A Prospect of Vengeance (22 page)

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 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
Jack
, of course?’ Even a sweet smile now. ‘Why didn’t you say so straight away, Paul? It would have made things so much easier!’

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.

‘
Such
a charming man!’ Jen was the Honourable Jennifer now, claws sheathed in velvet. ‘One of the old school, my father always says—and those enchanting daughters of his … Which is the one who’s with Lovett, Black and Porter—Daddy’s quite
adorable
lawyers—? Is that Sally? Or Diana—or Jane?’

In the car Mitchell had wondered what she’d been up to, 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
there
…
not until long afterwards, when he came back from Cyprus.’ The nod, continued, became conspiratorial. ‘But he says—Daddy says—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
Military
Cross, Daddy says.’ 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?’

‘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 & D … But, then, that’s what you’re paid to be, so one can’t really
quarrel
with that, can one? Daddy said not, anyway.’ She smiled at Mitchell as she turned the toasting fork, with one side of him nicely browned. ‘I really wanted to talk to Oliver, you see—Jack’s No. 2 … I told you, didn’t I, Ian darling—Oliver St John Latimer?’

‘
Ahh
—
‘ With his mouth already open, that was the only sound Ian could manage before she re-engaged Mitchell.

‘But positively the
only
person connected with R & D I could track down was Willy Arkenshaw. And that was more by good luck than good management—in the chocolate shop at Harrods actually, buying a little birthday present for Oliver, would you believe it?’ By the second she was becoming more and more her own most-despised self
(
‘
The Honourable Jennifer Fielding-ffulke, the well-known author, chatting with Mr Ian Robinson, and Mr Paul Mitchell
’
, as
The Tatler
might caption her). ‘And Willy’s only a camp-follower, really … You remember Tom Arkenshaw, Ian darling—who was such a sweetie in ‘85—?’

‘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 …
It had been Sir Thomas, thought the Major, who had been instrumental in saving Jenny, not so much from a fate worse than death, as from death itself, which was the only truly-worst fate of all
! ‘But—he was R & D—?’ The answer seemed to beg the question.

‘No, darling—not
then
.’ She rounded on Mitchell, almost accusingly. ‘Jack’s only just recruited Tom, hasn’t he, Paul—?’

‘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.
We
were both out of the country at the time, as it happens.’ The sharpness of the reply betrayed what was left unsaid; which was not so much pure
Fielding-ffulke
snobbishness as
Jenny Fielding
’
s
stock-in-trade, which required her to be present, and seen-to-be-present, on such occasions, when useful old contacts could be renewed, and future contacts established. ‘But … never mind Tom. Because Willy Arkenshaw—Willy
Groot
, as she was … Willy and I go back
ages
, my dear man. We were
finished
together, by the celebrated Madame de la Bruyere, the dragon-lady of Geneva, more years ago than either of us would care to admit now.’

Mitchell wilted slightly under this further avalanche of name-dropping—to
Jack
and
Oliver
, add
Tom
and
Willy
and
Madame de la Bruyere
. But then he looked mutinously at Ian. ‘Yes … I suppose you would know Tom Arkenshaw, at that! In Lebanon, that would have been?’

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 & D but hadn’t been consulted about his memories of Fielding-ffulke & Robinson. And that deplorable omission intruded into his own attempts to put faces to names:
Tom
he could remember well-enough (although not as well as Major Asad); but
Jack
and
Oliver
—
and
Willy
(if he’d been invited to her wedding with
Sir Thomas
it was news to him!)—they were on the dark side of the Moon … unlike Mrs Simmonds, and Gary Redwood and Mrs Champeney-Smythe, and Father John—

‘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:
Mrs Frances Fitzgibbon, alias
‘
Marilyn Francis
’
, Mitchell? Your colleague who was careless at Rickmansworth
—
and at Thornervaulx too, maybe? Put a face to her for me, Mitchell: tell me about her then
!

‘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 ‘—
Ian
—
? What’s the matter?’

‘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
and
information—this long day was beginning to play tricks on him, stretching his imagination too far; and, on an empty stomach, the smell of little Mr Malik’s succulent curries was making him light-headed.

‘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—
newer
ghosts—than Mrs Frances Fitzgibbon: even Jenny’s Philly Masson was a week younger … and far more important; and Reg Buller was so newly-dead that he probably didn’t even know how to haunt 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 & D, Mr Mitchell—
Paul
… ’ What was sauce for the goose was sauce for the gander. So he smiled at Mitchell. ‘If you’re here to help us—if we need
friends
…
tell us about David Audley, then.’

Mitchell frowned. ‘I’m sorry—?’

‘No.’ Jenny reached out, almost touching Mitchell. ‘Ian doesn’t mean … tell us
about
him.’ She touched Ian instead, digging her fingers into his arm—little sharp fingers. ‘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 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:
Jenny knew damn well who Paul Mitchell was
—
had known from the moment his name had been first mentioned, if not from the appearance of his face round the door; and she had just put her foot in her mouth, to forfeit that advantage prematurely with
‘
Dr
’
Mitchell
.

‘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
am
sorry!’ She came in on cue instantly, contrite—when her normal reaction to such petulance would have been contempt. ‘It’s Mr Malik’s genuine British-German Pils you like, isn’t it—?’

‘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
ersatz
Pils!’

‘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
official
secret”, well within the meaning of the Act. But then,
everything
is well within the meaning of the Act.’ Now she smiled again. ‘And everyone, too! All of us—and poor little Mr Malik downstairs—we’re all just one big Official Secret now, aren’t we? And … all to protect
naughty
Dr David Audley! Who is the biggest Official Secret of all.’ She paused. ‘But now he’s our
little
secret, as well as your big one—right?’

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.