Читать книгу The Cassandra Sanction: The most controversial action adventure thriller you’ll read this year! - Scott Mariani, Scott Mariani - Страница 18

By the time they were nearing Glockenbach district, the rain had worsened into a deluge and Ben had made the decision to walk away from the whole situation. He could have been sitting on a beautiful lonely hilltop in southern Spain at this moment. Climbing in the Sierra Nevada or trekking along the Costa de Almeria in search of a deserted white-sand beach or cove where he could maybe rent a little place next to the sea and spend a while figuring out where his life was going. Not hacking through dirty traffic on a cold wet day in a city he had little love for and no longer any reason for remaining in.

‘Klein’s right,’ Ben said at last.

‘I knew you were going to say that,’ Raul muttered.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘What are you going to do?’

Ben shrugged. ‘What can I do?’

‘I need a drink,’ Raul said.

‘Yeah, why not,’ Ben agreed. One for the road. Then he was out of here. Maybe by train or bus, back down south to where it was warmer. Maybe to Italy. He had friends there. He could drop in and see his old army comrade Boonzie McCulloch, the most ferocious grizzled wardog of a sergeant the SAS had ever unleashed upon the world, now retired to a cosy life growing tomatoes and basil with his Neapolitan wife Mirella in their tranquil smallholding up in the hills near Campo Basso.

‘There’s a place up ahead,’ Raul said sullenly, pointing through the rain-spattered windscreen. ‘Pull up here. I can’t face going back to the apartment yet.’

They hurried from the car and went inside. It was one of those kinds of upmarket café-wine-bars that Ben found a little too precious for his tastes, the sort of place they charged three times the going rate for a measure of ordinary scotch, just for the privilege of planting your arse on one of their dainty chairs and being served by some disdainful prick with an attitude problem. They took a table at the back and Raul ordered a stein of beer that came in a litre tankard shaped like a jackboot. Hello, Bavaria. Ben bypassed the local traditions and asked for a double whisky, straight, no ice. The waiter was a malnourished-looking guy in his twenties, stooped and bald-headed and brusque in his ways, at least with Ben and Raul. Maybe he disapproved of whisky drinkers at ten in the morning.

Neither of them had much to say. Ben was okay with that. Enough had been said already, and now they were at the end of the road, there seemed little point in prolonging the pain. They sat and worked quietly on their drinks, drawing one or two looks from people at other tables. They obviously disapproved, too. Ben was toying with lighting up a cigarette, just to scandalise the clientele even more. Then again, in Germany you could probably be clapped in irons or flogged in the town square for public smoking offences, so he decided to leave it.

Raul had the same look on his face that he’d had in Frigiliana when Ben had first seen him. He clutched the ridiculous boot with both hands and had already worked his way down to near the ankle when the woman walked in.

Ben had no reason to take much notice of her. Like most of the bar’s customers she was well dressed, middle class, affluent looking. If he’d given her a second glance he would have put her age around fifty-eight. She had a mouth like a razor slash. Blond hair turning to iron, scraped severely back and heaped and pinned up on her head like a Pickelhaube helmet. She draped her rain-spotted Burberry coat over the back of her chair, settled her ample frame down, and when the bald-headed waiter scurried over to take her order, all smiles and fawning, she asked for some kind of wild berry tea that arrived a few moments later in a tall chintzy pot with a matching cup and saucer.

Ben quickly forgot she existed. He cradled his drink and was back to thinking about how soon he could be out of Munich when he noticed that Raul was staring at the woman as if she’d sprouted horns.

Ben glanced over. She hadn’t sprouted horns. She was sitting demurely sipping her tea and studying what looked like an art exhibition brochure.

‘What?’ Ben said, but Raul made no reply and went on staring fixedly for twenty more seconds before he slid his jackboot stein away from him and stood up.

‘Raul,’ Ben said, warning him with his eyes. ‘What are you doing?’

But for reasons best known to himself, Raul was on a mission and didn’t seem to hear. He skirted their table and stalked intently across the room to where the woman was sitting. It was like watching a replay of the fight in the bar in Frigiliana, except this time Raul didn’t set fire to anybody. Not yet.

Raul stopped at the woman’s table and stood over her with his fists balled at his sides. ‘¿Dónde encontraste eso?’ he demanded loudly, then remembered where he was and repeated it in English, the only language he knew that she might understand. ‘Where did you get that? Tell me!’

Ben had sprung up from his chair and was immediately right behind him with his hand on the Spaniard’s shoulder. ‘What the hell are you at?’

The woman was gaping up at him. Her gash of a mouth opened an inch and quavered in bewilderment.

Raul turned to Ben. ‘Ask her in German. Go on, ask. I want to know where she got that.’

‘Got what?’

‘That.’

Raul pointed at the woman’s chest.

Ben stared, baffled, until he realised that Raul was talking about the piece of jewellery that was hanging around her neck. The pendant caught the light and sparkled against the black cashmere polo-neck she was wearing: a glittering cluster of fine-cut white and coloured stones arranged in a spiral pattern about three inches in diameter. Ben was no jeweller. The stones could have been any old cut glass, or they could have rivalled the Koh-I-Noor diamond for value. Either way, Ben was more interested in what had got into Raul Fuentes.

Ben wasn’t the only one who was perplexed by Raul’s sudden outburst. The bald waiter had spotted trouble and was quickly threading his way through the tables towards them. The woman’s eyes were wide open with terror. She backed away from the table and stumbled out of her seat to retreat from this crazy person who was accosting her.

Raul lunged forward and grabbed her wrist. She let out a yelp. People were turning to stare. The waiter was running faster towards the table.

‘For Christ’s sake, Raul,’ Ben said. ‘Let her go.’

Raul shook his head and held onto the struggling woman’s arm. ‘She’s not going anywhere. She could be one of them.’

‘Enough. Have you lost your mind?’

‘That’s Catalina’s necklace,’ Raul said through gritted teeth. ‘She’s not going anywhere until I get an answer.’

The waiter had reached them and was waving his hands frantically. ‘You, back off,’ Ben warned him in German, aiming a finger at his chest.

‘Ich werde die Polizei anrufen,’ the waiter said, drawing back a step as if Ben’s pointed finger were a pistol.

Raul picked up on the word ‘Polizei’ and said, ‘That’s right, you go right ahead and call them.’ He aimed a finger at the terrified woman. ‘We’ve got a kidnapper here.’

Ben turned away from the waiter and snatched Raul’s hand. He dug a thumb into the nerve point in Raul’s wrist. Just a little pressure was enough to make the muscles spasm and let go.

‘I said, enough,’ Ben told him seriously. ‘Look at her. She’s going to have a heart attack.’

The woman was bawling now, her face bright purple and wisps of hair coming loose from her pinned-up helmet. Most of the good citizens in the place had turned to gape in alarm. Two or three other men were half out of their seats, hesitating to weigh in. If enough of them rushed forwards at once, things could get messy. The waiter had raced back behind the bar to grab a phone and call the cops.

Raul’s eyes bugged. ‘I’m telling you, this bitch is wearing my sister’s necklace.’

‘It’s just a necklace,’ Ben said.

‘No, it’s not just a necklace, Ben. It’s her necklace. There’s no other like it in the world. It’s a diamond and sapphire spiral galaxy made just for her by a top jewellery designer. It was a gift from that bastard Austin Keller.’

Austin Keller again. ‘The one who broke her heart, I remember.’

‘She stopped wearing the necklace when they split up. It’s engraved on the back, All my love, A.J.K.’

‘It is mine!’ the woman shouted in heavily accented English, speaking for the first time. She clutched protectively at the spiral pendant with both hands, as if you’d have to break all her fingers to take it from her.

‘Ah, so she does understand,’ Raul sneered at her. ‘Fine. So you can tell that to the police.’

‘We’re not waiting for them,’ Ben said. ‘Let’s go.’ He grabbed Raul’s arm again, but this time Raul was ready for him and elbowed him sharply backwards in the ribs before tearing free of Ben, lunging after the woman a second time. Raul knocked her hands out of the way and clawed the pendant from her neck. The woman let out a cry as the flimsy silver chain snapped.

Raul clutched the diamond cluster in his fist, turned it over to examine the shiny silver mounting plate on the back and let out a ‘Ha!’ of satisfaction. ‘There. I knew it! I told you! Look!’

Raul turned triumphantly to Ben and showed him. Up close, the exquisite craftsmanship of the piece was unmissable. It was a beautiful thing. The glittering white diamonds radiated in an elliptical spiral from the bluer stones in the centre, the outer jewels delicately mounted on tiny silver arms to give the impression that they were floating freely in space. You could almost see the galaxy slowly rotating on its axis.

As Raul flipped the piece over on the palm of his hand, Ben could clearly see the fancy engraved lettering on the backplate.

All my love

A.J.K.

Ben looked sharply up at Raul. The Spaniard was grinning a nasty grin and his eyes were glittering almost as brightly as the stones. ‘How did I know that, hmm? How did I know that? This bitch took it from her, that’s how.’ He wheeled back to glare at the woman.

Unless Raul Fuentes was clairvoyant, Ben couldn’t see any other explanation either. In the blink of an eye, the situation had totally reversed.

Two men from nearby tables had eased from their seats and were slowly advancing. Ben gave them another warning stare and said in German, ‘Easy. Nobody’s getting hurt here.’

Raul was still questioning the woman. Now that she realised she wasn’t about to be murdered, she was coming out more freely with answers.

‘Ich habe es mir gerade gekauft … I – I buy it!’

‘When?’ Raul demanded.

‘She says recently,’ Ben said. She looked too frightened to be lying. In a gentler tone than Raul’s, he asked her in German to tell him exactly when and where she had purchased the piece of jewellery.

‘Not long ago … I think three weeks. I saw it in a window for sale … A pawnshop. I wouldn’t normally go into those places but it was so beautiful I—’

Ben said to Raul, ‘She says she bought it from a pawnshop three weeks ago.’

‘Bullshit!’ Raul spat, enraged. ‘Now, listen, you—’

‘Cool it, Raul.’ Ben was still holding up a hand to warn away the heroes from the nearby tables. It wasn’t easy to smile reassuringly in that position, but he needed to put the woman at her ease. ‘Please, Fräulein, tell me the name of the shop where you found it.’

The woman gave an address, and Ben repeated it back to her twice. She was crying, partly from shock and fear, and probably also partly because she thought she’d lost her precious pendant.

‘Let her have it,’ Ben said.

‘No way she’s getting it back. It’s Catalina’s.’

‘You can’t steal it from her. She’s telling the truth. For Christ’s sake, look at her. She’s scared to death.’ Ben held out his hand. Reluctantly, after a beat, Raul dropped the pendant into his palm. Ben returned it to the woman. ‘There. Everything’s fine. Please sit down and finish your tea. We’re leaving.’ He repeated it more loudly for the rest of the room to hear. ‘Okay? No problems here. We’re going now.’ He pulled a few euros from his pocket to pay for their drinks and left them on an empty table as they retreated towards the door. Then they spilled back out into the rainy street and ran for the car before the police arrived.

‘This is getting to be a habit since I met you,’ Ben said as he accelerated the Kia up the street.