‘I’ll do it,’ Ben said grimly. ‘Thanks, Tuesday. I’ll keep you posted when I know anything.’ He ended the call. Then took a deep breath and made the first of the two other calls he was dreading. As the dial tone was pulsing in his ear he tried desperately to formulate what he had to say. A woman’s voice answered at the fourth ring, ten thousand miles away.
‘May I speak to Mrs Lynne Dekker?’
‘Speaking. Who is this?’
‘Mrs Dekker, you don’t know me. My name’s Ben Hope. I work with Jeff.’
It was one of the worst calls he’d ever had to make. But the next one, to Chantal Mercier, was even harder. First the same stunned silence, then the same cry of anguish, the same gulping sobs. Then, to make Ben even more miserable, followed the rage, the recriminations, the bitter accusations. Chantal was certain that it was as a result of all the awful and dangerous things they did at Le Val that Jeff was hurt. Ben tried to placate her, but could think of little to say.
When it was over, he put the phone away and went back to the slightly lesser ordeal of waiting. He wasn’t counting the minutes. He was counting the seconds.
About nine thousand more of them had ticked by in his head, and the hands on the wall clock in the waiting room had left midday far behind, by the time a door swung open and a figure in a blue doctor’s overall appeared, spotted him and started walking briskly over. Ben stood up on jelly legs, his heart rate suddenly doubled. He stopped breathing.
Here it comes, he thought.
Dr Lacombe was a she, with a mop of streaky blond hair that would probably have reached down past her waist if it hadn’t been scraped back from her face and heaped and plaited into an elaborate French braid. She was probably around thirty-five but looked older, with shadows under her eyes as if she’d been up all night and was ready to drop from stress and exhaustion. Ben could picture how she must have looked just a minute earlier, in a surgical mask and apron and latex gloves, with even more of Jeff’s blood spattered on her than he had.
‘Sandrine Lacombe, head surgeon,’ she said, offering a hand, and Ben could tell from her tone that the news couldn’t be entirely bad. Relief flooded through him like warm honey pouring through his veins. He started breathing again.
The doctor’s grip was firm and dry. She had a clipped, efficient manner that Ben liked instantly as she started briefing him quickly on the situation.
It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but it could have been a lot better. Jeff had lost a tremendous amount of blood, necessitating an emergency transfusion the moment he’d been brought in. Meanwhile the path of the bullet, narrowly missing his heart, had caused massive tissue damage and internal bleeding in the chest cavity and collapsed a lung. They’d almost lost him twice during the three-hour operation. Now moved to the intensive care unit, he seemed to have stabilised. Holding on, but still deep in the woods.
‘We’ve done all we can,’ Dr Lacombe sighed. ‘I managed to sew up and reinflate the ruptured lung. As for the rest of the damage, now only time will tell if he’s going to pull through.’
‘Thank you,’ was all Ben could reply.
Dr Lacombe puffed her cheeks and gave a little shrug as if to say, don’t thank me too soon. ‘The next twelve hours will be difficult,’ she warned. ‘There’s a high risk of complications. Frankly, given the extent of the trauma I would give him little more than a sixty per cent chance of surviving this. He wouldn’t have made it even this far, if someone hadn’t prevented him from bleeding to death at the scene.’ Her weary but sharp blue eyes flicked up and down, taking in Ben’s bloodied appearance. ‘I take it that someone was you, Monsieur—?’
‘Hope. Ben Hope.’
A flicker of surprise in her eyes, that she wasn’t speaking to a Frenchman. Ben spoke the language without any trace of accent. She went on, ‘It was also you who provided the patient’s blood group. Thank you for that. If we hadn’t known in time, there’s little chance he would still be with us now. It appears you have some medical training?’
‘British Special Forces, a long time ago. They teach you a few basics to keep your people going when they’ve been shot, burned or blown up.’
She nodded pensively. ‘I thought you looked militaire. Anyway, you’ve helped to save his life for the moment, and with any luck he may live to thank you for it. We’ll do everything we can from here. But please don’t get your hopes up.’
‘I appreciate your directness, Doctor. That’s exactly what I need.’
‘May I ask what is your relation to the patient?’
‘Friend and business partner.’
‘This business, it’s in Basse-Normandie?’
‘We’ve been based here for a number of years.’ Ben left out what she didn’t need to know: that he’d spent a good portion of that time flitting from place to place and getting himself into trouble all over the world, and could speak a variety of languages as well as French. Jeff was Mr Stay-at-Home by comparison.
‘I see. What about his family – has Monsieur Dekker any relatives?’
‘A mother who emigrated to Australia. And a fiancée a little closer, in Saint-Acaire. They’ve already both been notified. His mother’s got a long way to travel to the nearest big airport, but I’d imagine she’ll be on her way soon.’
‘It’ll be a while before I’ll allow him to have any visitors.’ Dr Lacombe paused. ‘What about you? You have a contact number?’
‘I’m not going anywhere. Any changes in his condition, I’ll be right here.’
‘Just in case,’ she said, handing him a card, ‘this is my personal cell number, if you need to talk. I don’t give this out to everyone, you understand?’
‘I appreciate your help, Doctor.’
She paused again, fixed him with those sharp eyes, as blue as topaz, and said, ‘You know I have to report this, don’t you? A gunshot wound of this kind—’
‘I understand,’ Ben said, ‘but the police already know all about it. Some of them were already there just after it happened. I’m afraid more of them will be landing on your hospital pretty soon, looking for me.’
She shook her head. ‘What did happen?’
‘He was shot.’
‘I can see that. I mean, what happened?’
‘We were cutting up a fallen tree. Talking about this and that. He’d just told me that he was getting married. It was a happy time. We had no idea that someone was watching us. Someone hidden, quite a distance away, with a rifle. Then they fired. One shot, one hit. You know the rest.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Neither do I,’ Ben said. ‘Not yet.’
‘Does your friend have, I don’t know, enemies?’
‘Looks that way,’ Ben said. ‘One with a rifle, and who knows how to use it. Sniper-style, probably set up on a bipod and fitted with a scope. Judging by the ballistics, the gun’s something around a thirty-calibre, like a .270 or a .308. Maybe fitted with a silencer too, which could explain why I heard nothing over the noise of the chainsaw. Those are the only clues I have so far, for what they’re worth.’
‘I don’t know anything about guns, except what they can do to people,’ Dr Lacombe said with a faraway look and a slight shiver, as if she was visualising a whole back-catalogue of horrors she’d personally witnessed