THE TUNNEL: A Ben Hope Story Read Online Free PDF Page B

his hands still tied. Not the neatest job in the world, was it?’
    ‘I had nothing to do with it,’ Falconer protested.
    ‘Of course not. You’re retired,’ Ben said. ‘Now, I’d imagine that before they killed him, they pressed him to find out who he’d already been talking to. I’m guessing he confessed that he’d spilled his guts to someone from the regiment. Hence the guard dogs. You were expecting trouble. But you didn’t know who was coming, or else you’d have made damn sure you got to them first. My guess is, the night I met Lennox he was so pissed he couldn’t remember afterwards who it was. Am I right?’
    Falconer gave a weary sigh. He slowly closed his eyes, then reopened them. Something rattled in his throat. ‘We narrowed it down a list of four potential names,’ he said, after a beat.
    ‘Was I on the list?’
    Falconer nodded. ‘We knew that if it was you, you wouldn’t take it lightly. A team was dispatched to Ireland to look for you, but you weren’t at home.’
    ‘I’m a restless soul,’ Ben said. ‘What about the other three? You’d better not tell me they’ve come to any harm.’
    ‘Still watching them,’ Falconer said quietly.
    ‘So then you decided to post your guys here and wait. Nice work, Liam. You’ve got a great big guilty sign hanging around your neck. Just as I thought.’
    ‘You know damn all,’ Falconer said, his anger flaring up. ‘You’re shooting in the dark with only the ravings of a drunken idiot to go on.’
    ‘Not quite,’ Ben said. Not taking his eyes off Falconer for a second, he tore open the Velcro fastener of one of the pockets of his black combat jacket. He slipped out a slim package wrapped in waterproof plastic. Inside were four glossy 9x13 photographic prints. He drew one of them out and flicked it into Falconer’s lap. Falconer hesitated, then slowly peeled his left hand away from his stomach and reached down to pick it up. When he did it, Ben could see the fresh blood leaking from the bullet hole in his abdomen. Falconer must have been in terrible pain.
    The photo was of a white car, a boxy, no-frills hatchback. It was parked on grass with trees in the background. The angle of the shot showed that it had French number plates.
    ‘Fiat Uno,’ Ben said. ‘Familiar to you?’
    Falconer tossed the photo on the floor, where it landed in the pool of blood and started absorbing red. ‘I don’t remember having seen it before,’ he murmured, exhausted from the movement. His energy was steadily ebbing away.
    ‘Neither does its former owner,’ Ben said. ‘That’s because he’s been dead for four years. His name was James Andanson. You knew him, didn’t you, Liam?’
    Falconer stared at Ben but said nothing.
    ‘Need me to jog your memory again?’ Ben said. ‘Andanson was a photographer. A very successful, very wealthy photographer. Born in England, lived in France. Aged fifty-four when he died. He made his money hounding a lot of silly famous people all over the world to sell his snaps to the press. Personally, why anyone would want to pay to see those kinds of pictures is a mystery. Celebrity gossip never was my thing and I don’t read the papers. But I do know that Andanson was in the Pont de l’Alma road tunnel that night. And I also know that he wasn’t just your regular lens hound. Once upon a time, or so I’ve been told, he served a spell in the Territorial SAS. Later on he worked as an informer and freelance agent for MI6 and French Intelligence. Some might even go so far as to claim he was working for the Increment. That sounds about right to me.’
    ‘You’re insane, Hope.’
    Ben smiled darkly. ‘I must be. What a way to spend your Christmas Eve.’ He drew another photo from the plastic wrap. It showed another car. This time, a black BMW saloon. It was parked in a clearing in a forest, dappled sunlight filtering through the foliage. The car was a burned-out wreck, sitting on bare rims, its glass streaked with soot, most of