Valley of Death

by Scott Mariani

  Tuesday shrugged. ‘Brooke got me interested in it. We were talking about psychology last time she was here.’

  The name Brooke was one no longer mentioned too often at the table, or for that matter anywhere around the compound at Le Val. It referred to Dr Brooke Marcel, formerly Ben’s own fiancée, before things had gone bad there, too. Ben’s friends knew that it was a sensitive topic to raise. Likewise, nobody would have dared to mention the fact that the situation with Ben and Sandrine was like history repeating itself. The bullet that had killed the relationship between Ben and Brooke had been the sudden reappearance of an old flame, Roberta Ryder. Nothing had happened there, either, though Brooke hadn’t seen it that way. Then again, maybe Ben’s failure to turn up for their wedding had had something to do with it.

  Tuesday regretted his slip the instant he’d blurted out Brooke’s name. He gave Ben a rueful look. ‘Sorry. It just came out. Jeff’s fault.’

  ‘How’s it my fault?’ Jeff demanded.

  ‘You asked me. I answered.’

  ‘How was I to know what you were going to come out with? How can anyone know what you’ll say next?’

  ‘It’s okay,’ Ben said, to quell the tensions before Jeff’s foul mood made things escalate into a heated debate. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  All these names from the past, all these lost loves, all these bittersweet memories. Ben sometimes felt as though his whole life path was just a trail of destruction, sadness and remorse. It was little comfort to know he wasn’t the only one. He wished that their conversation hadn’t taken such a downward turn. Perhaps it was time to open another bottle of wine, or get out the whisky.

  Before Ben could decide which, Storm the German shepherd suddenly uncoiled himself from the stone floor at his master’s feet, planted himself bolt upright facing the window and began barking loudly. The lights of a vehicle swept the yard outside. There was the sound of a car door.

  ‘Hello, the GIGN boys are back awfully early,’ Jeff said, looking at his watch. It was shortly after seven, only just gone dark outside. Nobody had expected Ferreira’s crew back until close to midnight, once they’d had their fill of junk food and cheap beer.

  ‘I guess they were less than impressed with the night life in Valognes,’ Tuesday said with a wry grin. ‘Welcome to the sticks, fellas.’

  The GIGN guys drove a monster crew-cab truck with enough lights to fry a rabbit crossing the road. Ben turned to look out of the window. It looked like the headlamps of a regular car outside.

  ‘It’s not them.’

  Jeff frowned. ‘We expecting anyone else?’

  Tuesday said, ‘Not that I know of.’

  Unannounced visitors at this or any time were a rarity at the remote farmhouse, not least because the only entrance to the fenced compound was a gatehouse manned twenty-four-seven by Le Val’s security guys, who wouldn’t let in any stranger without first radioing ahead to the house to check it was okay.

  There was a soft, hesitant knock at the front door. Ben said, ‘Let’s go and find out who the mystery visitor is.’ He stubbed out his Gauloise, rose from the table, walked out of the kitchen and down the oak-panelled hallway. He flipped a switch for the yard lights, then opened the door.

  The mystery visitor standing on the doorstep was a woman. Her face was shaded under the brim of a denim baseball cap. The yard lights were bright behind her, silhouetting her shape. Medium height, slender in a sporty, toned kind of way. She was wearing dark jeans and a lightweight leather jacket and had a handbag on a strap around one shoulder. Her auburn hair caught the light as it ruffled in the cool, gentle October evening breeze. Her body language was tense and stiff, as if her being here was more out of obligation than choice.

  Behind her, a taxicab was parked across the cobbled yard, its motor idling. The courtesy light was on inside and the taxi driver was settling down to read a paper.

  But Ben wasn’t looking at him. He stared at the woman. He was aware that his mouth had dropped open, but for a few speechless moments couldn’t do anything about it.

  At last, he was able to find the words. At any rate, one word.

  ‘Brooke?’

  Chapter 3

  The woman made no reply. She stared back at Ben, as though she was as surprised as he was. The moment he’d said it, he realised he was wrong. The way the cap half-shaded her face under the bright glow of the yard lights had tricked him. But the resemblance to Brooke Marcel was stunning nonetheless. The security guys must have been fooled by it too, and just waved her through. In happier times, Brooke had been a very frequent visitor to Le Val and often stayed there for extended periods.

  ‘It’s Phoebe,’ the woman said, self-consciously. ‘Are you Ben? You must be Ben.’

  ‘Yes, I’m Ben Hope,’ he replied, somewhat thrown off balance by her presence. ‘But who are you? I don’t know any Phoebe.’

  ‘Phoebe Kite. Brooke’s sister. Sorry, I should have said. I’m a little bit nervous, coming here like this.’

  Now it made sense. They’d never met, but Ben suddenly remembered Brooke mentioning an elder sister with whom she was often confused. As the details came back to him, he recalled that Phoebe was some kind of yoga coach – no, a Pilates instructor – who made buckets of money teaching celebrity clients how to tie themselves in knots. Left ankle behind right ear, big toe to tip of nose without bending your knee, that kind of thing.

  Phoebe lived in Hampstead or some such jet-setter part of London with her husband Marshall Kite, a millionaire stockbroker and director of a large firm called Kite Investments. Now, him, Ben had crossed paths with before, on one memorable occasion. That was another story.

  As for why Brooke’s sister should have suddenly landed on his doorstep out of the blue, however, Ben was at a total loss. He said, ‘There’s no need to be nervous.’

  ‘I hope I haven’t turned up at a bad time. It’s just … well, it’s—’

  ‘Not at all,’ he said, still baffled, then realised that he was keeping her standing on the doorstep. ‘Please, won’t you come inside.’

  He ushered her in the door, catching a whiff of perfume as she passed. Whatever brand the fashionable rich were wearing these days. Ben knew little of these things.

  As Ben escorted his visitor up the hallway, Jeff stuck his head through the kitchen door to see what was what, and looked bewildered by the sight of the strange woman in the house. Ben gave him a look that said, ‘It’s okay, I’ve got it.’ Jeff retreated back inside and shut the door.

  Ben led Phoebe Kite towards the living room. It was a part of the house where he spent little time personally, preferring the cosiness of the farmhouse kitchen and its proximity to the wine rack and whisky cupboard. But he sensed that she wanted to talk to him in private. The presence of two other men, especially a slightly inebriated Jeff Dekker, would only make her more edgy. He could feel the tension emanating from her, like a crackle of static electricity in the air.

  ‘This is nice,’ she said distractedly as he showed her into the room and flipped on a light switch.

  ‘Please, take a seat,’ he said, motioning at the sofa he never sat on, opposite the big-screen TV he never watched. Idle relaxation wasn’t a big part of his lifestyle. ‘Can I offer you a drink?’

  Under the soft lighting of the living room side lamps, she looked more uncannily like her sister than ever. She perched on the edge of the sofa, eyes downcast, knees and feet together with her hands clasped in her lap and the handbag still looped over her shoulder. Uptight.

  She replied, ‘No, thank you, I’m fine.’

  ‘What about your taxi outside? You want me to send him away? Wherever it is you have to return to tonight, I’m happy to drive you there myself.’

  She made a thin-lipped smile. ‘That’s very kind. But he can wait.’

  ‘Whatever you prefer.’ Ben moved across to an armchair and sat, so as not to stand over her. Back when he’d worked as a freelancer he’d been used to dealing with a lot of extremely, and understandab
ly, nervous clients. He was good at putting them at their ease. He smiled. In his most reassuring tone he said, ‘Now, you’ve clearly come a long way to see me, so I get the impression it must be for an important reason.’

  She nodded. ‘It is. Terribly important.’

  ‘Then how about you tell me what this is all about?’

  Phoebe Kite looked up at him, and for the first time he could see the depth of the distress in her eyes. Green eyes, pure emerald, so much like Brooke’s that it was almost painful for Ben to return her gaze.

  Phoebe Kite said, ‘I need your help.’

  When people said that to Ben, it was never a trivial request. In his line of work, it had always tended to mean that something very, very serious and life-threatening had happened.

  ‘I gathered as much. Then what can I do for you?’

  She shifted in her seat. Covered her mouth and gave a little cough. ‘Or perhaps I should say, we need your help.’

  ‘We? As in, you and your husband Marshall?’

  ‘No, I’m fine,’ she said. ‘Marshall’s … well, he’s Marshall. He’s always embroiled in some business dispute or other. But we’re not in any real trouble. Not your kind of trouble. Sorry, that came out wrong. I meant—’

  ‘I understand. It’s okay. But tell me, if this isn’t about you—’

  ‘It’s about Brooke,’ she said in a voice taut with emotion, and Ben felt an icy blade sink all the way through his guts and pin him to the armchair.

  ‘Something’s happened to Brooke?’ When he said it, the words sounded remote and far away, as though someone else had spoken them. He was suddenly numb.

  Phoebe nodded agitatedly and started chewing her lip. Her hands were clasped so tightly in her lap that her fingers were pinched bloodless and white. ‘Yes. No. I mean, sort of.’

  Ben stared at her and said, ‘Sort of what?’

  ‘What I’m trying to say is that something awful has happened. Not to Brooke personally. To her husband.’

  Chapter 4

  The mixed emotions that flooded through Ben were polarised to opposite extremes. At the same time as the relief melted away the acute terror of something having happened to Brooke, Phoebe’s words were a slap in the face that actually made him flinch.

  Brooke, married. Even though their relationship had ended a long time ago now, the idea of it was like being whipped by nettles.

  The involuntary thought passed through his mind: Please don’t let it be Rupert Shannon. Long before she and Ben had got together, Brooke had had a brief involvement with the pumped-up, Porsche-driving, self-adoring buffoon who’d managed to push himself up the ranks of the British military thanks to lofty family connections.

  If she was back with him, there truly was no God after all.

  On the other hand, if something nasty had befallen Rupert Shannon, maybe there was a God, and it was time for Ben to start praying to Him again.

  Ben shoved that unworthy thought out of his mind, swallowed hard and said, ‘I didn’t know she was married.’

  Phoebe nodded. ‘Oh, yes, for a while now. I think you know her husband. Amal Ray?’

  Ben remembered Amal well. He’d been a friend and former neighbour of Brooke’s, dating back to when she’d had an apartment in Richmond, Surrey. Amal had been an aspiring playwright who somehow seemed able to maintain a leisured lifestyle, despite having no job and zero theatrical successes to his name. He was likeable in a neurotic sort of way, bookish and nervy, the kind of guy who looked as though he was rushing around even when he was standing still. Ben had always suspected that Amal harboured a secret admiration for Brooke that went beyond the bounds of friendship, though he’d never have imagined it could be reciprocal. He seemed like the last man on earth she’d be drawn to. Brooke, so full of passion, who loved excitement, thrived on the thrill of the challenge and could handle herself in a difficult spot. He couldn’t imagine two people more different. The idea of them together was unthinkable.

  But Ben wasn’t about to let his deeply hurt personal feelings stand in the way of his concern for a friend in trouble. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Amal’s been kidnapped.’

  ‘Kidnapped?’ Ben was genuinely amazed. The idea of innocent people being snatched off the streets or from their homes was hardly anything new to him. For years after quitting the military, he’d worked on the right side of the booming kidnap and ransom industry, liberating victims and dispensing to the bad guys the fate they had coming. He, of all people, knew how widespread and pernicious the abduction trade was.

  But the thought of Amal Ray falling victim to it seemed crazy. The guy fitted the profile of a kidnap victim about as well as he filled the bill as a potential life partner for a woman like Brooke.

  Phoebe nodded. ‘That’s why I’m here. Because that’s what you do, isn’t it? Help people in that sort of situation?’

  Ben could have replied, ‘Used to do.’ Instead he asked, ‘When did this happen?’

  ‘Eight days ago.’

  ‘Where, in London?’

  ‘No, in India. That’s where he’s from.’

  ‘He moved back there?’ Brooke, living the married life in India. It was hard to imagine.

  ‘No, they still live in London. Amal was on a trip back to Delhi when it happened.’

  ‘Okay,’ Ben said. ‘What’s the deal? How much are the kidnappers asking for?’

  Identifying the motive for the crime, which ninety-nine per cent of the time was financial, was a vital first step. It also offered a reasonable indication that the kidnappers intended to keep their victim alive, at least until they got their hands on the cash. After that, it could go in all kinds of ways. Extremely unpleasant ones, for the victims and their loved ones.

  ‘They’re not,’ she said.

  Ben looked at her. ‘You mean there’s been no ransom demand? Not a letter, or a phone call, or an email, in eight days?’

  She shook her head. ‘No contact at all. Nothing.’

  Ben pursed his lips, thinking hard. This wasn’t just unusual. It was bad. Even worse than the typical kidnap situation. Because it deviated from the set pattern. The longer kidnappers held their victims, the higher the risk of being caught. Plus, they weren’t interested in playing nursemaid. They were only in it for quick gains. Hence, things tended to move quickly, with the first ransom demand being issued within twenty-four hours, often less. If families paid up too readily, the first demand was invariably followed by a second, bleeding them for more.

  But no ransom demand at all was weird. Ben paused a moment then said, ‘So we don’t even know why Amal was taken, let alone by whom?’

  She shook her head again. ‘No, he’s simply vanished. Just like Kabir.’

  ‘Kabir?’

  ‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘He’s disappeared, too. Three weeks ago. It all started with him.’

  ‘I think you’d better explain. I’m not following.’

  Phoebe sighed. ‘I’m sorry. It’s all so complicated that I can barely keep up with it myself. Kabir is Kabir Ray. Amal’s younger brother, an archaeologist in Delhi.’

  ‘And Kabir was kidnapped too?’

  ‘Not exactly. He and two of his work colleagues were attacked. It happened in some remote part of India, miles and miles from anywhere. His colleagues were shot dead.’

  This was sounding more serious now, and getting stranger by the second. Ben had a hundred questions, but kept quiet and let her go on.

  Phoebe said, ‘The local police there think Kabir was killed along with them, but there was no sign of his body, only theirs. After days and days of frantically worrying and hearing nothing new, Amal flew out there himself to try to find out what had happened to his brother – talk to the police, piece together clues or whatever. Next thing, this dreadful kidnapping. A gang of masked men snatched him right off the street and bundled him into a van. Brooke was with him. It happened right in front of her. Poor Brooke. Poor Amal.’

  Ben felt his stomach fill with butterflies
. ‘Was Brooke hurt?’

  ‘No, but it’s so awful.’ Phoebe plucked a tissue from her pocket and started dabbing at her eyes, which had turned pink and begun streaming tears as she talked. ‘I don’t know what to make of it. I’m at my wits’ end. Mr Hope—’

  ‘You can call me Ben.’

  She sniffed, nodded. ‘Ben – please say you’ll help her find out who did this and bring Amal back to her safe and sound. She’s in a terrible state.’

  Ben was trying to make sense of all this. A kidnapping with no ransom demand. A deadly shooting in another part of the country. He was thinking reprisals, enemies, someone with a grudge against the family. Or had the brothers been into something that put them in danger?

  He asked, ‘Do the police see the two disappearances as connected?’

  ‘As far as I know, no. They seem to think bandits were responsible for what happened to Kabir and his friends. That part of India is crawling with them, apparently. But not Delhi. I mean, it’s a modern, safe city. Like London.’

  Ben looked at her and wondered how anyone could be so disconnected from reality. He said, ‘So as far as the authorities are concerned, these are two separate, coincidental events.’

  She nodded. ‘That’s what Mr Prajapati seems to believe, too.’

  ‘Who’s Mr Prajapati?’

  ‘He’s supposedly the best private investigator in the capital. Brooke employed him to help search for Amal. She doesn’t think the police are doing enough.’

  ‘I see.’

  Phoebe gazed at him imploringly with her wet, bruised-looking eyes. ‘I’m begging you. After all she’s told me about you in the past, your military background, your experience with kidnapped children, the amazing things you’ve done for so many people, I know that if anyone can find out who’s behind this horrible thing and bring Amal back home, it’s you.’

  Chapter 5

  Ben leaned back and thought about it for a minute. His past history, both before and after he’d quit the regiment to go freelance, wasn’t a subject for open discussion. SAS guys were famously, and justifiably, cagey in the extreme. Partly out of pure habit, partly because they were strictly bound by the Official Secrets Act, and partly to protect themselves and their families from being targeted for reprisal attacks. He didn’t like the things he’d done being talked about. But he also knew that Brooke was discreet and would have revealed only the broadest outline of the facts to her sister.