a soft, hesitant knock at the front door. Ben said, ‘Let’s go and find out who the mystery visitor is.’ He stubbed out his Gauloise, rose from the table, walked out of the kitchen and down the oak-panelled hallway. He flipped a switch for the yard lights, then opened the door.
The mystery visitor standing on the doorstep was a woman. Her face was shaded under the brim of a denim baseball cap. The yard lights were bright behind her, silhouetting her shape. Medium height, slender in a sporty, toned kind of way. She was wearing dark jeans and a lightweight leather jacket and had a handbag on a strap around one shoulder. Her auburn hair caught the light as it ruffled in the cool, gentle October evening breeze. Her body language was tense and stiff, as if her being here was more out of obligation than choice.
Behind her, a taxicab was parked across the cobbled yard, its motor idling. The courtesy light was on inside and the taxi driver was settling down to read a paper.
But Ben wasn’t looking at him. He stared at the woman. He was aware that his mouth had dropped open, but for a few speechless moments couldn’t do anything about it.
At last, he was able to find the words. At any rate, one word.
‘Brooke?’
The woman made no reply. She stared back at Ben, as though she was as surprised as he was. The moment he’d said it, he realised he was wrong. The way the cap half-shaded her face under the bright glow of the yard lights had tricked him. But the resemblance to Brooke Marcel was stunning nonetheless. The security guys must have been fooled by it too, and just waved her through. In happier times, Brooke had been a very frequent visitor to Le Val and often stayed there for extended periods.
‘It’s Phoebe,’ the woman said, self-consciously. ‘Are you Ben? You must be Ben.’
‘Yes, I’m Ben Hope,’ he replied, somewhat thrown off balance by her presence. ‘But who are you? I don’t know any Phoebe.’
‘Phoebe Kite. Brooke’s sister. Sorry, I should have said. I’m a little bit nervous, coming here like this.’
Now it made sense. They’d never met, but Ben suddenly remembered Brooke mentioning an elder sister with whom she was often confused. As the details came back to him, he recalled that Phoebe was some kind of yoga coach – no, a Pilates instructor – who made buckets of money teaching celebrity clients how to tie themselves in knots. Left ankle behind right ear, big toe to tip of nose without bending your knee, that kind of thing.
Phoebe lived in Hampstead or some such jet-setter part of London with her husband Marshall Kite, a millionaire stockbroker and director of a large firm called Kite Investments. Now, him, Ben had crossed paths with before, on one memorable occasion. That was another story.
As for why Brooke’s sister should have suddenly landed on his doorstep out of the blue, however, Ben was at a total loss. He said, ‘There’s no need to be nervous.’
‘I hope I haven’t turned up at a bad time. It’s just … well, it’s—’
‘Not at all,’ he said, still baffled, then realised that he was keeping her standing on the doorstep. ‘Please, won’t you come inside.’
He ushered her in the door, catching a whiff of perfume as she passed. Whatever brand the fashionable rich were wearing these days. Ben knew little of these things.
As Ben escorted his visitor up the hallway, Jeff stuck his head through the kitchen door to see what was what, and looked bewildered by the sight of the strange woman in the house. Ben gave him a look that said, ‘It’s okay, I’ve got it.’ Jeff retreated back inside and shut the door.
Ben led Phoebe Kite towards the living room. It was a part of the house where he spent little time personally, preferring the cosiness of the farmhouse kitchen and its proximity to the wine rack and whisky cupboard. But he sensed that she wanted to talk to him in private. The presence of two other men, especially a slightly inebriated Jeff Dekker, would only make her more edgy. He could feel the tension emanating from her, like a crackle of static electricity in the air.
‘This is nice,’ she said distractedly as he showed her into the room and flipped on a light switch.
‘Please, take a seat,’ he said, motioning at the sofa he never sat on, opposite the big-screen TV he never watched. Idle relaxation wasn’t a big part of his lifestyle. ‘Can I offer you a drink?’
Under the soft lighting of the living room side lamps, she looked more uncannily like her sister than ever. She perched on the edge of the sofa, eyes downcast, knees and feet together with her hands clasped in her lap and the handbag still looped over her shoulder. Uptight.
She replied, ‘No, thank you, I’m fine.’
‘What about your taxi outside? You want me to send him away? Wherever it is you have to return to tonight, I’m happy to drive you there myself.’
She made a thin-lipped smile. ‘That’s very kind. But he can wait.’
‘Whatever you prefer.’ Ben moved across to an armchair and sat, so as not to stand over her. Back when he’d worked as a freelancer he’d been used to dealing with a lot of extremely, and understandably, nervous clients. He was good at putting them at their ease. He smiled. In his most reassuring tone he said, ‘Now, you’ve clearly come a long way to see me, so I get the impression it must be for an important reason.’
She nodded. ‘It is. Terribly important.’
‘Then how about you tell me what this is all about?’
Phoebe Kite looked up at him, and for the first time he could see the depth of the distress in her eyes. Green eyes, pure emerald, so much like Brooke’s that it was almost painful for Ben to return her gaze.
Phoebe Kite said, ‘I need your help.’
When people said that to Ben, it was never a trivial request. In his line of work, it had always tended to mean that something very, very serious and life-threatening had happened.
‘I gathered as much. Then what can I do for you?’
She shifted in her seat. Covered her mouth and gave a little cough. ‘Or perhaps I should say, we need your help.’
‘We? As in, you and your husband Marshall?’
‘No, I’m fine,’ she said. ‘Marshall’s … well, he’s Marshall. He’s always embroiled in some business dispute or other. But we’re not in any real trouble. Not your kind of trouble. Sorry, that came out wrong. I meant—’
‘I understand. It’s okay. But tell me, if this isn’t about you—’
‘It’s about Brooke,’ she said in a voice taut with emotion, and Ben felt an icy blade sink all the way through his guts and pin him to the armchair.
‘Something’s happened to Brooke?’ When he said it, the words sounded remote and far away, as though someone else had spoken them. He was suddenly numb.
Phoebe nodded agitatedly and started chewing her lip. Her hands were clasped so tightly in her lap that her fingers
