The directions he’d been given took him on a tour of the town. Villeneuve’s more affluent neighbourhoods were gathered on the south side, with ancient oak trees laden with Spanish moss, and old white wood colonial homes with all-around verandas. A mile north was the town square, featuring a pretty little parish courthouse with Georgian columns and a clock tower. The street was lined with a hardware store, a grocery market, a gun shop called Stonewall’s that had a Confederate flag displayed in the window, a pharmacy, a gas station and a bar and grill with a sign that said CAJUN STEAKHOUSE and seemed a lot more appetising than fresh coon meat or Mickey’s crawfish.
Off the square were narrower residential streets shaded by elm trees and lined with small clapboard shotgun houses, some well tended, others rundown with beaten-up old cars and rust-streaked propane tanks in their front yards, along with the obligatory chicken netting and tethered dogs prostrated by the heat. Every house had a mesh screen door to ward off insects, and sat up off the ground on brick pillars to protect against flood waters, with several steps up to the front entrance.
Ben found the Bayou Inn after a bit of searching, and checked in. The small hotel was owned and run by an older couple called Jerry and Mary-Lou Mouton. They greeted him with welcoming smiles and a ‘How y’all doin’? Travellin’ kinda light, aintcha?’
Which was true enough, out of long-established habit. His green canvas army haversack was a recent acquisition, to replace its predecessor which had been blown up inside a car in Russia. Another had been lost in a tsunami in Indonesia. He went through bags a lot. This one contained his usual light travelling kit – black jeans, a spare denim shirt and underwear, and a few assorted odds like his mini-Maglite and compass. When he got to his first-floor room he flung the bag carelessly on the bed.
The room was small and simple and basic, which was how he liked things to be. A tall window opened out onto a tiny balcony, where he pensively smoked a cigarette while gazing down at the quiet street below.
After a shower, Ben dug out his expensive smartphone with the intention of sending a couple of text messages to people back home, only to find that the damn thing had died on him. Terminal. Kaput. He’d had it a week. The joys of technology. He trotted downstairs and asked Mary-Lou where he might be able to buy another one, and she told him about a little store down the street that she thought might be able to help.
As it turned out, the only phones the store had were of the cheap, prepaid ‘burner’ variety. No names, no contracts, no frills. That suited Ben fine, and the untraceable anonymity of such a device appealed to the rebellious streak in him that objected to government surveillance agencies prying into the personal affairs of innocent citizens. The burner even had decent web access. He shelled out two ten-dollar bills for the phone itself, two more for credits, and was back in business.
By now it was early evening and Ben’s hunger was sharpened to the point where he couldn’t ignore it any longer. Remembering the Cajun Steakhouse he’d passed earlier, he set off at a leisurely pace in the direction of Villeneuve town square. The Moutons had given him a front door key to let himself in with, so he was free to take all the time he wanted and return as late as he pleased.
It felt strange to be so relaxed and at a loose end. He could get used to it, maybe, with a little practice.
The Cajun Steakhouse offered a baffling range of local fare like filé gumbo, eggs with shrimp and grits, Creole jambalaya and something called Louisiana-style crawfish boil. Ben decided to play it safe and ordered a T-bone with fries and a Dixie beer.
‘You jes’ sit tight, handsome, and I’ll bring you the best steak you ever tasted in your life,’ promised his teased-blond hostess called Destiny, who kept flashing eyes at him. But she probably treated every tall, fair-haired stranger who walked into the bar and grill just the same way.
Destiny’s promise was no empty claim. The T-bone was the biggest and most delicious he’d ever had, thick and succulent. After two more Dixie beers, Ben was definitely feeling at home. So much so, that he suddenly had a hankering for a glass of good malt scotch, the kind he’d occasionally – or more than occasionally – enjoy during quiet evenings at Le Val, sometimes over a game of chess with Jeff, or in front of the fire with his German shepherd dog, Storm, curled at his feet. At the bar, he asked Destiny what she had, and with an alluring smile she produced a bottle.
‘What is it?’ he asked. It was the colour of stewed tea.
‘This here is Louisiana Whiskey, hon. Or else, we got Riz.’
‘Riz?’
‘Uh-huh. Made from rice.’
Ben shook his head. ‘Not exactly what I had in mind.’
‘How about rum?’ Destiny suggested. ‘Folks round here drink a lot of rum. But you ain’t from around here, are you, sugah?’
‘Is it really that obvious?’
Ben settled for a tot of local rum, which was probably made at one of the cane distilleries he’d passed on the drive up from New Orleans. It wasn’t single malt scotch, but he was in a forgiving mood, and the Cajun Steakhouse was definitely growing on him. He spent the whole evening there, watching the place fill up with local colour and listening to the diet of rock and country music that streamed constantly from the jukebox. He might even get used to that, too.
Two more tots of rum, and he sat thinking about Jude, about life, about a lot of stuff. Such as his hesitant, awkward relationship with a woman called Sandrine Lacombe, who was a doctor at the hospital in Cherbourg a few kilometres from Le Val. Ben was drawn to her, and she to him, but it was as though neither of them could bring themselves to take the plunge. Like one of the stalemates that so many of his chess matches with Jeff ended in.
The truth was that, however much they liked each other, Ben was never going to be the love of Sandrine’s life, nor she of his. No, he’d already had that, and lost it, and there was seldom a day when he didn’t reflect on it with regret and guilt.
It was late when Ben finally left the bar and grill. He went walking through the warmth of the night, a little cooler and less sultry and far more pleasant. The stars were twinkling in an ink-black sky and the scent of magnolia trees was in the air. The streets of Villeneuve were quiet and peaceful. He didn’t feel like returning to the hotel just yet.
And that, as he strolled around exploring the small town, was when Ben spotted the lit-up store front with the sign above the door that said ELMO’S LIQUOR LOCKER, and decided to take a look inside. Just in case. You never knew what you might find.
Nine minutes to midnight.
Of all the late-night liquor stores in all the sleepy little towns of rural Louisiana, he’d had to walk into the one where a couple of morons were intent on sticking the place up. And on all the nights the pair of armed robbers could have chosen to do the deed, they had to pick the very moment when someone like Ben Hope was lurking just around the corner, fifteen feet away out of sight in the far aisle behind a stack of Dixie beer.
It had to be fate.
On the count of three, Ben stepped out where they could see him, and said, ‘Hello, boys.’
Ben was still clutching the bottle of Laphroaig Quarter Cask that he’d been about to carry over to the counter to buy. But at this moment, in his mind it ceased to be a vessel for seventy-five centilitres of one of the most venerable liquids ever crafted by human artistry, and became a usefully hefty club-shaped weapon weighing in at just under three pounds, perfectly balanced to inflict all kinds of damage to the human body. Ben’s mind often worked that way, especially at times like these. In the instant it took