The Doomsday Prophecy. Scott Mariani

pieces.’

      ‘But if you had not acted, Aris would have been killed.’ A tear ran down the man’s cheek and he sniffed and wiped it away. ‘I am Spiro Thanatos. This is my wife Christina. We own the guesthouse where the bomb exploded.’ His gaze landed on Ben’s neck and bare shoulder. ‘You are hurt.’

      ‘It’s nothing,’ Ben said. ‘Just a few bits of glass. I’m leaving soon. Just need something to wear.’

      Spiro smiled. He immediately started unbuttoning his shirt, revealing a Hotel Thanatos T-shirt underneath. ‘Take mine. No, please. I insist.’

      Ben thanked him and slipped it on, wincing a little at the pull on his stitches. The shirt was light blue cotton, a little baggy on him, but it felt cool and crisp.

      Spiro talked and talked. He and Christina had been in the kitchen when they’d heard the explosion. They’d thought their boy was surely lost. It was terrible. People dead, maimed, buildings ruined. Drug-dealing murderers on their peaceful island. The world was going to shit. Their business was devastated, but they didn’t care as long as Aris was unharmed. They would do anything, anything to repay their debt to him. Anything he wanted, anything they could do. They’d never forget …

      Ben listened and protested, ‘anyone would have done the same.’

      ‘What hotel are you in?’ Spiro wanted to know.

      ‘None,’ Ben said. ‘I only just arrived. I wasn’t planning on staying.’

      ‘But you must stay for a while, and you must be our guest.’

      ‘I haven’t made my plans yet.’

      ‘Please,’ Spiro went on. ‘If you stay, you must not book into a hotel.’ He dug in his pocket and dangled a key from his fingers. ‘We have a place on the beach, just outside the town. It is simple, but it is yours until you leave Corfu.’

      ‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ Ben said.

      Spiro grasped his wrist in a strong, dry hand and dropped the key in his palm. Attached to it was a small plastic tag with an address. ‘I insist. It is the least we can do for you.’

      Spiro and Christina left reluctantly, with more smiles and gratitude. Ben was tucking the borrowed shirt into his jeans when the door swung open again.

      He turned, expecting the angry doctor this time. But it was another visitor.

      Rhonda Palmer’s face was pale, puffy and streaked with tears as she walked into the room. An older man and a woman came in behind her, watching him grimly. He knew them from the wedding. Her parents.

      ‘I wanted to see you,’ Rhonda said.

      Ben didn’t reply. Didn’t know what to say to her.

      ‘I wanted to see the man who killed my husband, and tell him how I feel about that.’ There was a quaver in her voice. She reached up and wiped a tear away.

      Ben felt suddenly weak at the knees. He wanted to tell her he hadn’t killed Charlie. That he would never have involved him in anything like this if he’d known.

      But it seemed so lame, so pointless, to tell her those things. He stayed silent.

      Rhonda’s face was twisted in fury and pain. ‘I knew, when you turned up at my wedding, that you would bring trouble into our lives somehow. Major Hope, luring my husband to his death.’

      ‘I’m not Major Hope any more,’ Ben said quietly.

      ‘I don’t care what you call yourself,’ she fired back at him. ‘You’ve ruined my life and my family. You took my child’s father away.’

      Ben stared at her.

      ‘I only found out two days ago,’ she sobbed. ‘I was going to tell Charlie when he came back. But now he’s dead. My child will never know its father. Thanks to you.’

      Then she broke down, weeping loudly, swaying on her feet. Her father held her, supporting her. She broke free of him. She looked at Ben with hate and disgust in her eyes. ‘You’re a fucking murderer!’ she screamed at him. She spat in his face. Slapped him hard across the cheek.

      He turned away from her. His cheek was stinging. He looked down at his feet. He could feel all their eyes on him. Two nurses had come running when they heard the raised voices. They stood staring, frozen in alarm.

      Rhonda was bent double, racked with sobbing, shoulders heaving. Her mother put her arms around her. ‘Come on, darling. Let’s go.’ They turned to leave. Rhonda’s father shot Ben a last look of venom as he pushed past the nurses.

      Her mother hovered in the doorway, clutching her daughter tight in her arms. She turned and looked Ben in the eye. ‘God damn you,’ she said, ‘if you can live with this on your conscience.’

       Chapter Eighteen

      Paxos The same day, 8 a.m.

      Just over thirty miles away on the island of Paxos, the fair-haired man called Hudson was sitting at a table in the empty house by the beach. The woman, Kaplan, was standing behind him, looking over his shoulder as they both stared intently at the laptop screen in front of them.

      The digital video image was as crisp as it had looked through the lens when they’d filmed the scene from the apartment window the previous day. The camera was zoomed in on the two men sitting at the table near the edge of the terrace. For now, they were calling them Number One and Number Two. Number One was the man they’d been monitoring after he’d started asking questions about Zoë Bradbury. Number Two was the man who’d unexpectedly come to join him. They knew less about him, and that bothered them.

      What bothered them more, in the aftermath of the bombing, was that he was still alive. It was what was keeping them here, when they should be packing up this job and heading for home.

      On screen, the conversation was intense. Then the child with the ball appeared. After a moment one of the two men jumped up from his chair and ran out into the road. Seconds later, the café terrace was engulfed with flames.

      ‘Pause it,’ Kaplan said.

      Hudson tapped a key. On screen, the unfolding fireball and flying debris stood still, sudden terror frozen on the faces of the victims caught in the blast.

      ‘Scroll it to the left,’ she said.

      He held down another key and the image panned across. The green delivery van was slewed at an angle in the road. The other side of it, the man who had leapt from the café terrace was sprawled on the ground, shielding the child.

      She watched him thoughtfully, pressing a finger to her lips in concentration. ‘Did he know something?’ she said. ‘Did he see it coming?’

      ‘Doesn’t look like it to me,’ Hudson said. ‘He ran out to save the kid. A second later, he’d have been caught up in it too.’

      ‘What if he saw Herzog? What if he remembers him? He’s a witness.’

      ‘No way. It was just chance. He had no idea what was coming.’

      She frowned. ‘Maybe. Go back. OK, stop. Replay.’

      ‘We’ve been through this a hundred times,’ Hudson said.

      ‘I want to know who this guy is. I get a bad feeling about him.’

      They watched and listened again. The sound was scratchy and filled with background sound – jumbled conversation from other tables and passers-by, traffic, general white noise.

      ‘The sound is shit,’ Kaplan muttered.

      ‘Yeah, well, we didn’t exactly get much time to prepare,’ Hudson said. ‘If I hadn’t thought to bring the stuff just in case, we