Ben pressed one and closed his eyes as the message played over again. At the end, he pressed two to save it, then laid the phone on the table. His ribs were burning as if he’d been shot again.
Hilary was staring at him expectantly, her eyes moist with tears. She snatched up the phone with a trembling hand. ‘What did that sound like to you? Like a man who wanted to die? A man about to kill himself? Tell me.’
Ben’s mind swam. None of this made any sense. He remembered the audio recording of Nick’s radio communication with the air traffic controller. ‘I’m taking her down!’
‘Let me hear it again,’ he said.
Her expression hardened. ‘You don’t believe it, do you?’
‘I just want to hear it again.’ He reached out his hand to take the phone from her fingers. ‘Give it here. Please.’
She clasped it tightly to her chest. ‘You still think he killed himself.’ Her face was white with fury.
‘Hilary, I didn’t say that. I just don’t understand what I’m hearing. Who else knows about this message?’
She shook her head. ‘Nobody. I don’t trust anybody.’
‘Something like this, and you don’t report it to the police?’
‘The police!’ she exploded. ‘It was the fucking police who planted the drugs in his house. Don’t you understand? Can’t you see? Cayman Islands police. A British territory? They’re all mixed up in it together.’
‘Hilary, I know this is awful for you, but we need to take this one step at a time. To suggest that there’s some kind of conspiracy going on—’
‘Explain this, then!’ she rasped at him, waving the phone in his face.
Ben couldn’t explain it.
‘I know something’s going on,’ she said. ‘I’m being followed. Someone’s been watching me. I think maybe they’re tracking my car. That’s why I wanted to come in yours.’
‘I’m sorry, Hilary. This all sounds crazy to me. You’re upset, you’re emotional …’
‘Next thing you’ll be saying I’m on antidepressants, too, right?’
‘I’m just trying to make sense of this whole thing. How can you be so sure someone’s following you?’
‘I’m an SAS soldier’s daughter. I’m not stupid. I can tell stuff. And I think they’re tracking my car.’
‘Who?’
‘Them.’
‘What do they look like?’
‘They don’t look like anything. They’re just … there.’
‘What do they want?’
‘They want me, Ben. They know I know the truth.’
Ben was at a loss for words.
Hilary was glowering at him with icy contempt. ‘To think my dad spoke so highly of you. He respected you so much. I thought you might understand. Thought you’d be different. But I was wrong, wasn’t I? Well you know what? I don’t need you to believe me and I don’t need your help.’
‘Hilary—’
‘Go fuck yourself!’ She stood up.
‘Hey, come on.’ Ben reached out to take her arm and guide her gently back into her seat. The last thing he’d ever have done was use force on her, but she tore defensively away from him, lashing out and knocking over her drink. The gin and tonic spilled across the table. The glass rolled to the edge and shattered on the floor.
Ben said, ‘Hilary, please. Where are you going?’
‘Don’t worry about me,’ she spat. ‘I’ll get the fucking bus back.’
He opened his mouth to protest, but she was already storming away towards the door, clutching her phone in her hand. The barman glanced up in alarm from his newspaper as she ran past him and burst outside.
Ben went after her. From the pub doorway, he could see her running across the pub car park towards the empty road, heading in the direction of the village. He took a few strides after her, then stopped and gave up the idea. She was upset. It wasn’t right to force himself on her like that. He turned back towards the pub, went inside and started heading back towards the table. ‘Sorry about that,’ he said to the barman. ‘I’ll pay for the glass.’
‘No problem,’ the barman said, and went off to grab a dustpan and brush.
It was at that moment that Ben heard the harsh rasp of the engine outside. A diesel van engine, approaching at speed.
Something wasn’t right.
He moved towards the window and peered out to see a battered white Transit van approaching. It was the only vehicle in sight, and it was approaching Hilary at speed as she half-jogged, half-ran along the grassy verge in the direction of the village outskirts. She was too preoccupied to notice it coming.
Something was terribly wrong. But by the time Ben felt that crawling icy sensation grip his body, it was already far too late to do anything.
In the final yards before it reached her, the van didn’t slow down. Didn’t indicate left and pull out a few feet from the kerb, the way any normal driver would when passing a pedestrian on a stretch of country road.
Instead it slewed a foot to the left so that its wheels sprayed mud and grass into the air. And bore straight down on Hilary. There was no squeal of brakes, no warning blast of the horn.
She didn’t notice it until the last instant. Ben caught a fleeting glimpse of her face as she turned — the look of shock, the mouth opening to cry out.
The crunching impact of four thousand pounds of fast-moving metal against a hundred and twenty pounds of frail living human flesh and bone was one of the most sickening sounds a person could hear, and Ben heard it distinctly from a hundred and fifty yards off. He yelled ‘No!’
Hilary Chapman’s body hurtled up the steep angle of the van’s bonnet, cannoned off its windscreen and was tossed high in the air. She flew over the roof and landed with a crunch on the road.
Only then did the driver slam on the brakes.
Ben was already outside and sprinting towards the scene. He saw the van skid to a halt in a cloud of dust and smoking rubber. Saw the shattered body of the young woman he’d been talking to just moments earlier lying in a heap. Saw the driver’s door swing open and a guy jump out. Nondescript, thirties, short brown hair, T-shirt and jeans.
The driver saw Ben running towards him, but he didn’t do any of the things a normal guy would have done in the circumstances. He didn’t panic. He didn’t scream out in horror at what he’d done.
Instead he left his engine running and strode quickly over to the bloody body on the road. He dropped down in a crouch and reached a hand out to her neck. Feeling for a pulse.
Ben was seventy yards away and running as hard as he could. The pain in his right side screamed for him to slow down.
The driver had done feeling for a pulse. He unpeeled the fingers of her closed fist, took something from her hand and dropped it in his pocket.
Hilary’s phone.
Ben ran harder. A roar of ‘Hey! Stop!’ exploded from his lungs.
The driver hurried back to the van. He climbed up into the cab. Slammed the door with a clang. Peered past the bloodied web of cracks that the impact had left on his windscreen, engaged gear and accelerated hard away, his wheels throwing up torn grass and mud.
Ben was just feet from the back door. ‘Stop!’ he yelled again, so loudly he tasted blood at the back of his throat. He made a flying leap to grab the rear door handle — and missed, sprawling to the ground with a cry of pain from the yank on his stitches. In less than a second he was back on his feet, but the van was already roaring off up the road. There was nothing more Ben could do.
Not even take its registration number.
Because it had no plates.
He ran over to Hilary. Kneeled down in the spreading pool of her blood and knew instantly that her killer needn’t have bothered checking for a pulse. Her eyes were staring right into his. Seeing nothing. Her neck was broken and her entire ribcage was crumpled inwards.