Bring Him Back

18

It was morning. Jessica Hunter sat alone in her empty kitchen. She blinked, feeling that she wanted to cry. But she’d cried so much already, and for so long, that now the well was dry. There was nothing left but the aching, desolate rawness she felt inside.

With an unsteady hand, she picked up the glass of vodka from beside the half-empty bottle on the breakfast bar surface in front of her. Closed her eyes and knocked back a stinging mouthful, then let the glass slip out of her hand back onto the surface. Beside the bottle was a small framed picture of Carl. She picked it up, gazed at it — and that was when the flooding tears finally came again.

Suddenly aware of a presence, she turned. She gasped when she saw the lean, silent figure in the doorway. How long had he been standing there, watching her?

‘You,’ she breathed.

He said nothing.

‘I thought you were…’ her voice trailed off and she just looked at him. She’d never seen him look this way. So still, so quiet, with a fire in his eyes that made her almost afraid.

Ben took a step closer. He stooped and picked up the crumpled three-week-old edition of Le Monde from the floor, to glance at the headline and the photo of the devastated apartment building belching smoke into the sky over Monte Carlo. The movement made him wince as a sharp jolt of fresh pain shot through him; and for an instant his memory drifted back, reliving the suffering of the last weeks like a nightmare daydream. The escape over the rooftops and through the chaos of Monte Carlo in the wake of the explosion. Stealing the car. The interminable fevered agony of the drive across the Italian border and northwards into Switzerland, to the tiny mountain village near Mont Blanc and the home of his old comrade, retired ex-SAS medic Frankie Gallagher.

Frankie might be every bit as crazy as they said he was, but he still knew how to get a bullet out. The nine-millimetre full metal jacket had clipped Ben’s left shoulder blade on entry and bounced diagonally to plough a channel deep into his shoulder, stopping just a whisker from the collarbone. The surgery hadn’t been easy. He’d refused to let himself pass out until he’d seen Frankie drop the flattened one-hundred-and-forty-seven-grain FMJ and six bone fragments from his bloody forceps into a surgical dish. An experience Ben wouldn’t forget in a hurry — but still preferable to facing the kinds of questions he’d have been asked in any hospital.

And sometimes it was better to let them all think you were a goner.

For a while, at least.

‘Heard that one myself,’ he said to Jessica. ‘But now I’m back.’

‘My boy is dead,’ she quavered, barely audible. ‘Why would you show your face around here? Why can’t you leave me alone? You failed. You said you’d bring him back and now he’s—’ her words dissolved into a spasm of tears. She buried her head in her arms, shoulders quaking.

‘Where’s Mike?’ Ben said softly.

She slowly raised her head, pointed a trembling finger towards the French windows and the sweep of lawn beyond. ‘Hiding down there in his office,’ she sniffed bitterly. ‘He can’t even be near me now. Says he can’t handle it. Says he’s leaving me. My whole world …gone…’

Ben touched her arm as he walked past her. There was nothing more to say, not yet. He swung open the French windows and walked down the garden.

Mike was at his desk in Drew Hunter’s old summerhouse studio, wearing a tweed jacket and getting ready to leave. All the desk drawers were open and empty, and he was busily packing the last of his papers into his briefcase when the door crashed in. Gaping up in speechless alarm, he was half out of his chair by the time Ben grabbed him by the neck and slammed his head twice, three times, against the desk.

‘Going somewhere, Mike?’ Ben rasped in his ear, then hurled him backwards into his chair so hard that it fell over backwards, spilling him to the floor. Mike could have done very little to fight back, even if he’d been conscious at that point.

Ben walked calmly around the desk. He closed the briefcase and tucked it under his arm. Then he seized a fistful of Mike’s jacket collar and dragged him out of the summerhouse; dragged him all the way up the garden and along the pebbled path around the front of the house to the car. He didn’t give a damn if Jessica saw him from the window. Didn’t give a damn if she called the cops.

The car engine was running, and the boot lid and driver’s door were open. Ben hauled Mike upright and bundled him into the boot. Slammed the lid. Walked around to the driver’s door, threw the briefcase inside the car and then got in and took off in a spray of gravel.