The Babylon Idol

Chapter 8

She turned. Apart from her hairstyle, she hadn’t changed. She was as achingly beautiful as ever. More, even, but maybe that was just because he hadn’t seen her in such a very long time. But there was no smile. Not that he’d expected one from her, even on a better day than today. Her green eyes, vivid even in the dim light of the single side lamp, were moist with tears.

‘I came as soon as I heard,’ she said.

Brooke was officially still on the books as a member of the Le Val team, although she hadn’t worked there lately. Tuesday must have called her earlier that day. Thanks for letting me know, Ben thought.

‘What happened?’ she said. ‘Who did this?’

He shook his head. ‘I wish I knew what to tell you.’ A long mournful silence filled the room. He took a step towards her. ‘It’s good to see you again,’ he said, because he didn’t know what else to say. In any case, it was a lie. Seeing her again, especially now, like this, was indescribably painful.

‘Whatever,’ she murmured.

‘How are you?’ It sounded so lame.

She shrugged. ‘There isn’t much to say, Ben. I’m working. Living in London again. Life goes on. I’m with someone else now.’

Ben said, ‘I hope you’re happy.’

‘Don’t try so hard to sound like you mean it.’ Her voice rose a tone, cracking out at him like a whiplash. Then she paused, softened a little, let out a sigh. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Yes, I’m happy. I think I am. That is, I was, until today, until I heard about Jeff. This is so awful.’

He hesitated, knowing that the question bursting to come out was the wrong thing to say, especially at this moment. But then he thought, Fuck it, and let it out anyway. ‘Please don’t tell me you’re back with that prick Rupert Shannon again.’

She stiffened. ‘Give me some credit, will you?’

‘That’s something, at least. Then who is he?’ Ben asked, knowing very well how badly he was crossing the line. But he’d committed himself now and there was no turning back.

Brooke folded her arms across her chest and gave him a piercing look. ‘What I do and who I see is my business. You took yourself out of my life when you walked away. Your choice, Ben. Live with it.’

He had been living with it, not always successfully. ‘Yeah,’ he muttered. ‘I’m sorry I asked. It was wrong.’

‘Is Jeff going to be okay?’

‘They had to induce a coma.’

Brooke’s face fell. She’d known Jeff for years, going back to when she’d first come to lecture classes at Le Val as a visiting expert on hostage psychology. Dr Brooke Marcel, one of the leaders in her clinical field. One of the great lost loves of Ben’s life. Letting her go the way he had was his biggest regret — it hurt him every day, like an old war wound that could never quite heal.

‘I booked a room at the Manoir in Valognes,’ she said. ‘I’ll drive up to the hospital in the morning, but then I have to rush back to London for work.’

‘Thanks for stopping by.’

‘I don’t know why… I just thought…’ Her voice trailed off, and then she shook her head. ‘God, what a mess. Who could have done this to him? I can’t understand. I mean, Jeff never hurt anybody.’

Ben thought about that. You couldn’t be the high-level military operator Jeff Dekker had once been without hurting anyone, or at least being involved in a good deal of it. Special Forces made enemies around the world and there was no shortage of folks who would go to all kinds of lengths to get back at them if they could. But the shroud of secrecy around the Special Boat Service, Jeff’s old unit, was no different from the impenetrable cloak that protected the identities of operatives within Ben’s own former 22 SAS regiment. Practically nobody on the outside knew who these men were. Targeted revenge attacks against individuals in response for things they had done in the name of their country were pretty much unheard of. Unless someone within their own unit had somehow been turned or manipulated by a third party with an axe to grind, or gone bad themselves. Ben had already worked through a mental list of possible candidates, and crossed their names off one by one until none remained.

‘Whoever it was,’ he said, ‘they’ve just made the biggest mistake of their life.’

She looked at him, understanding from the look in his eyes what he was thinking. Brooke knew him well enough, from long experience, to know exactly how he was liable to respond in this situation.

‘Leave it to the police, Ben. Hasn’t there been enough trouble already?’

‘It seems to me that the shooter isn’t having any trouble at all,’ Ben said. ‘He got in, did his work, and got out. Job done, nice and easy. Now he’s out there somewhere enjoying life with a clear conscience. I can’t let that happen.’

‘So you’re taking it upon yourself to sort things out. As usual.’ Brooke said it with an exaggerated tone of resignation.

‘You haven’t met Inspector Tarrare and his goon squad. They couldn’t catch the flu in the middle of an epidemic. Don’t try to twist this around, Brooke. If that was me lying in that hospital bed, breathing through a machine, Jeff would do the same thing and you know it.’

‘Jeff needs you here.’

‘As in, don’t go running off and getting yourself killed?’ he said. He almost added, ‘Why should you care anyway?’ But he bit his lip. He’d already said too much.

She gave a sour laugh. ‘What am I saying? As if anyone had a chance in hell of stopping you, once your mind’s made up. Running off when people need you around is what you do best, after all.’

That hit below the belt. Ben could have replied, ‘You were the one who broke off the engagement, not me.’ But this was no time for a drawn-out argument. He clenched his teeth and said nothing.

‘I didn’t come here to fight,’ Brooke said sadly after a beat. ‘I’ll go now, before one of us says something we’ll both regret.’

There was no physical contact between them as she was leaving. He wanted to reach out to her, even if he didn’t deserve the comfort of her touch. He stood in the door and watched the tail-lights of the Renault Clio disappear up the track towards the gates, where she’d have to run the gauntlet of zombie reporters clamouring for their story. Then she was gone, and the rainy night closed in behind her.

Ben could have done with some company, but Tuesday had disappeared. He returned to the kitchen and swallowed down some more whisky. Still the best cure ever devised for delayed shock, and other things.

He wandered back outside into the rain. Out of the darkness came a familiar shape, and a wet nose nudged Ben’s hand in greeting. Storm trotted by his side as he crossed the yard, looking up at him curiously. The dog seemed subdued, as if he understood something.

Ben walked over to the dark, silent office building opposite the house. Inside, he flipped on the light. Looked at Jeff’s empty desk. Sat down at his own, and stared into space. It was cold inside the office building, but Ben was too numb to feel the chill. Just like he was too sick to feel hungry, even though his stomach was empty apart from ten-year-old Laphroaig. Maybe he needed to drink some more, because the image of Jeff lying there in the hospital kept coming back to him. He tried to flush it out of his mind’s eye by picturing the unknown shooter. The blank face behind the rifle. Ben wondered what he was doing right this moment, what he was thinking.

‘I’ll find you,’ he said out loud. ‘Don’t ever think I won’t.’

But he wasn’t going to find him tonight. Wherever the shooter had gone, he had a head start that Ben knew he couldn’t hope to make up by going off half-cocked, jumping in his car and tearing off on a revenge mission with not a single clue or lead.

Tomorrow would be another day.

Until then, Ben could only bide his time, lay aside his restless thoughts and try to relax.

As he sat there at the desk, he looked down and saw the unopened letter from the Bollati penitentiary in Milan, lying there exactly where he’d left it that morning when he’d gone to help Jeff with the fallen tree. He’d forgotten all about it until now.

He gazed at it for a moment. He had nothing better to do, and maybe it would help take his mind off things. He picked up the envelope, slipped out the letter. Unfolded it.

And began to read.