War Game (24 page)

He looked up from the Double R Society’s scenario for the storming of Standingham Castle to check the time by the grandfather clock beside his study door.

Absolutely no effect as of 10.15 a.m., Thursday August 28. Nobody had panicked, nobody had misbehaved, nobody had done anything that he ought not to have done. Nobody had done
anything
.

In a minute or two Faith would bring him a cup of coffee, and with luck she would kiss him, and since the heat of the day was yet to come he would kiss her back; and at 10.30 he would phone Jack Butler, and Jack would report that nothing had happened since 6 p.m. the previous evening, at considerable cost to the taxpayer.

He reached across his desk to check his assignment diary.

(Afterwards, when he looked at the diary, before he dropped it in his waste-paper basket, he would recall 10.15 a.m., Thursday, August 28, with what he assumed must be the same bitterness as that with which some US Navy veterans must remember the last few minutes before 7.55 a.m., Sunday, December 7, 1941. By that time there was nothing they could do to stop the Japanese bombs and torpedoes, just as by that time there was nothing he could have done to stop Sergeant Henry Digby going down to the Ferryhill Industrial Estate in answer to a phone call the nature of which he never was able to establish. But those last minutes of peace of mind, before everything changed, were still the moments to regret.)

Faith came in with the coffee, still wearing her serene morning-after-last-night face, when everything had gone the way it ought to go, if not somewhat better.

(10.16 a.m. now: Sergeant Digby was turning into the Ferryhill estate, looking for the Wessex Electronics building. “I’m just going down to Ferryhill,” he had told his mother, “to meet someone.” He had seven minutes of life ahead of him then.)

But Faith didn’t stay—

“Darling, I’ve got to fly—got to take Cathy down to the village to play with—“

No matter. Audley bent his head over the scenario. Tomorrow he would go down to Winchester, where Paul Mitchell would give him his costume for the afternoon, and report that nothing of interest had happened, and that the Tenth Legion was getting bored with inactivity.

He read the scenario again, and began to drowse over it, staring out at the dying elms beyond the lawn. He would have to hire someone to cut them down—they were too big for him—and then the bark, where the infection lay, would have to be stripped off. And that would be damned expensive, but he couldn’t burn them where they fell; that would be wasteful as well as difficult… .

(It didn’t matter now. The battleships were sinking and burning now, and the admiral had torn his epaulettes from his shoulders. Henry Digby was dead now.)

He started to think of the CIA. In a way, by carefully failing now, he was protecting the Department from that fate. If he’d really tried to screw Charlie Ratcliffe he would probably have ended up by causing a big scandal, which wouldn’t have done Counter-intelligence any good at all—with all those far-left-wing MP’s asking awkward questions in the House of Commons about the infringement of personal liberties. Even William Strode had suspected that he was a fascist beast in disguise.

He forgot all about phoning Jack Butler. It was no longer of any importance.

Just after the grandfather clock struck eleven Faith returned, bearing cakes which old Mrs. Clark had baked for them, some of which she would pack up for the weekend expedition into seventeenth-century England.

It occurred to him that the best thing he could do would be to arrange for Charlie Ratcliffe to be part of the Special Effects Section’s simulated magazine explosion, thus solving all problems. Which happy thought encouraged him to kiss her, which she mistook as an advanced farewell on account of his imminent departure for manoeuvres at Standingham Castle, and returned the hug with interest. And the late August sun shone on them both.

Then the phone rang.

Audley removed one hand from his wife and reached back across his desk for the receiver.

“Stop it, love—if you whisper into one ear I’ll never hear anything in the other… . Hullo. Audley speaking.”

For no particular reason he stared at the grandfather. The hands were on five past eleven.

Dr. Audley, this is—

Superintendent Weston has asked me to—

I’m afraid I have to tell you that—

He was still staring at the clock. The minute hand always jerked forward so strongly that it marked each advance with a shiver.

“Are you there, sir?”

“Yes. When did this happen?”

10.23. Henry Digby had been dead for … forty-three minutes
now
.

“Where?”

He listened.

“Where?” Time had stopped. “What was he doing there?”

Not in a position to say.

“Get me Superintendent Weston.”

Superintendent Weston was busy. Of course he was busy.

“Don’t argue with me. You don’t think he told you to phone me out of courtesy, do you? Get him.”

Hold the line.

“What’s the matter, David? What’s happened?” asked Faith.

“Henry Digby’s dead.”

“This time next year he’ll be Inspector Digby CID.”

“Well, you just make sure he is, that’s all.”

“So you be careful of him … sir.”

Faith was no longer touching him, she was looking at him in appalled anger. “What have you done, David?”

“I haven’t done anything.”

“You mean it was an accident? A road—“ But she could read his face like a book. “But it wasn’t an accident, was it? What have you done?”

He could only shake his head. “I don’t understand. He wasn’t doing anything dangerous. I deliberately didn’t put him in harm’s way.”

“You said he’d have to take his chance.”

She was remembering the same conversation now. “You said that.”

“That’s what I said, not what I did.” But he was already arguing with only half his mind; the other half was groping towards the immediate consequences.

“Well, you bloody well miscalculated, didn’t you! Whatever you did.” And already her anger was changing also, but into helplessness. “He was … too young.”

So he was, thought Audley, remembering Digby’s threadbare dressing-gown. Too young, but no younger than half the names on the old hot war casualty lists— even older than some of those. Except that they had known the reason why, and Digby—

“What happened?”

He stared at her. “What happened?” He heard himself repeat the question with a curious detachment. Repeating questions was a stupid habit which had always irritated him.

“Or shouldn’t I ask?” She was not far away from sympathy now, and anger was preferable to that; sympathy only emphasised the truth of her earlier reaction.

You’ve bloody well miscalculated!

“He was shot. It happened somewhere on the Ferryhill Industrial Estate.” He spoke harshly. “And don’t ask me what he was doing there, because I haven’t the faintest bloody idea.”

There was a click on the phone at his ear.

“Is that you, Audley?”

“Yes.” Audley steeled himself for what was to come.

Yet nothing came: there was a vacuum between them as each waited for the other to speak. He had expected Weston to be tightly controlled in his reaction, but silence was a refinement which surprised him. It was pointless to be sorry, anyway: only Faith’s question was left to him.

“What happened?”

“It was just bad luck, that’s all.”

“Bad luck?” The answer was even more surprising than the silence. It was the wrong answer the wrong tone of voice— the wrong everything. “What d’you mean —bad luck?”

“His being there just then.” Weston paused. “Didn’t they tell you?”

Audley just managed to stop himself repeating the question. If he did that once more it would become a habit. “No, they didn’t.”

He heard Weston speak to someone else —presumably the detective constable— but couldn’t make out any of the words.

“I’m sorry Audley.” More indistinct words. “I’m sorry—I thought you had been told, but it seems they hadn’t had the confirmation here until a minute or two back. It was the IRA.” Weston paused. “I take it he wasn’t investigating anything which had an Irish connection—for you?”

“Of course not.” Sheer incredulity roughened Audley’s reply.

“I didn’t think so. Then that’s what it was—sheer accident. He just happened to run into one of their bomb squads in the act of planting a bomb. He must have caught them planting it, and he tried to tackle them. And they shot him.”

Steady. “You’ve had confirmation of that?”

“We had a phone call at 10.25—Irish accent and codeword. They said there was a bomb outside Wessex Electronics and we had ten minutes to clear the place.”

“And there was a bomb?”

“We’ve just defused it—the Army has. Ten pounds of gelignite and one of those damned American detonators—the ones they lost in Vietnam—that’s what they think.” Another pause. “Look, Audley— as you can imagine, I’m pretty pushed now. We’ve got a fighting chance of picking the bastards up—this is a largely rural area, outside the estate, not like Birmingham or London. So we’ve got it sealed off tight now … so I shall have to hang up on you, you understand?”

“Of course.” Under the circumstances Weston had already shown remarkable courtesy in even coming to the phone. “Thank you for sparing the time. Good-bye then, Superintendent—and good hunting.”

“Don’t you worry about that. We’ll get them.” Weston was coldly businesslike. “I’m sorry about … your business. But there’s nothing I can do about that at the moment. Goodbye, Audley.”

“It was the IRA,” said Audley.

“Oh,” said Faith. “Oh … I’m sorry, David … I mean—I’m sorry.”

She turned away.

Audley watched the door close.

Acceptance.

Just say
It was the IRA
and you receive acceptance. Anger and bitterness and helplessness and bafflement—and acceptance. Even from a total professional, with the evidence served up steaming on a plate, the acceptance was automatic. Except, to be fair, Weston was still in pursuit at this moment, and the unanswered questions had to wait in such circumstances.

Like—what the hell was Henry Digby doing on the Ferryhill Industrial Estate, way off course, at ten o’clock in the morning?

Audley picked up the phone again and dialled.

“Colonel Butler? Anything doing, Jack?”

Grunt. “Pretty quiet.”

“Absolutely nothing you could put your finger on?”

“No… . Haven’t had the morning reports yet, of course.”

“You sound as though you’ve reservations about that.”

Grunt. “Nothing tangible. We’ve pulled off the front men now, of course—did that on Tuesday midday, as I told you yesterday.”

That was routine. The obvious watchers, having established their presence, had removed themselves, leaving the observation to more unobtrusive and sophisticated men and machines in the hope that fear or foolishness might now betray any guilty party into activity. It was a crude bit of psychology, but it was occasionally successful nevertheless.

“And?”

“Nothing. But the man Davenport worries me. He visited the American Embassy on Tuesday.”

“No reason why he shouldn’t. Did our inside man there know what he did there?”

“Apparently not. But it wouldn’t surprise me at all if he wasn’t getting ready to run for it, that’s all.”

“Why d’you think that?”

“Hard to say… . He’s been buying one or two little extras, paying one or two debts… . And I had Maitland search his flat.”

“Maitland?” Audley lined up the technical support men in his mind and picked out a freckle-faced expert with hair even more ginger than Butler’s. “Yes, I know him. A good man.”

“He didn’t find anything. But he had the strong impression that Davenport was expecting to be searched—the way things were left. And he said he couldn’t guarantee that Davenport wouldn’t know his place hadn’t been turned over, if that was the case, because he couldn’t leave every hair in its original position.”

“I understand—which would make Davenport a pro.”

Maitland
—of course!

“Very well.” Audley steadied his voice. Maitland had once a partner, a clever young trainee who had got himself blown up while examining a booby-trapped car… . “You’d better put a watch on the ports and airports, Jack. If Davenport moves—if any of them move—pick ‘em up and hold ‘em.”

“For what?”

“Suppression of Terrorism Act. No lawyers and no phone calls until I’ve seen them. And see that their bags aren’t searched, too.”

Jenkins, that was the boy’s name. He’d been the younger brother of a friend of Hugh Roskill’s. And it had been Butler himself who had brought the news of his death—to this very house, four or five years back… .

“And you meet me at the Steyning Arms at Standingham tonight, Jack. As arranged.”

Jenkins.

The Jenkins Gambit, he had called it, because Jenkins himself had been the booby-trappers’ target: the best way to kill a food taster is by poisoning his master’s dish—then it looks like an occupational hazard.

And, by the same token, the best way to murder a policeman was to kill him in the execution of his duty, where sudden death was an occupational hazard which good coppers could be relied on to accept.

And Digby had been a good copper.

Audley stared at the grandfather clock.

And now Digby was a dead copper.

The thought of Digby dead was a physical pain. He would never see Digby again. He would never introduce Frances Fitzgibbon to Digby, that little matchmaking dream of Faith’s—a crazy dream, but no bad dream—was gone like smoke on a summer’s day. He had only known the boy for a few hours, and the boy had felt nothing for him but curiosity, yet the sense of loss was none the less bitter for that. It was boys—and men—like Digby who held the sky suspended; taken for granted in life, and mourned only briefly in the headlines in death, more out of public piety than from conviction.

Henry Digby was dead, and he would rot and putrefy, and long before he was dust he would be forgotten. Even Audley himself, who might be as guilty as the killer, would soon relegate him to a dull ache of conscience, and then a mere regret, and at the last a hazy memory of one job that hadn’t gone according to plan years ago.