him.’
‘I don’t understand. How could someone like him get into this situation?’
‘Did he ever mention anything to you about a sword?’
Jude looked baffled. ‘No? What sword?’
‘This was a particular one. A sacred sword.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Right now,’ Ben said, ‘I have absolutely no idea.’
Jude shook his head. ‘I’d definitely have remembered if he’d mentioned something like that. He never said anything to me. Did Mum know about it too?’
‘She knew very little,’ Ben said. ‘Only what she told me, that he was writing a book about it. There were at least three people involved in the research project. Did you know about his trips to America and Israel?’
‘I knew he went there. That’s about it.’
‘So he never talked about his reasons for going? People he travelled with, or people he might have met up with there?’
‘We never talk… I mean we never talked about anything to do with his work, or religion, or any of that stuff,’ Jude said. ‘We always ended up arguing about it, and Mum would get upset…’ His voice trailed off. He wasn’t far from tears.
Ben gave him a moment, then asked, ‘How about somebody called Lalique? Fabrice Lalique? Did your dad ever mention that name?’
Jude sniffed. ‘No. Who is he?’
‘He was a Catholic priest in Millau in the south of France,’ Ben said. ‘He and your dad went to Israel together in connection with this sacred sword business.’
‘Well, if we’re going to France, why don’t we ask this Lalique guy what’s going on?’
‘Because he’s dead, Jude. He fell off a bridge. Or was pushed.’
Jude swallowed hard. ‘So these other people who were involved in this thing with Dad. Are they… are they all dead?’
‘They weren’t yesterday, when one of them phoned the house. An American called Wes.’
‘You talked to him? What did he say?’
‘He wasn’t very forthcoming,’ Ben said. ‘He sounded scared. I think they’re after him too.’
‘And now they’re after us,’ Jude said. ‘But I don’t know anything about this! I’ve never even heard of this sacred sword thing before.’
Ben looked at him. ‘First, they don’t know that. Second, you’re a witness now. Believe me, Jude. I know these kinds of people. If they find you, they’ll torture you until they’re satisfied that you know nothing, and then they’ll kill you.’
Jude swallowed again, harder. ‘But why? What the hell is so important about some crummy old sword?’
‘That’s what I’m going to try my best to find out, starting with a visit to Saint-Christophe, the village near Millau where this Lalique lived.’
‘While I sit tight at your place in Normandy, is that it?’
Ben shook his head. ‘I’ve changed my mind about that. These people must know who I am by now. It’d be easy for them to find you at Le Val. All they’d have to do is look up my business website.’
‘So where are you taking me?’
‘Paris,’ Ben said.
‘You have a place in Paris as well?’
‘Just an apartment where you can hole up for a while.’
‘What are you, a millionaire or something?’
‘Hardly that,’ Ben said. But Victor Jeunet, the place’s former owner, had been one many times over. Some years earlier, his wealth had made him the target of kidnappers who’d snatched his child for ransom. When the money had been duly paid, a small finger had arrived in the post with a demand for five times more. Soon afterwards, Ben had become involved in his capacity as a ‘crisis response consultant’. The child had come home with nine fingers, but safe. The kidnappers hadn’t fared so well. The overjoyed Jeunet had given Ben the apartment as a gift, and for a time it had become his safehouse in Paris while taking on kidnap and ransom jobs across Europe and beyond. It had never been registered in his name. Nobody would be able to find Jude there.
‘Paris sounds good,’ Jude said, nodding. ‘Great. Cool.’
Ben heard the phoney tone in Jude’s voice and knew he had a problem. It wasn’t the security of the safehouse. It was a question of whether he could trust this young hothead to stay put for five minutes while he tried to get to the bottom of this. Somehow, he didn’t think so.
Chapter Thirty
‘How can they have disappeared? ’ Penrose Lucas shouted, thumping on the desk. He was still bleary from being woken up in the middle of the night with this appalling news. He slumped in his desk chair, hair awry, his satin dressing gown hanging open to reveal the butt of the. 357 Magnum protruding from the waistband of his boxer shorts. He’d now taken to sleeping with the gun at night, clutching it as he dreamed.
‘That’s all I can tell you.’ Cutter replied. ‘Napier called me to say they’d followed Hope to Cornwall. That’s where they planned to take him out. There’s been nothing since. None of them are answering their phones.’ His voice was showing the strain of worry. ‘If Vince Napier hasn’t got back to me, something’s wrong.’
‘You sent six men after one and you tell me something’s wrong?! You told me Napier was one of your top people!’ Penrose screeched.
‘He is,’ Cutter said, resting his balled fists on the desktop and looking Penrose in the eye. The dressing on Cutter’s brow had been removed, showing the nasty gash that Ben Hope had administered with the shotgun barrel. The split lip hadn’t fully healed yet, and it hurt when he talked. He was still fully dressed, too edgy to sleep.
‘Or was!’ Penrose yelled. The migraine punched through his head like a spear blade. He screwed his eyes shut and dug the balls of his thumbs into his temples, thinking of all the money and treats he’d expended on these men, only for them to be snuffed out just like that, thanks to this Ben Hope. It was becoming a nightmare.
‘And I suppose you have no idea where Hope is now?’ Penrose grated. He glanced across at O’Neill, who just shook his head. Like Cutter, O’Neill hadn’t been to bed that night.
‘We’ll find him,’ Cutter insisted.
‘That’s what you said about Holland, too,’ Penrose snapped. ‘And even if you do find him, what then?’
‘I’m calling in more men,’ Cutter said. He’d already made the call to his old associate Linus Gant. They’d worked together in Somalia. ‘But it’s going to cost more. They don’t come cheap.’
Penrose stared at him. ‘Cheap? You call what I’ve been paying you cheap?’
‘How much more?’ O’Neill asked.
‘A grand a day. That’s the new price for all of us.’
‘Fine, fine,’ Penrose said, waving his arms. ‘Whatever it takes.’
But O’Neill was stony-faced. ‘I feel we’re drifting off target here,’ he ventured after a moment’s silence. ‘In my opinion it’s time to re-evaluate the whole plan. This is not in line with our objective. Which I thought had been made clear to you.’
Penrose’s face paled white. He bared his teeth. There was a fleck of foam at the corner of his mouth as he tore himself away from the desk, paced across the room towards O’Neill and stabbed the air with a trembling finger. ‘Are you questioning my orders?’
As well as your rational judgement, O’Neill wanted to reply. But he could see the fire burning in Penrose’s bulging eyes and was watching the hand that might at any second dart inside the folds of the satin gown and come out shooting. He thought of his wife back home in London, and said nothing.
Penrose glared at him in disgust, then whipped back around to face Cutter. ‘You tell your contacts I’ll pay twelve hundred a day, damn it. And I’m offering a million bounty to whoever brings me Ben Hope’s head on a plate.’
