The Babylon Idol. Scott Mariani

roadside slush. Chantal sat with her head bowed and her face in her hands all the way, not speaking. Ben didn’t know what to say to her. He was having a hard time dealing with his own emotions, and in the end he fell into silence too.

      The short winter day was darkening by the time they reached Saint-Acaire. When the Alpina pulled up outside her little terraced house on the edge of the village, Chantal got out and ran to her door and disappeared inside without a word. The door slammed.

      Ben sat for a moment, lit a Gauloise and then drove on.

      When, a few minutes later, he turned off the road onto the innocuous farm track that led to Le Val’s entrance, he found its floodlit security gates partially blocked by a TV crew van and alive with a throng of reporters armed with cameras and microphones and clamouring for details about the shooting. A cop car was in attendance nearby but the gendarmes seemed content just to smoke and watch from a distance as Serge and Adrien, from inside the locked gates, were kept busy holding the noisy crowd at bay, repeating ‘No comment, no comment’ to a thousand insistent questions fired at them like bullets.

      Ben slipped the BMW through the chaos, as thankful for the tinted glass shielding him from flashing cameras as he was for the tall fence and barbed wire keeping the zombie horde from invading the private sanctuary inside.

      Once he’d made it through the gates and down the track to the heart of the compound, Le Val had never seemed to him so empty and desolate. The fleet of police vehicles had all gone. Jeff’s Ford Ranger was still where Ben had left it. Parked behind the pickup was the old Land Rover, and behind that was a little Renault Clio hatchback he didn’t recognise, but he was too tired and upset to think about it.

      Tuesday must have seen the approaching lights of the BMW. He stood silhouetted in the glow from the open farmhouse door as Ben stepped out of the car and walked up the steps. Tuesday’s face was drawn and grim, and became even more so when Ben gave him the latest update on Jeff. They spoke for a few moments in the kitchen, where a bottle of scotch and a half-empty glass rested on the table. It wasn’t like Tuesday to drink, but he’d made some inroads into the bottle already. Ben fetched down another glass from the cupboard, filled it to the brim and knocked half of it down in a long, stinging swallow that made his eyes water.

      ‘We’re all over the TV news,’ Tuesday said. ‘It’s a bloody circus. I’ve given up watching.’

      ‘What do they know?’

      ‘Just that some British guy got shot. None of the details have been released yet. But watch this space. This is going to be terrible for the business.’

      ‘To hell with the business,’ Ben said. He slumped at the kitchen table with his drink. It was only now that the full reality of the situation was beginning to kick in. It would be a long night. And a long day to follow. The first of many long days.

      Tuesday was shifting about uncomfortably as though he wanted to say something but didn’t know how to put it. Ben looked at him. ‘What aren’t you telling me?’

      Tuesday pointed in the direction of the living room. ‘You, um, you have a, erm, visitor.’

      Ben’s heart fell, remembering the strange car outside. Tuesday’s nervousness and the way he suddenly made himself scarce a moment later, told him all he needed to know. Left alone in the kitchen, Ben refilled his glass. He walked slowly from the room. Paused outside the living-room door. It was ajar and he could see a dim light on inside.

      He pushed the door silently open and stepped through it.

      She was standing with her back to the doorway. Her rich auburn hair was shorter than it had been last time he’d seen her. The sight of her brought a whole new flood of emotions that Ben didn’t know if he could handle, not at this moment.

      ‘Hello, Brooke,’ he said.

       Chapter 8

      She turned. Apart from her hairstyle, she hadn’t changed. She was as achingly beautiful as ever. More, even, but maybe that was just because he hadn’t seen her in such a very long time. But there was no smile. Not that he’d expected one from her, even on a better day than today. Her green eyes, vivid even in the dim light of the single side lamp, were moist with tears.

      ‘I came as soon as I heard,’ she said.

      Brooke was officially still on the books as a member of the Le Val team, although she hadn’t worked there lately. Tuesday must have called her earlier that day. Thanks for letting me know, Ben thought.

      ‘What happened?’ she said. ‘Who did this?’

      He shook his head. ‘I wish I knew what to tell you.’ A long mournful silence filled the room. He took a step towards her. ‘It’s good to see you again,’ he said, because he didn’t know what else to say. In any case, it was a lie. Seeing her again, especially now, like this, was indescribably painful.

      ‘Whatever,’ she murmured.

      ‘How are you?’ It sounded so lame.

      She shrugged. ‘There isn’t much to say, Ben. I’m working. Living in London again. Life goes on. I’m with someone else now.’

      Ben said, ‘I hope you’re happy.’

      ‘Don’t try so hard to sound like you mean it.’ Her voice rose a tone, cracking out at him like a whiplash. Then she paused, softened a little, let out a sigh. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Yes, I’m happy. I think I am. That is, I was, until today, until I heard about Jeff. This is so awful.’

      He hesitated, knowing that the question bursting to come out was the wrong thing to say, especially at this moment. But then he thought, Fuck it, and let it out anyway. ‘Please don’t tell me you’re back with that prick Rupert Shannon again.’

      She stiffened. ‘Give me some credit, will you?’

      ‘That’s something, at least. Then who is he?’ Ben asked, knowing very well how badly he was crossing the line. But he’d committed himself now and there was no turning back.

      Brooke folded her arms across her chest and gave him a piercing look. ‘What I do and who I see is my business. You took yourself out of my life when you walked away. Your choice, Ben. Live with it.’

      He had been living with it, not always successfully. ‘Yeah,’ he muttered. ‘I’m sorry I asked. It was wrong.’

      ‘Is Jeff going to be okay?’

      ‘They had to induce a coma.’

      Brooke’s face fell. She’d known Jeff for years, going back to when she’d first come to lecture classes at Le Val as a visiting expert on hostage psychology. Dr Brooke Marcel, one of the leaders in her clinical field. One of the great lost loves of Ben’s life. Letting her go the way he had was his biggest regret – it hurt him every day, like an old war wound that could never quite heal.

      ‘I booked a room at the Manoir in Valognes,’ she said. ‘I’ll drive up to the hospital in the morning, but then I have to rush back to London for work.’

      ‘Thanks for stopping by.’

      ‘I don’t know why … I just thought …’ Her voice trailed off, and then she shook her head. ‘God, what a mess. Who could have done this to him? I can’t understand. I mean, Jeff never hurt anybody.’

      Ben thought about that. You couldn’t be the high-level military operator Jeff Dekker had once been without hurting anyone, or at least being involved in a good deal of it. Special Forces made enemies around the world and there was no shortage of folks who would go to all kinds of lengths to get back at them if they could. But the shroud of secrecy around the Special Boat Service, Jeff’s old unit, was no different from the impenetrable cloak that protected the identities of operatives within Ben’s own former 22 SAS regiment. Practically nobody on the outside knew who these