life he’d created in France was one he no longer wanted.
Boonzie McCulloch was the first person he’d chosen to confess his secret to, and even after thinking about little else for days it wasn’t easy to do. When he’d finished outlining the work he and his team did at Le Val, he took a deep breath and came right out with it.
‘Thing is, I’m giving serious thought to leaving it all behind,’ he admitted with a frown. ‘I don’t mean I want to sell up. Just walk away, leave it in Jeff’s hands. He can run the place, no problem, with a little help from the other guys, and Brooke. And you, if you’re interested.’
Boonzie took a draw on his cigarette, said nothing. His eyes were narrowed to slits against the falling sun.
‘You were the best instructor I ever knew,’ Ben said. ‘I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have come and take over the number two position.’
‘What about you?’ Boonzie asked. ‘Where are you going?’
Ben was quiet for a moment. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure what I want. Maybe I need some time to figure that out.’
‘Every man has to settle down sometime, Ben. It comes to us all.’
‘I don’t know if I’m the settling kind. God knows I’ve tried. Just doesn’t seem to work for me.’
‘You never were happy unless your arse was on fire,’ Boonzie chuckled, and then looked serious. ‘What about this Brooke lassie? Sounds like you and she have something going.’
Ben glanced down at his feet. ‘That’s what I thought, too,’ he muttered. ‘Sometimes I’m not so sure. For a while she’s been acting—’ His voice trailed off. He bit his lip.
‘What?’
Ben let out a long sigh. ‘Listen, I don’t want to lay my personal problems on you. What do you think about my offer? Is it something you’d ever consider?’
Boonzie didn’t reply. He thoughtfully stubbed out the butt of his cigarette on the belly of the upturned barrow.
Ben already knew the answer. He’d known it the moment he’d got here, and it had been so obvious and predictable that he almost hadn’t asked the question. So he wasn’t very surprised when after a few more moments’ deliberation, looking genuinely pained, Boonzie shook his head.
‘Flattered you should ask me …’
‘But no?’
‘That’s the way it has to be. I’m sorry, Ben.’
‘Say no more, old friend.’
‘Would you leave this?’
‘Not in my right mind, I wouldn’t.’ Ben stood up and dusted himself off.
‘No hard feelings, then?’ Boonzie said, concern in his eyes.
‘Don’t be daft. I’m happy for you.’
‘You’ll stay for dinner, though, aye? Be our guest for the night?’
‘Of course.’
Boonzie had been right about Mirella’s cooking. Dinner was a simple dish of tagliatelle mixed with a basil pesto sauce of the most vivid green, topped with grated parmesan and accompanied by a local wine. It was as far from fancy cuisine as you could get, but just about the best thing Ben had ever tasted and he ate a mound of it with relish under the chef’s approving gaze. As they sat up until late around the plain oak table in the small dining room, he almost managed to forget all the troubling thoughts that had been on his mind lately. Boonzie told stories, more wine was poured, the fresh night air breezed in through the open windows and the cicadas chirped outside. It was after one when Ben insisted on helping the couple clear up the dishes, and Mirella showed him up to the guest bedroom.
He was awake long before dawn, edgy and feeling the need to go for a run. He slipped out quietly and spent an hour jogging in the open countryside, pausing a while to watch the sunrise before returning to the house to shower and put on clean jeans and a light denim shirt over a navy T-shirt that said ‘TYRELL Genetic Replicants – More Human than Human’. A present from Brooke. She was a big Blade Runner fan. Ben hadn’t seen the movie.
Breakfast was in the kitchen, eggs laid that morning scrambled with butter and toast as Mirella fussed and Ben kept protesting that he’d had enough delicious food to last him a week.
‘No hard feelings,’ Boonzie said again, frowning at him over a steaming cup of espresso. ‘About what we discussed?’
‘None whatsoever, Archibald,’ Ben said.
‘Piss off. So where’s next? S’pose you’ll be heading back to France?’
Ben shook his head. ‘I have a flight booked from Rome to London tomorrow afternoon.’
‘Business trip?’
‘It’s a long story.’
Boonzie and Mirella waved as Ben climbed into the Shogun. He waved back, took a last glance at the tranquil haven they’d made their home and then drove off down the bumpy track towards the road.
Ben headed roughly south-southwest with the rising sun behind him, aiming more or less in the direction of Naples with the intention of veering slowly towards Italy’s west coast. From there, he’d follow the coastal road through a hundred seaside towns and villages until eventually he reached Rome.
For a man who’d been running this way and that for most of his life, always with a precisely calculated plan in mind, always battling the clock, it felt strange to be at something of a loose end. Strange, yet welcome too – because, for the first time, he wasn’t looking forward to his trip to visit Brooke in London. A month earlier, he’d have been racing to get there.
What had changed? That was the question in his mind as he drove. For the hundredth time he raked back in his mind through all their conversations, things he might have said to upset her, anything he might have done wrong. He couldn’t think of a single reason. There’d been no arguments between them. No falling out, nothing to explain why things should be less than deliriously perfect. Almost three months of what he’d thought was a happy, loving, warm relationship.
So what had gone wrong? What had been eating her lately? She’d seemed to withdraw from him, obviously preoccupied but refusing to talk about what was on her mind. Not so long ago, they’d taken every opportunity to be together, whether it was him travelling to London or her coming down to see him at Le Val. But suddenly she’d seemed less interested in leaving her place in Richmond, even cancelling the last couple of lectures in hostage psychology she’d been due to give for his clients. All of a sudden she was hard to get on the phone, and when he did manage to get through to her, he was sure he could detect a tone in her voice that hadn’t been there before. Nothing had been said. It was as though she was hiding something from him.
What exactly he thought he was going to achieve by springing this surprise visit on her in London, he wasn’t
