The Ben Hope Collection: 6 BOOK SET. Scott Mariani
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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 was 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?’
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