Conspiracy Thriller 4 E-Book Bundle

‘You flatterer. Still hanging about in the arse end of nowhere?’

‘Actually, I’m in the UK. Right now I’m sitting in a lay-by somewhere in Oxfordshire. Calling to ask if you could maybe do me a favour.’

‘Interesting. You mean like cancelling all my prior engagements to make way for dinner tonight? My place, eight o’clock?’

‘London’s a little out of my way at the minute, Darcey. I mean more like running a vehicle registration check for me.’

‘I knew it was too good to be true. What a complete and utter fuckhead you are.’

For the first time since the crash, Ben was able to smile. ‘You always were the queen of the sweet-talkers.’

‘You do realise that asking a senior SOCA agent to run a registration check is like deploying the SAS to get a stuck kitten out of a tree?’

‘How about as a friend, then?’

‘Not to mention it’s illegal. Are you trying to get a girl into trouble?’

‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’

‘That’s what I’m afraid of.’ She paused. ‘All right. But I’ll make you pay dearly.’

‘I wouldn’t expect any less from you,’ he said. ‘Ready to take down this number? We’re looking at a blue BMW 740 saloon.’ He read out the registration from the insurance letter.

‘Copy that.’ Darcey read it back to him.

‘How fast can you turn it around for me, Darce?’

‘I have some bad guys to go after first.’

‘That shouldn’t take you long.’

‘What’s this about, anyway?’

‘Don’t worry about it.’

‘Who else is going to worry about you, Hope? Give me an hour or so. I’ll see what I can do.’

Back at the vicarage, Ben slipped the camera memory card into Simeon’s laptop, clicked open the file and watched as thumbnail images of all eighty-seven of Petra Norrington’s photographs filled the screen. He scanned quickly down until he came to the shots she’d taken inside the restaurant. Most of them were useless to him, showing only the walls and decor as background – but the very last image he examined had been taken at the right angle to give a clear view through into the bar area.

And there he was, the BMW owner, sitting alone on a stool with a soft drink in front of him.

Ben zoomed in to take a closer look. It was a good-quality image, sharp enough to make out the man’s features in detail. He was in his thirties, dark-haired, with a long, lean face and a scar over one eye. Though it was hard to judge from the angle of the shot, he seemed to be sitting facing directly towards the table where Ben had been dining with the Arundels.

That in itself proved nothing, but scrutinising the guy’s features and the sharp expression in his eyes as he gazed fixedly at a point off-camera, Ben was certain that he’d deliberately positioned himself to be able to watch Simeon and Michaela. Which strongly suggested he’d also followed them to the Old Windmill.

Ben ran back through the chain of events. The stranger arrives in his BMW, plants himself in the bar and starts paying unusual attention to the threesome in the restaurant. Next, Petra Norrington leaves and gets in her car, reverses it into the front of the BMW, damaging a headlight. There’s a dispute that the stranger is very keen to play down. Shortly afterwards, he slips away, so that by the time the Arundels and their guest have paid for the meal and are setting off for home, the BMW has already gone. Minutes later, a large saloon car with a damaged headlight is seen racing away from the scene of the fatal crash.

Ben couldn’t ignore his gut instinct: that the guy in the picture was the same man who had forced Simeon and Michaela’s car off the road and caused their deaths. He might even have been one of the two who’d broken inside the vicarage later that night. If not, he was their accomplice.

The real question was, who were they all working for?

Ben used the laser printer in Simeon’s study to run off a copy of the zoomed-in portion of the photo, which he folded and slipped into the inside pocket of his jacket. He tried Jude’s number one more time. ‘Come on, answer the bloody thing,’ he muttered as it rang. No reply.

There was only one thing for it. He needed to get to Cornwall, and quickly. He scooped Michaela’s Mazda keys from the little stand in the entrance hall, went outside into the cold and walked along the ornamental flagstone path around the side of the vicarage to the double garage. A plastic remote attached to the Mazda key fob activated the doors. They whirred open, revealing the sleek shape of the MX-5 Roadster.

Ben nodded to himself. It wasn’t a Maserati but it would carry him the two hundred or so miles to the southwesternmost tip of England faster than Le Crock could ever dream of.

He went back inside and started gathering up his things. Simeon’s laptop was going to have to come along. Even if the information inside was inaccessible to him, there was no way he could leave it here at the house in case the raiders decided to come back for it. Deciding that the shotgun was coming too, he folded up the stock and stuffed the shortened weapon into his bag. The dog eyed him suspiciously from a few feet away.

‘I suppose you want to come along as well,’ Ben said. ‘Where else are you going to go?’

He was heading outside with the bag over his shoulder and the dog at his heels when his mobile rang. It was Darcey Kane.

‘How are your bad guys?’ Ben asked her.

‘Shitting in their pants,’ she replied. ‘How are yours?’

‘What makes you think I’m after any?’

‘Hmm. I have a feeling you’re up to something.’

‘I don’t know where you’d get a notion like that. Did you manage to trace that number for me?’

‘Of course. But you won’t be pleased. The registration’s a fake. No record of it exists.’

‘You double-checked?’

‘Quadruple. You know me.’

‘Damn,’ he muttered under his breath. But now he knew for sure.

‘Come on, Hope. Spill it. You’re definitely up to something, aren’t you?’

‘Absolutely not,’ Ben said, leaning inside the car to stash his illegal cargo behind the driver’s seat. It would be five years in prison, minimum, if any cop saw what was inside the bag.

‘Then you’re free for dinner tonight. How about Italian instead? It’ll be just like Rome.’

‘Maybe some other time, Darcey. Thanks for the info.’

‘Bastard.’

Chapter Twenty-Two

According to Rex O’Neill’s information, the Lear had touched down at the airfield in Naples forty-two minutes ago. The single-engined Cessna, one of the selection of light aircraft provided by the Trimble Group for them to shuttle men and material between Capri and the mainland, should be arriving shortly. Two cars sat parked at the side of the private airstrip, a Mercedes limousine and a high-performance Audi, both black. Penrose Lucas insisted on black for his whole fleet of vehicles, and the Trimble Group were happy to indulge him.

Inside the Mercedes, soundproof glass screened the driver off from the elongated passenger compartment in which sat Penrose and Rex O’Neill. Penrose stretched out his legs. He didn’t just sit on the plush limo seat, he lounged on it, sprawled across it. The more contact he made with the cool, soft leather, the more kingly and omnipotent it made him feel.

He’d been buzzing with nervous anticipation all morning since seeing the online news report confirming what he’d known in advance was going to happen: the untimely and tragic demise of the Reverend Simeon Arundel and his beloved wife the previous evening in England. The news had almost completely allayed the extreme displeasure that had spoiled Penrose’s day yesterday, knowing that Wesley Holland had somehow managed to slip through the fingers of the team sent out to America to get him. Never mind. Holland’s escape was a temporary hitch. It wasn’t the end of the world.