Then it was real. It was true. He’s my son. Ben slowed his stride, turned and gazed back towards the Auberge Saint-Christophe. His eyes picked out the window of their room, a rectangle of dim light behind the latticework of scaffolding.
My son is in that room.
He shook his head in amazement. Thoughts tumbled through his mind as he walked on. Could they not have told me sooner? Could they not have tried to find me? For a few moments he felt indignation rising up inside him. Resentment, almost, that his oldest friends could have kept something like this from him for so many years.
But then he tried to imagine what the decision would have been like for them. It couldn’t have been easy. Michaela’s letter made it clear that it was something they’d discussed for a long time. And Ben hadn’t missed the implication in her words that some part of them hadn’t wanted to tell him at all.
But it was the truth. The truth.
I have a son.
Ben had reached the deserted village square. Snow was settling on the benches and iron railings that surrounded the 1945 Liberation Day monument, a marble plinth bearing a bronze statue of two French soldiers struggling under the burden of a wounded comrade. Their helmets and the folds of their clothing were rimmed with white. Ben stopped and gazed at the statue for a moment. Then a thought hit him like a punch in the stomach, making him sit down heavily on the nearest bench. He sank his head in his hands, suddenly filled with horror.
Bodmin Moor. The man in the bog. The way Ben had drowned him. Callously, deliberately. Inflicting a cruel, slow death on a defenceless enemy. Jude’s face afterwards.
What kind of man are you? Ben asked himself. What kind of man could kill like that, in cold blood, with his own son watching? Ben knew what kind. A trained assassin. Someone who’d devoted much of his life to war and bloodshed, who’d learned to suppress every shred of his own humanity in order to inflict injury and death on other men, simply because he’d been told to.
That was who he was. Perhaps that was all he ever would be. Perhaps it was why he didn’t deserve happiness, or love. Or Brooke.
Jude had grown up and spent his whole life believing that he was the son of a good man. They’d had their quarrels and disagreements like any other father and son, but Jude would look back on Simeon’s life and forever regard him as a decent human being, kind and gentle and just, who’d done his best to instil higher values in his only child. Could he ever say that about Ben Hope? How could he respect a man who’d done the things his real father had done?
Michaela’s words returned to Ben as he sat there on the snowy bench, trembling in the cold. ‘If you ever felt that he should know … that’s a choice we freely leave to you.’
‘Never,’ Ben said out loud. ‘I will never tell him whose son he really is.’
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Ben was heading slowly back through the empty streets, still dazed, still in shock, when he felt the pulsing vibration of his phone in his trouser pocket. Answering it with a muttered ‘Hello?’ he heard an unfamiliar voice. Male, French, thirties or forties, speaking quietly and furtively as if he didn’t want to be overheard.
‘Is this Monsieur Hope?’ the voice said.
‘Yes,’ Ben said. He blinked snow out of his eyes and struggled to focus mentally.
‘The Monsieur Hope who was asking about Father Lalique?’ the voice said.
Very quickly, the fog in Ben’s mind began to clear. ‘Who is this?’
‘I have information for you,’ the voice said after a pause. ‘Father Lalique’s suicide was set up. He was involved in something.’ Another pause. ‘This is not something to discuss on the phone. We must meet in person. Can you manage it tonight?’
‘Give me your address,’ Ben said. ‘I’ll meet you there right away.’
‘Not here,’ the voice said. ‘This is a small village and I have no desire to be openly associated with the scandal of the paedophile priest. Do you know the ruined church? It is easy to find, about two kilometres west of the village, heading towards St Affrique. I will meet you there in thirty minutes.’
Ben had noticed the broken-down steeple on the drive in. It had reminded him of Simeon and his efforts to fund the repair of ailing ecclesiastical buildings. ‘I’ll be there,’ he told his anonymous caller.
Completely focused and alert now, Ben raced back to the Auberge. ‘What’s going on?’ Jude asked as he marched into the room.
Ben didn’t want to look at Jude in case he started staring at him again. ‘You stay put a while,’ he said, snatching the Renault keys from the stand inside the door. ‘I’m going back out.’
‘At this time of night, in the snow?’
Ben discreetly slipped the book out of his pocket and bundled it into his bag under his spare clothes, well out of sight. The last thing he wanted was for Jude to develop a sudden interest in the literary works of John Milton. He was going to have to ditch the letter soon, although he’d be reluctant to lose it.
‘Where are you going?’ Jude demanded. ‘You’ve had a call from someone, haven’t you?’
‘Yes. Someone in the village has information and we’ve set up a rendezvous. But I don’t want you there.’
‘You try and stop me,’ Jude said, bristling.
‘Didn’t you hear me?’
‘Didn’t you hear me?’ Jude retorted angrily. ‘They were my parents.’
Ben froze for a second.
‘I said—’
‘I heard you,’ Ben said. What was he supposed to do, shut Jude in a cupboard? Tie him to a chair? ‘All right. You can come. But remember our deal. You stay out of the way and keep your mouth shut.’
‘I remember the deal,’ Jude said. ‘Not like I speak French anyway.’ Seeing Ben slinging his bag over his shoulder and knowing the gun was inside, he asked anxiously, ‘Are we expecting trouble?’
Ben shook his head. ‘No reason to. But there’s no way I’m leaving a firearm unattended in an empty hotel room.’
In the tiny car park behind the Auberge Saint-Christophe he scraped the fresh snow off the Laguna’s windscreen. ‘Where’s the RV?’ Jude said, getting into the car. ‘That’s what you military types call a rendezvous, isn’t it?’
‘Remember that ruined church we passed on the way in?’ Ben said.
‘Seems like a funny place to meet someone.’
The snowclouds had dispersed since the last flurry, and the moon was bright as Ben made his way carefully out of the village. After about a mile and a half he spotted the remnants of the old spire silhouetted above the trees, and turned off the road onto the short bumpy track leading to the tumbledown entrance of the churchyard.
There was no other vehicle in sight. Ben climbed out of the car and Jude followed him under the doorless archway into the ruined church. Moonlight streamed down through great holes in the roof, casting eerie shadows across the interior.
‘This place has seen better days, that’s for sure’ Jude observed, sniffing at the smell of damp and rot. Little remained except the empty stone shell of the building. The altar was missing, probably looted decades ago. Even the flagstones had been prised up. Ben guessed they’d found their way into a lot of the local houses and cottages over the centuries. The bare earth floor was littered with dead leaves and the decayed remnants of the old wooden pews. A dusting of snow had fallen in through the holes in the roof.
‘There’s