For his own part, Jeff revealed with a coy grin that he’d recently met a woman he liked. Her name was Chantal and she was a primary school teacher in the nearby village. It sounded serious, which was a departure for Jeff, whose long string of part-time, on-off, short-term girlfriends had been scattered across most of Lower Normandy and had seldom ever been brought home to Le Val – partly because he’d never met one he wanted to get too permanent with, and partly due to the sensitive nature of the business that went on there.
‘How is business?’ Ben asked, reaching for his cigarettes and Zippo lighter.
‘Oh, you know, booming.’ Jeff spent a few more minutes updating him on all the latest developments at Le Val, while Ben smoked and helped himself to more wine. Final touches were being put to the extended rifle range and the new classroom facilities, and they had contracts coming in from all over the place with a five-month waiting list because they couldn’t cram it all in.
‘If things keep up at this crazy pace, we’re going to outgrow this place and need to start up another, just to meet demand,’ Jeff said. Just when things had been getting ridiculously busy, Paul Bonnard, who had been with the team since the beginning, had left to take a job at the renowned Gunsite tactical training academy in Paulden, Arizona. Jeff had employed two new staff members to fill the gap left by his departure. One was Ludivine Tournoy, a sixty-year-old former bank manager’s secretary from the nearby village who was now coming in part-time as an office assistant.
The other was a young British ex-infantryman who went by the name of Tuesday Fletcher. He was twenty-four, had done three years with the Royal Fusiliers and seen some warm action in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. His ambition, though, had been to become the first British Jamaican ever to qualify for 22 SAS. An ambition he might have achieved, if he hadn’t taken a bad fall during the endurance phase of selection testing in the Brecon Beacons. Tumbling down a rocky hillside with fifty kilos of gear on his back, Tuesday had broken four ribs, his left wrist, his left femur and his tibia in two places. When he’d bounced back two months later, still temporarily on crutches after complications and surgery, his military career was over.
‘He got a shitty deal from them, if you ask me,’ Jeff said. ‘But that’s the army for you. Won’t be long before they’ve got more Health and Safety officers than they have combatants.’
‘What’s he doing here?’ Ben asked.
‘Sniper trainer,’ Jeff said. ‘He’s got some skill with the rifle, I tell you. Better than anyone I’ve ever seen. Better than you, even.’
‘No, I mean, what brought him here?’
Jeff smiled. ‘He wanted to work with you, Ben. I had to tell him your absence was just temporary, or he wouldn’t have taken the job. Said they still talk about you in the Sass. Said you’re his idol. Said—’
‘I get the message,’ Ben said irritably.
Jeff smiled wider. ‘You never did take compliments well. Tough shit, ’cause I’ve got another one for you. I suppose you must’ve heard the news about old man Kaprisky?’
Auguste Kaprisky was an eighty-one-year-old Swiss-French billionaire with a château and estate near Le Mans, who couldn’t spend enough on personal security. While still at Le Val, Ben had provided advanced VIP protection training to his small army of bodyguards.
‘No, what about him?’ Ben asked.
‘It was all over the TV for a while. You must have been, um, busy.’
‘You know I don’t watch TV.’
‘Papers?’
‘You know I don’t read those either.’
‘How can you know what goes on in the world if you don’t follow the news?’
‘Because the less you follow the news,’ Ben said, ‘the more you know what goes on.’
‘You’re weird, you know that?’ Jeff shrugged. ‘Anyway, couple months back, a business rival of his went crazy over some lost deal or other that cost them a packet, got hold of an Uzi from somewhere and took a pop at the old boy.’
‘Is he dead?’
Jeff shook his head. ‘About a thousand holes in his house, but the ninjas took the bad guy down in short order. Nice job, too. Kaprisky swears he wouldn’t have survived it if we hadn’t trained up his team so well. You got a very nice letter of thanks, which I took the liberty of opening in your absence. Usual kind of thing, “Ben Hope saved my life; Ben Hope kicks arse; Ben Hope walks on water”, etc., etc., blah, blah, and there’s nothing he won’t do for us in return. He’s also recommended us to a bunch of his rich pals, three of whom have already been in touch wanting to make bookings.’
Ben disliked the spotlight, but he was pleased to hear things were going well. So far, though, he noticed, Jeff hadn’t said anything about Jude being there. Which Ben thought was a little odd, so he decided to raise the subject himself.
‘I gather you have a visitor?’ he said. ‘Someone I might know?’
Jeff’s hesitation in replying gave away what Ben already suspected. ‘He told you not to tell me, didn’t he? Why? Where is he?’
‘He’s not here,’ Jeff said.
‘Don’t fuck about with me, Jeff.’
‘I’m not. He was here, for the last seven weeks. But you missed him. He’s gone.’
‘What was he doing here?’ Ben asked. ‘Seven weeks?’
‘He wanted to do some training. That’s what we do here, isn’t it?’
‘Training for what?’ Ben said suspiciously.
Jeff looked at him. ‘What is it with you two? First he’s all cagey about you finding out he was here. Now you’re firing questions at me, like it’s such a big deal. Why get so het up about what Jude wants to do? He’s over twenty-one, isn’t he?’
‘Just.’
‘So what? I know you were close with his folks, but—’
‘Training for what, Jeff?’
‘Navy,’ Jeff said with a sigh. ‘Why he asked me not to tell you, it beats me. But now I have, so do me a favour and keep it to yourself, okay?’
Ben set his wineglass down. ‘He wants to join the navy?’
‘That’s what I said. He’s serious, too. Got the initial interview lined up in February, then the medical and PJFT two weeks later.’ Jeff was talking about the Royal Navy’s strenuous pre-joining fitness test, which all recruits had to pass before they could even commence the ordeal of basic training. ‘So when he called me and said he wanted to get in shape and talk to me about what navy life was like, I said no problem, come over.’
‘I see,’ Ben said, tapping his glass with a fingertip.
‘He’s a natural,’ Jeff said. ‘Always saying how much he loves the sea, so I took him up to the Pointe de Barfleur to watch him swim. He’s like a bloody fish in the water. Then we did weapons training, physio, technical knowledge, the works. He won’t have a problem getting past the tests. In fact I’ll eat my boots if he doesn’t come top of the class in all of them. Where he gets it from, vicar’s son and all that, who knows?’
Ben frowned.
Jeff went on, ‘So, yeah, he hung around for a few weeks, helping out around the place to earn his keep. I enjoyed having him here, and he had a good time too, even if I worked him like a bastard. Like I said, you just missed him. He left for Africa this morning.’