Ben hammered the truck back towards the house. Less than a minute later he was skidding to a halt in the yard, piling out without shutting the door and sprinting past the big stone farmhouse towards the lean-to garage where he stored his personal car.
The old BMW Alpina turbo was neglected and dirty, but its 4.4-litre V8 motor could get Ben where he wanted to be just about as fast as anything else on the road, especially when he was the one behind the wheel. He punched it out of the yard and down the rutted track to the security gates that shut Le Val off from the big, bad world. He left those open, too, for the contingent of gendarmerie vehicles that would soon be descending on them in force. Then he was off, heading north, shifting as aggressively as the untreated and slippery rural roads would let him.
His mind was empty, numb. There was no point in trying to make sense of what had happened. That would come later. And when he figured out who had done this…
He gripped the steering wheel. He couldn’t afford to let his grief and rage take him over. That would come later, too.
Traffic grew steadily thicker as he left the countryside behind him and joined the N13 heading towards the city. The sudden snowfall had caught a lot of people unprepared, and the road was heavily congested with sluggish bumper-to-bumper lines of vehicles. Twice he veered off onto the verge to roar by the dawdling drivers blocking his way, and forced past them with his horn blaring to warn them of his approach. People gawked at him from their car windows. He didn’t care.
A few minutes later, he left the nationale and carved his way into Cherbourg-Octeville. The hospital was located in the north of the city, not far from the port. He screeched through slippery, twisty streets, attracting more stares from drivers and pedestrians, burning through red lights and ignoring one-way systems and not giving a damn about police, until he spotted the sign with a red cross and the words ‘HÔPITAL PASTEUR URGENCES’. Moments later he swerved into the hospital car park, skidded into a space, burst out of the BMW and ran for the entrance without bothering to lock the car.
It wasn’t until Ben shoved through the doors into the hospital emergency-room reception area that he realised that his hands, face and clothes were still covered in blood and he looked like someone who’d just been dragged out of a train wreck. That probably accounted for some of the looks he’d been getting on the way here. The same expressions were on the faces of the hospital staff as they came rushing to meet him, intent on grabbing him and shoving him onto a gurney before he collapsed on the floor.
‘It’s not me. I’m not hurt,’ he explained to the nurses, putting out his bloodstained hands to ward them off him. ‘Jeff Dekker. He was brought here by helicopter. Less than an hour ago. Where is he? Is he—?’
Not dead, was all the information he could glean from any of the tight-lipped nursing personnel. A large matron kept insisting that if he would please settle down and wait, Docteur Lacombe the head surgeon would update him as soon as possible. Ben got the impression that Lacombe was deep in the middle of working on Jeff at that very moment. Which explained why the nurses were being noncommittal about the condition of the patient. Which in turn implied that things were very much in the balance and could go either way.
Ben did what they said and went to a small waiting area with banks of plastic seats and a vending machine. He sat by a window that overlooked the hospital car park and gazed out without seeing anything.
The wait was agonising. He took a few sips of eighteen-year-old single malt scotch from his old steel flask, then stared at it for a moment, thinking back to the time when it had turned a bullet that had been heading for his heart. Perhaps it could have done the same for Jeff. The thought made him want to swallow the whole contents of the flask, but he fought the urge and put it away.
He paced and sat down. Paced and sat down. The snow had stopped falling outside. The sky was leaden, threatening a downpour of rain that would thaw the streets of Cherbourg to a brown slush. Restless and badly in need of something other than alcohol to settle his nerves, he wanted to duck outside for a cigarette but worried that he might miss speaking to this Lacombe guy. After another half-hour he dialled the Le Val office number, and Tuesday snapped up the call before the first ring was over.
‘Well?’ Tuesday sounded breathless with worry.
‘Nobody wants to tell me anything much,’ Ben said. ‘I think they’re operating on him as we speak.’
‘Then there’s a chance,’ Tuesday gasped. ‘Thank Christ. When the phone rang I thought—’
Ben preferred not to dwell on what might all too well turn out to be false hopes. ‘What’s happening there?’ he interrupted.
Tuesday let out a frustrated grunt and replied all in a flurry, ‘Jesus, what isn’t happening here? Now would be a good time to rob a bank, because it seems to me every cop in Normandy’s turned up to get a piece of the action. Not long after you left, four NH-nineties landed in the field, full of guys in black. Then about thirty more vehicles rolled up. They’ve got the whole place surrounded and they’re combing through every square inch like it was the biggest terrorist incident in French history. It’s mayhem. I’ve repeated the whole story so many times I’m beginning to feel like a bloody parrot.’
‘Let them do what they have to do,’ Ben said. ‘Maybe they’ll find something.’
He very much doubted they would. More likely, the guys in black body armour would strut about feeling pumped up and hungry for Muslim extremists to gun down, then they’d eventually get bored and go home to their shoot-’em-up video games.
He asked, ‘Is Vidal still there?’
‘Overseeing his troops like he’s General Patton. There’s something else, Ben.’ Tuesday paused, sounding uncomfortable. ‘I’m really sorry. I had no choice.’
‘What?’
‘They demanded access to the armoury, and I had to let them in. They took the lot. Stripped it totally bare.’
‘What do you mean, took the lot?’
‘Every last scrap, down to the empty spare magazines. They even took the slings and bipods for the rifles. Said it was a precaution in accordance with the new anti-terror legislation. So if I tried to stand in their way, that pretty much made me a terrorist myself. They loaded everything into an armoured van and gave me a slip of paper that says it’s being kept in secure storage at a government facility until further notice. Which basically means we’re out of business for the foreseeable future. I’m sorry, Ben. If you want to fire me now, I’d understand.’
‘No, Tuesday. You did the right thing and I wouldn’t blame you for a minute, and neither will Jeff. Listen, do me a favour. Middle drawer of Jeff’s desk there in the office. There’s a tatty address book. Look under M and give me his mother’s number in Australia.’
‘Got it,’ Tuesday said after a moment, and Ben scribbled the number down on the back of his Gauloises packet. Then he remembered the other call he was going to have to make, a prospect that felt like a cold knife going into his belly. ‘Now look under C.’
‘Chantal,’ Tuesday said with a groan. ‘God, I’d forgotten all about her. The poor woman. Hold on. Yeah, there’s a mobile number.’ He read it out. ‘You want me to—?’
‘I’ll do it,’ Ben said grimly. ‘Thanks, Tuesday. I’ll keep you posted when I know anything.’ He ended the call. Then took a deep breath and made the first of the two other calls he was dreading. As the dial tone was pulsing in his ear he tried desperately to formulate what he had to say. A woman’s voice answered at the fourth ring, ten thousand miles away.
‘May I speak to Mrs Lynne Dekker?’