‘She’s not a kid,’ Oliver said. ‘She’s serious about what she does. And she was serious about you, too. You broke her heart, Ben. She’s always asking me if I’ve seen you. She wants to know why you walked out on her. What am I supposed to tell her?’
Ben was silent for a while. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered, and meant it. ‘I didn’t want to hurt her. The truth is, Ol, I think she deserves someone better than me.’
Oliver slurped back more whisky and smacked his lips, then turned to Ben. ‘Listen, I’ve been thinking about all this,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you come with me? Forget about this fighting-for-Queen-and-country crap. Who Dares Wins? Who cares who wins? Even if they do take you in, you won’t even retain rank-you’ll be busted right down to Trooper.’
Ben nodded. ‘I know.’
‘And then what? Get shot to bits in a stupid war that you don’t even understand? Die in some stinking jungle? Your name up on the clock-tower at Hereford for the sake of a bunch of double-dealing suits in Whitehall?’
Ben had no answer to that.
‘Look, man, think about it for a minute. Come back to Builth with me. We’re a good team, you and I. We’ll set up in business together.’
Ben laughed wearily, looking up at the ceiling. ‘Yeah, I can just see that. Doing what?’
‘Details, details. We’ll think of something. Something nice and easy that’ll make us rich and fat. You can get down on your knee and beg Leigh’s forgiveness, then she’ll marry you and we’ll all be happy.’ Oliver smiled.
Ben glanced over at his friend and marvelled at his view of life. It really was as simple as that for Oliver. ‘You think she’d still want me?’ he asked. ‘After what I did?’
‘Ask her yourself.’
Ben raised his head off the bunk. For a few seconds it all seemed to make such perfect sense. He wavered on the brink.
‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘If I get through tomorrow, I’m going on with it. I want the badge.’
Fifteen years later, Ben Hope stubbed out the Turkish cigarette and looked across the hotel room. Leigh was still fast asleep, with just the occasional flicker of a frown passing over her face that hinted at the unsettled dreams in her mind.
He watched her, and not for the first time he found himself wondering how his life might have been if he’d headed back with Oliver that next morning.
Chapter Fifteen
Ben walked into the hotel bar. The place was empty. He leaned against the counter and ran his eye along the row of whisky optics. The barman appeared. Ben produced his flask. ‘Any chance you can refill this for me?’ he asked. He pointed. ‘The Laphroaig.’
When he got back upstairs to the room, Leigh was awake and talking on her phone. She looked tired, still a little groggy from the sedative. As Ben came in and shut the door she was saying thanks for calling and goodbye. She ended the call and tossed the phone down on the bed in front of her.
‘Who was that?’ he asked.
‘Police.’
‘You called them?’
‘They called me.’
‘Was it the same guy who called you at Langton Hall?’
She nodded.
‘What did he want?’
‘Just to know how I was. Don’t worry, I didn’t tell him anything about what happened, OK? And I didn’t mention what’s on there either.’ She pointed over at the laptop on the table.
Ben looked serious. ‘How long were you talking?’
‘Not long. About two or three minutes. Why?’
‘Get your things together. We’ve got to leave.’ He ejected the disc from the laptop, clipped it in its case and put it in his pocket. He quickly packed the computer in its carry-bag, threw the Mozart file into his haversack and used a bathroom towel to wipe down anything they’d touched in the room.
‘What’s wrong? Why do we have to leave so suddenly?’
‘Give me your phone.’
She handed it to him. He turned it off and pocketed it. ‘I’m going to have to dispose of this,’ he said.
‘I need that phone,’ she protested. ‘All my numbers are on it.’
‘You can’t keep it,’ he said. ‘I’ll explain later.’ He led her briskly downstairs and settled the bill in cash, using his false name.
‘Aren’t you going to tell me what’s going on?’ she asked as he guided her out to the car.
Ben started the green TVR. The throaty exhausts rasped and the wide tyres crunched on the gravel. The big car park had two entrances flanked by neat conifers. About to pull out, he glanced in the mirror.
There were two black Range Rovers behind them. They were identical. Private plates, tinted glass, headlights blazing. They turned into the other entrance in a hurry and pulled up right outside the hotel, one behind the other. All four doors opened simultaneously. Ben framed them in the mirror. He counted six men getting out. All six were serious-looking, professional in their movements.
Time to go. He tried to pull away discreetly, but that was hard to do in an ostentatious sports car like the TVR. The rasp of the engine reached their ears. Heads turned. One of the men pointed. They exchanged signals, then headed back to the Range Rovers.
‘Is this car registered to you?’ he asked quickly.
‘Yes, of course it is. You still haven’t told me what—’
Ben dumped the clutch and the TVR spun its wheels, pressing them back in their seats. He accelerated hard away.
That was twice now. No coincidence. He spoke loudly over the rising pitch of the engine. ‘They’re using your phone to track us, Leigh. They can triangulate the signal to within a few feet.’
She looked horrified. ‘But who? The police?’
‘Maybe the police. Or someone on the outside, someone connected. Someone with access to that kind of information.’
‘Who could that be?’ she asked, turning pale.
Ben said nothing. He pressed the accelerator down a little harder.
The Range Rovers were a hundred yards behind them as Ben turned off the quiet country road and joined the lumbering, dense traffic heading towards the city of Oxford. He managed to put a few vehicles between them, but the steady stream coming the other way made overtaking difficult. He saw a gap and nipped past an Oxford Tube coach, but when he looked in the mirror the first Range Rover had got past it as well. Horns honked in the distance.
Leigh was gripping the edge of her seat. ‘Where are we going?’ she gasped.
‘If we can get into the city we might be able to lose them,’ he said. ‘I know Oxford pretty well.’
By the time they reached Headington Hill on the outskirts of east Oxford the Range Rovers were together again, just a dozen or so cars back. At the bottom of the hill they hit the traffic lights coming into St Clements.
‘There are police cars down there,’ she said, pointing.
Ben had seen them. ‘It’s not for us.’ Part of the road had been cordoned off and there was an ambulance. Traffic was moving at a crawl. The Range Rovers threaded through the tailback as more horns blared.
A policeman stepped into the road four cars ahead of the TVR and signalled to let cars come the other way. Ben twisted in his seat. The Range Rovers were pulling up behind.
‘They’re coming,’ Leigh said. Her eyes were wide.
Ben was thinking fast as he watched the passenger doors of the Range Rovers swing open and three men climb out. Their faces were set as they walked towards the stationary TVR. They were just twenty yards away.
He pulled the car into the side, ripped out the key and threw open his door. ‘Come on.’ He grabbed his haversack and took her wrist, and they ran down the uneven pavement, past shop windows. Paramedics were loading an injured cyclist into the back of the ambulance on a stretcher. There was a twisted bicycle in the gutter. They ran on.
Behind them, the three men quickened their pace.
Leaving behind the mess of congested traffic and past more shops, Ben could see the big roundabout up ahead called the Plain. He remembered that it led to Magdalen B
ridge and the High Street, straight into the heart of the city.
They raced across the road and the three men followed at a trot, threading through slow-moving cars. Off the Plain was a big wine-shop. A young man who looked like a student was parking a scooter on the kerb outside. He went into the shop, taking off his helmet and leaving the key dangling from the ignition.
Ben dragged the lightweight machine away from the window and swung his leg over the saddle. Leigh jumped on behind him as he started the engine. The student turned round and ran out of the shop, yelling at them to stop. One of the three men giving chase was talking urgently into a phone.
A hundred yards back down St Clements the Range Rovers battered through the stationary, honking traffic, smashing aside anything in their way and sending the police running for cover.
Ben twisted the throttle of the scooter. It was like driving a sewing machine. The little bike lurched into a sea of red and green buses, taxis and cars rumbling away from the Plain and across the Thames over Magdalen Bridge. Leigh’s arms were wrapped tightly around Ben’s waist as she perched precariously on the tiny pillion seat. He could hear police sirens in the distance behind them. He looked over his shoulder. The Range Rovers were coming up fast. The police cars had given chase, blue lights flashing.
Up ahead the traffic had stopped for a red light. Ben aimed the whining scooter at the kerb and it almost threw them off as it bumped up onto the pavement with a lurching wobble. He opened the throttle again and sent pedestrians scattering as he headed over the bridge. People turned and stared, some shouted. They made it halfway up the High Street, swerving wildly all over the pavement.
A shop door opened and the front wheels of a pram rolled out in front of them. It was carrying a baby wrapped in a blanket. The young mother was looking the other way and hadn’t seen the scooter racing towards her. She turned around and stopped, her mouth opening in horror.
Ben squeezed the brakes too hard and felt the scooter’s wheels lock up. He kicked out, tried to save it, but it skidded out from under them. He and Leigh tumbled to the ground. The machine scraped across the pavement on its side, hit a signpost and slid out into the path of a double-decker. The bus couldn’t stop in time. Sparks showered across the road as the scooter was flattened and mangled, pieces of smashed plastic bodywork spinning across the tarmac.
Ben sprang to his feet and grabbed his fallen bag while Leigh picked herself off the ground. Her jeans were ripped at the knee. The Range Rovers were speeding up the middle of the honking traffic just fifty yards away.
They ran. Off the High Street and through some metal bollards that blocked the way to vehicles. Up the cobbled lane past the Radcliffe Camera and Hertford College.
The Range Rovers skidded to a halt at the bollards and all six men jumped out, giving chase. The police sirens weren’t far away.
Ben had Leigh by the hand as they ran past the grand Bodleian Library and up Broad Street. Further up the street was the famous Sheldonian Theatre, a venue for classical concerts. A crowd was queuing for concert tickets as Ben and Leigh ran by. A woman’s face lit up with recognition as she spotted Leigh. She pointed, nudged her friend. ‘Hey, look! It’s Leigh Llewellyn!’
The crowd closed in around them as Leigh was met by smiles and requests for autographs. Nobody seemed to notice her flushed face, anxious look and torn knee. Camera phones clicked and flashed.
The six men were hanging back, watching through the crowd and panting with exertion from their sprint up the street. They scattered as a police car rounded the corner, its blue lights swirling. Two of them crossed the road and pretended to look in the window of Blackwell’s bookshop, while another two headed slowly up the Bodleian steps. The last pair stood chatting at the kerbside as the police car cruised past, its occupants scanning the busy street with stern faces.
Ben took Leigh’s hand again as they slipped away from the crowd and followed the slow-moving police car up the street. They glanced back and saw that the men had regrouped and were gaining on them again. On the corner of Broad Street and Cornmarket the crowds were thick with Christmas shoppers. Ben spied a taxi-rank and quickened his step. Ushering Leigh into the back seat of a cab, he caught a last glimpse of their pursuers’ angry faces. He slammed the taxi door and the car melted into the traffic.
Chapter Sixteen
Vienna
Markus Kinski strode up to his Chief’s office and barged in without knocking. He took the little plastic bag out of his pocket and slammed it down on the desk in front of him. In it were the handful of jangling, tarnished shell cases from the lakeside.
Hans Schiller looked down at the bag, nudged it with his finger and frowned up at Kinski. ‘What is this meant to be, Markus?’
The Chief looked harried. His hairline seemed to have receded another inch since yesterday. His face was grey and sallow, and his eyes were sunken deep into a bed of wrinkles. Kinski knew he was counting the minutes to his retirement.
‘I want the Oliver Llewellyn case reopened,’ Kinski said. He was the only detective on Schiller’s team who didn’t address him as sir, and the only one who could get away with it.
Schiller rested his elbows on the desktop and pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘I thought we’d laid that one to rest, Detective,’ he said wearily. ‘Haven’t you anything better to do?’
‘There’s more to it,’ Kinski said, not taking his eyes off the Chief.
‘What’ve you got?’
Kinski pointed at the bag. ‘Nine-mil empties.’
‘I can see what they are,’ Schiller said. ‘What’d you do, scoop them off the range floor?’
‘I found them just now at the lake. The lake where Llewellyn died.’
Schiller took off his glasses and polished them with a tissue. He leaned forwards across the desk and looked hard at Kinski. ‘What are you trying to say? You’ve got nothing here. Llewellyn drowned. It was an accident.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘So what’s with the brass?’
‘I don’t know yet. I just know that I need to know more.’
‘But we already know what happened. You were there when they took the witness’s statement.’
‘The witness is a phoney.’
Schiller leaned back in his chair and breathed out loudly through his nose. He folded his arms across his stomach. ‘How do you know that?’
‘I just do.’
‘That’s a bold statement, Markus.’
‘I know.’
‘You can prove it?’
‘I will,’ Kinski said.
Schiller sighed and slumped another few inches in his chair, like a man with an extra burden added to his shoulders. ‘I want to help you, Markus,’ he said. ‘You know I’ve always stood by you. Not everyone’s as tolerant as I am.’
‘I know that, Chief, and I appreciate it.’
‘But you’d better keep your mouth shut until you can come up with something concrete here,’ Schiller said. ‘Remember who Madeleine Laurent is. I had a whole shit-storm of trouble from the Consulate at the time, and I’m not going to start poking around there again.’ He spluttered and ran his fingers through his hair. ‘Why don’t you just let it drop? Llewellyn was just some rich playboy who got drunk and stupid. Leave it. Do yourself a favour. You’ve got better things to worry about.’
Kinski placed his fists on the desk, knuckles down. ‘If I find proof, solid proof, will you agree to reopen the Llewellyn case?’
‘We’d have to be talking about some pretty solid fucking proof.’
‘But if I did—’
Schiller gasped and flapped his arms in exasperation. ‘Yes, Markus. OK. If-and it’s one hell of a big if-you come up with something seriously convincing, then I might just consider reopening the case.’ His eyes were hard. ‘That’s as good as it gets.’
‘That’s good enough for me,’ Kinski said. Then the office door was flapping in his wake.
The detour to the office had made him even later for picking his da
ughter Clara up from school. The traffic was a nightmare and the roads through the city looked like a car park. Kinski sat for fifteen minutes in a nose-to-tail jam, drumming on the steering wheel and fighting his rising impatience.
In a nearby department-store window, the same channel played on rows of TV screens. Kinski gazed at them distractedly. It was one of those talking-heads shows, some interview with a politician. Kinski knew who he was. His face was plastered everywhere lately. Some rich man’s son who thought it was cool to be a Socialist. What was his name? Philippe something. Philippe Aragon. The great new fucking hope for Europe.
Kinski looked at the clock on the dash and sighed. If he didn’t get there soon, Clara would get on the bus and he’d have to double back and try to catch her at the bus stop. She’d be hanging around on the street corner in the dark wondering where Helga was. Shit.
What the hell, he thought. He slapped the blue flashing light to the roof and hit the siren. The traffic parted magically and he sped on through.
As he skidded around the corner and gunned the big Mercedes along the street he saw the school bus still pulled up outside the high wall of St Mary’s College. Crowds of little girls in their sombre grey uniforms and dark blue coats were gathered noisily around the bus, chatting, laughing. Expensively dressed mothers were arriving in their Jaguars and BMWs to collect their daughters.
Kinski screeched to a halt and killed the siren. A group of mothers turned to stare at him as he climbed out of the car and jogged over towards the bus. He looked, but couldn’t see Clara among the crowd of girls. He recognized some of her friends. ‘Anyone seen Clara?’ he asked them. ‘Clara Kinski?’
They all looked blank or shook their heads. Kinski stepped up inside the bus, but she wasn’t there either.
He stopped. A group of girls were coming out of the school gate and walking off down the road. They had their backs to him, swinging their schoolbags, laughing, skipping. He looked. He saw a violin case. Fair-coloured pigtails hanging out from under the regulation blue bonnet. He ran after them. Called her name. Some of the girls turned to look at the big, panting, red-faced man as he approached. The one with the violin case kept on walking, talking to her friend. She hadn’t noticed him. He scattered them and laid a hand on her shoulder. ‘Clara, where the hell are you—’
The Ben Hope Collection: 6 BOOK SET Page 41