The Pretender’s Gold. Scott Mariani

       Chapter 12

       The Normandy coast

       Two days later

      Ben Hope had always been a runner. In his mindset, if you weren’t constantly moving forwards, you were going backwards. That had never been an option for a person of his restless disposition, who needed to keep pushing hard from one challenging goal to the next. Somewhere deep in his mind he believed that, like a Great White shark, if he stopped moving, he’d sink to the bottom and die. He’d made himself physically fit from his mid-teens onwards, running and cycling and rock-climbing as though he was being chased by demons. That was before he’d joined the British Army and stern, shouty men in PT Instructor insignia took him to the next level and beyond. During his career he’d been able to achieve a degree of fitness, motivation and commitment that was off the charts. Now, all these years later, he still ran every day.

      He liked to vary his routine. Sometimes he could be found pounding the woodland tracks and undulating wildflower meadows around the rural thirty-acre compound he co-owned here in France, a place called Le Val. Other times, he would drive out to this long, lonely stretch of beach just a few miles away on the coast. The beach was where he’d come today, to stretch his legs and put himself to the test during some downtime.

      Winter was the season in which Ben liked running the most. A cold wind was blowing in off the sea, carrying pockets of squally rain that soaked him to the bone. This was his element, and the physical discomfort just made him push harder. The adverse weather on this chilly December day meant that the beach was totally deserted except for him and his German Shepherd, Storm, who loved nothing more than to tag along after his master on these punishing workouts with his tail wagging and his long pink tongue lolling out. Ben loved the emptiness. It allowed him to run at his peak and be alone with his thoughts.

      A couple of times a week, as he was doing today, he liked to raise the endurance bar an extra notch by carrying a bergen weighed down with forty pounds of sand. Back in the day, he and his Special Forces comrades used to hump much greater loads than that for endless miles both in training and in combat. This was taking it easy by comparison. But it was enough to keep him in better shape than most of the much younger guys who came to be put through their paces at Le Val.

      Ben co-ran the tactical training facility with his business partner and close friend Jeff Dekker. Jeff’s career had followed a parallel course to Ben’s, serving for years in the Navy’s Special Boat Service. Along with ex-soldier Tuesday Fletcher and the rest of their team they were kept busy by all the military, police and private close protection personnel who travelled to their quiet corner of rural Normandy from all over the world to hone their skills and learn from the best.

      Ben finished his run and returned to where he’d parked his new car among the dunes on the approach to the beach. It was the latest in a line of BMW Alpina high-performance sedans, dark metallic blue. As much as he favoured the marque, he seemed to keep trashing them. The last one had been shot to pieces in a gun battle outside Alençon, a few months earlier. He blipped the locks open as he trudged up the loose sand. His body felt loose and pumped. Ten hard miles, and he was barely out of breath. Not too shabby. The dog was more tired than he was.

      Ben dumped his bergen in the back of the Alpina, drank half a litre of bottled spring water, then changed out of his sandy running shoes. As he was getting ready to head back to Le Val he saw that he had a new voicemail message waiting for him on his phone.

      It was from Jeff. He didn’t sound very happy, but that was no surprise since he’d fractured a bone in his wrist during a training exercise two weeks earlier, and was currently confined to desk duties with a cast and sling. Yet Ben could tell instantly from his tone that something else was wrong. Jeff sounded uncharacteristically worried. All he said was, ‘Call me back soon as.’

      Ben did, right away. ‘Got your message. What’s up?’

      ‘Boonzie’s wife called the office number just now.’

      ‘Mirella?’

      ‘Yeah. Tuesday got the call and passed it on to me. There’s some kind of problem. She seemed pretty upset.’

      ‘Did she say what kind of problem?’

      ‘No, she wanted to speak to you about it. I think you’d better talk to her, mate. It sounds serious.’

      It made sense to Ben that Mirella would rather talk to him, since Jeff didn’t know Ben’s old comrade Boonzie and his Italian wife as well as Ben did. But it didn’t make sense to Ben that it was Mirella, rather than Boonzie himself, who’d called. Something was obviously wrong.

      Rather than let it wait until he got home, Ben punched Boonzie and Mirella’s landline number into his mobile. He sat in the car, watching the waves rolling in as the call connected and he heard the Italian dial tone. Storm had jumped into the back and was panting hot breath in Ben’s other ear and trying to lick his face. He gently pushed the dog away as Mirella’s voice came on the line, saying, ‘Pronto?’

      Jeff had been right. She didn’t sound good at all.

      Boonzie had learned Italian shortly after moving to Campobasso, and rather stubbornly insisted on speaking it with her all the time, so Mirella had never got to perfect her English. Which was fine, since Ben spoke Italian very well. ‘Mirella, it’s Ben.’

      She sounded even more distraught, on the point of tears, as she thanked him for calling back so soon.

      He asked, ‘What’s wrong?’

      ‘It’s Archibald.’ Mirella never called her husband by his nickname. Given that Boonzie would typically threaten dire violence against anyone else who dared to refer to him any other way, very few people did.

      Ben steeled himself for the news that his dear old friend had fallen critically ill, or had received some terrible medical diagnosis, been given a week to live or was already dead. Not that Boonzie was particularly ancient. Even if he had been, the grizzled old warrior was one of those people you expect to live for ever, carved out of granite and as enduring and immutable as a mountain range.

      But Mirella’s reply shocked him even more. ‘He’s missing.’

      Ben stayed grimly silent as Mirella told him the story that had played out over the last few days. She explained how Boonzie had travelled to the Highlands of Scotland to visit his nephew Ewan, who’d been having some trouble. Ben hadn’t even known Boonzie had a nephew. He went on listening as she described the backstory of Ewan’s partner in the surveying business, recently drowned in an apparent accident that Ewan thought he had reason to suspect to be foul play.

      The more Mirella talked, the faster the words came streaming out. Ben had to close his eyes and focus hard to keep up with the stream. He interrupted her flow with, ‘Hold on. Why did he think that?’

      ‘Because he received an anonymous phone call from a person claiming to be a witness to a crime,’ Mirella replied. ‘They said they saw some men murdering Ewan’s friend.’

      As