couldn’t find any trace of Hope and Arundel. ‘Just come back,’ O’Neill had told him resignedly. What a stupid mess. He’d stopped even trying to calculate the astronomical daily wastage of Trimble Group funds.

  As he was putting down the phone he could hear shouting coming from the direction of Penrose’s office. ‘What is it now?’ he muttered to himself in exasperation. Then came the sound of a woman screaming. O’Neill tensed, listening.

  It was the unmistakable and very loud noise of a gunshot that brought him running in a panic. What the hell was happening? He was racing along the corridor towards Penrose’s office when the second shot went off, and tearing through the door moments after the third deafening explosion erupted from inside the adjoining bedroom.

  His mind awhirl, he crashed through into the bedroom. He stopped. Looked down and saw the blood pooling around his shoes. Looked across and saw the bloodied corpse of the beautiful young woman spread out on the floor. Looked up and saw Penrose Lucas standing there, eyes and hair wild, his face spattered red.

  ‘You …’ O’Neill began. ‘Oh, no. No.’ Words
failed him. He backed away a step, feeling the slick blood under his feet.

  ‘It’s very simple,’ Penrose said, waving the gun in the air. ‘I told her to take it off and she refused. What else was I … Hey! O’Neill! Where are you going?’

  Rex O’Neill stumbled out of the bedroom and across the office, fighting the urge to vomit. He slammed the door behind him and ran off down the corridor, leaving a trail of bloody shoeprints behind him. When he got back to his room, he leaned against the wall and breathed hard for a few moments. Then he locked the door. Took out his phone.

  And this time he did dial that number.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Back at Zion Square, Hillel insisted on dragging Ben and Jude into the coffee shop to instruct his staff that these honoured visitors were to have anything they liked, any time they wanted it, and without charge. ‘It is the least I can do,’ he said.

  Ben thanked him for his time and his help, warned him once again to be careful, and promised to call the moment he had news about Wesley Holland.

  They watched Hillel roar off in his Land Cruiser, then headed back across the square to the hotel. Jude said something about taking a shower, and disappeared through the connecting door from Ben’s room into his own.

  Ben threw open the windows and gazed out across the square. None of this made any sense to him, but maybe it was because he wasn’t thinking straight. He felt as if his brain was misfiring on one cylinder – or maybe a couple of cylinders, unable to focus properly. And he knew the reason why. He marched over to his bag, tore it open and took out the letter.

  He slumped in an armchair to read it once more, as if somehow after a dozen readings it might now suddenly mean something completely different and he’d be released from the perturbing responsibility that weighed so heavily on him. But no, Michaela’s words told him the same incredible things as they had before. If it was all a dream, it was taking a hell of a long time to finish.

  Ben felt quite lost.

  He didn’t hear the connecting door open and Jude walk into the room.

  ‘What’s that?’ Jude asked.

  With a jolt like an electric shock, Ben stuffed the letter away into the bag. ‘Just looking back at some of the stuff I found in Lalique’s place,’ he said as casually as he could, glancing at Jude out of the corner of his eye.

  ‘Right,’ Jude said uninterestedly. He flopped on the bed. ‘So what do we do now?’

  Good question, Ben thought. He didn’t like to admit it even to himself, but he was running out of road. They’d just exhausted their last lead. Except for one. ‘If we knew who this Martha was, we’d be able to trace Holland. Trace Holland, and we’d get to the bottom of this thing. The problem is, we don’t.’

  ‘Maybe she’s his wife. Have you done a search on Martha Holland?’

  ‘Holland doesn’t have a wife,’ Ben said impatiently. ‘I spent an hour looking him up online last night. He quit after the fourth marriage went south. In any case, I assume he wouldn’t be travelling across America to visit Martha if he was married to her, would he? They’d be living together.’

  ‘You’re just old fashioned.’

  ‘Maybe I am,’ Ben said, ‘but not as old fashioned as Wesley Holland. I’m pretty sure of that much.’

  ‘Fine. Ex-wife, then.’

  ‘I’ve checked them all out. In order of appearance, they were Tabitha, Raine, Micheline, and the last one was called Giselle Rush.’

  ‘Hey. Not Giselle Rush the actress?’

  Ben shrugged. ‘Perhaps, I don’t know. Never heard of her.’

  Jude looked at him in astonishment that a living inhabitant of planet Earth could have failed to have heard of Giselle Rush. ‘Anyway, Martha could still be a girlfriend. It’s feasible they don’t live together, or even close.’

  ‘Then he’s managing to keep it quiet from all the obsessives online who spend their lives prying into the private affairs of the rich and famous. Not much escapes them.’

  ‘No girlfriend, then. Daughter? Sister?’

  ‘Never had kids. And his parents just had the one.’

  Jude raised an eyebrow. ‘Must be a lonely kind of guy, rattling around all alone in some big old seaside house with nothing to do except stare at the waves. I mean, even I don’t love the ocean that much.’

  Ben reflected for a moment. ‘That was strange, what Hillel said.’

  ‘Why strange?’

  ‘From what I read, Holland’s home is a place called the Whitworth Mansion, up near Lake Ontario, a few miles from Rochester. A long way from the coast.’

  ‘So maybe Hillel got it wrong, and he lives by a lake, not the sea.’

  Ben shook his head. ‘I’ve seen pictures of the house. It’s not that close to the lake. Certainly not within sight of the water, and it’s surrounded by acres of woodlands. Meaning that he must have a seaside home somewhere else.’

  ‘The guy can certainly afford it,’ Jude said. ‘You think that’s where he’s gone? It would narrow things down a little.’

  Ben grunted. ‘Down to any one of a million locations up and down the east coast of North America. That’s assuming he’s even headed there. Why would he refer to his own place as “Martha’s”?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe she spends more time there than he does.’

  ‘We’re rambling,’ Ben said. ‘This isn’t getting us anywhere.’ He went on wearily racking his brains. Nothing was coming to him.

  Jude leaned back on the bed, then suddenly sprang up again. ‘Hang on a minute. I think I might’ve just figured this out. You said Holland was reported as heading towards Boston? Well, that tells us all we need to know, doesn’t it?’

  Ben was about to ask him scathingly whether he’d even seen a map of the United States Eastern Seaboard and had any notion of the scale of the place, when he saw the look on his face. ‘What are you thinking?’

  ‘All right. Here’s my idea. What if Martha isn’t a person?’

  ‘Come on, Jude. I’m too tired to fuck about. What is she, an Old English Sheepdog?’

  ‘She could be a place.’

  ‘How could Martha be a place?’

  ‘Not Martha. Martha’s. You said he said he was heading for “Martha’s”. His exact word. Correct?’

  Ben looked at him.

  ‘Now, you know I’m a shark fan, don’t you?’ Jude went on. ‘Diving with the great whites in New Zealand was something I’ve always wanted to do, since I was a kid. My favourite movie of all time is Jaws.’

  ‘Now you’re losing me completely. What’s that got to do with—’

  ‘Jawsfest, 2005,’ Jude said. ‘Robbie’s stockbroker uncle was a fan too, and he took us there. It was the thirtieth anniversary celebration, this great big festival that was held at the location where part of the movie was shot.’

  ‘And—?’

  ‘You’re slow, old man. All right, Spielberg filmed Jaws on the island of Martha’s Vineyard. Get it? Martha’s Vineyard. It’s off Cape Cod. We flew to Boston and took a bus to the ferry. It’s not far away. I was only fourteen, but I remember it really well.’

  Ben felt his mouth hanging open.

  ‘Does that narrow it down enough for you?’ Jude asked with a grin.

  Chapter Fifty

  The cold and sleet of London was a far cry from the temperate climate of Capri, but Rex O’Neill was too excited to feel the slightest chill as he hurried from the taxi to the gate of his home in Belgrave Gardens, St John’s Wood. He carried his bags up the little footpath and paused at the front door to set down his luggage and rummage in his pocket for the key. He’d been smiling to himself all the way from Heathrow at the thought of seeing Megan again, and imagining her happiness at his unexpected return and the prospect of spending Christmas together.

  ‘You’re back so soon?’ she’d say, flying into his arms. ‘Why didn’t you call? I’d have prepared something special.’

  ‘I wanted to surprise you, darling,’ he’d chuckle as he held her and ran his fingers through
her hair. And then he’d reveal his next surprise: that he wouldn’t be going away again to Europe, but would be staying right here in London from now on. Megan would be full of questions but knew not to probe too deeply into his work affairs. All he’d tell her was that he’d had enough of that job and had asked for a reassignment, which had been granted immediately, with permission to come straight home. He’d mention nothing of the situation he’d left behind.

  He pictured the glow of delight in her eyes when he told her the news. He’d squeeze her tight and kiss her and swear that he’d never leave her on her own again. Then, if she was feeling all right and not too tired, he’d take her out for an expensive dinner at their favourite restaurant, a great little Armenian place in Soho.

  O’Neill opened the front door and stepped into the hallway, elated to be home again. He dumped his luggage, took off his coat and hung it on the hook. ‘Megan! It’s me!’ There was no reply, but it was a large apartment and she probably hadn’t heard him. ‘Megan?’ he called again as he wandered through to the reception rooms. ‘Megan, darling? Guess what! I’m back!’

  Silence in the apartment. Maybe she’d gone out, he thought as he pushed open the living room door.

  She was sitting on a chair in the middle of the living room, looking up at him in horror.

  ‘Megan?’ he said, startled. His first thought was that something had happened, that she’d lost the baby, that there’d been a death in the family. ‘Darling, what’s wrong?’ he said, stepping into the room.

  ‘Hello, Rex,’ said a voice that he’d never wanted to hear again. He wheeled round.

  Penrose Lucas was standing behind the living room door. He was wearing a long tweed coat and shiny shoes. The Coonan pistol hung loosely from his hand.