Free The Armada Legacy by Scott Mariani Page B

bottom. The cops had dug up the same photo of her that she’d given Ben to use on the Le Val site. He’d often caught himself gazing at it when they were apart. He couldn’t look at it now.
    Hanratty and Kay Lynch were standing on the far side of the room. Neither had seen Ben and Amal come in; their attention was fully occupied by the slightly-built, sandy-haired man who was yelling at them. Ben recognised him as Neptune Marine’s dive team manager, Simon Butler. The man looked completely destroyed from stress – his face pale and moist, eyes rimmed with red, his hair and shirt damp with sweat. His voice was slurred, as if he’d been hitting the sherry. ‘Surely Scotland Yard should have been flown out here by now?’ he was demanding. ‘I mean, what is being done ?’
    Hanratty was protesting vigorously that it was his job to liaise with the English police, that everything was in hand, that he knew what he was doing. Lynch was saying nothing, looking down at her feet.
    ‘Ben? Ben Hope?’ said a voice. Ben turned round to see a much-changed but still familiar face peering at him out of the crowd.
    ‘Hello, Matt.’
    Matt Webster had been one of the regulars on the hostage negotiator circuit when Ben had still been active. He obviously hadn’t opted for life behind a desk yet, though he looked as if he should before too long. What little hair he had left had turned grey.
    They shook hands, and Ben briefly introduced him to Amal. ‘It’s been a long time,’ Webster said. ‘Six years?’
    ‘Seven,’ Ben said. ‘Lahore.’
    ‘Lahore. Christ, who could forget that one?’ Webster shook his head at the memory. Seven years earlier, a wealthy Kent-based private doctor named Shehzad, who had some time before taken out a kidnap and ransom insurance policy with a leading firm, had been violently abducted by an armed gang while visiting family in Pakistan. The ransom demand had been quickly followed up by a severed toe thrown from a passing car; when the toe had been verified as indeed belonging to Dr Shehzad, the insurance underwriters had panicked and sent in a whole team of negotiators. Both Ben and Webster were on it.
    The negotiations had been looking reasonably positive until the Pakistani police had managed to trace the phone used by the idiotic kidnappers and taken it upon themselves to storm their hideout in a pre-dawn raid using two armoured personnel carriers. In the ensuing gun battle several officers had been shot to pieces, as well as the entire gang of kidnappers and the doctor himself. The episode had been just one of the instances that had made Ben extremely wary of police involvement in kidnap cases, in any country.
    ‘So Rochester and Saunders sent you up here,’ Ben said.
    Webster motioned across the room to a colleague who had his back turned to them. ‘Me and Dave Hughes there.’ He paused and looked puzzled. ‘So what are you … ? I heard you were doing your own thing now.’
    Ben nodded. ‘You heard right. My involvement in this is private. I’m here because of Brooke Marcel. She and I …’ He didn’t finish the sentence.
    ‘God, I had no idea,’ Webster said, blanching. ‘I’m so sorry.’
    ‘What’s the situation, Matt? There’s been no contact, has there?’ Even as he asked the question, he already knew the answer. Just one glance at the haggard faces around the room had told him what he’d come to Carrick Manor to find out.
    Webster shook his head. ‘Zilch. Not a squeak.’
    Ben could have asked Webster if he was thinking the same thing he was, but there was no need. He could see it in his eyes.
    He said nothing. It was eight thirty-two. He glanced across at the silent phone. Justin Maxwell was still staring at it fixedly, barely blinking.
    At that moment Detective Inspector Hanratty, managing to get away from the angry Simon Butler, spotted Ben and Amal across the room. ‘Here comes trouble,’ Amal muttered as Hanratty battled his way round the long table and