For the Good of the State (35 page)

The conscience-pricking sharpened, and he was suddenly aware that his hand was sweaty on the receiver. ‘Listen, Willy—’

Audley yawned, and stretched against his seat-belt. ‘You’ve been a most unconscionable time, dear boy. What
have
you been doing?’

‘I’m sorry, David.’ Of course the car started at the first touch once more, with malignant obedience. ‘Everyone was busy saving the world.’

‘Oh yes?’ There was only the merest hint that the unconscionable time had re-aroused the old man’s suspicions, which the episode in Farmer Bodger’s yard had momentarily allayed. ‘Since the weekend is with us, I’m surprised you found anyone at all there.’

Better to counter-attack, as though from a clear conscience. ‘I didn’t think you were worried.’ He put his foot down as the road opened up ahead. ‘I saw you snoring.’

‘I was not asleep!’ Audley sniffed, and wiped his nose on the back of his huge dirty paw like a geriatric schoolboy. ‘I was thinking of Kipling and Dunsterville … and fact imitating fiction, actually. Because he must have written
Puck of Pook’s Hill
… oh, all of thirty years before Dunsterville got the dirty end of the stick on the Caspian—just like Parnesius got the dirty end defending the Roman Wall, and de Aquila did at Pevensey—one of your few good Normans, Tom, defending England for bad Normans against worse ones!’ He studied Tom for a long moment. ‘You’re not married—? No, I can see you’re not! But when you are, and your union is blessed with a son or a daughter … and preferably with a daughter like my Cathy … I shall then present one of my First Edition
Pucks
, suitably inscribed, to your offspring … In the remote hope that she—or even
he—
may accidentally read
Puck’s Song
in it, and then get some faint idea about what it’s all about—

“As for my comrades in camp or highway,
That lift their eyebrows scornfully,
Tell them their way is not my way—
Tell them that England hath taken me!”

‘But no—I have
not
been asleep, in answer to your fairly insulting statement. Because, if I looked as though I was snoring, then that is only because I can no longer breathe through my nose.’

Tom felt chastened. But he also wondered whether the old boy had a secret and medicinal hip-flask; only he couldn’t smell anything suggesting that. ‘You weren’t thinking about Panin, then? Or Zarubin?’ Another road-sign, sprouting out of a Normandy-bocage-high bank, indicated that
Lynmouth
and
Lynton
were now dreadfully close, with Willy still far behind. ‘Don’t they rate ahead of Kipling, at the moment?’

‘Oh, they do—they do!’ Audley had seen the same sign, but it didn’t seem to frighten him. ‘I thought of them first off, when I made those silly signals to you, Tom—for which I really must apologize … when you were busy, too. But that was when I came back to Kipling, from our previous conversation. And I must admit that I found him much more interesting to think about. And more relevant too, by God!’

‘Relevant?’

‘That’s right. Because he’s already said it all. The way it is, the way it always was. And the way it always will be, Tom—’

There were houses ahead, just the first irregular scatter of them here and there, half-hidden on a steeply-wooded hillside.

‘—which, of course, you know all too well, as you demonstrated back in that farmyard. But which, sitting in my comfortable research department, protected by my great age and seniority, I keep having to remind myself:

“No proposition Euclid wrote,
No formulae the text books know,
Will turn the bullet from your coat,
Or ward the tulwar’s downward blow.”‘

There was a sign up ahead:
East Lyn ½
.

Audley grinned cheerfully at him. ‘I always find Kipling relaxing. It’s such a pity they don’t make children learn poetry by heart nowadays. We had reams of it dinned into us. In the end it becomes … not so much easy—although Kipling and all the other good old rhyming stuff
is
easy … but not so much easy as a habit … And, do you know, my feet are almost dry. Must be the car heater, I suppose, eh?’

Tom followed the sign uphill. The old man
was
blethering. But then, the old man was frightened, and this was merely the sign of his fear. But also, the poor old bugger had every right to be frightened in these circumstances, with Panin and the Sons of the Eagle ahead, and the tricky, treacherous Tom Arkenshaw at his side. Even, very likely, the older one got, the more one had to draw on one’s diminished reserves of courage in such situations. And old men must know better than young ones that they weren’t immortal, so their ‘borrowed time’ must seem all the more valuable.

‘Well, there’s old Nikolai, waiting patiently for us.’ Audley pointed suddenly. ‘But I don’t see the talkative Major. And I don’t see their car, either. So they must have tucked that round the side somewhere, I suppose … Still, the Comrade Professor doesn’t seem very nervous. And that’s reassuring.’

Panin certainly didn’t appear worried: he was watching a hooligan crowd of small birds fighting over something edible in the middle of the road. But otherwise Audley was still blethering about the obvious.

As Tom scattered the birds the Russian looked up and saw them, but gave no sign of having done so. And in that instant Tom decided whose side he was on.

He drove fifty yards before stopping, and then watched Audley release his seat-belt.

‘Listen, David—’ As he put his hand on the old man’s arm he realized that this was the first time he’d touched him. On the terrace yesterday they hadn’t shaken hands because Audley’s had been dirty from his bonfire-making—about as dirty as they were now. ‘Listen, David … ’

Audley regarded him inquiringly, his battered features suddenly scrubbed clean of all other emotions. ‘Aren’t you going to back up?’

Panin was standing still and the birds were back in the road, Tom observed in the rear-view mirror. ‘He can wait. Do you know who I’m working for?’

Audley’s face didn’t change. ‘I did rather wonder. From time to time.’

‘Henry Jaggard, David. I have to report everything you do to him.’

Still no change, but a tiny nod. ‘Ah … well, that’s also reassuring. He’s a sharp fellow, Henry Jaggard—very clever. But at least he’s on our side.’ Then a slight frown. ‘Jack Butler doesn’t know this, I take it?’

‘No. Not as far as I know.’

‘No.’ The frown vanished. ‘That’s reassuring too. One doesn’t like one’s idols to have clay feet. But … you don’t by any chance know what Henry Jaggard is up to? Apart from securing the defence of the realm and furthering his own career, that is—?’

Tom flicked a glance into the mirror again. Panin was still waiting patiently, and there was still no sign of Major Sadowski. ‘No.’ He shook his head at Audley. ‘My job is to protect you. And to obey your orders, David.’

Audley’s eyebrows lifted slightly. ‘That doesn’t seem too outrageous. But, since I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, he must be having a rather frustrating time.’ A hint of the old Beast-grin. ‘So what’s your problem?’

‘If I had my way we wouldn’t be here. Or … we’d have a lot more back-up right now. But he won’t have that.’

Nod. ‘He’s quite right. A troop of heavy-hoofed Special Branch men in clean black Rovers would frighten the natives. And they wouldn’t turn a bullet from my coat, either—not if it’s got my name on it, Tom. Or, put another way—it would be my friend and colleague Paul Mitchell’s way, because he’s into 1914-18 poetry … and so, to a quite remarkable extent, is Jack Butler, too:

“Nor lead nor steel shall reach him, so
That it be not the Destined Will.”

Not Kipling, that But it could have been. So not to worry.‘ He reached for his door handle. ’We just have to keep our powder dry, that’s all.‘

‘No—’ Again Tom touched Audley’s arm ‘—that’s the point, David … That bullet yesterday … ’

‘Yes?’ Audley nodded. ‘I did rather wonder about that, too.’ The eyebrow cocked again. ‘Henry Jaggard too—? To galvanize me into urgent and furious activity instantly?’

‘He isn’t as worried about it as he ought to be.’

‘He isn’t, isn’t he?’ Audley twisted in his seat to gaze out of the rear window. ‘Well, I suppose that could be quiet confidence in himself … and in you … however misplaced.’ The old man’s tone hardened with each word. ‘Or … It could be Henry Jaggard or one of his minions leaving nothing to chance, as you suggest … But here’s the Galloping Major now, anyway. So let’s go and join the bird-watching party then, eh?’ Audley straightened himself and opened his door.

Tom felt ridiculously anti-climaxed. He had burnt his boats—perhaps even, subconsciously, he had burnt them for Mamusia’s sake, too. But Audley had been there, or nearly, before him, so he might just as well have kept his options open.

A gust of wind, damp with fine cobwebby rain, caught him full in the face as he frowned across the top of the car at Audley.

The old man was smiling at him—not grinning the Beast-grin, but smiling an old maid’s almost hesitant smile; which, since his face was so dirty, made him look foolishly-beastly. ‘I really need my raincoat now, dear boy. But, since you say I mustn’t wear it, I’ll chance pneumonia instead. Because I am vastly obliged and obligated to you now.’ The smile twitched. ‘And because I also know the difference between betrayal and keeping faith in the fine print at the bottom of the contract, you see. Because I’ve been there too … So let’s go and do it again, then.’

Tom watched him walk away, with the walk instantly lengthening into that characteristic long-legged stride. Then he bent down into the car and reached for the cast-aside raincoat in the back, using the required contortion also to ease the Smith and Wesson out of its holster into his hand to hold under it before he backed out again.

Audley had already reached Panin and Sadowski, and was nodding in answer to the Russian. Tom dropped the car key into his pocket
(who would steal a heap like this
? ), and settled the coat untidily over his right hand. Mercifully, there was a lot of raincoat; but then, any raincoat made to cover Audley had to be tent-like.

‘Tom—’ Audley called across the decreasing yards as he approached them ‘—Tom—’ Now the raincoat received half-a-glance, and Tom’s guts twisted; but then the old man ignored the coat ‘—of course, they’ve cheated, as you would expect!’

‘Cheated?’ Tom let his outrage at the word further cover the coat’s untidiness. ‘How?’ He looked accusingly at Panin, ‘What?’

‘Not exactly …
cheated
, Sir Thomas.’ The Russian lifted a hand quickly. ‘As a precaution we have had men watching this place, to see who has come; and who has gone, you understand?’ The fingers of the hand opened, and the hand shook defensively. ‘With General Zarubin so close there is no margin for error, Sir Thomas. We cannot afford to be careless.’

‘Which, translated, means that they’ve counted all the Poles out, and then they’ve counted them all in,’ snapped Audley. ‘And there are only two of them.’

‘That is correct.‘ Panin took a confirmatory nod from Sadowski before nodding himself. ’One is Szymiac, the other we do not know. But they operate in two-man cells, we do know. And Szymiac will have scouted the ground, and will drive the car. For he is the brains, and not an assassin—it is the other man who will fire the shot.‘ He fixed Tom through his eye-slits. ’Small units, quickly in and quickly out, regardless of everything after proper reconnaissance: they learned that from us, I suspect.‘

That hadn’t been how it had been with Father Jerzy, thought Tom. But then, they had used Polish scum for that, because only scum would work for them, and scum was reliably stupid. But these men were patriots, however deluded now. Or … maybe not so deluded?

But he must not think Polish thoughts now:
England had taken him, and their way was not his way now, and that was the end of it
!

‘So they’re both inside.’ He looked up at the houses above him: a well-spaced row of very English houses, rather gimcrack-1930ish, each detached from the other behind its garden, which rose up the hill from the road. ‘Where?’

‘There.’ Panin pointed to one further on from where they were standing. ‘And we must act now, this minute, because our time is running out … Szymiac has already brought out their car from the garage … Dr Audley?’

‘Suits me.’ Audley shrugged. ‘Let’s get it over with. Tom—?’

Time running out
wasn’t to Tom’s taste. But then nothing since Ranulf of Caen’s ditch yesterday had tasted right. And the nasty little Major—
more Polish scum!—
was already accepting his orders, like the little obedient swine that he was.

They walked the few yards of respectable pavement, then turned up the drive to the house, between rock gardens which had once been lovingly well-tended, when the house had been private and not for hire, but which were now tended just enough to keep them respectable.

And Panin and his watchers had been right: there was a car parked ready, outside the peeling cream-and-brown front door; and, by the coincidence of successful mass-production, it was also a Ford Cortina—and one which matched the front door, near enough, in common milk-chocolate-brown, with a pale beige hardtop, like a million other cars and doors.

‘So what do we do, then?’ inquired Audley politely. ‘Just knock on the door and ask for Mr … Shim-she-ack?’

Panin half turned towards him. “That is exactly what we shall do, Dr Audley. We come in peace, to preserve the peace.‘ He nodded to the Pole. ’Major Sadowski, if you please—?‘

The Pole slid by him and flattened himself against the wall of the house on the left of the door. And, as he did so, he drew a short-barrelled revolver from inside his jacket, holding it flat against his chest.

‘Some peace!’ murmured Audley.

‘A precaution, no more.’ Panin turned towards the door. ‘Have confidence, Dr Audley—David.’ He reached for the heavy black door-knocker.

Audley sneezed explosively as the knocker banged, while Tom stared helplessly at the weapon in the Pole’s hand, which was a kissing cousin of the one he held in his own. All he could do was to remember that peacekeeping forces the world over were usually and prudently armed to the teeth, and hope that the Pole knew his business.