The Armada Legacy

Copyright

Published by Avon an imprint of

HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2013

This ebook edition published by HarperCollins Publishers in 2016

Copyright © Scott Mariani 2016

Cover photographs © Arcangel Images

Cover design © Henry Steadman 2016

Scott Mariani asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007398430

Ebook Edition © September 2016 ISBN: 9780007398447

Version: 2018-06-22

That’s my last Duccd hess painted on the wall,

Looking as if she were alive. I call

That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf’s hands

Worked busily a day, and there she stands.

Will’t please you sit and look at her?

Robert Browning, My Last Duchess

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Epigraph

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven

Chapter Forty-Eight

Chapter Forty-Nine

Chapter Fifty

Chapter Fifty-One

Chapter Fifty-Two

Chapter Fifty-Three

Chapter Fifty-Four

Chapter Fifty-Five

Chapter Fifty-Six

Chapter Fifty-Seven

Chapter Fifty-Eight

Chapter Fifty-Nine

Chapter Sixty

Keep Reading

About the Author

Also by Scott Mariani

About the Publisher

Chapter One

Just after ten, on a clear, cold night in late February, and the moon-glow over the Donegal Atlantic coast cast a speckled diamond glimmer across the dark sea. High above the shoreline, a solitary car was weaving its way along the twisty coastal road, leaving behind the distant lights of the Castlebane Country Club and heading inland towards Rinclevan on the far side of New Lake.

The chauffeur of the black Jaguar XF was a square-shouldered former Grenadier Guard called Wally Lander. He kept his eyes on the winding road and drove in silence, studiously detached from the conversation of his passengers: his employer Sir Roger Forsyte, Forsyte’s personal assistant Samantha, Sam for short, and an auburn-haired woman Wally had never seen before. Attractive, he could tell from the couple of discreet rearward glances he’d snatched at her – very attractive in fact, wearing a tight-fitting black dress that he frustratingly couldn’t see enough of in the driver’s mirror. He presumed she must have attended that evening’s Neptune Marine Exploration media event and was now coming along as a guest to this private party, which would probably last well into the wee small hours. Maybe something to do with Sir Roger’s latest caper, Wally mused. If she was alone, that meant she was almost certainly single. Definitely worth a crack at it. There was a chance he’d get to chat to her at the party, find out more about her.

Wally couldn’t know it yet – none of them could know it – but that would never happen. Because Wally didn’t have very long to live.

Nor would Wally ever know the mystery woman’s name. It was Brooke Marcel, or Dr Brooke Marcel, when she was in her professional capacity as an expert consultant in hostage psychology and former visiting lecturer at the Le Val Tactical Training Centre in Normandy, France. Tonight, though, she was just here as a guest of her friend Sam, who was sitting between Brooke and Sir Roger, all clipped efficiency with a tiny netbook resting across her knees and its screen reflected in her glasses as they ran through some NME business details together. Sir Roger had loosened the tie he’d put on for the presentation and was leaning comfortably back against the Jaguar’s cream-coloured leather.

As Sam started detailing the plans for the following day, Brooke tuned out and drifted back to the thoughts that preoccupied her so much of the time, with the same mixture of emotions that always came flooding back whenever Ben was on her mind.

She wished he could have been here. He loved Ireland, would have been completely in his element here on the Donegal coast. Maybe she’d been wrong in coming without him – but the fact was, she’d been plain too nervous to ask him. The wrong signals, she’d worried. Moving too fast, trying to force things prematurely. Or something like that. She didn’t know any more. For a gifted and highly trained psychologist, it struck her how little she understood her own feelings.

Ben Hope. What an enigmatic, complex man he was. Even before they’d got together she’d been aware he had ghosts in his past, stuff you could never ask him about and which he kept fiercely private; so closed, and yet he could be so open, so warm and tender. Sometimes she felt as if he’d been there all her life; sometimes as if she’d never known him at all.

As she gazed out of the window at the rocky landscape flashing by in the car’s lights, Brooke wondered whether her troubled relationship with Ben would ever recover. It had started so blissfully, only to crash and burn so senselessly just when it was beginning to look as though it could last forever.

The crash had come in September. The autumn months had been a forlorn, empty time, drowning herself in her work; the Christmas holiday without him had been almost unbearably miserable. Then, slowly, slowly, over the last couple of months had dawned the prospect of a possible reconciliation. The phone conversations between her home in London and his in France were growing longer and more frequent. Sometimes he even called her.

It was still fragile, though, still just a tiny candle flame that might be snuffed out at any time. There were moments when Brooke thought he was holding something back from her; times when she could sense the tension between them, ready to flare up all over again. In their separate ways, they’d both been equally to blame for the split. What a couple of hotheads we are, she thought wryly to herself as she recalled the awful quarrel that had bust them apart. The worst thing was that, in the end, it had all been about nothing. Just a stupid, horrible misunderstanding.

‘The chopper will pick us up at the house and take us over to Derry Airport first thing in the morning,’ Sam was saying to her employer. ‘We arrive at Gatwick just after ten-thirty, then on to Málaga in plenty of time to make your meeting with Cabeza.’

Forsyte pursed his lips and gave a grunt of assent. Drifting momentarily back to the present, Brooke noticed the way he kept fingering the handle of the attaché case secured to his wrist by a steel cuff and a slim chain, and she briefly wondered what was inside that must be so valuable; but her curiosity waned rapidly as she turned back towards the dark window and resumed her own private thoughts.

A flash of white light caught Brooke’s eye. The road behind was no longer empty: the bright headlights of a car were coming up fast. No, she thought, twisting round to peer out of the rear window – not a car, but a van of some kind. Going somewhere in a real hurry, too.

Forsyte glanced back as the van’s main-beam headlights loomed close enough to fill the inside of the Jaguar with their glare. ‘Just some idiot,’ he said nonchalantly. ‘Pull in a little and let him past, will you, Wally?’

Wally shook his head in exasperation, then flipped on his indicator, slowed to just over thirty and steered towards the side of the narrow road to let the van by. The large vehicle noisily overtook them – a plain white Renault Master panel van, scuffed and spattered with road dirt – then cut in tightly at an angle and screeched to a halt, blocking the road.

Wally hit the brakes and the rear passengers were thrown forwards, except for Brooke who’d braced herself against the front passenger seat a fraction of a second before the emergency stop. Sam let out a little cry as her netbook went flying. ‘What the hell—?’ Forsyte shouted.

‘Fucking arsehole!’ Wally thrust the automatic gearbox into park and left the engine running as he climbed out of the car. ‘What’s your game, you bloody prick?’ he yelled, slamming his door shut and storming up to the stationary van.

The Renault Master’s doors burst open simultaneously. Wally stopped dead in his tracks and went quiet as two men jumped out and strode aggressively towards him. They were both wearing black balaclavas, and not because of the biting February wind.

Brooke’s blood turned icy at the sight of the weapons in the men’s hands: identical compact submachine guns, black and brutal with long tubular sound moderators attached to their muzzles. She’d seen weapons like those before.

So had Wally Lander, once upon a time, but his nine years out of the army had blunted his senses and all he could do was gape.

‘Oh, my God!’ Sam gasped. Forsyte stared in speechless horror, clutching his attaché case.

Neither of the masked men spoke a word. Instead, almost casually, they turned their weapons towards Wally and opened fire. From inside the car, the silenced gunfire seemed like no more than a rapid string of muffled thumps. Wally’s legs folded under him, then he collapsed lifelessly at the roadside. His blood was bright in the beams of the Jaguar’s headlights. Sam screamed in panic and clung onto Forsyte. ‘What do they want with us, Roger? Oh Jesus, they’re going to kill us!’

Brooke hesitated, but for no more than a second before she launched herself at the gap between the front seats and scrambled in behind the wheel. She wrenched the stick into drive, stamped the heel of her Italian designer party shoe on the gas and held it all the way down.

The Jaguar took off with a roar and a rasp of tyres. Clenching the wheel, Brooke had no choice but to drive grimly over Wally’s dead body with a sickening bump-bump.

The masked men hurled themselves out of the way. There was a jarring impact as the car slammed into the angled side of the van; a rumpling of plastic and the screech of metal grinding on metal as she forced her way through the gap, the Jaguar’s wheels spinning wildly and revs soaring to drown out Sam’s screams and Forsyte’s indistinct roar of fury. Then, suddenly, the way was clear and Brooke could see the open road stretching ahead in the headlight beams. She’d made it.

But then the strobing muzzle flashes lit up the rear-view mirror and she felt the steering wheel go heavy in her hands as a flurry of gunfire blew out the back tyres. There was nothing she could do to prevent the car skidding out of control and veering across the road. Brooke caught a glimpse of a large grey rock looming in front of the car – then a crunching collision, and the airbag exploded in her face, dazing her.

Running footsteps. Voices. The next Brooke knew, the Jaguar’s doors were opening and there was a gun at her head. She turned to face her attacker. His eyes were cold and hard in the slits of the balaclava.

‘Get out, bitch,’ he said.

Chapter Two

Three days earlier

‘I’m telling you, Brooke, it’s going to be great,’ Sam insisted for about the fifth time in twenty minutes. ‘You can’t possibly miss it. Seriously.’

That was Samantha Sheldrake all over. She’d always been the pushy one, ever since their university days. It was easy to see how she’d managed to land the position of PA to one of Europe’s most dynamic multi-millionaire entrepreneurs, the head of the Southampton-based company Neptune Marine Exploration.

‘I don’t know,’ Brooke replied, stretching out on the rug and wiggling her bare toes in the warmth of the open fire as she cupped the phone between shoulder and ear. The remains of a TV dinner for one were cooling on a tray nearby. Another solitary end to another dull day, with just an unexpected phone call from the northwest coast of Ireland to raise her spirits a little. ‘Seems a long way to go for a party,’ she said. ‘And you said yourself it’s for company personnel.’

‘Rog—’ Sam caught herself, ‘ – Sir Roger won’t mind if I invite a guest. Get you out of London. It’s so grey and dismal there at the moment.’

It had only been a minor slip, but Brooke had picked up on it and wondered whether Sam’s relationship with her boss might be a little closer than she liked to let on. Brooke kept her observation to herself, and said, ‘Get me out of London for what? So I can come and see the grey ocean instead?’

‘Hey, we’re talking about Donegal,’ Sam insisted. ‘Even the drizzle is beautiful. I should know, I’ve spent most of the last few months here. Besides, I told you, this is no ordinary party. First there’s going to be this brilliant media event at a very swish country club – you’ll be blown away – more than three hundred delegates – all arranged by yours truly.’

‘Naturally.’

‘Naturally. And then we’re all heading back to the house, where the fun starts for real. Sir Roger’s sparing no expense. You should see the manor house he’s rented – it’s like a chateau, and the party’s going to take over a whole wing. You’ve never seen so much champagne in your life, I kid you not.’

‘Remind me again what we’re celebrating?’

‘Does the “we” mean you’re coming?’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘Well, it’s only the grand unveiling of one of the most important historic sunken treasure salvage operations of the last twenty years,’ Sam said, with only a trace of smugness. ‘The recovery of the sixteenth-century Spanish warship the Santa Teresa has been Neptune Marine Exploration’s biggest coup since Sir Roger founded the company.’

Brooke smiled into the phone. ‘Now you sound like one of your own public relations blurbs. What’s the wreck of a Spanish warship doing off the Irish coast, anyway?’

‘Did I not tell you all about this when we were in Austria?’

Sam and Brooke had spent a few days in Vienna before Christmas. Brooke had been too preoccupied by her troubles with Ben to enjoy the short break very much. ‘Maybe you did,’ Brooke said. ‘Refresh my memory.’

‘Come to Donegal and you’ll learn all about it.’

‘I have to tell you, Sam, mouldy old boats are not exactly the most fascinating thing in my life right now.’

‘Oh, come on.’ Sam paused, and Brooke could tell from the momentary silence that she was hatching some new plan. ‘Why don’t you bring a friend along?’ Sam went on slyly. ‘As in, a very special friend? You know who I mean. That’s if things are, you know, back on an even keel.’

‘Ben?’ Brooke hesitated, a little thrown by the suggestion. ‘That might not be such a great idea. Things are still a bit …’ Her words trailed off uncertainly.

‘I knew it. He’s treated you like shit, really. When was the last time you set eyes on him?’

Brooke said nothing. She reached up to finger the slender gold chain she wore around her neck. Ben had bought it for her in Paris soon after they’d got together. She’d been wearing it nearly constantly ever since, although she sometimes wondered why she was so attached to it now that their relationship was meant to be finished.

‘I’ll tell you when it was,’ Sam went on. ‘It was when he came to pick up that horrid little mongrel he left you with. Am I right?’

‘Scruffy’s not horrid,’ Brooke protested lamely.

‘There you go again. Being nice. You’re too good for that guy. He’s using you, can’t you see it?’

‘Let’s not go there, all right? It’s complicated.’

Sam was undeterred. ‘All right, so maybe it’s not a good idea. Then why don’t you invite that dishy upstairs neighbour of yours I met once? The novelist guy?’

‘You mean Amal?’

‘That’s the one. Between you and me, I don’t know how you can keep your hands off him.’

‘Oh, come on. We’re not all like you.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Sam said, in mock indignation.

‘Amal and I are just friends. And he’s a playwright, not a novelist.’

‘Hmm. You can’t stay single forever, darling, waiting for that Ben to make up his mind. You’ll end up a dried-out old spinster, like Miss Havisham.’

‘Watch it, I’m only thirty-six,’ Brooke protested. ‘And four months younger than you, I might add. Besides which, I don’t see you heading to the altar with anyone. Miss Havisham, indeed.’

‘Well, whatever. The point is, are you coming to Donegal or not? Won’t cost you a penny, you know. Neptune Marine will pick up the tab, first class all the way and back again.’

‘I’m thinking about it.’ Brooke wasn’t usually so quick to let herself get swept up in Sam’s enthusiastic schemes, but she was beginning to warm to it. ‘Maybe it’d be good for Amal. He’s had a bit of a letdown recently. A change of scenery might cheer him up.’

‘Then it’s settled,’ Sam said briskly. ‘Now, there’s a very nice guesthouse not far from the country club. Not the Ritz, as you’d imagine, but it’s cosy and comfortable. I’ll take care of everything. All you two have to do is turn up. I’ll text you the details.’

‘Hold on—’ Brooke began. But before she could say any more, Sam interrupted her. ‘Oh, listen, Sir Roger’s on the other line. I’d better take this. See you on Saturday, darling. Pronto.’

Brooke sighed, holding a dead phone. Typical Sam. Once she got a notion into her head, there wasn’t a force on earth that could stop her.

‘I’ve never been to Ireland before,’ Amal mused over coffee later that evening when Brooke trotted upstairs to put the idea to him.

He’d answered his door looking morose, unusually dishevelled and clutching a Jean-Paul Sartre novel guaranteed to cast a pall over the most optimistic soul – but brightened up visibly at the sight of her, and invited her eagerly inside. It never ceased to amaze Brooke how beautifully decorated the inside of his flat was. Not bad for a struggling playwright still not thirty, whose first play had just tanked spectacularly and drawn unanimously abysmal reviews from all the critics.

‘I thought it’d be nice for you to get away for a couple of days,’ she said. ‘I know you’ve been a bit down lately.’

‘It’s true,’ he sighed. ‘Though maybe I’ve taken it harder than I should have. I mean, it can’t have been the first utter disaster in the history of theatre, can it? And not everyone walked out. Did they?’ he added, hopefully.

On the night, Brooke had counted twenty-six hardy survivors out of an initially well-packed house, but hadn’t had the heart to reveal it to him. ‘You make it sound a lot worse than it was,’ she said, smiling. ‘The play’s great. I just think its appeal is, you know, selective.’

‘I don’t know, perhaps people just don’t want to see a three-act tragedy about toxic waste,’ he muttered, shaking his head glumly. ‘It’s all about bums on seats at the end of the day. Now, if I’d written about … say, the Vietnam War as seen from the viewpoint of a mule, or something, now that would’ve—’

Brooke could see that she needed to get back on topic. ‘So, what do you think about Ireland, then?’ she cut in. ‘A breath of sea air, a bit of partying, a few glasses of champagne …?’

Amal gazed into his coffee for a moment, then set the cup firmly down on the table and forced his face into a broad, white grin. ‘Screw it, why not? I haven’t been out of this bloody flat for days. Sitting here moping all the time like a big self-indulgent baby.’

‘That’s the spirit, Amal. You won’t regret it, I promise you.’

Chapter Three

Saturday evening, and the vehicles were arriving in droves through the gates of the grand-looking Castlebane Country Club. Brooke and Amal got out of the taxi that had brought them from the guesthouse, and joined the stream of smartly-dressed people filtering towards the illuminated main entrance.

The night air was sharp and cold. Brooke could smell the sea and hear the whisper of the waves in the distance. It was clear from all the press IDs on display and the prevalence of cameras everywhere around her that Sam had done a fine job of whipping up media interest in the event. A paunchy white-haired man who appeared to be the local mayor, judging by the gaudy chain and badge of office that dangled like a cowbell from his neck, was stepping out of a car and straightening his jacket, flanked by official minions.

‘This ought to be interesting,’ Amal said without any great conviction as they approached the gold-lit facade of the building. But if he’d been having second thoughts about abandoning his Richmond sanctuary for the wintry wilds of Donegal, he was far too polite to show it. As always, he was fastidiously groomed, and had swapped his travelling clothes for an elegant grey suit that looked tailor-made.

It had been a while since Brooke had been to any kind of party, and she’d had to dig deep in her wardrobe back in London to search out the knee-length black cashmere dress for the occasion, which she was wearing over fine black silk leggings and cinched around her waist with a wide belt. Her only jewellery was the little gold neck chain, Ben’s gift. The shoes were Italian – a pair of her sister Phoebe’s cast-offs – with heels that made her feel perched ridiculously high. They were strictly not for walking more than a few yards in unless you were some kind of masochist. Just covering the distance from the guesthouse to the taxi, then from the taxi to the foyer of the country club, had been enough to raise a blister on her heel.