The Alamut Ambush (10 page)

Howe knew he wasn’t at home and was gently fishing for his precise location. Roskill peered down at one of the lines of graffiti on the wall: it was meticulously done in Latin. Home was never like this. ‘I shan’t be home until later. I’ll give you a ring then if I want anything. What about Lady Ryle?’

Howe didn’t answer at once, whether from delicacy or a lingering shred of embarrassment it was impossible to gauge.

‘Lady Ryle is considered a good risk, at your discretion. Nothing’s known against her, as far as the Foundation is concerned.’

As far as the Foundation was concerned
. Howe was relying on his discretion – or appealing to it. Or perhaps he didn’t think he had the gall to inquire further.

In ordinary circumstances that might not have been a miscalculation, Roskill told himself ruefully. But as it was it didn’t take into account the trauma of the past twenty hours and sordidness of Bunnock Street. Discretion no longer mattered, only the pretence that this could be regarded as a legitimate question. Such an opportunity might never occur again. ‘And just what is known about her?’

The delay was briefer this time.

‘I wondered whether you’d ask that,’ said Howe. ‘I didn’t think you would, you know.’

‘But I have.’

‘Indeed you have!’ Howe laughed shortly. ‘Well, they know about you, old boy – chapter and verse.’

‘I never doubted it.’ God damn them to hell.

‘Then I won’t bore you with the details. It states that Ryle turns a blind eye for the sake of the children and the better to pursue his own fancies. What might be called “a civilised arrangement”, relying on the good sense of all parties. I congratulate you, Hugh – you appear to have got the best of both worlds…’

Or the worst of both worlds, according to what sort of worlds one found desirable…

Roskill walked thoughtfully back up the street, pausing only to pick up the slides and the little projector from the car boot before heading for the flat. It hadn’t really surprised him that his liaison with Isobel was known. From the very beginning they had been careful, but never secretive – their precautions had been designed rather to avoid embarrassment than to deceive the world in general and John Ryle in particular.

John, of all people, had no cause for complaint: he had virtually propelled Isobel into Roskill’s arms, or if not Roskill’s, then those of some other member of the squadron. Yet it sounded suspiciously like John who had supplied the chapter and verse on them; perhaps the eye he had turned had not been sightless.

He shrugged to himself as he pressed the buzzer. At all events it would have taken no special investigation to establish that they were more than good friends. More than mere friendship was probably what had decided the Department in its quest for quick results.

He was still testing that probability when Isobel opened the door, more desirable than ever to him now that there was a hint of distress beneath that celebrated composure.

‘Hugh, darling —‘

‘Is Havergal here?’

He pricked his ears and then relaxed before she could answer. It was a question rendered unnecessary by her greeting: he would never be a darling in Colonel Havergal’s hearing.

‘He’s phoning, Hugh – from the box down the street.’ She searched his face. ‘I know I shouldn’t ask you what you’re doing, but when Archie won’t phone from the hotel and won’t phone from the flat – Hugh, what
are
you doing? And what’s Archie doing?’

‘Did he ask you about me?’

‘Only how long we’d known each other and where we met.’

Nobody’s fool, certainly. He hadn’t bothered to ask her questions she couldn’t answer, and hadn’t risked any phone that might be suspect in order to ask somebody who could. And he’d know who to ask, sure enough. The question was – how full would the answer be?

‘He was checking on you, wasn’t he?’

Roskill reached out for her hand, squeezing it reassuringly. It was enough to discompose anyone, having their carefully segregated public and private lives suddenly mixed. A mixture like this one could be downright explosive, too.

He smiled at her. ‘Of course he was checking on me, Bel – and I’ve been checking on him.’

‘And I can’t ask why, can I?’

‘Not really. But it’s nothing to do with
us –
or with John. So there’s nothing for you to worry about.’

‘But it has to do with the Foundation?’

The buzzer cut of his reply: Havergal had done his checking quickly enough.

Isobel’s eyes were still troubled and her lady-of-the-manor’s competence which was a joke between them seemed altogether to have deserted her. Yet Roskill knew instinctively that it wasn’t this emergency that had thrown her, so much as his own appearance in it, in the wrong place and out of character. Anyone else, any stranger, she would have taken in her stride.

He squeezed her hand again. ‘Don’t worry, Bel – just be Lady Ryle to both of us. Let her cope.’

Lady Ryle was the armour in which the real Isobel lived: beautiful, damascened armour, in the latest style and perfectly fitting, reflecting the wealth and good taste of the wearer but only hinting at the vulnerability beneath it. Poor Isobel! With him at least she had learnt to do without it, and now he was urging her to put it on again.

She looked at him, reading his thoughts. ‘All right, Hugh – Lady Ryle for you both. But don’t think you can pull the wool over Archie’s eyes too easily – he’s good at seeing through phonies.’

This echoed what Howe had said, Roskill warned himself – and it was substantially his own first impression. Havergal might be full of years and whisky, but he was still as tough as old boots and sharp as the bootmaker’s awl. It would be
as
well to stay on his good side.

But the prospect of that dimmed the moment the old man entered the room. Either the check-up had proved unprofitable or it had occasioned second thoughts, for the eye that settled on him was distinctly jaundiced – what it saw it didn’t like. Before such an eye a generation of red-necked British subalterns and raw Arab levies had undoubtedly quailed.

‘Good evening again, Colonel Havergal,’ said Roskill carefully. If it was to be war he wasn’t going to fire the first shot.

Havergal glanced over his shoulder, making sure that Isobel wasn’t behind him – presumably her armour required a moment’s fitting.

‘Roskill,’ the Colonel finally acknowledged him, ‘I’ve been talking to Fred Clinton about you.’

In other circumstances Roskill might have whistled: Havergal had certainly gone straight to the top. Indeed, since Sir Frederick was never available for casual queries, this was an old boys’ network operating at an exalted level. It was disquieting, that.

‘Despite your bull-in-a-chinashop tactics, he vouches for you,’ Havergal continued. ‘I took you for a beginner, but it seems you aren’t. It seems I must rely on you.’

The soft answer died on Roskill’s lips. The only thing that Havergal would ever do with a doormat would be to wipe his feet on it.

‘We’re rather in the same boat then,’ he said casually. ‘He said much the same about you. We shall both have to make the best of it — in the national interest.’

‘My dear Roskill, that rather depends on how you define the national interest – if there is one in this instance. There was a time when interest and responsibility and honour coincided. Now they don’t often seem to do that.’ Havergal stared at Roskill unwaveringly. ‘In any case, my concern at the moment is with the Foundation — I don’t care to involve myself beyond that.’

‘And what exactly is it about the Foundation that disturbs you at the moment, Colonel Havergal?’

Havergal shook his head. ‘You tell me, Roskill.’

Roskill considered the Colonel in silence. This was where the man’s full file would have been a godsend – it would have given him some clue as to where leverage might be applied. He hadn’t asked Howe enough questions, not expecting this hostility.

To Havergal Roskill had signified something he’d been afraid of for a long time …

… Havergal, who’d retired and been forced to watch his work erased as his country withdrew from the lands it had dominated in his youth. The fact that he liked the Arabs, admiring the uncomplicated simplicity of Islam as so many Englishmen before him had done, only made it worse: the Red Navy ships anchored off Basra and Aden and Alexandria, and the M.I.G.S lined up on the old R.A.F. strips in Egypt, Iraq and now even at Khormaksar, signified that they’d only changed one master for another, and a worse one at that.

But then he’d encountered the Foundation – something; useful and above board that fitted his personal inclination and his specialist knowledge … something worth living and fighting for.

Isobel came into the room bearing a coffee tray. Typically, her coffee was not in delicate bone china but in enormous N.A.A.F.I.-style mugs on which Kitchener’s portrait and the legend ‘Your Country Needs You’ was superimposed on a large Union Jack. – ‘I know you’d both rather have Scotch,’ she said in her Lady Ryle voice, ‘but with the way Wadsworth pours drinks I think you’ve both had more than sufficient.’ She set the tray on a low table and motioned them both into chairs. It was the first rule of the experienced hostess to get her antipathetical guests on soft cushions, naturally: stand-up rows were less easy to pursue when sitting down.

‘I was about to ask Colonel Havergal about the Ryle Foundation, Isobel,’ Roskill said quickly. ‘But perhaps you could answer me – where would you say its special usefulness lies? Compared with other agencies?’

‘We’re rather unspectacular really, Hugh. We never make headlines.’

‘What do you think, Colonel?’

Havergal grunted, sensing danger but unable to locate its direction. If he knew his Liddell Hart, though, he’d recognise the strategy of the Indirect Approach.

‘I’ll tell you what I think,’ said Roskill with false diffidence. ‘I think you’re right, Isobel – I think it does a very valuable job because it’s never been the least bit political – even in the old days it never had any British strings attached to it. It never produced future statesmen or generals – just nurses and farmers and primary school teachers.’

It was a mash of snatches of half-remembered lunch conversations at Ryle House – mostly John’s remarks, not even addressed to him. It surprised him that they had stuck in his memory, like flotsam left at a freak tidemark. But it served now to rouse Havergal. ‘That’s true enough – you’ve done your homework,’ he said cautiously. ‘We’ve never been a short-cut for the clever intellectuals. We’ve never sent anyone to Oxford and Cambridge – or to Harvard. Old Jacob Ryle wasn’t one of Cecil Rhodes’s admirers. He laid it down in black and white – get the good second-class brains and train ‘em to do something useful. Work ‘em so hard they won’t have time to get up to mischief – ‘

Havergal stopped abruptly, as though he’d followed Roskill’s lead one step too far on to dangerous ground.

‘But it hasn’t worked out like that, has it?’

Havergal remained silent. It was quite clear to Roskill now that he’d come to the flat to get information and not to give it; to get it and use it to purge his beloved Foundation of impurities which now contaminated its down-to-earth aims.

He’d agreed to come because he’d thought – and reasonably enough – that Roskill was a bungling beginner. But apparently Sir Frederick had told him otherwise, and that had put him on his guard.

But that wouldn’t serve the present crisis, to which the health of the Ryle Foundation and an old man’s peace of mind were secondary. It was enough to know that the Foundation was vulnerable, for that could only mean one thing.

‘Let’s not pretend any more, Colonel. The Ryle Foundation is being used as a cover for illegal Arab activities. You might as well admit it.’

Havergal looked at him coldly. ‘I don’t
have
to admit anything, Squadron Leader Roskill. And as to so-called illegal Arab activities – like the national interest, they are a matter of definition. I rather think I am as good a judge as you are of whit is illegal and what isn’t, and for much the same reasons.’

‘But Archie – ‘ Isobel intervened ‘ — we can’t have the Foundation used for that sort of thing. Hugh’s absolutely right.’

‘Isobel, my dear, there was a time when I would have agreed with you – and with Roskill,’ Havergal said patiently. ‘But the world has changed since then, and if the Foundation’s still going to do a worthwhile job it has to change too – just to stay in being.’

‘Then you condone what may be happening?’ said Roskill.

‘Condone it? Don’t be a fool, man – of course I don’t condone it. It threatens the Foundation. But I
understand
it – I
knew
that if I was an Arab I wouldn’t be sitting around talking. Do you think the Foundation would last ten minutes in the Middle East today if we tried to crack down on it? We’d be finished.’

‘So what exactly is it that’s worrying you if you know all about it?’

‘I don’t know all about it,’ Havergal shook his head. ‘I wish I knew more, and what I’ve been trying to do is to keep it within safety limits. But what worries me is
you
.’

‘I worry you?’

‘Not you personally, but what you represent – the stupid, half-baked political shysters who direct you!’ Havergal’s control of his invective in Isobel’s presence was remarkable. ‘Weak when they should be strong, strong when they should be understanding. Always talking about Britain’s responsibilities – they couldn’t distinguish a responsibility from a bottle of Worcestershire sauce!’

It was the ancient lament of the soldier over the politician’s incapacity, and it roused a sneaking, service-bred sympathy in Roskill. Except that the soldiers always underrated the politician’s difficulties just as much as the politicians underrated the soldiers’ – so that the military dictatorships were every bit as grisly as the civilian variety.

But he was letting his reactions side-track him. What mattered was that Havergal didn’t seem to have a clue about the present emergency: he thought the authorities were simply getting nosey.

‘Shysters or not, Colonel, they can wreck your Foundation from top to bottom.’