‘Come the summer, I’m going to have some benches put here,’ Leigh said. ‘It’s such a lovely spot.’ Her smile faded as she gazed across the valley.
Ben could see her troubled thoughts clouding her eyes. ‘I know you don’t want to go over all this again,’ he said. ‘But we need to know what’s happening.’
She looked down at her feet. ‘I can’t understand it.’
‘Are you positive they couldn’t have been after something in your flat?’
Leigh sighed. ‘I told you, I only used the place as a base for the Opera House. I hardly had anything there, I didn’t spend much time there.’
‘And you’re absolutely sure that the place was empty when you moved in? There’s nothing that could have been left behind by the previous occupants?’
She shook her head. ‘Like I said, it was all cleaned out when I rented it. No, it’s me they’re after. Something to do with me, but what it is I…’
Ben didn’t reply. He reached out his arm and gently squeezed her shoulder, feeling the tension in her muscles. She took a step away from him, breaking the contact.
He looked up at the sky. It was threatening to rain. They’d been walking for almost an hour. ‘Let’s go back,’ he said.
Gunmetal clouds had passed over the sun’s face by the time they had walked the path back through the woods and up the gently sloping lawns to the manor. A thin, steady drizzle was drifting on the rising wind. Leigh opened the back door and Ben led the way up the passage to the kitchen, where he’d left his haversack. He was reaching for his phone when he froze. His eyes narrowed.
Leigh saw his expression. ‘What’s up?’
He looked at her hard and pressed a finger to his lips. She made a gesture to say ‘I don’t understand’.
He said nothing. He reached out, grasped her by the upper arm and jerked her roughly across the room. He tore open the door of the walk-in pantry and pushed her inside.
‘Ben…’ Leigh’s eyes were wide with fear and confusion.
‘Don’t move, don’t make a sound,’ he whispered, and shut her in.
He looked around him and quietly grabbed the heavy cast-iron skillet from the range. He slipped through the gap in the kitchen door and moved fast and silently up the panelled hallway.
He found them in the study. There were two of them, their backs to him. They were masked and armed. Identical combat jackets and semi-automatic pistols in cordura rigs.
They’d been busy. Packing cases were overturned, their contents spilled across the bare floorboards. Music manuscripts were scattered everywhere. Letters, business documents. The guy on the left was rifling through a trunk, tossing clothes in a rough pile on the floor. The guy on the right was kneeling down near the fire place and using a double-edged killing knife to slice open a large cardboard box that was wrapped up in brown packing tape.
Neither one heard Ben step into the room.
The cardboard box fell open and the contents tumbled out-papers, books, folders. The man reached inside and pulled out a slim box-file. He studied it for a moment and waved it at his companion.
The guy on the left was half turned round when Ben buried the edge of the iron skillet in his skull. It went in like an axe and he dropped to the floor with his legs kicking.
The other threw aside the box-file and went for his pistol. Ben was faster. He hit him a blow to the throat that was meant to disorientate rather than kill. He kept a pincer grip on the man’s windpipe as he went down. ‘Who are you working for?’ he asked quietly. As he spoke he took the gun from the man’s trembling fingers with his free hand. It was a big, heavy pistol. A Para-Ordnance .45, high-capacity magazine, stainless steel, cocked and locked. It was shiny and smelled of fresh gun oil.
Ben was a believer in simple, straightforward interrogation. He flicked off the safety, then pressed the muzzle of the .45 against the intruder’s temple. ‘Tell me quick or you’re dead,’ he said.
The man’s eyes rolled in the oval slits in his mask. Ben let some pressure off his windpipe. He looked down at the slim box-file. It was lying on the floor, face-up. Written across its front in neat marker pen were the words THE MOZART LETTER.
Ben pressed the gun harder into the man’s head. ‘What’s this about?’ he said.
The door crashed open. A third intruder burst inside the room shooting. The room was filled with gunfire. Ben had nowhere to take cover. He felt the shockwave of a heavy bullet passing close by his head.
He grasped his prisoner by the collar and swung his body up and round in front of him, using him as a shield. The man screamed and jerked as bullets thudded into him. His thrashing foot caught the box-file. It burst open and papers flew into the fireplace.
Ben aimed the Para-Ordnance over the man’s shoulder. The pistol kicked and boomed twice in his hand. The attacker twisted, slammed against the wall, slumped to the floor.
Ben let the dead body of his human shield fall. The contents of the file were strewn across the hearth. Paper curled and blackened as the flames spread hungrily. The corner of the rug was burning. He stamped out the flames and kicked the blackened fragments of paper away from the fireplace.
He strode across the study and squatted down to examine the third man. His mask, weapon and clothing were identical to the others’. The first bullet had caught him in the chest. The second, rising on recoil, had taken the top off his head. Ben sighed. None of the three would be doing much talking to him.
He tensed. A door had slammed somewhere in the house. Leigh? He sprang to his feet and ran out across the wide hallway. He could hear shouts and the noise of a diesel engine revving hard outside. Rapid footsteps across the gravel at the front of the house. He ran up the passage into the front entrance hall, slipping on the polished parquet. He ripped the front door open just in time to see a fourth intruder jump into the Transit van. It took off down the drive with its wheels spinning.
He raised the .45 and punched a line of six holes across the back doors of the van. The rear windows shattered.
The van slewed and kept going. Ben fired three more rounds at the tyres, the target diminishing now. A plastic hubcap spun across the gravel. The van disappeared down the drive. Then it was gone.
Ben swore and ran back into the house. He hurried to the kitchen and opened the pantry door.
Leigh flew at him with a scream and swung the long steel Maglite torch at his head with all her strength. If it had landed it would have put him in a coma. He dodged it and caught her wrist. She was panting. Her eyes were wild. She didn’t seem to recognize him.
He shook her. ‘Leigh-it’s me. It’s Ben.’
She came to her senses and looked up at him. Her face was white.
‘We’ve had some unexpected visitors,’ he said. ‘You’re safe now. But we need to leave quickly. More of them will be coming back here.’ He turned to head out of the room.
She was shaking. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Get your things together,’ he said. He picked up his bag and carried it to the study. Closing the door behind him, he knelt down and gathered up the fire-damaged papers. He sighed as some of them crumbled apart in his hands.
Among the documents was a small padded envelope, about four inches square, light and slim. One of its corners was singed from the fire but otherwise it was undamaged. It hadn’t been opened. It was addressed to Leigh in Monte Carlo. The postmark was Vienna-stamped just the day after Oliver’s death.
Ben tossed everything together into the box-file. Across the label THE MOZART LETTER, a spatter of blood was still wet and glistening. He unbuckled the straps of his bag and put the file inside.
He collected the two identical .45 pistols from the dead men and took the spare magazines from the pouches on their tactical rigs. Clearly these men had been professionals. He searched them. No papers, no ID of any kind.
He looked up to see the door handle turning. Before he could stop her, Leigh had stepped into the study.
She froze as she took it all in. The three
dead men lying there with their eyes glazed and staring through the holes in their ski-masks, arms and legs out-flung. The pool of blood on the floor. The long smear of it on the far wall. The handle of the skillet still protruding from the head of one of the corpses. She reeled, swaying a little on her feet.
‘I didn’t mean for you to see this,’ he said, steadying her. He took her by the elbow and guided her out of the room.
‘Did you do this?’ Her voice was barely audible.
‘Look, we haven’t got time to discuss it now. Are you ready to leave?’ She nodded weakly.
He checked his watch. Ten minutes had gone by since the attackers had fled. ‘We’ll have to cut across the meadow and see where we can get some transport.’
‘I have a car here,’ Leigh said. ‘It’s in the garage out the back.’
Chapter Ten
Austria
Eve locked the bedroom door behind her and leaned against it for a few moments with her eyes tightly shut. How long had the big cop been tailing her? What was his name? She remembered. Kinski. Detective Markus Kinski.
Two big screw-ups. They wouldn’t be happy with her. First, she should have left the café the moment she recognized him. She should have acted casual, walked away. Taken a cab and got out of there before she left any traces.
The traces were the second big mistake. She’d failed to carry enough cash on her, the way they’d always told her to. She’d panicked in her rush to get out of there, and had had to use the Erika Mann credit card. That cover would be blown now. Kinski was bound to chase up the false name, and when it led him down a blind alley he’d become even more suspicious. She’d been lucky this time and managed to lose him-but if he was on to her he’d be back.
Eve’s neck and shoulders felt rigid and her mouth was dry. What was he doing following her? Was he sniffing around the Llewellyn case again? Why would he? It had been closed months ago, and as far as the police were concerned it had stayed closed. Only a small number of people knew differently.
She reached inside her handbag and brought out the tiny Black Widow .22 Magnum revolver. She turned the miniature stainless-steel pistol over in her hands. It was only six inches long and weighed just eight ounces, but the five slim cartridges in its cylinder would drill straight through a man’s skull. She’d never shot anyone with it, but she knew how to use it.
She wondered what it would feel like to point the gun at a living person and pull the trigger. She’d do it if she had to. She was in too precarious a position to risk exposure.
Maybe it would have been better to let Kinski follow her, she thought. She could have lured him somewhere. Used her charms. That was something she had done before. Then killing him would have been easy.
She thought of Oliver Llewellyn and wondered how long it would be before they caught up with the sister. There was no escape from these people. Eve knew that.
She walked to the bed, still holding the little pistol. There was something lying on her pillow, red velvet against the white silk. It was a jewel case. She opened it. It was the Lalique Art Nouveau brooch she’d admired in the antique-shop window in Vienna the week before. It was exquisite. Gold, inlaid with diamonds and sapphires. There was a note inside, neatly folded. She opened it.
It was from him. ‘Wear this tonight,’ it read.
Eve closed the jewel case and tossed it away across the bed. She lay down as the darkness closed over her.
Slowly, she brought the Black Widow revolver up until she could feel the coldness of its muzzle against her temple. She closed her eyes and listened to the snick-snack of its oiled action as she thumbed back the little hammer. Just a flick of a finger and she could be free of the whole thing.
Her fingers relaxed around the gun and she let out a long breath.
She couldn’t do it.
No escape.
Chapter Eleven
Oxfordshire
The TVR Tuscan skidded out of the drive and Ben accelerated hard away from Langton Hall. He didn’t know where he was going. Traffic was thin on the country roads and he drove fast for six miles, keeping the revs high and the gears low, constantly checking the mirrors. He saw nothing.
He pulled up in a lay-by and turned off the engine. Leigh was sitting quietly beside him, ashen-faced. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked. He twisted round and grabbed his haversack from behind the seat. There was still some whisky in his flask. ‘I know you don’t like this stuff very much,’ he said, trying to smile. ‘But it’ll take the edge off.’
Leigh took a sip of the whisky and winced at the burn on her lips. She coughed. ‘Thanks.’ She screwed the cap of the flask back on and handed it back to him.
He finished what was left. ‘What are you doing?’ he asked as she took out her phone.
‘Calling the police.’
He grabbed the phone from her before she could finish dialling 999. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ he said.
‘Why?’
‘Until last night nobody knew where we were. Then you told the police where to find us, and the next thing we have company.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘I’m saying I don’t like coincidences,’ he replied. ‘And there’s also the slight problem of three dead men lying in your house, Leigh. I killed them, and you’re an accomplice. I’m not sticking around to be arrested.’ He took the file out of the bag and showed her. ‘This is what they were looking for,’ he said. The spots of blood on the label were turning russety-brown.
‘The Mozart letter? Oliver’s work? But…’ She looked at him helplessly. ‘Why would anyone want—’
‘I think it’s time we had a look at this stuff,’ he said. He pushed the haversack to his feet with a dull metallic clunk from the guns inside, and rested the box-file on his lap against the steering wheel. He popped the catch and opened the lid of the file.
‘What happened?’ Leigh gasped. ‘They’re all burnt.’
The small padded envelope fell out and landed in the foot-well. Ben ignored it and sifted carefully through the rest of the file’s contents, trying not to damage the brittle papers any further.
Some of the documents had been handwritten, some computer-printed. Many were barely legible any longer, just singed fragments showing names, dates, and scraps of what looked like historical information. Here and there he could make out the name Mozart.
Leigh reached across and lifted out a badly singed sheet. It crumbled into pieces as she lifted it up. ‘This was Oliver’s writing,’ she said, biting her lip. ‘One of the notes he sent me during his travels.’
‘They’re ruined,’ Ben muttered. He laid the fragments back inside the file and closed the lid. He turned to her. ‘So what’s this about, Leigh? What did they want with Oliver’s stuff?’
‘How should I know?’
‘I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘You told me last night you’d had the notes for months. Now all of a sudden someone’s very interested in them. Why? What was in here? And how would they know you even had them?’
She looked blank.
‘Who else knows about this book project?’
There was sudden realization in her eyes. ‘Oh shit’
‘What?’
She turned to look at him. ‘About two million people know about it.’
‘What the hell are you on about?’
‘The TV interview. I was on a BBC music programme talking about next year’s European tour. I told them about my plan to carry on with the book. How Oliver had been sending me his research material, right up until the day he died, and that I’d always been too upset to look at any of it.’
‘And when was this programme on?’
She made a face. ‘Two days before they tried to snatch me in London.’
Ben felt something resting against his foot and remembered the fallen package. He leaned down and picked it up.
‘God. I recognize this,’ Leigh whispered, taking it from him. ‘It’s the package I told you about. The last one he ever s
ent me.’ She turned it over in her hands. ‘It was there waiting for me after the funeral. I had Pam put it in the box with the rest of the stuff.’
‘It’s got to be opened now,’ he told her.
‘I know.’
Ben tore open the singed envelope. Inside the thin layer of bubble-wrap, undamaged by the heat of the fire, was a CD case. He took it out. ‘It’s music,’ he said, showing her the cover. ‘Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute. Why did he send you this?’
She sighed. ‘It’s mine. He’d borrowed it from me. He must have been returning it.’
‘So that’s all it was.’
She slumped in her seat. ‘What’s happening, Ben?’
He opened the CD case. The yellow and silver Deutsche Grammophon disc had come loose from its fastening. It dropped in his lap. Behind it was another disc. Printed on its surface was the legend
CD-Recordable.
Underneath it, in marker pen, was an urgent scrawl:
LEIGH—Do NOT RUN THIS DISC UNDER ANY
CIRCUMSTANCES.
KEEP IT HIDDEN. I’M COMING HOME.
OLLY.
‘What the…’ Leigh reached out and pressed a button on the dashboard. The car’s CD player lit up. ‘Let’s play it.’
‘It’s not an audio disc,’ Ben said. ‘We’ll need a computer.’
An hour later they were checked into a small nearby hotel as Mr and Mrs Connors. On the way there, Ben had made a quick shopping detour. He ripped the protective wrapping off the new laptop and laid it down on the hotel-room table. In a few minutes he had the machine set up and ready to play the disc. He took the CD-ROM out of the Magic Flute case and inserted it into the computer’s disk drive. The machine whirred into action, and after a few seconds a window opened on the flat screen.
As he waited for the disc to load, Ben went to the minibar and found two miniatures of Bell’s Scotch. He cracked them open and poured them both into a single glass.
Leigh sat at the desk and peered at the screen. ‘These all seem to be photo files taken in different parts of Europe,’ she said. ‘It’s like a photo diary of Olly’s research trip.’
The Ben Hope Collection: 6 BOOK SET Page 38