The Babylon Idol. Scott Mariani

wouldn’t survive the first battery discharge.

      Ben dialled Pascal’s landline number. He wasn’t surprised when it rang and rang, but it didn’t allay his worry much either. Le Val to Saint-Jean was an eight-hour drive that Ben was prepared to make if he got no response that night.

      In the meantime, he had one more name to check on the list.

      Ben had lost contact long ago with the dusky, black-haired history professor Anna Manzini. The last time he’d seen her had been in the private hospital room, filled with the scent of scores of red and white roses, where she’d been recuperating after the violent assault by Franco Bozza that had nearly killed her. Ben had gone there to say goodbye and tell her how sorry he was that she’d become involved. Even bruised up from the attack, with a dressing on her right cheek where Bozza had slashed her with his knife, she’d managed to look beautiful.

      That day, Anna had told him she’d had enough of France and was going back to live in Italy to take up her old university professorship. Her last whispered words to him, as he’d sat on her bedside and she kissed him tenderly on the cheek, had been: ‘If you ever find yourself in Florence, you must give me a call.’

      Ben hadn’t found himself in Florence since then, and he didn’t have a number for her in any case. Returning to the computer, he Googled the Pagine Bianche, the white pages online phone directory for Italy. When the website came up he entered MANZINI and FIRENZE into a search box and punched TROVA. The computer came up with ‘30 Risultati trovati’, lots of Manzinis but not the one he was looking for. Unlisted. Damn.

      Next he brought up the Florence University website and clicked open the faculty page to check through the list of academic staff. Unlikely that the university would divulge the phone details of faculty members, but there might be an email contact.

      He found neither, because Anna Manzini was no longer listed there. Instead, he found her on a separate page for former faculty members, which gave no details at all except her name, department and the dates of her service. She’d left Florence University nearly two years ago.

      It looked as though he’d lost her trail, until a new idea came to him. Anna had always been more than just an academic; she was a successful writer too, which was what had brought her to live in France in the first place, where she’d been researching a new project on the Cathars. ‘Who knows?’ she’d said to Ben during that last meeting. ‘Perhaps one day I’ll finish my book.’ When he widened his online search on her, Ben discovered her author website and found that she’d not only finished it, but that it had been a bestseller – the first of several successful works of historical non-fiction she’d churned out in the last few years. Her latest biography of the mystic, visionary, and polymath, Hildegard of Bingen, had sold quarter of a million copies.

      Anna’s picture beamed at him from the screen. She’d been forty-two when he’d known her, but looked thirty-eight. She seemed not to have aged a day since. Either thanks to the wonders of plastic surgery, or else maybe the miracle of Photoshop, there wasn’t a trace of a scar from Usberti’s attempt to kill her. But selling a truckload of books wasn’t going to protect her from this renewed threat. Ben had to warn her, and fast.

      Her author website gave no email address or social media handle, just a generic form. Frustrated, he filled it in, giving his mobile number and a brief note saying it was vital that she contacted him immediately. All he could do then was hope she’d respond.

      He’d been sitting in the office far too long. The last thing he did before leaving was to try Pascal’s number again – to no avail.

      ‘Damn,’ he muttered. Then there was nothing else for it.

      ‘Let’s go,’ he said to Storm. The dog followed him as he sprinted back to the house. He ran upstairs to Tuesday’s room and banged on the door. Tuesday answered. The sound of Levi Roots’ reggae music was coming from his stereo in the background, but it didn’t seem to be cheering Tuesday up. He looked even glummer than before.

      ‘You can come out now. Brooke’s gone,’ Ben said.

      ‘I only wanted to give you guys some space.’

      ‘So we could rip each other’s guts out in private. Thanks. Listen, Tues. Remember I said about you having to hold the fort here? Well, you’re going to have to hold it a little longer. There’s been a development and I have to go.’

      ‘Go where?’ Tuesday said, blinking.

      ‘I’ll call you from the road,’ Ben replied. ‘Any news about Jeff, any news about anything at all, keep me updated.’

      Tuesday said he would. Without another word, Ben hurried to his own quarters on the top floor of the rambling old house. It was a small, simple space, which he kept uncluttered with a minimum of belongings, as neat as a military dorm. He rummaged through his cupboard, then grabbed his battered green canvas bag. The old army haversack was permanent home to various items that tended to come in handy when Ben was on his travels, such as his mini-Maglite torch with LED upgrade for when he found himself in dark spots, and a roll of super-strong duct tape that was useful for anything from trussing up captives to making improvised field dressings. Ben stuffed in a couple of changes of underwear, two pairs of Helikon winter socks, the same ones the Norwegian Army used, a spare pair of black Levi’s and a heavy denim shirt identical to the one he was already wearing. From a box on the dresser he took a thick roll of cash without counting it, wrapped it up with his passport inside a double skin of two plastic Ziploc bags and tucked the package in on top of his spare clothes. Then he jammed in two packs of Gauloises, his whisky flask, and a can of fluid for his lighter.

      Finally, there was the other item he kept hidden under the loose floorboard at the foot of the single bed: one piece of hardware that the anti-terror cops couldn’t confiscate, because no official knew it even existed. The nine-millimetre Taurus automatic had belonged to a Romanian drug dealer called Dracul, before Ben had commandeered the handgun as a trophy of war. He snicked a full magazine of Federal +P hollowpoints into its butt, cocked it and locked it and tucked it into the bag where he could get to it quickly. Because in situations like this, it was a lot better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it.

      Three minutes later, Ben was jumping into the Alpina, flinging his bag onto the passenger seat, firing up the engine with a throaty blast and gunning the car out of Le Val’s yard.

      Eight hours to Father Pascal’s village of Saint-Jean. He aimed to make it there in seven.

       Chapter 12

      Ben drove hard and fast through the night. Rain and sleet battered his windscreen, turned to snow for a while around Orléans, and then petered out again as he hammered southwards. He chain-smoked his way through the rest of his current pack of Gauloises, then broke into a fresh one. The strong, unfiltered cigarettes did little to settle his tension; the frenetic modern jazz station blasting from the Alpina’s sound system didn’t help much either.

      Approaching Bourges, running low on fuel and energy, he pulled off the motorway into an aire de service. The night was chilly and damp. After he’d finished filling the tank, out of habit he parked the car in a corner of the rest area car park where it was shaded under the trees from the lights. He took his pistol from his bag and slipped it into his belt, behind the right hip where it was hidden by his jacket. Then he locked up the car and walked to the nearby all-night café and shop to get something to eat. He felt hollow and weary, yet jumpy and agitated. More conscious than usual of the hard steel lump of the gun nestling against the small of his back, he walked wide of any corners or doorways where an attacker could suddenly leap out. None did, but the edginess remained.

      He walked into the café. It was warm inside. Tall windows offered a view of the brightly illuminated fuel station on one side, the darker car park on the other. Piped muzak was playing quietly in the background. There were a few late-night travellers taking a rest, some couples but mostly solitary men, sitting at plastic tables and desultorily sipping coffee while