The Armada Legacy bh-8

by Scott Mariani

  Webster shook his head. ‘Zilch. Not a squeak.’

  Ben could have asked Webster if he was thinking the same thing he was, but there was no need. He could see it in his eyes.

  He said nothing. It was eight thirty-two. He glanced across at the silent phone. Justin Maxwell was still staring at it fixedly, barely blinking.

  At that moment Detective Inspector Hanratty, managing to get away from the angry Simon Butler, spotted Ben and Amal across the room. ‘Here comes trouble,’ Amal muttered as Hanratty battled his way round the long table and strutted up to them with his fists clenched.

  ‘Not you again,’ he growled. ‘Did I not tell you to stay out of this, Hope? There’s the door.’

  ‘Why don’t you fuck off, Hanratty?’ Ben said quietly, looking him directly in the eye.

  Hanratty blanched. ‘What did you just say to me?’

  ‘You heard me,’ Ben said more loudly. ‘You’ve three seconds to get out of my face before I put you through that window.’

  Kay Lynch was watching Ben from across the room with an expression that said, ‘See, this is what I meant by you being silly’.

  The buzz of noise dropped to a murmur. People looked around. Hanratty’s eyes bulged. Two seconds went by, then three. Hanratty swallowed and took a step back from Ben. Before he could muster up a riposte, Justin Maxwell spoke up.

  ‘Will someone please tell me who this gentleman is?’

  ‘I know him,’ Matt Webster cut in. ‘I can totally vouch for him.’

  Hanratty exploded in protest.

  ‘Let me put it this way, pal,’ Webster said, giving him a cold glower. ‘If you were kidnapped, this is the guy you’d want on your side.’

  ‘With respect, sir,’ Lynch said to Hanratty, ‘I think he can be of some use to us. He’s got more experience in this kind of situation than the rest of us put together.’

  ‘Then perhaps he should introduce himself,’ Maxwell said, silencing Hanratty’s objections with a raised hand and looking expectantly at Ben.

  Ben disliked talking about himself or his background, but there were times when it was to his advantage to reveal a little more than usual. ‘My name’s Ben Hope. I served as a Major in the British Special Air Service before becoming a freelance crisis response consultant. In that capacity I’ve been involved in over a hundred hostage rescue situations. Sometimes as a negotiator, sometimes more directly. I’m here because of Dr Brooke Marcel.’

  ‘I see,’ Maxwell said. ‘May I ask what is your relationship to Dr Marcel?’

  ‘That’s none of your business,’ Ben said. ‘What does concern all of us here is that the clock’s ticking. It’s eight thirty-three. Approximately twenty-two and a half hours since the snatch. In my experience, that’s a hell of a long time to wait for first contact.’

  ‘Meaning what exactly?’

  ‘Meaning that you people can stand here staring at that phone all you like, but I don’t think it’s going to ring anytime soon, if ever.’

  Maxwell looked long and hard at Ben. His eyes were wide-set and penetrating. ‘Couldn’t the delay be a deliberate strategy?’ he asked. ‘The longer we stew, the greater the kidnappers’ psychological advantage over us and the more likely we are to acquiesce to their demands. Although we’d do anything to secure Sir Roger’s and Miss Sheldrake’s release. And that of Dr Marcel, naturally,’ he added quickly.

  ‘Kidnappers like to play mind games,’ Ben said. ‘That’s true enough. We call it The Wait, and it’s a nightmare for negotiators, victims’ families and everyone concerned except the insurers, who’re happy to hang onto their money for as long as they can. The kidnappers will often go quiet for days, months, sometimes years, to soften you up like putty so that you’ll cave in to whatever terms they throw at you. But not,’ he emphasised, ‘before making that initial contact. It’s crucial to them to approach you and identify themselves as the real kidnappers. This story’s already all over the internet by now – it’s only a question of time before a hundred opportunists start coming out of the woodwork making phoney demands. Kidnappers generally just want money, and they want it as quickly as possible. Especially when there’s an eight-figure sum on the table, you wouldn’t expect them to hang around.’

  Maxwell narrowed his eyes. ‘Who said anything about an eight-figure sum?’

  ‘Let’s not mess about,’ Ben said. ‘I know that your company’s insured for ransom claims of up to twelve million with Rochester and Saunders. And if I know it, rest assured the kidnappers will know it. You’re not dealing with amateurs, that much is clear.’

  ‘Where did you get that information?’ one of the other Neptune executives demanded.

  ‘Ronnie Galloway told me,’ Ben said.

  The executive shook his head in outrage. ‘That little—’ he began. Maxwell quieted him with a stern gesture.

  ‘Which strongly suggests to me that the time for a ransom demand has been and gone,’ Ben went on. ‘Believe me, I don’t like it any more than you do.’

  Maxwell’s brow furrowed into deep creases. He looked at Simon Butler, then at Matt Webster and his colleague from R&S. Butler was chewing his fingernails in agitation. Webster’s face was taut.

  ‘Matt will agree with me,’ Ben said.

  ‘Is that the case, Mr Webster?’

  Webster sighed. ‘It’s getting pretty damn late in the day,’ he admitted. ‘I’d have expected to hear something by now. Frankly, I’m more than a little concerned that every passing hour makes it less likely we’ll hear anything at all.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Maxwell said. ‘Where does this leave us? I’d assumed … I mean, if it’s not about ransom … what’s going on?’

  ‘I think you might need to re-evaluate the whole situation,’ Ben said. ‘You might want to consider other reasons why someone would want to snatch your man.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘I’d imagine the treasure recovered from the Santa Teresa’s worth a good deal more than twelve million,’ Ben said.

  ‘You’re suggesting what? That they’d use force against Sir Roger to make him give them access?’

  ‘Unless he’s in on it,’ Ben said.

  There was a shocked silence in the room. After a few seconds, Maxwell said, ‘That’s absolutely out of the question and totally impossible. Besides, not even Roger could have access. Every single item recovered from that vessel is under secure lock and key.’

  ‘Then maybe there’s something else,’ Ben said. ‘Something we don’t know about, but which Forsyte does.’

  ‘But that’s just a guess,’ Maxwell said.

  ‘At this moment, guesswork is pretty much all we have,’ Ben replied. ‘All we know for sure is that while we stand around here staring at that phone, whoever did this is somewhere far away, laughing.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And so it’s going to have to be done the hard way,’ Ben said. ‘They’re going to have to be found, and caught. That was meant to be Hanratty’s job. Whether he’s up to it is another question.’

  ‘I’m not having some outsider come into this investigation to cause trouble and make wild allegations like this,’ Hanratty burst out, pointing at Ben. ‘And you count yourself lucky, Hope, that I don’t charge you with threatening a police officer and obstructing the course of justice. Sergeant, get him out of my sight.’

  Lynch hesitated, but she couldn’t refuse a direct order from her superior. She stepped towards Ben with a veiled look of apology in her eyes.

  ‘Hold on,’ Maxwell said. ‘This property is under lease to Neptune Marine Exploration. It’s not a crime scene and I don’t think you have the authority to expel anyone, Inspector. Mr Hope is welcome to stay and I appreciate any help he can offer us in this terrible situation.’ He looked at Ben. ‘Mr Hope, I’d be extremely grateful if you’d allow me to formally enlist your services.’

  Ben shook his head. ‘Thanks, but I’m not interested in being on your company payroll. Like I told you, I’m here for my own reasons.’<
br />
  Maxwell shrugged. ‘I’m sorry to hear that. Here’s my number, in case you change your mind.’

  Ben pocketed the card. ‘No need to see me out, Sergeant,’ he said to Lynch. ‘I was leaving anyway.’

  ‘What are we going to do now?’ Amal asked as they headed back towards the car.

  ‘I don’t know, Amal,’ Ben said. ‘Right now, I really don’t know what to do.’

  Chapter Twelve

  There was nothing more to say on the drive back to the guesthouse. When they arrived, Ben took his bag from the back seat of the car and followed Amal up the steps to the door. Amal had gone very quiet and was visibly upset as he let them inside. Mrs Sheenan was nowhere to be seen, but there was a TV blasting from somewhere upstairs. Ben was grateful not to have to speak to anyone.

  Amal led him to the first floor, showed him Brooke’s room and announced in a shaky murmur that he needed to be alone for a while. Shuffling like an old man, he disappeared into his own room.

  Ben stood for a long time outside Brooke’s door before he eventually reached out and grasped the handle. He slowly opened the door, summoned up his strength and walked in.

  She had never been one to wear a lot of perfume, but the subtle, fresh scent in the air was so familiar that for a weird, disorientated moment or two he fully expected to find her sitting there on the bed. She wasn’t.

  Of course she wasn’t. Sickening reality closed back in on him. He shut the door, feeling numb and utterly deflated and more tired than he could remember having felt for many, many years.

  Where are you, Brooke?

  He wanted to scream it, but at that moment he would barely have had the energy to raise his voice above a whisper.

  He unslung his bag from his shoulder and laid it down with his leather jacket, then gazed around him at the room. Brooke’s travel holdall was sitting next to an armchair, unzipped. The slender reading glasses she sometimes wore at night, and a novel by an author he knew she liked, were sitting on the bedside table. Lying neatly folded on the pillow were the lightweight jogging bottoms she wore in bed, along with her favourite faded old pyjama top.

  They suddenly seemed so much more a part of her now that she wasn’t here. He reached down and stroked them with his fingertips. Closed his eyes a moment, then moved away from the bed and walked into her little ensuite bathroom. On the tiled surface by the sink were some of her things that the police hadn’t taken away: her wash bag, her little jar of face cream, and several other of those familiar little items he remembered seeing in the bathroom at Le Val and at her place in Richmond, that signalled the warmth of her presence close by and made him feel happy to be alive.

  Now there was only emptiness.

  He couldn’t stop seeing her face in his mind, thinking of the last time they’d been together. If only those stupid, senseless arguments between them had never happened. She’d have been with him at Le Val, far away from all this mess. Or maybe it would have been him here with her in Ireland instead of Amal – he might have been there to protect her when it happened.

  He had to believe she was alive. It couldn’t be any other way.

  Mustn’t be any other way.

  He looked in the oval mirror above the sink. The face that stared back at him was one he barely recognised, gaunt and pale, with a terrible look in its eyes. A sudden gushing torrent of rage welled up inside him. More than rage. Hatred. Hatred for whoever had done this, whoever had taken her like this. If they harmed her … if they did anything to her … He lashed out with his fist and his reflection distorted into a web of cracks.

  Fragments of glass tinkled down into the sink. He gazed at his bloody knuckles. There was no pain; it was as if he’d become completely detached from his physical body.

  Where are you, Brooke?

  He mopped the blood up with a piece of toilet paper, flushed it away and walked stiffly back into the bedroom. Turned off the main light and clicked on the bedside lamp. Knelt down by his bag, undid the straps, rummaged inside for his whisky flask and shook it, feeling the slosh of the liquid inside. He slumped on the edge of the bed and unscrewed the steel cap. He was about to drain most of the flask’s contents in one gulp when he stopped himself.

  No. This wasn’t the way. This wasn’t going to bring her back. He tightened the cap and tossed the flask into his bag.

  But then another thought hit him like a kick in the face and almost made him reach for the flask again.

  If it’s not about ransom, he heard Julian Maxwell’s voice say in his mind, If it’s not about ransom, what’s going on?

  And then his own reply, coming back to him like a faraway echo: You might need to re-evaluate the whole situation … You might want to consider other reasons …

  What if they’d all been getting this horribly, dreadfully wrong – him, the police, the company executives, Amal, everyone? What if their whole basic assumption was flawed, and this wasn’t about Roger Forsyte at all? What if he hadn’t been the target?

  What if the target had been Brooke?

  The idea left Ben stunned, winded. It was possible. Off-the-charts crazy, but possible, that this was some kind of reprisal against him. A sick, twisted punishment for something he’d done in his past. A relative of someone he’d killed or had put away, perhaps – had Jack Glass had a brother? – or maybe one of the many other enemies Ben had made over the years who were still out there.

  Then wouldn’t the kidnapper have wanted Ben to know the truth, just to hurt him even more? Wouldn’t they have contacted Le Val?

  Maybe they had, it occurred to him. A call could have come after he’d left. The phone could be ringing right this moment in the empty house; an email could be pinging into an unattended inbox.

  Get a grip on yourself, he thought angrily. Jeff’s there. Jeff would have told you about it.

  But the thought wouldn’t stop haunting him, and neither would the awful visions that kept circling through his head.

  ‘I’m going to find you, Brooke,’ he said out loud. ‘I’m going to …’

  His voice trailed off into a croak. He sank his head into Brooke’s pillow and clutched her clothes tightly to his face, like a child needing comfort. His vision blurred. His tears moistened the pyjama top. The pain felt like too much to bear.

  For the next hour he lay there curled up, staring at the door, praying for it to open and for Brooke to walk through it with a cheery greeting and a smile on her face. But time passed on and on, and the door stayed shut. He turned off the bedside light and went on staring into the darkness for what seemed a lifetime before he eventually slipped away into a shallow and restless state of unconsciousness.

  When Ben awoke, it was still dark. His phone was thrumming in his jeans pocket. Instantly alert, heart thumping, he turned on the light and grabbed the phone to reply. This is it, the voice said in his mind. This is when you get your payback.

  But there was nobody on the line, no mysterious voice from the past to make his worst nightmare come true. It was a text message alert.

  The text was from Kay Lynch. Ben’s heart almost stopped when he read its opening words.

  Think u need 2 know. Found bodies.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The location given in the brief message was just a few miles from the abduction spot, deep within the heart of the rugged Glenveagh National Park, in an area of lakes and valleys known as the Poisoned Glen.

  Twenty-seven frantic minutes had gone by since Ben had received Lynch’s text. Still an hour to go before the first red shards of dawn would come creeping over the hills. Racing towards the scene he saw the blue lights of the Garda vehicles through the darkness and the sheeting rain, and brought the BMW to a slithering halt inches behind them.

  On a grassy slope fifty yards from the roadside was the only building in sight, a tumbledown old stone bothy. A century or two ago the tiny primitive structure would have served as a refuge for shepherds – nowadays it was more likely to be used by tramps and drug addicts.

  Th
is was the place. Light shone from its only window. There were figures in reflective Garda vests moving in and out of the single entrance. Thick electric cables snaked down the slope, hooked up to the forensic investigation van that had been at the kidnap site the previous evening.

  ‘Brooke’s in there, isn’t she?’ Amal whispered. His eyes were red and puffy.

  ‘We don’t know that, Amal,’ Ben replied through clenched teeth. Until the last minute before setting off, he’d been resolved not to wake him up and bring him out here. He regretted his change of mind now.

  ‘It’s obvious, isn’t it? I can feel it. Oh, God.’

  Ben cut the engine and flung open his door. ‘Stay in the car.’

  ‘You must be kidding. I’m coming too.’

  ‘I said, stay in the damn car.’ Whatever was in that building, Ben didn’t want Amal to see it. He jumped out of the BMW and sprinted up the steep, slippery path towards the bothy. The building had no door, just a crude stone doorway thick with moss. Ben ran inside. The earth floor was damp-smelling from the long winter months. That wasn’t all he could smell. The place was rank with the stink of death.

  The bothy was filled with people and activity and bright lights, but they couldn’t have been there more than forty-five minutes or so. Before that it had been empty and silent. Empty, apart from its grisly occupants.

  Almost the first person Ben saw as he rushed in was Kay Lynch. She was standing near the entrance, looking drawn and pallid. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t say much in my text,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I couldn’t get away from Hanratty.’

  ‘Where are they?’ Ben said. He was breathless, but not from the fifty-yard sprint up the hill.

  ‘Over there,’ she said, motioning towards the far corner, where the forensics team were clustered around something Ben couldn’t see.

  ‘It’s not a pretty sight. Are you sure you—’

  Ben was already pushing past her. With his heart in his mouth he shoved two cops out of the way and saw what the forensics team were attending to under the white glare of their lights.