The Ben Hope Collection - Scott Mariani

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Leigh picked herself off the ground. Her jeans were ripped at the knee. The Range Rovers were speeding up the middle of the honking traffic just fifty yards away.

      They ran. Off the High Street and through some metal bollards that blocked the way to vehicles. Up the cobbled lane past the Radcliffe Camera and Hertford College.

      The Range Rovers skidded to a halt at the bollards and all six men jumped out, giving chase. The police sirens weren’t far away.

      Ben had Leigh by the hand as they ran past the grand Bodleian Library and up Broad Street. Further up the street was the famous Sheldonian Theatre, a venue for classical concerts. A crowd was queuing for concert tickets as Ben and Leigh ran by. A woman’s face lit up with recognition as she spotted Leigh. She pointed, nudged her friend. ‘Hey, look! It’s Leigh Llewellyn!’

      The crowd closed in around them as Leigh was met by smiles and requests for autographs. Nobody seemed to notice her flushed face, anxious look and torn knee. Camera phones clicked and flashed.

      The six men were hanging back, watching through the crowd and panting with exertion from their sprint up the street. They scattered as a police car rounded the corner, its blue lights swirling. Two of them crossed the road and pretended to look in the window of Blackwell’s bookshop, while another two headed slowly up the Bodleian steps. The last pair stood chatting at the kerbside as the police car cruised past, its occupants scanning the busy street with stern faces.

      Ben took Leigh’s hand again as they slipped away from the crowd and followed the slow-moving police car up the street. They glanced back and saw that the men had regrouped and were gaining on them again. On the corner of Broad Street and Cornmarket the crowds were thick with Christmas shoppers. Ben spied a taxi-rank and quickened his step. Ushering Leigh into the back seat of a cab, he caught a last glimpse of their pursuers’ angry faces. He slammed the taxi door and the car melted into the traffic.

       Chapter Sixteen

       Vienna

      Markus Kinski strode up to his Chief’s office and barged in without knocking. He took the little plastic bag out of his pocket and slammed it down on the desk in front of him. In it were the handful of jangling, tarnished shell cases from the lakeside.

      Hans Schiller looked down at the bag, nudged it with his finger and frowned up at Kinski. ‘What is this meant to be, Markus?’

      The Chief looked harried. His hairline seemed to have receded another inch since yesterday. His face was grey and sallow, and his eyes were sunken deep into a bed of wrinkles. Kinski knew he was counting the minutes to his retirement.

      ‘I want the Oliver Llewellyn case reopened,’ Kinski said. He was the only detective on Schiller’s team who didn’t address him as sir, and the only one who could get away with it.

      Schiller rested his elbows on the desktop and pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘I thought we’d laid that one to rest, Detective,’ he said wearily. ‘Haven’t you anything better to do?’

      ‘There’s more to it,’ Kinski said, not taking his eyes off the Chief.

      ‘What’ve you got?’

      Kinski pointed at the bag. ‘Nine-mil empties.’

      ‘I can see what they are,’ Schiller said. ‘What’d you do, scoop them off the range floor?’

      ‘I found them just now at the lake. The lake where Llewellyn died.’

      Schiller took off his glasses and polished them with a tissue. He leaned forwards across the desk and looked hard at Kinski. ‘What are you trying to say? You’ve got nothing here. Llewellyn drowned. It was an accident.’

      ‘I don’t think so.’

      ‘So what’s with the brass?’

      ‘I don’t know yet. I just know that I need to know more.’

      ‘But we already know what happened. You were there when they took the witness’s statement.’

      ‘The witness is a phoney.’

      Schiller leaned back in his chair and breathed out loudly through his nose. He folded his arms across his stomach. ‘How do you know that?’

      ‘I just do.’

      ‘That’s a bold statement, Markus.’

      ‘I know.’

      ‘You can prove it?’

      ‘I will,’ Kinski said.

      Schiller sighed and slumped another few inches in his chair, like a man with an extra burden added to his shoulders. ‘I want to help you, Markus,’ he said. ‘You know I’ve always stood by you. Not everyone’s as tolerant as I am.’

      ‘I know that, Chief, and I appreciate it.’

      ‘But you’d better keep your mouth shut until you can come up with something concrete here,’ Schiller said. ‘Remember who Madeleine Laurent is. I had a whole shit-storm of trouble from the Consulate at the time, and I’m not going to start poking around there again.’ He spluttered and ran his fingers through his hair. ‘Why don’t you just let it drop? Llewellyn was just some rich playboy who got drunk and stupid. Leave it. Do yourself a favour. You’ve got better things to worry about.’

      Kinski placed his fists on the desk, knuckles down. ‘If I find proof, solid proof, will you agree to reopen the Llewellyn case?’

      ‘We’d have to be talking about some pretty solid fucking proof.’

      ‘But if I did—’

      Schiller gasped and flapped his arms in exasperation. ‘Yes, Markus. OK. If-and it’s one hell of a big if-you come up with something seriously convincing, then I might just consider reopening the case.’ His eyes were hard. ‘That’s as good as it gets.’

      ‘That’s good enough for me,’ Kinski said. Then the office door was flapping in his wake.

      The detour to the office had made him even later for picking his daughter Clara up from school. The traffic was a nightmare and the roads through the city looked like a car park. Kinski sat for fifteen minutes in a nose-to-tail jam, drumming on the steering wheel and fighting his rising impatience.

      In a nearby department-store window, the same channel played on rows of TV screens. Kinski gazed at them distractedly. It was one of those talking-heads shows, some interview with a politician. Kinski knew who he was. His face was plastered everywhere lately. Some rich man’s son who thought it was cool to be a Socialist. What was his name? Philippe something. Philippe Aragon. The great new fucking hope for Europe.

      Kinski looked at the clock on the dash and sighed. If he didn’t get there soon, Clara would get on the bus and he’d have to double back and try to catch her at the bus stop. She’d be hanging around on the street corner in the dark wondering where Helga was. Shit.

      What the hell, he thought. He slapped the blue flashing light to the roof and hit the siren. The traffic parted magically and he sped on through.

      As he skidded around the corner and gunned the big Mercedes along the street he saw the school bus still pulled up outside the high wall of St Mary’s College. Crowds of little girls in their sombre grey uniforms and dark blue coats were gathered noisily around the bus, chatting, laughing. Expensively dressed mothers were arriving in their Jaguars and BMWs to collect their daughters.

      Kinski screeched to a halt and killed the siren. A group of mothers turned to stare at him as he climbed out of the car and jogged over towards the bus. He looked, but couldn’t see Clara among the crowd of girls. He recognized some of her friends. ‘Anyone seen Clara?’ he asked them. ‘Clara Kinski?’

      They all looked blank or shook their heads. Kinski stepped up inside the

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