LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter Eleven

      Roberta had to clutch the passenger door handle as Ben skidded the Audi ferociously out of the vicarage gates and rammed the accelerator to the floor, speeding away through the village. His face was drawn, and his narrowed blue eyes had taken on that steely look she recalled from years ago. He’d changed back into his own clothes, black jeans and T-shirt and the scuffed, well-travelled brown leather jacket that Roberta remembered too. Watching him, it seemed to her that the old Ben Hope she knew so well hadn’t been buried too deeply underneath the new one. The old one felt more real to her, but she sensed he was a man Ben would sooner leave behind. It’s just who you are, she thought. You can’t repress it, and you know it.

      He yanked his crumpled Gauloises pack from his pocket, flipped out a cigarette, and without taking his eyes off the road, bathed its tip in the flame of his Zippo lighter. The acrid smoke reached Roberta’s nose and she gave a little cough. Ben shot her an impatient sideways glance, hit the window button and the glass wound down to fill the car with a roar of warm wind, blasting the smoke away.

      ‘You didn’t have to do this,’ she began.

      He held up a hand. ‘Please, Roberta. Don’t say anything.’

      ‘How can I not say anything? I just watched your life fall apart. I’m not completely insensitive, you know.’

      Ben made no reply and drove faster. They quickly left Little Denton behind them, racing along the country roads. After a few minutes Roberta was about to ask where they were going, when a sign flashed by saying ‘EYNSHAM’ and Ben slowed the car to enter a small town. The streets were narrow and lined with Cotswold stone houses, traditional pubs and little shops. Ben pulled into a small square next to a church, parked the Audi between a van and a stone wall and killed the engine.

      ‘We’re going to church?’ she asked.

      ‘No,’ he said, ‘we’re getting a bus.’ He pointed at the stop across the street, where a line of people were waiting and gazing expectantly up the road at the approaching double-decker. Ben got out of the car, snatched his cement bag bundle from the back seat, waited for Roberta to retrieve her travel holdall and then bleeped the locks before tossing the car key into the nearest drain. As they crossed the street to join the bus queue, he glanced back to make sure the Audi was well tucked away out of sight.

      Boarding the bus, Ben led Roberta to the back, from where he could glance now and then out of the dusty rear window in case anyone was following them. Nobody was, and with a loaded machine gun bundled up at his side and his head in his hands he soon settled into a heavy, pensive silence that lasted for the whole twenty-minute trip through the winding country roads into Oxford.

      Gazing around her at the bustling city for the second time that day, Roberta didn’t try to make conversation. From the noisy, smoky Gloucester Green station they took a second bus, hot and crowded, out to Jericho in the west of the city. A short walk from the stop in Walton Street, then Ben halted outside a modestly-sized Victorian terraced house with a little garden. He swung open the creaky front gate, took a set of keys from his pocket and showed Roberta into the house. ‘You’ll have to excuse the mess, but we hadn’t finished unpacking.’

      ‘Nice,’ she said, gazing around her at the clutter that filled the entrance hall. A dining table stood propped up against the wall, swaddled in bubble wrap with the legs removed. Most of the boxes were still sealed with parcel tape, others were open to reveal stacks of books on theology, philosophy and history. Roberta picked one out. ‘Hmm. Augustine: The City of God against the Pagans. A little light bedtime reading for you?

      Ben pointed down the long, narrow hall. ‘Kitchen’s that way if you want to get yourself a drink. I’ll be back in a minute.’

      Leaving her to her own devices, he ran up the stairs to the bedroom with his bundle under his arm. His pace faltered as he approached the door. Walking into the room, it was as if a dead weight had settled on his shoulders. Everything around him made him think of Brooke – the fine art prints that had hung on her walls in Richmond, her clothes and shoes neatly arrayed inside her wardrobe, the cushions on the bed, the green foliage of her beloved pot plants spilling down the wall from the windowsill, the soft smell of her perfume already imbued into the fabric of the place. He wanted to picture her smile, but all he could see in his mind was the teary look of hurt and anger that had been on her face when he’d turned and walked away.

      When would he see her again? Emotions flashed up inside him: sorrow, guilt, anger, resentment against what had happened, against Roberta Ryder for bringing it on him.

      No. It wasn’t fair to blame her. He just had to see this through. Everything would be all right, he told himself uncertainly.

      He chucked the bundled-up Beretta machine carbine onto the bed. Nearby stood a small antique

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