‘The miserable bloody places they send us,’ Packham said, sweeping an arm across the landscape as though to prove his point. ‘I mean, look at it. Rough as a badger’s arse.’
‘Yeah, in hessian knickers,’ said another of the guys, Boney Gallagher, not to be outdone. Liam McVicar joined in the fun with ‘You talking about my Missus again?’ and everyone laughed, all except for Jaden Wolf, who was lounged against a rock as though it were a satin pillow, with his rifle and grenade launcher between his knees. It was normal for Wolf to stay out of it while the rest of the lads bantered and joked around. He was a quiet sort of man who generally kept his thoughts to himself. But now he seemed to have something to say, frowning at Packham as if he’d lost his mind. ‘Something’s wrong with you, Baz. Open your eyes, for Christ’s sake.’
‘My eyes are open. That’s why I keep seeing your ugly mug.’
Wolf shook his head. ‘Breathe the air, man. Listen to the sound of the silence. These mountains are just about the nearest thing a plonker like you is ever going to get to heaven, that’s for sure.’
‘Why don’t you write me a fuckin’ poem about it, Jaws?’ Packham grunted. There was more laughter, but Ben thought he should intervene before the amicable dispute turned more serious. Packham considered himself a hardened dealer of death, and Wolf had never backed down from a fight in his life. Ben defused the tension by saying, ‘You always did have a hankering for the wild places, Jaden. I can resonate with that. I feel the same way.’
Wolf nodded. ‘Yeah, one day I’m going to make enough money that I can bugger off forever and nobody’ll see my heels for the dust. Going to get out. All the way out, and never come back.’
Ben asked, ‘You have a particular place in mind?’
Wolf was silent for a beat, then flashed a glint of gold as a happy memory stirred a smile. ‘My first two-week summer leave after I joined up, I went off backpacking in Europe. Made my way down to Spain, a place called Aragón. Right in the heart of the Pyrenees, Catalonia to the east and Navarra, La Rioja and Castilla y León to the west. There’s this little village next to the Guadalaviar River, sitting there in the hills, prettiest place you ever could imagine. I met a girl there.’
There were some whistles and grins. ‘Now you’re talking,’ McVicar chuckled, and was about to crack some crude joke but Ben signalled to him to let Wolf go on.
‘Her name was Sofia,’ Wolf said. He smiled again at the memory, shook his head wistfully. ‘Sofia Moncayo. I still remember her. It was the sweetest time. I was sorry to have to leave her.’
‘I’ll bet you were,’ Boney Gallagher said, nudging him with an elbow.
‘I don’t suppose she still lives there,’ Wolf said. ‘Most of the younger folks leave in search of better prospects in the cities. But that’s where I’d go back in a heartbeat, if you gave me half a chance. Just to go walking in those hills again, where there’s nobody there but you, and the land, and the sky. If there’s a God, then that’s where you’re going to find him, I reckon.’
Packham let out a loud snort. ‘You’ve fuckin’ lost it, you have. Gone soft in the head.’
Wolf gave him a gentle smile and said, ‘No, Baz. You’re just not getting it.’
Wolf was probably right about that. Maybe none of the other troopers got it, either. But Ben had understood exactly the almost prayerful sense of serenity and untroubled stillness that Wolf’s experience had invoked in him.
He said, ‘I get it, Jaden.’
And standing here in the wreckage of Wolf’s flat all these years later, Ben was suddenly getting it once again. Nobody else but him and the surviving members of the SAS unit who’d sat and listened to Wolf’s story that day knew the secret.
Ben gazed a few moments longer at the picture on the bathroom wall, then reached up and lifted it from its hook. The frame was made out of some kind of dark wood, not a bad job if a little crude and artisan-like, now quite worn and scuffed with age. Ben flipped the picture around in his hands. The backing board had been covered in brown paper and taped around the edges to prevent dust and damp from penetrating inside. It was clear that the artist must have done the framing themselves, since their signature was scrawled in faded ink on the aged brown paper, together with the words Agosto ’99. August, 1999.
A long time ago. Ben now understood that Wolf had been carrying that picture around with him all these years. And he also knew where Wolf had bought it as a memento of his romantic two weeks spent in the mountains of Spain with a girl called Sofia. Because scrawled beneath the date, in the same handwriting, was the name of the village depicted in the painting.
It said Albarracín, Aragón.
Ben murmured to himself, ‘I think I’ve just figured out where you went, Jaden.’
Chapter 10
Jeff and Tuesday had sat up for much of the night talking after Ben’s strange and sudden departure. Sometime in the wee small hours, over maybe his tenth or eleventh mug of coffee, Jeff declared, ‘I don’t know about you, mate, but this has got me worried.’
Tuesday was concerned too, but trying to look on the brighter side. ‘It’s obviously got to do with Grace. Why else would he have asked us not to return her calls or speak to her if she phoned here? They must’ve had a bust-up or something. None of our business. But it’ll get sorted out, one way or another. You know how these things are.’
Jeff, still emotionally a little tender from his breakup with Chantal, did indeed know how these things are. ‘He’s had his ups and downs in that department, sure. Brooke, then what’s-her-name in Cherbourg, and now this Scottish chick he’s gone all mushy on.’
‘I don’t think she’s exactly a chick.’
Jeff waved him off. ‘But that’s not the point, is it? There’s more to it than that. This is different. The look on his face. The tone of his voice. The way he insisted we had to keep out of it.’
‘He always does that. You know he likes to be independent, handle things on his own. That’s just his way.’
Jeff looked at his friend. ‘Are you on my side, or what? Saying there’s nothing to worry about here?’
‘I’m an optimist, that’s all.’
‘You don’t think he was acting odd?’
‘Okay, yes, I admit that he was acting odd.’
Jeff shook his head, adamant. ‘He’s scared, Tues. Scared as hell. And he doesn’t scare easy. Last time he had that look on his face was when Jude was on that tanker, remember?’
Tuesday remembered it well. He’d been involved in the whole drama when the ship Ben’s son had been a crew member on had been hijacked by pirates off the coast of Somalia. ‘The African thing. But that was a full-on hostage situation. Life or death. Ben was happy to have us along for the ride that time. So maybe, if this was really a big deal, he’d have asked us this time too.’
Jeff still wasn’t buying it. ‘No. There’s something else. Some other reason why he didn’t want us to even know what’s going on. It’s as if … I dunno, as if he was under pressure to hide it from us for some reason.’
‘We’ve no proof of that, Jeff.’
‘I’ve known him a long time.’
‘But you’re still just shooting in the dark. Like, if this is about Grace, then what’s he doing heading off to London? That’s five hundred miles from where she lives. Answer me that.’
Jeff frowned, thinking. ‘Might not be going to London. Might just’ve told us that, to put us off the track.’
‘Ben would never lie to us. You know that.’
‘But what if he did?’
‘Then we’d have even less of a clue.’
Jeff said nothing for a moment, then slammed down his mug of coffee and stood up. ‘You’re right. What we need here are facts. So let’s go and see if we can’t find some. I’m going up to his room.’
Jeff led the way upstairs, flipping on lights with Tuesday following in his wake. Ben was the only one of the three whose personal quarters were within the main house. Jeff lived across the yard in a former o
utbuilding that had been converted into a small, cosy cottage, while Tuesday occupied a static caravan in the woods, complete with an outdoor barbecue smoker and a hammock for those lazy summer days that reminded him of life in Jamaica. As close friends as the three were, each man’s private space within the Le Val compound was hallowed ground and generally off-limits to the others, except by invitation. Jeff hadn’t been inside Ben’s simple quarters for a while, but he didn’t expect much to have changed. Tuesday looked uneasy as Jeff reached Ben’s door and pushed inside the room. Ben had left without turning off the light.
‘He wouldn’t want us poking around in here,’ Tuesday said.
‘Then stay out. I’ll do it on my own.’
Tuesday sighed, then stepped into the room after him. Jeff was already searching for clues. And there were plenty of those waiting to be found.
The first thing they noticed was the broken mirror on the wall. The next was the collection of items lying on the bed. A Springfield XD pistol with several loaded magazines. Two passports. A slim black Apple iPhone. A plain brown envelope. Jeff walked around the side of the bed and peered inside the wall safe that was hanging open. Then he turned back towards the bed. ‘There’s fresh blood on the duvet.’
Tuesday pointed at the broken mirror. ‘Now we know how he cut his hand. Who takes a swing at a mirror like that?’
‘The elephant man?’
‘Don’t be facetious.’
‘I don’t know, mate. You’re the psychologist.’
‘Someone with a hell of a lot on his mind,’ Tuesday said. ‘That’s who.’
‘So you’re agreeing with me that something’s wrong?’
‘I’m not sure yet.’
Jeff picked up the iPhone from the bed and recognised it as Ben’s main carry device. ‘Left it behind.’
Tuesday frowned at it. ‘Why would he do that?’
‘You tell me, Sherlock.’ Jeff turned the phone on and examined it for a moment. ‘There’s a voice message. Looks like it’s from her.’
‘You can’t listen to his private messages, Jeff.’
Jeff listened to it anyway. Grace had called and left her message late last night, just after eleven, after Ben had already packed up and gone. Jeff put it on speaker for them both to hear. Her voice sounded bright and cheery. Her accent was crisp and pleasing to the ear.
‘Hi babes, got your text. Missing you already. Talk soon, okay? Love ya.’
Jeff turned the phone off and replaced it on the bed. ‘Babes.’ He picked up the brown envelope and gave it a shake, finding that it was empty. Then he examined the two passports. ‘Hm, that’s odd. This one’s his real passport. This other one’s an expired fake.’
‘What the hell would Ben want with a fake passport?’ Tuesday asked. He was a relative newcomer to the family. Ben and Jeff had been running Le Val for a few years when they’d hired him. As a result, the younger man knew little about the secretive career that Ben had pursued after quitting the military.
Jeff was far better informed. He explained, ‘Never met the guy, but Ben used to employ a forger called Thierry Chevrolet to cook up phony ID for him, back in the day. Supposed to have been the shit-hottest counterfeiter in France, or so Ben said.’
‘I’m not even going to ask.’
‘Anyway, I happen to know that he keeps two more fake passports in his safe, which I have to assume aren’t expired like this one, or he wouldn’t have taken them. They’re missing. Which means, if he has gone to London, he didn’t want to travel on his real name. The plot thickens, mate.’
‘Shit,’ Tuesday said.
‘Also missing are his two burner phones, plus a bunch of cash that I also happen to know he had stored away in there for a rainy day. And that’s not all. He’s taken his Browning nine-milly, too.’
Tuesday looked even more perplexed. ‘How’s he going to get that into the UK?’
‘He has his ways,’ Jeff said. ‘Still think this is just a lovers’ tiff? Me neither.’
‘Not good,’ Tuesday said.
Jeff picked up the handgun that Ben had left behind. He knew that Ben would always opt for the old workhorse Browning if he was in trouble. After a quick examination of the Springfield, Jeff tossed it back on the bed.
Tuesday eyed the weapon with a frown. ‘He’s such a stickler for firearms safety. Tear a strip off anyone who left a live weapon lying around unguarded like that.’
‘So what does that tell you?’ Jeff asked.
‘That he left in a hell of a hurry without thinking twice,’ Tuesday replied. ‘Like nothing else mattered to him except his objective. You were right. He’s scared as hell. But of what?’
Jeff said nothing. He walked over to the shattered mirror and stared for a moment at his splintered reflection. Something cracked underfoot. He looked down and saw the bloody shards of glass on the rug. And something else, too. He bent down and picked up the item that had fallen to the floor, half hidden under the foot of the bed. He showed it to Tuesday: a four-by-six photo print with a crease down the middle.
Tuesday gazed at the picture. It showed their friend posing against a wintry mountain backdrop with his arm around the shoulders of a slim and attractive dark-haired woman. Both were smiling and looked happy. ‘I’m presuming this is Grace?’ Tuesday had never seen her before. Her face matched her voice.
‘I’d say you presume right, buddy.’
Tuesday ran a fingertip down the crease in the middle of the photo. ‘It looks like he’s been carrying it around folded inside his pocket, or his wallet. Strange that he’d leave it lying on the floor.’
Jeff’s expression was thoughtful. ‘I reckon he was looking at it when he punched the mirror. I reckon it’s the reason he did.’
‘Then this does have something to do with her, after all. Not a lovers’ tiff. Something else.’
‘Something a fuck of a lot more serious,’ Jeff agreed. ‘Why else would he have taken a weapon with him? She’s in danger. That’s what my gut tells me, anyhow.’
Tuesday raised an eyebrow. Dubious. ‘Didn’t sound like it, from her message. Sounded like she was perfectly okay, not a care in the world.’
‘A person can’t be in danger without knowing it?’ Jeff said.
‘I get that. But what kind of danger could she be in? She’s a rural police officer in what’s got to be the lowest crime area in the whole of the British Isles.’
‘How do you know it has to do with her?’ Jeff pointed out. ‘It could be to do with something else.’
‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know, mate. Something to do with Ben himself. How’d he get involved in the first place? He must’ve found out about it somehow.’
Tuesday sat on the bed, trying to figure it out. ‘When he called from Inverness airport to say he was on his way home, he sounded perfectly normal, too.’
‘Yeah. Which means that whatever happened, must’ve happened in the meantime,’ Jeff said. ‘Something totally unexpected. Out of the blue. That’s what got him so rattled. It’s the reason he came back home to pick up the things he needed, knowing he was going to have to shoot straight off again.’
‘Okay, I read you, she’s in danger,’ Tuesday said.
‘But maybe not imminent danger, or else he’d have gone straight there instead of London. And he warned us not to answer the phone if she calls, right? So she’s not a hostage, or anything like that, because hostages don’t generally have free access to a phone. Unless the kidnappers pressure them to call someone, like a family member, asking for money.’
‘In which case, he’d have wanted us to know about it and keep him informed,’ Tuesday said.
‘And she wouldn’t have left a message like that anyhow,’ Jeff said. ‘So we can pretty much agree that she ain’t been kidnapped. Right?’
‘This is getting complicated.’
Jeff’s brow creased like corrugated steel as he racked his brain. ‘It’s more like there’s a threat hanging over her. Someone watching her, maybe, rea
dy to make a move but holding back. She obviously doesn’t know about it. But Ben does.’
Tuesday said, ‘So sometime between him getting on the plane in Inverness and coming home, someone must have called him or approached him. Boom, suddenly everything changes. Is that what you’re saying?’
Jeff nodded grimly. ‘That’s how I see it. It’s like someone’s got him over a barrel. Using the threat against her to coerce him in some way.’
Tuesday bit his lip. ‘That would maybe explain why he was so scared to tell us anything. He could have been told not to make contact with her, or else.’
‘Whatever it is, I don’t like it. I don’t like it one fucking bit.’
‘I’m with you,’ Tuesday said. ‘But the question is, what are we going to do about it?’
Chapter 11
Spain
Two days earlier
The small town of Albarracín was almost exactly the way Wolf remembered it. There were a few new or refurbished buildings scattered here and there, a few incongruous satellite dishes, and a few more cars and motorbikes than before; but by and large the place had changed remarkably little since his first and only visit all those years ago. Coming back here again, having dreamed about it for so long, brought on a rush of memories and emotions.
Shortly after his arrival it struck him how little he’d eaten since his escape from London, and he felt suddenly very hungry. A couple of streets away from the Catedral del Salvador he found a cosy little tapas bar and restaurant with simple decor and mismatched chairs and tables, which suited him nicely. He devoured a large plate of cold meats with a salad and some bread and washed it down with a jug of water. Wolf never touched alcohol.
It was Sofia who had taught him his first stumbling words of Spanish. Over the years he’d tried to pick up a few more from books, though he was by no means fluent in the language. As he paid for his meal, he got talking to the proprietor, a swarthy middle-aged guy by the name of Tomás, who was proud of having lived here in Albarracín all his life. Wolf introduced himself as Jack Cullen, a traveller from the UK. He said he’d been here before, once, years ago, and asked whether Tomás might happen to know if the Moncayo family still lived in the town.
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