The Ben Hope Collection: 6 BOOK SET

by Scott Mariani

  Leigh gasped as they fell. Then the striped canvas canopy was rushing up to meet her, knocking the wind out of her, and they were sliding down it. There was a crack as the flimsy aluminium frame holding the patio awning to the wall gave way. The taut canvas enveloped their struggling bodies and slowly, gracefully, collapsed in an arc to the outdoor eating area below.

  Ben crashed down against a brick barbecue, and Leigh had a softer landing into a circular plastic table. She rolled off it and landed on her hands and knees on the ground, only a little scuffed. Ben staggered to his feet, clutching his back and grimacing in pain. He grabbed her hand again.

  They ran through the gardens. Over the rasping of her breath Leigh heard shouts behind. Some shots rang out and Ben felt a bullet pass close by. They scrambled through dense shrubs and found themselves in wooded parkland. They sprinted on through the trees, branches whipping at their faces. Up ahead, a high stone wall had crumbled to leave a gap they could clamber over.

  On the other side of the wall was an old farmyard, overgrown and muddy, dilapidated wooden buildings streaked with green lichen. Ben looked back through the gap in the wall. There were six men running fast towards them. Their faces were hard and determined and they were heavily armed.

  His pistol only had two rounds left. He took aim, then changed his mind. He could kill two at most, and he’d be left with an empty gun. A fatal tactical error.

  They ducked into an old shed. The rotting building was filled with shelves and boxes and tools. Ben snatched up a rake and tried to wedge the door with it, but a heavy body crashed into the door and knocked it open. Ben kicked it shut. The man’s arm was trapped in the door. He had a Skorpion machine-pistol in his fist. Deafening gunfire strafed the inside of the shed. Leigh screamed.

  Ben grabbed a rusty tool from a nearby shelf. It was an air-powered nail-gun. He pressed it hard up against the man’s thrashing arm and squeezed. With a bang, the arm was pinned to the door-frame with a rusty four-inch nail. Blood spurted. Ben fired three more nails into the howling man’s hand and the Skorpion clattered to the ground. He picked it up. Empty. Useless. He threw it down.

  Bullets tore through the shed’s thin wooden walls. A pile of crates collapsed and revealed a gap in the planking that was big enough to squeeze through. They ran on across a muddy passage and slipped inside a barn opposite.

  The gunmen saw the barn door swing shut and approached the tall wooden building cautiously, exchanging wary looks, their weapons trained. There was a heavy silence in the farmyard, just the sound of two crows calling in the distance.

  Then the sudden sound of an engine revving hard. It was coming from inside the barn.

  The men didn’t have time to react. The barn wall disintegrated into jagged pieces of planking. The old flatbed farm truck burst out into the yard with a roar and went straight over two of them, crushing them into the mud. The other men dived for cover and opened fire as the truck lurched away, but their shots went into the three large plastic-wrapped bales of hay loaded on the back. One of the men swore and spoke urgently into a radio.

  The truck skidded out of the farmyard and onto a country road that snaked steeply upwards into the hills. Darkness was falling now, and the truck’s headlights cast a weak yellow glow over the craggy rock face on one side of the narrow road and the vertiginous drops on the other. ‘Doesn’t this thing go any faster?’ Leigh shouted over the straining whine of the diesel.

  Ben already had his foot flat to the floor but the needle in the dusty dial wouldn’t climb higher than the sixty-kilometres-per-hour mark. In the mirror he saw what he’d been hoping he wouldn’t. Powerful car headlights, gaining on them fast. Two sets.

  Leigh saw the concern on his face. She wound down the passenger window and looked back, her hair streaming in the cold wind. ‘Is it them?’ she asked.

  The gunshots that rang out answered her question. The truck’s wing mirror shattered. ‘They’re going to take out the tyres,’ Ben said. ‘Take the wheel, will you?’

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Keep the pedal hard down,’ he said. He opened the driver’s door. As Leigh grabbed the wheel, he heaved himself out of the cab. The wind filled his ears and tore at his clothes. The rock wall flashed by only two feet away, brightly lit by the pursuing cars. Ben inched his way along the side of the thundering truck.

  More shots boomed from behind. They couldn’t see him for the hay-bales loaded on the flatbed. The truck was swerving from side to side, veering dangerously close to the rock wall. A protruding shrub almost scraped him off but he held on desperately. He swung wildly with all his strength and reached the flatbed.

  The big round bales were eight feet high, three of them one behind the other, their black polythene wrapping crackling in the wind. They were held in place by strong ropes, taut as piano strings. Ben hung on to the side of the truck with one hand as he grabbed his pistol from his belt.

  Four ropes. Only two rounds.

  The truck swung away from the wall, its wheels clipping the edge of the precipice on the other side. For an instant Ben was hanging in space, fully exposed and blinded by the lights of the cars behind. He heard the crack of a shot and pain seared through his arm as a bullet passed through his left sleeve and scored the flesh. He pressed the muzzle of the .45 against the nearest rope, said a prayer and pulled the trigger.

  The pistol kicked and the rope parted. The two smoking ends fell limp. Nothing happened.

  Wrong rope.

  A burst of bullets screeched off the steel framework of the flatbed by his ear. He pressed the gun to another rope. Last shot.

  He fired.

  The flailing rope almost whipped the gun from his hand. The bales gave a jerk as they were suddenly cut loose, and began to roll backwards. They hit the road and were lit up red in the truck’s taillights as three tons of hay leapt like bouncing bombs towards the two wildly braking cars.

  Tyres screeched as the cars swerved, but the road was too narrow for any chance of escape. The first car impacted with a crunching explosion of hay, glass and buckled metal. The bale burst all over the road and the car skidded sideways, rolled and flipped. Then the second car slammed into it from behind and sent it spinning off the edge of the precipice. Ben caught a glimpse of it tumbling down the sheer drop as the second car skidded violently and smashed into the rock face on the other side of the road, bounced and lay still. The truck rumbled on. Ben’s left sleeve was bloody. He stood on the flatbed and watched as they left the wreckage behind them in the darkness.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Austria

  Clara was safe. That had been his first priority. Kinski had dealt with it quickly, and there was no way anyone could get to her again. No way anyone would find her at Hildegard’s place.

  And now, down to business. If they thought this was going to stop him, they could think again. Kinski was a big man but he could move fast. People stepped aside when they saw him coming down the corridor, eyes front, pressing forward with long determined strides. The look on his face was clear: get out of my way. Kinski wasn’t to be messed with when he wore that face. They’d seen it before, but never this intense. They parted like minnows for a shark.

  He didn’t slow down for the door of the Chief’s office. He shouldered it aside and marched straight in.

  Kinski had marched straight into his Chief’s office a hundred times before. Every time, he’d been confronted with the exact same thing. The same clutter of piled-up folders and papers, the same stale coffee smell from a thousand cups that never got finished and sat cold around the office. The same grey, harassed, tired-looking Chief slumped at his desk. The Chief was part of the furniture, almost part of the building itself. It was a tradition to see him sitting there, something you’d never expect to change.

  Today, Kinski burst into the office and everything was different.

  The man behind the desk looked about half the Chief’s age. He had dark hair slicked back, and wore neat gold-rimmed glasses. His suit w
as pressed and his tie was perfectly straight. He was slender and clean-looking. Everything that the Chief wasn’t.

  The office was tidy and smelled of air-freshener. The desk was clear of papers, just a small notebook computer whirring quietly to one side. There was a brand-new filing cabinet in place of the rusty, overflowing, scarred old hulk that had sat for the last decade and a half in the corner of the office. Even the windows had been cleaned.

  ‘Where’s Chief Schiller?’

  The younger man looked up and met Kinski’s hard gaze. ‘Who are you?’ he asked.

  ‘Kinski. Who the fuck are you?’

  ‘I’m Gessler. Chief Gessler to you, asshole. The next time you come into my office, you knock. Understood?’

  Kinski said nothing.

  ‘So what the fuck did you want anyway?’

  ‘Where’s Chief Schiller?’ Kinski said again.

  ‘He’s gone,’ Gessler replied.

  ‘Gone where?’

  Gessler ripped off his glasses and glared at Kinski. ‘What am I, a fucking travel agent? How the hell should I know where he’s gone? Sitting on a beach somewhere south of the equator. Sipping on a long cool drink and watching the girls go by. What else is there to do when you retire?’

  ‘He retired? I just talked to him yesterday. He didn’t say anything. I knew it was coming up, but—’

  Gessler shrugged. ‘He got an opportunity, he took it. Now, Detective, did you actually have a reason for barging into my office? If not, I suggest you fuck off and find something useful to do.’ Gessler smiled. ‘OK?’

  Chapter Thirty

  Somewhere in the Italian countryside

  They waited until the flames were pouring from the windows of the truck, paintwork blistering on the doors and black smoke rising through the trees. Then they turned and walked away from the forest clearing.

  It was getting dark, and the air was cold and damp. Ben’s bandaged arm was beginning to hurt badly, but the bullet had only creased the flesh. He’d been lucky.

  They walked in silence for some distance along the empty country road. Below them in a valley were some lights from a building. A little way along the road they came to a gate and a sign on a post.

  It was low season at the Rossi pony-trekking centre. Gino Rossi and his wife had five empty cabins that were rented out in summer to horse riders exploring the local countryside. It was a pleasant surprise to be offered cash from the two strangers in return for accommodation for the night. Rosalba Rossi prepared a big dish of tagliatelle with tomato sauce that filled the farmhouse with the scent of basil and fresh garlic, while her husband dusted out the cabin and fired up the heating system.

  After dinner Ben bought two bottles of Sangiovese from Gino, and he and Leigh said goodnight and retreated to their cabin. The accommodation was rustic, but warm and comfortable. There were two single wooden beds with patchwork quilts, and a crucifix hung on the whitewashed wall between them.

  Ben had noticed that Leigh had only picked at her food. She slumped down on one of the beds, looking pale and exhausted. Ben sat with her and poured some wine. They sat in silence for a while, letting the wine relax them.

  ‘I can’t take much more of this,’ she said. Her voice sounded strained.

  He gently put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her to him. Their closeness felt a little strange. She rested her head against him and moved closer. He could feel her body heat, her thigh pressed against his and her heart beating against his arm. Then he realized that he was tenderly stroking her hair, enjoying the soft silky feel of it, letting his hand run down her neck and the curve of her shoulder without even thinking about it.

  Suddenly self-conscious, he shifted away from her. He reached for the bottle and poured himself more wine. ‘It’ll be all right,’ he said.

  ‘How did they know we were there?’ she asked softly.

  He didn’t reply.

  She seemed to read his thoughts. ‘It was my fault, wasn’t it? They were tapping his phone.’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault. I tried to call him too. Don’t think about it. You need to rest.’

  ‘But I gave my name,’ she went on. ‘You told me to keep it quiet, but I used it. I didn’t listen to you, and now because of me that poor old man is dead.’

  ‘You didn’t pull the trigger,’ he said.

  ‘I might as well have.’ She sighed. ‘Who are these people? They’re everywhere.’ She looked up at him with frightened eyes. ‘They’re going to kill us, too. I know it.’

  He reassured her and his voice was calm, but his mind was working hard and fast. They’d come about twenty kilometres from Arno’s place. There was no way anyone could have followed them, and they were safe for the moment. But they wouldn’t be safe for long, and he had no idea where to go next. They still didn’t know where the letter was. Oliver’s trail seemed to have gone cold.

  Arno’s words echoed in his mind. It has gone home. He’d put the letter somewhere safe-but where? Where could be home to the Mozart letter? Maybe the place it had been written. Austria?

  Leigh slept eventually, her fingers still curled around the base of her empty wine glass as her body rose and fell gently. Ben took the glass away, covered her with a blanket and watched over her for a while as he sat on the other bed and finished the second bottle of wine with the last of his cigarettes. His mind was a swirl. All questions. No answers.

  It was after eleven thirty when he stepped outside to clear his head in the cold night air. The frost was hard under his feet, making the grass crunch. He looked up into the night sky, orientating himself with the North Star out of long habit.

  Across from the row of cabins, on the far side of the moonlit yard, was a range of stone outbuildings, stables and ramshackle corrugated-iron sheds. A dog barked in the distance. One of the sheds had a light on in its dusty window, and Ben could hear the metallic sounds of someone working with tools inside. He approached and peered through a gap in the rust-streaked corrugated sheets. The shed was a rough workshop filled with battered farm equipment and racks of tools. A young curly-haired man was working on an old Fiat Strada, clattering around under the bonnet.

  Ben walked round to the open doorway. ‘Ciao,’ he said. ‘I’m Steve.’

  The young man turned. He was a younger version of Gino Rossi, about nineteen or twenty.

  Ben pointed at the car. ‘Problems?’ he asked in Italian.

  ‘Ciao, Steve. Sandro.’ Sandro grinned and waggled a spark-plug wrench to show the foreigner. ‘Changing the plugs, that’s all. I’m selling her, and I want her to go well.’ He finished tightening up the plugs, replaced the caps and slammed the rusty bonnet shut, then walked around to the open door and fired up the engine. Ben listened. There were no unhealthy rattles and the exhaust note was clean. No gaskets gone, not sucking air. No blue smoke.

  ‘How much are you asking?’ he said.

  Sandro wiped his hands on his jeans. ‘She’s old, but good. Say a thousand and a half.’

  Ben took cash from his pocket. ‘Is she ready for a run right now?’ he asked.

  He drove quietly out of the farmyard and up the rutted drive, then turned right to follow the winding country road back the way they’d come. The yellowed reflectors of the old Strada picked out the lopsided road-signs and the landmarks he remembered from earlier. He passed the forest where they’d dumped the farm truck, and wished he had a weapon.

  He hated going back to Arno’s place. It was tactically sloppy and possibly dangerous. But it was the only way. He bitterly regretted not having pressed the old man to say more about where he’d hidden the letter. He was making too many mistakes. Was the damn thing even worth finding? Maybe not, he thought, but clutching at straws was his only option right now. He had to hope he was clutching at the right one.

  It was half past midnight by the time he found Arno’s villa. The front gates were set back from the road, across a neat border. He slowed. The driveway and gardens were lit up with the swirling lights of police cars and t
wo fire engines.

  As he swore and accelerated past the gates he looked past the vehicles at the house.

  It wasn’t there any more. Hardly a wall was still standing. The villa was a levelled mess of blackened rubble and smoking timber, the collapsed roof lying like the twisted spine of a giant carcass, tiles and charred woodwork and smashed windows scattered over a wide circle.

  The fire had obviously raged a long time. The crews were calling it a night, packing up their equipment. There was nothing left worth saving.

  Ben drove on, thinking about the options left open now. Either the blaze in the study had spread, or someone had made sure the place was thoroughly torched. It was more likely to be the latter. Whoever they were, these people liked their tracks to be covered. And fire was the best cleanser.

  After a kilometre or so he turned into the farm entrance and followed the bumping, stony lane as far as the deserted yard where they’d stolen the truck earlier that day. Other than the shattered barn, there was no visible trace of what had happened there.

  He turned off the engine and stepped out. He waited in the dark for a while. There was nobody around. He searched the buildings by the thin beam of his Mini Maglite but found nothing, not a single shell case left uncollected. They’d even cleaned the blood off the tool-shed door where he’d nailed the man to the frame. The nails had been pliered out too, leaving four neat holes in the wood.

  There was a sudden movement behind him, and a crash of something falling. He whirled around in the darkness, every muscle tensing.

  The black cat leapt down from its vantage point on a high shelf, landed next to the old nail tin it had knocked over, and darted out through a hole in the planking.

  Ben cut across the dark farm and found the gap in the crumbled stone wall leading into Arno’s rambling parkland. He stayed back among the trees, watching the fire crews leave and the police strolling up and down the sides of the gutted villa. He knew he was wasting his time here. It was worthless.