Chapter Twenty-two
Ben made it to Grantham before dark. He had a satnav on his phone and used it to locate the headquarters of the film company: Tremour Productions.
It was a nebulous office in a block of other commercial companies.
It didn’t feel right. Too corporate. He took off his helmet and left it with his bike, walking into the reception in his leathers and boots.
The girls on the desk looked up and…fell.
They didn’t stand a chance. He was aware of their reaction to him, something he’d seen all his life from people, men and women alike, but always ignored. Now he used it.
Within five minutes, he had a date for that night, but, more importantly, the address of the studios where the films were shot—an old industrial estate on a farm ten miles east.
He returned to his bike and set the new address.
He had a feeling Nikolas wouldn’t be far behind, and he desperately needed to stay ahead of him.
The film studios were in farm buildings surrounded by temporary structures—mobile homes, camper vans and some tents.
Ben reconnoitred for a while at a vantage point some distance away.
One feature of the film industry appeared to be messengers on motorcycles.
He intercepted one on the lane outside the farm, gave him a hundred pounds and relieved him of his ID, box and clipboard.
Totally anonymous now, he wandered around the set, watching, listening.
It actually didn’t take Ben long to find what he was seeking—whom he was searching for.
At the back of one of the big sheds, in a separate room, a meeting was taking place.
It was so incongruous compared to what Ben had expected in his mind when seeing this man again that he couldn’t help hearing Nikolas’s voice—surreal, the strong Danish accent mangling the word slightly, as it always did.
It was surreal—Doctor Fergus Atwell sitting at a table, animatedly discussing…
a script. Ben’s mind was in such a place of darkness, where blood and death stalked him, he actually felt his mouth go dry and a prick of anxiety washed over him.
Could he do this? He stepped back from the window, discarded the box and clipboard, paused by the door for one moment, then strode in—six foot four, black leather and very, very angry.
Fergus Atwell glanced up.
Another man pointed out unnecessarily, “We’re in a meeting here, bud.”
Ben just nodded, not dropping Atwell’s gaze. The doctor stood uncertainly.
“It was a terrible mistake. I’m sorry. We didn’t…a scene, just like this…We needed something big, something that would get everyone’s attention. National news.” He held up some papers.
Ben nodded. “I know.”
“What do you want?”
Ben came closer, right up close and personal. “I want to leave darkness behind me.”
* * *
Nikolas shook himself from his reverie and realised they were talking amongst themselves, making their own plans.
With the new information, Kate had also found the film company for which Fergus Atwell had been an executive producer on the movie Dare.
It had registered offices in Grantham, Lincolnshire, no more than a couple of hours from them.
Squeezy said he’d be glad if Ben did take the fucker—Nikolas assumed he meant the doctor—out. He deserved it.
“I don’t think he’s going there to stop them. I think he’s going there to join them.”
His comment was met with silence.
Then total derision.
He almost wanted to turn around to see if someone else—someone not their boss, not…him—had just entered the room. He held his ground, outlined some of his reasoning. They listened.
Even Radulf looked derisive now.
This was Ben!
He fucking knew that, gritted his teeth on their incomprehension, and tried again. They weren’t having it.
This was Ben.
And then it hit him. They’d not been living with new Ben for a week.
They’d not suffered the terrible revelation that new Ben was original Ben—Ben Rider before the darkness of Nikolas Mikkelsen had descended upon him.
And they hadn’t realised now that the Ben they knew would have worked this out for himself.
I will leave darkness behind me.
Indeed.
He was wasting his breath. What could he tell them to convince them? He certainly wasn’t going to share his innermost thoughts and feelings with anyone. He wasn’t going to tell them the monster he saw every day in the mirror when he shaved had finally been seen by Benjamin Rider.
They wanted to go to Grantham? He wanted to go to Grantham. Kill the man or help him, it came down to the same plan: find Doctor Fergus Atwell.
* * *
They had a more private meeting. Ben thought they would.
They stood at the back of one of the sets, surrounded by props, and costumes hanging on rails, and the unreality of the whole situation only made it easier.
Ben didn’t have to try and justify what he was doing with his real world or try to reconcile memory with reality, he just went with the flow of the now. This was all that mattered.
Atwell was incredibly anxious, all the confidence he’d portrayed as a doctor in the therapy course gone, but it was a bullying kind of nervousness Ben had seen in men before, those thrust into situations they’d sought but then found themselves unwilling or unable to face.
Men in combat. Bluster and bluff can only take you so far.
True courage has to come into play in the end, and Ben suspected this man was now running on empty.
He’d set up that final scene and had been forced to live with the consequences of what had happened—perhaps worse, he didn’t know what had happened.
Ben remembered Squeezy being there, knew what Squeezy and Nikolas would have been able to achieve between them—the complete sanitization of the scene. Ben had done the same many times. It was better that way, more visceral, helped you cope and overcome.
Atwell hadn’t had that. No bodies. No information.
His fear was palpable.
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
“I think you do.”
“You want…to join us? After everything that happened?”
Ben nodded.
“I don’t have any…targets planned.”
“You don’t have to. I have my own.”
“What? Who?”
Ben smiled. “Don’t you listen to the news?”
* * *
They arrived at the outskirts of Grantham by evening, Squeezy driving, Nikolas alongside, Tim and Kate in the back.
“Fuck.”
They all turned or twisted around to look at Kate who was working on her laptop. Nikolas diverted Squeezy’s face back to the road but asked, “What?”
“I’ve found him. He’s not a doctor. He was an actor—and not a very good one. Worked for something called Cazzo Film—”
All three men in the car said at the same time, “It’s a gay porn label.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fergus Atwell called himself Freddie Nero.”
“Catchy.”
“And Francis J Nero. No record of any films or activity on the web for three years. Resurfaced running Pay for Gay two years ago.”
Nikolas didn’t want to ask, so was profoundly relieved when Tim did it for him. “Pay for gay?”
“That’s the name he registered the British version of the American therapy courses under. Catchy, huh? You pay and…” She shrugged. “Take your own guess at that.”
Nikolas stared ahead for a while as they circled the town, thinking about three thousand pounds per client with twenty men on each course. Francis J Nero had the pay part of his equation correct anyway. “How is he connected to Julian Wood? I assume he is a doctor?”
“He was a patient of Julian Wood’s. Or Freddie Nero was. Three years ago. I was only searching for a connection with the name Fergus Atwell so I missed it.”
Tim murmured, “I’d love to hear those sessions.”
Nikolas nodded, not actually listening. “Track him down, Kate.”
He didn’t know whether he meant Fergus Atwell, aka Freddie Nero, or Ben. He guessed it didn’t matter. Find one, find the other.
* * *
When Ben had outlined his plan to Fergus the other man had paled. His first response had been, “It’s impossible. It would never work.”
Ben had expected this. “It doesn’t need to work. The attempt will send the same message. In this case, failure is as good as success. Perhaps better in some ways. I become a martyr then. Martyrs are powerful forces, aren’t they?”
Fergus licked his lips.
Ben didn’t give him the respite of lowering his gaze or looking away. He held the doctor in his penetrating green intensity, and finally the other man had no recourse except to nod in acceptance.
“What do you need?”
Ben then released him by blinking slowly, knowing his eyelashes would fan on his defined cheekbones for one moment.
“I need an army. I need your army.”
* * *
They arrived at the studios late in the evening. They still appeared to be a hive of activity. They found a place to park and climbed out. Tim glanced nervously at Squeezy. “What would you do—if it was you that came here to kill Atwell? You’re the closest thing to Ben we have. Think like him.”
Nikolas was only barely restraining himself.
“He’s not going to kill the fucker! He’s going to lead his rainbow army into some dumb shit to make up for what he did. He’s going to fucking sacrifice himself! You don’t know Ben like I do!”
The other three ignored him. Squeezy actually shut his eyes, theatrically trying to think like Ben.
“I’d get him away from here, somewhere quiet, make him suffer for a while and then kill him.
Somewhere near water. A quarry, if possible.
Easiest place to dispose of a body if you don’t have an incinerator.
” He opened his eyes, obviously pleased with himself until he saw Tim’s expression. “What? You asked!”
Tim nodded, took a breath, and scrabbled in his inside jacket pocket. He produced a slightly dog-eared card. “Believe it or not—and I find it hard to believe sometimes, trust me—I’m still Doctor Tim Watson. A doctor is a doctor, yes? I’ll just go ask for my colleague.”