Ben Hope. Scott Mariani

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СКАЧАТЬ not long afterwards Jeff had announced that he and Chantal were getting engaged. It all seemed to be going full steam ahead. The wedding date was set for later in the year, at the nearby village church in Saint Acaire. Jeff had even been trying to learn French.

      But while Ben was in America, a long-simmering dispute between Jeff and his fiancée had finally blown up. Chantal could live with her future husband’s military past but couldn’t tolerate that he made his living by teaching people how to, in her words, ‘kill people’. After much soul-searching, she’d come to the conclusion that she couldn’t reconcile his violent and morally corrupt profession with her calling as a teacher of innocent, vulnerable little children. Chantal would have no truck with Jeff’s explanations that Le Val was a training facility devoted to teaching the good guys how to protect innocent people from the bad guys, and that all the firearms at the compound were kept strictly secure in an armoured vault, and that the place was about as morally corrupt as a Quaker convention. Adamant, she’d given him an ultimatum: if he wouldn’t give up his position at Le Val and let his partner take over his share in the business, then he could wave goodbye to the future he and she had planned together.

      Jeff had flatly refused to quit. Whereupon, true to her promise, Chantal had broken off the engagement. The dramatic collapse of their relationship had floored Jeff, and he was still extremely bitter about it. He talked about little else – and Ben got the feeling he was about to start talking about it again now.

      ‘She knew what I did when we got together,’ Jeff groaned, staring into his glass. ‘What the fuck’s wrong with her? Don’t answer that, I already know.’

      Tuesday looked at Jeff with wide eyes. ‘You do?’

      ‘Damn right I do. She’s a do-gooder, that’s what she is.’ Jeff took another gulp of wine and tipped his glass towards Ben. ‘Just like what’s-her-name. That activist chick Jude runs around with.’

      Jude was Ben’s grown-up son from a long-ago relationship, now living in Chicago with his girlfriend. Ben wouldn’t have described her as a ‘chick’, but ‘do-gooder’ was admittedly apt, as was ‘activist’.

      ‘Actually,’ Ben said, ‘things aren’t going too well there either. Jude called last night. Looks like they might be splitting, too.’

      ‘There must be something going around,’ Tuesday said.

      Jeff grunted. ‘He should never have hooked up with her in the first place. Let me guess, she finally realised Jude isn’t enough of a soy boy commie liberal for her tastes.’

      Jeff really wasn’t in a good mood tonight.

      Ben said, ‘Not exactly. She’s become a vegan.’

      ‘Oh, please. Give me a break.’

      ‘And apparently she expects Jude to follow suit.’

      ‘What, like, and live on rice and egg noodles?’

      ‘Can’t have egg noodles,’ Tuesday said.

      ‘Why not?’ Jeff asked him.

      ‘Got egg in them,’ Tuesday said.

      ‘No kidding. So what?’

      ‘It’s exploitation of chickens. Like honey is exploitation of bees.’

      Jeff shook his head in disgust. ‘Jesus H. Christ. What is it with these food fascists? It’s like a disease. It’s spreading everywhere.’

      ‘Nah,’ Tuesday said. ‘It’s not a disease, it’s psychological. They’re stuck in a developmental phase that Freud called the oral stage. The kid learns as a baby that it can manipulate its parents’ behaviour by refusing to eat this or that. Basically, it grows up as a control freak, having learned at an early age how to get its own way and be the centre of attention all the time. From their teens they start attaching moral or ideological values to justify using food as a weapon.’

      Jeff, whose idea of using food as a weapon was restricted to mess-room grub fights and custard-pie-in-the-face comedy routines, stared at the younger man. Tuesday had a way of coming out with things out of left field, whether it was some obscure quotation, a snippet of poetry or assorted little-known facts.

      ‘Where the hell do you get all this stuff from?’ he asked, not for the first time since they’d known each other. ‘Fucking Freud?’

      Tuesday shrugged. ‘Brooke got me interested in it. We were talking about psychology last time she was here.’

      The name Brooke was one no longer mentioned too often at the table, or for that matter anywhere around the compound at Le Val. It referred to Dr Brooke Marcel, formerly Ben’s own fiancée, before things had gone bad there, too. Ben’s friends knew that it was a sensitive topic to raise. Likewise, nobody would have dared to mention the fact that the situation with Ben and Sandrine was like history repeating itself. The bullet that had killed the relationship between Ben and Brooke had been the sudden reappearance of an old flame, Roberta Ryder. Nothing had happened there, either, though Brooke hadn’t seen it that way. Then again, maybe Ben’s failure to turn up for their wedding had had something to do with it.

      Tuesday regretted his slip the instant he’d blurted out Brooke’s name. He gave Ben a rueful look. ‘Sorry. It just came out. Jeff’s fault.’

      ‘How’s it my fault?’ Jeff demanded.

      ‘You asked me. I answered.’

      ‘How was I to know what you were going to come out with? How can anyone know what you’ll say next?’

      ‘It’s okay,’ Ben said, to quell the tensions before Jeff’s foul mood made things escalate into a heated debate. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

      All these names from the past, all these lost loves, all these bittersweet memories. Ben sometimes felt as though his whole life path was just a trail of destruction, sadness and remorse. It was little comfort to know he wasn’t the only one. He wished that their conversation hadn’t taken such a downward turn. Perhaps it was time to open another bottle of wine, or get out the whisky.

      Before Ben could decide which, Storm the German shepherd suddenly uncoiled himself from the stone floor at his master’s feet, planted himself bolt upright facing the window and began barking loudly. The lights of a vehicle swept the yard outside. There was the sound of a car door.

      ‘Hello, the GIGN boys are back awfully early,’ Jeff said, looking at his watch. It was shortly after seven, only just gone dark outside. Nobody had expected Ferreira’s crew back until close to midnight, once they’d had their fill of junk food and cheap beer.

      ‘I guess they were less than impressed with the night life in Valognes,’ Tuesday said with a wry grin. ‘Welcome to the sticks, fellas.’

      The GIGN guys drove a monster crew-cab truck with enough lights to fry a rabbit crossing the road. Ben turned to look out of the window. It looked like the headlamps of a regular car outside.

      ‘It’s not them.’

      Jeff frowned. ‘We expecting anyone else?’

      Tuesday said, ‘Not that I know of.’

      Unannounced visitors at this or any time were a rarity at the remote farmhouse, СКАЧАТЬ