Читать книгу The Ben Hope Collection - Scott Mariani, Scott Mariani - Страница 83

Villiers pointed the revolver at Ben’s head. Fairfax closed his eyes and drank greedily from the gold chalice.

‘Before you shoot me, there’s something you should know,’ Ben said. ‘What you’ve just drunk isn’t the elixir of life. It’s tapwater from your own bathroom.’

Fairfax lowered the chalice. A dribble of the water ran down his chin. The look of rapture on his face drained away. ‘What did you say?’ he said slowly.

‘You heard me,’ Ben said. ‘I must admit, you had me fooled. You were right about me–I was blind to your lies. It was brilliant, Fairfax. And it almost worked. If it hadn’t been for a punctured tyre and meeting your head of stables, you’d be standing there with the real elixir.’

‘What are you talking about?’ demanded Fairfax in a strangled voice.

Villiers had lowered the gun. His face was twisted in thought.

‘Herbie Greenwood’s been working on your estate for thirty-five years,’ Ben went on. ‘But he’d never heard of any Ruth. You never even had children, Fairfax, let alone grandchildren. Your wife died childless. There was never any little girl here.’

‘What have you done with the real elixir?’ Fairfax shouted. He threw down the gold chalice. It clanged dully and rolled across the floor.

Ben reached into his pocket and took out the small glass bottle that Antonia Branzanti had given him. ‘Here it is,’ he said. And before they could stop him, he whipped back his hand and hurled the bottle into the fireplace. It smashed into a thousand tiny shards against the iron grate, and the flames flared high for an instant as the alcohol preservative in the mixture burned up.

‘How does that grab you, Fairfax?’ Ben asked, looking him in the eye.

Fairfax turned, white-faced, to Villiers. ‘Take him and lock him up,’ he ordered in an icy voice, barely containing his fury. ‘By God, Hope, you will talk.’

Villiers hesitated.

‘Villiers, did you hear me?’ Fairfax thundered, his face turning from white to red.

Then Villiers raised the revolver again. He turned towards his employer and trained the gun on him.

‘Villiers, what are you doing? Have you gone mad?’ Fairfax backed away, cowering.

‘He hasn’t gone mad, Fairfax,’ Ben said. ‘He’s a spy. He works for Gladius Domini. Don’t you, Villiers? You’re the mole. You’ve been reporting back every move I’ve made to your boss Usberti.’

Fairfax had backed away as far as the fireplace, the flames roaring and crackling behind him. His eyes were pleading, and his trousers were wet with urine. ‘I’ll pay you anything,’ he bleated. ‘Anything. Come on, Villiers–let’s work together. Don’t shoot.’

‘I don’t work for you any more, Fairfax,’ Villiers sneered. ‘I work for God.’ He pulled the trigger. The high bark of the .357 Magnum drowned out Fairfax’s scream. The old man tore at his clothes as a dark-crimson stain began to spread rapidly across his white shirt. He staggered, clutched at a curtain and brought it down.

Villiers shot him again. Fairfax’s head snapped back, a small round hole between his eyes. Blood spattered up the wall. His knees crumpled and he slid lifelessly down to the floor, still clutching the curtain. It fell with him, one end in the fire. The curling flames ate greedily along its length.

Before Ben could leap across the dining-table, Villiers had spun round and was aiming the gun at him from across the room. ‘Stop right there.’

Ben walked around the table and moved steadily towards Villiers, watching his reactions. He could see the man was nervous, sweating and breathing a little harder and faster than usual. He’d probably never shot anyone before, and he was all alone in a tough situation. He hadn’t reckoned on this turn of events, and his organization was in tatters with no back-up to offer him. But a nervous man could be as deadly as a confident one. Perhaps even deadlier.

He tensed the gun and aimed it at Ben’s face. ‘Stay back,’ he hissed. ‘I’ll shoot.’

‘Go ahead and kill me,’ Ben said calmly. He walked on. ‘But then you’d better start running. Because when your boss gets out of jail he’ll track you down and have you tortured in ways you can’t imagine for losing him his prize. Shoot me, you might as well shoot yourself.’

Flames had spread from the curtain across the rug. Fairfax’s trousers were on fire. A sickly smell of smoke and burned flesh filled the room. Fire trickled up the side of a sofa, quickly gaining a hold on the upholstery, licking and crackling.

Villiers had edged backwards close to the spreading flames. The hand clutching the gun was shaking.

‘There’s only one problem,’ Ben went on. He could feel his rage building up inside him like a cold, white light. He glared hard at Villiers as he advanced steadily towards him. ‘You can’t take me alive, not on your own. You’re going to have to pull that trigger, because if you don’t I’m going to kill you myself, right now. Either way, you’re a dead man.’

Villiers tightened his grip on the trigger, sweat pouring down his face. The revolver’s hammer moved back. Ben could see the jacketed hollowpoint round in the chamber rotating into place, ready to align with the breech just as the hammer came down to punch the primer and ignite the cartridge that would blow a hole through his skull.

But by now he had Villiers right where he wanted him, up close and unable to back away any further. He threw a sudden slicing blow that caught the man’s wrist. Villiers cried out in pain and the .357 sailed into the fire. Ben followed up the blow with a kick to the stomach that sent Villiers sprawling into the suit of armour. It collapsed in a crash of steel plates, and its broadsword fell with a clatter. Villiers scrabbled desperately for the fallen sword and lunged at him, the heavy blade humming through the air. Ben ducked and the wild swing of the blade smashed into an antique cabinet, spilling crystal decanters of brandy and whisky. A lake of fire whooshed up and spread across the floor.

Villiers came at him again, hacking the sword from side to side. Ben backed away, but his foot came down on the gold chalice that Fairfax had thrown to the floor. It rolled, and he slipped and fell, hitting his head against the leg of the dining-table.

The sword came down again, hissing towards him. Stunned from the fall, he moved to the side just in time and the blade crashed into the table next to him. Dishes and cutlery fell to the floor around him. Something glinted at him out of the corner of his eye and he reached for it with groping fingers.

The black smoke was thickening as the blaze spread across the room, uncontrollable now as everything in its path burst alight. Fairfax’s body was burning from head to toe, his clothes little more than curling tatters of carbon, the flesh inside roasting.

Villiers’ figure loomed against the flames as he raised the heavy sword for the final strike. Fire glittered down the blade. His eyes were filled with a kind of animal triumph.

Ben twisted himself half-upright. His arm flicked in an arc. Something blurred through the smoke between them.

Villiers stopped. His fingers slackened their grip on the sword. The heavy blade clattered to the floor. He teetered, one step backwards, then another. His eyes rolled upwards in his head and then his body fell backwards into the flames. Three inches of steel and the ebony handle of the carving knife protruded from the centre of his forehead.

Ben staggered to his feet. The whole room was on fire around him. He could feel his skin shrivelling from the heat. He grabbed a dining chair and hurled it at one of the tall windows. The eight-foot pane shattered. Air rushed into the room and the fire became an inferno. He saw a gap through the flames and dashed at it for all he was worth. Threw himself wildly through the splintered hole in the window and felt a sliver of glass slice his forearm. He hit the grass and rolled to his feet.

Half blinded from the smoke and clutching his bleeding arm, he staggered away from the house and down the garden towards the acres of parkland. He leaned against a tree, coughing and spluttering.

Flames were pouring from the windows of the Fairfax residence and a huge column of smoke rose upwards into the sky like a black tower. He watched for a few minutes as the unstoppable blaze ripped through the whole house. Then, as the distant sirens drew nearer, he turned and disappeared into the trees.