Nick shrugged. ‘Well, I have a confession to make. I looked you up.’
‘You did?’
‘A few months ago. Now that we have all this wonderful technology at our disposal, I was getting all mid-life-crisis-ish one evening and googled the names of a few of our old friends. I was horrified to learn of the deaths of Simeon and Michaela. I was doing a concert tour in Japan when they had their car accident, and I’d no idea. Came as a complete shock. I still can’t get over it.’ Nick shook his head mournfully. ‘That makes you and me the last of the old gang, doesn’t it?’
Ben said nothing. For two reasons. First, because he knew full well that the fatal crash had been no accident: he’d been there and witnessed it. And gone on to avenge the lives of his dead friends. Second, because of the private history that existed between him, Simeon and Michaela. Things that Nick didn’t know, some of which not even Ben himself had known for many years, and which would remain a secret forever. Ben stayed silent, waited for Nick to go on.
‘Anyway, there aren’t a lot of Benedict Hopes in the world. I found your business website, with your photo on it, which was how I knew it was you. I forget the name of it now. Le something.’
Ben had never liked his picture being on the website. Jeff’s idea. ‘Le Val,’ he said.
‘That’s it. Your bio doesn’t offer a great deal of information. Which I presume is intentional, because you can’t reveal much about your history. But I can guess.’
‘Can you?’
Nick shrugged. ‘Tactical training centre. What is that?’
‘What it sounds like,’ Ben said. ‘We train people.’
‘People? Anyone? People like me?’
‘I don’t think it would be your thing, Nick. Military and specialised police units, mainly. Some private outfits, too.’
‘What a strange world you live in. I had no idea such things existed.’
‘It’s just a job,’ Ben said.
‘Sounds like a little more than that.’
‘Keeps me out of trouble,’ Ben lied. More truthfully he added, ‘It’s been going a few years now. We might be expanding before long. Maybe southern France, or maybe further afield in Europe. Don’t know yet.’
‘I don’t suppose there’s much call for that kind of thing in Britain.’
‘Too many legal restrictions,’ Ben said. ‘Unless you’re the Ministry of Defence. That lot can do whatever the hell they please.’
Nick pursed his lips and nodded. ‘What did you do before that? It seemed from your bio as though there was a few years’ gap after you quit the army.’
‘Oh, this and that,’ Ben said.
‘So secretive?’
Ben shrugged. More than ever, he wished he wasn’t so easy to look up online. Damn that Jeff Dekker.
‘Let me guess,’ Nick said, smiling. ‘You were a professional assassin. Taking out corrupt dictators, or polishing off enemies for the mob.’
‘You’ve been watching too many movies.’
‘A secret agent, then.’
‘I helped people,’ Ben said, just to steer the conversation away. The bus was rumbling slowly northwards through Oxford. He was thinking about flouting the regulations and lighting up a Gauloise.
Nick raised his eyebrows. ‘Helped people?’
Ben shrugged again. Why couldn’t they just have discussed the weather, like everyone else? He said, ‘Sometimes people need help.’
‘The kind of help that they can’t otherwise get?’
‘That kind of thing,’ Ben said.
Nick was a shrewd guy, and he was looking at him with thoughtful eyes. Ben decided to say no more about himself. ‘So who’s coming to lunch?’ he asked.
‘Just a few pals. Music people, mostly. They’re an all right bunch. You’ll like them. One of them is my old professor, Adrian Graves, whom I haven’t seen for – crumbs, must be a couple of years. Where does the time go?’
Ben was wondering the same thing, as well as when he’d last heard anyone say ‘crumbs’.
Nick went on, ‘He’s an interesting character. Probably the most knowledgeable authority on baroque and classical that I know.’
‘I’m looking forward to meeting everyone,’ Ben said. It wasn’t strictly true. He would have preferred to spend the time alone with Nick, the two of them catching up in private as reunited friends should. But you couldn’t have everything.
They got off the bus on Banbury Road and walked the rest of the way. Nick lived in a quiet leafy street where imposing old three- and four-storey Victorian townhouses stood behind fancy black and gilt wrought-iron terrace railings. The Aston Martin, covered in pigeon droppings, was parked on the street outside a house with a black door with a lion’s head brass knocker. The buzzer panel discreetly mounted to the side with three name labels on it aside from Nick’s. ‘I’m on the top floor,’ he explained to Ben as he opened the door and led the way inside the hall.
In fact, as Ben soon understood as they reached the top of the house, Nick’s apartment comprised the entire upper floor. From the tall window outside his door there was a view of the University Parks woodland, cricket pavilion and the River Cherwell beyond.
‘I bid you welcome to my humble abode,’ Nick said, showing Ben into the apartment. The inside was modern compared to the exterior, airy and surprisingly large. The walls of the main living space were adorned with expensive-looking artwork and even more expensive-looking oriental rugs covered sections of the gleaming hardwood floors. But what instantly drew the eye more than anything else was the sunlit bay near the window, dominated by a shining ebony-black grand piano and a contrastingly ancient-looking, highly decorated keyboard instrument that Ben guessed was either a harpsichord or a clavichord. He was a little hazy on the difference. Whatever it was, it and the grand piano nestled together facing in opposite directions, the new and the old like two halves of a yin-yang symbol. They were the focal point of the room.
‘You have a very nice place,’ Ben said.
Nick grinned. ‘How about a coffee for the hero of the buses?’
‘Please, don’t start that again.’
‘Okay. I’m sorry. Then how about a coffee for a very old friend that I’m extremely happy to have met up with again?’
‘Sounds better,’ Ben said. ‘Me too.’
‘A deal’s a deal,’ Nick said. ‘And I don’t think my coffee will disappoint.’
Nick disappeared down a hallway that led to the kitchen, whistling some bright little tune as he got busy. Ben heard cupboard doors banging, cups and saucers clinking. In his host’s absence, Ben walked over to admire the piano. The gothic-script lettering above the keyboard and on its side said BOSENDÖRFER. It was quite a beast.
Ben liked music a lot, some kinds more than others, and often wished he’d taken up an instrument in his life. If he had, it would most likely have been the tenor sax, inspired by his favourite jazz players. Like Bird, of course, and Coltrane, and Sonny Rollins and Dexter Gordon and a host of others. He enjoyed listening to a good pianist, too, even though he wasn’t as much of a fan.
Nick’s piano was a beautiful object, no doubt about it. Neither it nor its antique counterpart showed a speck of dust and they both screamed loving maintenance in sharp contrast to the neglected state of the car in the street outside. It was pretty clear where Nick’s priorities lay.
Moving away from