The Lost Relic

Chapter Sixty

The Ferris residence

Kensington, London

It was Brewster Blackmore’s voice on the line again, and from his tone it sounded as if he hadn’t called in the middle of the night for nothing.

‘Wait,’ Mason Ferris said. He swung his long, thin legs out of bed, stepped into his slippers and carried the phone out of the master bedroom, out of earshot of Mrs Ferris.

‘Who is it, Mason?’ she murmured sleepily as he left the room. He ignored her, stepped out into the long, broad landing and snicked the bedroom door quietly shut behind him. Moonlight shone in through the house’s high windows. He stood and looked out at the view across London, without really seeing it.

‘It’s after two, Blackmore,’ he said into the phone. ‘Tell me something I want to hear.’

‘Ben Hope’s just been arrested in a village in northeastern Portugal,’ Blackmore said, and Ferris was suddenly much more alert. ‘Local police recognised him after being called out to a bar brawl. He’s being flown back to Rome as we speak, to be treated at Sandro Pertini Hospital before being transferred to Regina Coeli prison.’

‘Hospital?’

‘Gunshot wound to the arm. He managed to get the bullet out and clean himself up. No secondary infections, but he’d lost a lot of blood and there was enough alcohol and codeine in him to kill a horse. We’re lucky we still have him. They want to keep him in for observation for a day or two. That should give us enough time.’

Ferris pondered this latest development for a moment. His plan was back on track. A thin smile traced itself across his lips, then disappeared as his pleasure gave way to darker thoughts.

‘Kane?’ he said.

‘Negative so far,’ Blackmore said. ‘We’ve lost track of her.’

‘Not good enough,’ Ferris said softly.

‘You told me to deal with the Lister situation,’ Blackmore protested. ‘I dealt with it, and I’ll deal with this. I’m doing all I can. For all we know, she’s dead and her body will wash up somewhere down the Seine.’

‘Get it done,’ Ferris told him. He shut off the phone and turned back towards the bedroom.