The Ben Hope Collection: 6 BOOK SET. Scott Mariani
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Leigh’s flat in Covent Garden could have been ransacked any time in the last five days. The neighbours had returned from a holiday to find her door ajar, and had called the police when they saw the damage.
It had been no ordinary burglary. They’d lifted carpets and floorboards, ripped through every piece of furniture, even slashed pillows and cushions. But nothing had been stolen. The police had found her string of pearls, gold watch and diamond earrings on her bedside table, just where she’d left them. He couldn’t make sense of it.
He got up and stretched, folded away his sleeping-bag and went downstairs. He was making coffee when Leigh came in shivering, her hair tousled. They drank mugs of hot coffee and spoke little as they watched the sunrise from the kitchen window. Leigh was clutching her mug with both hands to warm her fingers. Ben could see from the pallor of her face that she felt almost as tired as he did.
‘What are you going to do?’ she asked. ‘Are you sticking around, or making that call?’
‘I’d feel better if you had the right kind of protection,’ he said. ‘I can’t be with you twenty-four-seven, going everywhere you go, watching your back every moment.’ He paused. ‘But I want to know what’s happening here.’
‘So you’re staying?’
He nodded. ‘For a while, at least.’
She laid down her cup. ‘OK. And if I’m going to be stuck here for a while, I might as well get started on unpacking some of the stuff in those boxes. I’ve got some jumpers in there and it’s freezing in this house.’
Ben fetched more logs and kindling from the woodshed and carried them into the study. Leigh watched as he quickly cleaned out the cold grate and piled up the sticks of kindling. He lit the fire and the orange flames began to roar up the chimney. He sensed a movement behind him. ‘What on earth are you doing?’ he asked, looking up at her.
She stopped jumping up and down. ‘This reminds me of years ago in the old house in Builth Wells,’ she said, laughing. ‘We were so strapped for cash, Dad would have us jumping and running around so he could save on the heating. He’d take us on long walks, and when we’d come home all rosy-cheeked that freezing old place seemed nice and warm again.’
Ben piled on a couple of logs. ‘Sounds like the army,’ he said. ‘I think they call it character building’
Leigh gazed out of the window. The sun was rising over the treetops. ‘I wouldn’t mind a walk, you know. I’ve been cooped up for days. D’you feel like some air?’
‘Sure, you can show me around your estate.’
She shut the heavy back door and put the key in the pocket of her tan suede coat. She raised her face to the sun, closed her eyes and smiled sadly.
They walked in silence for a while. The grounds of the house sloped gently away over lawns and an ornamental lake into a rambling stretch of woodland. They followed a path that was strewn with fallen twigs and dead leaves softened by the winter rains, and passed through an evergreen tunnel of arching cherry laurels. Cold bright sunlight sparkled through the gaps in the canopy overhead.
‘This is my favourite part,’ she smiled, pointing ahead. As they turned a corner the lush green tunnel opened up to a clear view across the meadows and a glittering river beyond. Some horses were grazing by the riverbank in the distance.
‘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.