Kitabı oku: «The Ben Hope Collection», sayfa 5

12

When Michel Zardi had first been contacted a few months earlier by the man he knew only as ‘Saul’, he’d no idea who was approaching him, or what they really wanted. He only knew he was being asked to observe Roberta Ryder’s work and send back reports on the progress of her research.

Michel wasn’t an idiot. He’d been with her project from the start, and he had a pretty good idea of its potential value if she could convince anyone to take it seriously. Now it looked like someone was, although it wasn’t the kind of attention that Roberta would have wanted. Michel was smart enough not to ask too many questions. What they wanted him to do was simple enough, and the money was good.

Good enough to make him start thinking that maybe he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life bumming around as a low-paid lab tech, especially now that Roberta had been forced to relocate her operation to her own apartment. The project wasn’t going anywhere, they both knew that. He also knew her well enough to know that she’d never accept the reality. Her stubborn pride was what kept her going, but it was also going to drag them both down.

For a long time, Michel had toyed with the idea of leaving and getting better work elsewhere. Just when he’d been on the brink of telling her it was over for him, Saul had turned up out of nowhere. Suddenly, everything had looked different. The promise of a more stable and interesting future working for Saul and his people, whoever they were, meant that he had prospects. And it had helped to harden his attitude towards the American scientist he’d once thought of as his friend. Every couple of weeks or so he’d send in his report, and at the end of each month the cash-stuffed envelope would appear in his mailbox. Life was good.

It was a pyramid of power, broad at the bottom, small at the top. At the bottom, it was made up of lots of ignorant, insignificant men like Michel Zardi–little men whose loyalty could be bought cheaply. The top of the pyramid was occupied by just one man and a select group of his close associates. They were the only ones who knew the true nature, purpose and identity of the organization that so carefully kept its activities hidden from prying eyes.

The two men at the top of this pyramid were now sitting together in a room talking. It was no ordinary room, situated in the domed tower at the centre of an elegant Renaissance villa outside Rome.

The big authoritative man standing by the window was called Massimiliano Usberti. Fabrizio Severini was his private secretary and the only man Usberti trusted completely and spoke openly with.

‘In five years we will have evolved into a far more powerful force than we are now, my friend,’ Usberti was saying.

Severini sipped wine from a crystal glass. ‘We are already powerful,’ he said with a note of caution in his voice. ‘How do you hope to conceal our activities from those around us, if we should grow even more in size and strength?’

‘By the time my plans are in place,’ Usberti said, ‘we will no longer need to worry about concealment. This position we find ourselves in, the need to preserve secrecy, is only a temporary phase in our development.’

Fabrizio Severini was the closest man alive to Massimiliano Usberti. Now both in their late fifties, they had known one another for many years. When they had first met as young men, Massimiliano had been just another priest, though an exceptionally driven one and with the backing of the great wealth of his noble family to achieve his ambitions. But even Severini didn’t fully know what Usberti’s ultimate objective was, the end goal of these plans he so often alluded to. He didn’t push too hard or inquire too openly. Their relationship as friends had evolved over the years as Usberti had grown in power, self-confidence and–he didn’t like to use the word, but it was the only one to use-fanaticism. Severini knew that his friend, or indeed his master as he’d slowly become, was a highly ruthless man who would stop at nothing. He feared him, and he knew that Usberti secretly enjoyed the fact that he did.

Usberti came away from the window and rejoined his secretary under the grand dome. On the ornate seventeenth-century gilt wood table sat a laptop computer displaying a slideshow. The photos were of a woman and a man talking. One of them was a familiar face. Dr. Roberta Ryder. The soon-to-be late Dr. Roberta Ryder.

The man in the photos was someone Usberti had hoped never to see. He already knew all about the Englishman from one of his informers, who’d told him that a professional investigator was going to be sniffing around. The informer had warned him that Benedict Hope had a specialist background and that he was a man of certain talents. This seemed to be confirmed when the hired assassin sent after him had failed to return or report back. Nobody had heard from him, and then one of his sources in Paris had called to say it had been on the news that a man had flung himself off the parapet of Notre Dame Cathedral. Their man.

Usberti hadn’t expected Hope to get this far. But it didn’t worry him. He wouldn’t get much further.

‘Archbishop…’ Severini began, wringing his hands nervously.

‘Yes, my friend?’

‘Will God forgive us for what we do?’

Usberti looked sharply up at him. ‘Of course He will. We do it to protect His house.’

When Severini was gone, the archbishop went over to the antique gold-bound Bible on his desk.

And I saw Heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war.

And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called the Word of God. And the armies which were in Heaven followed him.

And he hath a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he should rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.

Usberti shut the book. He gazed into space for a moment, a grim, set expression on his face. Then, nodding solemnly to himself, he picked up the phone.

13

Paris

Roberta made it back to the 2CV, glancing over her shoulder and half expecting Michel Zardi to come tearing out of the doorway of the building after her. Her hands were shaking so badly she could barely get the key in the lock.

As she drove back to her apartment she dialled 17 and was put through to police emergency. ‘I want to report an attempted murder. There’s a body in my flat.’ She gave her details in a breathless rush as she sped back through the traffic, driving with one hand.

An ambulance and two police cars were arriving just as she pulled up outside her building ten minutes later. The uniformed agents were headed by a brisk plainclothes inspector in his mid-thirties. He had thick dark hair brushed back from his brow, and his eyes were an unusually vivid green. ‘I’m Inspector Luc Simon,’ he said, staring at her intently. ‘You reported the incident?’

‘Yes.’

‘So you are…Roberta Ryder? US citizen. Have you identification?’

‘Now? OK.’ She fished in her bag and took out her passport and work visa. Simon ran his eyes over them and handed them back.

‘You have the title Dr. A medical doctor?’

‘Biologist.’

‘I see. Show us to the crime scene.’

They climbed the winding stairs to Roberta’s apartment, radios crackling in the stairway. Simon led the way, moving fast, his jaw hard. She trotted along behind him, followed by the half-dozen uniformed cops and a paramedic team headed by a police doctor carrying a case.

She explained the situation to Simon, watching his intense green eyes. ‘And then he fell, and came down on the knife,’ she said, gesticulating. ‘He was a big, heavy guy, must have landed really hard.’

‘We’ll take a full statement from you presently. Who’s up there now?’

‘Nobody, just him.’

‘Him?’

‘It, then,’ she said with a note of impatience. ‘The body.’

‘You left the body unattended?’ he said, raising his eyebrows. ‘Where have you been?’

‘To visit a friend,’ she said, wincing to herself at the way it sounded.

‘Really…OK, we’ll talk about that later,’ said Simon impatiently. ‘Let’s see the body first.’

They arrived at her door, and she opened it. ‘Do you mind if I wait outside?’ she asked.

‘Where’s the body?’

‘He’s right there inside the door, in the hallway.’

The officers and medics went inside, Simon leading the way. A cop stayed outside on the landing with Roberta. She slumped against the wall and closed her eyes.

After a couple of seconds Simon stepped back out onto the landing with a severe yet weary expression. Are you sure this is your apartment?’ he asked.

‘Yeah. Why?’

Are you on any medication? Do you suffer from memory loss, epilepsy or any other mental disorder? Do you do drugs, alcohol?’

‘What are you talking about? Of course not.’

‘Explain this to me, then.’ Simon grabbed her by the arm and thrust her firmly into the doorway, pointing and looking at her expectantly. Roberta gaped. The detective was pointing at her hall floor.

Empty. Clean. The body was gone.

‘You have an explanation?’

‘Maybe he crawled away,’ she muttered. What, and cleaned up the blood trail after himself? She rubbed her eyes, head spinning.

Simon turned to stare hard at her. ‘Wasting police time is a serious offence. I could arrest you right now, you realize that?’

‘But I tell you there was a body! I didn’t imagine it, it was right there!’

‘Hmm.’ Simon turned to one of his men. ‘Go get me a coffee,’ he commanded. He faced Roberta with a sardonic look. ‘So where’s it gone to? The bathroom? Maybe we’ll find it sitting on the toilet reading Le Monde?’

‘I wish I knew,’ she replied helplessly. ‘But he was there…I didn’t imagine it.’

‘Search the place,’ Simon ordered his officers. ‘Talk to the neighbours, find out if they heard anything.’ The men went off to comb through the apartment, one or two of them casting irritable glances at Roberta. Simon turned to her again. ‘You say he was a big, powerful man? That he attacked you with a knife?’

‘Yes.’

‘But you’re not injured?’

She tutted with annoyance. ‘No.’

‘How do you expect me to believe that a woman of your size–about one metre sixty-five?–could kill a large armed attacker with her bare hands, and not have a mark on her?’

‘Hold on–I never said I killed him. He fell on the knife.’

‘What was he doing here?’

‘What does a criminal normally do inside somebody’s apartment? He was burgling the place. Turned my lab upside down.’

‘Your lab?’

‘Sure, the whole place has been ransacked. See for yourself.’

She pointed to the lab door, and he pushed it open. Peering in past his shoulder she saw with a shock that the room had been tidied up–everything neatly in its proper place, files neatly ordered, drawers shut. Was she going crazy?

‘Tidy burglar,’ Simon commented. ‘Wish they were all like that.’

One of the agents looked in the door. ‘Sir, the neighbours across the landing were in all afternoon. They say they heard nothing.’

‘Huh,’ Simon snorted. He looked around the lab, snatched up a piece of paper from her desk. ‘What’s this? The Biological Science of Alchemy?’ His eyes flashed up from the page and bored into her.

‘I told you, I-I’m a scientist,’ she stammered.

‘Alchemy is a science now? You can turn lead into gold?’

‘Give me a break.’

‘Maybe you’ve invented a way of making things…disappear?’ he said with an expansive gesture. He tossed the paper down on the desk and strode purposefully across the room. ‘And what’s in here?’

Before she could stop him he’d opened the doors to the fly tanks. ‘Putain! This is disgusting.’

‘It’s part of my research.’

‘This is a serious health and safety matter, madame. These things carry disease.’ The police doctor was standing behind Roberta in the doorway, nodding in agreement and rolling his eyes. The other officers were returning from their search of the small apartment, shaking their heads. She could feel hostile looks coming at her from all directions.

‘Your coffee, sir.’

Ah, thank Christ.’ Simon grabbed the paper cup and took a deep gulp. Coffee was the only thing that took away these stress headaches. He needed to rest more. He hadn’t slept at all last night.

‘I know this looks weird,’ Roberta protested. She was gesticulating too much, on the defensive. She didn’t like the way her voice was going high. ‘But I’m telling you–’

‘Are you married? Have you a boyfriend?’ Simon asked sharply.

‘No–I did have a boyfriend–but not any more…but what does that have to do with anything?’

‘You’re emotionally upset that he has left you,’ suggested Simon. ‘Perhaps the stress…’ That’s ironic, he was thinking, remembering last night’s performance with Hélène.

‘Oh, so you think I’m having a nervous breakdown? The little woman can’t cope without a man?’

He shrugged.

‘What the hell are these questions? Who’s your superior officer?’

‘You should be careful, madame. Remember you’ve committed a serious offence.’

‘Please, listen to me. I think they’re planning to kill somebody else. An English guy.’

‘Oh really? Who’s planning this?’

‘I don’t know who. The same people who tried to kill me.’

‘Then I’d suggest that our English friend is in no great danger.’ Simon regarded her with an obvious look of contempt. And do we know who this Englishman is? Perhaps the friend you went to have tea with while the imaginary corpse was lying in your apartment?’

‘My god,’ she exclaimed helplessly, almost laughing with frustration. ‘Tell me you’re not really this dumb.’

‘Dr. Ryder, if you don’t shut up right now I’ll take you in. I’ll have you locked up while I wrap this place in police tape and have forensics go through it with a fine-tooth comb.’ He threw down the empty cup and moved towards her. His face was reddening. She backed away. ‘You’ll be examined by the police surgeon,’ he went on. ‘Every inch of you. Not to mention a full psychological appraisal by the psychiatrist. I’ll have Interpol go through your bank account. I’ll take your fucking life apart shred by shred…is that what you want?’

Roberta had her back to the wall. His nose was almost touching hers, his green eyes blazing. ‘Because that’s what’ll happen to you!’

The agents were all staring at Simon. The doctor came up behind him and laid a hand softly on his shoulder, breaking the tension. Simon backed off.

‘Do it!’ she yelled back at him. ‘Take me away! I’ve got evidence–I know who’s involved in it.’

He glowered at her. ‘So you can be the star in your own movie? You’d love that, wouldn’t you? But I’m not going to give you that satisfaction. I’ve seen enough here. Disappearing bodies–tanks full of flies–alchemy–murder plots. Sorry, Doctor Ryder, the police service doesn’t cater for attention-seeking weirdos.’ He pointed a warning finger. ‘Consider yourself under caution. Do not do this again. Understood?’ He motioned to the others and led the way out. They brushed past her, leaving her alone in the hallway.

She stood there paralysed for a moment with shock and surprise, staring at the back of the hall door and listening to the echoing tramp of footsteps from outside as the policemen headed back down the stairs. She couldn’t believe it. Now what was she going to do?

BH will be taken care of tonight. Ben Hope. However he was involved with all this, she had to warn him right away. She hardly knew the guy, but if the cops weren’t going to take this situation seriously, it was up to her to alert him to whatever the hell was going on.

She’d tossed the business card he’d given her into the waste-paper basket, with no intention of ever calling him–thank Christ, she thought now, that she hadn’t put it through the shredder. She up-ended the bin, spilling crumpled papers, orange peel and a crushed fizzy drink can onto the lab floor. The card was lying underneath, stained with spots of Coke. She grabbed her phone and stabbed the keys, pressed it to her ear and waited for the ringing tone.

A voice answered. ‘Hello? Ben?’ she began urgently. But then she realized what she was hearing.

‘Welcome to the Orange answerphone. I’m sorry, but the person you have called is not available…’

14

The Opera Quarter, central Paris

The rendezvous point Ben had chosen for that night’s meeting was the Madeleine church on the edge of the Opera quarter. It was his habit never to make contact or be picked up too near a place he was staying in. He hadn’t liked the way that Fairfax’s people knew his location in Ireland and sent for him at home.

He left the apartment at 8.20 and walked briskly to the Richelieu Drouot Métro station. It was only two stops to his destination on the jerking, rumbling train. He threaded through the crowds that filled the underground tunnels and emerged back onto the street at the Place de la Madeleine. At the foot of the towering church, he lit a cigarette and leaned against one of the Corinthian columns, watching the traffic go by.

He didn’t have to wait long. At the appointed time, a large Mercedes limousine veered out of the traffic and glided to a halt at the kerbside. The uniformed driver climbed out.

‘Monsieur ‘Ope?’

Ben nodded. The chauffeur opened the rear door for him and he got in. He watched Paris go by. It was getting dark as they left the outskirts of the city and the long, silent limo made its way outward along increasingly narrow, unlit country lanes. Bushes and trees, the occasional darkened building, and a little roadside bar flashed by in the headlights.

His driver was short on conversation, and Ben lapsed into thought. Loriot was obviously a highly successful publisher, judging by the mode of transport that had been sent out to collect him. It didn’t seem likely that the success of his business depended much, if at all, on publishing titles with an esoteric or alchemical theme–a search of the Editions Loriot website had flagged up only a handful of them, and nothing that seemed related to what he was looking for. In any case it was hardly a very commercial sector of the book market. But Rose had said Loriot was a real enthusiast. It was probably just a hobby thing for him, perhaps a personal interest in the subject that he’d brought into the business as a sideline, to cater for like-minded alchemy buffs. Maybe he’d be able to point him in the right direction. A wealthy collector might even have rare books, or papers or manuscripts of his own, that could be of interest. Perhaps even…no, that was hoping for too much. He’d just have to wait and see where tonight’s meeting took him. He glanced at the luminous dial of his watch. They should be there soon. His thoughts meandered.

He felt the Mercedes slow. Had they arrived? He looked out past the driver at the dark road. They weren’t in any village, and there didn’t seem to be any houses nearby. He saw a large road sign lit up in the headlamps.

DANGER LEVEL CROSSING

The wooden barriers were raised upwards, allowing the car to pass underneath. The limo eased slowly onto the tracks and halted. The driver reached down to press a button on the console next to him and there was a clunk as the central locking was activated. A whirring sound, and a thick glass partition rose up, screening him off from the driver.

‘Hey,’ he called, rapping on the glass. His voice sounded hollow in the soundproof compartment. ‘What’s going on?’ The driver ignored him. He tried the door, knowing in advance it was going to be locked. ‘Why’ve we stopped? Hey, I’m talking to you.’

Without a glance at him or a word in reply, the driver turned off the ignition and the headlights darkened. He swung open the heavy door and the car’s internal light came on. Ben noticed that the partition between them was steel reinforced, crisscrossed internally with a grid of stiff wire.

The driver calmly got out of the car. He slammed the door shut and the interior of the car went dark. A bobbing beam of pale torchlight appeared as the man searched ahead of him, walking away up the empty road. The torch beam was sweeping from side to side as though looking for something up ahead. The trembling pool of light settled on a black Audi parked at the roadside, some fifty yards away beyond the level crossing. Its taillights came on and a door was thrown open as the limo driver neared it. He got in.

Ben hammered on the glass partition, then on the tinted window. The Audi’s taillights were all he could see in the dark. After a minute or so the car pulled away and disappeared up the road.

He groped about in the back of the Mercedes for a way out. He tried the doors again, knowing it was pointless and fighting a rising tide of anxiety. There would be a way out. There was always a way out of everything. He’d been in worse situations than this.

He heard a sound from outside, the ring of a bell. It was followed by a series of mechanical noises, and the wooden barriers came down. Even though he was blind in the darkness, he could visualize the scene all too clearly. The Mercedes was sitting astride the tracks, caught between the barriers, and now there was a train coming.

‘All taken care of, Godard?’ asked Berger, the fat guy behind the wheel, glancing over his shoulder as the limo driver climbed into the back of the Audi.

Godard took off his chauffeur’s cap. ‘No problem.’ He grinned.

Berger started the car. ‘Let’s go for that beer.’ ‘Shouldn’t we hang about for a while?’ asked the third man, glancing nervously at his watch. He looked uneasily at the shadow of the Mercedes fifty yards behind them.

‘Nah–what the fuck for?’ Berger chortled as he put the Audi into gear and drove off, accelerating hard up the road. ‘Train’ll be here in a couple more minutes. The Brit motherfucker’s not going anywhere’.

Ben’s eyes were fully adjusted to the dark by now. Through the side window of the Mercedes, the horizon was a plunging black V of starry sky flanked by the blacker steep embankments on either side that rose up from the track. As he watched, a dull glow between the embankments grew steadily brighter. It became two distinct lights, still a long way off but swelling alarmingly in size as the train got nearer. Through the roar in his head he could faintly make out the sound of steel wheels on tracks.

He thumped harder on the window. Keep your cool. He unholstered his Browning and used it like a hammer, whacking the butt hard several times against the window. The glass wouldn’t give. He flipped the gun round in his hand, shielded his face with his free arm and fired a shot at the inside of the glass. The growing rumble of the train disappeared in a high-pitched whine as his ears sang from the gunshot. The pane distorted into a wild spider’s web of cracks but didn’t give. Bulletproof glass. He lowered the gun. Not much point trying to take out the door locks. It would take a lot more than a dozen rounds of a flimsy 9mm to chew through the solid steel.

He hesitated, then started banging again. The distant lights were getting bigger and brighter, flooding the valley between the embankments with a haloed white glow.

There was a crash and he recoiled from the window. Another crunching impact and the crumpled pane bulged in towards him.

A voice from outside, muffled but familiar. ‘You in there? Ben?’ It was a woman’s voice, American. Roberta Ryder’s voice!

Roberta took another swing at the window with the tyre-iron from her Citroën’s emergency kit. The reinforced glass was smashed in but it wouldn’t give. The train was fast approaching.

She yelled through the cracked window, ‘Ben, hold on tight. There’s going to be an impact!’

The howl of the train was getting louder. He barely heard the door of the Citroën slam and the sound of its whiny little engine. The 2CV lurched forward, smashing through the barriers and hurling its feeble weight against the heavy metal of the Mercedes’ rear end. Roberta’s windscreen was shattered by the wooden pole. Metal screeched against metal. She grabbed the gearstick and crunched brutally into reverse, dumping the clutch and skidding backwards for another hit.

The limo had been shunted forwards a metre, its locked wheels making trenches in the dirt. She rammed the Mercedes a second time, and managed to get the nose of the big, heavy car under the opposite barrier. But it wasn’t enough.

Ben was crouched tightly down in the back of the limo. Another impact sent him sprawling. The Mercedes was shunted across the second track, the remaining barrier clattering across its roof.

The train was almost on them, 250 metres and closing fast.

Roberta floored the accelerator viciously one more time. Last chance. The badly buckled 2CV crunched squarely into the back of the Mercedes and she whooped with relief as the limo was knocked clear of the railway lines.

The driver had seen the cars on the tracks. In the wall of noise that was descending on Roberta she could hear the scream of brakes. But nothing could stop it in time. For one terrifying moment the 2CV was locked to the Mercedes and sitting right in the train’s path, torn bodywork meshed together, her wheels spinning in reverse.

Then the wreckage disentangled and the car bounced backwards off the tracks to safety just a second before the train howled past with a great slap of wind. Its massive length hurtled by for ten seconds, then it was gone into the night and its little red lights receded away to nothing.

They sat silently for a moment in their separate cars, and waited for their hearts and breathing to settle. Ben tucked the Browning back into its holster and clipped it into place.

Roberta climbed out of the 2CV, looked at it and gave an involuntary groan. Her headlights were smashed to hell, dangling from their stalks amongst the twisted ruin of the car’s bonnet and front wings. She stepped over the tracks to the limo, knees shaky. ‘Ben? Talk to me!’

‘Can you get me out?’ said his muffled voice from inside.

She tried the Mercedes’ driver door. ‘Duh– smart thinking, Ryder,’ she muttered to herself. ‘Open the whole time.’ At least the keys weren’t in the ignition. That would have been really stupid. She climbed inside and thumped on the glass partition dividing her from Ben. His face appeared dimly on the other side. She looked around. There must be a button for the glass panel. If she could lower it, he could scramble out that way. She found what looked like the button and pressed it. No reaction. Probably needed the ignition on. Shit. She found another button and pressed that, and with a satisfying clunk the rear central locking mechanism opened.

He tumbled out, groaning and rubbing his aching body. He shut his jacket, keeping the holster carefully covered up.

‘Jesus, that was close,’ she breathed. ‘You all right?’

‘I’ll live.’ He pointed at the ruined 2CV. ‘Will it still go?’

‘Thank you Roberta’, she said in a mock-sarcastic tone. ‘How lucky you turned up. Thank you for saving my ass’

He made no reply. She threw him a look, then gazed back at the wreck of her car. ‘I really liked that car, you know. They don’t make them any more.’

‘I’ll get you another,’ he said, limping towards it.

‘Damn right you’ll get me another,’ she went on. ‘And I think you owe me an explanation as well.’

After a few twists of the key the 2CV engine coughed into life, making a terminal-sounding clanking noise. Roberta turned the car round, its wheels grinding against the buckled wings, and drove away. As they gained speed, the rubbing of tyres on metal rose to a tortured howl, and the wind whistled around them through the broken windscreen. The engine was overheating badly and acrid smoke began to pour from under the mangled bonnet.

‘I can’t go far in this,’ she shouted over the blast of wind, peering out of the shattered glass into the darkness.

‘Just get it down the road some way,’ he shouted back. ‘I think I saw a bar back there.’