Kroll didnt look away from the screen. She certainly is, he replied softly. He stopped the video playback. The screen went dark. He fixed the other man with cold eyes for a second before glancing down to the notebook on the seat next to him. He tore off the top sheet and handed it to the younger man. Make the necessary arrangements, Jack, he said.
Kroll didnt look away from the screen. She certainly is, he replied softly. He stopped the video playback. The screen went dark. He fixed the other man with cold eyes for a second before glancing down to the notebook on the seat next to him. He tore off the top sheet and handed it to the younger man. Make the necessary arrangements, Jack, he said.
Chapter Seven
The village of Aston
West Oxfordshire
It was dark by the time they reached the sleepy village. Ben had the taxi drop them in the square. They bought a few provisions from the village shop and called a local taxi service to take them the two miles to Langton Hall.
The country house lay secluded in its own land, among wintry oaks and willows at the end of a long, twisty driveway. Its gables and chimney-stacks stood silhouetted against the dark blue sky, and moonlit frost glittered on the roof. The windows were in darkness. An owl hooted from a nearby tree.
Leigh unlocked the heavy oak front door and quickly punched a number into a wall panel to disable the alarm system. She turned on the lights.
Nice place. Bens voice echoed in the empty entrance hall. He looked around him, admiring the ornate wood panelling and the sweep of the wide staircase.
It will be when its all done up, she said. She shivered. Cold, though. The boilers almost as old as the rest of the place and the heating doesnt work.
No problem, he said. Ill get the fires going. Well soon warm the place up.
Thanks, Ben. Theres a pile of logs in the woodshed.
He followed her into a large stone-floored country kitchen and laid the plastic bags of shopping on a long pine table. He checked that the old-fashioned lock on the kitchen door worked, then quietly slid open a drawer and found what he was looking for. He discreetly slipped the carving knife inside his jacket.
Leigh, Im going to fetch some logs and take a look around the place. Lock the door after me.
What
Dont worry, just being cautious.
Leigh did what he said. The big iron key turned smoothly in the lock and she heard his footsteps moving away up the corridor.
She opened a bottle of village-shop wine. There were some beakers and basic cooking equipment stored in the walk-in pantry. She took a heavy cast-iron skillet down from a hook and laid it on the gas range.
She smiled to herself as she took a box of eggs out of one of the shopping bags. It was strange, having Ben Hope around her again after all these years. Shed loved him once, loved him madly enough to have thought about giving up her career for him even before it had begun.
Youll like him, Oliver had said that day. And hed been right. Her brothers new army friend wasnt like the others shed met. Shed just turned nineteen, and Benedict-as hed been introduced-was four years older. He had an easy smile and a quick mind. Hed talked to her like no other boy had ever done before. Until then shed thought love at first sight was a fairy-tale, but it had happened to her with him. It hadnt happened to her since, and she could still remember every day of those five months theyd been together.
Had he changed a lot since those days? Physically he didnt seem that different. His face was a little leaner, perhaps. A little more careworn, with more frown-lines than laugh-lines. He was still toned and in perfect physical shape. But he had changed. The Ben shed known back then had been softer and gentler. He could even seem vulnerable at times.
Not any more. Through Oliver shed heard enough about Bens life during the intervening fifteen years to know that hed seen, and perhaps done, some terrible things. Experiences like that had to leave a mark on a person. There were moments when she could see a cold kind of light in his blue eyes, a glacial hardness that hadnt been there before.
They ate sitting on the hearth-rug in the unfurnished study. It was the smallest room in the cavernous house, and Bens crackling log blaze had quickly chased the chill from the air. Firelight danced on the oak panels. In the shadowy corners of the room, packing cases and tape-sealed cardboard boxes were still piled up unopened from the move.
Fried egg butties and cheap wine, he said. You should have been a soldier.
When you work the hours I do, you learn to appreciate the quick and simple things in life, she said with a smile. The bottle between them was half-empty now and she was feeling more relaxed than she had for days. They sat in silence for a while, and she let her gaze be drawn by the hypnotic rhythm of the flames.
Ben watched her face in the firelight. He had a clear image in his mind of the last time theyd sat alone together like this, a decade and a half earlier. He and Oliver had been on leave from the army and had travelled up to mid-Wales together to the Llewellyn family home in Builth Wells. The old merchant townhouse, once grand, had by then grown tatty and neglected with the decline of Richard Llewellyns antique piano restoration business. Ben had only briefly met Leigh and Olivers father, a kindly, heavy man in his mid-sixties, with a greying beard, a face reddened by a little too much port and the sad eyes of a man widowed for six years.
It had been evening, the rain lashing down outside, wind howling through the chimney. Oliver was taking advantage of his weeks freedom to go in search ofpulchritude, as he had put it. Richard Llewellyn was up in his private study, as he always seemed to be, poring over old books and papers.
Alone downstairs, Ben had built a roaring log fire and Leigh had sat by him. Theyd talked quietly for hours. That had been the night of their first kiss. There hadnt been many.
He smiled to himself, returning to the present-watching her now, the flickering glow on her cheek. Neither time nor fame had changed her.
What are you thinking about? he said.
She turned away from the fire to look at him. Thinking about you, she said.
What about me?
Did you ever marry, find someone?
He was silent for a moment. Its hard for me, with the life I lead. I dont think Im the settling kind.
You havent changed, then.
He felt the sting of her words, but said nothing.
I hated you for a long time, she said quietly, looking into the flames. After what you did to me.
He said nothing.
Why didnt you turn up that night? she asked, looking round at him.
He sighed and paused a long time before replying. I dont know, he said. Hed thought about it so often.
I loved you, she said.
I loved you, he answered.
Did you, really?
Yes, I did.
But you loved the regiment more.
I was young, Leigh. I thought I knew what I wanted.
She looked back into the fire. I waited for you that night after the show. I was so excited. It was my debut. I thought you were in the audience. I sang my heart out for you. You said youd meet me backstage and wed go to the party together. But you never came. You just disappeared.
He didnt know what to say to her.
You really broke my heart, she said. Maybe you dont realize that.
He reached out and touched her shoulder. Ive always felt bad about what I did. Ive never forgotten it, and Ive often thought about you.
Im sorry, she said. I shouldnt drag out the past. It was a long time ago.
They sat in silence for a while. He tossed another log on the fire, gazing at the orange sparks flying up the chimney. He didnt know what more to say to her.
I miss Oliver, she said suddenly.
I miss him too, he said. I wish Id seen more of him in the last few years.
He talked about you a lot.
Ben shook his head. What the hell was he doing on that lake?
Nobody really knows, she said. The only witness to the accident was his lady companion for the evening.
Who was she?
Madeleine Laurent. Wife of some diplomat. It caused a bit of a scandal. There were people behind the scenes trying to keep the investigation under wraps. Some of the details were pretty hazy.
Tell me what happened, he said.
All I know is that apparently theyd been at a party, some black-tie affair with a bunch of important people. I dont know where it was or who else was there. If there were witnesses, maybe they didnt want to get involved.
Black ties and VIPs, Ben said. It doesnt sound like Olivers kind of party.
He went along with her. She said hed been chasing her around. The husband was away somewhere. And there was champagne. He drank a lot of it.
That does sound like him, Ben admitted.
They were dancing and drinking. Shed had quite a bit too, but not as much as him. One thing started leading to another. He wanted to get her away somewhere private. She said he kept insisting he wanted to drive her to a hotel, get a room together.
They couldnt have sneaked into a bedroom?
Apparently not.
That doesnt sound like him. Drinking and driving wasnt his style.
I didnt think so either, Leigh said. But he pranged the car on the way to the hotel. Thats true. I saw the damage.
That old MG of his?
He smashed it up pretty badly. The front was all dented in. Looked like hed hit a wall or something.
If he turned up drunk at the hotel with a damaged car, there must have been other witnesses, Ben said.
She shook her head. They never made it to the hotel. Apparently they couldnt wait. They stopped off somewhere quiet on the way.
At the lakeside?
She nodded. Her face tightened. Thats when it happened. According to the woman, he thought itd be a laugh to have a skate on the ice.
That really doesnt sound like him.
I know, she said. But it looks like thats what happened. He got this crazy idea in his head and he went out on the ice. She thought it was funny at first. Then she got bored and went back to the car. She fell asleep on the seat.
Drunk enough to pass out, he said. But she remembered a lot of detail afterwards.
Im only telling you what she claimed happened. Theres no evidence that it didnt happen the way she said it did.
He went out on the ice before or after the sex?
She said it never went that far.
So he was too horny to wait to get to the hotel, but then he decides to go skating first?
I know, she said. I thought about that too. It doesnt make a lot of sense. But I guess if hed been drinking-
He sighed. OK. Tell me the rest.
She woke up shivering with the cold. She reckoned shed been out of it for about half an hour. Leigh paused, sighed, closed her eyes, sipped a little more wine. And that was it. She was alone. He hadnt come back from the ice. There was no sign of him. Just a hole where hed gone through.