The Nemesis Program. Scott Mariani
coming over to help me out.’
‘Least I can do. I know the last few months have been tough.’ Ben looked at his watch. ‘Brooke said she might be coming over sometime after lunch,’ he said. She’d rushed off to London first thing that morning to hand over the keys of her old Richmond flat to her landlord and arrange for the last of her things to be delivered to the rented house in Oxford’s Jericho district where she and Ben would be living while he finished his studies.
Right now, the house was in complete disorder. Ben had never realised that Brooke had so much stuff. On top of that were all the wedding gifts that had already started arriving: such as the one from Winnie. She’d been a faithful housekeeper to the Hope family for many years. After Ben’s parents had died, she’d moved with him to the remote coastal house in Ireland and tried to mother him as best she could, usually to little avail. When Ben had started up the Le Val Tactical Training Centre in Normandy, rather than move with him to France Winnie had chosen to return to her home county of Lancashire and live with her elder cousin Elspeth. Winnie obviously believed that Ben had reached the age of forty without a knife, fork or plate to his name: the kitchen in Jericho was now filled with a sprawling great dinner service that could cover a banquet table.
Then there were the piled-up cases of wine and whisky from Ben’s old SAS comrade, Boonzie McCulloch, who now lived in Italy with his fiery Neapolitan wife, Mirella. The gift from Commander Darcey Kane of the National Crime Agency had come with a card bearing the message ‘Bastard! Love, D’. When Ben had opened the oblong box he’d found a deluxe .308 rifle cleaning kit inside. Darcey was thoughtful like that. Except that Ben didn’t happen to possess a rifle. Not any more. At this juncture in his life he didn’t expect to have to see one, most of all hear one, ever again.
‘It’ll be good to catch up with Brooke,’ Jude said. ‘I like her a lot.’
‘I’m glad the two of you get on so well.’
‘Oh – I just remembered. I’ve got something for you.’
‘There was no need for you to get us a present,’ Ben protested, hoping it would be nothing too large, and that Jude hadn’t spent too much of his limited funds on it.
‘I didn’t. It’s not, I mean, it’s … what the hell.’ Jude drained his beer and got up. ‘Come and I’ll show you.’
Ben stubbed out his cigarette and followed Jude upstairs to the large, airy bedroom that had once belonged to Simeon and Michaela. He felt a chill as he walked in. He still remembered the awful night they’d died, in that accident which had been anything but.
‘There,’ Jude said, pointing at a row of clothing neatly laid out on the bed.
Ben looked. ‘These were Simeon’s.’
Jude nodded. ‘His vicar uniform. Or whatever you’re meant to call it.’
Ben sadly ran his fingers over the clothes. The black clerical shirt, fitted with its Roman collar, lay folded on top of a pair of sharply-creased matching trousers. Next to it was the long black cassock, then the white linen surplice that Simeon would have put on to conduct morning and evening services.
‘He was about your size,’ Jude said. ‘I reckon they’d fit you. When you get ordained one day, I’d like you to wear them. He’d have wanted it too.’
Ben wasn’t comfortable with the idea. But as he was on the verge of saying no, he saw the look on Jude’s face and bit his tongue. ‘Thank you, Jude. It’s a very kind thought.’
‘Then you’ll wear them?’
‘I’ll wear them. I promise.’
There was a silence. Then Jude said, ‘So are you going to try them on, or what?’
‘Now?’
Jude grinned. ‘While you’re doing that, I’m going to go put the chainsaw and stuff away.’
Left alone in his old friends’ bedroom, Ben spent a few moments gazing sadly at the clothes. He thought about the man Simeon Arundel had been. Thought about himself, and how much he had to live up to. Through the open window he could hear Jude knocking about in the woodshed and the dog barking excitedly at something.
‘Fuck it,’ Ben murmured to himself. Reluctantly, hesitantly, he pulled off his jeans and put on the black trousers, then stripped off his T-shirt and buttoned up the black clerical one. Jude had been right about the fit. Even the shiny patent leather shoes could have been made for him.
Ben stared at his reflection in the full-length mirror by the wardrobe. An Anglican vicar’s garb was one uniform he’d never seen himself wearing before, and to his self-conscious eye he cut an unlikely figure in it.
Reverend Benedict Hope. Could it ever really happen? He’d never turned away from a challenge in his life, but this might just be one of the hardest he’d ever faced. Maybe even harder than the hellish endurance test of qualifying for entry into 22 SAS.
Feeling self-conscious, he was about to start changing back into his own clothes when he heard the front doorbell chime in the hallway downstairs, then again, and again. Who could that be? Brooke, so soon? She wouldn’t ring the bell over and over like that, so insistently.
Ben swore under his breath. He put his head out of the window and called, ‘Jude! Are you going to get that?’ But Jude was now too busy throwing sticks in the garden for Scruffy to take any notice.
Ben was about to snap, ‘For fuck’s sake,’ then caught a glimpse of the swearing vicar in the mirror and shut his mouth. He strode out of the bedroom, thundered down the stairs and across the entrance hall. The doorbell was still ringing relentlessly. ‘All right, I’m coming – I’m coming!’ he yelled.
Ben wrenched open the door.
There was a woman standing on the doorstep. She was slender, about the same age as Brooke. Her hair was longer than it had been when Ben had last seen her, and it had gone back to its natural dark red. She was wearing it loose, ringlets tumbling down over her shoulders.
She looked at Ben in amazement. ‘Holy crap,’ she said. ‘Ben?’
Ben blinked in disbelief. It was her.
It was Roberta Ryder.
The stunned silence seemed to go on forever as they both stood there staring at one another. He was gaping at her; she was gaping at what he was wearing.
‘Are you—?’ she said at last. ‘You haven’t become a—?’
‘Eh? No, I was just trying them on,’ he muttered, glancing down at himself.
‘Oh, right. That explains it.’
Another few seconds passed, neither of them knowing what to say. ‘Well, aren’t you going to invite me in?’ she asked.
Ben led her through into the living-room, stunned and lost for words. Roberta Ryder, PhD, effortlessly attractive and beguiling, brilliantly intelligent, frequently cantankerous, the most opinionated and headstrong woman he’d ever known: the American scientist had once meant a great deal to him and she was someone he’d always known he would never forget.
The last time they’d been together had been on a bittersweet snowy day in Canada, a long time ago. He’d never expected to see her again. And certainly not like this.
‘What are you … doing here?’ was all he could say.
‘Looking for you,’ she replied. ‘What else would I be doing here?’
Ben noticed how agitated she seemed. Her face was pale and tight. She kept peering nervously through the window at the gravelled driveway and the road beyond. Ben followed her eye and saw the empty blue Vauxhall parked outside the