His fingers were trembling a little as he took out his phone and scrolled up the picture of Ruth standing there looking cold and windswept on the library steps in St Peter’s Square in Manchester.
She was wearing the exact same type of fleece that the little girl was wearing. Same logo, same cut, same colour. He’d been too busy trying to make out her features to pay attention to the clothes. But now he realised that she was wearing exactly the kind of equestrian gear that the Ruth of his memories would have grown up wanting to wear.
With Ruth, it had been horses, horses, horses. What had started out as a fun activity for her at the age of four had quickly turned into a serious passion. By the age of seven, she’d been an accomplished junior rider with a whole wall of trophies and rosettes, and the dream she always talked about of becoming a champion show jumper had been looking more realistic with every new competition. The house had always been full of little riding boots and hats, bits of tack, horse pictures and books, hoof picks and all kinds of other equestrian paraphernalia. Those were the memories that made Ben smile.
Then his mind drifted to the ones that didn’t. The memory of coming home from North Africa as a family of three and knowing that it was his fault. Of his mother, her face a mask of agony as she lay sobbing on Ruth’s bed, clutching a little riding jacket as though Ruth was still inside it. Of the terrible months that had passed before his father had finally gathered up all the boots and riding hats, her tack and her saddle, and sealed them inside a packing case.
Ben returned to the present. Thought of the person Ruth was now. Whatever her life story had been, whatever the reason why she’d never tried to find her lost family, was there a small part of her that was still the Ruth he’d known? A part of her that still loved horses, wanted to be around them?
Further up the road was a little white sign on a post. He couldn’t make it out from that distance, but when the line of riders reached it they turned right up a track and out of sight.
He slipped the car into gear and followed. The sign at the side of the road bore a picture of a horse and the name of what appeared to be some kind of equestrian centre. Pulling up at the entrance to the track, he saw the riders pass through an open gate and up towards a large yard surrounded by stable-blocks. Behind the stables was an office with a car park, and he drove in and pulled up on the gravel next to a 4×4 hitched to a trailer.
Stepping out of the car, he looked around. He’d been in a hundred of these kinds of places with his sister. The smell of hay and straw, horse feed and manure filled his nostrils as he walked over towards the office. The two young women in boots and jodhpurs who were sitting at a desk over mugs of coffee and sharing a joke about something looked up at him as he stepped inside. One was about seventeen, stumpy with bad skin, and gazed at him through thick glasses. The other might have been a couple of years older, more self-assured, and gave him a smile. On her jacket was a name tag that said ‘Hannah’. She had the broad shoulders and slender waist of a serious rider. An instructor, he thought.
He showed them the picture on his phone and asked if they knew the person in it. Blank looks, an exchange of rapid German, and they shook their heads.
‘Can you tell me if there are any other stables or riding schools in this area?’
The stumpy one went on staring at him through her glasses, but Hannah smiled again and said there were four. Politely ignoring the seductive looks she was giving him, he jotted down the details.
‘Shame I can’t drive you there myself,’ she said. ‘I’m working. But we’re having a barbecue here tonight, if you fancy coming along.’
These German girls. He politely declined.
It took him two hours to drive around the countryside and find the first three places on his list. More horsey smells and sounds, more young women in riding gear. No sign of Ruth and nobody who seemed to know her. The peak of energy that had surged through him was beginning to wane again.
His spirits sank even more as he drove up to the last place on the list, eleven miles out of Offenburg, in the early afternoon. The establishment looked more like a country club than a riding school. The horses in the neatly-fenced paddocks were gleaming Arabs and thoroughbreds, and two little guys in uniforms jumped out to rake up the tyre tracks he’d left in the gravel.
He thought about driving off, then shrugged and slammed the door and wandered about the buildings. A talented young rider was cantering around the sand school with her feet out of the stirrups and her arms out like a plane. Grooms were leading nervy horses up and down the yard. Everything very slick, professional and expensive.
‘Can I help you?’ said a voice in German, cutting sharply across the stable-yard, not too friendly.
Ben turned to see a guy walking up to him who looked like a managerial type. Late forties, balding, gut and glasses and the angry red face of someone in a state of permanent belligerence.
‘Maybe you can.’ He showed the guy the picture on the phone. ‘Do you know her?’
The manager stared at it for a second, frowned and then glanced up at Ben. ‘Who are you?’
‘I’m her brother,’ Ben said. It sounded weird to hear himself say it.
‘You’re her brother?’ the guy echoed doubtfully. ‘You know her?’
‘This is a members-only establishment,’ the guy said. ‘You are trespassing.’ He snapped his fingers.
Ten yards away in an open stable, a very large groom in a blue overall was standing up to his knees in soiled straw and piling it into a barrow with a pitchfork. He was well over six and a half feet tall, and it seemed that whatever time he didn’t spend mucking out horses, he spent pumping weights the size of truck tyres. At the sound of his manager’s snapping fingers he instantly jumped to attention and strode over, trailing bits of straw and clutching the pitchfork like a gladiator’s trident in his meaty fist. He stopped at his boss’ shoulder and grinned down at Ben. His hair was cropped in a buzz-cut and his face looked like it had been beaten out of Kevlar, with eyes so far apart it was impossible to focus on both at once.
‘You have thirty seconds to get the fuck out of here,’ the manager said. ‘Unless you want Johann to put his fork up your arse.’
Ben looked up at Johann and thought about how he’d go about breaking the guy in half. Violence was one option. Reasonable was another. He decided to go with reasonable.
‘Johann, maybe you know her?’ he said, and held up the phone for him to see.
Johann said nothing. The wide-set eyes darted at the picture, then back at Ben.
‘Now get out,’ the manager said with a smirk. ‘Johann, make sure he leaves.’
Ben slipped the phone back in his pocket, turned and headed back towards the car park with Johann’s muscular escort a pace behind him.
‘You don’t have to see me out,’ he told the big guy. ‘I’m not here to cause trouble. I was just looking for my sister, that’s all.’
Johann’s wide, flat face seemed to twitch, as though the effort of thinking was like turning over a big truck engine inside his head. Ben looked at him, and saw that behind the scowl were the eyes of a child.
When the giant spoke, the voice was deep and slow. ‘Your sister?’ he rumbled.
Ben had his hand on the Mini’s door handle. He nodded. ‘That’s right, Johann. My little sister.’
‘You look like her,’ Johann said.
Chapter Forty-Three
Ben stood and stared at the big man. ‘What did you just say?’
Johann blinked. The wide-set eyes darted sideways at the stable-block, as if he were scared of getting into trouble with his boss.
‘It’s OK, Johann. You can talk to me. You know her, don’t you?’
Johann dipped his chin to his muscular chest and gave a slow, solemn nod. Ben believed him. The poor guy didn’t have enough upstairs to tell a lie.
‘I take care of Solo,’ Johann said. ‘She keeps him here.’
Ben had to hold the Mini door handle tight to stop himself from rocking o
n his feet. ‘She comes here to ride?’
Johann gave another slow nod. ‘Most afternoons. She is not here yet. Maybe she will come.’
‘Does she drive here?’
Nod.
‘What kind of car does she drive?’
‘Big silver car. Like that one.’ Johann raised one of his massive arms and pointed at a top-of-the-line Range Rover parked four cars down from the Mini.
‘Listen to me carefully, Johann. It’s my sister’s birthday today, and I have a present for her. I want it to be a nice big surprise. So when she arrives here, do not tell her that her brother was here. Do you understand?’
Nod.
‘What is it you’re not to say?’
‘That you were here,’ Johann repeated carefully. ‘Her brother.’
Ben took out his wallet and shelled out a couple of twenty-euro notes. ‘This is for you, Johann. You’ve helped me more than you know. You’re a good guy.’ He left the big man standing there looking at the money in his palm as he drove off.
Back on the main road, he found a layby within sight of the equestrian centre but shaded by enough overhanging foliage to mask his car. A perfect spot to sit and wait and watch the gates. He settled back in the driver’s seat and lit the first cigarette.
Time passed. People came and went. The Jaguar X-type turned out of the gates and disappeared down the road. A while later, a black Subaru 4×4 towing a double trailer arrived. Some riders passed Ben’s layby, returning from a hack, the horses sweated up. Ben sat and smoked, two cigarettes, then three, keeping low in the driver’s seat.
He’d been sitting there for just under two hours and his watch was edging its way towards four thirty when he saw the silver Range Rover come up the road. Just one occupant. The car slowed for the gate and the indicator flashed, and as it turned in he got a brief but clear view of the driver. A woman, white polo shirt, short blond hair, wraparound shades.
Ben stubbed out his cigarette. His mouth was suddenly dry and his heart felt like he’d just done a three-hundred-metre sprint.
The Range Rover rolled up the drive towards the stable buildings, tyres rasping on the gravel, and pulled into the car park.
His first instinct was to drive in after her, go right up to her and talk to her. Tell her who he was. Just come right out with it. ‘Ruth, it’s me. Your brother Ben. Remember me? Where have you been the last twenty-three years?’
But that was just his heart talking. The part of him that was still able to think rationally through the swell of emotions that was surging through him knew that the situation was a little more complicated than that.
He scanned the layout of the land. The equestrian centre consisted of the central buildings complex with the office, the stables and tack rooms and the main house, the paddocks and sand school, and a big prefabricated metal building that looked like it might be an indoor riding ménage. Maybe a dozen acres in all, but long and narrow. While the paddocks and riding areas were fenced with white wood, the outer boundary of the property was ringed with hedges. Most of the way round, what lay beyond the hedge was pine woodland. The trees extended all the way along the side of the road where he was parked, and there was just a single strand of barbed-wire fence between him and several hundred yards of thick, uninterrupted cover that would allow him to move unnoticed around the perimeter.
He got out of the car, shut the door quietly and crossed the road. There was nobody about. He peeled off his leather jacket and laid it over the barbed wire. Swung one leg over and then the other, slipped the jacket back on and made his way into the trees.
It didn’t take him long to track around the edge of the equestrian centre. Staying well back in the sun-dappled shadow of the trees, he had a good view of the place. Good enough to see the angry manager strutting across the stable-yard, yelling at one of the staff. Good enough to notice the gentle giant Johann over at the dung-heap, discreetly tucked away behind the stable-blocks, emptying his wheelbarrow of soiled straw.
And good enough to spot the woman who was his little sister leading a shiny, well-groomed, expensive-looking chestnut gelding over towards the big metal building. She’d put on a riding hat and boots, and the horse was saddled and bridled. He watched her go in through the tall doorway. Waited a few seconds. Stepped out of the trees towards the hedge. Hesitated. Was this a mistake? Maybe, but he was way beyond recall now.
In three seconds he was over the hedge and running low across the stretch of clipped grass to the side of the indoor space. He skirted round its edge, pressed his back flat against the shiny corrugated wall and glanced around the corner to see if anyone had spotted him. Nobody had. In the distance, the manager was walking back towards the office, talking on a phone. The grooms and other staff carried on unsuspectingly with their business.
Ben slipped inside the building. The interior was like any other large industrial prefab construction, with H-section steel pillars and riveted joists holding up the high roof. The sand-filled arena at its centre was laid out with a course of jumps and brightly lit by neon strip-lights. Around the edges of the arena were rows of seats for spectators, all empty, the outer rows in shadow. He stayed back, near the wall.
And watched from the gloom as Ruth led her horse out across the sand. She seemed relaxed, and completely oblivious of his presence. The horse stood calmly as she tightened up his saddle girth, then she put her left foot in the left stirrup and nimbly mounted him. A gentle nudge of her heels and he trotted off. She guided him briskly round the edge of the arena, picking up pace and warming the horse’s muscles before putting him over the jumps. A grin spread across her face. She looked totally in her element.
More than ever, Ben wanted to step out of the shadows and go to her. But he held back, and the pain knotted up his stomach and his throat and tears prickled his eyes. She was so much the same Ruth he’d known back then, but also so different. He watched for twenty minutes as she expertly took the horse round the jumps, faster and faster and higher and higher. She cleared each pole faultlessly, just the way she’d always done as a little girl. Then she dismounted, gave the horse a warm hug and led him away.
By the time she was halfway back towards the stable-blocks, Ben was already over the hedge and working his way round through the trees to his car. Another half hour passed before he saw the silver Range Rover pull out onto the road and drive off. He followed it.
Now it was time to talk.
The Range Rover led him through the countryside. She drove at a steady fifty, slowing only to pass through a village, then over a narrow stone bridge across a stream. There was nothing about her driving that made him think she’d spotted the Mini following her. After eight kilometres he saw her indicator come on, and she turned into a rough lane. He hung back, and saw the Range Rover go bumping forty metres down the lane and then turn in through a gap in the wild, unkempt bushes.
He left the Mini in the shade of a tree, grabbed his bag from the passenger seat and started walking. By the gap where she’d disappeared was a lopsided sign in German that he translated to read ‘ceramics workshop’. Peering around the corner, he saw the Range Rover parked in front of a long, low-slung whitewashed cottage. Someone had been practising their artwork on the side wall of the place – a spray-painted swirl of colours that he guessed was meant to look psychedelic. Dangling chimes tinkled in the soft breeze, and bees hummed among the flowerbeds. So far, so not the kind of place he’d have expected to find a cell of neo-Nazi terrorists.
Someone else was home. Next to the ticking Range Rover was a rusty VW Golf, and a battered Honda 750 motorcycle sat by an outhouse with a cat sleeping on its saddle.
Ben moved silently through the garden. The place had obviously been a smallholding once, but now most of the outbuildings were disused. A block-built garage that at one time would have housed a couple of tractors had been converted into a pottery workshop, with a potter’s wheel and a long bench, both covered in clay dust. The flue pipe from the cold, ash-dusted kiln poked up through the tin
roof. Swirly-coloured glazed plates and jugs and cups and vases crowded an industrial shelving unit against the wall. Ben didn’t see any clay busts of Hitler up there.
He moved on. A nylon washing line hung between the corner of the house and a disused poultry shed, and a glance at the clothes on it told him that two women lived here, someone Ruth’s build and someone a good bit heavier. Plus, judging by the different sizes of men’s jeans hanging out to dry, at least two males.
He slipped back around the side of the poultry shed as the front door of the house suddenly opened.
Footsteps walking his way. Then a scrawny young guy in a sleeveless T-shirt, with long hair and a patchy beard, walked within a foot of him, stopped and turned and stared with saucer eyes. His mouth opened to yell in alarm.
Ben didn’t let him make a sound. The guy was quick and easy to subdue; four seconds later he was lying unconscious among the dried-out droppings on the henhouse floor. Ben crouched over him, studying him. No shaven head. No swastikas on the neck or arms. He opened up his bag, took out two plastic cable-ties and bound up the guy’s wrists and ankles. Tore off a five-inch length of silver duct tape and stuck it tightly to his mouth.
Leaving the bag next to the unconscious body he stepped out of the poultry shed and slipped round to the rear of the house. Knocked on the door, three loud raps, then darted quickly back around the corner. After a few seconds’ delay, the door opened and another man stepped out onto the cracked patio.
‘Hello? Someone there?’
Ben peered out from around the corner. This guy looked a few years older than his bearded friend, maybe thirty-two. Good looking, short dark hair, a denim shirt splotched with dried clay. The potter. Ben found himself wondering if this was his sister’s boyfriend. Better than the other one, at least, it occurred to him – and then he scolded himself for thinking such absurd thoughts at a time like this.
The guy was heading back inside when Ben came up behind him without a sound and took him down with a stranglehold that was just hard and long enough to make him pass out without doing any lasting damage. He glanced round, then dragged him to the poultry shed and dumped him there beside his buddy. Quickly trussed and gagged him, then got to his feet and closed the unconscious bodies inside. Two down.
The Ben Hope Collection: 6 BOOK SET Page 156