The Forgotten Holocaust (Ben Hope, Book 10) (15 page)

Ben ran on through the villa as fire spread rapidly everywhere around him. Smoke filled his eyes and nose. Tears and sweat streamed down his face. He felt the walls shake from an explosion; then again, and again. He knew what the blasts meant. The killers were intent on reducing the whole place to a smouldering ruin. And if he didn’t get out soon, he’d be buried in the ashes.

The villa was a labyrinth of passageways and connecting rooms. He sprinted from doorway to doorway, driven back repeatedly by curtains of flame that surged up at him, threatening to engulf him. The heat was intolerable. Just as he thought he’d taken a fatal turning, he suddenly found what he was searching for: a back stairway leading upwards. Only the first few steps were on fire. He bounded up them, heat scorching his shins and calves. Another shattering explosion rocked the building, far more violent than the others, and he had to duck as plaster rained down from the ceiling.

‘Jesus,’ he muttered, but the deafening noise drowned out his voice. It felt as if the building had just taken a direct hit from a bomb. He cringed on the dark stairway for a second, half expecting the whole ceiling to come crashing down on his head.

Onwards, upwards: he reached the landing and came to a door, pressed his hand against it to feel for the telltale heat of fire in the room behind it. It was cool to the touch. He burst through into the shadowy room, blinked sweat out of his eyes and made out that he was in a spare bedroom Brennan had used for storage. Beyond silhouetted stacks of boxes and piled books, he saw the single small window that overlooked the front courtyard, ringed with ivy that flickered orange from the glare of the fire. He ran over to it, threw it open and clambered out. Cool night air hit him and his parched lungs sucked in oxygen. He grabbed fistfuls of the prickling ivy and swung himself right out of the window, clinging to the wall like a spider. He twisted his head to the right and saw that his bearings had been accurate – the balcony of the annexe bedroom was just twenty feet away. As long as the ivy held his weight, he could make it and get inside. Flames were surging from windows below and to the left of him. He could only hope that the annexe wasn’t on fire too.

Ben began inching his way along the wall, finding handholds and footholds wherever he could and praying he wouldn’t fall. The balcony edged closer. Closer. Almost in reach now—

And then he heard the shout from below. He barely had time to glance down and see the two masked men standing below in the courtyard before they’d raised their weapons to aim at him and started firing.

Ben leapt the last few feet across to the balcony as bullets stitched the wall and snipped ivy leaves into confetti. He scrambled over the stone rail and fell into a crouch behind the balustrade. Bullets ricocheted off the stonework inches away as he kicked open the French windows and scrambled through. To his dismay, he was met by a wall of heat, the choking stench of smoke and the flicker of flames inside the bedroom. He struggled to his feet and battled through it. Spotting his leather jacket and bag lying on the floor, he snatched them up. The drapes of the four-poster were ablaze, flames licking dangerously close to the volumes of the journal that he’d left on the bed. The one he’d been reading was beginning to smoulder. He grabbed it and beat out the flames.

Coughing from the smoke, he quickly stuffed the books into his bag. Now he’d got what he’d come for, and it had better be worth it. It was time to get out of here.

Gunfire from the window told him there was no escape that way.

The en-suite bathroom. Ben crashed through the door. He was almost blind from the thickening smoke but managed to find the bath towel hanging from the rail. Ripping it free, he plunged it under the taps of the old-fashioned bathtub. With the wet towel pressed tightly over his nose and mouth, he ran back out into the bedroom into the scorching heat. The fire was spreading all across the bed, greedily devouring the carpet, approaching the door in a liquid tide that seemed to move as if it was alive. Ben got there first and dashed out into the corridor.

Both ends were on fire. He was trapped. There was no way to run, no way out.

Except straight up. Ben yanked hard on the cord dangling from the loft access hatch. The trapdoor dropped down and a telescoping ladder slid with a clatter from the hatch. The aluminium rungs were hot to the touch as he went clambering up it into the dark attic space. Reaching the top, he lay across the rough attic floor and hauled the ladder up, slamming the trapdoor shut behind him. He couldn’t block the spread of the fire, but he could at least slow it down.

A little. It wouldn’t be long before the first flames began to get a purchase up here. Already he could see the telltale flickering glow shining up through the cracks in the floorboards, and the smoke trickling up between them. In the dim light he could make out the attic junk carelessly dumped up here, old chairs, packing cases, bits of spare timber left over from some carpentry job.

He got to his feet, dizzy from smoke inhalation and well aware that he might faint any time soon if he didn’t get some air into his lungs. The attic space was low enough for him to grope blindly at the underside of the roof. He needed to find a skylight, some way to get out onto the roof, or it would be all over for him. He could find nothing, just the rough wooden beams, battens and roofing felt above him. He was getting desperate now, his chest heaving involuntarily hard and fast and drawing in nothing but smoke. The pouring sweat was stinging his eyes. Just seconds of consciousness remained. He had to do something.

He half stooped, half fell to the floor. His fumbling fingers closed on the sawn end of a length of four-by-four timber. He dragged it towards him. It felt as heavy as a lead pipe to his oxygen-starved muscles, and he cried out with the effort that it took to pick the piece of wood off the floor and drive its square end straight up like a battering ram at the roof. He almost collapsed from the effort. Nothing happened. He gritted his teeth and put everything he had into a second blow.

This time he felt something give. There was a crack. Splinters of broken tile fell in, grazing his head and shoulders. Suddenly, he could taste fresh air again, and the sensation gave him the strength he needed for one final upward heave. The wood drove up through the roof. Tiles cracked and tumbled down through the ragged hole that had appeared above him.

Gasping, Ben let the length of timber clatter to the attic floor. Reached his hands up out of the hole and dragged himself painfully through, gulping lungfuls of blessed air. Dragging his bag up after him, he staggered to his feet on the slope of the roof, rubbed his stinging eyes and looked round to see the extent of the fire that was consuming the whole villa. The night sky was livid with its blood-red glow.

Below him, the figures of the two masked shooters were disappearing into the shadows, making their way to the perimeter wall. They must have a vehicle hidden nearby, he thought, and from the screech of approaching sirens he could faintly hear through the roar of the fire he understood why they were making their escape. Someone must have seen the red glow and called the emergency services; the perpetrators had no intention of being around when they arrived.

Neither had Ben, if there was anything he could do about it. Now his energy was rekindled and he needed to find a way down to the ground before the damn roof fell in and he found himself right in the heart of the inferno. He ran along the roof, careful not to slip on the sloping tiles. It was a long way down.

Ben would later hazard a guess that what happened next must have been a gas pipe rupturing. He’d never know for sure. All he knew was that the strong blast somewhere below him sent up a fountain of flame and splintering tiles right under his feet as he ran, and sent him flying.

There was nothing he could do to prevent himself from tumbling down the steep pitch of the roof, over and over. The left sleeve of his jacket had caught fire. He let go of his bag as he grappled to arrest his fall by hanging on to the iron guttering, but it came away with his weight.

Then he was falling, flailing in mid-air, trying to control his fall the way he’d learned in parachute training.

He hit the canvas awning below, bounced, rolled and then was tumbling through empty space again. The ground seemed to rush up at him: a terrace or patio area, the concrete amber-lit by the glow of the blazing villa. Thoughts of broken legs, or worse, flashed through his mind.

The impact knocked the breath out of him. But instead of his body being smashed against the hard ground, he sank deep into something soft and spongy that gave under him. Wetness and coldness suddenly enveloped him, a shock after the heat of the fire. In his confusion he realised that he’d missed the concrete and splashed down on the plastic cover of Brennan’s unused swimming pool. The force of his landing had ripped part of the cover from its moorings around the edge, and now the thick, crinkly plastic was wrapping itself around him like a shroud as he sank into the water, trapping his movements. The sleeve of his jacket wasn’t on fire any more – it wasn’t burning that worried him now. He struggled violently to free himself from the plastic cocoon that was hugging his arms tight against his body and preventing him from kicking out with his legs. Water was filling his mouth and throat. He managed to rip an arm free. His fingers closed around something – one of the pool cover anchor cords that hadn’t snapped. He pulled against it, praying that it wouldn’t come free.

It didn’t. He pulled again, felt the plastic shroud loosen its grip around him. Suddenly his other arm was free, then his legs; and he hauled himself gasping and streaming with water onto the tiled edge of the pool.

He looked up as the roof of the villa caved in with a final groan of buckling timbers and collapsed into the burning shell of the house. The flames leapt high into the night sky, sparks and embers flying up like distress signals. The canvas awning over the patio burst alight and began to crumple towards the ground. At the last second, Ben saw his fallen bag lying on the concrete below it, and had to leap to snatch it away before the fiery canopy swallowed it up. Ben carried the bag to safety, inside it the books of the Stamford journal that he’d risked his life to rescue.

Away from the powerful heat of the fire, he began to shudder with cold inside his wet clothing. His whole body was aching from the exertion of his escape from the villa, but he forced himself to break into a run as he crossed the lawn towards the shadows of the trees. He pressed through the branches, reached the wall beyond and lobbed his bag over the top before grabbing a handhold on the craggy stonework and clambering over after it.

The sirens were getting louder and closer every second. Ben could see the swirling lights in the distance as he dropped down on the other side of the wall. By the time the shrieking fire engines appeared and came speeding down the road towards the gates of the villa, he’d already slipped away out of sight.

In a patch of forest a kilometre away, he stripped off his wet things, rubbed himself down with a dry T-shirt from his bag and then changed into fresh things. He zipped up his jacket, shivering in the night air but knowing he’d soon warm up as he walked. Nothing he could do about his shoes, which squelched uncomfortably as he made his way, cross-country, through the darkness.

He still didn’t know whether the Stamford journals would tell him anything. But he’d nonetheless managed to learn a lot from his visit to Madeira. He thought about the masked men who’d shot Brennan, now long gone and no doubt heading for home. They were Americans. Professional killers, without a doubt highly trained former military operatives – perhaps even from a Special Forces background, judging by the unmistakable skills they’d demonstrated that night.

Ben had known those kinds of men turn bad before. The ugly signs were often evident even before they quit the military and went off to pursue private contracts and a career that allowed them to kill for cash, sometimes also for pleasure. He thought back to the Ka-Bar knife used in Kristen’s murder. For decades, it had been the edged weapon of choice for the US Marines. He wondered whether either of the men had served with the Corps.

Whoever these two were, they had access to serious hardware and the means to transport it undetected from one country to another. Which meant there was big money involved: it was no cheap undertaking to hire men like that to do one’s dirty work, equip them accordingly and move them from place to place without getting caught.

So the individual payrolling them would be someone of considerable means. That same someone must have known about the Stamford journals from Kristen’s computer, and the email it contained from her to Gray Brennan in which she’d mentioned them. Somehow, the killer perceived the journals as enough of a threat that they were ready to snuff out anyone who got close to them.

And for reasons Ben didn’t yet understand, it all seemed to revolve around the name McCrory.

He walked faster through the trees, his steps silent, his mind full of cold, brooding rage. The first streaky red-gold tendrils of dawn were working their way into the sky. He’d be off this island in a matter of hours, and he could clearly visualise the mental signpost telling him where to head next.

It was pointing towards Tulsa, Oklahoma.

The soft thrum of the airliner filled the business-class cabin. The guy in the pinstriped suit in the aisle seat next to Ben had been asleep for the last hour or so. Ben glanced for a moment out of the porthole to his right and watched wisps of cloud break and whip over the expanse of the wing. Somewhere far below was the open water of the Atlantic.

It had been a mad scramble to get to Lisbon in time for the Iberia flight to New York. They were due to land at JFK in another five hours; then more sitting around waiting before his connecting flight, which was scheduled to touch down in Tulsa mid-afternoon, local time. There wasn’t much for him to do until then but read and think. He returned to the volume of the Stamford journal that lay open on the fold-down table, flipped several more pages and went on with it.

April 15th, 1847

God forgive me when I so selfishly complain, as I have done many times before in these pages, that one of the more odious of my social duties as Lady Stamford is the role I must play as hostess on those frequent occasions when Edgar entertains his friends here at Glenfell. I can only suppose that the shooting on the estate offers so much more than is to be had in England, for it seems the house is seldom free of yet another contingent of guests, most of them of the same raucous boorish coarse vain blockheaded variety as any of Edgar’s fellow Members I have yet had the pleasure to meet. Who would have thought there could be so many Lords and Sirs? I have been introduced to such a multitude, I can scarcely tell one from another. They might all have been cut from the same cloth.

As I sit here writing these words in my chamber, the gentlemen have retired to the drawing room for their port and cigars and their frequent outbursts of laughter can be heard drifting upwards through the floor. I am afraid I excused myself early from the dinner table, feigning a headache, as I confess I sometimes do – but the truth is that I could not bear to be in the presence of those men for another minute. There were twelve seated for dinner, and not a decent soul among them. Can they possibly be so blind to what is happening here in Ireland? Is there no human compassion in their hearts at all? No, none, and as I hurried away from the dining room I did not know whether to fall weeping to the floor – or else take up one of Edgar’s fowling pieces from the gun room and allow my rage to carry me to commit a heinous act upon them.

The conversation had yet been following a tolerably pleasant course until Lord Carlisle, seated to my immediate left, began his discourse on what the future of this country must be and what a lucky stroke the famine is for England. Another of Edgar’s friends, a strikingly toadlike little man with whiskers growing like moss upon his jowls and whose name escapes me in my anger, then spoke up: ‘I see old Bentinck is making noises in the House again. He will not keep quiet, continually accusing the government of the most shocking neglect. Now he demands to know what is to be done with the 400,000 quarters of corn in stock in the ports of London, Liverpool and Glasgow that could be sent to Ireland to feed the starving people there.’

At this, Lord Carlisle gave a derisory grunt. ‘Bentinck is an imbecile,’ said he, wagging his fork for emphasis. ‘There can be no interference with the natural course of trade. Labouchere, the Irish Secretary,’ he added for the benefit of the necessarily ignorant parties at the table, that is to say, myself, ‘rightly states that the government has pursued a wise policy in not interfering with the supply of food to Ireland in any way which could compete with the efforts of private traders.’

I could feel the colour rising up in my cheeks. As hard as I tried to control my impulse, I could not but speak out: ‘Am I to understand from your words, sir, that the calamity that has befallen this country cannot be allowed to affect the shipping of its abundant crops of grain and herds of cattle to England; that the traders’ and speculators’ profits, the landlords’ rents, the agents’ commissions, override all considerations of such terrible human suffering as we in Ireland witness every day, and that political economy is best accomplished simply by carrying on business as usual, as though nobody had died, or were dying at this very minute, a slow and cruel death from starvation?’

There was a weighty silence up and down the length of the table and I was aware of faces turning my way, most of all that of Edgar, who regarded me with a glower of disapproval for daring to address Lord Carlisle in such a manner. Whether or not L.C. had it in mind to reply to me (one does not, after all, enter into political discussion with a mere simple woman) it was Sir Harry Billington, the Honourable Member for Guildford, seated further up the table to my right, who then weighed in with his view.

‘It appears to me,’ said he, ‘that Ireland’s soil and climate offer the conditions best suited for pasture; hence it appears that cattle, above all things, seem to be the most appropriate stock for Ireland. Corn can be brought from one country to another from a great distance, at rather small freights. It is not so with cattle. The great hives of industry in England and Scotland can draw their shiploads of corn from more southern climates, but they must have a constant dependence on Ireland for an abundant supply of meat.’

This drew several nods from around the table, and grumbles of ‘Hear him, hear him’, and ‘A glass of wine with you, sir’.

‘Is this your political economy, sir?’ I cried, quite unable to restrain myself. ‘To fill up every available corner of every field of Ireland with livestock reared solely for the mouths of England? And what of the common Irish people who would be swept aside to make way for such a plan?’

‘What of them, madam?’ said Sir Harry, fixing me with a whimsical air. ‘There may not be many left, afore long; and may I say good riddance to ’em.’

Lord Carlisle, who had been eyeing me all this while from under his thick, white brows, smiled with benevolent condescension and cut short the protest that was forming on my lips. ‘My dear Lady Elizabeth, I applaud your spirited defence of the Celt. However, we cannot doubt that by the inscrutable but invariable laws of nature, they are as a race less energetic, less independent, less industrious than the Saxon. This is nothing more or less than the archaic condition of their birthright.’

I thought of the many small Irish farmers and cottiers I have known, of the worthy servants who keep this estate of ours running year upon year, how enduringly they all toil to feed their families. I looked at the round, protuberant bellies of the dinner guests, the buttons of their waistcoats straining to contain them, at the double or even triple chins greasy with sauce; and I wondered how many of our illustrious company had ever truly done a day’s hard labour in their lives.

‘But they starve, sir,’ I protested. ‘They are dying. Can you not see what is happening all around?’

‘’Tis a pity, to be sure,’ replied Sir Harry, raising another great forkful of roast pork to his mouth. ‘But madam, you must consider. Why, only last week in the House I heard Sir Robert Peel say, and I quote the great man: “I wish it were possible to take advantage of this calamity for introducing among the people of Ireland the taste for a better and more certain provision for their support than that which they have hithertofore cultivated.” There’s the truth of it. If they starve, they starve only by their own folly, this primitive and inexplicable lust for their beloved praties, at the exclusion of all else, and of all common intelligence.’

Speechless for an instant, I looked to my husband, but he was at that moment heartily digging into his plate. I could no longer touch mine. ‘Allow me to say with the deepest respect, Sir Harry, that you are as sadly misinformed as the gentleman of whom you speak with such admiration. The Irish have not subsisted solely on the potato for any reason other than it is we who have forced this choice upon them. Therefore it is we who should be helping them to—’

Sir Harry broke into a laugh before I could finish. ‘Upon my word, Edgar, your wife is as irrepressible as she is beautiful. We must be careful, eh?’ Turning back towards me, he gave a bow. ‘My dear madam, I stand most humbly corrected.’

‘Gentlemen, I ask that you forgive my wife’s enthusiasm in these matters,’ Edgar said with a twisted smile upon his face for his guests’ benefit, the flashing look of warning in his eyes intended for mine. ‘She may play and sing like an angel, ride like the wind and have been able to strip old Harte of nearly ten pounds at cards …’

‘Did she, by God?’ exclaimed Lord Carlisle.

‘… But she is yet to be instructed in the wisdom of commerce and politics,’ my dearest husband finished (and Heaven help me, should he ever read these words).

‘I am sorry if I spoke out of turn,’ I replied. ‘And beg the gentleman’s forgiveness of my woman’s ignorance. I realise now how foolishly naïve I must appear in these subjects, and shall resolve henceforth to listen, and learn, and remain silent.’

This elicited smiles of amusement from all present, except from Edgar (whose wrath I expect to face later tonight). I looked into their eyes and could see no shred of humanity, no sparkle other than that which comes from too much wine.

How I wished, and still wish, that Stephen were here. Is it very wicked of me to reflect that I sometimes feel as starved of warmth and kindness as the poor Irish are of physical sustenance?

Ben’s reading was interrupted by the clinking of the drinks trolley coming down the aisle and a smiling hostess asking whether he’d like a drink. His eye wandered over the row of malt Scotch miniatures on the trolley. ‘Just some mineral water,’ he said, with a pang in his heart. The trolley went clinking and jinking onwards down the aisle, and he returned to the journal.

He liked Elizabeth Stamford’s spirit. His old friend Jeff Dekker would have described her as ‘a lady with balls’. He was finding himself getting drawn deeper into her world, almost forgetting sometimes that he was meant to be searching for Brennan’s explosive secret. He hadn’t found it yet, after skimming nearly halfway through the four volumes of her elegant writing. He turned a few more pages.

May 3rd, 1847

How it appals me to witness the condition of those still living. Once hardy peasants now appear shrivelled and diminished in size and stature. Flesh and muscle has wasted away until the bones of their frames are barely covered, brittle and easily broken, their joints so weak that one might imagine their poor bodies falling to pieces before one’s eyes. Their shoulders and necks are wasted so as to barely support the weight of their head. The skin of their limbs appears as dry and rough as old parchment and hangs in loose folds where once was strong muscle and healthy flesh. As their bodies feast upon their own fabric for sustenance, with each passing day their eye sockets grow larger and more cavernous, the eyes themselves sinking deeper into their skulls so that it becomes painful to look at them.

Many of the children, their growth brought to a halt, are in a condition still more deplorable. Arms stripped of flesh, like little skeletons, their inner structure as clearly visible as if bare bones had been covered in the thinnest muslin. Young faces as wizened and furrowed as those of the old. The hair falls in patches from their scalps, leaving their bald little skulls so pitiful and frail in appearance.

If but one child were so afflicted, even a stranger would come rushing to give aid. But there are thousands of them. They are everywhere, and all wearing the same look of utter desperation and hopelessness that rends my heart at the knowledge that I can do nothing whatever to save them. I am perfectly sure I will never eat a bite again without choking.’

The vividness of Elizabeth Stamford’s account brought back painful memories to Ben as he remembered the victims of civil war, genocide and famine he’d seen in the Third World during his military days. Cadaverous children with distended bellies and hollow eyes, many near to the end and virtually unable to move as thick black swarms of blowflies clustered all over their dying little bodies. The worst thing had been their passive acceptance of their plight, young and old alike apparently quite peacefully resigned to death.

And death had been a certainty for most of them, with no chance of rescue. As a soldier, Ben’s duty had been to walk on by, put it out of his mind and stay focused on the bigger picture of his mission. But he’d never really forgotten, and those awful reawoken visions now came flooding back so strongly into his mind that he could almost smell the stench of death and decay, hear the buzzing of the flies. Take out the heat and dust of Africa and the ever-looming presence of war, substitute the ruin of the devastated potato fields, the mud, the rats, the destitution and homelessness, the passing rumble of the death carts on the roads, and the distant laughter of rulers hundreds of miles away in London who couldn’t care less, and the picture was just the same. The suffering of these people had been no less appalling. Perhaps even more so.

For what it was worth, Third World peoples of the modern age had the solace of whatever the UN and other organisations could manage to do for them. They had famine relief, aid workers, food shipments. Usually too little, too late, and all too often hampered or hijacked by corrupt bureaucracy – but it was something, and it saved lives.

The Irish had had nothing. Only the faint, faraway hope of salvation in the promised land of America, for those few who could raise the price of the ocean crossing and survived the voyage. For those left behind, only the grim reality of death and disease, squalor and misery, with no end in sight.

Sickened, Ben had to close the journal and lay it aside for a while. The guy in the next seat was still sleeping, head thrown back and mouth open. Ben was glad he wouldn’t have to get drawn into another conversation about the state of the energy market. He sipped his water and spent a few minutes gazing out of the plane window, thinking about the countless Irish refugees who had traced by sea the same eastward route he was travelling now towards America. It must have been bewildering for them to step ashore at the end of their long voyage, so far away from everything they’d ever known, strangers in a strange land with only each other for support.