For the Good of the State (30 page)

This time Panin almost spoke, but again controlled himself behind his defensive silence, as though waiting for Audley to exhaust his armoured cavalryman’s instinct for probing tactics.

‘Well, anyway—’ Audley gestured dismissively towards Tom ‘—Sir Thomas Arkenshaw just happens to be the son of my very oldest girlfriend. Or
second
oldest, actually; although the other wench is dead, and in a foreign country … My
second
oldest girlfriend: once a great girl, now a great lady.’ The brutal face lifted, and Audley used all his inches to look down on his ‘old comrade’. ‘Indeed, one might say that, but for certain juvenile miscalculations on my part, mediated by a mischance on the rugger field perhaps, this Thomas Arkenshaw
junior
might have been David Audley
junior—
will that do for you?’

As though to avoid being looked-down on, Panin himself had found something quite absorbing among the muddy hoofprints at the bottom of Gilbert de Merville’s ditch. But now he came out of his absorption. ‘Things are not so good for you, either.’

‘What?’ The statement took Audley aback.

‘You are not in good smell—no, that should be “odour”, for some reason, I think … good
odour—?
’ Panin paused, but only for half-a-second now that he was clear of his trenches at last. ‘You have offended too many of your politicians, and now one too many, I think—with your games. So that not even the so-very-good Colonel Butler can protect you. Because there is a point where even the so-very-good-and-noble Colonel must protect himself, I think—yes?’

‘Yes?’ Audley frowned. ‘No! Stuff and nonsense!’

‘No—
not
nonsense.’ Panin shook his head slowly. ‘You are right to say that our circumstances are different. But this time do not interrupt, if you please!’ But, to Tom’s surprise, the Russian did not instantly continue himself, but waited for Audley to bite him.

But Audley didn’t bite.

‘Very good!’ Panin savoured Audley’s silence, sniffing at it approvingly. ‘When I first encountered you I thought you were much more … much more in rank—a colonel, but almost a general—than you really were. I did not understand what you were. And that confused me.’

‘Is that a fact?’ Audley brightened. ‘Well, actually, you confused me a bit too. So that was when we both started doing our homework, eh?’

Panin ignored Audley’s pleasure. ‘You are clever, David. But you are an amateur.’

‘No.’ Audley had forgotten the ‘Don’t interrupt’ admonition while it still echoed in the still air between them. ‘You’ve still got it bloody-wrong, Nikolai—the word is “
Gentleman”
not “
Amateur
”! And, what you mean, is that … I don’t
have
to give a damn, if I screw up—but
you
, poor old comrade …
you
have been scared half out of your wits every time you’ve farted without permission these last thirty-forty years, if you haven’t got written authorization … Unless, of course, you’ve turned up on the hundred per cent winning side—like after Mironov had that unfortunate accident in Yugoslavia, after Khrushchev was outvoted? And you were deep in a trench in the Altai mountains—?’ He turned as though for support to Tom. ‘It was an
archaeological
trench, I hasten to add! Because when in doubt the Comrade Professor always goes to ground in Ancient Scythia, never in Dzerzhinsky Square. It’s a sort of return-to-the-womb thing he has. Even this latest cover he’s got—the Scythian Exhibition at the BM next year …
that’s
a subconscious going-to-ground instinct, I shouldn’t wonder—’

‘But we are not talking about me, David.’ Panin wasn’t interested in Tom now: he had accepted Sir Thomas Arkenshaw as a hypothetical Audley offspring apparently, and that was enough. ‘Over the last twenty-five years you have been going too far—not all the time, but too often … Over the last fifteen years, to my certain knowledge—how many times? How many times?’

Audley shrugged. ‘I’m still here. That makes no times, to my reckoning.’

‘But Colonel Butler has not Sir Frederick Clinton’s influence.’

‘Maybe not. But Jack is very well-regarded in high places, Nikolai. In fact, in the extremely unlikely event of any change of government, centre-right or centre-left, Jack’s the lad who’ll get the majority vote.’ Audley’s voice was smug. ‘You’re on a loser if you think otherwise.’

‘Indeed?’ The eye-slits opened again fractionally; which was probably as close to a registration of surprise as Panin allowed himself, Tom decided. ‘A man for all parties? You make him sound truly remarkable.’

‘He
is
remarkable.’ Audley warmed to his subject. ‘There’s no one like our Jack—not in this black age, anyway.’ He glanced at Gilbert de Merville’s mound thoughtfully for a moment. ‘You can’t lay a finger on him.’

‘I’m impressed.’ The eyes slitted again. ‘Perhaps I should have studied him more carefully, and not you.’

‘Wouldn’t have done you any good. You wouldn’t begin to understand him.’ Audley shook his head. ‘He’ll always catch
you
by the heel. You’ll never fathom him out.’

‘You think not?’ Even Panin couldn’t resist that challenge.

‘Not a chance. I’ve been trying for years.’ This time the sniff, unlike all its predecessors, was cheerful. ‘Got nowhere—like the Raj trying to fathom Gandhi … Except that Jack’s not what you’d call non-violent.’ Shrug—happy shrug, like the sniff. That’s the trouble with men who are instinctively and logically
good
: the rest of us, who are ordinarily, and instinctively, and logically
bad
—and in your case, old comrade,
worse—
can never get inside their minds. At least, not the way we can sometimes get inside each other’s—do you see? Like now, for instance, eh?‘

Panin considered Audley’s insults without any sign of offence. ‘You surprise me more and more, David—’

‘Not half as much as Jack would, if you’d invited him here instead of me.’ Audley frowned suddenly. ‘And, come to think of it … why the blue blazes
did
you invite me here—?’ Somehow he caught Tom’s eye in the middle of the question. ‘By which I mean not
here
, much as I approve of Sir Thomas’s quaint choice of rendezvous—I mean
down
here—up here, out here? The West Country, Nikolai?’ He shook his head. ‘Not your country, Nikolai. Definitely not your country. Not since John Ridd put down the Doones hereabout, anyway.’

‘No, not my country.’ The latest insult went the way of all its predecessors. ‘There is something you don’t know, then?’

‘Ah!’ Audley refused to be mocked. ‘You got the Thomas Becket analogy! I was beginning to fear it had all gone to waste. Jolly good!’ He gave Tom a ‘So there!’ nod. ‘But …
yes
, in answer to your question. Only I’m a quick learner, and I can hardly wait to be taught.’ Sniff. ‘Teach me, Nikolai, teach me.’

Tom was drawn back to Audley suddenly, as all the banter and facetiousness went out of the old man’s voice in that instant. And he saw that the face matched the voice, with no hint of Beast-bonhomie any more; and that that was the tme face and the true voice of the man who had been blinding and bluffing them both with the twelfth century only to get himself where he wanted to be in the twentieth.

‘Gennadiy Zarubin, David,’ said Panin, pronouncing the name with something of Audley’s unconcealed harshness.

‘Major-General Gennadiy Zarubin.’ For that lack of surprise Audley owed Tom, and Tom owed Willy and Colonel Sheldon. But, considering how very recently
Gennadiy Zarubin
had been added to the mixture, Audley handled the name well. ‘It had to be him, of course.’

‘Of course.’ Panin agreed readily enough, but then looked sidelong at Audley. ‘Of course?’

‘Simple arithmetic.’ Audley shrugged. The poor bloody priest himself—whose memory I won’t insult by trying to pronounce his name—
he’s
safe in heaven. And Marchuk’s doing a long stretch in hell. And your four obedient Poles … who were just about as incompetent as Henry Plantagenet’s obedient knights …
they’re
doing time in some holiday-camp, is our latest guess. Although hell will get them too, in God’s good time, I shouldn’t wonder.‘

‘So?’ The sidelong look was oddly frozen. ‘I didn’t know you were a religious man, David.’

‘I’m not. I’m just an old-fashioned High Days, and Holidays Anglican, seeing as it’s not respectable to worship Mithras these days.’ Audley smiled one of his smiles. ‘But your Poles were probably brought up as good little Catholics, so it’s hell for them in due course—’ The smile curdled suddenly, as though the old man had smelt something more like the charnel-house. ‘Or are they there already? Just to be on the safe side, eh?’

The sidelong glance became full-face. ‘What?’

‘Oh—come on!’ Audley made a vaguely-insulting gesture. ‘If there’s one thing your lot is good at, it’s killing inconvenient Poles. Like at Katyn, remember—?’ The hand waved some more. ‘Or even letting the Nazis do your dirty work for you … like Warsaw in ’44?‘

Panin tensed, so it seemed to Tom. ‘That is a lie—’

‘No, it bloody isn’t!’ Audley’s vaguely-waved hand clenched. ‘I had some good mates in the 1st Polish Armoured, ’44 to ‘45. And they had fathers and uncles in ’40, at Katyn and elsewhere. And—
and, Christ! They had younger brothers and sons, some of them, at Warsaw in ‘44, where you let them die.
’

‘
It is a lie!
’ As he spoke, Panin squared up to Audley, and the old man matched him, on the very edge of Gilbert de Merville’s rock-cut ditch, each with one elderly fist visible to Tom—ridiculous old fists, clenching and unclenching now, as though in preparation for a pensioners’ punch-up, regardless of age and diplomatic protocol.

‘It’s the truth—and you know it!’ sneered Audley, fixing his big feet squarely in the muddy grass.

‘
David
! For God’s sake!’ exclaimed Tom, simultaneously terrified and aware that Audley was not only the aggressor, but would certainly be the victor, with size and weight on his side, if the two old men came to blows here.

Audley twisted a grimace at him, without taking his eyes off the Russian, but relaxing slightly. ‘Maybe not Katyn. But he knows damn well what happened on the Warsaw front in ’44, when they wouldn’t give the RAF landing rights, to drop supplies to the Poles—never mind not helping the poor bastards themselves, the buggers. Because he was
there
, by God! Sitting on his arse on the other side of the river!‘

Panin spluttered slightly. ‘You dishonour me—!’

‘If I could—I would!’ Audley’s hand came up. But at least it was a finger now, not a fist. ‘You-were-there—’ He rounded on Tom without warning ‘—and
you
should know what happened there, of all people, Tom!’

Panin looked at Tom, and Tom himself was astonished at Audley’s indiscretion—so astonished that for a moment all he could think of was the Russian’s description of Audley as ‘
amateur
’. ‘I thought we were discussing Gennadiy Zarubin—? Not … not ancient East European military history, anyway—’ He looked from one to the other.

The Russian composed himself first; although that, thought Tom bitterly, was composure born of suddenly-renewed interest in Sir Thomas Arkenshaw, who could not only get his tongue round a Polish name but was also apparently an expert on the Warsaw Rising of ‘44, it seemed. ’That is true.‘ The momentary change in the man’s aura, which had somehow hinted at the presence of a ravening wolf within that elderly sheep, had already vanished so completely that memory queried its existence. ’You must forgive me, Sir Thomas. But I, also, had good comrades in ‘44. And before that, and after that. And also brothers. And I also remember them.’ He drew a slow breath. ‘But I should not. And you are right to draw us back to pressing matters.’ He considered Tom for another five slow seconds before returning to Audley. ‘Thank you, Sir Thomas.’

Audley shrugged, no longer truculent but quite unapologetic. ‘I was only doing my arithmetic. Two dead, four jailed, equals six. Six from seven equals one. One equals Zarubin. That’s all.’ It was Audley who was battened down now. ‘But you were about to do the rest of the sum for me.’

This time Audley got the five seconds. ‘How much do you know, David?’

‘Uh-uh.’ Audley shook his head. ‘Gennadiy Zarubin, you were saying—?’

‘You know that he’s here, of course.’ Panin waited in vain for Audley to answer. ‘Of course you do!’

Audley looked into the ditch. ‘It isn’t really very hard, the rock here—is it, Tom?’ He looked up at Tom. ‘Not like the rock ditch on the Roman wall between Carrawburgh and Chesters, by Milecastle 30, where they had to bore holes and split the stuff with boiling water—or vinegar, was it? And they never did finish the job, at that … Jack Butler showed me the place, long ago—oh, it must be thirteen years ago, about.’ He nodded. ‘All of that, because I think Faith was pregnant at the time … But this doesn’t look nearly so bad.’

Tom rolled an eye at the Russian, as speechless as Panin himself was.

‘It’s still good work, for a rush job.’ Audley bent over the ditch, hands on knees. ‘But not a
great
work, is what I mean—not with this crumbly red sandstone … Is that what it is? Or is it—what the devil is it?’ He started to reach down below the lip of the ditch, but then abandoned the attempt.

‘They are going to kill him.’ Panin found his voice at last. ‘Zarubin, David.’

Audley found a suitable tuft of grass on which to kneel. ‘Uh-huh? Who’s “they”?’ He reached over the edge. ‘In Zarubin’s case there must be a fairly long waiting-list for that honour—’ He wrenched at something out of Tom’s view ‘—but presumably these would be Poles, of course … eh?’ He gave the unseen bit of rock another wrench.

‘Terrorists,’ said Panin.

‘Terrorists—naturally … ’ Another wrench ‘ … freedom fighters, partisans, guerrillas …
franc-tireurs
, Robin Hood’s “Merry Men”, UNITA, IRA, ENOSIS, Weathermen, ETA—join the bloody club:

“He crucified noble, he scarified mean,
He filled old ladies with kerosene;
While over the water the papers cried,
‘The patriot fights for his countryside!’ ”