The Ben Hope Collection: 6 BOOK SET. Scott Mariani

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СКАЧАТЬ history of Werner Kroll’s family business. It had been around a long time, and had come a long way since its origins. He also knew that Kroll wouldn’t hesitate to have him, or anyone else, killed if they betrayed him or informed on him. The old Austrian was small and looked harmless. He was a little odd in his ways, and he had the air of an old-world schoolmaster. But he was the most dangerous man Jack Glass had ever met in his life, and he’d met a great many dangerous people.

      Glass pictured Kroll’s wrinkled, pinched grey face in his mind. One day, he was going to kill the old bastard and fuck that little whore he kept as his mistress.

      He dressed in a white shirt and grey slacks, did his tie up loosely and put on his blazer. In his office he found a sheet waiting for him on the fax machine. It was from London. He studied it up close. This was interesting.

      Werner Kroll was sitting in his conservatory breakfast room with Eve. He ate in silence with his back to the window and the ornamental lake with the snowy mountains beyond. Kroll had been eating the exact same breakfast every morning for six years, poached eggs with slivers of toast cut into precisely the same sizes, arranged the same way on a porcelain plate. No butter. He ate delicately, almost daintily.

      Glass came in carrying a folder. Kroll’s fork halted midway between his plate and his mouth. He dabbed his lips with his napkin and glared at him. ‘I’ve told you not to disturb me at breakfast,’ he said in an icy voice. His nose twitched. ‘My God, man, are you chewing gum again?’

      Glass smiled to himself and took the gum out of his mouth. He loved to wind the old man up. ‘Forgive me, sir,’ he said. ‘I thought you might like to see this. It just came through.’ He opened the file and handed Kroll a sheet of fax paper.

      Kroll put on a pair of half-moon spectacles and peered down his nose at the sheet. It was a copy of the front page of last night’s Evening Standard. It showed a grainy photo of Leigh Llewellyn surrounded by fans. Kroll recognized the Oxford landscape, the Sheldonian theatre behind her. To her left stood a man he hadn’t seen before. They were holding hands. The headline read ‘WHO’S LEIGH’S LEADING MAN?’

      Kroll lowered the sheet and looked at Glass over the top of his lenses. ‘Is this the person who killed one of our best men with…what was it?’

      ‘A skillet, sir,’ Glass said.

      Eve picked up the sheet and peered at the man in the photo. She liked the look of him, tall and fit-looking. Glass was watching her face.

      ‘I would also like to find out who Leigh’s leading man is,’ Kroll said. He glanced at Eve. She’d been looking at the picture a moment too long. He snatched it away from her.

      ‘I think I know who he is, sir,’ Glass said.

      ‘A professional bodyguard?’ asked Kroll.

      ‘I think he might be a little more than that,’ Glass said. ‘I’ll have to check my contacts. It might take a few days. But I’m certain it’s him.’

      Kroll dismissed him and went back to his eggs. They were cold. He pushed them away in disgust.

      Eve was heading back to her room after breakfast when she met Glass in the corridor. He was standing at her doorway, leaning casually against the wall with one big hand against the door-frame.

      She stopped and looked at him. ‘Aren’t you going to let me through?’

      He grinned, eyeing her up and down. She tried to shove past him. His powerful hand gripped her arm and he whirled her around.

      ‘Get your paws off me,’ she warned him.

      Glass pulled her closer and roughly fondled her breasts through her blouse. ‘Nice.’

      She tore away from him and slapped him across the face, felt the hardness of his jaw against her hand. Her palm stung.

      Glass smiled. ‘I’m watching you,’ he said. ‘I know what you want.’

      ‘Do you really?’

      ‘Once a whore, always a whore. You want to fuck a real man for a change?’

      ‘If I can find one,’ she said.

      ‘You’ve got one right here.’

      ‘In your dreams.’

      Glass’s smile stretched into a grin. ‘One day, bitch. One day soon.’

       Chapter Twenty-Seven

       Italy

       Later that day

      Professor Arno invited them into a large, sunlit study and offered them a glass of grappa. His English was heavily accented but fluent. He walked with a stick and the ancient tweed jacket was two sizes too large for him. His movements were slow and his frail hands shook slightly as he poured the drinks from a crystal decanter, then took off his jacket and hung it on a hat stand. He motioned them to a cluttered desk that sat in front of a pair of arched windows overlooking the villa’s pretty gardens.

      The study was filled with a heavy, sickly vanilla-like smell from the three large scented church candles burning in an antique silver candle-holder. The elderly professor walked stiffly around the desk and lowered his wiry frame into a button-leather chair with his back to the windows.

      Ben and Leigh sat facing him. Ben drank the burning spirit down and laid his empty glass in front of him on the desk. Leigh took a tiny sip and cradled her glass nervously on her knee, preparing in her mind what she wanted to say.

      The professor leaned back in his chair, his wispy white hair silhouetted against the sunlight streaming in through the glass. He watched Leigh for a few moments with a glimmer in his eye. ‘I heard you sing Lucia di Lammermoor at the Rocca Brancaleone,’ he said to her. ‘I thought you were magnificent, the greatest Lucia since Maria Callas.’

      Leigh smiled graciously. ‘Thank you, Professor. That’s a great compliment, and I’m sure I don’t deserve it.’ She paused. ‘But unfortunately we didn’t come here to talk about opera.’

      ‘I did not think you had,’ the old man said.

      ‘I believe my brother Oliver came here to see you last winter. What can you tell me about his visit?’

      ‘I found him a charming young man,’ Arno said sadly. ‘We got on very well. He only planned a short stay, but we talked for many hours. In the end he remained here for nearly two whole days. I was very impressed with his passion for music. He played for me, pieces from the Goldberg Variations and some Clementi sonatas. A gifted pianist. His Clementi interpretation was very nearly in the same league as Maria Tipo, in my opinion.’

      ‘He was here to discuss the research for his book,’ Leigh said.

      ‘Yes. Oliver asked me to clarify certain things that were unclear to him.’

      ‘Things about the letter?’ she asked.

      The professor nodded. ‘The Mozart letter I obtained from СКАЧАТЬ