"A Prospect of Vengeance" - читать интересную книгу автора (Price Anthony)
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A Prospect of
Vengeance
ANTHONY PRICE
PROLOGUE:
Old Mrs Griffin's cottage
The children had spotted the ruin of old Mrs Griffin's cottage that very first morning, years before, and from the one place in the farmhouse where it could be seen through the trees: a little low window, cobwebby and covered with dead flies, halfway down the narrow twisty back stair to the kitchen.
And then there had been no holding them.
Rachel and Laurence had known about it already, of course.
The estate agents' man had explained that it was part of the property, as a more-or-less unwanted appendage to the farmhouse plot below the orchard, also dead on the line of the motorway and not part of the fields which had been already sold to the adjacent farms. At the time this had rather aroused Rachel's curiosity, so that when Laurence had embarked on a second tour of their dilapidated (but, as they dummy2
then thought, strictly temporary) new home, she had gone exploring for herself.
Actually, she had never quite reached old Mrs Griffin's cottage then. But she had seen enough, because what she had seen she had disliked even in the safety of the bright sunshine. Indeed, although long afterwards she maintained that her dislike — even then, even then — had been instinctive, or intuitive, it had also been something fiercer than mere dislike: it was in reality strictly practical and maternal, primarily safety-conscious. The children were still little then, but no longer restrictively little. Rather, they were adventurously active, and she knew from bitter experience that Melanie would surely follow where Christopher led; and Christopher, having once glimpsed that little brick chimney and gable-end rising up out of the mossy ruin of fallen thatch, would somehow penetrate the great tangle of brambles and briars and seven-foot tall stinging nettles which had conquered old Mrs Griffin's little garden, and which utterly barred her own progress, but had not prevented her glimpsing the pond.
It was a foul place, she had thought, even in the sunshine: foul, because she could see beastly things in the water —
rotting branches and vegetation, and even an old saucepan breaking the surface of the water with a circle and a handle, over which a cloud of insects buzzed and skittered; foul also, because, although by the standards of her town-bred, traffic-accustomed ears its silence was absolute, it was somehow dummy2
deafeningly noisy, with the low buzz and hum of all those insects hunting and fighting and dying and eating ceaselessly around her; and foul, finally, because she could smell all this activity, of plants and insects and invisible animals competing with each other, and winning and losing — a sweet-rotten smell, the like of which she had never encountered before, a world away from the carbon monoxide and Indian take-away smells which had occasionally invaded their London flat on hot evenings.
'That's a horrible place, down there, darling,' she had said eventually to Larry, when she'd found him again, in the barn beside the farmhouse, staring up at the chinks of sunlight high above.
'Just one or two displaced tiles, Dr Groom,' the estate agents'
man had been saying. The structure itself is absolutely sound
— the timbers, and so on. In fact, as I've said, it's also a listed building — Grade Three — like the house. Late fifteenth century . . . perhaps early sixteenth . . . the expert witnesses at the public inquiry argued about that.' He had given Rachel a quick smile then, acknowledging her presence, if not her words. 'In other circumstances we'd be thinking about a barn conversion, splitting the property into two, rather than about a few displaced tiles. It really is a great tragedy . . . Do you see that main beam, up there? Five hundred years old, that beam is. And — '
'What's horrible, darling?' Larry had overridden the salesman's automatic spiel.
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'The old Griffin place?' The estate agents' man had been quick then, scooping up his error with another smile which embraced them both. 'Awful, isn't it? It hasn't been lived in for years, of course. But it's amazing how quickly those little places fall to pieces once they're untenanted. And, of course, nobody wanted to live there, after old Mrs Griffin died. It's too far off the main road. In fact —
Rachel had ignored him. 'It smells as though something had died in it.' She had addressed the bad news to Larry alone.
The children will be into the pond there for sure.'
Her husband's expression had hardened then. And she remembered too late that he was a country boy, country-dummy2
bred, and she had known then that resistance was in vain.
'Well, darling — ' For an instant he had looked up at the ancient beam above him, with a mixture of love and bitterness, because his ownership of it was to be so brief ' —
well then . . . they'll just have to do what they're told, and keep away from it. It can't be more dangerous than London, any day of the week, anyway.'
That had made it certain, even though they were a partnership of equal partners. But then he had made it easier by twisting one of his smiles at her, which she could never resist. 'I'll talk to Chris, darling — don't worry. And . . . while we're here . . . you can look for another place, without a pond
— eh?'
But, very strangely, it hadn't been like that at all.
Or, at first, it had been —
'Mummy, Mummy!' Mel had cried, as she came down the back stair into the kitchen that first morning. 'There's an old cottage in the trees down there — ' She pointed vaguely in the fatal direction.
'What, darling?' Rachel had pretended not to hear.
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Larry looked up from his yesterday's paper, which he hadn't got round to reading in the chaos of their arrival. 'That's the old Griffin place,' he had said, matter-of-fact and ready to fulfil his promise as Chris arrived breathlessly behind his sister. 'It's part of our property. But it's only a ruin.' He had looked down at his paper again. 'An old lady named "Griffin"
was the last occupant. That's why it's called "the old Griffin place".'
Chris had sat down without a word. And, as Chris played his cards close to his chest even then, that meant that Chris had his plans worked out.
'Was she a witch?' inquired Mel. 'It
Chris had considered the choice between cornflakes and muesli with ostentatious innocence. 'There are no such things as witches,' he admonished his sister. Then he had selected the cornflakes. 'Can I have two boiled eggs, Mother?'
Rachel knew her son almost as well as she knew her husband. So she had waited for his next move.
And Chris had waited too until the second egg. 'I think I'll go down and have a look at it,' he addressed no one in particular. 'Is that okay, Father?'
'What?' Melanie, at the age of six, didn't know anyone very well, but she knew her brother better than anyone else. 'Me too!'
Larry looked up from his paper. 'Not just you — all of us, dummy2
Chris.' He grinned at Rachel, then at Melanie, and finally at Chris. 'After the washing-up we'll go down and look at old Mrs Griffin's cottage. And then we'll make the rules. Okay?'
And it had been much better than Rachel had expected, after Larry had slashed his way through all the obstacles with a terrifying weapon he had acquired from somewhere, which looked as though it had last been carried by an angry
So, finally, they had reached the mouldering wreck of old Mrs Griffin's home: all the paraphernalia of a humble, long-lost and once-upon-a-time existence had still been there, among the nettles and fallen bricks and timbers, and the coarse-leafed growth: broken chairs and smashed furniture, the bits of an immense iron bedstead; the shards of crockery, and bottles and broken bottles — bottles everywhere — and the rusty evidence of tinned food — tins of every shape and size, mixed with rusty springs from an antique armchair mouldering on the edge of the pond.
'What's this?' Melanie held up half of a chamber-pot by its handle. 'Is it for fruit salad?'
'I'll have this, for my bedroom,' Chris, eagle-eyed, held up a pewter candle-stick. But then he'd looked at his father.
'Father — let's go back now.'
Larry looked at his son. 'What's the matter?'
'I don't like the smell.' Chris had balanced himself on a sheet dummy2
of corrugated iron. 'It smells like ... I don't know what —
drains, maybe?'
'
'Let's go back,' Chris had repeated his demand. 'This is a beastly place.'
'Yes,' agreed Melanie. 'And ... I bet she
So they had gone back.
And it had been all right — even all right while the children ranged far and wide over the moor, and under the hill and over the hill and beyond, on foot and then on bicycle, as times had changed, and public inquiry (and government, and minister) had succeeded public inquiry, and the years had passed over the moor, and overhill and underhill, and Dr Groom's job had developed. And Rachel had been a member of the Women's Institute, and then treasurer, and then secretary. And, in the seventh year, Madam President.
And all their plans had changed, as the motorway had taken a different line, and Underhill Farm survived.
Until that day when Chris — Chris with his voice broken, out of the school choir and into the Junior Colts rugger XV, but Arts-inclined in the run-up to his A-level exams, had cycled dummy2
over to the archaeology unit which was blazing the trail for the new line of the motorway, beyond the edge of the moor —
'Mother —
Long since, Rachel had stopped worrying about the old Griffin place. It was where it had always been, more-or-less.
But after all these years it wasn't one of her problems. 'What about it, darling? The old Griffin place — ?'
'I was talking to a fellow — a Cambridge chap on the dig over the hill, where they're working on that Romano-British village . . . which they
'Yes, dear?' Rachel was just beginning to acclimatize to that harsh reality of her son's greater knowledge in certain areas
— like matters Romano-British and Anglo-Saxon, as well as sporting.
'He was very interesting — what he said was, I mean.'
She must be careful not to irritate him with her stupidity.
'About archaeology?' She had driven past the excavations only the day before, and had admired the chequer-board regularity of the work in progress.
'About dustmen, actually.'
'Dustmen?' Now she really had to be careful. So ... not another word.
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'Refuse collectors — garbage men.' Suddenly he was serious.
'You know,
Rachel felt assailed on two fronts. 'You'll have to ask him yourself. And it'll be your decision in the end. So long as you don't want to be a dustman . . .'
He looked at her seriously. 'Dustmen have got a lot to answer for.'
'You can say that again.' The weekly struggle to manhandle —
or, all too often, to womanhandle — the dustbins from the kitchen door to the roadside for collection was a sore trial to her. But at least he was changing the subject from a delicate area to a safe one. And, until she had had time to consult Larry — or at least to stop him putting his foot in it — the further away, the better. 'What's all this got to do with the old Griffin place, darling? You know more of it has fallen down since you went away for the summer term? It was in that dreadful storm we had in May — the one that brought down the old plum tree in the orchard.'
'Yes, I know. I had a look not long ago.' He brushed back his hair from his eyes, and looked the image of his father.
'Yesterday, in fact.'
'Yes, darling?' There had been a time when she would have worried about such an exploration, and when it would have been strictly Against the Rules in fact; although, in fact, that dummy2
had been one rule which the children had never broken. But now he was a big boy. But now, also, she was interested.
'Why did you do that?'
He stared at her for a moment. 'Dustmen, Mother — Rachel.
I told you — dustmen. That's the point.'
Rachel could hear her husband clumping finally from the bathroom to the bedroom upstairs. In a moment or two he would be on the back stair, coming down past the little arrow-slit window from which the surviving chimney of the old Griffin place was still just visible through the trees. 'Well, the point eludes me, darling. Because no dustman ever came within half a mile of old Mrs Griffin's dustbins, if she had such things — that's certain.'
'
Still unenlightened, Rachel took refuge in interested (if not intelligent) silence.
And her silence broke him finally. 'It's all still there. For the finding.'
That broke her. 'What is?'
'Everything. Or, anyway, everything she ever broke, or threw away. Or lost.' Suddenly his voice was eager. 'Remember that old pewter candle-stick I picked up there, years ago? That's still in my room?'
The light dawned, even blazed, suddenly illuminating all his designs. 'But . . . it's a horrible place, Christopher — a
place — '
'No, it isn't, Mother. It's the ruin of an old farm cottage. And there probably has been a farmhouse hereabouts since medieval times. And . . . maybe the site of the old Griffin place was the original farmhouse, because it has its own pond — the Cambridge chap said it might be. But, anyway, because there weren't any dustmen and garbage collectors in the old days, and it's way off the beaten track —
'What is all there?' Larry spoke from the open doorway of the back staircase, stooping automatically so as not to knock his head on the beam, years of practice having made him perfect.
'All the accumulated refuse of old Mrs Griffin, dear.' Rachel felt her lips compress. 'And your son wishes to dig it up.'
'Not "dig it up", Mother.
and prehistoric, and all that. It's anything that's in the past and in the ground. Or above the ground —
'It's a perfectly horrible place,' snapped Rachel.
'People excavate Victorian rubbish dumps. And they find quite valuable things,' countered Christopher.
Dr Laurence Groom considered his wife and son in turn, and came to a scientist's conclusion inevitably, as Rachel knew he dummy2
would. 'It sounds interesting.' But at least he had the grace to look at his wife apologetically. 'And . . . I've always wanted to clear that place up. That pond is undoubtedly the breeding place for our mosquitoes.' Then he smiled at his son. 'I doubt that we'll cast any fresh light on the past, to upset the experts. But you never know what we'll find, I agree.'
That, as it transpired, was an understatement. Because, as regards the past and the experts Dr Laurence Groom was wholly wrong.
PART ONE
Ian Robinson and The Ghosts of '78
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Ian knew that there was someone in his flat the moment he opened the door. And then, almost instantly (and with a mixture of relief and distaste outweighing surprise and fear), not
As he moved towards the living-room door he wrinkled his dummy2
nose again, and knew that it wasn't altogether because of the tobacco, but also because Jenny had undoubtedly conned him, he realized. Not only were they already spending good money, but with her instinct for winners and the Tully-Buller reputation for getting results, the pressure to go ahead would likely be irresistible. Even while seeming to meet his doubts she had painted him into a corner as usual.
'Hullo, Reg.' He observed simultaneously that Buller had helped himself to a beer from the fridge and that he was busy examining the typescripts on the table. 'Picked the lock, did you?'
'Would I do that?' Buller replaced the papers without haste, but not very neatly. 'You've got a nice Chubb lock, in any case.' He grinned at Ian. 'Beyond me, that is. When it comes to breaking-and-entering, I'm strictly amateur.'
'Well, you certainly didn't climb in.' There was something utterly disarming about Reg Buller, although he had never been able to pin it down. But perhaps that was all part of the man's stock-in-trade. 'The back's burglar-proof, I'm reliably informed by the local crime prevention officer. And the front's a bit public on a Sunday morning. Apart from which, the wistaria isn't strong enough — you've put on weight, Reg.'
Buller shook his head. 'Not weight — prosperity, this is. Like the Swedish lady said to me, "Much to hold is much to love."
Sheer prosperity, my lad.'
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'It looks more like sheer beer-drinking to me. How
'Ah . . .' Buller lifted his beer-glass. 'I hoped you wouldn't mind. It's almost sun-over-the-yardarm time, and I was thirsty. Besides which, you always have stocks of this good Cologne beer — I remember that from last time. And ... I am working for you again after all.' He drank. 'Always a pleasure, that is.'
The beer or the work? 'Have another. I'll have one too. When you've told me how you got in, that is.'
'This is the other. But I'll have a third — they are
I used my key.'
'Your . . .
'That's the ticket. You lent me a spare last time, when I was in an' out, dropping stuff off. So I had another one cut, just in case.'
Ian felt himself being shepherded towards the kitchen. 'In case of what?'
'In case I had to come calling again. Like, for a rainy day. An'
today is rainy, and I knew you'd be at church this morning, like always ... an' ... I wanted to catch you before Mr Tully arrives. An' he said 12.30. An' . . .' He gave Ian a sidelong look.
'And?' Ian knew that look of old.
'I wanted to make sure the coast was clear.' Buller studied his beer for a moment. Then drank some of it. Then studied dummy2
what remained with regret. 'What I always like about Cologne . . . apart from the art galleries, an' the museums, an'
all the culture, of course ... is that, every time your glass gets down to the last inch or so, they just automatically bring you another full one. An' that's what I would describe as a very
Ian opened the fridge door. 'Ein Kölsch, Herr Buller?' He waited uneasily while another bottle from his fast depleting stock disappeared. 'What d'you mean — making sure the coast is clear, Reg?'
Buller drank. 'You don't know you're being followed? But then, you wouldn't of course! The Lady might know better . . .
but you'd just go walkabout without another thought — I know you!'
Ian thought bitterly of the 'Lady' and her instincts. But he only thought of her for a moment. Then he started thinking of himself. 'I'm being followed?' He tried to imply a mere wish for confirmation, rather than the actual consternation he was experiencing.
'Oh yes.' Buller nodded. 'Meaning ... I wasn't
using a couple of my thousand disguises, naturally . . . An' it seemed to me that you had one at the front, an' one at the back, trying to blend into their surroundings ... In fact, I nearly phoned up the local nick and tipped 'em off, to see dummy2
what would happen. But then I thought, we can always do that in future — because I'd have to do it anonymously, see?
But you can get the old girl downstairs to do it. An' then we can see whether they do anything about it or not, as the case may be. But we won't have revealed our own guilty interest, if it's official.' This time, as he drank, he rationed himself to one swallow. 'Which I'd guess it is. But it 'ud be nice to be sure, for starters. When you're ready — when you're ready, eh?'
Jenny had been right. But it was all happening too quickly, nevertheless. Which, of course and on second thoughts, made her even more right, damn it! 'What makes you sure —
now?'
'When you went out, the chap in the front called up the chap at the back. It's like he's plugged into one of these bloody
"Walkman" things — but he's two-way plugged . . . So they both met up at the corner, down the road. An' then I nipped inside.' Duller put his glass down on the kitchen table. 'Of course, they could have in-depth cover. So that could have blown me, too. But, I thought, if they've got that sort of cover, then I'm probably already blown to hell, anyway — so what the hell!' He grinned again. 'Besides which, it was beginning to rain, an' I haven't got an umbrella — ' he shrugged ' — an' I remembered about your beer supplies, too. An' I'm not charging for Sunday work. Not until 12.15. Plus travel expenses. So ... so, actually, you're still on my private time now, without the meter running.'
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Ian's thoughts had become cold and hard as he listened, like thick ice over bottomless Arctic water: it had been like this in Beirut, when Jenny had been doing the leg-work as usual in the misplaced belief that the fundamentalist snatch-squad didn't rate women (or, if they did, they couldn't handle the indelicacies of kidnapping one), and he had been holed up in the hotel.
'They're back in place now, getting nicely soaked. So you'll have to go out again later on, with your lady and my Mr Tully to draw 'em off.' Buller nodded into his silence. 'Which the three of you all together certainly will, goin' out all together
—
Questions crowded Ian's mind. 'What made you . . .
suspicious?' It was an inadequate word, knowing Buller. But it was suitably vague.
'Huh!' Short of another beer, Buller produced an immense gunmetal lighter with which to set fire to the foul mixture in his pipe, which surely resisted conventional combustion methods. 'As soon as Mr Tully mentioned Masson's name, I thought "Aye-aye! Watch yourself, Reg!"'
'Why?' Ian remembered what Tully had said the first time he'd mentioned Reginald Buller's name: that, whatever you do, wherever you wanted to go, Buller was halfway there before you started towards it.
'I never did rate that much — a senior civil servant lost at sea: dummy2
"what a terrible tragedy!" ... I never rated that, not even at the time.' Buller shook his head. 'I thought . . . here we go again, I thought — ' A foul smoke-screen enveloped him momentarily, so that he had to wave his hand to disperse it '
— I thought
'But there was nothing ever known against Philip Masson, Reg.'
'Nor there was. And that was what I thought next — quite right, when that was all there was.' This time, a nod of agreement. 'But when he turned up again ... an' miles from the sea, an' dry as a bone — ' From shake, through nod, to shake again ' — what sort of tragedy was that, then?'
That had been what Jenny had wanted to know. Or, anyway, it had been the beginning of what she had wanted to know.
'You tell me, Reg — ?'
'Hmm . . .' Somehow they had progressed out of the dining room and past the study door (and Reginald Buller would have examined all the 'Work in progress' there, too, for a certain guess), into the living room again; but Reg was blocking off the approach to the glorious bow-window, just in case.
'Well?'
'No bugger's saying anything. And you can't get near where they dug him up.' Buller scratched the back of his head.
They've got the local coppers out, both sides of the place, guarding it. There are a couple on the back road to it, never dummy2
mind the front . . . And it was two kids who found the body.
But you can't get to them, either. And the parents aren't talking to anyone.' Another shake. 'And I had to be bloody careful, because there were one or two people there I know, sniffing around, buying drinks — from the
'So you didn't get anything — ?' He knew Reg Buller better than that.
'Oh . . .' Buller bridled slightly, on his mettle '. . . there was this barmaid I chatted up, who knew someone in the coroner's office. And
'"Planted" — ?'
'Buried.' Nod. 'In a hole.' Another nod. 'He didn't fall out of the sky, or tip over an' hit his head, or shoot himself, or have a heart attack.' Final nod. The way some of the stories go, there was this pond, an' he was
'Why —
'God knows! But it seems that they did. So ... someone buried him. So someone killed him first — that's what the barmaid dummy2
said. And I paid her £50 not to tell anyone else. Although it's even money that I may have made her greedy, so I can't be sure that I haven't wasted . . .
Ian winced inwardly at Tully's final bill, which would pile his VAT on Reg Buller's VAT, to complicate matters even if they could finally claim it back; although Jenny's friendly accountants would sort that out for them, also at a price. But he mustn't think of such mundane things now. 'And that was all you got?'
Reg Buller looked offended. That was all I thought it safe to try and get, the way things smelt. Besides which, I rather thought I had other fish to fry, on instruction. Or rather . . .
not other fish —
'
'Well ... not a fish, exactly.' Buller drew deeply on his pipe.
'More like a shark, if you ask me — ' he breathed out a foul cloud of smoke ' — like, in that film: something you go out to catch . . . but you end up trying not to get caught yourself, maybe.' He drew on his pipe again.
'You mean the man Audley? David Audley?' Ian remembered Jenny's original proposition: she had come to him late at night — or, more precisely, early in the morning, after one of her socialite nights-on-the-tiles — getting him out of bed when he was at his lowest ebb —
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"
'
'
'
would pour it.)
'
'No.
'
'Mr David Audley — yes. Or, to give him his proper title,
But Ian had progressed since Jenny's untimely descent on him. 'Medieval history actually, Reg.'
'Oh aye?' Buller accepted the correction as a further dummy2
confirmation of cause-for-contempt. 'Looked him up in
'No. "Wrong" actually. The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem was eleventh to twelfth century, as it happens. Not that it matters.' Compared with Philip Masson it certainly didn't matter. But a long passion for getting facts right, and for sorting the golden nuggets of truth from Jenny's loaded conveyor-belt of hearsay, rumour and gossip, forced him to react before he could stop himself. And then he had to put matters straight, into their priorities. 'He's a shark, is he, Reg?'
Buller's face worked, as he came back from what didn't matter to what did, which he had presumably uncovered during his second day of fish-frying for Tully and Jenny. And that also transformed Ian's own imagery, from dusty manuscripts in university libraries to that fearful triangular dorsal fin cutting through the water, and then submerging as the killer disappeared, rolling underwater to open its razor-sharp jaws as it came to dine on its prey.
'He could be. Or ... seeing how he's a big bugger — six-foot-two, or six-foot-three, in his stocking feet . . . and a rugger-player when he was young . . . maybe one of those bigger ones — black-and-white, and
'Killer whales?' Black-and-white were the Death's Head dummy2
colours, he dredged the memory up from his subconscious: not only of killer whales, or of the murderous magpies which killed small birds outside his windows in the country cottage where he always put the finishing touches to each new book; black-and-white had been the colours of all those famous regiments, with skull-and-crossbones badges, like military pirates — and even of Audley's medieval Knights Templar, in his crusading Latin Kingdom; and, for that matter, the young men who squired Jenny to perdition on her late nights wore the same non-colours too, damn it!
But something had intruded into the sequence: he had heard the bell, and Buller's face had closed up as he heard it. And he cursed himself for not reacting more quickly to Buller's warning, now that Tully had arrived — or Jenny, or Jenny and Tully together — now that
'
Buller shook his head. 'Wouldn't have done any good. If they're on to you, they'll be on to them . . . Just so they're not on to
'I've got to tell them, Reg.' Ian felt increasingly uneasy as he dummy2
spoke. Because while Tully was sensible enough to be scared, this news would only strengthen Jenny's suspicion, turning it into a certainty.
'Wait! Hold on a mo' — ' Reg Buller sidled sideways to block his passage again ' — all this rabbiting on about Latin Kingdoms, and sharks — ' The bell rang again ' — let 'em ring
—
'What?' Ian stopped. 'What — '
'Just listen.' Buller almost pushed him back. 'You've tipped me off, on occasion . . . And you've recommended me — given me custom —
'You don't owe me anything.'
'Okay. So all the bills have been paid, for the tax-man, and the VAT man.' Buller nodded. 'And in a minute I'll be on my usual rate — okay . . . See?' He ignored the angry ringing behind him. 'But
Ian frowned at him. 'You'd better be quick. Or they'll think —
'
'This bloke Audley — ' Buller overbore him. ' — I've got a feeling in my water about him. You want to watch yourself.
And don't let the Lady push you where you don't want to go
— not this time. That's all.' He stared at Ian for a moment, and then tossed his head. 'Let 'em in, then — go on!'
Ian sprinted towards the now-continuous bell, which meant that it was Jenny out there, without a doubt.
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'Sorry, Jen — ' He caught sight of Tully beyond her — '—
hullo, John.'
'I should think so!' She pulled her headscarf and shook a tangle of half-combed red hair. 'You look positively guilty, too.' She scrutinized him momentarily. 'In fact, if I didn't know you better, Ian Robinson — and if I didn't know that it was Sunday . . . it
'It is for me.' He returned the scrutiny. Without makeup, but with dark smudges under her eyes, she presented a curious mixture of innocence and depravity. 'But you look like you've had your weekend already, Miss Fielding-ffulke. And lost it.'
'Very funny.' She turned to Tully. 'As I was saying . . . if I didn't know him better, I'd say he'd got a girl in the bedroom, hunting desperately for her knickers right now. But — '
'No such luck.' Buller spoke from the sitting-room doorway.
'Sorry to disappoint you, madam. But all he's got is me. And I'm only hunting for beer.'
'Reg!' The night before seemed to drop away from her. 'John said you might be here — that you'd agreed to come to our aid at short notice. It's great to see you again! And ... we do
'Always a pleasure, madam.' In Jenny's presence, Buller always took refuge in the practised insincerity of his long-lost police constable self: for some reason her charm had always been lost on him, Ian remembered from the past. Which was dummy2
all the more curious because in his case the charm was not consciously turned on, she had a genuine regard for his skill, and a huge soft spot for him to go with it. And now he himself must take account of that unrequited admiration in assessing the worth of Buller's warning.
'Don't keep calling me "madam", Reg, for God's sake!' She made a face at Buller.
'No, Miss Fielding-ff — '
'And
"Jenny" is too much for you ... I'm not responsible for the absurdities of my ancestors ... so I'll settle for "Fielding".
Okay?' Under the soft, almost pleading tone, there was the steely ancestral Fielding-ffulke voice of command, at which generations of Bullers (and Robinsons too) had jumped to obey. 'Okay. So what have you got for us on Philip Masson and David Audley?'
'I have prepared a report, Miss Fielding.' Buller looked at Tully. 'A written report.'
'It's all right, Mr Buller.' Immaculate as ever and secure in his Winchester tie, Tully nevertheless jumped no less smartly. 'Just the salient points now.'
Jenny caught Ian's eye. 'Reg would probably like a drink, Ian.
And I certainly would. The last lot of church bells I heard, I counted to twelve.'
'No.' It wasn't just that the Robinsons no longer obeyed the Fielding-ffulkes automatically, it was also to suggest that dummy2
Buller hadn't been with him for long. 'I want to hear what Reg has to say first. Go on, Reg.'
'Right, Mr Robinson.' Buller played back to him exactly the correct note of disappointment. 'Masson was murdered —
and Audley works for the cloak-and-dagger brigade. Ours, that is.'
'But Reg ... we
'No you don't, Miss Fielding. At least, you may know about Dr Audley — someone may have told you. But it's not written down anywhere. Officially, he's a civil servant on contract, serving on a liaison committee of some sort — no one seems to know quite what — advising various ministries on research projects. And no one knows quite what they are, either.
Right, Johnny?'
Tully nodded. 'Yes. More or less.'
'Yes. Well, I'm telling you that he works for intelligence
But the Police haven't said any such thing, they've been shut up tight from the top now. Believe me, I can read the signs.
So I'm just giving you what they'd be saying if they hadn't been shut up.'
'Actually, there have been quite a few rumours,' said Tully.
'There was one that he drowned — drowned himself, that is.'
'Oh yes.' Buller nodded. 'I didn't say they haven't said dummy2
And then got influenza — there was a lot of that about in the village at the time. So his old woman had just buried him nice and quietly — it's miles from anywhere, on the edge of the marsh there, so she could have done that quite easily, and no one the wiser. But then it all blew up in their faces, of course.'
'They got an identification, you mean?'
Buller grinned. 'Someone blundered, that's what.'
'How d'you mean — "blundered", Reg?' inquired Ian. 'The Police?'
'No, not the Police. Although I think there was rather more tramping around in the first hours than they'd like to admit
— "Isolate the scene", that's Rule Number One. But then, of course, these kids dug up the body, playing about ... so they'd already made a right mess of it.' Buller shrugged. 'After that, it would have all been routine. And they'd have twigged pretty damn quickly that it really wasn't an ancient body, too
— that 'ud put 'em into gear, if they weren't in it already. Not exactly top gear, like with a fresh body, when getting quick off the mark is half the battle, often . . . but putting the forensics to work, and checking the records — B14, Missing Persons . . . Salvation Army, Alcoholics Anonymous — they dummy2
all come into it.' Another shrug. 'Bloody thousands of people missing. So it's always nice to find one.'
'Even a dead one?' Jenny frowned at him.
'Even a dead one. You ask a farmer about his missing sheep: he'd rather find one dead than one missing — leastways, if it's been long gone. At least he
— or son now, the way things are — is probably out on the streets, earning money the easiest way.' He paused again. 'A lot of heartache in "Missing Persons", Lady.'
Tully stirred, almost as though embarrassed by this revelation of a social conscience where no sort of conscience should be, inside Reginald Buller. 'Who blundered then, Mr Buller?'
'Some civil servant.' Buller brightened at the thought.
'Probably one of your Dr Audley's colleagues, hiding his light under some committee.' He brought his lighter up to his pipe, but then thought better. 'Or maybe someone was on holiday — like Audley is at the moment. And some poor bloody clerk standing in for him didn't get to the bottom of his in-tray before the weekend. And then another load of bumpf went on the top of it on Monday morning. So he's for the chop now — ' He glanced sidelong at Jenny ' — or she is, dummy2
now that we're all equal.'
Jenny merely smiled. 'The identification?'
That's right. Teeth, most like — they're always the best ID.'
Buller returned the smile. 'If you're going to plant someone, Miss Fielding . . . take my tip: cut the hands and the head off, smash the jaw up, and drop the bits off in a few dustbins just before the refuse truck comes round. Then dig a deep hole for the rest, where it isn't likely to be dug up by the kids.' As he spoke the smile utterly vanished. 'But, whatever it was tipped 'em off ... and I don't know it was teeth . . . the identification got out before anyone could sit on it, and that's a fact.' He switched to Tully. 'And that put the newspapers on to it. Masson being in
And then the fat was in the fire.' The smile returned, but in a thinner form. 'All just routine — getting the right file, or the right print-out. But this time in the wrong order.'
'So where did my drowning rumour come from?' Tully's pale intellectual face was expressionless. 'I thought it came from the Police?'
Buller nodded. 'So it did. But not officially. Seems like it was a "tip-off", from lower down — like one of the DCs feeding one of the local journalists, off the record, supposedly. But it wasn't that at all, of course.'
'Disinformation?' Having been disinformed many times over recent years, Jenny was quick on that particular ball.
'Disinformation — yes.' Buller liked accurate passing. 'Could dummy2
have been the same clerk, trying to shut the stable door after the horse was already meat in the knacker's yard, as best he could. Or she could.' Half-smile, half-shrug. There is a lake there ... or a pond, so they say.'
'You haven't seen the place?' Tully pursed his lips. 'Actually
'Not a chance.' Buller returned slight contempt for this hint of disapproval. 'It's guarded round the clock — an' Special Branch from London as well as the locals. An' it's a bloody isolated spot, too . . . plus I'm not about to display myself, snooping around, to be photographed for the record. That wouldn't be good for business.' He looked to Ian for support.
'Yours as well as mine?'
'He wasn't found in the pond — the lake?' Ian rose obligingly.
'The children dug him up. And ... all the initial rumours were . . .
'That is exactly right, Mr Robinson.' Buller nodded formally.
The original story was drowning — "drowned at sea". An'
then the first story was "ancient bones" dug up. An' then his name slipped out — an' then it was "drowning" again. But that won't stick for ever.' He shook his head. 'Maybe, if they'd had time to doctor the evidence ... or, at least, to confuse it ...
then they just might have made a drowning stick.' He looked from one to the other of them. 'Although, with policemen, and coroners, and all the rest . . . that's not so easy, I can tell you. But they might at least have bought more time, anyway.
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But
But
'And they recognized you, presumably?' Tully's lips tightened again. Then he sniffed. 'Or smelt you.'
Buller looked disappointed. 'Come on, Johnny — would I work for any clients of ours without a cover story? You know me better than that. Not on something like this, that's been in the papers. You're not the only one with a sense of smell.'
Ian caught Jenny's eye, and her smile. The last time Reg Buller had worked for them he had also had a 'cover'. And it had been so genuine that he had happily collected double expenses from it. But as he watched her, he observed that the smile was only on her lips, not in her eyes. And it faded quickly.
'Your old acquaintances, Reg . . . what lines are they following, do you know?' She sounded almost casual.
'I don't honestly know, Lady. I was too busy being not very interested in their business. But I doubt they've got much of dummy2
value as yet, the way things are. Not until the inquest is resumed, they won't have anything to get their teeth into.
And you can bet they'll be delayed as long as possible.' Buller cocked an eye at Tully. 'It'll be the backroom boys digging out the old cuttings on Masson at the moment, in preparation for that. So you'd better watch your step there, Johnny, if you're thinking of asking to have a look at him in your favourite newspaper library. Because they know you've worked for your present clients before.'
Tully touched his tie. 'Don't worry, Mr Buller. That's already all taken care of.' He acknowledged Jenny and Ian in turn. 'I have a very fair dossier on Philip Masson. And there won't be any comeback.'
That was going to cost them, thought Ian. Because, although Tully's own highly-computerized filing system was pretty damn good in its own right (and expensive to get into, also), it still couldn't match the better newspaper libraries. But newspaper librarians wouldn't come cheap either, those of them who could be bought. Or their assistants. Or whoever had access, down the line. But more than that, and regardless of expense, Tully was very certain of himself today: certain, although this had been contractually no more than a quick reconnaissance of a possibility, that he had Fielding and Robinson as fullblown clients again.
He examined them both with professional interest: the well-laundered, Winchester-tied Tully, very confident; and the crumpled, smelly old Buller, no less a pro, albeit in his own dummy2
distinctive style. But now, although Buller had given him the gypsy's warning, they were both equally excited at the prospect of profit and enjoyment.
'Yes.' Tully looked at him, and he realized that all three were looking at him, willing him to show enthusiasm. Even Buller, after what he'd said, was willing it. 'I don't think you need to worry too much about the newshounds at the moment, Mr Robinson.'
'Why not?' In a position of strength he could afford to be awkward.
'Well . . . firstly, because of the timing, I rather think.'
'The timing?'
'Of Masson's death. It occurred at the very end of the Wilson-Callaghan era, in 1978. So they can't pin this on the Tories, in general — or on our present dear Prime Minister, in particular. If there was a cover-up, that is . . .' He smiled thinly. 'That takes some of the fun out of it, you might say.
And the urgency with it.'
There was a flaw in that reasoning, thought Ian: pre-Thatcher shenanigans in British Intelligence could always be dressed up as 'destabilization',
'And none of them are on to Audley yet.' Tully bowed slightly to Jenny. 'Your ace in the hole is still safe, Miss Fielding.
You're way ahead of them all.' Then he remembered Ian. 'If dummy2
you want to proceed, that is.'
Ian was glad that he had resisted the temptation to look at Buller, whose buttocks were still firmly seated on that unpalatable information about the watchers outside, which would prick Tully's bubble of complacency explosively. But that in turn presented him with an immediate dilemma: because
So this was that 'moment-of-truth' Jenny always made him face up to, when they had to decide to go ahead with a project after the first reconnaissance, or to cut their losses and start on something else. Only this was different from all their other investigations — and not different just because of those two men outside in the rain: it was different also because it seemed to matter personally to her, not just financially. So, if he said 'no' she'd not only never forgive him, but she might also go ahead on her own account, without his protective presence — ?
He couldn't have that, no matter how much against his better judgement, not after Beirut.
'I think I'll get that drink now. Dry sherry for you, John?' He didn't need to look at Tully.
'Beer for me.' Reg Buller beamed at him. 'One of those little dummy2
bottles of that German beer? Have you got any of them?'
He didn't need to look at her, either: for her there was their
'moment-of-truth' custom. All he saw was the pile of papers he'd taken out of the study that morning, slightly disarranged as Buller had left them. So now the future of British education would have to wait until this matter of the past of British intelligence had been resolved, he thought sadly.
It was all conveniently in the fridge — John Tally's Manzanilla, Reg Buller's Kölsch, and Jenny's celebratory bottle (even though he didn't feel like celebrating).
'Oh Ian darling!' She pushed through the door just as the cork
'Don't count your chickens, Jen.' He watched the ridiculously over-priced stuff subside. 'I still don't like it. And I think we could be risking our necks.'
'Of course, darling. But . . .' She swayed towards him, both hands full but still holding the door half open with her shoulder. '. . . but — ' her voice dropped to a wide-mouthed whisper, enunciated as though to a deaf lip-reader ' — I-have-got-promises-of-absolutely-marvellous-deals . . . from . . .
Clive Parsons . . .
She read his expression, and nodded triumphantly.
Ian reached out to push the door fully open, knowing that that triumphant nod would have had to be the clincher if he dummy2
had been genuinely still in doubt: with Woodward controlling the serializations on the front page of his heavyweight Sunday's supplement, to coincide with publication, and Parsons' publishers' clout in the American press, they had the necessary ingredients for another best-seller before he had put one word on paper; and if Jenny's rarely mistaken nose for a winner didn't let them down they stood to make a small fortune. Or even a large one. And that was more than could be expected from British education.
'John — Reg — ' She took the two untasted glasses in with a glance ' — I've just been twisting Ian's arm unmercifully — '
She raised her own glass ' — so I think we can now drink to ...
what?' She zeroed in on Reg Buller. 'Murder, for a start?'
Buller drank without answering, keeping his counsel dry as an infantryman's powder.
Tully sipped his sherry, and from the look on his face either approved of its dryness or was thinking of his fees. 'Treason, for choice, Miss Fielding. With murder in a chief supporting role, perhaps — ?' Then (as before) he remembered Ian. '
even
'Why do you say that, John?' Jenny watched him over her glass.
'Don't you agree?'
dummy2
'Back in '78-'79?' She accepted the challenge casually.
'Whenever it was, anyway . . . Philip Masson was more influential than Audley — at least, potentially, anyway.'
'Was he?' He let her steel rasp down his blade. Either, they had already rehearsed this for his benefit, thought Ian — or, if they hadn't, then they were manoeuvring to find out how much the other knew. 'I would have thought that was . . .
arguable, at the least?'
Jenny shrugged, and refilled her glass: since Tully was their employee now, at his usual rate, she was not minded to play games with him, the gesture implied. 'Philip Masson's dead and Audley's alive.'
'A very proper conclusion.' Because he had picked up her signal, Tully agreed with her. But because he was Tully he couldn't resist talking down to her. "
'And by
And, if they can't then we won't.' He only had eyes for Jenny now, in proclaiming his limitations. 'But it won't have been Audley, anyway.'
'Why not?' The question came, surprisingly, from Buller —
perhaps because the emptiness of his glass made him irritable.
dummy2
'Why not?' This time Tully gave Buller his full attention. And although there was no surprise in his repetition of the question, there was a matching hint of irritation. 'I hope you haven't exceeded your brief, Mr Buller.'
'Ah! My brief . . .' Buller sucked in his cheeks slightly, and gave Tully back scrutiny for scrutiny, like a man who knows his rights as well as his place. 'No, I wouldn't say that, Johnny — no.'
'No?' Tully smiled suddenly, almost proprietorially. But then, of course, each of them knew his man, Ian reminded himself: the Tully-Buller relationship went back a long way, to the days when neither of them was engaged in his present avocation. 'Then . . . what would you say?'
For a moment Ian was tempted to suspect that he might be a potential client treated to a piece of rehearsed dialogue, to which Buller's earlier confidences had been a mere prologue.
But now that he'd as good as taken Jenny's hook (and theirs) such dramatics were hardly necessary; and Buller's thoughtful expression and elongated silence served to remind him of the watchers in the rain outside.
'What exactly was your brief, Mr Buller — ' Jenny cracked first ' —
Buller kept both bloodshot eyes on Tully for another five seconds'-worth of silence before turning to her, as though the sound of her voice had had to travel across some dummy2
unimaginable distance before it had reached him. 'Just like always, madam — Miss Fielding: I take off my boot, an' then my sock ... an' I dip my big toe in the water, to test the temperature.' He gave her his ex-policeman's smile of false encouragement. 'An' of course, I do all that behind some convenient bush, so no joker can swipe my boot when I'm not looking. As a precaution, like.'
'I see.' Even when a client, Jenny was patient in the face of such stone-wailing. 'And how was the hot water, then — in that pond, where Philip Masson didn't drown . . . which you didn't actually see, you said — ?'
'Warm, Miss Fielding.' Buller accepted the sharp points of her little claws approvingly, as though not being punctured would have disappointed him.
'Warm.' Jenny had drawn blood from harder stones than Reg Buller. 'Meaning . . . warm-cooling-down? Or warm-hotting-up, Reg?'
Buller liked that too — her acceptance of his imagery. But that, by some special alchemy, was the effect she always had, even on the most unregenerate chauvinist-pig, one way or another, sooner or later. 'It may not warm up much down there, now. It could be just the place where he finished up . . .' He shrugged. 'He didn't live there. He may not even have died there.'
'But — ?' She picked up the vibration instantly.
'Somebody planted him there. So somebody knew it was dummy2
there — that's a fair bet.' Another shrug. 'All these years . . .
that may be hard to pin down usefully. But if I was running the Incident Room I'd be waiting for that to register on the computer, anyway.' Nod. 'Because, although that isn't so very far from London there, it's still country —
Or, it was then. And it's amazing what long memories they have, the country-folk. Like, I told you: there was this tale about the soldier who went missing in the war . . . And
'But that was a story, not a memory, Reg — ' Jenny started, razor-sharp as ever, but then caught herself. 'But . . . go on
— ?'
That's all. For Masson, for my money, there's still something down there. But there's no way we can get at it at this moment — not without crossing the locals, never mind whoever else is nosing around. There just aren't enough bushes you can hide behind, to drop your boot.'
'Yes. I see.' She had what she wanted there. 'But . . . you put your toe in ... I can't say "Audley's water" without seeming indelicate, Reg . . . but you did take your boot off for him too, didn't you — yes?'
'Took it off, aye. Didn't dip me toe, though.'
'Why not?'
dummy2
'Didn't need to.' Buller paused. 'Didn't want to, either.' He cocked his head slightly. 'Remember that book you and Mr Robinson did a few years back, about the Vietnam business, and all that?'
Jenny frowned. '
'That's the ticket. The Grand Tetons. Always wanted to see them, ever since I saw 'em in
'I do, Reg.' What Ian chiefly remembered was Buller's explanation that 'Grand Tetons' meant 'Big Tits'. 'But what have the. . . Grand Tetons to do with Audley, Reg?'
'Not the Grand Tetons.' The ghost of a wink accompanied the name. 'After I'd finished with Major Kasik I had a day or two spare, so I drove up from Jackson Hole to Yellowstone, where there's this great big National Park, with all the
"geysers" spouting and fuming. And it was autumn then, with a nip in the air, like it might start snowing any moment . . . And there are all these little pools of water, clear as crystal and fresh-looking, with lovely colours — pale blues, and greeny-blues ... In the hot summer maybe they'd look cool, but when it's colder you might reckon they'd be just dummy2
nice an' warm, to take the chill off your fingers — or your toes.' As he spoke, Buller turned back to Jenny. 'But it 'ud do a bit more than that. Because it's bloody boiling, scalding hot, is what it is — one dip, and you're cooked to the bone.
And no saying "Ouch! I won't do it again!" and "Next time I'll know better", and "Now I want to go home".' He flicked a glance at Tully. 'If it's Dr David Audley you're after, then it's in for a penny, in for a pound — no half-measures, Lady.'
For a moment no one wanted to break the silence which followed this latest gypsy's warning, the truth of which Ian knew that he alone shared with Reg Buller. And, when he thought about it, the only truly curious aspect of it was that, if it was true, Buller himself had turned up at the rendezvous this morning, in spite of his own well-developed sense of self-preservation. But then, when he took the thought further, there were a lot of contradictory aspects in Buller's character and
Then Jenny filled her glass again. 'Ian — ?' She glanced quickly at John Tully's glass, knowing that it would still be half-full, before returning to Buller. 'Are you trying to frighten me, Reg?'
Buller held out his empty glass. 'Would I do that, Miss Fielding?'
'Champagne, Reg? On top of beer?' But she poured, nevertheless. '
'Any port in a storm, madam — even fizzy rubbish.' The bulbous nose wrinkled again. 'And therefore ... no ... because dummy2
I know you've already made up your mind.' He took another gulp, and spluttered. 'But you have been paying for a
"reconnaissance", and that's what
The emphasis on Buller's first person singular — and no one, not even John Tully, and not even Jenny herself, was a more singular first person — gave Ian his opening. 'Are you saying that we're already blown, Reg?'
'What?' John Tully was bristling, before he spoke. 'You said ... we were "already" in for a pound . . . having spent some of our pennies, Reg.' He drew Buller's attention, overriding Tully. 'Does that mean someone is on to us —
Buller concealed any gratitude he might have behind another gulp, and another hiccup. 'Well . . . maybe you've been up to something I don't know about, Mr Robinson — like having some young lady in your bedroom, and a jealous husband . . .
like it would have been in the old days.' He grinned, and then nodded at the typescript on the table. 'But with the book you're writing ... I don't see the National Union of Teachers
— or the Department of Education, and that Mr Baker —
hiring anyone to watch this place, to see who comes in, an'
goes out, of a wet Sunday morning, anyway.' He carried on the nod towards the window, out of which only well-bred, or well-heeled, or otherwise upwardly-mobile local Hampstead residents might be observed at such times, down Holly Row.
'But someone is watching you, and that's a fact.'
To their credit, nobody moved to verify this information; at dummy2
least, neither Jenny nor John Tully moved — and then Ian realized that, since he ought to be less professional as well as equally shattered by this news, he
'
Ian halted, fixing her first, almost accusingly; and then John Tully, almost angrily; and finally Reg himself, with a mixture of emotions which he couldn't control, but which only Reg himself could guess at.
'There's one at the back, too.' Buller agreed with all the confusion cheerfully. 'They've got you nicely bracketed . . .
unless you've got another exit, up over the roof, an' down through someone else's back garden — have you?'
'John — ?' Jenny cut through Buller's cackle decisively. 'You said no one was on to us — ?'
Tully stared at her, and then clear through her, as he computed the possibilities, one after another, trying to pin a probability among them. But then he frowned. 'I don't understand it, Miss Fielding. Because ... I do know a little —
a very little — about Audley. So I was damned careful with him: only the people I can
'Well, it wasn't me.' Buller knew he'd be next. 'Unless anyone who appears anywhere near Masson sparks 'em off — that's maybe it. But I was careful, too. And they didn't follow me here, either — you can depend on that: they were here dummy2
already: I spotted
But that was a hard one, thought Ian — estimating the known Buller against the unknown Audley. Because his confidence was only one step away from pride. And pride was always inches away from a fall, remembering Beirut —
'It might have been me.' Jenny's total honesty was one of her greatest strengths. 'I've asked one or two questions, just recently. And I can't vouch for everyone whom I've asked — '
She embraced Tully with that admission, binding him to her even more securely with it ' — and then they'd come to Ian, of course ... So it might be me, I'm afraid.'
'Well, it doesn't matter who it was, Miss Fielding.' Delivered from all responsibility for failure, Tully became loyal again, as an employee. 'The question is ...
'Sod Fleet Street.' Buller almost looked sad. 'I remember a chap on the old
Or the little magazines . . . and writing books — ' The blood-orange eyes took in Ian for half a second ' — sod Fleet Street!'
'So that would make it official — ?' Tully wasn't quite certain.
'Even after
dummy2
Buller's mouth twisted. 'There's still a few reporters I rate.'
He held out his glass. 'If one of them was loose, then I'd be worrying. But I'd also be happy, too.' He pushed at the neck of the bottle as Jenny poured, until the champagne frothed over the top of the glass and the bottle emptied into it. 'But I ain't seen one of 'em on this lark yet.'
'So it's official?' Tully persisted, patiently.
'Oh yes.' Buller sniffed disparagingly. 'What we've got, out there in the wet, is
That was combining the frightening with the more frightening, rather than the absurd with the ridiculous, thought Ian: whatever heated up the water in his Yellowstone pond it was already on the boil.
'But . . . we're not safe in any case — any more.' Jenny overtook him, as she always did; and, as it always did, the degree of difficulty and danger only encouraged her, setting her on to go further. 'Is that what you mean, Reg?'
'Yes. That is just about what I mean, I suppose.' Duller gave Ian a belated guilty look. 'Except . . . you could do a book, between you, about something else — like about Colonel Rabuka, and the Fiji Islands, maybe? And Mr Tully and I could go out there . . . and you could call it
no one else has done properly — right from the Sahara trials, in the old days, when they had those Germans working for them on the rockets . . . the ones they wouldn't talk about?'
Buller tossed his head. 'Either road, we'd be a bloody long way from here for a few months, anyway, Miss Fielding. An'
out of the rain, too.'
Jenny had long waited to do that. But Ian had always been against it because he was scared of the French; and, after the sinking of the Greenpeace ship, they had both been right and wrong; and Buller knew it too. But he also knew more than that, unfortunately — both about Jenny and about David Audley, so it seemed.
'Yes. That would certainly be agreeable, Reg — you're right.'
She smiled at him. But then she smiled at Ian. 'But . . . the French will wait for us, darling, I think. And David Audley obviously won't wait, will he — ?'
The sort of time-span she was thinking about would produce an indifferent book, he thought — even if it would also divvy up a hefty newspaper fee, for pre-publication of extracts, as well as a whopping advance, and a good transatlantic deal.
And, as she was always reminding him, they were only in the business of 'non-fictional ephemera', anyway.
'So do you want to go ahead — in spite of Reg?' Tully wasn't chicken: either for honest financial reasons (to keep his children in their private school, and his wife at that standard of living to which she was accustomed), or for the noble freedom-of-information, freedom-of-publication, freedom-to-dummy2
fcrtow reasons, John Tully was a fearless investigator. 'Right, Miss Fielding — Mr Robinson?'
'No.' Ian saw the ground opening up before him. What he couldn't bring himself to admit straight off (or not quite yet) was that whatever John Tully might be, Ian Robinson was no longer at heart a journalist, nor at any time a fearless one.
And, of course, they all knew that (they hadn't even bothered to ask him whether it might be anything that
'Yes, darling — ?' Jenny checked herself suddenly, substituting patience for enthusiasm. For a guess, she was reminding herself that she needed him just as much as he needed her — and never more so than now, when they had to work fast if they were to stay ahead of the pack. And there was the rub.
But he still couldn't admit to his fear of what the rub meant, not openly. 'We don't know who they are.'
'No, Ian. We don't.' Her patience stretched. 'But that doesn't matter. Mr Tully ... or Mr Buller . . . will take care of that.'
She smiled at him reassuringly, as to a Bear of Very Little Brain whose special skill was limited to assessing the different varieties of honey she delivered to him. 'The point is, darling, that they're
He had delayed too long. 'I'm not sure I want to get my dummy2
skates on, Jen. It's been a long time since ... I did this sort of thing. I'm a bit rusty.'
She couldn't conceal the flicker of contempt which he had hoped he wasn't going to see. 'Ian — ' Then the flicker clouded, as she remembered Beirut, and couldn't reconcile past experience with present observation ' — you're not
Tully coughed. 'Mr Robinson hasn't been . . . out much, these last two or three years, Miss Fielding. You have rather kept him chained to his word-processor.' He drank the last of his sherry fastidiously. 'And to good effect, if I may say so.
But . . . one does get rusty, you know.'
That was surprising loyalty (or male solidarity, equally surprising), coming from John Tully, thought Ian. Or, it might just be that he, unlike everyone else, had not misunderstood the Beirut episode.
'No.' Reg Buller sidled towards the window, choosing a place where there was a slight gap between the frame and the curtain, where a sliver of light showed. 'The Lady's right.' He put his eye to the gap, without touching the curtain. 'Because he's not stupid, you see.' He turned back to them, past Tully and Jenny, and nodded to Ian. 'Welcome to the club, Mr Robinson.'
'Reg!' Jenny sounded almost accusing. 'You're not scared, are you?'
This bloke Audley . . .
his pipe from his pocket and studied it. And then thought better of lighting it again, and put it back in his pocket. 'Mr Tully's right, too: it won't have been him, that actually topped Masson — he's getting a bit long in the tooth for digging his own holes, when he needs 'em.
'
'We don't know that, with Masson.' Buller shook his head.
'All we've got is a bit of gossip you picked up, that you weren't meant to hear. And there's one or two people he's crossed, you can bet, who might like to fasten something on to him, Miss Fielding.'
'But you said "when", nevertheless, Mr Buller.'
'So I did.' He studied her for a moment. 'But before I went out West that time, to the Big . . .
Jenny smiled at him sweetly. 'We were economizing at the time, Mr Buller. And you still said "when".'
Buller gave her another long look. 'And you may have been talking to someone who's talked to someone I talked to.'
'That could be.' The sweet smile vanished. 'You tell me, Mr Buller.'
Reg Buller sighed, and touched the pocket in which his pipe lay. 'No names this time, Lady.' Then he nodded. 'All right, dummy2
then. There have been one or two times, over the years, when there's been some unpleasantness involving Mr David Audley, so they say.'
'Not "unpleasantness", Mr Buller.' Jenny was Miss Fielding-ffulke now, with all her ancestors behind her. 'And not just
"one or two times". David Audley has a long string of deaths behind him, so I am informed —
'Possibly.' Not for the first time as Ian looked at John Tully he was reminded of Clive Ponting, whose face was also designed for very dry sherry as well as distasteful revelations.
'But nothing in 1978 — or 1977. And he was in Washington almost the whole of '78, into 1979.' Buller looked to Tully for support. 'He's got a lot of friends in the CIA ... so
'
She embraced both Tully and Buller together, but chiefly dummy2
Tully. 'John ... I think I'd like to know who is out there, getting wet at the moment, if possible.' She came to Ian.
'And, as you are the historian among us, darling . . . and as Audley
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The possibility that he was being followed aroused in Ian what he assumed to be the classic symptoms of paranoia: a feeling of unaccustomed importance, verging on pride ('Better put a tail on Robinson: he needs watching!'), moderated by a much less comfortable disquiet, which might easily develop into a persecution complex.
Of course, he'd been followed before, almost certainly. But that had been in Beirut, which hardly counted, because everyone who was anyone was followed there, by someone or other, and it would have been an insult
Only, he hadn't much liked the possibility then, and he liked it no better now, with Reg Buller's final patronizing and belittling words of wisdom echoing in his ear —
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Not okay. Because now, with the Sunday streets emptied by rain, and the Sunday pubs filled, the temptation to look over his shoulder at every corner was like an itch in his brain. And all the little antique shops, the contents of whose windows had never much interested him before, seemed full of intriguing objects . . . which he mustn't stop and look at, just in case
But then ... if Reg Buller was
He decided to concentrate on it, partly to help him to forget that itch and its accompanying incipient paranoia, and partly because Reg Buller usually
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Because Jenny, too, had been
unfailingly —
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'
So maybe Jenny was right. For certainly Jenny was clever, and she was very often as lucky as she was clever, which was an unbeatable alliance.
But that still left them with the Unnamed Play expert, who had been unlucky, as well as indiscreet, beside the curtain at the embassy party; he sounded clever too, and maliciously so perhaps. But just how clever had he been with that throwaway Macbeth reference?
Just
— Is he dispacht?
— My lord, his throat is cut; that I did for him.
Or
— the time has been,
That, when the brains were out, the man would dummy2
die,
And there an end; but now they rise again, With twenty mortal murders on their crowns, And push us from our stools
Was that it?
Had Banquo/Masson risen again, in order that Jenny Fielding and Ian Robinson should push David Audley from his stool — ?
Well . . . Jenny Fielding's castle was now just across the wet road, and he could hear no footsteps behind him, only his old tutor's warning against preconceived ideas which fitted so well that one bought them too easily, without feeling the quality of the shoddy material.
The road was safe, anyway — as safe as suburban East Berlin on a wet Sunday, never mind Hampstead; and he was probably as unfollowed here and now as he had been there and then — and Jenny could have simply heard two malicious Civil Service tongues chatting imaginative gossip
—
He skipped the last few yards, from the road and across the glistening pavement, to the refuge of the flat's entrance, and stabbed the bell with a sense of anti-climax, feeling foolish because he was simultaneously relieved and disappointed.
Because, if Jenny and Buller were
they didn't even consider him worth following —
'Yes?' The cool, disembodied voice was haughtiest Jenny.
'It's me. Who did you think it was?' He heard his own voice too late, as squeakiest Ian.
'Are you alone? Or already in durance vile, with the cuffs on and a gun at your back?' Now she was stage-Jenny, making fun of all the painted devils of his imagination.
'For heaven's sake, Jen — let me in!' He couldn't stop himself protesting. 'My feet are soaking, damn it!' He managed to lower the squeak to a growl.
'Darling — I'm sorry — I am
'No.' He could smell an unfamiliar smell. And it was as far removed from the usual smell of her flat as what he felt for Reg Buller was separated from love. 'Reg Buller is not lovable.' He sniffed again. 'Have you been cooking?'
'He is so. Come and have a drink. And he's also one very smart operator. Did you read his report? You did bring it dummy2
with you?'
'Yes.' He had to sniff again. 'Is that what I think it is?'
'Eh? Well, I don't know what you think it is. But the man in the butcher's shop said it was his very best Scotch beef. And he gave me all sorts of advice about what I should do with it
— he seemed quite worried that I might not treat it with proper respect. I almost asked him to come and roast it for me . . . only I was afraid he might take me up on the offer.'
She smiled her Scarlett O'Hara smile at him. 'But then he said it needed a good Burgundy with it. Only, I know you like claret, so I asked the other man, in the wine merchants', who sells me my usual plonk . . . and he said this would be about right — ' She swept a bottle off the sideboard ' — he said it had the
But I do remember the name — it has to be named after an Irishman really — "O'Brien"? Because none of that area is
"haut", it's all flat as a pancake. But it was one of Daddy's favourite tipples, so it can't be bad — can it?' She jerked the bottle to her nose. 'I think it smells rather fun — it reminds me of Daddy, actually. He used to make me smell all his bottles. Here — have a sniff! Is it okay?'
Ian clamped his hand on the bottle. What he had to remember was that he was almost certainly being taken for a ride, as better men before him had been, and others after him would be. Because Daddy had been a power in the land (and that was part of Jenny Fielding's stock-in-trade, and his also by their literary alliance). And also because she was his dummy2
only-and-favourite daughter, and a conniving chip off the same block.
It was Haut-Brion, and he had been in short trousers when it had been in its grapes. This'll do just fine, Jen. It's . . . okay.'
'Oh — good!' She turned away from him. 'I have to take the little man's beef out of the oven — if I don't, I think he'll come and demonstrate outside, or haunt me when he's dead . . . And there are the vegetables — but they're just out of the freezer, so they're no trouble . . . But I have also made a Yorkshire pudding, according to that recipe the man gave us in Belgium — remember? The one who said that the people in Yorkshire had got it all wrong, after the battle of Waterloo — ? But you
He followed her, towards the smell, with his arm and shoulder frozen, as though it was a bottle of Château Nobel, from the Nitro-Glycerine commune, of an unstable year —
Waterloo was right, though: the kitchen resembled nothing so much as the farmhouse of La Haye Sainte towards the end of the battle, after the French had stormed it, and Wellington's troops had re-taken it at the point of a bayonet.
And, quite evidently, the ex-freezer vegetables were already casualties, and the Belgian-Yorkshire pudding had suffered the same fate as the unfortunate Belgian regiments which had been exposed to the fire of Napoleon's artillery for too long —
'Jen! Let's eat the beef — ' There was just enough space to bestow the Haut-Brion safely on the table. But then, as he dummy2
rescued what looked like the better part of an Aberdeen Angus from her, he met her eyes ' — all this on my account, Jen — ?'
'Well. . . you don't eat enough, do you? All those fast-foods —
She really wanted Audley's scalp. Or someone's scalp, anyway. Or, one way or another, she wanted some more Beirut-style excitement, anyway. And (more to the point) she'd expected him to cast his vote against the enterprise.
'But all a bloody waste of time?' Having already got what she wanted, she was perfectly happy, and the irritation was hardly skin-deep. 'Shall we throw it away, and go round the corner to the pub, Ian?'
'Certainly not!' As always, the pain was his as he was reminded for the thousandth time of the difference between her need and his desire. 'I'm not going to let this beef — and that plonk of yours — go to waste. Get the carving-knife, Fielding-ffulke! And lay the table — go on!'
'Yes, master — at once, master!' As always, she was his humble and attentive servant in her moment of triumph, and never more beautiful. 'So what about David Audley, then?
Isn't he
'The devil with Audley.' Predictably, her carving-knife was blunt. But the beef was superbly tender. 'Were you followed?'
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'Don't ask me, darling. But if Reg says we're being, then I'm sure we were. And — don't you think it's fun?'
'No. I don't think it's fun ... Is that enough for you, Jen?'
'No?' She peered over his shoulder, and the smell of her and the beef aroused different carnal desires simultaneously. 'No, I'm absolutely
What he thought was that she now had a heavy-manual-worker's plate of roast beef, which would make a
since you ask.' He offered her the plate.
'Can I have a little more of that . . . sort of gravy-stuff.'
'Blood, you mean?' He accepted the spoon she was holding out to him in anticipation. 'Well, at least you have the right appetite, I suppose.'
'What?' Greed deafened her for a moment. 'Do you want some of my Yorkshire pudding? I did put cheese in it, like the recipe said.'
Ian's memory of the outcome of that experiment enabled him to concentrate on his carving, while pretending similar deafness.
'What d'you mean — "the right appetite"?' She had heard, after all.
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'People involved with Audley end up dead, according to Reg Buller.' He might as well match her greed: what wasn't eaten here and now would probably be thrown away, and it would be a sin to waste this noble animal.
'Ah! I see what you mean — ' She cleared a space for them on the kitchen table simply by throwing everything into the sink, higgledy-piggledy ' — and that's what this friend of Daddy's I talked to said, actually.'
'And doesn't that frighten you?' He watched her fish cutlery out of a drawer, and glasses from a cupboard. The cutlery was beautiful bone-handled antique, tarnished but razor-sharp, and the glasses were the thick and ugly petrol-coupon variety, and none-too-clean. But he was past caring about that now.
'I don't see why it should.' She let him pour, and then raised her glass high. 'Here's to us — and crime paying, anyway!'
Then she drank. 'Mmm! It
like that young man who blew himself up, during that cavaliers-and-roundheads mock-battle — '
'After someone else had got murdered, at another mock battle?' The need to concentrate on what she was saying detracted cruelly from the paradisal meat and wine. 'And dummy2
that case has never been closed, Reg says.'
'But Audley wasn't there, that time — '
'So far as anyone knows. But he was there the second time —
'
'But nowhere near the explosion — ' All the same, she nodded as she cut him off ' — I do agree, though: he is rather
'Or anything like anything.' He swallowed, and disciplined himself against eating and drinking for a moment. 'And the year before last, when that visiting Russian general died —
Tully says he didn't have a heart-attack — that he was shot by someone.'
'But not by Audley, Ian.' Jenny didn't stop eating, but she had somehow become a devil's advocate. 'He's a back-room boy, not a gunfighter. He's too old for that sort of thing.'
'But he was there, somewhere — Tully also thought that — '
'No.'
Thus flatly contradicted, Ian returned to his food. Whatever crimes Audley had, or had not, connived at, there was no reason why he should compound them by letting his meat congeal on his plate. If Jenny thought Audley was innocent of the Russian general's death, so be it. And if he'd never come out into the limelight, so be that, too. Because Jenny quite obviously thought there were other things he had to answer for.
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'No.' She pushed her plate away and then filled her glass again, like Daddy's daughter.
'No?' He pushed his own empty glass towards her.
'Johnnie didn't think that.
'Probably?' Jenny had a prime source — that was both obvious and nothing new: Jenny had more sources than she had had take-away dinners (or expensive restaurant dinners, for that matter). But, what was more to the point, it would be easier to excavate a two-year-old scandal than a nine-year-old one. 'Probably, Jen?'
'Maybe. But who cares?' She shrugged. 'It's Audley-and-Philly-Masson we're after, not Audley-and-General-Zarubin, darling.'
'But Zarubin sounds more promising.'
'I don't agree.' She savoured her wine, as though she was thinking of Daddy again. 'Zarubin was just an effing-Cossack, by all accounts —
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Because once we start turning over stones then I expect all sorts of creepy-crawlies will start emerging and running for cover — that's the beauty of it. Because Audley goes back a long way. Long before poor Philip Masson. So God only knows what we'll turn up.'
Now it was
'Philly'. But that could wait. 'And yet no one's ever heard of him, Jen.'
'Of Audley?' She shook her head. 'That's not quite true. In fact, it's entirely untrue: lots of people have
Lots of people
'But you think you do know?'
'No — not yet. But . . . it's like, he's often in the background of things, so far as I can make out so far. Like, with a collection of people in group photographs, when you keep seeing the same face somewhere in the back . . . Or, you're not quite sure, because he's always the one who's partly obscured by someone else — or he's moved just as the photographer pressed the button, so he's blurred.' She shrugged. 'Like Reg said, he gives advice to people — to committees, and suchlike. But his name never appears.'
'That isn't so, according to John Tully. He's listed in quite a few places — in
dummy2
'Oh yes.' She wasn't put off in the least. 'But it's all so vague
— isn't it? An "assistant-principal" here, in one place —
Home Office, was it? Then a transfer to the Ministry of Defence. And writing those books . . . But, darling, it's all got nothing to do with what he
'Reg also said "research".' There was something in her voice he hadn't heard before, and couldn't pin down now; almost a hint of underlying passion, of malevolence even. All he knew was that he had to argue against it. '"Advice and research", was it? And the man must be close to retirement, damn it, Jen!' But that hadn't been all Reg had said, he remembered.
And that weakened his resistance to her will. 'If they retire in his line of work.'
'Yes. And that's interesting too.' Her voice was back to normal: maybe he had imagined that hint of genuine feeling under the twenty-four-hour insatiable curiosity which powered her normally, without commitment to any cause other than the truth. 'And particularly interesting to you, as it happens, Ian.'
'To me?' What he was going to get now was one of the arguments she had intended to use in support of the Scotch beef and the Chateau Haut-Brion (which she had surely known for what it was), in the event of his welshing on the deal.
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'Uh-huh.' She gestured towards the Haut-Brion. 'I think I may have some idea of what he does, actually.'
This was that source of hers again: a source she would never mention even as a source, unlike Reg Buller's vague 'There's a bloke I know, in The Street/in the Met/ down the nick/
down the pub/in the business', or John Tully's notated references to 'Contact AB' and 'Contact XY' in his reports, whose identities would all be in a little black book somewhere.
'Go on, darling — don't mind me. I've had more than my share.'
'So you have.' So she had. And if she'd been his, and he'd been hers, he might worry about that; though, as they never would be (which was the old familiar spear in his heart, twisting but never killing), and as she never seemed to change, no matter how much she'd drunk, except that she burned more brightly still, he had no right to worry.
'I've got more — I bought a whole case, darling. And the little man gave me what he called a "case-price", so our bottle was absolutely
'Jenny! For heaven's sake — !' He had to move, to block her passage towards her Aladdin's cave. 'Just sit down, and tell me about Audley, there's a good girl —
As he restrained her he thought . . .
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She sat down. 'Oh . . . you are a bore, sometimes . . . Don't you ever let your hair down — ?' To match the words, she tried ineffectually to recover some of the hair which was coming down all around her face.
He waited until she had done the best she could. 'Audley?'
'Yes — all right!' She abandoned the pushing-and-poking process. There was this man Daddy knew, who was just
— he is like
That was half her trouble — or maybe all of it: no one could compete against such opposition. And that was also his problem, too. But not just at this moment. 'I don't think I'm quite with you, Jen. This man ... he was Audley?'
'Good God, no! He was an acquaintance of Daddy's, I'm trying to tell you. He's dead now — but quite naturally, I think.'
Maybe she had had one glass too many. 'I see. And high-powered with it. But not as high-powered as your father, eh?'
She frowned at him. 'What?'
'I was always taught there was only one God.' It was odd to speak so lightly when one meant what one said. 'So ... like St Peter, say? Or St Paul — he was rather high-powered.'
She stared at him for a moment, then made a face. 'Very dummy2
clever.' Then the face became serious. 'Maybe a bit of both of them, actually. Although Daddy just called him "Fred", as I remember. When I met him.'
'"Fred"?' At least this wasn't one of her unacknowledged, unnamed sources, anyway. 'I don't think there is a "St Fred"
in the calendar of saints. But never mind . . . You met this
"Fred" — ' It was on the tip of his tongue to ask her what Fred had to do with Audley. But then he looked directly into her eyes and caught himself just in time, knowing that he had been wrong just a minute before.
'Yes, I did.' The eyes were stony, not stoned. 'I was eighteen
— I was just going up to college. And he frightened me.'
'Frightened you?' It was so unexpected that he repeated the words. 'How?'
'He quizzed me. No — he
What I thought, what I was going to do ... at Oxford, after Oxford . . . Why I thought what I thought — why I was going to do what . . . what I thought I was going to do.' She stared at him. 'He really took me apart. It was quite frightening.'
From her that was also quite an admission. Because there wasn't much that frightened Jenny Fielding-ffulke. Or, anyway, nothing that wore trousers. And there was also something else that didn't fit. 'Your father didn't stop him
— ?'
'Daddy had a phone-call. He told me to entertain his guest —
Mummy was at one of her meetings.' Her eyes glazed slightly, dummy2
as though she was no longer looking at him. Then they focused on him again. 'He was
'Fred' had been nothing if not memorable. And a faint whiff of her original fear travelled across the years in her imagery.
'When Daddy came back ... he said —
"We've had a most interesting chat, Jennifer and I".' She cocked her head slightly. 'And then the bastard told Daddy what a clever daughter he'd sired, and bullshitted him so that I couldn't decently have hysterics, or burst into tears ... In fact, he even gave me his card, and told me that if I didn't want to go on with my biochemistry when I'd graduated then I could always come to him for a job. And poor old Daddy positively glowed.' She sniffed. '
It was getting more interesting by the second — just as she'd promised it would do, although in another context. 'So what did you do?'
She sniffed again. 'I couldn't say anything then — now, could I? Not to Daddy — not without appearing to be a wimp, anyway.'
'But. . . what was on the card, Jen?'
'God — I don't know! I went to the loo, and had a good cry —
and tore it up, and flushed it down the pan — ' She stopped abruptly. '
Clinton — ?'
That rang a bell from somewhere. But he couldn't place it.
But ... the way she was looking at him, she expected him to place it. 'Clinton?'
'Yes.' She nodded. 'I found him in an old
'47 — no mention of any regiment. . . But the DSO was from 1940, Daddy said. So that fits in with a book he wrote, about Dunkirk, when we ran away from the Germans, and made a great victory of it.' She almost banged her glass down. 'And he got his "K" in '58, when he was supposed to be a permanent something-or-other in the Home Office — or one of the other ministries they had then, before it was the Ministry of Defence. But, of course, it's just like Audley — all flumdiddle.'
'What?' She frowned at him again.
The book he wrote —
does he fit in with Audley?'
'Audley?' The name made her demote
'What d'you mean?'
'I'm not quite sure yet.' The concentration became almost disconcerting. 'But I think we could — just
She trailed off, and this time he waited patiently, because he recognized that look from old. Normally, in their strange symbiotic partnership, she was the one who brought in the new information which could not be obtained by conventional and straightforward means, which she scavenged from all sorts of unlikely and — to him —
inaccessible places and people; and it was his job not only to combine it with his own research and render it presentable and saleable, but also to crack its bones and extract the marrow within. But sometimes — rarely, but sometimes —
she could do a lot more than that.
She looked at him suddenly. 'Quite a lot of people know David Audley — and
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He knew what Reg Buller had said. But that had been private. 'No— ?'
She nodded. They say ... "Oh he's something in Intelligence, isn't he?" Or even just "Old David, darling? In one of those MI-somethings — always popping down to that
That sounded more like one of 'Mummy's' friends than
'Daddy's'. But that, of course, was exactly what 'they'
But she was looking at him again.
'He was connected with that fearful man Clinton.' The concentration was back. 'That I know. And Clinton was "in"
Intelligence — very much in. But he was never one of the directors of any of the big departments — MI5, or MI6, and all that. Because everyone knows who
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Was that 'Daddy', being indiscreet long ago with his little darling? Or that source, being infinitely more indiscreet, for some other reason? But he could see that there was more to come.
'Clinton got a successor, at all events. Name of
Christian name
She wanted to be jogged — or maybe reassured? 'So now he's Audley's boss — ?'
'Yes. But boss of what?' Now she was really there. 'So . . .
remember what old Reg said — "research and advice"? And when Reg picks up vibes, then they're usually right, aren't they?'
She had asked him to remember. So, once again, he remembered what Reg Buller had said out of her hearing.
'Reg is good — yes.'
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'But not quite accurate this time.' Scoring a point always pleased her. 'Because I think the official title of the Clinton-Butler organization is "Research and
Although, of course, that doesn't really mean anything — it's just a useful bit of jargon, to put you off. Because everyone's got an "R amp; D" section now — it's like having a "computer facility", with a "systems manager", even if you're putting beans into tins — all flumdiddle, darling.'
'Flumdiddle' must be a new word in Jenny's circle. But.
nevertheless, he was beginning to smell the marrow from the broken bone. 'So what does it mean, then?'
'Well . . . I'm by no means quite sure, darling — as I keep saying.' Knowing him, she was properly cautious still, in spite of all her certainties. 'But suppose — just
just responsible to the Prime Minister — the Cabinet Office?
Of the Intelligence Sub-Committee of the Joint Chiefs? Or —
'
She wasn't beginning to frighten him. She was frightening him. 'Doing what?'
She shrugged. 'Doing whatever it was told to do. Doing what comes naturally — I don't know ... I tell you, I'm not sure dummy2
yet . . . Trouble-shooting? Or maybe trouble-making.' She blew a strand of hair which had fallen across her face.
'Because ... as well as being very secret, I do rather get the impression that it may not be too popular in certain circles, whatever it is — whatever it does, exactly — ' She seized the fallen strand and tried to push it back on top, releasing a whole cascade in the process ' — damn!'
Ian accepted the diversion gratefully. That last revelation at least told him something about her source. Indeed, it fitted into the original dialogue she'd eavesdropped on to make a familiar pattern. In any investigation, the enemies of the subject of the investigation — or even, if the subject was an organization of some sort, any disaffected members within it
— were prime sources of information. And . . . although this source sounded more like an outsider than an insider ... it was hardly surprising that the 'Clinton-Butler' organization had its enemies, even on its 'own' side, never mind among its proper and official opponents.
'Well?' Jenny abandoned the wreckage of her bird's-nest.
'What do you say to all that then, Ian?'
'Yes.' She grinned happily. 'It does account for our sudden popularity, doesn't it, darling?'
'That's not the word I was thinking of.' At least he hadn't dummy2
betrayed his fear. 'Is this what you told Woodward? Or Parsons?'
The grin twisted. 'Oh, come on, darling! As our Reg might say, "Would I do that, Mr Robinson?" Of course not.'
'So what did you tell them?'
She sighed. 'What did I say to them? Well, I said to Dick:
"Richard, darling ... do you recall that nice Civil Servant named Philip Masson, who was tragically lost at sea, when he fell off his yacht in the Channel nine or ten years ago?" And he said: "Jenny darling, that wouldn't be the same fellow whose body has just turned up in a wood somewhere, without his lifebelt?"' She smiled. 'I was very circumspect, you see.'
'Get on with it, Jen.'
'All right, all right! So I said: "Yes, darling — the one all your chaps are running around in circles trying to find out about, to no avail . . . How would you like the serial rights for our book on what
She was too damn sure of herself. 'I'd say he's wasting his money. And so are we — and our time, too.'
She frowned. 'What d'you mean?'
The trouble was, he wasn't at all sure of himself. 'If what you dummy2
say is true ... if there
'The hell with that!' She snapped at him. 'Who said we can't?
Who's better than us — you and me?' The Fielding bosom inflated angrily, and pointed at him. 'Besides which, as you well know . . . once you
'Yes.' And it was a commentary on her that she still didn't understand what a damned close-run thing that had been —
and how much the memory of it still scared him. And how much the same memory
'How — different?'
'For a start . . . because they won't let us publish. Even if Dick Woodward is willing to stick his neck out. Which he won't be.'
'Oh —
you see, Ian?'
'No. I don't see. There's still the law, Jen — '
'The law?' She stopped for an instant. 'Well, I don't know . . .
But I've talked to Simon Lovell about that. And he says that practicalities are going to come into that now — or
Because they won't let him — they never defend their own.
Not like the KGB . . . But, if we're right, he won't
will he?'
They were back to one of his earliest thoughts. 'You know him — ? Do you know him, Jen?'
'Never met him in my life, so far as I know.' She frowned, as though running memories backwards. 'Big ugly fellow, apparently.' The frown cleared. 'That's a pleasure in store, darling.'
For her, anyway: 'big ugly fellows' couldn't very well thump young lady investigative-writers, certainly — not without the direst consequences. But this time, with time so short, she needed her Ian up there with her, in the forefront of the dummy2
battle. And that wasn't reassuring. 'So why are you so hell-bent on nailing him, Jen?'
'I'm not.' No smile, no grin, now: she looked as neutral as Switzerland. Yet there was a cold glitter in her eye he'd never seen before. 'But this is one book I really want to see published.'
It couldn't be avarice, surely? 'We don't need the money, Jen.
Not that badly.'
'The money?' Sudden anger replaced the coldness. 'Don't be silly, Ian. You're the one who likes money. I don't need it —
remember?'
That was hurtful — and all the more so because she intended it to be. And that wasn't really Jenny. 'I'm sorry — '
She closed her eyes for an instant. 'No! I'm the one who should be sorry. That was dirty. And you weren't being silly
— you just don't know, that's all. It was before your time —
'Our time?' Whatever it was, it had hurt her. And whatever it was she wanted, he was going to do it for her, he realized.
'What was, Jen? 1978 — ?'
'Korea.' She produced the name like a rabbit out of a top-hat.
'Korea?' One of their future possible subjects (which, now he heard himself repeat it, Jenny herself had floated) had been the Korean phenomenon, in anticipation of all the Olympic coverage, and the possible political nastiness which might attend the event.
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Jenny nodded. 'Philip Masson was a lovely man. And he was also a Royal Marine, long ago, in Korea.'
'A Royal — ?'
'In the war — the Korean War.' She seemed to lose patience with him, where the moment before she had conceded that he couldn't know what she was talking about. 'Philly Masson carried Daddy for miles, on his back, in the middle of winter, with the Chinese shooting at them all the time — Daddy wouldn't have survived without him: he would have frozen to death before he'd died of wounds, if the Chinese hadn't finished him off, he said. Philly saved his life.' She looked at him. 'So, you could say, he saved
3
It was Reg Buller who put his finger on it. And he put his finger quite literally on it (and slightly drunkenly, slurring his words a little), as he stabbed the protected enlargement of the microfilmed newspaper page.
Ian had spent three good hours in the library by then, dissecting the anatomy of an almost perfect murder, albeit without ever getting close to the victim. Because, if there was dummy2
one certain thing about the death of Philip Masson, it was that he'd never actually been on board the
But, equally certainly, somebody who knew his job had been on the
The reliable
Maybe there hadn't been a good murder trial that day, to lead the page. Or perhaps some smart editor had calculated that there might be a great many yachtsmen among the
The yacht
There had of course been no one on board, but (or because of that) the fisherman had been observant: the mainsail had been sheeted hard home, as for close-hauled sailing, and reefed down; the working jib had been set, but was flapping; the jib sheets were lying on deck, shackle in place, but pin dummy2
missing; the tiller was lashed amidships; the navigation lights and the instruments were switched on, but the battery was almost flat. And the inflatable dinghy was rolled up and still in its locker.
He hadn't understood a great deal of that, but it had become clearer as the experts and the friends of the missing man had added their evidence and their theories bit by bit.
The
He had kept her at Lymington during the summer. She was an old Folkboat (overall length 25 feet, waterline 19.68, beam 7.22; displacement 2.16 tons), built in the '50s in traditional style, and made to last. Probably, he could have afforded something better (or so said Elwyn Rhys-Lewis, his grieving friend and a fellow yachtsman) —
'But she suited him. He often sailed her single-handed, you see, and he had her fitted out accordingly, with all the halyards led aft to the cockpit, a downhaul on the jib, and a system of cleats to hold the tiller in place if he had to go below. But she was a good sea-boat — she'd stand up to dummy2
anything the sea would throw at her. After all, Blondie Hasler sailed a Folkboat in the first single-handed race, back in 1960
— '
Elwyn Rhys-Lewis had been a good witness; maybe even a bit
So he had underlined
But this pride-and-joy had been kept in immaculate order, anyway — with a fair amount of help from old George White, over at Hamworthy. George was apparently a shipwright of the old school, and what he didn't know about wooden boats wasn't worth knowing. So that was why Philip Masson always laid the
'We shall never know exactly what happened. But, thanks to the evidence which we have heard, a fair reconstruction of what may have happened is possible,' the coroner had concluded at last.
That Friday evening, the deceased went down to Lymington, for his Rover car was found in the car park. He must have gone straight on to his boat, though no one remembers seeing him. But we have heard that he made no secret of his intentions to sail her round to Poole as soon as possible, having already left it a little late in the season owing to pressure of work in London.
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'There was, we have heard, a stiff south-westerly wind blowing that Friday, with the threat of worse forecast. These were not ideal conditions for the passage he planned to take, but nothing that he and his boat could not handle. At all events, he probably heard the late night forecast of a low pressure area building up in the Atlantic, and he must have decided to make a night passage.
'In that event, he probably motored her down from Lymington to Hurst Point. Or (as we have heard) may have sailed, even though he would have had to tack all the way.
But he would have had an ebb tide under him, at all events.' (This coroner sounded as though it hadn't been his first sea tragedy, Ian had noted there.)
'Mr Rhys-Lewis and Mr White are both agreed that he would then have hoisted sail, prudently putting a tuck in the main.
And once round Hurst he would have proceeded on the port tack, taking the inshore channel to pass north of the Shingles. With a south-westerly wind he would have made good progress for two or three miles, and gone over to the starboard tack once he was sure of clearing the Shingles.
'It is at this point, one may suspect, that something went wrong, and we must attempt to recreate the situation from the little evidence we have.
'The deceased would most probably have been intending to head out to sea on a southerly course, and once clear of the Shingles to have gone about, and sailed across Poole Bay until he picked up the Fairway. By then the tide would have dummy2
turned, so he would have had a fair run into Poole entrance.
Daylight would then not have been far away, so he would have timed it exactly right to arrive at Poole Bridge for the early morning opening. With a mooring waiting for him in Holes Bay, he would have intended to go ashore at Cobbs Quay, and then taken a taxi back to Lymington, as he had done before on such occasions.
'But this he never did. We must surmise, rather, that when he went on to the starboard tack, probably somewhere off Barton in Christchurch Bay, the jib sheet shackle came adrift.
It is significant that when the boat was found the jib was flogging and the sheets lying on deck, with the pin gone from the shackle.
'That, for an experienced yachtsman, would have been only a minor annoyance. All he had to do was to find a spare shackle, clamber up to the foredeck to fit it, return to the cockpit, and then sheet in and carry on.
'Being perhaps a little further inshore than he cared to be, he would have lashed the tiller and sailed towards open sea under mainsail alone as he hunted out a shackle and fitted it to the jib.
'It is at this moment, also, that he should have taken those precautions which should have been second nature to him —
'
(This was where the coroner had ceased to be a yachtsman, dummy2
and had become all-coroner, sad and solemn and wise-after-the-event. But it had been good old Elwyn Rhys-Lewis who had been more convincing earlier.)
('Yes, of course he should have put on a lifejacket, and a safety-harness — or both — before he went up on the foredeck. But there are times when you just go ahead and get the job done . . . And how long would he have lasted in a cold sea on a November night — dangling over the side and unable to climb back? I remember chaps in the navy who didn't want to learn to swim — they said it only prolonged the agony.')
(The coroner had reprimanded him at that point!) ('Yes, sir — that may be. But a single-hander's motto is
"Don't go over in the first place", sir.') So there it was: at that point Elwyn Rhys-Lewis and the coroner had both agreed on the 'freak wave' theory. Which Rhys-Lewis had more vividly described as 'the Sod's Law of the Sea' — 'when wind-and-water hit you in that single unguarded moment, groping around to catch a flogging sail
— and then you're over the side and alone, with your boat sailing on without you, to the Port of Heaven — '
'We may be somewhat surprised that the body of the deceased was not recovered in the search next day, or that it dummy2
never came ashore as others have done. But we have also heard an expert witness from the RNLI testify that the ebbing tide would have carried it several miles into the bay.
And if it finished up in the Needles Channel, in the shipping lane, then it may have been hit by a large vessel well before daylight.
'So, before I record my verdict, it is more than ever necessary for me to emphasize that, however experienced one may be, the necessary and prudent precautions must be paramount.
One witness has spoken of what he called "the Sod's Law of the sea". But — '
That had given the
But that had been a 'Sod's Law of the sea'. And it had been a quite different Sod's Law — a 'Sod's Law
More like
Because the alleged drowning of Philip Masson had otherwise been perfect. There had been no dangerous carrying of bodies (always a risky business; and, presumably, Masson had been intercepted and murdered close to where he'd been buried, in the middle of rural nowhere). And then a false Masson had taken his car on, and slipped aboard the
But, otherwise ... it had been damn-near perfect, with no tell-tale body (bodies also were a risk, however neatly killed; and with Philip Masson the autopsy would have been very thorough, for sure); but, for the rest, it had been utterly dummy2
professional — plausible and detailed, but not too detailed . . . just basically
Those three hours hadn't been wasted; the deceptive half of Philip Masson's death would eventually make a good detailed chapter in the story — and if Elwyn Rhys-Lewis turned out to be as good-and-true a friend as he sounded; which, on mature reflection, he probably was; but even then he would supply more good copy, as he gnashed his teeth about the way he had innocently helped his friend's murderers. So it was already shaping up nicely — it would make a fascinating contrast even ... the
And then the door had banged, and Reg Buller had made his entrance.
'I've lost my bloody pipe.' He patted all his bulging pockets, ignoring the 'No Smoking' notice, and the worried hovering of Ian's favourite assistant librarian until she got round in front of him. 'It'sh all right, love — I wasn't going to smoke it.
I was only going to suck it. An' . . . I know how to work the machine — an' how to wind the film back afterwards. Don't worry, love.'
'It's all right, Miss Russell.' Ian didn't think it was 'all right'.
But Reg Buller had also been at work on 1978 elsewhere this afternoon, and he desperately wanted to know what had come out of that latest foray. And, in any event, since Reg was in no case to look after him, he must look after Reg. 'I know this gentleman. And I'll vouch for him, Miss Russell.'
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Miss Russell gave him a disappointed-fearful look. 'Just so he doesn't make any
She could smell Reg now, and didn't find him reassuring. ' —
but no
'No noise!' Buller put his finger to his lips. 'If you hear a noise
— it's
Miss Russell had fled then. And Reg Buller hadn't made a sound, as he went about his business, after he had briefly explained where he'd been.
But now his chair scraped back noisily.
'Thish ish it. You mark my wordsh, Ian lad! Thish ish it!'
Ian looked up from his notes, but past Buller, not at him, to make sure that Miss Russell (never mind her boss) was not within earshot of this over-loud pronouncement. His credit was good in this library, as it needed to be with all the work he did in it because of its excellent range of microfilmed newspapers; and, at a pinch, it might survive the brewery-fumes Reg was exhaling. But it would never survive that deadliest of sins,
Buller sat back, staring at him. 'Well, c'mon an'
'
Buller looked around. 'It's all right — ' The slur disappeared magically but the voice was still far too loud. ' — there's nobody out there. I made sure of that. We're okay.'
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'Nobody', of course, excluded librarians in Reg Buller's
'There's no call to be offensive. An' inaccurate — ' Buller adjusted his upper dentures with a calloused thumb and index finger ostentatiously ' — I've been having trouble with this new set of choppers. And it isn't cold. And anything I may have imbibed this fine Monday was strictly in the line of duty, as I carefully explained to you — ' His voice fell nevertheless, from jubilant conversational to a penetrating stage-whisper. ' — you just look at this, Ian lad. An' then I may accept your apology.'
Ian steeled himself against disappointment as he got up. It was just conceivably possible that he had done Buller an injustice, but unlikely — at least, so far as the imbibing was concerned. What he had remembered from previous occasions was that Reg's 'necessary disbursements to contacts', which figured substantially in his expense account, chiefly related to alcohol, rather than to old-fashioned back-handers (although these figured also, in nicely round multiples of five in sterling, and of tens and hundreds in foreign monopoly currencies). But then, of course, 'contacts'
— 'contacts' back-handed when necessary, but alcoholically-dummy2
oiled invariably — were the very stuff of Reg's
'All right, Reg — ' But then he remembered also that Reg got results. And that Reg, in spite of his warnings, seemed to be excited by this one (false teeth or alcohol notwithstanding) '
— let's have a look, then.'
Buller shifted obligingly, to allow him to peer under the canopy at the magnified projection of the reel of microfilm.
'I can't see a bloody thing, Reg — it's all out of focus.' It occurred to him insanely that Buller, seeing everything out of focus already, had had to de-focus it in order actually to see it. But, even out of focus, the main headline was still just readable.
'Oh — sorry!' Reg adjusted the focus, first swimming it into pale grey infinity, and then sharpening it into readability.
'
DEATH OF A MAD DOG, Ian read again obediently. And was again repelled by the crude simplicity of the message in its tabloid form, however eye-catchingly true it might have dummy2
been (he remembered also reading similar proclamations of this same event, in smaller type and more sober words, in
'So — ?' Twisting back towards Buller, he caught the full reek of Reg's share of those 'necessary disbursements'.
'"Mad Dog O'Leary" — ?' At close quarters Reg Buller's eyes were like nothing so much as two halves of the same blood-orange. 'Christ! I suppose you were a fucking student at the time, demonstrating because your grant didn't keep you in beer-money! Or what was it — Rhodesia? Or bleeding Watergate, an' poor old Tricky-Dickie — ?'
'Watergate wasn't '78.' Having just been all through the papers of the time, Ian felt safe now: he could even place Michael 'Mad Dog' O'Leary in his brief nine-days' horror context. And he was not about to admit how little of what he had read had struck any chord of memory, even though he had lived through that November and had presumably read in the original what he and Reg Buller had now re-read on this machine. Truthfully, except for a vague recollection that those had been The Last Days of Labour, Before Thatcher, with threatened bakers' strikes, nurses' strikes and car workers' strikes, he could remember very little of that
'Winter of Discontent', in which 'Mad Dog' had been just another horror story among many. 'Actually, I was just beginning to panic before my final examinations, Reg. But I dummy2
do remember we weren't doing too well in Australia.'
'Australia?'
'In the cricket, Reg.' Knowing that Buller despised all sports, he felt he was somehow reasserting himself. 'It was rather depressing, as I recall.'
'You can say that again! That whole bloody winter was depressing — '
'I meant the cricket.' Quite deliberately, he decided to keep the man in his place by ignoring 'Mad Dog' for the moment.
'What did your chap on
'Huh!' Buller licked his lips, as though he had just remembered that the pubs were open again (in so far as they ever closed in Fleet Street). 'He'd just seen his gaffer —
Robert Maxwell in person — comin' down from on high
'Of course I do.' Ian attempted a superior Tully-expression.
'He tried to blow up the Northern Ireland Secretary in Yorkshire, at some university ceremony. And then they cornered him, and shot him. So what?'
'So what?
he pointed at the brightly projected headlines. 'It's all there, damn it!'
Ian had to study the words again —
The only thing odd about that, it seemed to him, was there were too many words in the first sentence, including a subordinate clause, for good tabloid journalism.
Nothing odd about that, either. Except another subordinate clause, anyway. 'I don't see what's all there, Reg. You tell me
— ?'
'Christ, man!' Reg Buller started rewinding the microfilm at break-neck pace, stopping and starting with other arresting headlines — BREAD: PANIC BUYING — HOME LOANS
SHOCK . . . and OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN SPEAKS OUT —
swearing all the while. Then he stopped rewinding and swearing, and adjusted the focus. 'There, then!'
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They were back to the abortive bombing of the University of North Yorkshire, when the Mad Dog had failed to kill the Northern Ireland Secretary, and half the university faculty with him, '
'So — ?' For a guess, it was the same reporter — or the same rewrite man, and the same sub-editor, acting on the same instructions from an editor or proprietor who had either decided that the Security Service needed a bit of favourable PR, or had been successfully lobbied to the same effect; but, either way, that repetition of the legendary 'British Secret Service', with all its nuances of James Bond, was a dead give-away. Because no one on the spot would ever have used that description. And now, in the post-Peter Wright era, it wouldn't have been fashionable: most likely, it would have been 'SAS marksmen', if not the Special Branch's anti-terrorist squad.
Buller was shaking his head, though. 'You haven't really looked — have you?'
'At the papers?' He had read more responsible accounts than this one, of the same event. There's more in the
'This is the one that matters. This is
they'd gone off.'
More accurately, when Buller had
But, just in case, anyway — ?'); and, although that had been insulting, he had obeyed; but now he must remember what had passed between them before he had done so.
'About David Audley, you mean, Reg?' Buller had talked with
'a bloke I know', was what he remembered: with Reg Buller there was an inevitable succession of 'blokes', from dukes to dustmen, via policemen and journalists, all of whom seemed to owe him one favour for another; but in this instance it had been almost certainly ('No names — right?') one of his old Special Branch
Buller nodded, only half mollified by such a simple correct answer. 'Look how it stacks up: "masquerading as a professor", eh? And "mortar-board an' gown" — ? Who'd they choose for that — that's got the balls to do it, as well, in cold blood?'
There was more here than either Reg himself or his favourite newspaper had said. 'In cold blood?'
Another nod. 'Somebody carried O'Leary's bomb out of that dummy2
building — the new library they were opening, or whatever it was . . . When they didn't reckon they could get the people away from it, before the bugger pressed his remote control button.' Buller tapped the 'selfless heroism' passage. 'Who better than Audley? One of his mates was running that show, on the security side, apparently. An' Audley's the professor-type —
Because he's already a visiting fellow at that Oxford college, see.' Buller gave him a sidelong look. 'Wouldn't need a cover story to be there, either . . . An' no shortage of guts, so they say.'
It was all hypothetical, thought Ian. Or, alternatively, Buller knew more than he was saying. 'Who's "they", Reg?'
'Friend of mine.' Buller grinned.
'The one on
'No. The one I told you about yesterday — the one that tipped me off about him being tricky — Audley . . . remember?'
What Ian remembered was that Buller had been characteristically vague about his Audley-source. But what was more immediately important was to uncover the foundations on which this hypothesis was built. And those seemed to involve his other friend, the sub-editor on
'So what was it that your chap on the newspaper told you, Reg?'
Buller tapped his nose. 'He was there. That's what.'
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Ian looked down at the Yorkshire university bomb story. At a ceremony like that — a routine academic event until 'Mad Dog' O'Leary had singled it out for attention — there might or might not have been one or two education correspondents from the London papers, depending on whether they'd been tipped off that an important speech was going to be made.
There would certainly have been reporters from all the local Yorkshire papers, taking down all the speeches whether they were important or not, and probably taking down the names of all the local dignitaries too — that was to be expected anywhere, and especially in Yorkshire, with its fierce local pride. And as Buller's Fleet Street friend had then been a reporter on one of those papers — which was it? But it hardly mattered, anyway — his presence at the ceremony was quite unremarkable. So why was Buller looking as though he'd made some great discovery?
Suddenly the light dawned. 'You mean ... he was at — the
'
'Your chap . . . who's on
'That's right.' Buller stared at him. 'He was at Thornervaulx.'
So there was more. 'And — ?' He tried to look intelligent.
That's right.' For once Buller was deceived. '
'He — ' This time the light was blinding. '
sure — ?'
'Near enough. "Big ugly fellow — bit like a boxer . . . or a rugger player. Broken nose — that sort of thing." Pretty accurate description, actually. Because he did break his nose playing rugger, as it happens.'
'I thought you said he looked like a professor.'
'That's when he opens his mouth.' Buller amended his own description without shame. 'Take it from me, that's him right enough. No mistake.'
And that, of course, validated the bombed-university hypothesis, via the O'Leary connection. The security service must have been tipped off that O'Leary intended to assassinate the Northern Ireland Minister at the opening of the new library and the degree ceremony. They had foiled the bomb attempt, but it had been a close shave. And O'Leary himself had also escaped, only it had been a damn close shave for him, too: in fact, he hadn't really escaped — he'd simply broken out of the inner ring — ?
'How far is Thornervaulx from the University of Yorkshire, Reg?' He couldn't place Thornervaulx on his mental map: it was one of that famous concentration of ruined abbeys in the North ... Rievaulx, Jervaux, Byland, Fountains, Kirkstall and Thornervaulx: originally they'd all been in the wilds, and most of them still were, including Thornervaulx no doubt.
'Not far, as the crow flies. But you've got to go round the little roads, and up over the dale to reach it.' Buller had the facts at dummy2
his finger-tips, as usual. 'Takes a bit of finding.'
That fitted, too. With all the main roads blocked, O'Leary would have been forced off the beaten track, and had then been hunted down like the wild animal he was in the wilds.
'And your man was actually there.'
'Not at the shoot-out.' Buller nodded nevertheless. 'But within minutes of it — aye.'
Again, that wasn't impossible: a smart local reporter (and Reg Buller's contacts were always the smart ones) would have his friends in the Police, and could often be so well in with them as to be just behind them. 'And he saw Audley there — actually
'He saw more than that.' Buller started winding the film forward again from the North Yorkshire bomb to the Thornervaulx gun battle, compressing the last long hunted hours of the 'Mad Dog' to ten blurred seconds. 'Or, rather, there were things that he
'What d'you mean — "didn't see"?'
Buller stopped the microfilm, and then adjusted the focus with maddening slowness until DEATH OF A MAD DOG
shouted at them again. Only then did he turn to Ian. 'It wasn't like that. That's not what happened.' He shook his head. Terry — let's call him "Terry". Because that's his name
— Terry didn't write it like that. He flogged 'em the story —
and for a small fortune too. Because he was the only one that was there. So all the other stories are based on his — or, dummy2
rather, what was
and his
'All too plain.' So somebody had got at the editor, Reg was saying. But that was a risky thing to do, they both knew.
Because contrary to left-wing received wisdom, the D-Notice people couldn't give orders. 'You're sure?'
'Oh yes.' Nod. 'He put that story out twice, Terry did. To his own paper first — the
the promise of a job with them.' Buller paused. 'So that story went to two newspapers independently, the way Terry wrote it ... just with a few slight differences. And it came out
'Yes.' So it hadn't been some re-write man, or some sub-editor: someone had got at
'Ah . . .' Having at last arrived where he had always intended to be, Buller relaxed. And, having learnt a thing or two over the years about stage management, and man-management, Ian understood what was happening to him. But knowing dummy2
that was at least a quarter of the battle, if not half of it.
'I've read all this.' He gestured into the machine dismissively.
'And I'm thirsty. D'you know a good pub round here, Reg?'
'Round here?' Although it was an almost-insultingly silly question, Buller pretended to consider it briefly. 'I think . . .
yes, I
'Yes?' It was time to assert himself — even though he was also actually thirsty. 'You bloody-knew, Reg — come on,then
— '
'So . . . what
'
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all that historic experience was relived when Reg Buller opened his throat at Opening Time. But that wasn't the end of Reg, it was only his beginning.
'It was accident, of course.' Buller wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
'Accident?' It wasn't that the man ever lied, when he was on the payroll; it was just that he always doled out the truth bit by bit, to keep the client eager for more. But then (and what made the technique bearable),
'Yes. Because . . . after that bomb went off, at the university, they didn't know their arse from their elbow. An' it wasn't this bloke who was a friend of Audley's — Colonel Butler . . .
Apparently, he was a good sort, even if he was foisted on them at the last moment. All the coppers liked him — said he wasn't at all like the usual run of Sandhurst-types, an'
superior Oxford-and-Cambridge civil servants . . . aye, an'
the cloak-and-dagger brigade, making 'em feel like peasants at a big party . . . No,
— all high tech stuff . . . half of which was on the blink, see
— ?'
'But they knew O'Leary was there, somewhere — ?'
'
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which was a short-lived splinter-group no one ever seems to have quite sussed out. But
— the Irish
After Beirut this was peanuts. But, nevertheless, he had always steered Jenny away from Irish entanglements —
whenever that possibility had arisen; and (probably because of her divided family loyalties) he had never had any trouble there. So heaven only knew what she would make of this complication, then.
'But he was IRA — ultimately, Reg?'
'God only knows! When you get far out, on the edge . . . you don't know who you're really dealing with: it could be the really top IRA boyos, with their big cars parked outside their big houses in Dublin ... or it could be the Marxist-Leninists, pure in thought — an' put a bomb in an orphanage, if they reckoned it could further the workers' cause, long term ... Or it could be the Mafia or the KGB, doin' what comes naturally
— ' Buller shrugged. ' — if you want to know what Michael O'Leary was for ... then you'd best ask Colonel Butler — or maybe David Audley. But don't rely on whatever they tell you. So don't ask
'But he got away.' Deep inside Reg Buller, within the cynicism, there was a core of old-fashioned patriotism, like a dummy2
Falklands Factor, thirsty for victory after years of defeat.
'Didn't he? Until Thornervaulx, anyway.'
Buller shook his head. 'No. He got
There was something not right here — something which
'No. That's just the story in the papers.'
And Buller had already told him that, anyway. So that was the end of the questions: he would wait now, for the answers.
Buller tossed his head, accepting his silence. 'Accident, I told you . . . Terry was driving down this road, in the rain . . .
Actually, he was goin' to interview this CND Vicar he knew, who was refusing to have a Remembrance Service, the next day. Because it was a Saturday — November 11. An' the next day was when they were all going to have the services, an'
Terry reckoned there might be a demonstration against the Vicar, an' he might be able to flog a story to Fleet Street. So he was just sewing up the loose ends, in his spare time.
Because he wasn't covering a football match, that Saturday afternoon.'
Ian drank another careful measure. It was now Saturday, November 11, 1978 ... on a wet afternoon, somewhere near dummy2
Thornervaulx Abbey in Yorkshire. And that was still a week away from Philip Masson's own last journey, to his shallow grave far to the south, anyway.
'So he was driving along, minding his own business — ' Reg Duller drained his glass, and lifted it towards the barmaid, catching her eye instantly, as Ian himself never could ' — an'
he heard this Police siren, in the distance — ' Down went the glass, but not the eye, which was fixed on the stretched black silk, and 40D-cups which barely restrained the advance of those splendid breasts towards them, past less favoured customers. Thank you, love. And my friend too, love.' Buller encompassed her, over-hanging-bosom and all, as she swept away his empty glass and replaced it with a full one, leaving Ian's unfinished one contemptuously, and was gone. 'An'
then he heard another bell ... so being Terry — or
he turned his car round, an' followed 'em.'
That was right: that was the old-style journalist, of Reg Buller's vintage, who followed the sound of the policeman's siren and the fireman's bell in the same way as the old-fashioned captains had steered their ships towards the sound of the guns, in the hope of bloodshed.
'Of course, the Police 'ud been out, all that weekend, running about like blue-arsed flies, after any word of O'Leary.' Buller shrugged. 'But the word was, they reckoned, he was long gone — Liverpool, or Glasgow, or Manchester . . . But long gone, anyway. But there was always a chance.'
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That
'So he followed 'em — round the roads over the top, down in the Thor Brook there, over the narrow bridge, where you have to back up if you don't get halfway across, an' some other car has just got there before you — it's the original old bridge, that the monks built, there.'
More and more, the picture was emerging: like, out of the original 1978 mist-and-rain, in darkest and most back-of-beyond North Yorkshire, under the dripping overhanging trees in the deep valley of Thornervaulx Abbey, with the Police sirens shrieking anachronistically, to sound alarms which had not been heard there since the times of the wild Scottish raiders.
'So he got there with the Police, anyway.' Buller nodded. 'An'
as they were hardly there before him, an' they didn't know who the hell he was ... at first they didn't stop him — when he pushed his way in.'
That was also the old style: look like you belong there—
plainclothes policeman, special branch man, doctor (serious-faced, bag-in-hand if you can find a bag) — John Tully always dummy2
simply looked like himself, and waved an impressively embossed card with his photograph on it, which testified that he was a Count of the Holy Roman Empire; and that, with his superior manner, had passed him into all sorts of unlikely places. And, when it came to unlikely places, Thornervaulx Abbey —
He stopped in mid-thought as he realized simultaneously that Reg Buller was looking at him expectantly, waiting for him to speak, and that he'd been following the wrong line of thought, from the wrong angle — Buller's Terry's angle. And Buller had told him all he needed to know about Terry, of course —
'It wasn't an ambush, of course —
'cornered' — like the 'Mad Dog' he was: Reg's favourite newspaper had started its subordinate clause with that word, and two of the quality papers had used the word 'ambush' in their headlines. But siren-shrieking police cars coming from afar didn't attend ambushes. They would already have been there, or nearby, unmarked and tucked away unobtrusively.
'Right.' Buller leered at him for an instant, then raised Ian's empty glass for the barmaid to see, and then came back to him. 'Or, rather . . . wrong.'
'Wrong?' He covered his own beer with his hand to stop her getting the wrong idea.
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'It was an ambush all right.' Buller reached across him to surrender his glass for refilling. 'But it was O'Leary who was doing the ambushing, not Audley's lot.'
This time it was stronger than hypothesis. But it was still no better than circumstantial. And good old-fashioned incompetence could yet turn those circumstantial elements on their head. 'What makes you so sure?'
Buller waited until his glass was returned to him. 'Terry talked to someone there — there's two or three houses by the ruins. One of 'em was the custodian's . . . Ministry of Works, or National Trust, or whatever it was then. An' he said there was a police car parked in the car park, large as life, on the forecourt, where the coaches and the day-trippers off-load —
blue light on the top, day-glow orange-and-red strip along the side — from midday onwards. Plus other cars, that looked official. Not toufist cars, anyway . . . apart from the fact it was a November day — November 11 to be exact. . . An'
that was why old Terry was round there: he was goin' to interview this CND Vicar, who was saying he wasn't goin' to encourage the British Legion in their militaristic practices —
huh!' Reg Buller tossed his head derisively. '
That was typical Buller understatement, after he had just dummy2
enormously complicated what had seemed before to be a neatly open-and-shut episode of counter-intelligence anti-terrorist operations.
'Except the one girl, who was killed.' All this made the poor little thing's death even more poignant: her presence there, late in the afternoon on a wet November day, had been against the odds; and maybe the only target O'Leary had seen when he had failed to find his proper target for the second time in succession. But that raised a much more important question. 'So . . . who was he after, Reg — O'Leary — ?' He frowned at Buller, as the more important question suddenly offered an answer which was dangerous because it was also much too quick, much too simple.
'Yes.' Buller had been there before him, and had also seen the same dangers. 'If it
And then straightened it to get at his beer. And then came back to Ian. 'A bit too easy — eh?'
Ian drank the last of his own beer. All this was following on their established technique: in any investigation, one had to start somewhere.
Sometimes it was easy, and one started at the beginning. But more often than not there was no clear beginning: the more one researched, the further back the beginning went, in that first month's careless gadarene rush at the subject, open-minded. And out of that their line would come (usually out of Jenny's greater gathering of fact, and rumour, and fiction . . .
dummy2
and his own final interpretation of all that).
'What d'you think, Reg?' He mustn't let the man go off the boil.
'I dunno . . .' Buller stared down into his glass. 'But . . . even without that bugger Masson ... we could 'ave a good one 'ere, y'know . . .'
That was another sign: Reg only dropped all his aitches either deliberately or
'A good one?'
'Aye. An' thass the truth.' Buller slurred again. 'We do O'Leary . . . and maybe we've got O'Leary gunning for Audley, an' Audley gunning for O'Leary — an' that's bloody good.' He cocked an eye at Ian again. 'But if we add Masson to it ...
O'Leary
Suddenly there was no contest, no choice: always, and forever, doing the easy thing — dating the girl who'd say 'yes', in preference for the other girl, who'd already said 'no' — was never worth doing. 'Was Masson involved in the O'Leary killing?'
Buller shook his head. 'God only knows.' Then he looked at Ian sidelong. 'Old Johnny'll maybe answer that, when he comes in out of the cold. Because when that bomb went off, an' killed those ducks on the duck-pond ... he was just a dummy2
senior civil servant, Masson was. An' then, three days for O'Leary, an' a week for Masson . . . an' then they've got something in common, see?'
Then they were both dead, Ian saw. (But that had not been apparent at the time, except by eventual inquest verdict long afterwards. But that, also, was what had started all this now.) He cast around for further objections, taking his accustomed role with Jenny, of Devil's advocate. 'In common with the girl
— ' He fished for the elusive name in his memory, from the follow-up newspaper reports ' — Sandra — ? Marilyn — ?'
'Marilyn.' Buller set his empty glass down on the table. Then he looked up, directly and disconcertingly at Ian, challenging him. 'You know why I started with Thornervaulx — an' the bomb that killed the ducks — ?'
No ducking that challenge. 'The timing.' They both knew the rules. 'We have to start somewhere.'
The challenge remained in place, like a gauntlet thrown down which he somehow hadn't noticed. 'The bloke I talked to first, about Audley —
The challenge was still there. 'How . . . doesn't Audley fit — at Thornervaulx?'
The corner of Buller's mouth twisted. 'Thornervaulx doesn't dummy2
fit — in the bloody back of beyond.'
'But he was there.'
'Aye. And one or two others with him, that Terry remembers.'
The mouth tightened. 'And Marilyn.'
Now the poor girl herself was a challenge. 'Marilyn — ?'
'
'Little slip of a girl — Terry actually saw her, stretched out like a little drowned rat, when they put her in the ambulance.' Another nod. That was just when they twigged who he was — an' bloody-near thumped 'im, one of 'em did ...
an' then they tried to arrest him, before the top brass came up an' threw him out.'
Ian waited.
'"Marilyn Francis".' Buller repeated the name.
Ian waited.
There's no such person,' said Reg Buller.
4
Ian felt pleased with himself as he left the churchyard: pleased, first and foremost, because he was not being tailed (if he ever had been); but pleased, second and professionally, because it was just like old times, with the wind in his hair and the rain on his face; and he hadn't lost all his own skills, when it came to the crunch (or, anyway, it wasn't only Jenny dummy2
who was lucky as well as smart!).
Although, to be honest with himself (and he could afford to be honest now, with all the hot-bath luxury of certainty), he had to give Reg Buller his due: Reg had not only zeroed-in on
'Marilyn Francis', but had added hard investigative graft and shoe-leather to his intuition to come up with British-American Electronics.
Not so odd. And not out of nowhere — or, not quite nowhere, even after Reg had tracked down the agency which answered Brit-Am's Rickmansworth factory's temporary needs (Reg passing himself off as the pushy manager of another agency, offering his own 'well-qualified young secretarial persons —
we are registered with your local job-centre as a non-sexist, non-racial enterprise' — at competitive rates; and then Reg, having gleaned the name of Brit-Am's favoured agency, suborning its personnel clerk somehow to let him look at her records . . .).
That had been a dead end, in more ways than one: if she had ever lived (which she hadn't), 'Marilyn Francis' would have dummy2
been long dead, and quite reasonably purged from what were once the agency books, and now the agency computer. But, in any case, that had been more than offset by his outrageous (though deserved) bit of luck, in uncovering the single newspaper reference to 'the dead girl, who worked for an electronics company in Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire'; which, significantly, had appeared only once
'That inquest, up in Yorkshire, must 'ave been fucking dodgey — evidence of identification, an' getting the paperwork done, an' the right documents and the release for the body, after the post-mortem — somebody took the woman away, an' somebody buried her. So, most likely,
aren't so easy — they can be right little Hitlers when they've a mind to ... But the local Police,
Audley an' his friends — so they were able to call the tune right from the start — '
'Mad Dog' O'Leary —
'So who do you think she really was, Reg?'
'No sayin' yet, Ian lad. But she's got to be one of three things.
Like she
dearest off her back. But then, as there weren't any pictures of her in the papers, it couldn't have been them that claimed her. Which leaves . . . either she was there with Audley ... or she was there with O'Leary — and maybe it wasn't him that shot her. Although, again, maybe it was: maybe he reckoned she'd put the finger on him, when he'd thought she was dummy2
fingering his target for him. But it's early days — '
Early days, indeed! All they had known then, just twenty-four hours earlier, was that 'Marilyn Francis' and Michael 'Mad Dog' O'Leary had been killed on November 11, 1978, almost (if not actually) in the presence of David Audley, and that Philip Masson had been dead within a week after that; and that, while those deaths might or might not be linked, they had to start somewhere with their part of the investigation —
'So, if it's all the same to you, Ian lad, after I've had another little talk with old Terry, an' got a few names an' contacts up north from him . . . an' checked up one or two more things down here . . . then I'll just take a little trip up to Yorkshire an' see whether they maybe didn't bury this 'Marilyn Francis'
any deeper than Philip Masson. 'Cause it could be that it was a bit
how would it be if you went an' had a word with British-American Electronics down at Rickmansworth? See, I was thinkin' you might be a solicitor, or something legal like that, tryin' to trace 'Marilyn Francis' to give her a bequest? You could blind 'em with all that legal jargon you learned at college? That was how you used to do it, in the old days, the Lady told me — ?'
Early days indeed! And, indeed, he had more than half-dummy2
suspected that Reg only had the faintest hopes of anything surfacing down at British-American (who quite properly were unprepared to discuss matters relating to former staff over the telephone 'as a company policy rule'); though, to be fair, Reg might also have thought that a gentle wild goose chase within easy reach of London would serve to blow away the cobwebs from those long-unpractised foot-in-the-door skills of those 'old days', and prepare him for sterner tests to come.
But then, quite suddenly, the early days had become interesting.
'Mr Robinson — ?'
'Of Fielding-ffulke, Robinson, Mrs Simmonds.' Her door had boasted the legend 'Mrs Beryl Simmonds, Administrative Personnel Office', so he'd reached the right person in British-American at last. He just hoped that his old nicely-embossed card
'Yes.' Frowning came easily to Mrs Simmonds: the years had grooved her forehead for permanent disapproval. 'I had dummy2
expected you to write, Mr Robinson. That is the customary practice with such inquiries.'
'Yes, I know.' An instinct suddenly contradicted her appearance: she was frowning, but she didn't want to frown.
Perhaps she had a nephew, or even a son, in the law; or maybe she simply had a weakness for very young men trying to make their way in the world. But, whatever, instinct whispered
'I see.' She was holding the frown now only with considerable effort. 'And about whom, among our former employees, do you wish to inquire, Mr Robinson? How long ago?'
'About ten years ago — ' Even before he observed her expression harden again it occurred to him that if she had any sort of weakness for young men she probably had the reverse for the young women who preyed on them. And that decided him to add doubt and embarrassment to what was coming ' — my inquiry relates to a certain Miss Francis, Mrs dummy2
Simmonds. Miss — ah — Miss Marilyn Francis — ?' Would she remember the papers, from 1978?
The hardness became granite. 'But . . . Miss Francis is . . .
deceased, Mr Robinson.'
'Why do you want to know about her?'
He hadn't really expected his prayer to be answered. 'I was hoping you wouldn't ask that. Because, quite honestly, I'm not at liberty to say. But ... all I
She was on a knife-edge. So it was the moment to lie in what he must hope was a Good Cause. 'I have spoken to others before you.' Whatever he said, it mustn't sound like a threat.
'I'm sorry to sound so mysterious, but I have to respect confidences and I
dummy2
'Yes.' She pursed her lips. 'You do appreciate, Mr Robinson, that Marilyn — Miss Francis — was a temp. . . . That is to say, a
'Of course.' He decided not to congratulate himself on the return of his old skills: although she liked him, and believed him, she was more concerned to exculpate herself from the Marilyn Francis appointment. 'But you do remember her
— ?'
'I do indeed.' The purse shut tightly.
Marilyn Francis had been memorable. In fact, even assuming that Mrs Beryl Simmonds had a good personnel manager's memory . . . Marilyn Francis had been
Sniff. 'On the contrary. Miss Francis was highly competent, actually.'
'As a secretary, she was competent.' She had done her duty.
But now she didn't want him to get her wrong. 'Her shorthand was excellent — she must have had over 140
dummy2
words per minute. Even with Dr Cavendish, who had no consideration for anyone. . . This was before we went over to full audio-typing, you understand — and when we still had old fashioned typewriters . . . But her typing was also excellent — quite impeccable.' Duty still wasn't done, the nod implied. 'And her filing. And her paperwork in general: she had been well-trained . . . and she was . . . an intelligent young woman — of that I'm sure. Appearances to the contrary.' Something approaching pain twisted her displeasure at the memory. 'I blame the schools: they have a lot to answer for — doing away with the grammar schools, and letting children run wild — especially the girls.
— and her appearance . . . both absolutely disgraceful, they were.'
'Yes?' Ian's heart had been sinking all the while she had lectured him: poor little Marilyn's defects were personal and moral, and she had been an innocent bystander at Thornervaulx, by whatever unlikely chain of events. So this dummy2
really was a wild-goose-chase.
'It was so tragic — how she died. We all thought so.'
Curiously, she was on his own wavelength. 'But, the truth is ... and I'd be a hypocrite not to say as much . . . she was quite
All he wanted to do now was to get away, back to London.'Yes
—?'
'Anything in trousers.' Nod: duty done, now the truth.
'Deluged in the most revolting perfume . . . tight skirts, and transparent blouses — I spoke to her about her blouses. But, of course, there were those who encouraged her — just like they always look at the
She bit her lip suddenly, catching herself too late.
'Dr H—?' He started to repeat the name automatically, still acting his part, because honest curiosity was perfectly in order. But then it echoed inside his memory, attaching itself to British-American in its proper context; and in that instant he knew that he hadn't finished with Marilyn Francis — and also that he too had caught himself too late, because Mrs Simmonds was already registering her surprise. So now he had to extricate himself from his self-betrayal. 'Harrison?
Harrison — ?' Better to pretend to be halfway there first, with a frown. And then embarrassment, for choice? '
'He had nothing to do with Miss Francis.' Faced with two unhappy names, Mrs Simmonds chose not to repeat the more offensive one. 'His . . . what happened to him . . . that was some long time after she left our employ.'
He let his frown deepen. Had it been some long time after?
Marilyn Francis had been killed in November, 1978 — the beginning of his final year at university. And the Harrison Case . . .? But, whenever it had been, now was the time for embarrassment. 'Oh!
Surprised embarrassment. 'But . . . you do a lot of Ministry of Defence work — of course!' What had it been that the
'dreadful' Dr Harrison had betrayed? The guidance system to the Barracuda torpedo, was it? But now he had to let her off the hook. 'No . . . no,
But meanwhile he mustn't lose Mrs Simmonds. 'I don't want to know about him, anyway — Dr What's-his-name . . .
But . . . Miss Francis had a — ah — a weakness for the male sex, you were saying, Mrs Simmonds.' Losing her fast, in fact.
'Did she have a particular boyfriend?'
'I have not the least idea of Miss Francis's private life.' She dummy2
broke eye-contact, and picked up one of the files on her desk at random. Which was a sure sign of his impending dismissal.
'We think she may have had ... a fiancé in this area, Mrs Simmonds.'
The eyes came back to his, as blank as pebbles. 'I said that I have no knowledge of her private life, Mr Robinson. And as she has been dead these ten years, I really cannot see that any useful purpose can be served by relaying tittle-tattle about her.'
She started to get up, file in hand. 'I really do not have any more time to spare, I'm sorry.'
'Mrs Simmonds — ' He sat fast ' — now I must betray a confidence — '
She stopped. Betrayal of confidences usually stopped people.
'We think ... we
This time he broke the eye-contact, to adjust his spectacles.
And that gave him time to decide the imaginary child's sex and appearance. 'A little boy. Fair hair, blue eyes . . . He'd be about ten years old now. And his uncle, who is ... very prosperous . . . and childless . . . would like to find this little dummy2
boy.'
The blank look transfixed him, and for a moment he feared that he had gone over the top with a scenario she must have read in Mills and Boon more times than Reg Buller had said
'Same again' to his favourite barmaid. But having gone so far the only direction left to him was to advance further on into the realms of melodrama: if not Mills and Boon, then maybe a touch of
'It's really the father we're trying to trace, Mrs Simmonds.
Because we think he looked after the child. Because . . . Miss Francis doesn't appear to have been very . . . maternal — ?'
He looked at her questioningly.
'No.' She blinked at him. '
She was implying that, if there had been a file, it would have been purged. So there probably
She blinked at him again. 'As I recall, Mr Robinson, she left our employ in November, just before Armistice Day. And I do dummy2
remember that because I was working with her in the same office: I was acting as Dr Garfield's secretary at the time, and she was temping for Dr Cavendish's secretary, who was on leave of absence.'
He observed her lips tighten at the memory. And it was 'tittle-tattle' that he wanted. 'Yes.'
'Yes.' Slight sniff. 'I remember that because when . . . when the person selling the British Legion poppies came round she insisted on his pinning her poppy on her blouse. Which was . . . quite improper. But quite typical, also.'
Half-sniff, half-sigh. 'One of Miss Francis's affectations was to wear as little as possible. I could never understand why she didn't get pneumonia.'
Ian opened his mouth. 'Ah . . .'
'She left us shortly after that. She received an urgent telephone message . . . apparently her mother had been taken ill. So she left us immediately. And I remember
home was in London.'
'But you don't know where?' Instinct stirred: she didn't know, but something had occurred to her, nevertheless. 'Did she commute back home every day?' That would have been easy enough from Rickmansworth. But London was a big place.
'No.' She shook her head. 'I believe she had digs somewhere down here.' Slight frown. 'She never minded working late, I will say that for her. But that may have been because she was trying to ingratiate herself with Dr Cavendish, in case Miss Ballard didn't come back. And she'd stay to cover for anyone else — Dr Page, or Dr Garfield, or — or anyone else.'
'She said she needed the money, so the extra hours were useful.' Mrs Simmonds pressed on. 'But she was a nosey young woman. Always chatting the men up, trying to insinuate herself where she had no right to be — ' She snapped her mouth shut on herself suddenly, as if she'd heard herself. 'But there, now: I'm being unkind, aren't I — '
She cut herself off again.
'No.' Maybe she'd misread his expression. But, at all costs he mustn't lose her again. 'No. You're just being honest, Mrs Simmonds. And I respect you for that. Because . . . not many people are honest.'
She stared at him. 'Honest?' The word seemed to hurt her.
'Yes.' If he could hold her now, when her defences were dummy2
down, she'd give him everything she'd got. 'Thanks to you, I understand much better now what others have said. And what they haven't said.'
'Do you?' The pain showed again. 'I wonder.'
'Wonder . . . what?'
'Perhaps I should have tried harder to understand her. After what you've told me.' She looked away from him for a moment. 'It's a long time ago . . .'
'Yes. It is.' He waited.
'And yet ... of all the temps we've had ... I remember her so well — so well!' She looked away again. 'Better than any of them, you know.'
Was that surprising? Apart from Marilyn's see-through blouses, not many of Mrs Simmonds' temps could have been shot by the IRA. But, more likely, the doting mother/kind auntie inside her was now torturing her with visions of Marilyn Francis working long extra hours not to chat up the men, but to support the fair-haired, blue-eyed baby he'd invented. And that, in turn, didn't exactly make him feel a great human being.
She looked at him. 'Deep down I think she was sad.'
'Sad?' The word took him by surprise.
'Yes. And a little desperate, perhaps . . . But I can understand that now, of course.' She nodded wisely.
'Many of these young women make the most terrible messes of their lives. Early marriages, or unplanned babies — just dummy2
like Marilyn . . . We try to help them, naturally. And some of them take it all in their stride — quite amazingly resilient, they are . . . It's as though they never expected anything different.'
'Yes?' He controlled his impatience. 'Are you saying . . .
Marilyn wasn't resilient?'
She thought about that for a moment. 'Perhaps I am — yes.
Some of the most intelligent ones have the biggest problems
— the ones who realize that it could have been different: they are the sad ones.' Another wise nod. 'They don't like what they've become, so they pretend to be someone else. And now I think about Marilyn . . . yes, I'm sure that she wasn't really like that. She was just playing a role — ' She blinked suddenly. 'But that isn't helping you, is it?'
'On the contrary — '
'No.' She sat up very straight. 'As regards Miss Francis, Mr Robinson, I think your best bet would be a certain Gary Redwood.'
'Gary — ' His repetition of the absurd Christian name seemed to tighten her mouth. 'A boyfriend?'
'No.' Her expression belied the question even before she'd rejected it. 'Whatever Gary was to her, he most certainly wasn't that.' She turned away from him abruptly, to stare at a pair of steel filing-cabinets which seemed oddly out-of-place in an otherwise computerized office.
'Who is he?' It disconcerted him oddly that she didn't move dummy2
to consult the cabinets' contents, but merely stared at them, as though their entire contents were already on disc in her memory.
'
Yes.' She switched back to him. 'He
She looked at her watch. 'If he has continued to stay one jump ahead of the Police, you should find him in Messiter's timber yard, Mr Robinson — '
'
'
This wasn't Gary Redwood, he was too old by a dozen years: even now the former Brit-Am messenger boy would only be in his mid-twenties. '
An uneven piece of mahogany fell away from the saw. The man picked it up and pointed with it towards a stairway before tossing it aside.
The noise fell away behind Ian as he ascended the stair. He still wasn't at all sure what he was really doing; or, at any rate, whether it really had any bearing on what had dummy2
happened to Philip Masson. For the link between Marilyn Francis and Philip Masson was hardly more than a tenuous sequence of November days in early November, with David Audley in the middle of it. Dr Harrison, of British-American, had been jailed for passing high-tech secrets to one of Russia's East European colonies — Hungary, was it? Or Bulgaria? And Marilyn Francis had quit Brit-Am (and Dr Harrison) on November 7, 1978, to keep an appointment with 'Mad Dog' O'Leary's bullet (or somebody's bullet) in Dr Audley's presence four days later; and, as things stood at present, Audley was playing Macbeth to Philip Masson's Banquo, his victim, if Jenny had heard more than a rumour.
But there lay a full week between those two deaths, and a week was a long time not just in politics.
'Mr Redwood?' There was only one person in the timber-loft, so it had to be Gary. And as the man turned towards him from the pile of planks he was sorting the identification was confirmed: the acne-ravaged face and the stocky build filled Mrs Simmonds' 1978 description to the life.
'Yeah?' Gary straightened up, balancing himself among the planks.
'I believe you may be able to help me, Mr Redwood.' He returned Gary's empty gaze with a smile of encouragement.
'You used to work at British-American Electronics just down the road, didn't you?'
'Yeah — ' A fraction of a second after he began to answer, as though his brain was slower than his tongue, Gary's dummy2
expression changed from the blank to the wary ' — who says?'
Mrs Simmonds' name was not the one to drop, decided Ian.
And, in any case, he had a much better name to open Gary up. 'You had a friend there — ' As he spoke, Mrs Simmonds'
parting words echoed in his head: "
A succession of different emotions twisted across the moonscape face, ending with a scowling grimace. 'Who told you? Not that fucking old bitch Simmonds?' Gary spoke with surprising clarity as well as bitterness. 'You don't want to believe anything she says — right?'
It would be a mistake to underrate Gary, in spite of appearances. 'She only said you were a friend of Miss Francis, Mr Redwood.'
Gary shook his head, as at some crassly stupid statement.
'About Miss Francis —
There had been a sum of unaccounted petty cash outstanding dummy2
between Mrs Beryl Simmonds and Mr Gary Redwood, back in 1979. But who gave a fuck for that? What mattered was that, once again, Marilyn Francis had been memorable.
'But . . . Miss Francis
'Yeah — ' Gary stopped suddenly. 'No. I just talked to her —
that's all.' He looked past Ian, down the length of the timber-loft. 'She was a smasher — a right little smasher! Bloody IRA
—
Ian was ready for the question. 'Not for anything wrong, Mr Redwood. I'm just a solicitor's clerk, and we've got this will to check up on — next-of-kin, and all that. And probate, and death duties, and all the rest of it — ' He shrugged fellow-feeling at Gary, as one loser to another ' — I just do the donkey-work for my boss . . .' For a guess, Gary wouldn't know probate from a hole in the road. But it might be as well to divert him, just in case. 'She seems to have been a decent sort — Miss Francis?'
'She was.' He looked past Ian again, but only for a second.
'Yes.'
'And pretty, too.' Ian followed Gary's eyes, and his own came to rest on a copy of the
dummy2
'What?' Gary squinted at him. 'Like — ? No, not like that . . .
That'll be that old bitch going on — like she always did. She just dressed smart — Marilyn — Miss Francis did. But she was a lady. More of a lady than old Mrs Simmonds. And not stuck-up, like some of 'em . . . She'd
Ian wasn't quite sure that he did see. It wasn't just that Mrs Simmonds' and Gary's views diverged on Marilyn Francis, that was predictable. There was something here that was missing. But he nodded encouragingly nevertheless.
'An' she was
'What things?'
'Oh ... I used to talk to her about the Old West,' Gary trailed off.
'The old — what?'
'West.' Gary's eyes lit up at the memory. 'Cowboys and Indians . . . and the US cavalry — General Custer . . . It's my hobby, like — I read the books on it ... And she knew about it
— knew who Major Reno was, for instance — I didn't have to explain about him getting the blame for Custer getting hisself killed —
Which she didn't have to do, either ... All about whether the Sioux had used more bows and arrows than Winchesters an'
Remingtons — she didn't think they had many guns.' He nodded vehemently. 'An', you know, she was probably right dummy2
— there's a new book I got out of the library just last week that says that. . . She was
So it hadn't been just the see-through blouse with Gary after all — or the peroxide hair and the red nails. It had been General Custer and the Sioux (and Major Reno, whoever the hell he had been!). But —
'An' she knew about guns.' Another decisive nod, which brought a cow-lick of hair across the bright-eyes. 'Knew more than any girl I ever met — repeating rifles, an' double-action revolvers . . . An' we talked once about the SLRs what the army had. 'Fact, she said I ought to join the army — said I'd make a good soldier, knowing about guns like I did — ' Gary's gargoyle features twisted suddenly.
And he was himself thinking it:
But Gary was staring up at him. 'You didn't join up, though
— ?'
Gary straightened up. 'Got flat feet — haven't I!' He scowled horribly. 'Went down to the Recruiting Office — went down the day it was in the paper . . . Flat
Ian became aware that he was returning the scowl. 'What. . .
paper?'
'That one.' Gary gestured toward the
about the IRA shooting her. Christ! I'd 'uv given 'em
if I'd 'uv got into uniform, and got to Ireland, I tell you —
killing her like that, the bastards!'
'She talked about Ireland once — funny, that.' Gary's eyes were still bright with Marilyn Francis' memories. 'It was when we were talking about the army — about my joining up, maybe . . . She said it was a better job than running messages, an' delivering the post an' that, in Brit-Am. "No future for you here, Gary," she says. "But you could be doing a good job in Ulster, keeping the peace, an' protecting people.
And they'll teach you a trade too, most like — an' you can practise your shooting for free!"' One broad shoulder lifted in resignation. 'She didn't know about my flat feet . . . But, then, she'd have been sorry — she was ... all
Mills and Boon came to the rescue again, like the US cavalry in Gary's old West, trumpets blaring romantically: Gary, feeling as he did about Marilyn Francis, would not be able to resist Mills and Boon either.
'Well, Mr Redwood, it's like this — ' He looked around the empty timber-loft, and then advanced cautiously across the unstable planks so that he was able to lower his voice confidentially. ' — Miss Francis had a child — a little boy . . .
dummy2
And I'm trying to trace him, so that we can give him some money, which is due to him — his inheritance, from his uncle.'
'What?' Gary frowned. 'I didn't know about — ?'
Ian raised his hand. 'It was very secret — you mustn't tell anyone, Mr Redwood.' Actually, on reflection it was as much Charles Dickens as Mills and Boon. But Dickens would do just as well. 'There are those who would like me not to find Miss Francis's little boy, Mr Redwood. Because then they'd get the money, you see — eh?' He gave Gary a sly look.
'Yes — ?' Gary checked the timber-loft himself, but more carefully, before coming back to Ian. 'What d'you want to know?' Then he frowned. 'It was a long time ago ... But — ?'
'Did she have a boyfriend?' The trouble was, Gary was dead right: it was a long time ago, 1978. And it might all be a waste of time, anyway. But . . . somehow Marilyn Francis was alive again now, in her own right; and he wanted to know more about her, quite regardless of David Audley and Philip Masson and Jenny and Reg Buller and John Tully. 'Was there anyone who visited her —
— ?'
'No . . .
she didn't see me ... I thought he was chatting her up, at first.'
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'But he wasn't — ?'
'No. Because she gave him something — an envelope, or a package, or something.' The frown deepened. 'Good-looking bloke, in a Triumph . . . But she didn't like him — I could see
'No?' She must have been hard-pressed to have taken such a risk, so close to Brit-Am. 'But . . . didn't she have any friends, Gary?'
'Naow, she was just a temp. So she didn't know no-one, see?'
Gary shrugged. 'Each night ... she just went back to 'er digs.'
Ian controlled himself. 'Her . . . digs?'
'Yeah,' Gary dismissed the question. "Er digs. Old Mrs Smith.'
He stopped in the shadow of the huge old yew tree at the corner and studied the scene. It was purely a precaution, and an unnecessary one at that: if there
consecutive stretches of road works on the edge of Rickmansworth. And it still took an effort of will — almost a suspension of rational belief — to accept Reg Buller's warning. So now, when he was aware that he was basking in self-satisfied success, was the moment to guard against carelessness and over-confidence, and make doubly sure before he searched for a telephone —
'Mrs S—' In that instant, as he registered the tall, painted, blue-rinsed presence in the doorway, and married it with the legend on the painted sign (THE ELSTREE GUEST HOUSE
—
'Yahss.' The blue-rinsed presence looked down on him from the great height made up of two steps and her own extra inches. 'I am Mrs
'Robinson, Mrs Champeney-Smythe — ' He had somehow expected an unobtrusive lodging-house in a back-street, not this genteel four-storey Edwardian yellow-brick survival, with its ancient genteel landlady (Dame Edith Evans playing Lady Bracknell, to the life). But now plain Mr Robinson wasn't good enough, anyway ' — Ian Drury Robinson, of Fielding-ffulke, Robinson, Mrs Champeney-Smythe —
Fielding-ffulke, Robinson, of Chancery Lane — ?' He repeated the contents of his card as he offered it to her as though he expected everyone to recall it from the legal columns of
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Mrs Basil Champeney-Smythe (alias 'Old Mrs Smith') accepted the card with one skeletal hand while raising a monocle on a gold chain to her eye with her other claw.
And . . .
'Yahss?' She returned the card, wrinkling her nose at the pronounced smell of curry which emanated from the Indian restaurant-cum-takeaway just across the road behind them.
Ian decided to acknowledge the smell by wrinkling his nose back at her. 'If you could spare a few minutes of your time, Mrs Champeney-Smythe — on a matter which really only involves you indirectly — ' This was important, he remembered: ordinary folk always felt threatened by strange solicitors on their doorstep ' — in fact, in a legal sense, doesn't involve you at all ... But you could be of great help to one of my clients. So ... perhaps I might step inside, for a moment — ?' He sniffed again, and glanced deliberately over his shoulder at the source of the nuisance, which must be wafting in through her open front-door even now.
She considered him through her spy-glass for a moment, and he was glad that he had selected his best charcoal-grey pin-striped Fielding-ffulke, Robinson suit and Bristol University tie. Then she drew back, leaving an opening for him into the darkness beyond. 'Yahss . . .'
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That was the first hurdle. Long before, in the old days, he could well remember trying to get past the porter of a minor Oxford college to interview the Master about an alleged sex-and-drugs scandal for the
'If you would be so good as to ascend the stairs,' Mrs Champeney-Smythe indicated his route, but then pushed ahead of him after closing out the Indian invasion.
Ian followed her dutifully, up the stair and across the landing, into what was obviously the best room in the house; which, in commercial terms, meant that she wasn't down on her uppers for money, if she could keep it as her own sitting room.
And the tall windows let in the light, so that he could instantly make out all Mrs Champeney-Smythe's lifetime accretion of memorabilia and bric-a-brac, which was consciously arranged around him on occasional tables, and sideboards, and bookcases, and windowsills: silver-framed pictures, and little boxes, and brasses, and paperweights, and dummy2
innumerable meaningless objects which meant so much to her.
It was the pictures which always told the most, and quickest: no children, naked on rugs, or self-conscious in shirts-andties and party-dresses, or gowned for graduation; only an extremely handsome man, posed again and again in carefully-lit situations, always immaculate and cool, and once with a cigarette in hand, the smoke curling up past his nonchalant profile, in a Noel Coward pose.
'You may recall my late husband.' Mrs Champeney-Smythe observed his interest with satisfaction as he bent over the cigarette advertisement. 'That is my favourite — the one Gabby Pascal gave me. But he always preferred Arthur's favourite — ' She pointed, ' — that one . . . which was taken for
"
'Yes!' He lied enthusiastically. 'Yes — of course!'
'Indeed?' She frowned at him suddenly, as though she had seen through his enthusiasm, to its insincere foundation.
'But that was . . . before you were born, Mr Robertson — ?'
'Robinson.' He smiled at her desperately, and played for time dummy2
while he took out his spectacles again, peering through them round the room. 'Yes. But those were the great days of British cinema, Mrs Champeney-Smythe — ' He saw her more clearly now: the ancient remains of past splendour, plundered and weathered by time, like the Parthenon: or, if not an old Bluebell Girl, she had the height for the front row of the chorus, certainly. So all he had to remember now was the list of those old films, hoping for the best. '
guests ... a young lady — a young lady—?'
'A young lady?' She had sat down, into her favourite chair, beside the table which carried the
He adjusted his spectacles, solicitorly. 'It was some years ago
— nine or ten, perhaps ... a Miss Francis, Mrs Champeney-dummy2
Smythe — Miss Marilyn Francis — ?'
She frowned at him again. And in that second he threw away all his planned explanations, on instinct. And put nothing in their place.
The frown cleared slightly. 'I remember Miss Francis —
yahss . . .'
Or, with her own chorus-line memories, maybe
'Yahss — ' Other memories intruded: Mrs Champeney-Smythe had read her
A gentle smile was called for. 'You wouldn't, by any chance, have any record of a forwarding address — if your records go so far back — ?'
'No, Mr Robertson.' She fingered the strings of costume jewellery which accompanied the monocle's gold chain, and waited for him to continue.
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She was time-biding, Ian decided. She must be all of seventy years old (with all that paint and powder, it was hard to say: she could be nearer eighty for all he could tell: a relic of the twenties, even!). But, just as with Gary, it would be a mistake to underrate her; and he'd already made the elementary mistake of combining two questions into one, so that he didn't know which one that 'no' applied to. 'Your records don't go back — ?'
'My records go back to June 1960, when my husband and I bought this property, on our retirement from the profession, Mr Robertson.'
'So she didn't leave any address?' He chose to interpret her answer. 'Isn't that unusual — not to have an address?'
'Not if you do not have an address. Miss Francis left one place, where she was lodging, and came to me. That is all.'
It wasn't all. She remembered Marilyn Francis very well — so well, that even with Marilyn nine years dead she wasn't going to give any Tom, Dick or Harry ... or Robertson, of Fielding-ffulke, Robertson . . . easy answers. 'Didn't she receive any mail?' He remembered Mrs Simmonds had let slip about Marilyn's hurried midweek departure, with £5 out of the petty cash in her pocket. But perhaps she'd just been playing her part to the last. 'After she left, I mean — ?'
'Miss Francis did not receive any mail.'
Well, that rang true, however uninformatively. But at this rate he'd be here all day, and still not be much the wiser. So dummy2
he must push harder. 'But she did have callers, Mrs Champeney-Smythe.' He made this a statement, not a question. 'There was a boyfriend, I believe?'
'There was no boyfriend.' She rejected his ploy almost contemptuously. 'And there were no callers.'
They stared at each other like evenly-matched duellists.
'I find that hard to believe, Mrs Champeney-Smythe.' He allowed an edge of irritation into his voice.
'Then . . . you must believe what suits you, Mr Robertson.'
She parried the first thrust easily.
'But she was an attractive young woman.' In their different ways, Mrs Simmonds and Gary had both been agreed on that.
'She was, yahss.' A hint of distaste: Mrs Champeney-Smythe would incline more towards Mrs Simmonds there, having no interest in General Custer and firearms and recruitment to the British Army. But she still refused to be drawn any further.
Another thrust, then. 'She left you rather suddenly, I believe
— ?' Once on the attack, he had to go forward. 'Just before her very tragic death, that would have been, of course . . .
And you read about that, in the newspapers, naturally — ?'
The mask didn't crack. But this time he received only the slightest of nods, and no '
Suddenly he saw a gap in her defences — or, if not a gap, dummy2
then at least the faintest impossible hope of one. 'Did she come back to you, to say goodbye?'
No reaction at all.
She looked away from him, towards one bric-a-brac-choked table over which Basil Champeney (without the plebeian
'Smythe') presided out of another silver frame.
But he could see nothing on it which was of the slightest interest — a wooden ashtray, with a mouse carved on it; a brass frog grinning foolishly; a crude rhomboid First World War tank in seaside souvenir china (which was probably worth a tidy sum in any auction!); a hideous piece of Venetian glass, from Murano Island . . . none of which had
'Marilyn Francis' imprinted on it. And then the washed out eyes (which, for a guess, had once been
came back to him.
'Tell me, Mr Robertson . . . what is all this about?'
He had won. Or, if he was careful now, and gentle with it, he could win. 'I am concerned with a legacy, Mrs Champeney-Smythe — ' He touched his spectacles, as though slightly embarrassed ' — one of those difficult next-of-kin family affairs, which could go on for years . . . which could swallow up most of the money in legal fees, and all the other costs.
But, you know, I don't believe that's what my job ought to be about, you see — ?' He gave her his most innocent look, which Jenny always said almost melted her heart. Only now, when he came up against all Marilyn Francis's contradictions, he found to his surprise that he was no longer quite pretending, even in the midst of this elaborate tapestry of lies. Because, if he'd been in the law and clever little Marilyn had had a blue-eyed Mills-and-Boon offspring, he really would have been fighting for its inheritance. 'Do you see — ?'
She frowned so hard that the make-up on her forehead cracked. 'No.'
He was surprised as well as disappointed. Because she didn't seem to be rejecting his appeal. 'No?'
'Her brother took all her things . . . afterwards, Mr Robertson.'
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'Her — ?'
She shook her head. 'She telephoned me — of course . . . But that was the next day, after she didn't come back from work.
She said how sorry she was . . . She always phoned me, when she was working late, or when she had to go away — she was always thoughtful . . . Because she knew that I worried about her, when she was late . . . But she didn't phone that time —
when she went away, the last time. Not until the next day, very late — ' She stared at him, and then through him. And then at him. 'Such a
The image of Marilyn-in-the-dark jolted him. Because Gary had worried also for his darling Miss Francis, when she worked late. He had even followed her all the way back here, one late October evening when the mist was up, to make sure she got home safe: that had been how Gary knew about 'old Mrs Smith'.
'She phoned you — ? The next day?' They had both loved her: in quite different ways
'Yes.' She nodded. 'After her dinner — or, if she was late, after her supper, which she'd often take with me, in this room . . .
after that she'd often stay, and we'd talk . . . About her day at work, sometimes. Or about what was on the nine o'clock dummy2
news, or in the papers — she was always
—
From getting nothing, now he was almost getting too much.
Or ...
'She had a brother — ? He took her things, you said.'
Her mask tightened. 'That was unfortunate.'
'How — unfortunate?'
'He came when I was out, Mr Robertson.'
'When — ?' But, then, it wasn't unfortunate, of course: it figured exactly, that Marilyn's 'brother' would have watched for his moment.
'When I was out. She said he would be coming — ' The mask softened ' — and that she would be coming back to see me, some time. But she'd obtained this new position, up north —
not a temporary one, but a permanent post, with a pension
Ian nodded. There had been no pension, and no opportunities. But it had certainly been up north. And it had dummy2
been permanent, too. But, in those last hours of her life, Marilyn Francis had been nothing if not professional, sewing up all her loose ends tightly.
'My maid — my
'Well . . .' He smiled at her sadly, and sat up in his chair.
When one lost, one cut one's losses gracefully. And, in any case, he hadn't wholly lost. 'Well, I'm most grateful to you, Mrs Champeney-Smythe — for your time, and your help.' On impulse he decided to give her more than that, as he stood up. 'I'm glad . . . Miss Francis had such a happy time, before . . . before the tragedy occurred.'
She stared at him without replying, as though she hadn't heard what he had said. Then she turned away, looking again dummy2
towards the table with its incongruous collection of souvenirs.
He coughed politely. 'Mrs Champeney-Smythe — ?'
She pointed. 'There is something. You can't have it. But you can look at it, Mr Robertson. They belonged to her.'
He looked at all of it, already defeated: wooden mouse, or brass frog? China tank or spindly glass horse (minus its tail)?
Old ginger beer bottle, advertising 'Burbank', a 'High Class Chemist' of Oxford? Unless Marilyn had left a message in the bottle, it was all rubbish. But he had to humour her. 'Which object do you mean?'
'Not the table — ' The thin finger stabbed irritably towards the table ' — the bookcase, Mr Robertson, the bookcase.'
There was indeed a bookcase behind the table, its mathematically aligned contents also part of the room's ornamentation: she had been looking at that all the time, not the bric-a-brac.
'Which books, Mrs Champeney-Smythe?' '
'At the end there — at the end!' It seemed to irritate her that he needed direction.
There was a set of Dickens (which didn't look as though it had ever been opened) and a run of diminutive New University Society classics in red-and-gold bindings — and a wealth of better-read washed-out yellow Reprint Society dummy2
volumes which Basil Champeney-Smythe had surely collected, and which customarily stood out on the shelves of a thousand second-hand bookshops . . .
But he didn't even know which shelf, which end: should he be looking for
'The fairy books — I told you — at the end, there!'
'The — ?'
Who had ever heard of 'W. Y. Evans Wentz', for heaven's sake! Well . . . evidently the Oxford University Press, for a start! And a Penguin book —
He opened the Penguin. The right date, anyway: first published, 1976 — and in Penguin, 1977 . . . And, on the flyleaf, 'F.F. '78' — but who the hell was 'F.F.' — ?
He looked questioningly at Mrs Champeney-Smythe, then down again at the dictionary of fairies, which had fallen open in his hands at the point where the paperback binding had fallen apart with use, at page 175 — '
And who the hell was '
He felt a cold hand on his backbone: Fin Bheara,
Finvarra, was apparently more than just the Fairy King of Ulster, which was 'Mad Dog' O'Leary's old stamping ground, but also maybe King of the Dead (and therefore a recipient of many of 'Mad Dog's' customers — ?) —
This foolish diversion of his concentration angered him.
'Who is "F.F.", Mrs Champeney-Smythe?'
'You are looking at the wrong book, Mr Robertson.' She closed her eyes as she spoke.
The paperback almost came apart in his hands as he juggled clumsily with Marilyn Francis's only known possessions to bring the stout OUP hardback to the top —
'Who — ?' He realized that there was more than an inscription, there was a folded piece of paper —
It was a bookseller's bill, with a name and an address —
He looked back one last time into Lower Buckland churchyard, in which the second of his future book's bodies lay. But, unlike Jenny's lovely heroic Philip Masson, his own lovely, heroic 'Marilyn Francis' would at least remain decently undisturbed. For she was buried properly —
FRANCES
1948-1978
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— alongside her
ROBERT GAUVAIN FITZGIBBON
Meanwhile, the Village Green was still as comfortingly empty as it had been when he had first arrived. Maybe it was just because it was the betwixt-and-between time of early evening, with the threat of rain from the low clouds which touched the trees on each side of the valley, which kept the inhabitants in their houses. But he might as well have been in Fin Bheara's country, in which Captain and Mrs Fitzgibbon now lived as of right. For the only living souls he'd seen so far were the old village-shopkeeper-cum-postmistress (who looked as though she already had one foot in Fin's kingdom, although she had given him useful information) and (quite fortuitously, but more useful still; and who might be said to have some connection with Fin's business) the village priest.
But the emptiness was reassuring, nevertheless.
So now he had his bearings again: he had parked the car prudently out of sight down
He had been lucky today, it had to be admitted. Lucky with the start Reg had given him, directing him to dummy2
Rickmansworth . . . and lucky, in a way,
Meeting him like that, right in the churchyard, had saved him time, undoubtedly, but —
And there was the phone-box. He should have noticed it first time round. And now, because he was lucky today, it wouldn't be vandalized. (Or anyway, phones didn't get vandalized in places like Lower Buckland.) (Tracing Mrs Frances Fitzgibbon wouldn't be too difficult, at least up to a point: it was the sort of thing John Tully and Reg Buller did well and quickly, with their wealth of varied experience.)
He was barely half an hour late phoning Jenny, which by her standards was nothing. So she'd still be in (and today, anyway, he was lucky). It wasn't vandalized. And he had plenty of change — (Tracing Captain Robert Gauvain Fitzgibbon, of the 39th Lancers, would be even easier: Captain Fitzgibbon, in life and death, would be a matter of record, public and military. Not, in this context, that he would be worth more than a passing reference or two or maybe a footnote, if his family was an interesting one; or — )
'Hullo? Who's that?'
That was Jenny, safe and sound and undoubtedly: Jenny dummy2
never answered the telephone with her own name and number. 'Ian, Jenny — '
'Thank God for that! Where are you?'
'What? I'm at—'
'No!' She cut him off. 'Don't answer that. You're not at home
— at your flat, Ian — ?'
'No. What the hell's the matter, Jen?' He had never heard her so flustered. And that, in very quick succession, surprised him and then frightened him. 'Jenny — '
'Shut up, Ian. Don't say anything. Don't tell me where you are, or what you're doing. Just listen.'
He opened his mouth, and then remembered what she'd just said. But his fear overrode that. 'Are you all right, Jenny?'
'Shut up. I've got to be quick — you've got to be quick. Get out of there — wherever you are — and go to that place where the man dropped the soup . . . Remember that? And don't be followed. If you are, then go to my father's place, and don't leave it. And I'll phone you there. Okay?'
Although he tried to digest all that while she force-fed him with it, there was too much of it, and he gagged on it. Now he was just plain frightened — Beirut-style frightened. Or perhaps even more frightened, because he didn't know what ought to be frightening him in Lower Buckland, or her in London.
'Okay. It'll take me an hour, Jen.' He estimated the journey from Lower Buckland to Abdul the Damned's restaurant as dummy2
best he could. But he couldn't leave it at that. 'What's happened, Jen? You must tell me. Then I'll go.'
There was a fractional pause. 'Reg Buller's dead, Ian. And I can't raise ... his friend — he doesn't answer. I think the police may be there.' Another heart's-beat pause. 'Watch yourself, Ian — for God's sake watch yourself!'
The phone went dead.
5
There were times, under pressure, when everything around him ceased to exist — even he himself seemed disembodied
— and the only reality was what was going on in his head.
He realized that he was still inside the phone-box in Lower Buckland, just down the lane from the Village Green; and he was staring at the dialling instructions blindly, with the phone still in his hand. And his hand was sweaty —
dummy2
He replaced the receiver, and disciplined himself to accept the world as it now was, both around him in Lower Buckland, and beyond it. Jenny was in her flat, and although she was dead-scared (and although she had been dead-scared she had waited quite deliberately for his call, in spite of that . . . either because she needed him, or because she wanted to warn him — either or both, it could be) . . .
There was nothing to be seen outside. And
On that thought, he pushed open the door, and stepped out of the box, with Reg Buller at his back. Because Reg would have had no time for such futile sentiments, and he couldn't afford them either, now. The lane was empty.
But it wasn't right. Because Reg Buller had been smart, yet not smart enough. Because Reg had believed in danger before anyone else had done, but Reg was dead now, even dummy2
though he'd been smart.
And the car was all that was left to him, whether he'd been as clever (or as lucky) as he'd thought, just a few minutes back: he just might have been clever enough (or lucky enough) . . .
but Lower Buckland was undoubtedly in the middle of its own commuter-belt nowhere, with a bus once-a-week if at all. So if he wasn't going to walk, then he had to drive —
It was different now, was Lower Buckland, as he progressed up the empty lane towards the Village Green: it really was Fin Bheara's kingdom, as briefly glimpsed in Mrs Frances Fitzgibbon's — now Mrs Champeney-Smythe's —
Yet that wasn't so much
Also, the Village Green wasn't empty now. There was a woman pushing a pram, with two children and a dog in tow, on the far side. And there was a car — two cars — two lovely, ordinary cars, with drivers and passengers in them — passing just ahead of him. And Fin Bheara surely wasn't into prams, dummy2
and children, and dogs, and cars full of passengers, to people his shadowy land.
He swung round the short stretch of road into the parallel lane where the car was, almost angry with himself for his over-fertile imagination. And then halted for an instant before reversing direction, to set off diagonally across the broad expanse of Village Green, towards the great old yew-tree, where he'd paused the first time, and the churchyard and the church behind it —
He accelerated his pace, almost to the beginning of a run, not knowing where he was going, only that he wanted to put distance between himself and the man, his follower — his follower who had caught up with him, to become his pursuer
— ? Or, after Reg Buller, something more fearful than that
— ?
But the yew-tree was marching towards him by the second, and he was only compounding his stupidity with self-recrimination. Because when he reached it he'd have to know what he would do next, where he would
And he was there, now. And he must stop thinking this Fin Bheara nonsense before it reduced him to a helpless jelly: simply, he must turn round and face his pursuer. Because . . .
because — for heaven's sake! — he wasn't in some Beirut wasteland now, like last time: there were no half-smashed tenements full of hooded women and Kalashnikov-armed trigger-happy bandits from half-a-dozen different militias: these were elegant Georgian-Regency-early-Victorian English residences around him on the other three sides of the green, with elegant stockbroker-merchant-banking-high-tech-yuppie wives (with little boys and girls playing computer games at their backs as they started to prepare dinner, while watching the early evening BBC/ITV news on dummy2
the kitchen TV), waiting for their husbands to return from the high-return, high-risk fray —
He was right underneath the yew-tree now, where he'd been so few minutes before, in the age when he'd still believed himself
as his own desperation which turned him round, at the last—
From being in trouble, he was in big trouble now, in his own high-return fray, which had also suddenly become as high-risk: the closest of the Georgian houses was away to his left, beyond the corner of the wall, with its manicured box hedge and holly tree, and its owner's wife's big silver Volvo Estate outside; but could he really knock at the door, and say:
'
One of them was moving left, round the Green. And the little fat one was advancing across the grass, towards him—
He did know someone in Lower Buckland: the old priest, in his long black cassock — the Vicar? the Rector? — had spoken to him. And the church was right behind him — and the Vicarage — Rectory? — was just somewhere behind that, through the churchyard: he had glimpsed it round the back
— and the priest himself had indicated it at the end of their encounter, after he'd pronounced on the Fitzgibbons, beneath their stone in his churchyard, and very lovingly —
With Check Sports Jacket and Grey Suit converging on him purposefully, the thought of knocking on strange doors and seeking safety no longer embarrassed him: it was no longer a question of feeling foolish, but of
menacingly thickset and powerful at close range) had already reached the furthest end of the churchyard wall, not far from the lych-gate in it.
Ian ducked under the overhanging yew-tree branches and sprang on to the top of the wall with an agility which surprised him — it was as though his arms and legs, once released from their brain's indecision, knew damn well what to do when it came to physical self-preservation —
He landed awkwardly in a pile of grass-cuttings, but the arms adjusted his balance and the legs kicked strongly, launching him out and away at immediate top-speed among the gravestones. At the same time, nevertheless, his brain cautioned him that perhaps even now he was piling up mistake on mistake: back there, on the edge of the Village Green, he had at least been out in the open, where there might have been watching eyes in the houses on its other three sides to see whatever might have happened next. But here, among the stones —
and no one the wiser: this might even be where Check Jacket and Grey Suit had been quite deliberately driving him —
He jinked round an ancient weathered gravestone, and skidded to a halt, steadying himself on its finial, the gritty surface of which sandpapered his hand —
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A grinning skull-and-crossbones, spattered with yellow-grey splodges of lichen, mocked him:
They were both almost inside the churchyard now, so there was no question that he had been imagining persecution where there was none: he was their target, whatever their final intention — and, with this obscene confidence of theirs, half-hurrying, half wnhurrying, he wasn't going to wait to find out what might be on their minds, in this too-private graveyard.
He pushed himself away from George Wellbeloved's stone, twisting on one heel in the soft rough-cut grass, and took three strides. And stopped.
He swayed, beginning to half-turn. And then stopped the turn as its purpose became irrelevant: he knew what was behind him, because he had assessed it only a moment before. So now he knew what it was in front of him — and understood why Check Coat and Grey Suit had been so confident.
To Check Coat and Grey Suit he added
himself so clever, and so lucky. Or ... or, if he'd taken poor old Reg more seriously, maybe — ?
But now he was caught, anyway. And caught finally and more obviously than before, and quite unarguably. Because, where Check Coat and Grey Suit concealed their weapons, Combat Jacket carried his own openly — openly, albeit casually, in the crook of his arm. But then, in Lower Buckland on a wet September evening, a shotgun was as good as a Kalashnikov and more easily explained.
He straightened up, accepting the inevitable even as he tried to reject it as something which didn't happen in real life, to ordinary people.
Or...
Or ...
Combat Jacket straightened up, too. But, as he did so, his free left hand came up, to steady the shot-gun even as his casual right hand slid back to slip its trigger-finger into position.
'Hullo there!' Combat Jacket smiled at him, even as the double-barrels swung from their safe downwards-point into the shooter's-readiness position, for the clay pigeon, or the rabbit, or whatever sport was in prospect — whatever game: feathers-and-two legs, fur-and-four-legs — or
This time his legs betrayed him: he wanted them to run, but his knees had thrown in the towel, and it was all he could do dummy2
to stop them buckling, to bring him down to grass-level.
'Mr Ian Robinson, I believe?' The gun was coming up.
And Combat Jacket was smiling psychopathically, with enjoyment —
Ian closed his eyes. There would be a terrible impact. And then there would be ... whatever there was after that: probably pain, until communications broke down; but that wouldn't take long, with a shot-gun at five yards. And then . . .
Nothing happened.
Or perhaps time was standing still for him, in his last second of it?
Only, time
He breathed out and opened his eyes again simultaneously, to find that there was no one in front of him any longer: there were only the greens and greys of the churchyard, swimming slightly for an instant and then coming sharply into focus as he blinked the sweat away.
another eye-blink, as he remembered that the man with the gun had called him by his name.
He turned round clumsily, grasping at the nearest gravestone for support as his legs threatened again to give way under him, making him stagger slightly.
Combat Jacket was still in the churchyard, but was way past him now, up by the wall midway between the yew-tree and lych-gate and staring out across the Village Green, shot-gun still at the ready. For the moment he seemed quite uninterested in Ian.
But . . . '
Check Coat and Grey Suit — but where were they now — ?
Combat Jacket turned towards him suddenly, beckoning him.
There was no arguing with the invitation. If there had been a moment to run, and continue running, it was past now. And, anyway, the weakness in his legs dismissed the very idea as ridiculous, never mind that shot-gun in the man's hands.
The rough-cut churchyard grass was soft and springy under his feet, and there was a different cross-section of memorials to the long-dead inhabitants of Lower Buck-land all around him. But he only had eyes for Combat Jacket now, as he dummy2
approached the man.
Combat Jacket was no longer smiling (and maybe he'd never been smiling: maybe that smile had been inside his own imagination?).
'Well, I think they've gone.' Combat Jacket nodded at him, then re-checked the Village Green, and then returned to him.
'They've gone?' Ian's husky repetition of the words betrayed him. But . . . Combat Jacket was fortyish, for the record: young-fortyish, but a little haggard; brown hair, short-cut but well-cut; brown eyes, regular features ... the sort of man, if he'd been ten years older, whom Jenny might have looked twice at, once he'd acquired a touch of grey (older men, not younger, were Jenny's preference — ) —
But he mustn't do that!
'Didn't you hear the car?' Combat Jacket was studying him just as carefully.
'No.' It was just possible that this man had saved his life. But, if he had done so, he had only been obeying orders, just like that Syrian major in Beirut. And it was Jenny who mattered now — and Jenny's orders. So he must keep his head and not let foolish sentiment get in the way of necessity. 'Who are you?'
'My name is Mitchell. Paul Mitchell — ' Mitchell-Paul-Mitchell took another look over the churchyard wall: dummy2
whatever Mitchell-Paul-Mitchell was, and
But now, I think it's time for us to go, too.'
That was curiously interesting. Because a few years back (and after Jenny had vetoed the idea of it, in preference for the more saleable Middle East) he had proposed a book on that anniversary of King Louis' expulsion of his Protestants, which had given England the Bank of England and Laurence Olivier; and Paul Revere to the United States.
But that was all also quite ridiculously beside the point now: the point was ... he had to get to Abdul the Damned's Tandoori Restaurant. And to Jenny.
But the point also was that he mustn't seem to eager —
however desperate he felt. So he must ignore the more important second statement in preference for the first. 'You wished he hadn't, Mr Mitchell? Why was that?'
Mitchell raised an eyebrow. 'You are a cool one, aren't you!'
Then a hint of that original not-smile returned. 'But then, of course, you
Mitchell was Intelligence, not Special Branch: it might be MI5 (it could hardly be MI6) but it was one or the other, to know so much . . . even though he'd got it quite pathetically dummy2
wrong, about the coolness. But he mustn't spoil the illusion.
'Oh — ?'
'I wondered why you didn't duck down behind the nearest convenient cover!' Mitchell nodded. 'But, of course . . . you weren't surprised, were you?'
He had to get away from this total misreading of events. 'You seem to know a lot about me, Mr Mitchell.'
'I know all about you, Mr Robinson: Miss Fielding-ffulke asks the questions, and has the contacts, and negotiates the deals . . . and you sort out the sheep from the goats she brings you, and write the actual books. You are the brains, and she is the brawn . . . unlikely as that may seem.' Mitchell took another look over the churchyard wall. 'Shall we go, then?'
With Mitchell here beside him he was physically safe; that shot-gun, if not Mitchell himself, proclaimed that. So, with this
Mitchell cocked his head. 'Are you going to be difficult? After what has just happened — ?' Again he looked towards the Village Green. 'I think they've gone . . . But let's not push our luck — eh?'
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Because Mitchell wasn't happy, Ian began to feel unhappy.
'But I still don't know who you are, Mr Mitchell — any more than I know who
'But you ran away from them?' Mitchell's mouth twisted.
'You are being difficult — '
'Not difficult — ' Actually,
Mitchell stared at him for a moment, as though deceived by that partial honesty. 'You don't know him? Well. . . maybe you don't at that! But. . . you ran like a rabbit, across the Green — ?' The moment of credulity faded into suspicion.
'Oh — come on, Mr Robinson! I've just gone through a very bad time on your behalf: this isn't when you should be playing silly games with me, for God's sake!' He lifted the shot-gun meaningfully across his chest — and then broke it, thrusting it towards Ian. 'See — ?'
What Ian saw was that the man's face was breaking up as he offered the gun for inspection, the mouth twisting bitterly.
'Empty.' Mitchell pushed the gun closer. 'See!'
Ian had to look at it.
'Okay?' Mitchell snapped the shot-gun together again.
'Father John — Father John whom you've met ... he
That was indeed what Ian had seen: the twin-chambers of the shot-gun had been just like the muzzles which he had dummy2
imagined he'd faced, both black empty circles —
Mitchell nodded. 'I've just pointed an unloaded gun at Paddy MacManus for you, Mr Robinson. And that means that you owe me far more than you can ever repay: I got you one of your nine lives back — but we've
The empty shot-gun unmanned Ian. He didn't know who the hell 'Paddy MacManus' might be; but
He followed Combat Jacket towards the lych-gate.
'My car's across the Green, Mr Mitchell — ' he began. Was it going to be as easy as that, though?
'We're not taking your car.' Mitchell pointed towards the Volvo. 'You come with me.'
He was still following Combat-Jacket-Mitchell-Paul-Mitchell.
But his Rover Vitesse was as much his pride-and-joy as Philip Masson's Folkboat
'I'll send someone for it. If they followed you here, then they've bugged it. So we'll
Mitchell remotely unlocked his big silver Volvo. 'And we'll go out the opposite way — just in case?'
dummy2
They had followed him here. In fact,
'How did you follow me here?' He still didn't really know who
'You were easy.' The Volvo rolled forward smoothly. 'At least, after Rickmansworth, you were easy.' The Volvo circled the peaceful square of grass. 'This way's longer . . . but, just in case . . . we'll go the longer way, I think.'
They passed the post office side-road, and then the side-road in which his own abandoned pride-and-joy lay. And then accelerated.
'What did Father John say to you, when you met him in the churchyard?' Mitchell pre-empted his next question as they began to climb the other side of Lower Buckland's peaceful valley, in which no one had just been killed.
'Father John' must be the old priest whom he'd met, and thought himself so lucky to meet: 'Father John', in his long black cassock, High Anglican and old — old Father John, and old black cassock, as he'd thought . . . But now he had to think of Father John as part of the deception of
'
nowhere, so it had seemed to him.)
"
'
'smasher' of Gary Redwood . . . and maybe the long-lost, never-born daughter of Mrs Champeney-Smythe — but who, in reality? Only, whatever she had been,
(And that tell-tale concentration on Marilyn/Frances had warned him off her, as Father John had looked at him.) '
(Father John had nodded then, understandingly. '
'
He caught a last glimpse of the church far below, and it dummy2
brought back a memory of the look on the old priest's face then, which had said it all even before Father John confirmed what he himself already knew. But it hadn't been the moment to press for more, he had judged.
Or had it been that he had no heart then for more of his own lies? Not where Mrs Frances Fitzgibbon was concerned — ?
The car jolted over a pothole as they left the valley behind.
'I was easy?' He knew so much about Frances — and yet he knew nothing really. But it was this man Mitchell who mattered now. 'After Rickmansworth? Why then?'
'When you came out of that old woman's house — that boarding house . . . you looked like the cat who'd found the cream, Mr Robinson.' Mitchell frowned at him quickly. 'So then I knew where you were going. But how the blazes did she know where to send you, though? Frances — Mrs Fitzgibbon . . . certainly didn't tell her. And I cleaned that place out myself, just in case.' He frowned at Ian again, but this time with all the underlying arrogance of a man unused to making mistakes.
'So you were the "brother".' It was good to prick that arrogance. And it was also good when things fitted so glove-like: Mitchell had been to Lower Buckland before — and often, surely, to be on shot-gun-borrowing terms with the old priest. But . . . why did it hurt to think of Mitchell knowing Frances Fitzgibbon so well that her Christian name came to dummy2
him first? 'But . . . who are you, Mr Mitchell? And
Another question occurred to Ian, rather belatedly in view of its importance. 'Where are we going?'
This time the man grinned. 'To meet Miss Fielding-ffulke —
right?'
That was a nasty piece of logic. 'Why should I want to do that?'
'Oh, come on, Mr Robinson! You've got a lot to tell her. And she's probably got a lot to tell you. Plus what Messrs Tully and Buller have rooted out of the dirt.' The grin faded. 'And now we both need to see her rather urgently don't you think, eh?'
The man didn't know about Reg Buller. But then how—?
'Come on, man!' Mitchell lost some of his cool. Those friends of yours back there — they went away smartly enough when they saw me. But that was only because I wasn't expected, and MacManus doesn't like the unexpected — not when it's a gun pointing at him. He didn't want a shoot-out, he was just paid for
It was simple, really: Combat Jacket had been the unexpected for Check Coat and Grey Suit. But Check Coat dummy2
and Grey Suit had also been the unexpected for Combat Jacket: the borrowed shot-gun, the
'What are you, Mr Mitchell? Special Branch? Or Security?'
Ian saw a motorway sign ahead, offering them London or the West.
'I'm the man who's just lost one of his nine lives on your behalf, Mr Ian Robinson.' Mitchell fumbled in his pocket.
'Which way? London, I presume?'
Away in the gathering murk ahead of them Ian saw innumerable rushing headlights on the M25. Which way?
'It could be a forgery, of course.' Mitchell waited as Ian studied the identification folder. It didn't tell him much more than he'd already guessed, and he'd seen others like it. 'But then ... if it was, you could already be dead, Mr Robinson.
Because, by asking all those clever questions of yours, about Philip Masson and David Audley, you seem to have raised the Devil himself between you. Only it seems that the Devil wants you, instead of David, doesn't he?'
They were approaching the slip roads' junction.
'London — yes,' said Ian.
6
Ian could never penetrate the labyrinth of Islington without remembering the Monopoly game he had been given on his dummy2
eighth birthday, and his father, whose present it had been: Dad had been nutty about place-names (among so many other things), and
—
'
'
And a sad-sweet memory of Mum and Dad followed on from that: they had never seen his smart Hampstead flat, or his Vitesse (still parked in Lower Buckland). But, in any case, Dad would have enjoyed his reference library more, and Mum would have loved meeting Lady Fielding-ffulke and the Honourable Jennifer, however much they would also have terrified her.
But now —
But now —
'Am I all right — ?' Mitchell poked his head out of the driver's window.
'You've got another two feet — left hand down — right!' There were people here, whom he could see — unlike those he hadn't seen in Lower Buckland, even when they'd been there; but he had to trust Mitchell's confidence in their safety, just as Mitchell was trusting him. 'Steady!'
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'Phew!' Mitchell locked the car, and then turned on its burglar-alarm. 'Bloody great big tank!' He grinned at Ian.
'Not mine, you understand? But marvellously unobtrusive in the commuter belt —
He didn't want to like Paul Mitchell, for all that they seemed to have Mrs Frances Fitzgibbon in common. But there was something in the man which called out to him, which he couldn't add up, but which came to him across their conflicting interests. And it wasn't just that Mitchell had saved his life — indeed, it wasn't that at all; because that had been duty, so that counted for nothing. But . . . there
'There's a phone inside, Mr Mitchell.' He indicated Abdul's restaurant.
'Uh-huh?' The street received another up-and-down look.
'You call me "Paul", and I'll call you "Ian" — remember?'
Mitchell came back to him. 'If we're on Christian name terms we can exchange home-truths without insulting each other, I always think: "Fuck-off, Paul" is so much more friendly than dummy2
"No, Mr Mitchell" — eh?' The dark-blue lips curled fiendishly. 'Okay, Ian?'
The curry-smell recalled the street outside Mrs Champeney-Smythe's boarding-house too vividly for him to return the devilish grin. And Mitchell didn't wait for his agreement, in any case.
Then the smell engulfed him, as he opened the door.
And there was little Mr Malik himself, smiling with his own infectious humour and balanced on the balls of his feet like a boxer waiting for him.
'
The two waiters were already peeling off their white coats, and Mr Malik's gorgeous sister reached under her cash-till to produce two dark windcheaters: when Mr Malik had first launched his business in this tough area there had been several episodes of 'damn trouble', Ian recalled. But Mr Malik had dealt with his problems in a manner which the locals understood and appreciated, without recourse to the forces of law ajid order. So all was peaceful in Cody Street.
'No, Mr Malik — !' The thought of Paul Mitchell having a final snoop outside, and encountering the grinning six-foot dummy2
'little brother' in the process, hit him as the little brother slipped a cosh down his sleeve. 'No!'
'Oh yes, Mr Robinson!' Mr Malik waved him down. 'Miss Jenny says we take damn-good precaution — those are her orders, Mr Robinson.' He carried the wave on to his Search-and-Destroy squad. 'You go!'
'No. I have a friend out there — in the phone-box across the road, Mr Malik — ' In desperation, Ian skipped sideways to block the doorway. When Jenny issued orders, men always jumped. But these two looked like men who had had a boring day up to now.
'A friend?' Mr Malik seemed surprised that Ian had any friends. But he snapped his fingers, and the squad froze.
'But ... we have a telephone, Mr Robinson. And Miss Jenny says to look.'
'Yes.' Jenny really was running scared, to give such orders.
But, then, she was damn-right to run scared! 'My friend didn't want to impose on you. Is the phone okay, out there
— ?'
'Okay?' Mr Malik drew himself up to his full five-foot-five.
'Mr Robinson ... we have no trouble in Cody Street — no damn trouble, sir.' He nodded towards his little brother.
'When Mr Robinson's friend finish his call, you bring him in.
And then you take a damn-good look, like I said — okay?' He amended his cold-hard look of Absolute Monarchy to its original friendliness as he brought it back to Ian. 'Now I take you to Miss Jenny, sir — please?'
dummy2
Ian followed the little man down the length of the Taj Mahal, between tables which were already crowded in mid-evening, and with people who acknowledged Mr Malik, and whom he in turn acknowledged with matching esteem, until they reached the curtained stairway at the end.
Mr Malik held the curtain for him. But then touched his arm, arresting his progress.
'All my regulars, this evening, Mr Robinson — all known to me, you understand?' He looked up at Ian and tapped his nose. 'Okay?'
'Yes — ?' The trouble was, he understood all too well.
'Yes. No strangers out there.' Nod. 'And ... all the damn tables taken tonight — until Miss Jenny leaves.' He grinned suddenly. 'Except regulars, that my sister knows —
'Yes.' That wasn't a night easily forgotten: it had been the crowning event of the Taj Mahal's first week — very nearly literally — when the obstreperous drunk had jostled the waiter, and the soup had been spilt, and the drunk had moved to crown the waiter with a handy bottle of Malvern Water, and little Mr Malik (not yet
'
'
"
'
'
'
'
But Mr Malik was grinning at him. 'No problem this evening, Mr Robinson — no damn-soup, eh?' The grin almost split his face in two. 'You go see Miss Jenny — second door left, Shah Jehan Room. And I bring up your friend pretty soon. And no damn strangers.'
Ian did his best to return the grin, while trying not to imagine what might occur if Mitchell's confidence was misplaced, and Abdul's retainers encountered this afternoon's hit squad.
Thank you, Mr Malik.' What unmanned him, as he kept the false grin in place over his shoulder, was that there was no dummy2
limit to his imagination after this afternoon, this evening.
But then there was a limit to how much he could worry about, he discovered.
The Shah Jehan Room was to the left — one of the special private dining rooms, of course . . . next to the Mumtaz Mahal Room — Mumtaz, for whom all the wonder of the original Taj had been created . . . and now strangely celebrated in innumerable restaurants and take-aways long after the Mogul emperors and their British conquerors had receded into history.
'Jenny!' The room was dim, and disturbingly scented, after the relatively greater half-light of the corridor and the dominating curry-smell which had followed him up the stairs. 'Jenny— ?'
'Well! You took your time, I must say!'
'Yes — I'm sorry, Jen.' Coming out from behind the silken hangings, she should have been dressed to match, with jewellery and a bare midriff; but, as she was, her voice went with her old sweater and the jeans. 'I was held up.'
'Held up? You said an hour, for God's sake!' She took an inexpert puff from her cigarette, and then stubbed it out; and then picked up the glass by the ashtray, and drained it; and Jenny drinking was nothing unusual but Jenny smoking was demoralizing. 'What held you up, for God's sake? I've been worrying myself stiff.'
'
her, and if things hadn't been so serious this might have been one of them. Besides which Mitchell had said he wouldn't be long, so there was no time for recrimination. 'What happened to Reg Buller?'
'He's dead — I told you.' She took herself and her glass over to the well-stocked bar in the canopied alcove. 'And we killed him.' She filled the glass. 'Or, to be strictly accurate,
She wasn't scared anymore — or, if she ever had been, she wasn't now. But if this was Dutch courage as well as self-pity, they were in more trouble now, with Mitchell coming.
'Don't worry — it's only Abdul's most innocuous plonk, which is practically alcohol-free.' She could hardly have read his expression in the subdued light, but she always read his silences. 'And I've spiked it with soda water. So I'm not pissed, Ian darling — or ... what was it old Reg used to say, when he'd been on a bender — ? "Crapulated", was it? No —
"
She
'It's all right, Jenny.' He took the bottle from her and put his arms around her, brotherly-sisterly, thinking
'It's all right, Jen.'
She held him tighter. 'Oh Ian — it isn't all right — it's all
'You haven't done anything.' What mattered was what they were going to do. And with Jenny so completely out of character he realized how much he normally depended on her to answer that question. So he had to straighten her out first — and quickly. 'Whatever's happened, Reg was just as keen to work on this as you were — he was dead-keen — ' he grimaced at the wall behind her as he heard his gaffe, and pushed on hurriedly ' — and so was John Tully — ' he unwrapped her gently: however much he wanted to know about Reg Buller, that would have to wait (and Tully was more important now, anyway!) ' — where is John, Jenny?
Have you been able to get through to him yet?'
'No.' She blinked at him. 'No, I haven't. And . . . and we can't, I mean.'
Stupid, again: she had said something about the police on the phone, and he had automatically assumed their progression from a dead Reg Duller to a live John Tully, and then had clean forgotten that in the press of events.
'But, Ian — '
'No.' Even Tully wasn't the most important thing now.
dummy2
'Listen, Jen: there's someone coming to see us — here — ' He tried to keep one ear cocked for the sound of Mitchell on the stair as he spoke, against the sound of his own voice and the faint restaurant hubbub from below ' — any second now.'
'Someone?' Her eyes widened momentarily, and then narrowed. '
'Just listen. I went to Rickmansworth today, to check up on the girl — the one who was killed up north, just before Masson disappeared — '
'Yes, I know. John told me you and Reg were off on some wild goose chase somewhere.' She nodded. 'Marilyn-something — ?'
'It wasn't a wild goose chase.'
'Francis — Marilyn Francis.' The nod became contemptuous.
'A typist.'
'Audley was there when she was killed.' She was irritated with him for acting on his own initiative, but he was also angry with her now: angry because she had closed her mind prematurely (which was unlike her) . . . but also angry at her dismissive contempt for Frances Fitzgibbon. 'I thought it was Audley we were after — isn't it?'
'It is.' From below him she somehow managed to look down on him. 'But, according to John yesterday — and John hasn't been wild-goose-chasing — Audley only got back from the States the day they shot that IRA man. And it's Audley and Philip Masson we're interested in, not Audley and Marilyn dummy2
Thingummy-jig, or Marilyn Monroe, or any other Marilyn.
You can put her in as a footnote, if you like — one of Audley's field-work casualties . . . But Philly Masson was top-brass, and nothing to do with field-work: Philly was going to be Audley's new boss, if he'd lived —
'But Philly died, of course.'
'And so has Reg Buller, Jenny.' Almost, she had weakened his confidence with her Tully-Fielding heart-of-the-matter intelligence safely garnered while he'd been skirmishing so dangerously in Rickmansworth and Lower Buckland. But the ghost of Reg Buller shook his head at him —
'What — ?' Without any matching distraction, she had taken in every word after he had hit her below the belt with
He strained his ear into a sudden unnatural silence: even the pots and pans in the busy kitchen below them seemed to have stopped clattering, and the whole of Dad's ancient dummy2
'Two men came after me, Jen. At least, I think they did —'
In the stretched seconds during which the door opened, Jenny came back from it to him, with an angry expression he was glad he couldn't see clearly.
'Hullo there! Ian — ?' Mitchell saw Ian first, and smiled hesitantly at him; then took in Jenny, holding the smile in place; and then swung round, away from them both. 'Thank you, gentlemen — for your help . . .' The smile began to droop as he got it back to Ian. 'I'd be obliged if you'd tell the Indian Army out here that I'm friendly. Because they're beginning to frighten me.' He opened the door wider, to reveal Mr Malik's fearsome brother at his shoulder and the equally terrifying cousin at his other side.
Ian nodded at them. 'Thank you, gentlemen.'
Mr Malik's brother stood to attention. 'You want anything, sir — you just ring.'
'Phew!' Mitchell closed the door with evident relief. 'They dummy2
were waiting for me outside the phone-box. I thought they were going to mug me. Then one of them mentioned your name . . . But he still looked as though he'd rather thump me
— even after I'd told him I was a friend of yours.'
'And are you a friend of ours?' Jenny had recovered her glass but not her temper, from the cold hostility in her voice. 'Mr Mitchell, is it — ?'
'I beg your pardon?' Mitchell smiled at her uneasily. 'Miss Fielding-ffulke, I presume?'
'Plain "Fielding" will do, Mr Mitchell.'
'Not "plain", Miss Fielding. And my friends call me Paul.
That being my name.'
'Is that so? And we are friends?'
'I would have thought so — yes. I'm undoubtedly
'But I already have friends, Mr Mitchell. Lots of them. And in high places, too.'
'Ah . . . yes.' Somehow, as Jenny had become less angry and more confident, Mitchell seemed to have become the opposite. 'But now you may need one in a low place, perhaps
— don't you think?'
'Meaning you, Mr Mitchell?'
'Meaning me, Miss Fielding.' Mitchell gave Ian a slightly puzzled glance.
dummy2
'But I really don't know you, Mr Mitchell. I don't know who you are. And I don't know what you do.'
Mitchell's head inclined slightly, as though from weariness.
'Oh, come on, Miss Fielding — I know I was only away for five minutes. But I can't believe that you've been discussing the menu with Ian here. Or the weather. Or your last joint royalty statement. Or ... even your next advance, on the book you're planning to write.'
'How d'you know we're planning to write a book?' Jenny knew she was winning.
'Isn't that what you do?' By the same token, Mitchell seemed to think that he was losing. 'You dig the dirt . . . or should I say pan the gold — ?'
For the first time, Jenny smiled at Mitchell. But not sweetly.
'Isn't that where gold is found — in dirt? But we don't make the dirt, Mr Mitchell. People like you do that. We merely
Because that is what we do. So what?'
'Unless someone stops you.'
'Stops us? Who's going to stop us?' Jenny seemed delighted that he'd picked up her gauntlet so quickly (Ian felt the metaphor shift from gold-mining to single combat: and that would please her, of course!). 'Not you — you're a friend of ours, you said.'
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'Not me, no.' Mitchell nodded towards Ian. 'He does the writing, doesn't he? And someone damn nearly wrote "The End" to his book this afternoon, Miss Fielding. Ask him if you don't believe me.'
'I see.' She didn't even look at Ian. 'Would you like a drink, Mr Mitchell?'
Thank you.' Mitchell didn't relax. 'I would like a drink — yes.'
He watched her pour a generous glass of Mr Malik's plonk.
'So you're just here to frighten us — is that it?' She thrust the glass at him, spilling it as usual in the process.
'Am I?' Mitchell drank thirstily, swallowing and then making a face. 'I think you ought to be frightened.'
'But you don't mind us writing, though? And publishing — ?'
Mitchell considered the question and the wine together, and neither seemed to his taste. 'It all depends on what you write, I suppose.' But he drank, nevertheless.
'Usually we settle for the truth, Mr Mitchell. Our lawyers find that less complicated to defend.' Jenny watched the man drink again. 'And we try not to be too economical with it.'
'Then, you've been fortunate to find such a lot of it. I've always found it somewhat elusive, myself.'
'Like gold?' Her mock innocence was transparent. 'Another drink — ?'
'Sometimes like fool's gold, Miss Fielding. And even the real stuff . . . since we're into metaphor again ... it can be just like a little knowledge — dangerous.' He nodded towards Ian as dummy2
he presented his glass. 'As Ian here surely must have told you
— thank you ... I can't really believe that you haven't told Miss Fielding about our adventures of this afternoon.' Then he frowned slightly over his glass at Jenny. 'Or has she had even more traumatic adventures of her own, maybe — ?'
Ian felt himself frowning. The man was fishing, unashamedly. But he was also behaving as though he still didn't know about Reg Buller. So ... who the devil had he been phoning from the box outside, who also didn't know?
Could Intelligence really be so uninformed — so downright incompetent — ?
'Only very briefly.' The voice inside his head giving the obvious answer seemed louder than his own voice.
'Yes. Too briefly.' Jenny followed him up quickly. 'So perhaps you would elaborate on what Ian said, Mr Mitchell. As a friend?'
'Ah . . .' Mitchell acknowledged the turning of the tables on him with the ghost of a smile. 'What did you tell her, Ian? No point in repeating ... the truth, eh?'
'He thought you might have saved his life, that's all.' Jenny refused to give up her advantage.
'All?' Mitchell sounded a little pained. That seems quite a lot to me.'
'He wasn't sure it was what you did, though. Maybe not the truth?'
'Oh, it is — I did. And rather heroically too, I thought. Or, as dummy2
some might say — foolishly?' He shook his head at Ian. 'You didn't tell her about Father John's gun — ?'
'He did not.' To her credit Jenny resisted this irresistible red herring. But then weakened. 'There were two men — ?'
'Ah? So he did say more!' But then Mitchell weakened in turn. 'Actually, there were three — '
Three?' Since no one had offered him a drink, Ian had been heading for the alcove. But the number stopped him in his tracks.
Three, including me.' Mitchell took his nod from Ian back to Jenny. 'We were all following him. But I was . . .' He shrugged.
'The cleverest?' Jenny put her knife in with a sweetly inquiring smile.
'Undoubtedly — and fortunately.' Mitchell considered the proposition seriously for a moment before continuing. 'But I was actually going to say "better informed". So I got to Lower Buckland ahead of everyone else, from Rickmansworth.
There's a little back road — '
'Why were you following him?' More red herrings bit the dust.
Mitchell frowned. 'Why — to see where he was going, Miss Fielding. Why else would I follow him?' Then he shook his head. 'I'm sorry — '
'Sorry?' Jenny had been about to snap at him. 'Why?'
'Yes. It was a silly answer.' He half-smiled at her. ' "Why did dummy2
the chicken cross the road?" — "To get to the other side" . . .
But we're past the childish Christmas-cracker jokes, I think.
And . . . the chicken had other reasons, of course.' Mitchell twisted the smile downwards. 'But the joke was certainly on this chicken, Miss Fielding: I had no idea how dangerous the road was going to be. And
Then he lifted his empty glass. 'Could I have a proper drink, please? Like whisky, say?'
Jenny stared at the man for a moment, almost as though she was seeing him properly for the first time, before taking the glass and turning to the alcove. And Ian felt himself sharing the instant, and also seeing more clearly what he had glimpsed before: that, whatever and whoever he was, Mitchell was also flesh-and-blood, and no superman; and that in Lower Buckland they had both of them come upon their own life-and-death, equally unexpectedly. And that was certainly no joke.
'I think Jenny meant . . . how did you get on to us?'
That was a fair question, with a useful answer — if Mitchell was so foolish as to give it. But also, after this afternoon and what he'd just thought, he felt obligated to Mitchell.
'Is that what she meant?'
'What?' Jenny looked from one to the other suspiciously as she handed him a new glass.
Thank you.' Mitchell drank a little of his whisky. 'Well, if I may answer you with an ancient truth . . . "
Jenny squared up to him. 'What the hell is that meant to mean, Mr Mitchell?'
Mitchell looked at her for an instant. 'I mean ... at least, I think I mean . . . that if you ask particular questions ... of
Then he smiled at Jenny. 'And we don't want any harm to come to you, of course.'
The square shoulders lifted, as Jenny took a deep breath.
'We're talking about Philip Masson — and David Audley, of course.' Having been offered an olive branch, the Honourable Miss Jennifer Fielding-ffulke hit Mitchell in the face with it.
'Or is this another Christmas-cracker joke?'
Ian saw Paul Mitchell flinch as the branch slashed him — just as the Syrian major in Beirut had done, when he'd been expecting gratitude and had received the rough side of her tongue instead; the only difference was that the Major had saved her life, whereas Paul Mitchell had only saved
'Jenny! For heaven's sake!' He saw Mitchell unflinching. But that didn't blot out Major Asad's pilgrim's progress from incredulity to bitterness, which had soured their comradeship into contempt at the last. '
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'No, Ian.' Jenny shook her head obstinately. 'Don't be wet.
He's starting to bull-shit us now.'
'No I'm not.' Mitchell's jaw tightened. 'You asked me why I followed Ian. I followed him because
'Meaning Audley?'
'So I drew the short straw. Meaning Ian here. Fortunately.'
Mitchell ignored the latest question. 'Because it would seem that you actually flushed out someone else from the undergrowth with your questions — someone who really doesn't want
Jenny licked her upper lip, and a trick of the light revealed to Ian that there were beads of sweat above it. Which, since she knew about Reg Buller, was fair enough: whether Mitchell knew as much or not, those last words of his had hit her where it hurt.
Then she resisted the blow. These other two men — the ones who followed you, Ian — ' but she wasn't interested in him: it was Mitchell she was looking at ' — you know them — ?'
'I knew one of them.' Mitchell frowned at him. 'God! You really didn't tell her much, did you?' He shook his head. 'Yes, dummy2
Miss Fielding — Jenny: I
Jenny breathed out, as though she'd been holding her breath.
'He works for — ? The IRA?'
'No. At least, not any more.' Mitchelr shook his head, almost regretfully. 'He's privatized himself: he's strictly a contract man now — that I do know . . . I'm really rather out of that dummy2
scene, in so far as I was ever into it.' He shrugged. 'I'm more like Ian here — a writer. I arrange other men's flowers, is what I mostly do now.' He turned to Ian. 'A much underrated job, not to say unglamorous. But very necessary. And also agreeably safe.'
'I see.' Jenny moved quickly, as though to discourage any idea of writers' solidarity. 'So you work for Research and Development, now?'
The unexpected question caught Writer Mitchell unprepared, in the midst of offering Ian false friendly sympathy, freezing his smile. 'I beg your pardon, Miss Fielding? I work for — ?'
'Jack Butler.' Having achieved her desired effect, Jenny herself brightened into innocent friendliness in her turn. 'Sir James . . . but always
Paul Mitchell's desperately-maintained smile warned Ian to attend to his own expression. But neither of them was looking at him, they were concerned only in each other.
'
Daddy's quite
or Jane?'
In the car Mitchell had wondered what she'd been up to, dummy2
while they had been having their own adventures — and so had Ian himself; and, latterly, they'd worried more than that, each of them, as they'd progressed agonizingly through the evening traffic into London. But now they both knew.
'Jack Butler was in Korea, of course.' She nodded knowingly.
'Daddy never met him — not
— that his MC on that river there — where was it? But . . .
wherever it was . . . Daddy says it should have been a VC, anyway.' She turned the nod into a shake, and then returned the shake to Ian. 'It was only because Jack didn't get himself killed there that they gave him a
She came back to Mitchell. 'But, of course, you must know that, seeing as you work for him.'
She had the poor devil on her toasting fork now, thought Ian.
Sir Jack Butler might not have been quite as heroic as that, long ago, any more than he was 'charming' now, after having been so dull only yesterday (any more, too, than his three daughters might be 'enchanting' and — least likely of all —
that those legal advisers were 'adorable'). But, when all her calculated exaggerations had been stripped away, Mitchell remained spiked on the facts which he must know were accurate, and on the real possibility that her father knew Butler, even if she didn't.
'I do?' Mitchell had managed to get rid of the wreckage of his original smile. 'Do I?'
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'And, of course, that really answers our question, darling.'
Jenny gave Ian a brief nod. 'Jack wouldn't want anything nasty . . .' She trailed off as she turned back to Mitchell. 'But, then again, it doesn't quite . . . does it?'
In place of the smile, Mitchell's face was stamped with caution. 'It doesn't?'
'Mmmm . . .' Jenny eyed him thoughtfully. 'You are all rather elusive and mysterious, of course — in R amp; D . . . But, then, that's what you're paid to be, so one can't really
Jack's No. 2 ... I told you, didn't I, Ian darling — Oliver St John Latimer?'
"
'But positively the
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'Yes.' This time he was ready for her: the very mention of
'Arkenshaw', which was a uniquely-memorable name, had already alerted him. And the occasion itself had been memorable too, when Sir Thomas Arkenshaw, baronet, had descended on the embattled embassy in Beirut like the wrath of God: it had been Sir Thomas who had first made contact with Major Asad . . .
amp; D — ?' The answer seemed to beg the question.
'No, darling — not
— ?'
'What?' Mitchell wasn't nearly as ready. 'Tom — ?'
'Oh, come on! Now it's my turn!' Jenny had dropped enough names (which were probably all she had; but which she thought ought to be enough, evidently). 'I'll bet you were at Willy's wedding — weren't you, Paul?'
'Yes?' Suddenly Mitchell was certain. 'But you weren't.'
'No.
future contacts established. 'But. . . never mind Tom.
Because Willy Arkenshaw — Willy
Willy and I go back
Mitchell wilted slightly under this further avalanche of name-dropping — to
That was another worrying straw-in-the-wind of British Intelligence inefficiency, thought Ian: Mitchell's homework had included Beirut, but it was homework only half-done if Tom Arkenshaw now worked for R amp; D but hadn't been consulted about his memories of Fielding-ffulke amp; Robinson.
And that deplorable omission intruded into his own attempts to put faces to names:
and
'Yes, Beirut.' He heard his agreement come out as a growl, and tried, and failed to put a face to that other name, of someone he'd never seen and never would see now, in the flesh:
'Ian — ?' Mitchell was frowning at him suddenly. 'What's the matter?'
'Mr Mitchell — ' Jenny frowned also.
'Miss Fielding — pardon me — ' Mitchell cut her off without looking at her ' —
'Nothing.' He blinked at Mitchell, and felt foolish: this too-long day, with its surfeit of information — re-animated experience, and experiences . . . and new faces
'No.' Mitchell humiliated him further by seeming solicitous, as he had never done with Jenny. 'You look as if you've seen a ghost.' The next breath was worse than solicitous: it was understanding. 'But then, I suppose Beirut must have been pretty hairy, I guess!' He took the next breath to Jenny. 'You were both pretty damn lucky there, too.'
'No — ' Ian was all the angrier for not reacting more quickly.
There were other ghosts —
the living properly yet. (Or, anyway, Reg would be too busy now haunting his hundred favourite pubs, trying to catch a last sniff of beer and sending shivers up the spines of his best-loved barmaids as they remembered him across the bar, horrified by the evening paper headlines — )
'What?' Jenny sounded irritated: Jenny didn't believe in ghosts.
He faced Mitchell. 'Audley, Mr Mitchell — Audley?'
All the expression went out of the man's face: it was like watching a bigger wave wash away every footprint in the sand, leaving it smooth again.
'If you work for R amp; D, Mr Mitchell —
tell us about David Audley, then.'
Mitchell frowned. 'I'm sorry — ?'
'No.' Jenny reached out, almost touching Mitchell. 'Ian doesn't mean . . . tell us
'Because . . . obviously, you — can't do that, I mean.'
Mitchell shifted his position. 'No . . . Obviously, I can't do that.' He took them both in.
'Because he isn't even in England now, anyway.' Jenny added her total non-sequitur statement as though it explained what Mitchell had just said for Ian's benefit. 'He's on holiday, with his wife and daughter, at the moment, Ian darling — ' Then dummy2
she gave Mitchell her most dazzling smile ' — Spain, I gather
— ?'
Another wave washed across Mitchell's face. 'Spain?'
'From Parador to Parador!' She nodded, as though he'd admitted everything. 'Fuenterrabia, Santa Dominigo de la Calzada . . . which was next? Benavente, was it? And now the Enrique Two at Ciudad Rodrigo?' She took the nod to Ian.
'Paradors, darling — remember those lovely old state-owned hotels the Spaniards have?' Back to Mitchell. 'Paradors, Dr Mitchell — right?'
Mitchell stared at Jenny for a moment, and then seemed to relax, even as Ian realized that he'd just witnessed an event as rare as it was unfortunate:
'Hold on, now.' It was a long time since they'd worked together like this. But the old rules still held good, and they required him to cause a diversion. 'Jenny — how come I'm the only one without a drink?'
'Oh darling, I
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'Yes.'
As she turned away, he looked deliberately at Mitchell. But the man was staring at Jenny's back with unashamed calculation. So all that he had gained for her was a little time, no more. But the charade still had to be played. 'You can laugh.'
'I'm not laughing, my dear fellow.' Mitchell scorned his game.
'I was just thinking that . . . your associate has been busy . . .
while we've both been at the sharp end, eh?'
'There, darling!' She came back to him quickly — too quickly, with the froth from the badly-poured beer cascading over the top of the glass. 'One
'Busy' was an understatement, thought Ian, torn between admiration for her coverage of both Audley and Mitchell somehow — and in a working day which had also included the Reg Buller horror somewhere in it — and irritation with her for blowing the Mitchell part of it unnecessarily. 'Thank you.' On balance the admiration won.
'Spanish state-owned hotels — you were saying, Jenny?'
Mitchell showed his teeth.
'Yes.' She returned the compliment. 'So David Audley has fled the country for the time being, has he? But did he run?
Or was he pushed? That is the first question, Paul.' She cocked her head at him, dislodging some of her hair. 'But, of course, you won't answer that — can't answer that. Because that's a secret, isn't it "An
meaning of the Act. But then,
As she spoke, Ian had been drawn naturally to watch Mitchell, as she moved up the scale of challenges. And Mitchell was watching her very carefully, now that he had been warned.
'He sent postcards, didn't he?' He grimaced at her. But then he frowned. To Willy — ? But no ... Willy knows better than to tell you that.' All her more recent feints, and sharp-toothed threats, were calmly ignored in the search for an explanation for her special knowledge. 'So ... it would be —
and you're pretty, and you're smart . . . and Clarkie's old now, of course.' His expression hardened. There would have been dummy2
a time when you wouldn't have got through that door, Miss Fielding-ffulke: she'd have clobbered you with her rolling-pin first, I tell you!' Then he relaxed again, having betrayed himself momentarily . . . and perhaps not so deliberately this time. 'So ... it was the postcards, wasn't it — ? Fuentarrabia —
Santa Dominigo de la Calzada, Benevente, Ciudad Rodrigo?'
The man's certainty increased as he echoed the drum-roll of names. 'You really
Jenny smiled at Ian. 'Dr Audley has this ancient retainer darling ... his old nurse, I believe she is ... And she's a perfect sweetie.' She transferred the smile. 'Don't worry, Dr Mitchell: I didn't tell her that her "dear Mr David" was a murderer — it would have been too cruel.'
'And it would also have been wrong, Miss Fielding.'
'Wrong?' Her lip curled. 'He's not a murderer? Of course!'
'Of course.' He nodded, and then considered her for a moment. 'Do you always start your books with preconceived notions about the goodies and the baddies?' Then he shrugged. 'But there! I suppose that's the nature of investigative journalism these days: don't spoil a good story with inconvenient facts, by golly! "I name this bandwaggon
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'That's not true,' snapped Ian. 'We don't go about it like that.'
All the same, he didn't want to look at Jenny. 'If Audley isn't
— '
'He isn't.' Jenny interrupted him quickly, but coolly. 'Then he's been quite remarkably accident-prone in his long career.
Or ... other people around him have been, wouldn't you say, Dr Mitchell?'
Mitchell looked at his watch. 'What I would say, Miss Fielding-ffulke, is that . . . now that we've met at last. . . is that I have more work to do this night. So I must leave you temporarily, I fear.'
'Temporarily?' The breath she drew belied her coolness.
'But . . . you were just getting interesting, Dr Mitchell.' The repeated
'I'm always interesting, Miss Fielding-ffulke. But, what I mean is ... it's my duty to protect you, so that you can traduce me in print in due course — if you can find a publisher — if
— ?' This time it was Mitchell's lip which curled. 'But, of course, you have found one —
yes!' The lips straightened and tightened. 'But you can't stay here, is what I mean. You need a safe house — a very safe house, as of Paddy MacManus's appearance on the scene, I'd say.' This time he lingered on Ian. 'Because he's still got his dummy2
fee to earn, as I told you.'
'Paddy — ?' Check Coat's name was suddenly like a lump in Ian's throat, which had to be swallowed as he thought of Check Coat out there somewhere in the gathering dark of a London night. So he swallowed the lump. 'Still — ?'
'You'd better believe it.' Mitchell nodded. 'It's just like your books, Ian: fifty per cent advance on signature of contract —
is that it, for you? And then the rest on publication?' He paused to let the terms sink in. 'Which, in this case, will be the publication of your obituary. And failure to deliver, after signature, is bad for business — right?'
Ian looked at Jenny, and caught her drawing in her breath.
'We're safe here, Dr Mitchell.' She deflated with the words.
'You're not safe anywhere, Miss Fielding-ffulke.' Mitchell's voice grated on his reply. 'What you don't seem to understand is that you're in the big league now, Miss Fielding-ffulke: you're not just messing with old fuddy-duddy British Intelligence — not with chaps like me, who've got so shit-scared of their own shadows, in case they step out of line, that they swan off without protection, and have to borrow weapons from the local vicar.' Mitchell swung towards Ian. 'For Christ's sake, man: suppose Father John hadn't borrowed that shot-gun himself, to shoot those pigeons that were crapping on his bells in the belfry — ? Or ...
never mind he wouldn't find the shells — in case I actually
where the hell would you have been
Mitchell brought his hand up as he spoke, and squeezed his eyes shut as he pointed his finger. 'Because that's the way to get dead, forever after.' Then he focused again. 'You're in the big league. And the first mistake you make in that league is to think you're cleverer than the opposition. And that's the only mistake you make.'
Ian had been conscious of Jenny all the time Mitchell was speaking, drawing in breaths to interrupt; but first failing to get her words in edgeways, and then failing altogether as Mitchell concentrated not on her, but on him, because he was more receptive to the message after their shared experience of Lower Buckland.
'But why
There was still doubt in that: she still wasn't giving him the whole benefit of doubt, even now — '. . . then who is?'
'Who?' Mitchell gave her his full attention. 'I wish I knew, Miss Fielding-ffulke!' He shook his head. 'I tell you — you were just a bloody inconvenience, as of forty-eight hours ago . . . Asking all your questions, in the wrong places — '
'About Audley — David Audley — ?'
'Forget Audley!' Mitchell shook his head. "
d'you think we haven't been asking questions about
Ever since he turned up — ?'
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She stared at him obstinately. 'Only if you don't already know the answers . . . about
Mitchell stared at her for a moment. Then he looked at his watch again. Then he looked at her again. 'Miss Fielding-ffulke —
'Very well.' She nodded. 'Tell me about Philip Masson.'
Suddenly Ian felt like a fly on the wall, ignored by them both.
They were each making terms now, and no longer pretending; and whatever Mitchell thought he could get, Jenny herself was as excited as she ought to be at the prospect of having someone on the inside, who was willing to trade with her.
'We don't know any of the answers.' Mitchell drew a matching breath. 'We didn't expect Masson to turn up.
But . . . when he did ... we didn't think Audley had anything to do with it — ' He shook his head slowly ' — because it's not his style . . . And, he hasn't the resources, anyway — '
'The Americans?' She cocked her head as she cut in. 'Or the Israelis — ? He's been kissing-cousins with both of them for God knows how long! Since Suez — ? Or, since the Seven Days' War, anyway: wasn't he the middle-man then? When the CIA double-crossed the State Department — ?'
Mitchell's mouth opened. 'My God! That was long before my time!' The mouth closed tight-shut. 'Who the hell have you been talking to? That's — for Christ's sake — !' He frowned at her.
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'Ancient history? Medieval history?' She paused. 'Or modern history — modern
Ian knew exactly what she was doing: if the man was here to make a deal, she wanted him to be under no illusions about the strength of her position, which he had been trying to weaken with his emphasis on the danger that threatened them. So now it was her turn.
'You said it first, Paul.' He nodded as to an equal. 'She's been busy.' And that crack of Mitchell's about 'investigative journalism', couldn't be left unanswered: it had to be nailed once and for all. 'It's what we "investigative writers" have to do, to earn our money: we have to earn it by being busy. And, because we're self-employed, we
Mitchell gave him a something-less-than-friendly look. But at least that was better than being regarded as part of the furniture of the Shah Jehan private dining room.
'But you were wasting your time today.' Mitchell looked like a man who found himself where he didn't want to be. 'And mine.'
'Was he?' Jenny picked up her private bottle again. 'And yet . . . there was that man — the man with the contract. And now we're not safe, even here?' She applied the bottle to her glass. 'Even here?'
dummy2
'You're not safe anywhere. Not with MacManus after you—'
'"The big league" — yes! So you keep saying.' In spite of her best efforts, glass shook against glass. 'And yet, you don't know why — ?' She got the wine into the glass at last. 'You only know that David Audley had nothing to do with Philly Masson's death, back in 1978?'
'Yes.' Mitchell watched her drink. 'And — yes, I
'Just for a few days, anyway?' Deep breath. 'For your own sakes, if not for mine — ' He looked at Ian almost pleadingly.
'For God's sake, man . . . MacManus isn't just a name in the index of some book, he's
"
So neither of you are safe, as of now.'
The dishes were still clattering downstairs. And Paul Mitchell might be a good actor — he probably was a good actor. But (as in Beirut) Ian knew that he himself was a clerk at heart, not a man of action. And Jenny was looking at him.
'I think they call it "Protective Custody", darling.' She smiled dummy2
at him. 'But we can consider it as part of the rich tapestry of life's experience — one of the hazards of "investigative journalism" in a free society?' She turned the smile on Mitchell. 'And it'll look jolly good in our book eventually, won't it? How the Security Service protects the citizen —
even the fearless writer? The fearless
We could make a fortune out of your solicitude for our safety, Dr Mitchell. And maybe they'll promote you — ? I could have a word with Daddy . . . and Daddy can drop a word in the Prime Minister's ear.' Having inserted the knife, she couldn't resist turning it. But then she pretended to return to Ian.
'"Protective Custody", if not "Durance Vile" — shall we be good citizens ... if only for "a few days, anyway" — and for our
"own" sakes — ?' Then she spoilt it by not waiting for him to agree. 'Very well, Paul! So ... what do you want us to do?'
For a moment Ian thought she might have overdone it.
Because anyone who knew Jenny when she was as brittle as this wouldn't trust her an inch. But Mitchell didn't know her, he saw instantly: Mitchell only knew that she ought to be frightened, as he had intended her to be, and deluded himself consequently that she was hiding her fears behind her banter.
'You stay here, for the time being.' Mitchell was infinitely relieved by her surrender, so that he insulted Ian by not even looking at him.
'You mean ... we
unmercifully.
'This is your secret place, is it?' Mitchell was still relaxing.
'Nobody knows about Mr . . . Malik — ?' For the second time Mitchell tasted what was in his own glass, which he had hardly touched hitherto.
'Yes.' Suddenly she wasn't quite so sure.
'Yes. Well . . . there's a term we have for that: it's called
"Making pictures".' Mitchell nodded, and tasted his drink again. 'Which means, believing what we'd like to believe.' He wanted to drink more deeply, but he resisted the temptation, and looked at his watch instead. 'So . . . maybe you've got another hour or two, at best.' He looked up from his watch.
'But you let me worry about that now. And when I come back . . . then we can maybe make a deal — okay?' He started to turn away, towards the door.
Ian agreed with her: now it was all happening too quickly.
'
Mitchell turned. 'This is your secret place — isn't it?'
Jenny drew a deep breath. 'What's the deal?'
'How do I know?' He shrugged. Then he concentrated on them both. 'Well . . . let's say ... if I have to throw David Audley to the wolves . . . then
— while Ian's mouth opened, but before he had time to look at Jenny. And then he opened the door and was gone dummy2
through it before they could exchange faces. And then it was too late.
Ian stared at the door. 'Phew!'
'
'What?' He hated to hear her swear.
'Did he really save your life?' She was angry.
Ian pressed his video-buttons, re-winding fast and trying not to see the reversal, which always reduced reality to comedy; but then, as he played forward again slowly, frame by frame, without sound, the reality became frozen into a succession of unrealities, turning the horror film he had lived through into single pictures, like the stills outside the cinema.
'I don't know.' He tried to add up Mitchell —
'He was lying.'
'What?' He couldn't complete the addition. But there were certain pictures he couldn't forget. 'I don't know. But ... I don't think so, Jenny — '
'I mean, he knows one hell of a lot more than he's saying, Ian.'
'About Audley — by God, he does!' She crossed over towards dummy2
the heavy curtains at the window. 'Never mind Philly—Audley
—!'
That was different —
'What about him, Jenny — Mitchell, I mean — ?' He cursed their failure to communicate in the few minutes they had had, when they'd thrown away their advantages, so that they'd had to play the game cold just now.
'He's R amp; D from way back.' She touched the curtain, but then turned back to him. '"P. L. Mitchell" — doesn't the name mean anything to you, Ian? You're supposed to be the literary one — the
he's their economist, actually. And Audley's their medieval historian ... for all the good that does them!' She touched the curtain again. 'And P. L. Mitchell — ' She peered into the gap
' —
'What are you looking at?' What she knew, which he didn't know, needled him more than what she was doing — which was obvious, now he thought about it. 'A big silver Volvo, Jenny. And it's parked right outside the door, on double dummy2
yellow lines . . . But he could be back in the phone-box again
— '
He saw the curtain tighten sharply, almost convulsively, as she held on to it. And, for a foolish half-second, didn't understand why. And then he realized that she
"
when her dress had been sweaty and dirty, that time . . . But now, when she was in his arms and close to him — she might have been sweating before, but she was throwing it off like an animal now, mixed with her own additional expensive commercial smell, which was always with her ' —
She stiffened, her legs suddenly obeying her will again, pushing her body upwards and then letting him manoeuvre her sideways towards the nearest chair.
Then, without warning, she started resisting him, trying to throw off his arms. 'No! Let me go — '
That was more like her: Jenny
that than just now, all the same.
'I want to look — let go, Ian!' She struggled weakly. 'I want —
'
'No!' He pressed down hard on her shoulder, thumping her into the chair. '
But the hell with that!
'Well?' She whispered the question.
To make the best of an unprofessional job, and in order to see right up and down Cody Street, he pushed himself all the way in, letting the curtain drape round his shoulders like a cloak. It had rained since he had come out of the premature half-light of the evening, and the street lamps reflected a million points of light in every drop of water trapped in the unevenness of the road surface. Then he looked back towards her, frowning.
'Well?' Her face was chalk-white, emphasizing the dark smudges under her eyes and the remains of her lipstick: with her accustomed falling-down hair she looked even more like the wreck of the
'There isn't anything — is there?' Something of the original Jenny returned as she clenched her jaw.
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'There isn't anything there, Jenny.' He couldn't lessen her humiliation. Whatever she'd thought she'd seen, there was nothing now in Cody Street — not only not the scene of carnage he'd been half-expecting as he'd parted the curtain from the wall . . . but
'No. There wouldn't be.' She subsided into the chair, gripping its arms. 'I'm hungry — ' She pushed herself up, straight-backed, and picked up her glass from the table ' — I haven't eaten anything since breakfast. You're always telling me that I don't eat enough ... In fact, I'm bloody starving, Ian. So let's have one of Abdul's specials, eh — ? Ring the bell, darling.'
Excuses? But . . .
'I didn't see anything, darling. Ring the bell.' She pointed at the bell-push by the light-switches at the door. And then picked up his beer, from where he had put it down beside her glass and offered it to him. 'You haven't touched your drink, darling. And . . . knowing you . . . did you have lunch — ?'
He reached for the glass automatically. But, as he did so, there came a sound from behind him: not so much a knock, as a finger-tapping scraping noise on the door-panel — quite unnatural, because it was quite different from Mr Malik's sharp-knuckled signal.
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Jenny spilt beer over his hand as the door opened, and a hideous apparition appeared in the gap.
"Ullo there!' said Reg Buller.
7
There were so many things outrageous about Reginald Buller's appearance that the fact that he very obviously wasn't deceased was almost the least of them.
Most obviously, he wasn't deceased because the newly-dead had no need of large theatrical beards. Or, if they did, they had no need to pull such beards down to reveal their faces as they came to haunt the living. Or, if such a revelation was part of the haunting, they had no call to grin quite so happily before releasing the ridiculous growth so that it sprang back slightly askew, under one ear.
And, anyway, in the next moment, Reg Buller was all-too-abundantly flesh-and-blood as he removed the equally-ridiculous trilby from his head, and then unhooked the beard, finally adding his voluminous Sherlock Holmes cape to them on the chair beside the door.
'That's better!' Reg Buller nodded to Jenny, and then advanced on Ian, larger and cruder than life, and took his glass from his hand, momentarily holding it up. 'And that's even better! Untouched by human lips — ?' He drank noisily.
'Gnat's piss! But, like the bishop said to the actress, "
'Mr Buller — ' Jenny hissed the name ' —
don't you
'Do what, m'lady?' Buller caught Ian's eye, and nodded at the bar in the alcove before coming back to her. 'It was you at the window, wasn't it — ? Very careless, that was . . . But — you knew it was me?' He wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and then gestured towards the heap in the chair. 'That's a disguise, that is — twenty-five quid's worth ... if I get it back tomorrow, anyway. And cheap at the price — seein' as what I got with it.'
Ian observed her weaken. Of all the men Jenny knew, gilded and ungilded, she could resist Reg Buller least. 'What did you get with it, Reg?'
'I got professional advice, Mr Robinson. Which is worth more than gold-dust.' Buller nodded at the bar again hopefully.
'And I got the lady who gave it for free.'
'What lady, Mr Buller? What advice?' The colour was coming back into Jenny's face. 'I thought you only knew barmaids?'
'Theatrical costumier — "
will be. So we'll make you a bit of local colour — like an actor from the Hippodrome, down the road, where they've got the music-hall on ... And I'll walk with you, on your arm, an'
they'll look at me, not you!" — she's got a heart of gold, that woman has.' He concentrated on Jenny. 'But how did you know it was me?'
But Jenny wasn't looking at Buller. '
Her stare caught him struggling with more important matters. But then, maybe they weren't more immediately important, he thought. 'I don't know, Jen. We've never had to get out of here — ' And that, in turn, concentrated his mind.
'I'll ring for Mr Malik.'
'You do that, darling.' She had been there before him, so she was back with Reg Buller now. 'You're supposed to be dead, Reg. Why aren't you dead?'
'Why ain't I dead? It's a good question, Lady.' Buller scratched his nose abstractedly. 'Well . . . you could say that I ain't dead because Mr John Tully stood in for me — '
'
'Or, then again, maybe it was poor old Johnnie they wanted in the first place, an' not me. I don't rightly know, you see, Lady — '
'For God's sake, Reg!' As Ian caught her arm the full impact of what Buller was saying hit him: they were back in a nightmare again.
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'Oh aye.' Buller was unrepentant. 'There's an easier way of breakin' the news, is there? Now that it ain't me?'
'I'm all right.' Jenny's face was white again, but her voice was steady as she shook Ian off. 'What happened, Mr Buller?'
'You don't know . . . anything, then?'
She shook her head. There was just the rumour . . . that it was you, Mr Buller. A man in the crowd outside said so . . .'
'An' you didn't wait around?' This time Buller sounded more understanding. 'Well, I can't say I blame you.' He nodded to Ian. 'I could use another drink, lad — with a chaser this time, if the bar runs to one. An' whisky for choice.'
And, more importantly, he had to get Buller a drink.
'I didn't wait to ask, neither.' Buller shook his head, after reassuring himself that Ian was moving. 'They've got clever young coppers trained to remember people who ask questions, when there's a crowd outside . . . An' I ain't got any real friends in the Met, now — not that wouldn't shop me, to get promotion.' He shook his head again, as Ian clinked the bottles while trying to watch him while looking for something better than 'gnat's piss'. 'But, as to makin' a mistake . . .' He sniffed derisively. '. . . I took the BMW last night, to drive up north. An' John — 'e 'ad my little Metro, with the "Disabled Driver" sticker — they don't clamp that so dummy2
quick, in case the newspapers make a scandal out of it. So we always swap when I go out of town.' Buller's expression hardened. 'An' when I was probably somewhere else, an' 'e was up to something . . .'e used to leave 'is credit cards at
'ome, an' carry only cash-money — losin' cash isn't a problem, they just takes it off you, if they've a mind to ... But
'e'd have my calling cards on him, maybe. And those premises are in my name, too ... if it happened there, that is.'
'Here you are, Reg.' Having put the glass and the opened bottle on the corner of the table, Ian just had time to move Mitchell's half-drunk whisky alongside it, for want of anything quicker, if not better, before Reg Buller looked at him. 'You're saying . . . they got the wrong man?'
Buller swept the smaller glass up, and drained it. And then poured the 'gnat's piss' carefully. And then looked at him over it. The wrong man — ? Maybe the wrong man. Or maybe
Because ... if he didn't pay twenty shillings in the pound ... at least he paid fifteen of 'em. Which is better than most.' He shifted from Ian to Jenny as he swallowed the rest of the piss. 'So now we owe for
This time it was a genuine knock at the door, not a ghostly scratching.
'Come in!' Jenny reacted more quickly this time, recognizing dummy2
the knock.
'Madam!' Abdul took them all in almost as quickly, half-smiling first, and then smiling hugely as he saw Reg glass-in-hand. 'Mr Buller — you know Mr Buller —
'No — yes, Mr Malik.' Jenny brushed at her hair. 'Can we have three of your special take-aways, Mr Malik, please.'
'An' then your special "get-away" to go with 'em,'
supplemented Buller.
'Please?'
'Back-way. Out-the-back — an' then scarper . . .
'Ah! Tradesman's entrance? Fire escape? Both in passage —
at the side, Mr Buller — council regulations: orderly damn departure, no panic, one minute.' Then the little man stared at Buller. 'But then you go out the front again.' The stare became a frown. 'Nothing out front, my cousin says. But I send him out again, maybe — '
'No.' Buller shook his head. 'What's out back — gardens?'
'No gardens.' Matching shake. 'Back-yard — back wall. Damn great high back wall, broken glass on top. No
'Back-way over bloody wall, mate.' This time Buller nodded.
'Got a ladder, then? An' a bit of sacking — ?' He grinned at Jenny. 'No problem.'
'Big problem.' Mr Malik shook his head. 'Other side — damn dummy2
railway line, Mr Buller.'
'Railway line? Fine! They keep telling us we should use the railway more often.' Buller sank his big nose into his glass.
'An' I got the car over the bridge down the road, by the cutting. If no one's nicked it.' He returned to Mr Malik.
'Ladder up the wall. An' plenty of sacking on top, over the glass, mind you . . . An' plenty of hot lime pickle an' chilli pickle with the special. An' some eatin' irons, just in case —
an' six bottles of Tiger, my lad. With an opener ... an' all on the Lady's slate — got that?' He advanced on Mr Malik as he spoke, shepherding him towards the door. 'Orderly damn departure — no panic — five minutes from now —
see?'
As the door closed on the little man Reg Buller was already heading for the bar again. 'It's a nice motor, the BMW — very easy to drive.' He delivered this intelligence to Ian, over his shoulder. 'So you can drive it, then.' He studied the stock.
Troubles enough we got, without me bein' stopped by some little nipper in blue in the line of duty when we're doin' a bunk, before we can ditch it.' He cocked an eye at Jenny.
'They'll 'ave the number out soon enough. But I reckon we're safe until morning. An' you got your passports and Eurocheques with you, like always? You 'aven't changed your rules, since last time? 'Cause I don't want to 'ave to put those whiskers on again, an' chance my arm going back to your place, I tell you!'
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Ian looked at Jenny unhappily as he heard the odds being so casually raised through the roof in this appalling mathematical progression.
'Are you proposing that we flee the country, Mr Buller?' Even Jenny sounded a bit shaky at Buller's clearly implied proposition.
'Well, you don't want to stay to face the music, do you?' Self-released from the necessity of having to drive his — or the late John Tully's — 'nice motor' while far over the limit, Buller was helping himself to another beer and another chaser. 'You don't think that Mitchell's goin' to let you play games do you?' He poured the beer expertly, with a steady hand. '"P. L. Mitchell" —
And then drank. And then looked at them both. "Ow the 'ell did you let
The look stung Ian. 'Mitchell saved my life this afternoon, Reg.'
' 'E did?' Another drink — another sniff. 'Or was 'e like the man who saved a maiden from a fate worse than death — 'e changed 'is mind?'
That was the maggot in the apple: it all depended on whether Mitchell was telling the truth. 'Does the name "MacManus"
mean anything to you, Reg, "Paddy MacManus" — ?'
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'Never 'card of 'im. But then I never 'card of Dr Paul Lefevre Mitchell 'till this morning. So that don't mean anything. So ...
who's he then, when he's at home? MacManus?'
'He's a contract killer, Mr Buller. Ex-IRA — ?' Jenny had seen the maggot too. 'So Paul Mitchell says.'
'Does he, now? Well ... he should know, I suppose.' As tell-tale as the maggot was Buller no longer dropping his aitches: the seriousness of their situation and the drink together reverting him momentarily to his more educated self.
'Mitchell . . . mmm . . .'
Ian looked at Jenny. 'He's a historian ... as well as—?'
'Oh, yes.' Buller fielded the question. 'And he's done time in Ireland, in Dublin.
"Necessary expense", that comes under. I had to buy the hardback.' Buller's features creased. 'How d'you think I recognized him? It's got his picture on the back flap. "P. L.
Mitchell", it says, for all to see.'
There was more to it than that. More in Buller's face than he could read — and more in everything Buller had said and done since he'd arrived. And more, not least — more
in his insistence on their using the 'back way' to leave the Taj Mahal.
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'"P. L. Mitchell", Reg—?'
'Funny that — putting his picture in.' Buller nodded. 'Like . . .
careless? But then, they're all a law unto themselves, they are, in "R amp; D". They make their own rules, it seems.'
'He's supposed to be finding a safe house for us at the moment, Reg.' Jenny had also been reading the signals. 'He said we weren't safe here.'
'He did?' Buller almost seemed preoccupied. 'Well, I'd say he's right there. If
Ian didn't look at her. 'What d'you know about Mitchell that we don't know, Reg?' But then he looked at her. 'Or what do you know, Jen?' He struggled for an instant with his own knowledge. 'He's a colleague of Audley's — or maybe a friend, even?'
She was staring at Reg. 'He's up-and-coming — isn't he? Jack Butler and St John Latimer . . . isn't he one of their blue-eyed boys?' Now she turned to Ian. 'I rather think we should be flattered — or, you should be, anyway, darling: they put one of their top men on your tail today.'
'
it to them. 'You'd think little Abdul 'ud be glad to see the back of us!' He gave Ian a mildly inquiring look. 'An' what
'appened to this Irish bloke — Paddy MacWhats-it — ? Did you actually set eyes on 'im, then?'
'Yes.' Where Jenny sweated, he felt cold, contrariwise. And now he was freezing. 'But only at a distance — '
'An' now 'e's playin' 'is Irish 'arp — like on the Guinness labels — ?' The inquiry became harder. 'But you don't look that scared, I must say!'
The door opened before Ian could reply, just as what Reg Buller was plainly implying and what had actually happened at Lower Buckland began to diverge confus-ingly, and Buller himself sprang away from it to one side, with surprising agility.
'Madam — ' Mr Malik addressed Jenny, and then flinched from Reg Buller as he became aware of him ' — Madam —
you come, eh?'
'We come.' Buller gestured at them both. 'Double quick, we come!' And double-quick, they came, with Reg Buller's urgency transmitting itself to them, into the warm happy curry-smells on the landing, and round the banisters, and down the stairs.
'Your coat, sir — your hat . . . your — ' The false whiskers baffled Mr Malik ' — Mr Buller,
'A lady'll come for them — ' Buller was already pushing them
' — which way — the back-way — ?'
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'The lady's coat — it is
The little man shouted something in his own language, suddenly no longer despairing but commanding.
One of his smaller waiters, who had been smiling encouragingly at the bottom of the stairs, stopped smiling and began to search feverishly among the coats hung above him.
'Your dinner, sir — ' Another waiter presented Ian with two large plastic bags, one after another, with a similar smile firmly in place. 'Three extra-special — double hot lime, double chilli — ' He offered the bags to Ian ' — you come
'Where's the beer?' From behind Reg Buller had sorted out his priorities, grabbing the bag which had
'Lady — just take the next coat — they're all the same — '
Ian lost the rest of the exchange as he entered the kitchen, half in a daze as its heat and steam and concentrated smells-and-sizzling overwhelmed him: and bright light and stainless-steel and great bowls and frying pans —
'Go on, Ian lad.' Buller's voice shouted from behind him, urging him forward down the aisles between the huge tables and the cooking ranges, even as the question answered itself, but then still left itself unanswered:
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He issued out of the kitchen, past a series of rough-painted doors into a small yard lit by a single bulb which seemed all the dimmer for the huge canopy of darkness above it. A thin drizzle shimmered in the yellow light, far removed from Mr Malik's cats-and-dogs' rain.
Then he saw the 'damn great wall': it was certainly well-furnished with broken glass set in concrete, but otherwise it had been even more exaggerated than the weather, being only waist-high to the waiter who was even now draping sacks over the jagged glass topping it. Behind it, through a thin screen of bushes, he could see the lights of the houses backing on to the opposite side of the invisible railway track.
'This is ridiculous, Mr Buller.' Jenny caught his own unspoken thought exactly. 'Why do we have to go grubbing around in the dark out there — ?' She waved at the wall and their latest grinning waiter, whose white teeth shone yellow in the light of the single bulb on the side of the house above them. 'What's so terrible out there in front, for God's sake?'
'You tell me, Lady.' Reg Duller sounded cheerfully unrepentant. 'I've been up the street once all the way, with my kind lady-friend on my arm, an' kissed her goodnight at the bottom, whiskers an' all. And then come half-way back, an' Abdul tells me you've got company — company
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''It's the way you walk.' She shook her head irritably. 'But he's gone, Mr Buller —
—
'As 'e? Or is 'e just waitin' for you to run?' Buller was role-playing again. 'Though o' course, the blokes down at each end of the street now, parked in their cars on the double-yeller lines, bold as brass —
to nab 'em? An' you want me to go an'
'Cause, I tell you, I ain't goin' to — ' He pointed into the darkness, clinking the bottles in the bag in his other hand as he did so ' — 'cause
'Oh no! Ladder damn necessary!' Mr Malik skipped past them to the wall and on to the box, and addressed the darkness on the other side in his own language.
'What — ?' Reg Buller strode forward and peered over.
'Bloody hell!'
'Walls have two sides, see?' Mr Malik addressed Ian this time. 'This side — little wall. Other side — damn great wall.
All the same wall, but you break your neck jumping it, if not careful. Ladder
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'Right then!' Buller drew back and gestured towards Ian.
'Over you go. There's a little bloke down there holding the ladder, so don't drop on him, eh?'
Going over the wall was uncomfortable and awkward, even with only one bag. But the other side was purgatory, one-handed on the slimy-wet rungs, brushed by sodden branches
— the 'bushes' he had observed from above were in fact the tops of fair-sized trees — in almost total darkness ... or, almost total darkness twice frighteningly broken by the passage of trains, each of which turned the dark into a nightmare of noise and light through the foilage. And the bloody ladder seemed to go on for ever: if anything, the little man had understated the size of his great wall.
But then, to make him feel feeble and effete, Jenny came down after him like a cat, in half his time. And even Reg Buller made light of his descent, only worried for the safety of his beer.
'Well, that's blown away the cobwebs!' Buller puffed slightly as he turned to the attendant waiter, whose white coat belied the darkness. 'You do this often, do you?'
'Please — ?' The single word sounded curiously unlndian: second generation London-Indian, different not so much because of its pronunciation as for its simple politeness . . .
'Never mind, lad. We got down. Now, how do we get out? Are those lights I can see up there the ones on the bridge?'
A sniff came from Jenny's direction. 'Now you ask!'
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'Don't fret, Lady. I've been alongside more railway lines than you've 'ad 'ot dinners — as a nipper
nippers. There's always ways in, an' there's always ways out.'
Buller drew in a breath. 'Well, lad.'
'Oh yes, sir. Those are the bridge lights, sure. You just follow the wall — you take my little torch, okay? People throw junk
— very dirty people — and you maybe trip, see? But no difficulty . . . just the rubbish.'
'And then we scale the wall again?' Jenny's voice was admirably calm.
'No, Miss. The bank comes up by the bridge. The wall is very little there — very easily, you go up. Just the broken bottles of the dirty people, you got to watch for them. Then only little walls, like I say. No difficulty, Miss.'
'Well . . . thank you.' She prodded Ian inaccurately in the almost-darkness. 'In your wallet, darling — for services rendered?' She hissed the command.
'Oh no, Miss.' The young waiter moved towards the ladder like a ghost. 'Service charges all included in the bill, my father says. I must go now — we've got to pull up the ladder damn-quick now, he says — okay?'
'Okay. Up you go, lad,' agreed Buller. 'And hide the bloody thing too, just in case — if you can — ?'
'Don't you worry, sir — ' The voice already came from above them, through the branches ' — we padlock this fire-escape ladder back in the passage. Then my father loses the key, I dummy2
think . . . Good night, sir — Miss — ' The voice faded.
'Artful little monkey!' murmured Buller admiringly.
'But well-brought up,' said Jenny.
'Ah . . . well, they still bring 'em up, don't they! Model bloody citizens they'd be, if it wasn't for their religions, makin' 'em all hate each other — ' Buller stopped abruptly. 'But we didn't ought to stand gabbin' sweet nothing's — '
As he spoke, the sound of another train rose, drowning the rest of his words as it increased, until it filled the cutting deafeningly. But, more than the noise which reverberated around him, Ian was filled from within with an almost panic-stricken feeling of unreality, which worsened as he glimpsed the train's occupants sitting and strap-hanging in safety and comfort in their brightly-lit carriages — late city-workers going home to suburban wives and husbands, girl-friends and boy-friends, families and friends ... or (since he didn't even know which way he was facing, up or down) going out happily for a night's West End entertainment, taking their real world for granted . . .
The noise fell away into echoes, which the wind of the train seemed to suck after it, down the line — up the line? And
'Come on, now!' Buller moved into the deafening silence which the vanished train drew into the cutting, within the dummy2
enormous hum of that same real world above them, and all around them. 'We gotta get out of 'ere, Lady — Ian lad — ?'
'Come on!'
'Come on — ' Buller had moved, lighting his own way first with the boy's inadequate pocket-torch, and then helping Jenny as she had followed, leaving Ian behind in the actual dark, as well as his inner darkness. So now the voice came further off. '
'I'm coming.' The feeble glow illuminated a great buttress, dark on his side and dirty yellow-brown on its railway side: the Victorian bricks in which London had burst outwards in its great days, in their untold billions; but now his feet were skidding and crushing on filthy modern detritus, of bottles dummy2
and cans and plastics, up against the wall and the buttress, all mixed with the leaf-compost of a hundred years.
'What's the matter?' Buller shone the torch into his eyes challengingly. 'We 'aven't got all night, y'know . . . You got the bag, 'ave yer?'
'No.' He rounded the buttress, and then set his back against it, as though exhausted. 'This is far enough.'
'What?' The torch came back to him.
'Darling — when we get to the car — ' Jenny supported the torch — ' — and I'm getting
'Damn the car!' When they reached the BMW, he would be driving it. And then it would be too late, because he would have to concentrate on his driving. And . . . maybe they were both relying on that. 'I want to know what's happening to me.' As he spoke, he knew that he had the whip-hand: even apart from her unwillingness to drive and Reg Buller's careless intake of alcohol (and consequently even greater unwillingness), they couldn't leave him behind now, with whatever they each had in mind — not with Paul Mitchell out there . . . whoever else was out there.
The light continued to blind him. But behind it, in the dummy2
absolute darkness, they must each be coming to the same conclusion. So he leaned back, and let the enormous weight of brick support him, just as it had held up the whole of Cody Street for a hundred years, above all the trains which had used this cutting.
'Fff — ' Buller cracked first, but then remembered Jenny.
'What are you playing at, Ian?' Jenny was not so inhibited, so she sounded unnaturally shrill. 'My God! Aren't things bad enough already? With — ' The rest of the words were cut off by the rumble of another train, which approached them more slowly so that, where before her face had been only flickeringly illuminated, disco strobe-lighted, now he saw its anger and intensity as the noise enveloped them again.
'No . . . no!' Buller came back first. 'He's right. You got to level with him, Lady — that's only fair. And now's as good a time as any.'
'What?' She sounded incredulous, as well as angry.
'About Mitchell, Lady.'
"
— and he knows Audley — ?'
'Ah! And then — ?' Buller paused. And the torch went out, and the pause elongated.
'I don't know what you're talking about, Mr Buller.'
She stopped him sharply on her own full stop. 'Ian —
we had a three-way talk this morning — Reg, and John Tully dummy2
and I, on that gadget of John's — the phone-thing — ?'
'I was still up north, coming back, on the motorway,'
supplemented Buller. 'And then, after what I told 'em, the Lady was going to check out Dr Mitchell.'
'Yes. And so I did, as far as I could.' Jenny's voice strengthened. 'And you were off checking on that woman —
the one who got shot... so we couldn't warn you about Mitchell. And it never occurred to us that he would be after you, darling.'
'Yes.' It occurred to Ian that Jenny hadn't reckoned too much to 'the woman who got shot' when they'd spoken to each other last night. But maybe it hadn't just been the dogsbody job they'd given him: maybe, more simply, they'd just wanted him safely out of town, where he couldn't come to much harm while drawing off some of their followers on his wild goose chase. 'Go on, Jenny.'
'Well . . . that's all there is to it, as far as I'm concerned, darling: I
'Huh!' Reg Buller emitted an unPaddington Bear-like growl from his own darkness . . .
'And I only got that out of her because she's
about marriage and motherhood. And even so she clammed up then, and started quizzing me about where I'd met him . . . which she'd assumed had been at some party, and that I'd fancied him there. So I had to concoct an elaborate tale which I'm not at all sure satisfied her. Not that it matters now, anyway.' She paused. 'But that's all I got about Mitchell since we talked on the phone, Reg. But now you've got more, obviously — ?'
'No.' Buller remained silent for a moment. 'I had more
The next silence was broken by a
Another
'Couldn't we go on?' Jenny advanced commonsense tentatively. 'I mean ... we could talk more comfortably in the car, Ian — couldn't we?'
'No.' Buller sounded as though he was more comfortable: Buller's main in-battle worry would have been — and was —
the source of his next liquid refreshment. 'I think . . . maybe we'll leave the car where it is, an' call for a taxi. It might be safer. An' there's a pub I know, not far away. And there's a bloke I can phone from there who's into instant travelling, an' no questions asked, too.' Another
'em up the wall — ' Another chuckle. Then another
'And then?' Jenny just got the question in before the next train.
Buller waited for the noise to hurry after its cause. 'Then they'll get their skates on. Because they'll know we've rumbled 'em. And they'll reckon we've long gone . . . . And there won't be time for committee meetings then: they'll be wetting their britches, an' doubling-up in Hampstead — or at your dad's place, most likely. An' that's
'em, by golly!'
'Yes?' Jenny sounded doubtful suddenly.
'Right!' Buller caught her doubt. 'That's where you'd have gone, eh? Home to daddy — all nice an' safe? An' then maybe a phone-call to one of daddy's friends in the Government? Or a call from the House of Lords to the Home Secretary — ?'
'You know I wouldn't do that.' Jenny bristled with outrage.
'Wouldn't you?
Buller paused for only a fraction of a second. 'All right —
Audley out of the country, eh?'
'He can always run to Jack Butler.'
'Can 'e though?' Buller paused as though in doubt. 'That's one of the things that doesn't add up — I reckon
'Why not?'
'Because Jack Butler —
'Yes.' Jenny came in quickly. They do say that — yes! But — ?'
'But Mitchell?' Buller came back even more quickly. 'Ah!
Now we're into Mr Peter Wright, an' his dirty tricks, an' his young Turks.' Buller paused. 'An' . . .
This time it was Jenny's silence, with no train coming, and only the distant continuous hum of the city above them holding down the lack of sound in the cutting.
'Philly wasn't part of R amp; D then,' she said finally. 'And Philly would never have been into dirty tricks.'
'Wouldn't 'e?' Buller goaded her cruelly. 'Not like Audley?
Not like Mitchell?'
'We're not discussing Philly, any more.' She refused to be goaded. 'It's Mitchell we're running away from, aren't we?'
'Oh aye?' Buller harumphed derisively. 'Well, he'll do for a start, Lady. But — '
'But he saved Ian, Mr Buller. Now why would he do that —
for a start?'
Ian was already beginning to regret his obstinacy. Most of all dummy2
he wanted to question Buller about Frances Fitzgibbon. Yet he didn't want to do that in front of Jenny, although he didn't know why. But then, even as he tried to conjure up the girl in his imagination, his thoughts suddenly ignited. 'He was there, Reg — wasn't he?'
'There? Where?' Buller played for time. 'Who?'
'At Thornervaulx. Don't play silly buggers with us, Reg. In '78
— Mitchell was there — right?'
Now, when it was least required, a train from the opposite direction announced itself; and then (obeying a variant of Sod's Law), took an unconscionable time to pass them, unlike its predecessors, stopping and starting convulsively just in front of them.
'Was Mitchell at Thornervaulx, Reg?'
'I heard you the first time, old lad.' Buller had used the interruption more profitably. 'They were
mercifully unpunctuated by another
promoted to command Research an' Development, most likely.' Silence. 'But the rest were all there —
Contempt from Jenny was par for the course. But from Reg Buller — that was over the top. 'And Marilyn Francis — ? Mrs Frances Fitzgibbon — ? Are you including her, Reg?'
'You mean the woman?' Buller sounded surprised at such sharpness, coming from him, like a ferret bitten by a rabbit.
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'Yes — the woman.' It was time Frances Fitzgibbon got her due, outside Lower Buckland. ' "The woman who was killed the week before", Jenny — ? The "innocent bystander"?'
'Yes.' Buller recovered. 'Yes . . . the one that blew it — her too, yes!'
'Blew it?'
'Got 'erself killed. That's blowing it, in my book.' Buller didn't give him time to bite back this time. 'She didn't ought to have got herself killed by "Mad Dog" O'Leary — "Mad Dog" my eye!'
'He wasn't mad?' Jenny cut in quickly.
'Oh . . .'e was mad right enough. 'E was mad to stick around after 'is bomb went off, an' 'e got clean away ... But, of course,
'e
Reg had been talking to the Police. Or, at least, to some contact he had inside the force up north: Reg always seemed to have an old mate, or a mate of an old mate, in whatever Police Authority he found himself. 'Why was that, Reg?'
"E was brought in late, to the University — where the bomb went off. And . . . they said 'e wasn't too pleased with what 'e dummy2
found. But 'e didn't waste time complainin'. An' 'e didn't blame anyone neither, at the University there. But then they
—
"Most Wanted" list made all the Top Brass — the cabinet ministers, and the judges, and the rest — it made 'em sleep a bit sounder at night. And saved a lot of taxpayers' hard-earned money, too: "
'But it wasn't a happy ending for Mrs Fitzgibbon, Reg.' Ian couldn't keep the bitterness out of his voice.
For a moment, Buller didn't reply. '"Fitzgibbon", was it?'
Another pause. 'You had an interesting day, did you, Ian lad?'
He had to keep his cool. 'But
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Another pause. 'What was she doing in Rickmansworth?'
'What was she doing in ... where was it?' Surprisingly, it was Jenny who came to his rescue. 'At Thornervaulx — the ruined abbey there, wasn't it?'
'You know the place, do you?' Buller had obviously decided that he was giving too much and receiving too little in exchange.
'I know the place. Daddy used to shoot near Thornervaulx —
or hunt, or something.' Jenny also knew Buller's game. 'Or maybe it was racing at Catterick . . . What was she doing in Thornervaulx, Reg — this Mrs FitzPatrick?'
'Ah . . .' With Jenny, Buller usually surrendered more quickly than this. 'Well, it's like they always say with makin'
omelettes: you 'ave to break the eggs now an' then. Only . . .
it's always the cooks an' the omelette-eaters talkin', isn't it?
Never the eggs and the chickens.'
'So she was just doing her job.' It was impossible to say whether Jenny was more irritated by Buller's obstinacy or by fluctuating extremes of the accent he tended to assume with her. 'But was she Police, Mr Buller? Or was she Intelligence?
And ... if she was Intelligence, in R amp; D? Because they do appear to pretend that they're "equal opportunity", it seems.'
Equal opportunity to die, in this case, Ian added silently.
'I tell you one thing, Lady . . .' But Buller trailed off maddeningly as the sound of another train came down the line towards them.
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'One thing — ?' Jenny urged him on, her voice rising against the sound.
'Aye. She was . . .
This time she waited until the noise had gone, and the hum of the city had reasserted itself as a background to the silence in the cutting. 'Brave, Mr Buller?'
'She was the one that picked up the bleedin' bomb at the University.'
'I thought it was Audley, first. But he wasn't there — at the University.' Buller addressed him deliberately in the darkness. 'An' then I thought it must 'ave been Mitchell. But it was '
'How do you know?' That it had never occurred to him before seemed like a betrayal, almost: like Buller, he had never dreamt of equating the 'heroic secret services officer' of Reg's favourite tabloid newspaper with its 'innocent bystander' at Thornervaulx a few days later. '
'I talked to a bloke that was there — what d'you think?' Buller was guarded about his police contacts again. 'An' I've just put two-an'-two together. An' they make four, just like always.'
'She sounds a bit stupid, to me.' Jenny spoke to no one in particular. 'But . . . she was R amp; D, then — is that what you're dummy2
saying, Mr Buller?'
Suddenly Ian didn't want to talk about Frances any more.
And he didn't want Jenny to talk about her either. 'I thought we were talking about Mitchell, not Mrs Fitzgibbon.'
'And we know that he's R amp; D,' agreed Jenny. 'But . . . what's Thornervaulx got to do with Philip Masson, Mr Buller?'
There was doubt in her voice, and she wasn't arguing now: she was conceding a point while seeming to ask for an explanation.
But Thornervaulx was Frances Fitzgibbon to Ian. 'He wasn't there — you said, Reg?' (If there had been the slightest possibility of that, Jenny wouldn't have asked her question: it would have been all Thornervaulx then!)
'No, 'e wasn't there.' Buller dismissed the idea scornfully.
'The bleedin' generals don't go into the front line, lad—'
'Mr Buller!' Jenny snapped him off. 'Just answer the question, please.'
Buller crunched the dirty people's refuse under his feet. 'It's time we got out of 'ere, Lady. It's not too far to that pub I know. An' I can phone from there — '
'Mr
'Okay, okay!' He drew a noisy breath. 'I don't know for sure.
But if I'm right . . . then Thornervaulx wasn't just the death of O'Leary an' the woman: it was the death of your bloke too, Lady.'
8
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It was always another pub with Reg Buller: it was a mystery to Ian how the man had found enough opening hours in all the days of his life to be so intimately friendly with so many landlords and landladies, barmaids and barmen, so that they were willing to spirit him away into their small back rooms on the nod, safe from prying eyes.
'Not one of my usual watering 'oles — not since the brewery done it up,' Reg had murmured in his ear as he propelled them through the noise and smoke towards a door at the back of the bar-room. 'But the bloke 'ere owes me a favour, anyway . . . Up the stairs, door straight ahead, an' I'll join you in a mo', when I've fixed up our travel arrangements —
okay?' Then he ducked back into the noise again, leaving them staring at each other.
'What travel arrangements, Jen?' Ian felt that he had left the wet outer darkness of the street outside for a brightly-lit but greater inner darkness.
'Don't ask me, darling.' She shrugged while attempting to repair the ruin of what had probably started out as an expensive hair-do. 'Mr Buller seems to have taken over, that's all I know. Don't you know?'
'You spoke to him this afternoon, Jen.'
'But only on the phone, darling. And he didn't say much then, except that he wanted me to ask around about Paul Mitchell . . . which I had already started to do on my own account, actually . . . But I thought
trip north — ?' She gave up the repair-attempt. 'I'm not going to argue the toss with you here, darling, in public. So just do like the wretched man said — get up those stairs.'
The only thing he knew — or the only
But the room at the top of the stairs in no way resembled the Shah Jehan room: it had foul red-plastic covered tables and an even fouler smell of stale tobacco-smoke, complete with overflowing ashtrays: it was a meeting-room of some sort, and all that could be said for it now was that it was empty.
'What about Mitchell?' He faced her again.
'Darling — you know him better than we do.' She returned to her repair work, letting the whole elaborate ruin down in a red cascade. 'If only I had an elastic band! You don't happen to have one, do you, darling?' She glanced at him a little too casually. 'No — of course you don't! But... he did save your life — didn't he? Mitchell, I mean . . . No . . . well, of course, we don't know that for sure, do we? And you were busy with that woman of yours . . .'
He had to hit her back. 'Whom you didn't think was important?'
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'I still don't think she's important.' She spoke through several hairpins.
'And Reg Buller going north — ?' Buller had come back with information about Mitchell. So she damn-well couldn't argue with that. 'What — '
The door burst open, and a large young woman with a tray swerved through the opening. 'One large gin-and-tonic —
one low-alcohol lager — ?'
Jenny dropped her hair. 'Mine's the gin — ' She seized the glass from the tray, letting her hair fall again.
Thank you — ' He took one of the three glasses which remained: not the pint in the straight glass, and not the large whisky chaser, and looked interrogatively at the barmaid.
'Those are for Mr Buller — if you don't mind, sir?' She didn't even look at him.
Ian took Buller's share, and waited until the door had closed again. 'But you don't think that was a wasted journey now, do you, Jen?'
'No.' She drank deeply, like Reg Buller. And then set her glass down on the nearest table and returned to her hair. 'I think that was all part of the scene — the run-up to Philly's murder. But your woman was out of it by then.'
He hated that — and almost hated Jenny with it. 'She's not
"my" woman.' But he hated that, too: he heard the cock crow as he spoke. 'But I think you're wrong, Jen. And ... I think she's interesting ... I mean, I think she may be important — '
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But he didn't want to argue about Frances Fitzgibbon. 'What
"scene", Jen — ?'
The door opened again as he spoke, and Reg Buller came through it this time.
"E's goin' to call me back.' Buller looked at them briefly, his radar having indicated where the drinks were. "E knows there's something dodgey goin' on . . .' He drank. '. . . maybe
'e's 'eard about poor ol' Johnny. But I twisted 'is arm, so 'e'll divvy up, you can bet on it . . .' Another drink. '. . . Kidlington, most likely — if 'e can 'andle the paperwork. But he may prefer us to take the hovercraft from Ramsgate, an' then lay on a plane from the other side, see — ?' He wiped his mouth.
'What "scene" was that, then?'
'1978, Mr Buller.' Jenny answered him coolly. 'Where are we going . . . from where was it?' She frowned. 'Ramsgate, I know . . . But "Kidlington" — ?'
'1978!' Buller tossed off his chaser in one swallow. 'A soddin'
bad year for the Labour Party! '78-'79 put Mrs Thatcher in.
An' she's never looked back since then — eh?'
'Where's Kidlington, Mr Buller?'
'Just outside Oxford, Lady.' Buller grinned at her unsmilingly. 'It's the largest village in England, they say. So it's got its own airfield.' The unsmiling grin vanished. 'But you're right about 1978: that's the key to the door, of course.'
There was nothing very clever about that. But, if she chose not to be very clever, he must play their game. 'So what really dummy2
happened in 1978, Reg?'
Buller looked at Jenny. But Jenny was suddenly pretending to concentrate on her hair again, to their exclusion.
'Reg—?'
'All right.' Buller dismissed her, and drank more of his beer.
'There was one of their internal bust-ups . . . like the bloke who ran R amp; D was going, because 'e was sick ... an' 'is No. 2
'ad just died with 'is boots on, of a heart-attack — what was
'is name, Lady — ?'
'Stocker — ' The name cut through the hairpins.
'Ah! Just so . . .' Buller shrugged off the name. 'So they were all tryin' to fix things, so it came out right for 'em, an' they got the bloke they wanted to sign their expense accounts —
okay?'
Jenny half-turned away from him, as though regretting that she'd even given him a name, pretending to fight again with her hair.
'Okay.' Buller turned to Ian. 'So Audley an' all the rest of 'em wanted Jack Butler. Because, better the devil you know than the one you don't know . . . An' the one they
He had already seen that much. 'So — ?'
'So Butler was their front runner. Because he was there— he knew the form.' Buller forgot to drop his
choice because he was working-class — not Eton and the Royal Marines . . . but grammar school scholarship, an'
commissioned-in-the-field, in some second-rate North Country infantry regiment in '45 ... An' 'is dad was a big trade unionist, who'd been a mate of Ernie Bevin's in the TUC in the old days, before his boy had learned to be an officer an' a gentleman — ' He swung towards Jenny ' — so you may think your bloke was the greatest thing since sliced bread, Lady . . .
But Jack Butler was a front runner while chief Petty Officer Jim Callaghan was still Prime Minister, an' running the show
—
Jenny tossed her hair aside. 'Philly was the man for the job, Mr Buller.'
'Oh aye?' Reg Buller's lip curled. 'More like . . . "Philly" was the man in the Civil Service who could fix things so Butler fell on his face — how about that then?'
Jenny held her hair up with one hand, while finishing her gin with the other. 'What do you mean by that, Mr Buller?'
'What do I mean?' Buller had consumed enough alcohol to be unafraid of her now, even apart from the fact that he appeared to be running their show at the moment, however temporarily. 'I mean we just tipped all the pieces of the jigsaw out on the table so far. An' we don't even know we got all the pieces yet. In fact, we certainly
'I see.' Her lips compressed. 'So you've just picked up some dummy2
dirty little rumour about Philip Masson — is that it?'
'Oh aye? An' you didn't pick up some dirty little rumour about David Audley, Lady? I thought that was what started us off. Correct me if I'm wrong, Lady — ?'
'But we've already had confirmation that it was a strong rumour going around Audley played dirty back in '78, Mr Buller. John Tully and I both picked that up, quite independently: there was going to be a big shake-up in R amp; D. Fred Clinton was coming up for retirement, and his deputy had already gone. And Audley was backing Jack Butler. But the Cabinet Secretary and others were backing Philip Masson.'
'Ah?' Buller emptied his beer glass and instantly stamped heavily on the floor, like a magician summoning up spirits from the underworld. 'So the smart money was on your bloke, then. But Audley's a man who likes to get 'is own way
— '
'That's precisely it, Mr Buller: Audley likes to get his own way. So Philly had an accident — and Audley
Buller stared at her for a moment. Then he stamped again, more heavily than before. Then he sniffed. 'You don't think killin' someone on 'is own side ... or 'avin' 'im killed . . . you don't think that's comin' on a bit strong — even for 'im?'
Jenny's lip twisted. 'Audley? Aren't you being a bit sentimental, Mr Buller? His side —
such naughty things? Only the lesser breeds — the KGB and the CIA . . . and the Israelis ... do naughty deeds?' The twist became more pronounced. 'They say Audley's left a trail of bodies behind him over the years — remember?'
'But they were his enemies, Lady, by all accounts.'
'If Masson had been a traitor now — ' Buller started to develop his thesis unwisely.
'Don't be ridiculous, Mr Buller. If you think that then we'll settle your bill here and now. I have my cheque book with me, as well as my passport. You can even have a Eurocheque, if you prefer.'
'I wasn't saying that, Lady. Your bloke was clean. If there'd been any doubt about 'im — any slightest doubt ... I grant you that.' Buller hastily changed his tack. 'What I mean is ... it would 'ave been straight murder, killing him. An' if you think about it, they didn't even arrange for old Peter Wright to 'ave an accident, when they knew 'e was goin' to cause 'em all that trouble — now did they? An' why not?' He paused. 'Because for a private murder you need a private murderer. So Audley would have had to get hisself a man, and a good one —
someone, in fact, like "Mad Dog" O'Leary — ' He nodded towards Ian ' — or your bloke MacManus. An' there's a lot of risks involved in hiring that sort of talent. You really got to
'ave someone you can trust. And you can't never trust a private murderer, I don't reckon.'
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Jenny shook her head. 'That's a pretty thin argument, Mr Buller.'
Buller made a face. 'I wasn't really talkin' about that, anyway
— not yet anyway.'
'No. You were talking about Philip Masson. And some dirty little slander.' Jenny was like a terrier dropping a dead rat in preference for a larger one whose back she also intended to break before it could get away. 'So what was that, then?'
The door opened suddenly, and the same large young woman entered again, with more drinks. Buller had indeed summoned up spirits from the deep.
They waited until the re-fuelling had been completed, and then Buller turned back to Jenny. 'All that trouble they had up north, at the University, with the bomb, an' then O'Leary turnin' up at Thornervaulx, when Jack Butler was on some other job . . . There's those that might say it was Jack Butler who was being measured for an "accident" there. Only the woman that was killed an' Dr P. L. Mitchell spoilt the accident between 'em — '
'Mitchell?' Jenny wasn't interested in 'the woman'.
'Oh aye.' Buller nodded. 'Old "Mad Dog" was a top man in his profession — he was
with another identity — an' the uniform of a major in the Royal Signals, from Catterick. An' a real major, too — only 'e was on leave at the time. An' the number-plate on the second car was the same as the major's car. They didn't even find those cars for a fortnight, neither. So 'e'd 'ave got away, you can reckon.'
'You were talking about Mitchell, Mr Buller, I thought,'
'I
was a real pro. But Dr P. L. Mitchell is another. An' maybe a better one, too.'
'How so? What are you trying to tell us, Mr Buller?'
Buller drew a breath. 'By all accounts, 'e 'ad no more than two seconds flat, that day at Thornervaulx, after O'Leary started shooting. An' O'Leary had a long gun — a rifle of some sort. An' Mitchell —
down like a pole-axed steer, 'e went. . . "never" as they say in the old westerns, "to rise again". A proper little Wyatt Earp, our
As Jenny digested all this in silence, Ian was conscious of a shiver down his own back because of Buller's chance dummy2
imagery. Almost, that might have been how Gary Redwood would have described that shoot-out, with his own dear Marilyn Francis down in the dust — the wet hillside bracken at Thornervaulx — after that first-and-last shot of O'Leary's.
'Who told you all this?' Jenny had indeed noticed the curious imprecision of Buller's account, which ruled out one of his police contacts . . . even supposing that he'd been clever enough and lucky enough to find one so imprudent to say so much. And even then —
'Ah! Now that would be telling!' Buller savoured his memories for a moment. 'You know what I've got — eh?'
'An eye-witness.' Ian snapped the words as they hit him, in the instant he recalled Buller's powers of conversation-recall from past experience, when these could be checked against played-back tapes for comparison.
'And clients paying for your time,' added Jenny tartly, but oddly out of character. 'Come on, Mr Buller — don't piss us around: you've got an eye-witness.'
'Strictly speaking . . .
'Meaning . . . you won't ever be able to turn this into one of your lovely bits of dialogue, Ian lad — like with that Yank we found up in those mountains — remember?'
'Why not, Mr Buller?' Jenny was less hampered by any imperishable memories of the Grand Tetons in Wyoming, never mind the horrors of Vietnam.
'Because my eye-witness is dead and buried. So I never got to dummy2
talk to — '
'
'Hold on, lad!' Buller cut him short. 'At ninety-one years old she has a perfect right to be dead — and decently buried, too!
You don't need to blame me: it was pneumonia, after she broke her hip getting out of bed, an' fell over, see? An'. . . she was always gettin' up — they never could stop the old girl, that's what her daughter said . . . An' the daughter's nearer seventy now, than sixty . . . But she heard all the commotion, the old woman did, so she got out of 'er bed an' went to look
— see?'
The repetition of
a ninety-one-year-old woman . . . saw Mitchell shoot O'Leary? At Thornervaulx — ?'
'She wasn't ninety-one then. She was . . . what's ninety-one minus eight?'
'Eighty-three.' Jenny answered automatically, before she could stop herself. 'You're pissing us around again, Mr Buller. And in our time.' She was beginning to get angry again. 'She was . . . bed-ridden. But she was an eye-witness.
And . . . now she's dead?'
'That's right — you got it, Lady.' No one could shrug off Jenny better than Reg Buller. But, then, no one but Reg Buller dared to shrug her off.
'Got what, Mr Buller?'
Buller half-grunted, half-sighed. 'Got the whole thing. The dummy2
story of your life an' mine — how we make a crust, an'
something to drink with it, between us. Like ... no matter 'ow clever they are, or 'ow careful . . . there's always somethin'
that they '
Ian didn't see. And he knew that Jenny couldn't see, either.
But, in the next instant, he knew exactly what Reg Buller meant, all the same — in general as well as at Thornervaulx, on November 11, 1978: Sod's Law was out there, waiting for everyone.
'You've been to Thornervaulx?' When Jenny remained silent Reg simply nodded at her. 'A lot of old ruins, that Henry VIII knocked about a bit? Chucked out the old monks —
privatized the abbey, an' pinched all their savings . . . An' now they charge you a dollar to see what's left, all neat an' tidy.
An' half-a-dollar for the guide-book — right?'
Jenny wasn't meant to interrupt, and she didn't.
'You go up the steps, an' the path, from the car-park, by the road — by the "Thor Brook", the little river there — when you've paid your money, an' got your ticket... an' you never notice the cottages there, on the other side of the path, alongside the ruins.' Pause. 'Farm-labourers' cottages, they are — God knows how old . . . They're all listed as "historic buildings", because they're built with the stones from the old abbey, anyway. But no one notices 'em.'
There was a picture forming in Ian's head.
'So they were all there, that day.' Buller warmed to his own dummy2
story. 'It was pissing down with rain — it was a Saturday, an'
it was in November, an' it was pissin' down with rain. An'
then the cars started to arrive.' Pause. 'An' then
Ian opened his mouth, but then shut it tightly.
'An', of course, old "Mad Dog" was there too, somewhere . . .
Up on the hillside, in the bracken an' the trees — good cover there.' Pause. 'So he was there, too.' Pause. 'An' then a police car comes along, over the bridge — soundin' 'is siren, the silly bugger, just to show off.' Pause. They
'Why was Audley there?' The question burst out of Jenny as though she couldn't contain it.
'God knows.' Buller seemed to dismiss the question. 'It was Butler who was in charge. My bloke that I talked to first didn't know anything about Audley. Or about Mitchell, either . . . Never even got their names.' Pause. 'Good descriptions, though. An' from the old lady too, second hand . . . Bloody shame, that. But even second hand, she was good, though.' Pause. '"The bloke" in charge wore a deerstalker hat, an' carried a golfing umbrella, an' 'e 'ad freckles an' a red face" — how's that, then, for memory?'
Buller grinned. 'When it comes to mindin' other people's business, an' peering through the curtain, an' seein' strangers dummy2
up to no good, you can't beat a countrywoman — specially North Countrywomen. And they knew that, of course.'
'They?'
'The local cops. Maybe Butler, too — he's North Country, so he'd have known ... So, after it was all over, they went into the cottages an' put the fear of God into the women there.
The men an' the boys were all at the matches, see — there was the football and the rugby, it being a Saturday afternoon.
So there were only women an' girls home. An' the Police put
'em through it.'
'What did they want to know?'
'What they'd seen.
'Why?' Jenny had decided to be chief questioner.
'Huh! Because she knew by then that she'd deceived 'em dummy2
something shocking the first time, Lady.' Buller chuckled grimly. 'She an' the old witch between 'em.'
'How?'
'She'd told 'em she hadn't seen anything. Just the police car, anyway . . . An' then a policeman had told her to stay indoors.
An' the wall by the cottage is too high to see right into the ruins from the ground-floor, anyway. So he half-believed her the first time. But even then they also told her not to speak to anyone — meaning the press, of course.'
'But she
'No.
Buller chuckled again. 'Silly bugger!'
Ian recalled his own grandmother vividly to mind. 'She saw everything — from her bedroom window, Reg?'
'Near enough, lad. Near enough!' No chuckle this time.
'When the daughter went back up, after the silver-braid bloke had gone — she started to tell the old witch about him. But she didn't get far, before the old witch started to tell
near enough everything — aye!'
'And she didn't tell the second man — the man in the suit dummy2
— ?'
Buller sniffed. 'Too scared, she was.' Another sniff. The first one told her, if she'd not been telling the truth, or had withheld evidence, then she'd be in serious trouble. And her eldest boy was a prison officer, at Northallerton or somewhere then. So she thought he might get the sack, an'
lose his pension. So she stuck to her story, same as before.
An' fortunately the old girl was still in bed. So the whole story stuck, same as before.'
Sod's Law: no matter how clever you were, there was always something waiting to catch you by the heel. Frances Fitzgibbon's book had gathered dust in Mrs Champeney-Smythe's shelf, waiting for its moment. And now an old woman's eye-witness story had found its moment too — even after the death of its eye-witness narrator.
'But she talked to
'Ah, she did that, but 'appen I'm not a silly bugger in a uniform. An' my suit's Marks and Spencer, off the peg.'
'Very true, Mr Buller.' Jenny wasn't about to let Buller's arrogance remain unpunctured. 'But you also slipped her a few of those nice crisp banknotes you always keep, to loosen honest tongues? Which you charge to expenses.'
'The man with the freckled face had a golfing umbrella.'
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Buller cut his losses. 'Red, white an' blue ... or, red,
white — that's what the old woman said . . . An' she'd never seen a golfing umbrella before. But the old witch 'ad a telescope to spy on people, an' a good memory. Because Sir Jack Butler, KBE, MC . . .'e's got ginger hair, an' a red-brick face, an' freckles. An 'e plays golf.'
'Yes?' Buller was making his point. But Jenny was after other game. 'What about Audley?'
'A big bugger. Like . . . her old man, who was long-dead . . .'e was Rugby League. So she said there was one of 'em built like
'im: six-foot an' more, with broad shoulders an' long legs, an'
a broken nose from way back — ?' Buller paused to let the next identification sink in. 'An' that's Audley, to the life, by all accounts.' Shorter pause. 'Rugby Union, 'e played — not Rugby League . . . But that's
'But he was late: it was all over when he arrived. It was Butler first, with his umbrella — '
'
'Doing?' Buller gave a snort of derision. 'I'll tell you what he
'Why not?'
'F — !' Buller swallowed the obscenity. 'If you were goin' to meet an IRA marksman . . . would you carry your golfing umbrella, to help him aim?' He let the thought sink in. 'An'
besides . . . Butler had been told to give O'Leary back to the dummy2
Anti-Terrorist Squad — an' the Special Branch — after the bomb at the University: it was them that were after O'Leary.
An' they thought he'd long gone, too.'
'You don't know why Butler was there?'
'Christ Almighty!' Buller simulated outrage. 'Twenty-four hours — thirty-six hours ... an' you expect me to know what British Intelligence was up to in 1978? An' not just MI5 — but Research and Development? An' not even MI5 knows what R
amp; D is up to, most of the time. Lady — you don't want much, do you!'
'I'm sorry, Mr Buller. I was just asking, not expecting.' Jenny recovered quickly. Tell me about Mitchell.'
'Yes.' Buller accepted the name, but stopped on his acceptance. Because 'Mitchell' wasn't just another name any more: he echoed distant gunfire now, and maybe more than that.
'He was with Audley?'
'No. Audley was late — I told you. The woman was with him.'
'Yes — of course! Ian's woman.' Jenny dismissed Frances Fitzgibbon once more. 'So ... Mitchell was there with Butler, was he?'
'Go on, Mr Buller.' Jenny's patience was beginning to stretch again. 'What — '
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'Tell me about the woman, Reg.' Ian overrode her. 'Mrs Fitzgibbon.'
'Ian! For heaven's sake!'
'Tell me about the woman, Reg.'
'Yes.' Buller ignored Jenny. '"Just a slip of a girl", the old witch said — Mrs Rowe said she said. A pretty little thing, too
— '
'She had good eye-sight, did she? At ninety-one?' snapped Jenny.
'Eighty-four. An' yes, she did.' Buller's voice strengthened.
'But I told you: she had this old telescope. An' she used to sit in her room, by the window, an' spy on everything — on all the people that came to visit the abbey ruins. Like, it was her hobby: see the coaches come over the narrow bridge, down the road, where they used to get stuck. An' then the kids climbin' on the ruins, an' their mothers pullin' 'em off an'
thumpin' 'em — ' He stopped suddenly. 'A pretty little thing.
An' she saw 'er first when the car came. Like a racin' car, slitherin' on the gravel in the car-park. An' out she comes like lightning — didn't even close the door after 'er, before she started runnin':
Buller paused there, and Ian thought for a moment that he was challenging Jenny to interrupt again. But Jenny didn't speak, and in the next instant he knew why — and why Buller had stopped, as the final picture he was painting for them in dummy2
words began to form again in his own mind — and to move, like a suddenly-animated film.
'It was rainin'.' Buller confirmed that second thought with extra information, to complete the picture. 'It 'ad been rainin'
all day, off an' on. So there 'adn't been any visitors much, before then. An' it was November, in any case.'
November 11. Next day, there would have been the Armistice Day Sunday parades, with everyone wearing their red poppies up and down the country, and the Queen televised at eleven o'clock, laying her wreath at the Cenotaph, before the veterans' march-past.
'An' then ... it was the way she ran.' Buller's voice was matter-of-fact, as it always was when he was totally-recalling what had been said to him. 'Like a boy, the old woman said: with
'er short hair, if she 'adn't noticed 'er skirt when she come out of the car, she'd 'ave thought it
Buller was addressing Jenny, as one who knew what he was talking about, quite forgetting Ian now. So Ian had to build his own picture for himself, out of a jigsaw of other pieces, from other places, other ruins: Tintern and Bylands, Fountains and Rievaulx — all the old ruined abbeys . . . And
'You know, the old woman actually saw O'Leary —
For an instant Buller's matter-of-factness became dummy2
incredulous. ''E must 'ave got there late — like Audley . . . Or,
'ave been payin' 'im premium rates, for whatever 'e was paid to do — even with all the escape disguises 'e'd got set up behind 'im. Because, 'e was really chancin' 'is arm, that last time — gettin' to Thornervaulx, over the top of the moor there . . . Silly bugger!'
'Yes.' Jenny weakened. 'But . . . what
'Aye. That's more likely. Because he must 'ave 'ad a clear shot at Butler — just about, anyway.' Buller sounded as though he'd been there before her, but was still uncertain. 'What about your Philip Masson, though?'
'No.' Jenny was decisive. 'Philly was out of the country that week. He was abroad — ' As she spoke her voice came from Buller to Ian ' — he was talking to the French in Paris. And he must have had all his R amp; D interviews by then. That's what I think, anyway.'
'So he'd got the job — deputy first ... an' then the gaffer, when Sir Frederick Clinton retired — ?' Buller stopped short, but just a shade too innocently.
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'I didn't say that.' Jenny also stopped there. Because the reality was that they had both been busy calling in their debts from their best sources — Jenny from her friends, and
'Daddy's friends', or even from Daddy himself, while Buller had tapped his 'blokes' in Fleet Street, or the Special Branch, who owed him favours (and who hoped to owe him more in the future?); but, with John Tully
'You know too much, Reg Buller,' said Jenny.
'Too much?' Buller snapped back at her. 'Lady — I don't know 'alf enough.' Deep breath. 'But Audley was in Washington too, that week — I do know that. So someone tipped 'im off that Butler was in trouble — right?'
'But he got there in time for the fun, all the same —
Jenny still didn't know how much Reg Buller knew, but she wanted all he'd got.
'
"slip of a girl" — yes! She came out there, at the top, through the gate — the gate, there — ?'
'Where was Mitchell then? Paul Mitchell — ?' Jenny's interest in the final picture still concentrated on Mitchell.
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'He was right there.' Buller agreed with her. 'He was up top, gawpin' about in the main part, under the hillside, where the high altar was, an' the big window at the end — the big round window they all admire — ? That's in all the postcards?'
'The rose window.' Jenny supplied the rest of the tourist information.
'That's right. But there isn't any glass in it now — '
'
'It was all rather quick, lad.' Buller sniffed. 'Mitchell was there — coverin' Butler, most likely. An' Butler was there . . .
down in the lower part of the ruins, keepin' the rain off 'im, under 'is big umbrella. An' O'Leary — 'e came down the hillside, over the bracken, an' through the trees . . . An' she shouts at 'im — the woman does — '
'Shouts what?' Jenny burst out, suddenly abandoning Mitchell.
'God knows.' Duller stopped. 'But 'e shot 'er dead, then — as she shouted at 'im. An' then Mitchell swings round, from watchin' Butler ... an'
An' bowled 'im over — O'Leary — like 'e'd been pole-axed.'
Pause. 'Which at that range — an', I tell you, I've been there
— at — that range, that's target shootin', that is: like, two bulls, an' one inner, at thirty yards or more, before 'e could take over, O'Leary — like bloody lightning, that was!'
Ian thought of the two empty barrels in the shot-gun at Lower Buckland; and of Mitchell's barely-suppressed passion dummy2
after that, which he'd not understood.
'And then?' Jenny, once again, was unencumbered by that first-hand experience of Paul Mitchell. '
Reg?' This time she softened the question finally.
Still no reply. So, there was something here which Reg Buller couldn't quite handle. And that struck Ian as strange, even disconcertingly strange, almost worrying. Because Reg Buller, drunk or sober (or, more-or-less permanently, midway between those extremes), was never a man to be lost for words.
'That is what the old woman saw? What she told her daughter?' Jenny had to be experiencing the same doubts: those were not so much questions as encouraging noises, jollying Buller along with her acceptance of what he was saying. 'Tell us, Reg.'
'Aye. What she saw.' Buller agreed with her reluctantly. 'Of course . . . it's early days yet. So we didn't ought to jump to conclusions an' then stay there. Because you never have before, anyway.' Sniff. 'Which is why you're worth more working for than some I could name.'
The man's reluctance and his change-of-subject fazed Ian completely for a long moment — and, obviously, Jenny also: their surprise flowed together in mutual silence.
'
'
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'It's all right, darling.' She got the message, nevertheless. 'Of course it's early days yet. But we ... it does rather look as though we don't have a lot of time. So do please jump to a conclusion for us, Reg dear.' As near as Ian had ever heard —
nearer by far than at any time in Beirut — she was pleading now, to get what she wanted. '
'All right.' Reg Buller couldn't resist her, any more than any man could when she pushed so hard. 'So O'Leary went down
— like 'e'd been pole-axed ... an' that's probably exactly what the old woman said, because she was country-bred, so she's seen 'em kill their beasts stone-dead, with just the legs kickin' . . . But what she meant, I reckon, was that Mitchell knew 'e 'adn't missed, maybe. But 'e didn't care, anyway —
not about O'Leary.' Reg Buller drank, and they waited for him. 'It was the woman 'e went for — to where she'd dropped down when she was hit.'
Ian was aware that his mouth was dry. He'd hardly touched his non-alcoholic lager. And he had another full glass, untouched, waiting for him.
'It was pissin' down with rain by then. But . . . Jack Butler came up, an' 'e 'ad 'is umbrella down, she said. An' 'e tried to stop Mitchell pickin' up the woman — the girl . . . But Mitchell pushed 'im away, an' cuddles 'er, an' 'olds 'er. So then Jack Butler puts up 'is umbrella again, an' 'olds it over
'em both, while all the rest of 'em comes runnin' up.'
'An' 'e wouldn't let go of 'er, Mitchell wouldn't — not when dummy2
the police came up, an' some others not in uniform . . . An'
not even when the ambulance men finally came, with stretchers: 'e shoved 'em off, an' Jack Butler backs 'im up, an'
points to where O'Leary is — ' Buller moved from the past tense to the historic present' — so they goes to' get 'im. An'
brings 'im down first, with a ground-sheet over 'im, or a blanket . . . an' 'is arm 'anging over the side, like dead-meat
— ' Buller sniffed ' — no proper scene-of-the-crime police-work for '
Ian realized that he had made a noise of some sort, because Buller was looking at him suddenly, frowning. 'Go on, Reg.'
Buller stared at him. 'What is it?'
'It's nothing.
'Okay ... So in the end it was a policeman comes up, because Mitchell won't let go of 'er — like we used to do when there was a road accident . . . I've seen it happen, when they won't let go of 'em, just like that . . . when they know's too late.'
Buller nodded at him. 'But Jack Butler — 'e stops the copper, an' talks to 'im. An' then 'e talks to Mitchell — with the rain still pissin' down, an' Mitchell an' the girl are like a couple of drowned rats by then, with the rain, while Butler's been talkin' to the copper ... So finally Mitchell picks 'er up in 'is arms, an' carries 'er down 'isself . . . with Audley be'ind 'im, an' then a copper that's picked up O'Leary's rifle, carryin' it like it was gold-dust, so as not to smudge the prints on it, with a pencil down the barrel, an' a string through the trigger-dummy2
guard — she even remembered
Ian saw it all, detail by detail, on the hillside he'd not yet seen, among the ruins of the abbey he'd also never seen yet —
'Yes?' He almost added, for Jenny . . .
—
Another frown. 'Well, that's all there is, lad: they took 'er away — an' O'Leary with 'er . . . An' then they started to make bloody-sure no one ever printed the truth about what happened there.' Buller watched him. 'So what else do you want, then?'
Ian couldn't really say anything. But Jenny saved him from admitting so much. 'But . . . you haven't really told us the ending — have you, Reg?'
Buller picked up his chaser, but didn't drink it. 'Yes . . . But maybe that's the bit you won't like, Lady. An' I'd only be guessin' anyway. An' maybe it's too early to start guessin'?
Not when you've got your cheque-book at the ready?' He looked at Ian.
For once Ian knew that he not only knew more than Jenny did, but also understood better what he knew: knew that he had lost forever what he could never have won anyway —
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'Go on, Reg.' His knowledge didn't set him free: it chained him. But he wanted Jenny to feel the weight of those chains.
'Okay.' Buller dropped him. 'Your bloke Masson, Lady — he may have been the greatest thing since bread an' alcohol. But he'd still have played his game the only way he knew — the way the clever buggers in the Civil Service always play it.
Which is only the way everyone else plays it, anyway, if they're clever: you use the weapons you've got, that the other bloke hasn't got — okay?'
The man was trying to wrap up his can-of-worms in pretty paper. 'For God's sake, Reg —
'Okay — okay!'
Jenny looked from one to the other. Tell me what — ?'
Out of nowhere, Ian suddenly understood why Buller was delaying. And that was remarkably to Reg Buller's credit, when he was so shit-scared of 'Dr P. L. Mitchell' — enough to make them go over that wall in the rain and the dark into the railway cutting so uncomfortably and so recently. But, for his part, he couldn't let himself identify so exactly with Dr Mitchell — not yet, not yet!
He faced Jenny. 'Philip Masson wanted the job, Jen. And . . .
maybe he didn't think Jack Butler was right for it — ' Partly on impulse, and partly to help her accept what he was about to say, he sugared the bitter pill ' — more likely ... So he fixed a test for Butler to prove himself — handling all the different pressures, up north: not just O'Leary, but the Special Branch, dummy2
and MI5, and the local police up there — and the Chief Constable — right, Reg?'
Buller nodded gratefully. And then faced up to the truth. 'It was a maybe fair test — ' Then he faced Jenny in turn, to repay his debt. ' — but it was a fucking dirty trick, Lady — if you'll pardon my French!'
'It was a fair test.' Ian chose to disagree. 'Because Butler pretty well passed it at the University: he didn't catch O'Leary . . . but O'Leary's bomb didn't kill anyone.' He still tried to sugar the pill — even after Reg Buller's French. 'But then O'Leary went on to Thornervaulx. And . . . Mrs Frances Fitzgibbon died because of that, you see — ?'
'You've got it, lad!' Buller didn't want to owe him more than that. 'But that's where we 'ave to start guessin', Lady. Because it still could be Audley who did for him, after that. Or ... it could be 'e just turned a blind eye — see?'
The blind eye seeing confused her for a second. 'Audley — ?'
' 'E could 'ave turned a blind eye.' Buller emphasized himself.
' 'E could have just pointed Mitchell in the right direction. Or he could have gone to Mitchell straight off, an' said "This bugger Masson — if 'e fell under a bus now ... or, maybe, if 'e fell off 'is boat, an' drowned, an' no question asked . . .
wouldn't that be nice now?" An' after what 'ad 'appened to the woman 'e wouldn't 'ave needed to ask twice; 'e'd got the perfect murderer. Or almost perfect.'
Jenny stared at them both. '
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' 'E's got the balls for it, Lady.' Buller nodded. '
With a terrible certainty, Ian understood why she was so slow now, when she was usually so quick. And then he saw how he could make her understand. 'You want vengeance for Philip Masson, Jen. So Paul Mitchell wanted to even the score for Frances Fitzgibbon.'
She frowned at him. 'But Philly didn't kill her.' She looked at Reg Buller.
'"Mad Dog" O'Leary?' Buller shook his head. ' 'E just snapped a shot off — it could 'ave been at anyone — it could 'ave been at Mitchell ... or it could 'ave been at Butler . . . or it could
'ave been some poor bloody copper, Lady: they're the ones who usually get the bullet.' Another shake. 'But it was '
an' if it was your bloke Masson who put it all together, then it was '
Jenny had got it: it was pasted across her face, white under falling-down red.
'If it 'ud been my woman I might 'ave done it, anyway,'
repeated Buller simply. 'Or ... if I was "Dr P. L. Mitchell" —
yes. Because then I'd 'ave known how to do it, too —
'specially if I'd 'ad "Dr D. L. Audley" to help me!' He stared at Jenny. 'But, then again, I'm not sure about Audley to tell the truth. Because, 'avin' 'eard a thing or two about 'im, I reckon dummy2
'e'd 'ave fixed Masson some other way, short of murder.' He cocked his head at her. 'Wasn't it you said on the phone today that 'e likes to out-smart people? That 'e gets 'is jollies that way more than any other? An' she wasn't 'is woman, after all — was she?' He shook his head finally. 'No ... if I was bettin', then I'd say the worst 'e might 'ave done is to 'ave looked the other way. An' my money would all be on Mitchell, Lady.'
Jenny looked at Ian: she had been looking at him ever since she'd got it, he realized. 'Ian — ?'
He had to face it, too. 'She was quite something, Jen.
Everyone who knew her — ' He thought of Mrs Simmonds for an instant ' — everyone who knew her as she really was . . .
she must have been quite a woman, Jen.'
'I don't mean
'Yes.' Ian had to face that, too. And with Paul Mitchell there was the matter of the empty shot-gun between them, as well as Frances Fitzgibbon. But it was Frances who made the decision easy. 'Actually, I think Mr Buller has got it wrong, Jen. It's clever . . . but he's wrong. Although . . . it's early days, of course.'
'Oh aye?' Buller frowned at him in surprise.
'Yes.' Never writing this marvellous book was bad enough.
But helping Paul Mitchell to escape was a more immediate problem. And then, quite suddenly, he saw the easy answer.
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'Or is Mitchell a saint, Reg?'
'A—?' The frown deepened.
'Only saints have the gift of bi-location, Reg: they can be in two places at once. But the rest of us can't.' Annoying Reg Buller would also help. 'Even if Mitchell wasn't saving my life this afternoon, I really don't see how he could have been killing John Tully — do you?' There was, of course, a major flaw in that dismissive argument: he didn't really know that Mitchell had been behind him, watching him, until quite late in the afternoon. But Reg Buller couldn't know that. 'I'm his alibi, Reg.'
'Oh aye?' Buller stared at him belligerently as they both faced up to John Tully's death, about which they knew next to nothing. But ... if that had also been Mitchell, then his own ethical problems multiplied hideously. But he would think about that later: it was early days — everyone seemed agreed on that.
Buller grinned suddenly. 'You could be right at that, lad—
back in'78.'
It was Ian's turn to frown. 'What?'
'Someone hired O'Leary. So someone was up to something.'
Buller dropped him, almost contemptuously, in preference for Jenny. 'So now Masson's turned up again, an' there's a great big can of worms goin' to be opened up . . . An' if you want me to try an' guess what's 'appening — Lady, I can't even
remembered his whisky chaser on the table beside him, and picked it up and downed it. 'But I tell you one thing: there'll be others as well as Mitchell tryin' to stop up the rat-holes.
An' the rats are all runnin' scared, bitin' whatever gets in their way — like us, for a start, maybe?' He looked at Jenny for a moment, and then nodded. 'So I'm runnin', too. An' not just from Dr P. L. Mitchell, neither, Lady.'
Now he found himself looking at Jenny — looking, and trying not to look at her bitterly, without recrimination. Because it had been Jenny who had wanted vengeance for her beloved Philip Masson, against his own better judgement, and that had been what had started them off on this ill-judged enterprise. And from their present experience he now came upon an unpalatable truth belatedly, which his judgement and instinct hadn't been quite strong enough to formulate exactly, before it was too late—
The door opened again, without any knock, as before —
The large barmaid was somewhat breathless, and she didn't smile at Buller this time. 'Call for you, Mr Buller — on the phone downstairs — okay?'
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'Thank you, love — ' Buller addressed the door as it closed again. Then he looked at them in turn. 'Well, "the bell invites me", as the bard says — eh?'
That was Reg Buller to the life, thought Ian: all those dropped 'aitches', and half-genuine, half-false common speech. But Reg Buller had always been more than he seemed to be. So now, when Jenny had started them off with
'Wait!' Jenny surfaced first: Jenny was never better than in danger. 'If we're running, Mr Buller —
That was their old technique: one picked up the unasked question from the other. 'Where are we going, Reg?' He moved slightly, so as to block Buller's passage towards the door. 'We're running . . . where?'
Buller grinned at him. 'We ain't exactly
'
'Not "where", Lady.' Buller stopped. '
game now, I reckon —
Now they were shoulder-to-shoulder in the way, just like in the old days. Only now . . . Frances Fitzgibbon was between them, somehow, thought Ian: now they were just business associates, and allies at need.
'Spain, Mr Buller?' Jenny drew a breath.
'Audley, Lady.' Buller's expression hardened. 'The only bloke who can get us out from under is Audley. Because ... if 'e knows, then we can maybe make a deal with 'im. An' ... if 'e doesn't know . . . then 'e'll know what's what when we've told
'im. An' then 'e'll 'ave to be on our side, to save 'is own skin.'
He started to move towards them. 'Okay?'
Ian didn't know which of them moved first. But they both moved, anyway.
And he completed that belated truth then:
PART TWO
Jennifer Fielding and The Ghosts of
Salamanca
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1
Although the sun had nowhere near reached its full strength Jenny already felt a prickle of sweat between her shoulder blades. And, as she sensed it, another spike of corn-stubble gouged her ankle painfully, reminding her again that she had chosen the wrong shoes this morning. She had planned to look cool and elegant for this encounter, and she was going to end up a perfect mess, sweaty, injured and angry. And it was all Ian's fault — bloody,
'Ouch!' She stopped to examine the damage. There was a glistening dark-red globule marking the injury, not far from the unsightly smear of its predecessor, which was mixed with red dust. Sweaty, injured, angry and
He hadn't even stopped. He was striding ahead, quite oblivious of her. And now she couldn't even
(They weren't really the wrong shoes: they were her bloody
He had stopped at last, silhouetted in the glare at the top of the rise against the pure blue cloudless sky. But he still wasn't looking at her: he had his binoculars glued to his eyes again, still oblivious of her.
'
Now, at last, after he'd observed what he wanted to check on, he turned towards her. 'What is it?'
'It's all right, darling.' She realized as he turned that the greatest mistake of all would be to whinge, like a man.
Indeed, to whinge as Ian himself did (or, had used to do; but this was a different Ian, she had to remember). 'It's just ...
your legs are longer than mine . . . Have you spotted him?'
'Yes.' He turned back, away from her, lifting the binoculars again.
'Yes?' She was conscious of looking at the new Ian with new eyes, now that he wasn't interested in looking at her. That
'wimp' image had always been unfair, of course: he had been very far from that in Beirut that time, everyone had said dummy2
afterwards; more like a hero, they'd said, but she'd taken that with a pinch of salt (or, anyway, taken it for granted: in wars and emergencies, scholars and poets down the ages had rarely been among the skulkers . . . and a scholar and a poet was what the poor darling really was — or, in a better world, might have been). 'Where?'
'On the Greater Arapile.' He lowered the binoculars, and then pointed. 'See where his car's parked — the Rover? Just beyond that hut. Imagine that's the centre of a clock, and the hour-hand is pointing at eleven — follow that line up to the top, Jenny. He's standing just to the right of that monument.
It must be a battle memorial of some sort.'
Jenny shaded her eyes and stared.
'”The Greater Arapile".' The binoculars came up again.
'That's where the French were, when the battle started in 1812. And the Duke of Wellington came along behind us, from the "Lesser Arapile" to the village. He must have had his lunch just about where we left the car: that was when he saw they'd over-extended their line of march, and threw his chicken leg over his shoulder and said "That will do!" So the story goes, anyway.'
Either it was the glare, or perhaps she needed glasses, but she couldn't see a damn thing in the desolate parched landscape. 'I really don't need to know about the battle — do I, darling?'
'It's an interesting battle.' He spoke distantly, as though to a child. 'When people think of Wellington they think of dummy2
Waterloo . . . like, when they think of Nelson, it's Trafalgar . . . But Nelson's finest victory was the Nile — or maybe it was at St Vincent that he really showed what he was made of ... So this was maybe Wellington's "finest hour" . . .
ye-ess: "
Jenny squinted hopelessly at a blur of boring fields and boring rocks, and knew that it wasn't her own finest hour.
Or, anyway, not yet. 'I didn't know it was the Duke of Wellington we were interested in, darling. I thought it was David Audley.'
'We could do a book on Spain instead, you know.' The new Ian was impervious to sarcasm. 'All those people on holiday on the Costa Blanca, and the Costa Brava . . . and now Spain in the Common Market. And the ETA link with the IRA . . .
And we could take the history all the way from the Black Prince, and the War of the Spanish Succession, and Wellington . . .
— and the phenomenon of peaceful transition from fascism to democracy ... I met a woman recently who is an expert on Spanish economic development, and what she had to say was
The new Ian was also becoming sassy in pushing alternative projects to the one which mattered to her. Although the one plus-factor was that at least he seemed for a moment to have forgotten Mrs Frances Fitzgibbon,
way from London to Madrid to the exclusion of almost everything else.
'"Ahh"?' It probably was it. Because Reg and the Police Force had parted company long ago not so much because of his drinking (that would have been no great sin, the way he held it) as because of his sneaking sympathy for underdogs and minor villains versus authority. But it was still an added burden now, when Ian had gone funny on her too. 'What is it, darling?'
'I think I've spotted the wife.' He concentrated on the lower part of the plateau.
'Where?' Reg Buller was all the back-up they had, somewhere behind them in the car, and probably drinking already from his hip-flask. But Ian was her immediate problem.
'Or it may be the daughter . . . They're both tall and thin and blonde . . . But what on earth is she doing — ?' He dummy2
concentrated for another moment. Then he lowered the binoculars and pointed. 'Just down there, left of the car — in the ploughed field . . . Come on, Jen — let's get going.'
'Hold on.' It was still a long and uncomfortable walk to where he was pointing and she felt mutinous. 'Why are we walking all this way?'
'Eh?' The bloody binoculars came up again. 'I told you, Jen: I want to think a bit. And I also want to look at the battlefield.'
'You want to — ?' She bit off her anger, and looked round instead to help her count to ten: it was (she could see at a glance) a most excellent and absolute, and suitable and tailor-made . . .
'I don't have to. But I want to.' Now he was studying a more distant ridge to the right of the Greater Arapile. 'It's what Audley's doing today, Jen. I told you in the car — remember?'
What Jenny chiefly remembered from the short journey out dummy2
of Salamanca was that he had been irritatingly masterful and matter-of-fact and decisive. But then he had been like that for the last thirty-six hours, ever since Reg Buller had sold them his theory about Paul Mitchell and that wretched woman.
'So what?' What cautioned her was that he had also been efficient with it, in coaxing information about David Audley's whereabouts from a series of slightly bewildered Spaniards while she had stood on the sidelines like an idiot girlfriend whose main function was to stare at the ceiling of a series of bedrooms.
'I told you, Jen.' Now he wasn't so much masterful as quite damnably long-suffering. 'The daughter prattled to that man the receptionist found for us in the hotel after we checked in
— the one who spoke English? They were here all yesterday, but they were "doing" the English side of the battle, and that ridge over there — ' he pointed. 'So today they were going to do the French side. And the French were up
— and that's where Audley is. But I wish I knew
'Why . . . what?' If he'd wanted to make her feel even more stupid, he was succeeding.
He sighed. 'Why is he studying the battle of Salamanca?'
She mustn't lose her temper. 'Does it matter? He's supposed to be a historian. Don't historians study battlefields?'
'But he's a medievalist. The Peninsular War just isn't his dummy2
period.'
She
He looked at her then, even as she was already regretting what she'd just said. And the way he'd looked at her made her regret the unnecessary words even more, however much he'd asked for them. 'I'm sorry, Ian — '
'Don't be sorry, Jenny dear. I shall only ask him one question about Frances Fitzgibbon. And I think I already know the answer to it.' He shook his head slowly. 'But it's of no importance to you, I agree. So shall we go, then?'
The hateful corn-stubble ended eventually, but with a deep drainage-ditch (as though it ever rained in this parched landscape!). And Ian leapt the ditch and went on again without a backward glance, leaving her to take the longer route beside it to the track, while he struck off on his own —
She reached the dusty track at last, sweating like a horse and with her hair coming down. And she reached it ahead of him, because he had stopped for another of those exclusive binocular-sweeps of his.
She walked up the track to intercept him, forcing herself to recover her breath, and some shreds of dignity and self-respect.
It was the daughter, not the wife, she could see now: a tall blonde child mooching up and down the furrows of a newly ploughed field on the edge of the fallen scree from the dummy2
Greater Arapile plateau, head down and intent on the red earth at her feet, as though she was looking for something she'd lost.
She had a plan.
And she even had time to put back her hair. And it even went back easily.
'I want to talk to the child first, darling. Okay?'
The new Ian frowned at the old Jenny. 'What about Audley?'
Maybe she had done him an injustice. But now wasn't the time to think about injustice and Ian Robinson: this was justice-time and Philly-time now. 'Audley's not going to go away. Not while I'm talking to his daughter.'
'No . . .' Even the new Ian couldn't argue with that. But the new Ian didn't like being thwarted. 'But what's the use of talking to her?'
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'It's what I want to do.' The old Jenny frankly didn't give a damn. 'You wanted to "do" the battlefield of Salamanca, darling. So I want to "do" David Audley's daughter.' She could even smile at him now. 'We're still partners, aren't we?'
'Yes — of course — ' he stopped suddenly. 'If you want to ...
okay, then.'
'I want to, then.' But now she also wanted more than that.
'What's her name? How old is she?' It irritated her that she knew so little: that she was asking these questions now, and not before, when there had been plenty of time. 'What do you know about her?'
'Her name is Catherine, with a "C". Because he calls her
"Cathy".' He nodded towards his Arapile. 'Like in
Except . . . she talks to Spaniards. So she isn't shy . . . even though she is only fifteen — or maybe sixteen, I suppose — '
A faint memory of the old diffident Ian animated him suddenly. 'Why d'you want to talk to her, Jen? Audley's up there — ' The Wuthering Arapile received another nod ' — in fact, I rather think he's watching us, actually.'
It was easy to ignore him. There was a wide-open gap in the fence inviting her towards the child, who was no more than fifty yards away among the furrows, staring intently down at the ground, pretending to ignore them both.
But Ian had got her right, exactly: mid-teens, tall and very blonde . . . and thin, almost flat: she'd never be a Page Three girl, for sure!
'Have you lost something?' On the strength of her own great age, and Catherine Audley's alleged 'not-shyness', she called out confidently.
The child had already observed them covertly, while keeping her head down. But now she straightened up and stared directly at them from behind the protection of huge sunglasses which emphasized the thinness of her face, first at Jenny, then with a small movement of her head towards Ian, and finally back at Jenny. 'No.'
Jenny felt herself being scrutinized woman-to-woman, from hair to unsuitable shoes, via her sweat-stained dress, and returned the compliment automatically:
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The child continued to stare at her, giving nothing away from behind the darkened lenses. And Jenny felt a trickle of sweat run down from her throat to lose itself between her breasts, and adjusted 'not-shy' to 'self-possessed' as the gap between their ages was critically narrowed.
'You're looking for something?' She realized too late that the question was a stupid one. Even though there plainly wasn't anything to look for in the newly-turned red-brown earth, Catherine Audley had quite obviously been looking for something. 'What have you lost, Miss Audley?' She threw the name in deliberately, to regain the upper hand as though it was a fight between equals.
The child frowned, nonplussed by her recognition.
'It's Catherine, isn't it?' Jenny smiled sweetly. 'I'm a friend of Willy Arkenshaw's — Lady Arkenshaw?'
'Oh!' The frown dissolved. 'Willy — yes!'
'What have you lost, dear?' Jenny tried to open the age-gap again.
'I haven't lost anything.' Catherine Audley relaxed perceptibly for a moment. But then she began to frown again.
'I'm looking for bullets . . . Are you looking for my father?'
'Bullets?' The counter-punch caught Jenny unprepared, so that it took her a second to recover. And then she decided to leave the second question. 'Bullets?'
'Not
gesture. 'Do you know my father? I mean ... if you know Willy
— ?'
If this was the teenage daughter, what would the father be like? Jenny wondered uneasily. 'No, dear. But — I've heard a lot about him.' Another sweet smile was called for. 'Musket balls?'
'Yes.' The child seemed to accept her lying-truth: it would take another year or two for her to learn that grown-ups were liars. 'There was a battle here, Miss — ? Miss — ?'
Saved by good manners! thought Jenny. 'Oh, I'm sorry, dear!
I'm Jennifer Fielding — Jenny?'
'Cathy.' The child nodded. But then cocked her head.
'Fielding — '
'"Jenny", please.' She felt the smile painted on her lips as she wondered if the child watched television, and how good her memory was from not so long ago. Because after the Beirut business, when they'd had all the television coverage, the TV
people had made a big thing of 'Fielding-ffulke', making a joke of it all the way back to 1066 and all that. 'Yes, I know there was a battle here — 1812, was it? And have you found any musket balls, Cathy?'
'No.' Cathy looked at her steadily. 'I'm not having much luck.
In fact, I'm not having
Jenny felt firmer ground under her feet. 'Did you expect to find any?'
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But now Cathy was looking past her, at Ian.
'Oh — Cathy, I'm sorry!' She had clean forgotten about Ian herself. And she had done that in the past, and felt guilty about it: but now all she required of him was politeness. 'This is Mr Ian Robinson, dear: he's a friend of mine.' She looked down at the broken earth at her feet, and couldn't see any bullets
'Yes.' His voice came soft and cold, and quite without interest. 'Hullo, Miss Audley.'
'Mr Robinson.' The child stared at him.
Jenny felt her doubts increasing. Because Mr Robinson had also appeared on the damned television programme, even if only briefly: Ian typically self-effacingly, even though he'd been the real hero, and she'd not really been-the heroine at all.
But if Cathy Audley remembered him, and recognized him, his lack of interest froze her out now — just as it had frozen Jenny herself out, these last few hours. Ian was only interested in one woman, and she wasn't here. Indeed, she wasn't anywhere.
'Did you expect to find any . . . musket balls, Cathy?' Jenny controlled her fears carefully. Because Ian's
inconvenience — even, a quite unnecessary obstacle, which made her wish that he wasn't here with her, when she had more urgent questions on her mind. So —
'Oh yes!' Cathy Audley matched her move. 'On the Somme I found lots of them. Or not musket balls, actually — lots of shrapnel balls, I mean. But musket balls must be just like shrapnel balls — like round — ?' Her head came down so close to Jenny that she exchanged a strong whiff of childishly over-applied scent ' — and there should be
Cathy trailed off, and they both concentrated on scanning the field together for a moment, to the exclusion of all other matters.
Jenny straightened up finally. 'No — I see what you mean.
Perhaps they've just been ploughed into the ground, Cathy?'
'Oh no! It doesn't work like that.' Cathy shook her head vehemently. 'There's someone I know who's an expert, and he says that ploughing brings them up to the surface, it doesn't bury them. And I'm sure this is the right place.' She reached into the back-pocket of her jeans, producing a crumpled piece of paper which she then unfolded with grubby fingers. 'This was practically the centre of the battle
— at the start, anyway.'
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It was a map, neatly hand-drawn, but now rendered incomprehensible with its profusion of little red and blue squares, and diagonally red-and-white and blue-and-white rectangles, which followed the criss-crossing arrows of the rival armies' advances and retirements around and beyond the Greater Arapile.
'We're
'Yes.' It was curious how, when Cathy Audley had stared at her she had seemed grown up, but now she was a child again.
'Do you collect . . . bullets and things, Cathy?'
'No ... not really.' The child-Cathy grinned at her. 'But, it's interesting
Jenny felt her jaw drop open.
'People in America collect barbed-wire, you know.' Cathy Audley nodded seriously. There are hundreds of different varieties, going back to the middle of the nineteenth century, almost. Some bits are worth hundreds of dollars, my father says — the first bits they used in the Wild West, I suppose.'
The repetition of 'my father says' recalled Jenny to reality.
She had established herself with the child. And now the child would lead her to the father, complete with an introduction of sorts. 'And your father collects battlefields, does he?'
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The child's eyes sparkled suddenly, and she laughed.
'Oh ... he collects everything — he's like a great big jackdaw, Mummy says: he never throws away anything.' She shook her head, becoming older again as she shared her mother's despair. 'But . . . yes, he
She grinned fondly. 'Medieval ones coming down: Crecy, Poitiers and Chastillon — that's the place where the French finally beat us, in the Hundred Years' War, you know — did you know?'
'No.' Jenny sensed Ian chafing nearby. But Ian was wrong to chafe: so long as they had the daughter, then they couldn't lose the father.
'Oh yes! There's even a monument to poor old John Talbot, who got killed there, by the river. And my father says . . .
losing the American colonies was no great loss — no one minds losing
'And he said all that to a French couple and an American couple we met at the Parador at Ciudad Rodrigo — honestly, I thought Mummy was going to
wiped out that Spanish-and-French army in five minutes —
like machine-gunners, Father said — wow!'
Suddenly, Jenny understood: this poor child had been holidaying for nearly a fortnight now, with her overwhelming father and disapproving mother, between whom she hadn't got a word in edgeways. But now she'd met a sympathetic English-speaking stranger, so the floodgates of pent-up speech had burst, just as they had done with the Spanish waiters.
'But this isn't a medieval battlefield surely, Miss Audley?' Ian intruded suddenly with the same silly question which he had put to her.
'Oh
So 'Mummy' wasn't so stupid, thought Jenny: Audley himself paid for his idiosyncrasies — and quite properly, too!
'The middle week's the Peninsular War,' Cathy Audley concentrated on Ian. 'We've just come from Ciudad Rodrigo: another
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Ian nodded, matching her shyness. 'We just checked in this morning, Miss Audley.' Then he blinked. 'The Peninsular War?'
'Yes.' Nod. 'We stormed Ciudad Rodrigo in 1812. And my father ... he wanted to see where "Black Bob" Crauford was killed — and where they buried him in the ditch there ... I mean, he used to flog them, and hang them, but they loved him, my father says . . . He's a great admirer of General Crauford.' Cathy Audley nodded seriously. 'He wanted me to see Badajoz too, where our army did a lot of raping-and-pillaging. But Mummy said we didn't have enough time for that.'
'Why the Peninsular War?' Ian, when a 'why ' eluded him, was as persistent as any child, regardless of raping and pillaging.
'Oh, not the whole of the war.' The child accepted his curiosity as quite natural. 'It went on for years and years, you know. But my father is only interested in 1812. And really he's only interested in
'So . . . you passed then?' Now it was her turn to grit her teeth and concentrate on the matter in hand, all sweetness and light,
'What's so special about Salamanca, Miss Audley?' Ian, having decided to be involved, was even more single-minded in seeking answers to questions which were bugging him —
quite oblivious of the child's awkward modesty about her results
'Oh yes!' The child seized on the question eagerly again: it saved her from immodesty, for a guess; but also (if she was normal) she properly preferred men to women now, for another guess. 'My great-great-great-grandfather was killed here, you see. In 1812, at Salamanca, Mr — ' she floundered dummy2
momentarily.
'"Ian",' Jenny supplied the Christian name tartly. 'He answers to "Ian", Cathy. But . . . your great-great . . .
grandfather was killed . . .
'Oh?' The child blinked at her for another moment. But then her years increased again as she measured Jenny up, and took in her slightly battered condition to even up the reckoning. And then turned back to Ian coolly. 'Not actually
— and he had got it to the last syllable. 'Like . . . the Charge of the Light Brigade — ?'
'No — not at all!' Ian's voice was stiff with contempt. 'He must have been in General Le Marchant's charge — ' He began by addressing her, but then dismissed her, to turn the words back to Cathy Audley ' — and General Le Marchant was killed up there, too — in the moment of victory — ?'
'That's right — gosh!' The child was quite enchanted by this supremely useless piece of information. 'You
battle, Mr Robinson?'
'I know about Le Marchant, Miss Audley.' Whether Ian really knew about 'General Le Marchant' hung in the balance for an instant: it could be either that he had always known, because it was the sort of thing he knew: or it could be that he had just done his homework last night, to know just enough, but no more than that. 'He was the one man in the army who was a scientific soldier — ? A Guernsey man — from the Channel Islands?'
'That's
'You really
'Silly?'
'I don't mean
'A — ?' Ian was good, having done his homework. But he wasn't
'My father was a dragoon, in the war . . . Not the Peninsular dummy2
War, I mean . . . but
'But. . . my great-great-great-grandfather was a horse-dragoon, you see. And he was shot right beside General Le Marchant — in "the moment of victory", just like you said . . .
And my father says all British dragoons should come here, because this was one of the best charges they ever made. But, of course, he wanted me to see it because of great-great-great-grandfather . . . Are you a historian, Mr Robinson?'
'Not a historian, Miss Audley. Or a dragoon. But we
aren't we, Miss Fielding?'
'Possibly, Mr Robinson.'
'And if we do, we shall certainly mention the battle of Salamanca, Miss Audley — General Le Marchant's charge.'
'And the dragoons, Cathy.' It was Jenny's turn to smile. 'At least, we will if your father will tell us all about them — would he do that, do you think?'
'Oh . . . yes — ' Cathy looked up towards the Greater Arapile '
— well, I don't see why not.' She came back to Jenny. 'So long as you make allowance for him not being in a very good mood, I mean.' She made a face at them both. 'He's been like that ever since — ' She stopped abruptly.
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'Ever since — ?'
'Oh no!' Cathy was quite disarmed by the fatuousness of the suggestion. 'He just got a phone call from home. And he hates being bothered by the office when we're on holiday, you see.'
'Don't we all, dear!' Jenny laughed. 'But ... is that him up there, watching over us? Up by that . . . what is it? It looks like a sort of monument — ?'
'Yes.' Cathy followed her glance. Then she waved suddenly.
'All right — let's go and see him, then — '
Once she had her second wind the climb wasn't so bad, really: even, it was preferable to the corn-stubble, so long as she took care to avoid the occasional thistle.
'See these walls, Jenny?' Ian had stopped to let her catch up, while the child bounded ahead. They must have cultivated this land right up to here in the old days — ' He spoke loudly, but then dropped his voice as she came level with him ' — if Mitchell's phoned him he'll know who we are, and what we're up to. So he may even be expecting us, Jen.'
She waved at Cathy, who had also stopped now. 'Surprise, surprise. So he's expecting us, then.' She turned, as though to admire the view, and saw that the deceptive undulations of the fields had already flattened out far below her. It was hard dummy2
to imagine that flesh-and-blood could ever have been so brave (or so stupid?) to march all the way she'd come, buttoned-up and constricted in silly uniforms and weighed down by weapons and equipment, and through a hail of Cathy Audley's elusive musket balls. But then, it was also fairly way-out, the process which had brought her so far from home, to this unlikely place: she was here because Philly had once carried Daddy on his back in far-off Korea (another unlikely place, by God!) — and because an Audley ancestor had once charged to death-and-glory here, to find his unmarked grave.
Cathy was waiting for them.
'See there, Miss Fielding — Jenny — ?' She pointed at the ground.
'What?' Behind the child the final tumble-home of the Greater Arapile rose more steeply, in a jumble of rocks. But it would be no more exhausting than climbing up to Piccadilly from the Underground without the benefit of the moving escalator.
'Autumn crocuses, Miss Fielding.' The child pointed again.
Jenny looked down. And there at her feet was a tiny delicate pale-mauve flower with a bright white-into-yellow centre, dummy2
thrusting out of the dead grass like a promise of life-in-death.
'Isn't it beautiful, Miss Fielding?'
'Yes, dear.' Jenny stepped carefully around the crocus. And then she saw another, and another . . . and some were already wilting in the fierce Spanish sun, as ephemeral as butterflies. 'Very beautiful.'
'Here, Jen — ' Ian reached down to help her up over a steeper place, almost like the old Ian.
Now they were on the edge of the summit, with bedrock and tumbled rock all around them.
Their hands and their eyes met. And it wasn't strange that he looked sad: they were at the beginning of their long goodbye; which had always been going to come one day, inevitably; but that didn't make it any sadder, now that they could both see it ahead of them: maybe they would write a Spanish book together, but it would be their last book; or maybe he'd write it, while she was frying some other and very different fish.
But this was Philly's day for her, anyway —
She felt his strength as he hauled her up, and mourned the loss of it already. But then she saw Audley, waiting for them.
The sun beat down on her head, hotter than ever, behaving as she always felt it should now that they were closer to it, dummy2
melting her as it had melted the wax holding Icarus's feathers to his wings. But there was a lump of ice-cold resolution in the centre of her which resisted the heat —
which even seemed to expand as she stared past them, at Audley —
'Wait a minute, Ian.' She used the last ounce of her waning influence over him in her voice. 'Please wait!'
He stopped. 'What is it, Jenny?'
'There's no hurry. He's not going away.' She looked round deliberately, taking her time; at first seeing nothing, then seeing everything with sudden clarity in the crystal air.
The Greater Arapile was shaped like a ship, exactly: long and flat-topped, and barely a dozen yards wide. And they were standing halfway down the deck, between the supertanker prow and the slight rise to the monument; and the deck itself was covered with a carpet of dead grass, brown and withered, through which an astonishing profusion of Cathy Audley's dummy2
delicate autumn crocuses burst out defiantly.
'What an amazing place!' It wasn't particularly amazing, actually: it was just another piece of the great yellow openness that was so much of Spain, with nothing to betray the great and terrible event which it had once witnessed. In fact,
But there wasn't the slightest echo of the past up here now, anymore than of the future.
But she had to say
'Look!' She saw a sudden flick of movement in a jumble of rocks on the flank of the ridge.
'What — ?'
'There — ' She pointed. 'It's a fox — with long pointy-ears —
Obligingly, the fox moved again, and became visible for an instant before it vanished into the hillside.
'Yes — !' In that same instant Ian's face lit up, with pure pleasure, and he was just like the old Ian at the sight of any small interesting thing, like a new postage stamp on a letter, or an old building which caught his eye. (Had he welcomed the sight of that first autumn crocus? Or had he had eyes only for Audley, and thought only for his Frances Fitzgibbon?) But then he frowned at her, and was the new dummy2
Ian again. 'What are you playing at, Jen?'
Now they were at last facing each other in the face of the enemy, and facing their moment of truth. 'Audley's mine, Ian
— he's not for you. I want him.'
He breathed out. 'Because of Philip Masson?'
'Because of Philip Masson. And because this was my idea, not yours —
'Your revenge, more like. And that's the wrong way to look for truth, Jen — it's a
He was right, of course. He was
going to church on Sundays, and giving to charity, and never getting drunk on a Saturday night, or any other night! But she wanted to hurt him, not to argue morality with him. 'And you want the truth about some silly woman who forgot to pack her gun when she went to arrest a terrorist? A woman you've never met — who wouldn't have given you the time of day if you had met her? That's
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But she had hit him hard. And that was all that mattered.
'He's mine, Ian. Even if we don't write this book . . . he's
She swept a hand over the Greater Arapile. '
Ian bit his lip. With Ian — or, at any rate, with the
there had been times when commonsense, and confused affection, and old-fashioned journalism (never mind self-doubt!), had played the very devil with his Christian imperatives! 'Well . . . we'll see, Jen — we'll see!'
'Yes — we'll see, darling.' If she'd got that much back, to make him question his irrational obsession with the Fitzgibbon woman, then that much was better than nothing.
'Miss Fielding — ?'
'Oh — ?' Jenny turned quickly towards the question: she had halted Ian, but Cathy Audley had progressed towards her father before she'd realized that she was alone, and had had to turn back to them ' — we're coming, dear . . . This
She pointed ' — with great big ears . . . he's in the rocks down there, somewhere — '
'Did you? Gosh!' The child scanned the hillside. 'A fox — ?'
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'He's gone, dear — '
Audley was still waiting. Although now, after they'd taken such a time to reach him, he had managed to stand up, and had moved out of the shade of the monument into the full sunlight, so that she could see him clearly at last.
'Daddy — !'
What he looked like, length-and-breadth-and-face, was no great revelation: there had been that picture, which John Tully had uncovered, of David Audley in a line-out —
(But —
'Daughter?' Standing up under the monument, Audley could look down on them, with the huge sky behind him: a sky shading down from purest blue to palest blue-grey, where the distant green line of trees on the next ridge divided it from the yellow cornfields, and he seemed ten-foot-tall for a moment, above them. 'What's this, then?'
'What's this, then?' Audley smiled at his daughter as he repeated the question. And then he looked directly at Jenny.
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'Hullo, there!'
'Daddy — this is Mr Robinson . . . and Miss Fielding. They know Willy Arkenshaw. And they write books, Daddy. And they want to talk to you.'
'Yes.' Audley stared at Jenny. 'I know.'
'Dr Audley — ' The jolt of the shock was still there: it shook her voice, just as it had shaken her hands that time, after she touched that wire beside the ancient Victorian light-switch in the cellar at home. 'Dr Audley.' The husky faltering repetition was almost worse: it was so far from the way she had intended to face up to him that it was almost laughable.
Except that, if she started to laugh, she was afraid she might go off into hysterics.
'Daddy — ?' As Audley continued to stare at her — as they both continued to stare at each other — the child picked up the vibration of something strange happening.
'Miss Fielding.' Audley spoke at last, drawing her back to him even as relief suffused her. 'I do recognize you, actually. I saw you on the television once. That time you escaped in Beirut.
And, of course, I've read your books.'
He had a nice voice. And, although the pictures of that rather battered face hadn't lied in any factual detail, he seemed much younger than Willy Arkenshaw had suggested:
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'Oh,
Jenny was aware that more of her hair was coming down; and there were beads of sweat crawling down the side of her face, and elsewhere —
'Mr Robinson knows all about the battle, Daddy.' Cathy Audley's patience ran out. 'He wants to talk to you about General Le Marchant.'
'He does?' Audley let go of Jenny unwillingly. 'Does he?' The letting-go stretched itself until it had to snap. 'Mr Robinson . . . You are the writer, of course.' He smiled at Ian.
'And you have a rare grasp of good English. A quite unjournalistic grasp, if I may say so — ?' All the smile went out of Audley's face. 'But that would be because you were at Princess Mary's Grammar School, and brought up on the classics? Like Gibbon having the Bible hammered into him?'
Jenny looked at Ian, and caught him with his mouth open.
Audley nodded. 'Hennessey — Henworth — ?
he was your High Master, of course. And he was taught by my old Latin Master, as an inky child, before he gravitated to higher things.' He nodded again. 'There's a descent in such dummy2
matters, among schoolmasters. Not quite as good as breeding through pedigree bulls, perhaps . . . but it leaves its mark, nevertheless, I'd like to think.' Another nod, but this time accompanied by a terrible cold smile. 'I particularly enjoyed your book on the Middle East. It had several interesting insights, as well as some quite deplorable flights of fancy.'
Jenny felt her own mouth open —
In fact, Ian was smiling. 'Your daughter has told us about your ancestor, Dr Audley — who was killed in the charge here?' He gave Audley back a nod. 'But . . . was he just another bone-headed English dragoon? Or was he one of Wellington's "Research and Development" officers — the
"exploring" officers, were they called? Andrew Laith Hay — ?
Or John Waters, or Somers Cocks? Or Colquhoun Grant? Or Dr Paul Mitchell?'
'You're interested in the battle of Salamanca, Mr Robinson?'
Audley, being Audley, was taking Ian's measure now.
'Not in the least, Dr Audley.' Ian smiled at Audley. 'But—'
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'Daughter!' Audley interrupted Ian rudely. 'Go and see how your mother is — ' He nodded past the monument, into a stone-quarried gap behind him, which divided the
Cathy Audley stared at her father, the huge sunglasses concealing what would certainly be a frown.
'Go on, Cathy.' Audley's voice was gently level now, neither pleading or commanding.
The sunglasses turned towards Ian for an instant. But now the tightened lips and the anger-lines around the mouth told their own story.
'Off you go.' This time he actually smiled. 'There's nothing to worry about.'
Cathy came back to him. 'I told them you received a phone-call, I think they pretended not to be interested in it. I'm sorry.'
Audley shrugged. 'So I received a phone-call. That's nothing to be ashamed of, love. So — '
'Yes — "Off I go".' The child started to go, but then stopped.
'But I'm forgetting my manners — aren't I!' She swung towards Jenny. 'They all say "Don't talk to strangers — forget about good manners!" But, I forgot my lesson, didn't I, Miss Fielding?' No child now — not for her, and not for Ian, in his turn: for Ian, a look which, if he'd been a British dragoon, dummy2
and Cathy Audley a Frenchman sighting him along her musket, would have knocked him stone-dead from his saddle, beside her ancestor and General Le Marchant. 'And goodbye, Mr Robinson.'
Wisely (although she didn't give him time, anyway) Ian didn't try to answer, as she twisted away again, and dropped down gracefully into the rocks below the monument, leaving the echo of his name on her bullet in the silence.
'Yes . . . well, I don't really need to enlarge on that — do I?'
Audley watched her go, and then turned back to them with the vestiges of his smile still in place, but with a mixture of pride and contempt edging it. 'But, then, perhaps I am indebted to you both — for teaching her a lesson about the Great British Press, to go with "Don't talk to strangers"?'
'"Us"?' Looking at her (rather than at Ian), his expression twisted. And the bugger of it was that she knew that look, having seen it on other men similarly caught between suspicion and desire; but she had not felt about them as she felt about him —
'We're in trouble, Dr Audley.' Self-preservation came to her rescue, adding tactics to inclination. 'We need your help.'
'My . . .
supposed to be investigating me, Miss Fielding-ffulke?'
'"Fielding" — ' Everyone who wanted to shit on her waved that ridiculous name in her face ' — just "Fielding", please, Dr Audley.'
'No "ffulke"?' He cocked an eyebrow at her. 'But that's a fine old name, Miss Fielding-ffulke: Rudyard Kipling chose it in
"ffulke" —
Ian loomed up at her side — like the old Ian, at need: like the
'He did — yes.' No expression for Ian. 'He said you were investigating me. And he didn't suggest that I should be flattered, either.'
'We're only trying to find out the truth about Philip Masson's death, Dr Audley.'
'Only the truth? Well-well!' Audley sneered at the word, just as Mitchell had done before him. 'I wish you the worst of luck then, Mr Robinson.'
'You don't fancy the truth?' Against Audley's sudden dummy2
unpleasantness and the sense and the thrust of his own question, Ian was as respectful as a curate with a bishop nevertheless.
'My dear fellow! I've spent two-thirds of my life looking for the truth. But only in relation to other people, of course —
just like you. The truth about
— or make allowances for it, anyway. Because I am on holiday. And with my family — ' He raised a big blunt-fingered hand ' — and
were good family men, who loved their children, and their wives, and also went on holiday ... I realize that, Mr Robinson!' He smiled a terribly ugly smile, not at all sweetly, in spite of his best efforts. 'But . . . would you like all your little secrets dragged into the harsh light of day? Or of
'No.' Ian shook his head, still curate-respectful. 'Especially if they involved the death — or the murder — of another human being, Dr Audley . . .
'I didn't mean that, Mr Robinson. I meant exactly what I said.' Audley twisted slightly, peering down beside the monument where there was a gap in the rocks, as though to make sure that his wife and daughter were not within earshot. 'As it happens I have been "involved", as you put it dummy2
so delicately, in the death of a number of human beings over the years. Since before you were born, in fact, Mr Robinson.'
The sneer was back. 'I started young, when I didn't know any better, with anonymous Germans in Normandy, saying
"shoot" to my gunner — second-hand work even then, you might say.'
—
'Ian — Mr Robinson — isn't talking about ancient history, Dr Audley,' she said sharply.
'Neither am I, Miss Fielding.' Audley almost sounded hurt by her sharpness. 'But ... old men have a habit of remembering the wounds they had on Crispin's day.' He shrugged. 'As it
— oh yes: I know all about him . . . And by "all" I do mean
then, you know that already.'
'I know it suited you when he died, Dr Audley.'
'Did it? Well . . . perhaps it did. And perhaps it didn't. Who can tell?' He shrugged again. 'What I know is ... that it doesn't suit me now to be bothered by you. Because I have other work to do — more important work than having to worry about you.' Now, at last, she got his purely-ugly face.
'Which is why I asked "whose side are you on?", Miss Fielding.'
'But you're on holiday now, Dr Audley. So we're not wasting your official time, are we?' Ian came in again, playing uncharacteristically dirty.
'I don't suppose it would do any good if I told you I have an alibi?' Audley ignored Ian. 'I flew back to Washington the Tuesday after we killed O'Leary — the Tuesday after the Saturday when my very dear Frances died — ?' He switched to Ian suddenly. 'No — ?'
It was the wrong appeal, to the wrong person.
'No.' Audley nodded. 'I didn't think it would.' He sighed. 'And dummy2
you're quite right, of course! It's like an old friend of mine is always reminding me, about what the centurion said to Christ, according to St Matthew: "I am also a man under authority, having soldiers under me; and I say to this
And he goeth".' He gave them both a twisted grin. 'It's what he calls "one of the hard sayings". Meaning that authority and action and responsibility are all the same thing in the end. So that won't do will it?' He smiled at her. 'So we have a problem. Because you won't believe me unless I tell you what I'm not at liberty to tell you. And even if I do tell you, then you may choose not to believe me. So I'm into a Catch-22
situation, it seems.'
'And so are we, Dr Audley.' If Ian had liked the St Matthew throwaway line, he didn't show it. 'Didn't he say — on the telephone?'
'Oh yes!' Audley bowed slightly. 'You've "raised the devil" — ?
And now he's after you — is that it?'
Suddenly Jenny wanted Reg Buller badly. Audley was playing with them, and Ian was still too screwed-up about Frances Fitzgibbon to think as straight as he usually thought. And even she was having trouble with Audley's sharp image imposed on her memory of Philly.
'Where's Reg, Ian?' What they needed was Reg Buller's no-nonsense brutality: Reg had no hang-ups about Philly or Frances, let alone Audley.
'Yes — ' Ian raised his binoculars again ' — he has rather taken his time. But — yes, he is coming now, Jen — see?' He dummy2
lowered the glasses and pointed at a distant dust-cloud in the valley between the Greater Arapile and the lower ridges opposite, across the intervening cornlands which had once been another foreign field that was for ever England.
'Actually . . . we've begun to think that it may not have been you, Dr Audley — see there, Jen — ?'
'What?' The information casually dropped after Ian's advice to Jenny, that Buller was approaching at last, caught Audley flat aback. 'What d'you mean?'
'Mrs Fitzgibbon — ' Ian squared his shoulders, while pretending to concentrate on the foreign field, like a French general watching the advance of the British Army ' — she was Paul Mitchell's girl, wasn't she, Dr Audley?'
That couldn't be the question — there had to be more than that!
'What?' Audley frowned.
It
'Frances Fitzgibbon was Paul Mitchell's girl — was she, Dr Audley?' But Ian stuck to his gun like a brave Frenchman with the dragoons upon him, nevertheless.
'No.' Audley shook his head slowly. 'Actually, she wasn't.
Although he would have liked her to be. But. . . she wasn't anybody's girl. Not even her husband's, I rather suspect. . .
But... I don't really see what Frances Fitzgibbon has to do with you, Mr Robinson.'
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'Or Paul Mitchell, Dr Audley?' Jenny came in on his flank.
'You asked us which side we're on, Dr Audley.' Ian came back on cue. 'But we don't know for sure whose side
That really was the truth. And, of course, who better than Ian to pronounce it?
Audley relaxed, suddenly. '
— ? Because of Thornervaulx — ?' He completed the unhappy chuckle. 'It's what my dear wife always says: "too-clever-by-half" — and not half clever enough!' He looked at Ian, and then Jenny, and then away from both of them, down the hillside.
Jenny waited.
'Well, Miss Fielding — Mr Robinson — ' Audley came back to them, with a slow shake of the head ' — if you think that, then I think you're both in big trouble now.' He pointed down the hillside. 'So now we'll see?'
And then there was suddenly Reg Buller, stamping up out of the dead ground among the rocks.
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Reg Buller was puffing like a grampus, from his climb: Reg would be sweating now, even worse than she had done before the sun had dried her, here on the summit of the Greater Arapile.
But Paul Mitchell wasn't puffing: he was striding easily, swinging up a long black case — half briefcase, half violin-case — as he surmounted the last of the rocks.
'Paul.' Audley seemed neither surprised nor pleased. 'You took your time.'
'David!' Mitchell trod disgracefully into the midst of the crocuses, quite regardless of them. 'I'm sorry, David — ' He cradled the not-violin-case in his arms, to his breast, still crushing the flowers. 'Where's Faith? Where's Cathy, David
— ?'
'They're down below.' Audley nodded back towards the monument. 'Among the rocks. Sunbathing and reading. And possibly topless . . . Faith, anyway. Do you want me to call them?'
'No. They'll do well enough where they are.' Mitchell clambered up on to the uneven rocky platform on which the monument had been raised, setting the case down at his feet.
'No problem, David.'
'No problem,' Audley growled the words. 'You'd better be dummy2
right.'
'Now, David . . .' Mitchell continued to scan the landscape, quartering it segment by segment ' — when have I ever let you down?'
Audley stared at him, then shook his head resignedly.
And finally came back to Jenny. 'You've caused us a lot of trouble, Miss Fielding.'
'Correction: she's caused
'I'm sorry, Dr Mitchell.' It was hard to think of this ragamuffin as
'So I gather.' Mitchell flicked a glance at Reg Buller, who was mopping his face with an enormous and very dirty handkerchief. 'So — I — gather!'
Jenny looked at Buller accusingly. 'Mr Buller — ?'
'Don't blame me, Lady!' Buller wiped his face even more dummy2
vigorously. "E caught me on the road, not long after you left me. An' . . .'e was very nasty, I tell you.'
'Oh yes?' There would be no help from Reg Buller now, that wonderfully authentic whine indicated: Reg knew which way the wind was blowing, and he always adjusted himself to his circumstances, which was the secret of his survival from many past disasters. So, in his new role as their unwilling employee he could no longer be relied upon. But that, in turn, freed her from employer's responsibility. 'So, do you still think Dr Mitchell is a murderer, Mr Buller?'
'I never said that, Lady — I never did!' Buller rolled his eyes, driven to over-play his role even more by such a direct accusation. 'It was Mr Robinson, more than me: I just reported what I found out — like you told me to.'
That shifted the whole weight to Ian, who hadn't said a word since the world had changed for them.
That's not true, Mr Buller — '
'It's all right, Jen.' Ian watched Mitchell.
'It was Mr Buller, Ian — '
'It's all right.' He dismissed her, having eyes only for Mitchell. 'And it's true, also.' He blinked for an instant.
'Maybe we made a mistake. Or ...
Mitchell stared at him. Then he turned away and reached for the case.
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'What was she really like?' Ian pursued Mitchell remorselessly.
'Let him be, Mr Robinson.' Audley took a step down from his eminence, to join them. 'This isn't the place — or the time.'
'Isn't it?' Ian didn't look at Audley: he watched Mitchell apply his thumbs to the two catches on the case, still concentrating on him. 'What was she like?'
'She was quite a girl — quite a woman.' Audley annexed the question gently, but firmly. 'But we didn't kill Philip Masson, Mr Robinson. I didn't give the order — and Dr Mitchell didn't carry out the order I didn't give.'
All the same, Audley was frowning: Audley was frowning, and Mitchell was working on the contents of the case — the bits of dull metal, which
— the bits (which were worse than useless by themselves: just bits of metal) became the usual
'But you're quite right: she was something special.'
Audley saw that he was losing, and raised the stakes accordingly. 'But how the devil do you know that? You never met her — did you?' He shook his head. 'No! You couldn't have done.'
Mitchell had completed his work. It was designed to be completed quickly, and he knew his job.
'No.' He lifted the completed thing up, and squinted through dummy2
the telescopic-sight which had been its last attachment, staring first up into the sky, and then away across the valley, towards the railway station. 'I'll never hit anything with this
— not at any sort of range, with the first shot.' He took another squint, and then selected a little screwdriver from the case and made an adjustment. 'I ought to have a couple of sighting-shots, at five-hundred, and a thousand.' He looked up suddenly, and smiled at Jenny. 'But you can't have everything, can you?' He lowered the rifle, resting it carefully on his thigh, and picked out a long steel-nosed, brass-jacketed bullet from a compartment in the case, and opened the breach and snapped the bullet home. Then he set the rifle down and stood up.
'I was the one who was to blame, actually,' said Audley. 'At Thornervaulx.'
'But I was the one who should have got the bullet.' Mitchell examined the valley carefully, from the far-off white blue of the village, round the deceptive roll of the cornland between to where the track curved towards them. 'So it all adds up to the same thing, really.' He looked at Reg Buller suddenly.
'You were quite right, Mr Buller: if I'd thought of it ... then I might just have done it, at that!'
'No, you wouldn't have done: you're not that stupid,' snapped Audley.
'Aren't I?' Mitchell's mouth twisted.
'Yes.' Audley looked from Mitchell to Jenny, and then at Ian.
And then back to Jenny. 'We were working for Fred Clinton dummy2
then, Miss Fielding. And he had a rule — a very strict rule.
And Sir Jack has the same rule. It's what you might call our
"Rule of Engagement", from the Falklands War — ? Although it goes back much further: it goes back to Lord Mansfield giving judgement in the case of
'Uh-huh . . .
and she couldn't. So, maybe Fred just made it up — to annoy us?'
Ian stirred. 'What did — what was Lord Mansfield
'Oh, it's quite simple, my dear fellow!' Mitchell annexed the question quickly. 'It's all to do with what you
'But "if you don't like the heat in the kitchen" — then you add that, Mr Robinson, eh?' Audley relaxed. 'No one ordered you to visit the battlefield of Salamanca, did they? You came here of your own free will, I take it?'
drove Jenny to defend Ian. 'We're just . . . journalists.'
'Doesn't make any difference, Miss Fielding.' A similar rule brought Paul Mitchell back. 'Not to you — not to Peter Wright, or Clive Ponting — or even to Kim Philby: whatever we are, or whatever we do, the same rule applies, according to Chief Justice Mansfield: "
Jenny thought, suddenly . . .
'That's the second "hard-saying",' murmured Audley. 'Fred Clinton and Jack Butler, and St Matthew and Lord Mansfield . . . they all put us on our mettle.'
'Yes.' Mitchell was staring past him. 'And now Paddy MacManus is about to put us on our mettle, I rather think —
what can you see through those field-glasses of yours, Ian?'
He pointed into the great open sweep of the valley. 'What car is that — ?'
Ian lifted his binoculars, towards a distant dust-cloud on the track.
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'Mr Buller!' Mitchell didn't wait for an answer. 'You go down and say "hullo" to Mrs Audley, and Miss Audley — okay? And keep them down there, in the rocks, until I call you. And do be a good fellow, and make a noise when you're going down, so as not to embarrass Mrs Audley —
'It's a little car — a SEAT, or a Citroen — or a Renault ... a
That will do.' Mitchell was taking on his 'additional character'
now. 'Off you go, Mr Buller.'
'I'm goin' — I'm bloody-goin' — Dr Mitchell!' Reg Buller was going.
'It's a Citroen 2-CV, Dr Mitchell,' Ian confirmed his sighting.
'That's just fine!' Mitchell was Field-Marshal Montgomery and Alexander of Macedon. 'You stay up here, Mr Robinson: talk to Dr Audley about the battle of Salamanca — tell him how you would have fought it from here —
'Oh — that's just fine!' Audley complained as he surrendered.
'We walk up and down, to give him a target — ?'
'He doesn't want you, David. His payment is on Mr Robinson.' Mitchell looked at Ian. 'Are you prepared to walk, Mr Robinson?'
'Shut up, Jen.' But he grinned at her. 'Like the man said —
"
haven't I, Dr Mitchell?'
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Mitchell picked up the rifle. 'Down there, Miss Fielding — on your tummy, by that flat rock —
It didn't seem like that at all, to her. But, then, it was quite out of her experience.
'What about behind us?' Audley's voice was cold. 'MacManus always operates with a partner — a back-up? And . . . my family is down there, Paul.'
'Don't worry about behind us.' Mitchell nodded at Jenny. '
There was something in Mitchell's face which made any sort of protest contemptible, however much she wanted to argue with him, to assert herself.
So ... over the dead grass, and the scatter of autumn crocuses, to where he'd indicated, and down behind a safe rock —
Mitchell was saying something, behind her; and so was Audley — but she couldn't hear what they were saying. Then he was beside her — first, on his knees — on his knees, but dummy2
with the rifle carefully cradled in one hand, to keep it off the ground . . . and then easing himself carefully alongside her.
'No need to watch, Miss Fielding. In fact, I'd prefer that you didn't — you'll only distract me.' He took a khaki handkerchief from his pocket and spread it out behind the rock and put two of his spare cartridges on it. 'Nothing to see, anyway. He's just stopped to have a final look around, just in case.'
She lowered her head, keeping her eyes on him. Because there was something to see, of course — something she'd never expected to see at all, ever ... let alone like this, within touching distance: one man preparing to kill another man.
'And now there's a further delay — an unforeseen occurrence.' Mitchell was peering round the edge of the rock, keeping his own head low. 'There's a farm tractor coming behind him, towing a load of something. So he'll have to pull into the side to let it past, and wait for it to disappear. And he won't like that — not one bit.'
She could hear the tractor. 'Why not?'
'A witness.' He didn't look at her. 'Not that he plans to stay around afterwards, to be identified. And there'll be a different car waiting for him, another vehicle, anyway —
maybe a lorry, or something like . . . Goods for Portugal, maybe. We're only two or three hours from the frontier, after all.' He looked at her suddenly. '"Quickly in — quickly out": that's his usual method. You can never tell for sure, of course
— not with a wild animal. But it's always worked for him in dummy2
the past.' He returned his attention to the front again as the noise of the tractor's diesel rose. 'And he certainly doesn't want to hang about in Spain, that's for sure. He's taken one hell of a risk already, as it is ... Although his friends will have looked after him this far ... so they may have other plans for him now, at that!'
'His friends?' The sound of the tractor rose to a crescendo, but then suddenly died away as it passed the headland of the Greater Arapile and continued on towards the ridge behind them. 'His friends — ?'
'Now he's waiting again. And, if he's got any sense he'll turn round and wait for another chance . . .
"friends", Miss Fielding. He did a difficult contract job for ETA a few years back — one the Basques didn't fancy doing themselves for domestic reasons. It was a car bomb, actually.
Although he prefers guns to bombs, himself. But it was a big bomb: it blew the damn car clear over the block ... so they owe him one.' Just as suddenly he turned to her again. 'And a penny for your thoughts
There was something not right with all this. 'I'd like more than a penny's-worth, Dr Mitchell — ' She caught the edge of dummy2
her own doubt:
He looked away again. 'Well . . . we'll see, eh? I'll ration the pennies, maybe —
'How did he know we'd be here, Dr Mitchell.'
'Now
She wanted, quite desperately, to raise her head. And . . .
going to do that, Dr Mitchell — if you are about to kill him?'
'Kill him?' Paul Mitchell frowned at her for only a fraction of a second, before rolling back to his rifle, and bringing it up to his shoulder, and settling himself comfortably — long legs splayed out behind him, ankles flat to the dirt (one foot gouging away a swathe of autumn crocuses regardlessly).
'What d'you think I am — a
What stopped her from looking, even more than his final shout, was that he wasn't looking at her: he had known, without looking, that she couldn't resist looking at the last —
The rifle kicked, sending a tremor through him and deafening her as he fired in the very instant that his order held her motionless, so that she witnessed the unforgettable professionalism of his second shot —
But then stopped.
And then Mitchell's face momentarily sank on to his rifle, his unshaven cheek distorting it, with his eyes squeezed shut.
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The little car was moving again: it was backing, in a cloud of dust, down the track —
'What's happening — ?' As she spoke, Mitchell stepped up beside her. 'Did you miss?'
'Yes. I missed.' He didn't look at her. 'One does sometimes.'
The Citroen's tyres churned up the track, with its little engine screaming at them to get it moving, so violently that it rocked and bucked this way and that before engine and tyres were both fighting to obey the driver.
'My rifle fires high, and to the right,' continued Mitchell. 'But
— a Voss Special, I think they call it.' He shook his head sadly. 'I've never seen one of them — I've only
Noise filled the valley, drowning out the rest of Mitchell's excuse: there were dust-clouds on the top of the cornfield, where she had trailed up behind Ian, with her feet hurting; and there was a dust-cloud coming up the track from the village, round the rise of the field which was deceptively dummy2
flattened by the height of the Greater Arapile above it.
And —
'I smashed the passenger's window, in the car, with that first shot.' Mitchell's voice came back almost to the conversational. 'I was only supposed to frighten him . . . But he didn't come up towards us — he went round to take aim over the bonnet — that's when I saw the Voss ... He was going to rest on the bonnet. So the second time I aimed for him.'
The dust-clouds still converged — even as the red smoke-trail descended, to bounce in a final red spark as it hit the field: the spark bounced brightly once, and then the smoke drifted away from the point where it vanished.
'I don't know where that second shot went.' Mitchell paused.
'I aimed . . .
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The further of the two dust-clouds stopped suddenly, the two vehicles which had caused it slewing to the left and right so as to block the passage of the approaching Citroen. One of them was large and black and civilian, the other drab and military-looking: their doors opened even before they had halted, and their occupants tumbled out — Spanish Civil Guards from the military vehicle, in their distinctive black tricornes, and bare-headed civilians from the black car —
Mitchell was still speaking. But she had been so intent on watching the drama in the valley, trying to imprint every detail on her memory —
'I said . . . they took their bloody time.'
The Citroen had also stopped now, but well short of the road block — a hundred yards or more away from the Spanish Police.
'You knew they were coming?' It was a foolish question.
'Too-bloody-right!' He stared at the scene, frowning. 'You don't think we play silly games on our own in other people's countries? Not
'What — ?' Something in his expression chilled her, in spite of the heat. But his words turned her away from him, back to the valley.
The Citroen was moving again, very slowly.
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'His moment-of-truth.' Mitchell murmured the words. 'Just like O'Leary ... it comes to them all sooner or later . . . later or sooner . . . But he's being —
As he spoke the sound of the little car's engine changed, suddenly roaring in the great stillness of the yellow-and-red fields as the Citroen accelerated — with a new cloud of red dust, which had settled behind it, swirling up again as its tyres churned the track —
'He's making a run for it —
The Spaniards at the road block were scattering — taking cover behind their vehicles.
'He'll never get through — '
In a tank maybe, thought Jenny. But a 2-CV was too little, too light —
Then the Citroen braked — its little red brake-lights were invisible in the dust and the sunlight, but it bucked and slewed sideways, until it was broadside in the track.
'He's turning round — '
'No he isn't — ' Paul Mitchell cut her off as the distant sound of the revving engine reached them again
The fence bowed and shivered, and stretched on each side of the car for a moment, before the posts snapped and were pulled away as the car broke through into the corn stubble, throwing up an even greater dust-cloud as it started to climb dummy2
the slope — the same slope down which she'd walked, thought Jenny, suddenly torn between what she knew, and the old instinctive sympathy for any hunted animal with the pack in full-cry behind it — the fox breaking cover out of the spinney into open country, knowing that it had been cornered, but going for its own run-for-freedom nevertheless
—
The burst of gunfire, sharp and reverberating, with the echoes ringing across the valley from the Greater Arapile towards the opposing rocky plateau, changed the image: this was sun-baked Beirut again, with that same
But the dust-cloud was still moving. 'He's going to get away
— '
'No, he isn't.' Mitchell's voice was matter-of-fact, quite unemotional. 'See there — ?'
Up over the top of the cornfield, out of the dead ground from which the Redcoats had once marched towards the French, another of those malevolent army vehicles loomed up, trailing its own dust-cloud. And this one had its own little turret, like a miniature tank: it stopped suddenly as she watched it, and the turret began to traverse.
The Citroen changed direction, no longer trying to breast the rise, aiming now to escape beween two fires, along the curve of the field —
'Don't look — ' Mitchell caught her arm ' —
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She pulled away from him — pulled away just as the long slender gun in the turret
The Citroen was bowled over like a rabbit, rolling and exploding in the same instant, its four little tyres and underside visible for a last fraction-of-a-second before it became an incandescent ball of fire, shooting out flame and black smoke as it became unrecognizable.
It was strange how quiet it was. There had been the loudest
'You knew that was going to happen.'
'No. That is to say ...
hadn't turned up, I can tell you.' His jaw tightened. 'Because then I had to decide whether I was going to shoot-to-kill, or not . . . And this contraption — ' He lifted the rifle ' — this was just supposed to be insurance. They said it wasn't really necessary, because they'd be here once he showed up. And then they offered me a hand-gun . . . But I didn't want to let him get that close. Because he's an expert, and I'm not—'
'No — ?' She remembered what Reg Buller had said. And what, from her own observation of only a few minutes ago (so little time?) . . . she also remembered.
'No —
What she knew was that she mustn't let him confuse her with either sincerity or very good acting: for some reason he had given her too much, up to now, but she didn't know why. And that was no reason to trust him now.
He looked away from her, dismissing her.
The unrecognizable wreck of the Citroen continued to blaze fiercely, with its black smoke rising up in a mini-mushroom-cloud in the still air. And the uniformed men were converging on it ... But the civilians were getting into their car — even as she watched the doors closed one by one, and then the car turned on to the track and moved slowly towards them.
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Then she realized that she was alone: Paul Mitchell was retracing his steps, back to the monument, walking across the autumn crocuses as though they didn't exist — as though she didn't exist —
'Dr Mitchell!'
He stopped, and turned. 'Whatever you want to know — you ask Dr Audley now, Miss Fielding. And I wish you joy of it.'
There was a knot in her stomach. Just as Audley had so strangely reminded her of Philly, now Paul Mitchell recalled Ian — the new Ian, for whom she also didn't really exist as she had formerly done.
He looked past her for an instant, then at her, very coldly. 'I must go and make our peace with the Spaniards. Not that it'll be too difficult, I suspect.' His mouth twisted. 'Don't worry —
they won't ask you any questions. Just so long as you go straight home now, and forget what you've seen.'
Her mouth opened.
'Oh yes —
instant. The Spaniards have waited a long time to close the MacManus file, and balance their books. So this way there are no complications — no messy trial, or anything like that.
But next time ETA may not find it so easy to hire outside talent.'
Jenny watched him bend down, to disassemble the rifle and replace each bit of it in its place in the case — right down to retrieving a final round from his back pocket, and putting it too in its box, with the two empty cases of the bullets he'd fired. Then he looked up again. 'Of course, you may not want to forget — not after you've witnessed such a saleable event, eh? Pity you didn't have a camera!' He snapped the case shut and stood up. 'And the Spanish won't touch you, either.
Because, apart from being your father's daughter, you haven't done anything — have you?' He stared at her. 'Which is funny really, when you think about it. Because that's all your own work — ' He pointed into the valley ' — that, and what happened to John Tully.'
'John — ?'
'But you'll be in the clear there, too. He "surprised an intruder" . . . going through the files in his office. Only I'll bet there aren't any files on all this, because you'd only just started, hadn't you? And our chaps will not want to make a fuss about
dreadful reassuring smile.
'But what?' He was waiting for her as she turned back to him.
'You don't need to feel
'No — ' She couldn't let him go ' — why —
'No I mustn't —
Audley loomed large. But where was Ian?
'My dear Paul!' Audley looked at her vaguely for an instant.
'You were right . . . but only just, by heaven! So . . . don't you
then . . .
'I'm sorry, David.' Mitchell shrugged insincerely. 'Being right never seems to do me any good . . . But I must go and make
'Yes — you do that.' Audley still stared at Jenny. Tell him that I'm booked into the Parador near Victoria tomorrow night.
Because I want Cathy to see the battlefield there. And then we'll be gone the day after that — Hotel des Basses Pyrenees in Bayonne, which is safely out of his jurisdiction. I want her to see the Vauban fortifications there.'
Mitchell's mouth twisted. 'I'll tell him that. But . . . you tell Miss Fielding — whom Mr Buller always calls "The Lady" ...
or sometimes "That Lady" ... or sometimes just "Lady" . . .
whatever you want to tell her, David. She's full of questions.'
'Yes?' Audley didn't even watch Mitchell tread through the crocuses, as she did: he still seemed fascinated by her. But, although when she faced him she couldn't read his expression or his thoughts, she had the disconcerting feeling that he had been reading hers. 'He gave you a bad time, did he?'
'Not really.' More than ever he reminded her of Philly: Philly, not really in face or size, or even voice, but nonetheless indefinably Philly. So now she must really beware him. 'His rifle didn't shoot straight, Dr Audley. That may have put him in a bad mood.'
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'I doubt that.' He regarded her steadily. 'Paul usually hits what he's aiming at. He has a natural talent that way. But he just doesn't like squeezing the trigger.'
'That's not what I've heard. But it's early days yet. So I suppose I could be wrong.' Philly, defending one of his friends, would have said exactly that.
'You could be. And you are.' He gave her a little sad smile. 'It was the mention of Frances that unsettled him. It always does. And I'm afraid it always will.'
'He loved her — didn't he?'
'Oh yes.' The smile twisted. 'But that's not his problem, my dear. His problem is that he knows
And . . . but we're not really discussing Frances Fitzgibbon, are we?' The sad smile faded. 'It's vengeance we're discussing
— and publication?'
He couldn't have had more than five minutes with Ian — or had time tricked her? But even only five minutes would have been enough for the new Ian to put his question. And if Audley had demanded a price for the answering then the new Ian would have paid at once, without a second thought, even though he believed he already knew the answer to it.
'You've been talking to my partner, Dr Audley.'
He nodded. 'I have had that opportunity — yes.' He stared at her in silence for a moment. 'And I must tell you that he no longer seems so keen on writing about me, Miss Fielding.'
Surprise, surprise! But . . . there were plenty more fish in the dummy2
sea, even if it would be hard to find one that swam so gracefully as Ian. 'I hope he didn't suggest that he was speaking for me?' It was the original Philly she must remember, not this equivocal copy.
'On the contrary. He made it abundantly plain that he was
'But, for his part . . . perhaps he remembers that old Chinese proverb about revenge?'
Jenny didn't look into the valley. If he thought he could weaken her so easily, then he was much mistaken. 'What proverb is that?'
'"He — or, in this instance,
She summoned Philly to her aid. 'There was a grave dug before we started, Dr Audley. And we — I — didn't dig that one.'
No answer this time: he simply stared at her, testing her.
'You think we're digging our graves now?'
He tried once more, this time gesturing towards the new battlefield of Salamanca. 'Don't you think so, my dear?'
Now she had him. 'I don't quite know what to think yet.
Except ... at the moment the only people I know who might dummy2
want to stop us are yourself and Dr Mitchell.'
'And that man?' He repeated the gesture. (Big, blunt-fingered hand, quite unlike Philly's: she must hold on to that dissimilarity!) 'MacManus— ?'
She could shake her head honestly. 'I don't know who sent him. So ... it could have been you, Dr Audley.' Now she really had his attention. 'To frighten us off ... if Dr Mitchell doesn't like squeezing the trigger, as you say . . . Because you do seem to have succeeded in frightening my partner. And what happened to John Tully certainly frightened me.' The thought of John Tully came to her shamefully late. But, having come, it allied John to Philly and finally hardened her heart against Audley. 'John Tully was acting under my orders, Dr Audley. So what happened to him is my responsibility, St Matthew would say.' She clenched her teeth, knowing that she had almost betrayed Philly because of a freak imagined resemblance which had knotted her up.
But now that was in the past, and she was herself again. 'And
He looked at her for what seemed an age. But finally he nodded. 'Well . . . suppose I told you a story, then? How would that be?'
'A story?' Careful, now. 'Fact or fiction?'
'Just a, story, Miss Fielding. An old Chinese story— ?'
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'With nothing promised on either side?'
'With nothing promised on either side — of course!'
'Then I'd listen.' Suddenly she had to play fair with him: that much, from their first sight of each other, she owed him.
'With all my "rights and duties" relating to Philip Masson and John Tully protected, Dr Audley?'
He nodded again, and the compact was made. 'There was this problem in this Intelligence department, nine years ago —
nine years, give or take a few months, either way-'
'Research and Development — '
'
The compact had been made, so all she had to do was to nod.
'It was an important job. Because, whoever got it, it opened up a lot of secret —
okay?'
another nod.
'So we had to get the best man for it — '
She didn't have to ride that. 'But there were two best men, weren't there?' And then she had to pin him down. 'Philip Masson and Jack Butler. And you wanted Jack Butler.'
He looked down on her, and his face became quite dummy2
beautifully ugly. 'It really is quite irrelevant now who wanted who, Miss Fielding. Or, anyway, quite unimportant in this context ... so please don't interrupt.' He set his jaw. 'There was of course the usual manoeuvring and lobbying and fixing that one expects on such occasions — ' Then his face broke up almost comically ' — actually, Fred and I both wanted Jack. And we underestimated the opposition, too. And perhaps that isn't irrelevant, I agree! Because they started testing poor old Jack, to see how he'd measure up. And neither Fred nor I expected
'But it was the other candidate who died, Dr Audley — '
He stared her down — just as Philly had used to do. 'That was an accident, we supposed. And it wasn't
'Whoever did it was a real pro. And, as Paddy MacManus was O'Leary's side-kick and junior partner then, maybe it was
trying to kill him, you see — do you see?'
Jenny didn't see. What she saw, in the next second, was that the little car was still burning in the valley: as always, it was amazing how long a collection of bits of metal burned, once they took fire. 'Why — ?'
He shook his head at her. 'This isn't the Middle East, Miss Fielding:
especially if the editors started knocking each other off, as well, eh?' He shook his head again. 'No . . . putting O'Leary on to Jack Butler was too heavy to ignore: we had to sit down and find out
death there were other candidates — ' The lip curled once more ' — including
'So there had to be a reason.' He repaid her restraint by continuing. 'And we very soon came up with one. Because Jack was promoted, then he had access to a lot of highly-dummy2
restricted files. So we thought . . .
He looked at her, and she realized that he wanted her to react now, to prove that she understood. 'Like . . . there was a traitor somewhere? What Mr Le Carre calls "a mole" — ?'
He shrugged. 'Yes. Or ... it could be that they'd deceived us somehow, with a piece of disinformation. They're damn good at that — feeding us with a great big pack of lies ... or feeding the Yanks, or the Frogs, or the Krauts ... or Mossad, and then they feed
He almost grinned at her, but didn't. 'If you start off from the wrong place, then you usually end up at the source of the Nile, and you think you've made a great discovery. So you don't notice the boat they've moored on the Thames, alongside Westminster . . .' He repeated the almost-but-not-grin. 'Don't ask me, Miss Fielding. Because I won't tell you.'
But he was self-satisfied. So he had come up with an answer.
And all he wanted to do was to wrap up the question in the Official Secrets Act, so that he could shrug off his answer, in turn. So she had to get the question right. 'But . . . you had Sir Jack Butler there, beside you, after that. So . . . if he did see those files — ?'
David Audley beamed at her. 'Absolutely right, Miss Fielding: we had him there beside us — ' Then the beam dulled.
'What's the matter, Dr Audley?'
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'Nothing — ' He was uneasy for a moment. Then he was himself again. ' — your Mr Ian Robinson is talking to my wife, with your Mr Buller . . . and to my daughter. And I was merely wondering what they were saying down there — ' He jerked his head ' — in the rocks down there — ?'
Jenny remembered the pointy-eared fox, which was also somewhere down there in the rocks. But it was beyond her imagination, what they were all up to now, down there: Ian and Reg and the pointy-eared fox, never mind Audley's wife and his daughter, after Paul Mitchell's two failed shots, and then that burst of gunfire, the turret-gun's concluding broadside.
But there was no one there in the rocks. 'What did you discover, Dr Audley?'
He made another ugly face. 'It took us a long time, Miss Fielding. And Paul Mitchell worked longer than I did.' He stared at her, and then nodded. 'Because your Mr Robinson is right — O'Leary wasn't enough for him: he wanted whoever was behind what happened at Thornervaulx.' Nod.
'And so did I, come to that.' Another nod. 'But for a quite different reason.'
'A quite different — ?'
He shook his head again. 'But we didn't find anything — not even with old Jack alongside us: we didn't find a damn thing: not a happening, not a policy, not a name, not even a
nothing.'
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Jenny junked Paul Mitchell with Frances Fitzgibbon: they had been, respectively, infantryman and infantry-woman who had fought and died in the front line, and of no interest to the historian's deeper truth.
'Paul worked all hours God sent — 8 A.M. to midnight. Or later, sometimes, I suspect.' Audley tested her. 'I don't know ... I went home each night. But he was always there next morning, when I came in, Miss Fielding.'
As with Reg Buller, so with David Audley. And as with Reg Buller, so with Ian Robinson too: whatever spell she cast across the years from Thornervaulx, Frances Fitzgibbon really must have been quite a woman, to ensnare them all like this, in all their different ways, thought Jenny enviously.
Except that Frances-
So she waited.
'One morning, I came in ... And Paul said "There's nothing here, David; the bastards have beaten us. Or Jack can't remember anything, anyway. So, even if O'Leary hadn't been so damned incompetent and done the job properly . . . either at the University, or at Thornervaulx ... it wouldn't have made any difference. Because there's nothing here."'
Jenny still waited.
'And then it was easy, of course.' Audley nodded.
'Easy?' He wasn't talking about the woman now.
'O'Leary was the best —
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'Your Paddy MacManus wasn't in the same class: he was just a pale carbon-copy of the real thing.' He cocked his head dismissively towards the dispersing column of smoke in the plain between the Greater and Lesser Arapiles. 'O'Leary might have screwed up
Still, he stared. 'What if O'Leary
'And then it was easy', just as he had said: it was like the scales falling from her eyes, in the Bible story she'd once had to learn by heart, to take her O-level Religious Studies exam.
He saw that she understood. 'The irony is that dear Frances deceived us both: because of her we both had blinkers on: we couldn't think of anything except her — and Jack Butler. And we weren't getting any answer because we were asking the wrong question. But we got there at last, anyway.' Audley nodded. 'Your "Philly" was a great guy, Miss Fielding: we did him over after that, right from his birth to what we no longer believed was his accidental death. Although we still believed that he'd been drowned, of course — we never expected him to turn up again. And it took us a long time, I can tell you . . .
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Because we couldn't ask any of our questions obviously — in case we alerted the Other Side.' Nod. 'Because, either way —
if he was
Jenny felt her mouth fall open.
'No — he wasn't on
She wasn't worrying; it was insulting even to suggest that.
They simply didn't want him to see one of our most secret files — that's all, Miss Fielding.' He accepted her silence gently. 'And it took three of us — Mitchell and me, and someone I cordially detest — four months to find that file: three of us, and four months of hard labour ... So that I know all about you, and your father as well as Philip Masson — all about the Korean War, and how he won his Military Cross ...
I know all about that. . . And about his career, after that. And his hobbies — and his girl-friends . . . and the girls he took on that boat of his — the
Jenny felt the sun burning her head, but a dreadful chill far dummy2
below, where it hurt. 'That's ridiculous — '
His mouth twisted again. 'That's what we thought at the time, Miss Fielding.'
But she didn't even want to think about that now. 'Who killed him, Dr Audley?' She felt empty as she rammed the question at him. 'Who killed him?'
He relaxed. 'Oh, come on, Miss Fielding! You know I can't answer that!'
He was also like Mitchell: of course he was like Mitchell!
But . . . she would never have a better chance than now.
'Then I'll have to work harder, Dr Audley — to find out for myself. With or without Ian. And it may not be such a good book without him. But there are other writers who'll work for me.'
'Whatever the risk?'
She shrugged. 'Maybe I'll write it myself.' She put on her obstinate face. 'Someone had him killed. And I'm going to ruin the bastard — whoever he is.'
He nodded. 'You really did love him.' The nod continued.
'And not just like a good god-daughter, of course!' The dummy2
nodding stopped. 'Well, then I shall have to tell you the rest of the story, Miss Fielding.'
He was too sure of himself for comfort. 'I'm listening, Dr Audley.'
He stared at her in silence for a moment. 'It hasn't occurred to you that your revenge has already been accomplished?'
Somewhere in the stillness of the valley an engine started up.
Jenny was drawn towards the sound: the armoured personnel vehicle with the little turret-gun had started up; nearer to them, at the foot of the plateau in the gap in the fence beside the track, Paul Mitchell was in earnest conversation with one of the Spanish civilians; and the shapeless wreck of the little 2-CV was smoking now, rather than burning.
She felt quite empty. He hadn't mentioned a country, let alone a name. And of course he never would. And it didn't have to be a Russian name, or any one of half a dozen of their East European surrogates. Or it could be an Arab name. Or even an Israeli name. Or it could just conceivably be some clean-cut, crew-cut American. Or, as an ultimate possibility, a Savile-Row-suited Englishman.
'Are you saying that he's dead, Dr Audley?'
'No, Miss Fielding. That's a lie I'm not prepared to tell you.
Because we're not into that sort of vengeance: it's not what we're hired for.'
She remembered what Reg Buller had said. 'You don't do dummy2
wicked things like that — ?'
A curious expression passed across his face. 'No, Miss Fielding. We don't do wicked things like that. Killing is too simple for us: we want more than that. Killing wouldn't give us our proper satisfaction.'
'More?' She couldn't read his face at all. 'Proper — ?'
'Oh yes. When you've been deceived — as we
He'll only get a successor — probably someone you don't know. So you leave him where he is.' The not-smile widened.
'Ideally, of course, you turn
promotion, of course . . . And you, of course, duly came upon those rumours . . . nicely matured by the years?'
She nodded. But the devil in the back of her brain leered at her. 'But I mustn't believe them now — is that it? Because I must believe
'You must believe what convinces you, Miss Fielding.' His mouth set hard.
She had cut deep, justly or not. 'I believe that Philly — that my godfather was murdered nine years ago, Dr Audley. And I also believe that John Tully is dead. And I need a much better answer to John Tully.'
'Ah . . . that's fair enough.' He agreed readily, almost like a judge taking an objection. 'As to poor Mr Tully, I can't answer you with any certainty — I can only hazard a guess there, Miss Fielding.'
'A guess?' The devil shook his head warningly.
'Yes ... I think maybe we've not been as clever ... or as clever for as long ... as we thought, perhaps.' He made a face.
'Nothing lasts forever. And . . . we've been running our Masson deception for a long time, now.' One huge shoulder lifted philosophically. 'They may have tumbled to it . . .Or, they may suspect, honestly I don't know. But I rather fear I'll be working on that when I get back to London — while my dear wife and daughter are spending my money in Paris — ?'
The great once-upon-a-time rugger-playing shoulder rose again. 'Did they teach you seventeenth-century poetry at dummy2
Roedean, Miss Fielding?'
'Poetry — ?' The man was dangerous.
'No! It was biology, wasn't it!' Audley grinned. 'I remember ...
No — there was this seventeenth-century poet, writing his love-poem to chat this girl up — Andrew Marvell, it was . . .
And he said, when you can't delay things, then you ought to hurry them up: "
your Mr Tully was a paid-up member of the National Union of Journalists. And you can kill soldiers, or you can kill
"innocent bystanders" . . . But when you start to kill
Because he's well-liked ... So "Heads, we don't win — tails we lose"?: the media will love another Intelligence scandal too, after Peter Wright and
He was playing dirty. So she could play the same game.
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'Whereas in fact you were very clever? Is that what I'm supposed to say?'
He looked down at her, almost proudly. 'Not
She saw. 'And I must believe all this — ?'
'You must believe what suits you. Or ... you can ask Mr Robinson what he believes, if you prefer?'
Jenny thought of Ian suddenly. 'Ian asked you a question, didn't he? About Mrs Fitzgibbon, was it — ?'
'Yes.' She was rewarded with another of his odd faces. 'I must say that you did very well there: I'm surprised — and a little disturbed — that you got so close to her, after all this time.
Because you wouldn't have got it from Paul ... of that, I'm sure.' He frowned. 'But . . . you're certainly in the right job, anyway.'
He was flattering the wrong partner, thought Jenny grimly.
'What was the question?'
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'The question?' He frowned again. 'Don't you — ' A slight sound, as of a stone dislodged somewhere behind her, cut him off. 'Ah! I think that's my wife coming — '
'What was the question, Dr Audley?'
Audley looked at her. 'He wanted to know who Frances Fitzgibbon shouted at, that day at Thornervaulx: whether it was at the man O'Leary, or at Paul Mitchell, Miss Fielding.'
'At — ?' The scene Reg Buller had described suddenly came back to her, and with all the more vividness for its contrast, here on the top of the Greater Arapile: not fierce Spanish sunlight, in the midst of a brown rocky wilderness only softened by autumn crocuses, but the pouring rain, and the sodden grass and fallen leaves, and the great grey ruins of Thornervaulx Abbey.
'Yes.' He misread her expression. 'He knew the answer, of course. But it was still a good question. With a rare answer.'
The two places had nothing in common.
'When she saw O'Leary at Thornervaulx that day, she must have thought he was going to kill one of them — Paul, or Jack Butler. . .And Jack Butler for choice, maybe. But, of course, we don't exactly know what she thought. Because she died in Paul's arms, without saying anything.'
Or, maybe, there was something: there was violent death —
here, today and long ago, and at Thornervaulx, nine years ago, on a wet November afternoon.
'But, even though she didn't have a gun, she was safe enough, dummy2
anyway — '
'Only, if she shouted at Paul, that would have alerted him too late — either for himself, or for Jack Butler. Because O'Leary had a clear view of them both, by then — '
Mrs David Audley was tall and blonde, and a lot younger than her husband: obviously, she liked older men too, even though she was smiling at Ian as he helped her up across the rocks from below —
'So she shouted at O'Leary, Miss Fielding. And she must have known that he'd think she had a gun.' Audley glanced towards his wife for a second, to make sure she was far enough away. 'I didn't actually see it happen. But I saw something like it happen in the war, once . . . It's not a thing you forget: one human being dying for another, in cold blood.' He nodded slowly at her. 'She was quite a woman, was Frances. But I think she'd prefer not to have any publicity now.'
'
'Hullo, love!' Audley looked at Jenny for one last fraction of a second after acknowledging his name. 'What you must decide, Miss Fielding, is what your godfather would have wanted you to do. That's all.' He turned back to his wife.
'Love — I don't think you've met Jenny Fielding — ? She's a friend of Willy Arkenshaw's, and she's dying to meet you.'
Jenny saw Ian behind Mrs David Audley. And, behind Ian, dummy2
Miss Cathy Audley, bright and pointy-eared as the fox in the rocks down below.
And Reg Buller, finally.
And Reg Buller, knowing everything and nothing, had eyes for her only. Because she would sign his account, and agree his expenses. And they were both still alive.
'Lady—?'
Tomorrow was another day, he was saying.
EPILOGUE
Another conversation which never took place
'Yes, I do agree. It was quite unnecessarily violent. But that's the Spaniards for you. And they are actually rather pleased with us: they've wanted to settle with that Irishman ever since the Basques hired him to blow up that general of theirs.'
'Yes. But we couldn't tell Aguirre what to do, Jack — could we? And, of course, I suppose he wanted as many of MacManus's ETA contacts as possible: it was obvious that dummy2
the man would call in their help to trace Audley once he knew where Fielding and Robinson were going.'
'We're not quite sure, as yet. But he did have the Romanians to help him, of course. And they could have leaned on one of Buller's friends just as we did. But Aguirre assured me there'd be no risk to Audley.'
'Yes . . . well, that was a little rumour I let slip on the grapevine, Jack. So now that he's dead they'll most likely settle for "person or persons unknown", I shouldn't wonder.'
'No, I agree. It was most likely one of the Romanians — the Departamentul de Informatii Externe doing its stuff . . .
Mitchell's pretty sure that MacManus's minder was one of their officers. And it seems they're missing one of their trade attachés, so that fits. Plus Masson was their murder-victim originally, of course: the whole thing was their project,
'Yes . . . well, I rather hope we can leave it to the Russians to sort out now, Jack. Because they're not at all pleased with the dummy2
'She doesn't know anything about the Romanian connection, Jack.'
'Oh . . . David was taking a calculated risk. And for once I must support him, Jack. Because we really cannot afford the publication of another book. And particularly a book about R
amp; D ... So he really had to stop her somehow.'
'He didn't tell her everything, exactly . . . But, look at it this way, Jack: the Russians will rein in the Romanians now —
'Oh, I don't think he'll write this one, Jack.'
'No?
'He doesn't want to, apparently. And . . . he's about to get the offer of a rather nice research fellowship at Rylands College in Cambridge, I happen to know.'
'I have a friend there who is an admirer of his work. We've had a little talk, and we both think Mr Robinson will be happier in the groves of academe. And he has rather gone off Miss Fielding-ffulke, Mitchell says.'
'Yes. But . . . well, I think we can leave
'They've rather taken to each other. And David says that she could be very useful to us, in the right place and handled properly. And . . .'
'And David also particularly wants to know who put her on to him in the first place. He says that Masson turning up like that again . . . that was pure accident. But the Honourable Jennifer Fielding-ffulke overhearing one particular piece of gossip about her beloved godfather . . .
I must say, do I.'
'We're not sure. But we do have other enemies. And it's as well to know who they are, don't you think?'
'Understood, Jack. "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord". I'll tell David that.'
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