A Prospect of Vengeance (27 page)

‘Was Mitchell at Thornervaulx, Reg?’

‘I heard you the first time, old lad.’ Buller had used the interruption more profitably. ‘They were
all
there—at Thornervaulx. Except Masson, of course.’ Silence—mercifully unpunctuated by another
dink
. ‘ ‘E was probably ordering ‘is new suit, with ‘is new badges-of-rank, on bein’ promoted to command Research an’ Development, most likely.’ Silence. ‘But the rest were all there—
yeah.
’

Contempt from Jenny was par for the course. But from Reg Buller—that was over the top. ‘And Marilyn Francis—? Mrs Frances Fitzgibbon—? Are you including her, Reg?’

‘You mean the woman?’ Buller sounded surprised at such sharpness, coming from him, like a ferret bitten by a rabbit.

‘Yes—the woman.’ It was time Frances Fitzgibbon got her due, outside Lower Buckland. ‘ “The woman who was killed the week before”, Jenny—? The “innocent bystander”?’

‘Yes.’ Buller recovered. ‘Yes … the one that blew it—her too, yes!’

‘Blew it?’

‘Got ‘erself killed. That’s blowing it, in my book.’ Buller didn’t give him time to bite back this time. ‘She didn’t ought to have got herself killed by “Mad Dog” O’Leary—“Mad Dog” my eye!’

‘He wasn’t mad?’ Jenny cut in quickly.

‘Oh … ’e was mad right enough. ‘E was mad to stick around after ‘is bomb went off, an’ ‘e got clean away … But, of course, ‘e
stayed
. An’ that was what took ‘em all by surprise—‘im staying, an’ ‘avin’ another go. Took the police by surprise, certainly. But they were bloody fed-up by then, anyway—the way the Intelligence lot had sodded ‘em around, tryin’ to run things, an’ then throwin’ O’Leary into their lap when things went sour.’ Buller paused. ‘Not Colonel Butler, though—“Sir Jack” as ‘e is now. Got a lot of time for ‘im they ‘ave.’

Reg had been talking to the Police. Or, at least, to some contact he had inside the force up north: Reg always seemed to have an old mate, or a mate of an old mate, in whatever Police Authority he found himself. ‘Why was that, Reg?’

‘’E was brought in late, to the University—where the bomb went off. And … they said ‘e wasn’t too pleased with what ‘e found. But ‘e didn’t waste time complainin’. An’ ‘e didn’t blame anyone neither, at the University there. But then they—
his
bosses—they took O’Leary off him, more or less, apparently. Like … well, the last bit, after the bomb and before the shooting at Thornervaulx—all that was pretty confusing, after that, by all accounts.’ Buller paused, but Ian knew of old the mixture of resignation and cynicism which he couldn’t see. ‘Everybody got praised for everything, but that was to keep ‘em quiet. Because crossing O’Leary off the “Most Wanted” list made all the Top Brass—the cabinet ministers, and the judges, and the rest—it made ‘em sleep a bit sounder at night. And saved a lot of taxpayers’ hard-earned money, too: “
Efficient police-work in preventing the suspect from escaping from the cordoned area
”
—
although they didn’t know where the hell he was. And “
vigilance on the part of the security services and the anti-terrorist group
”
…
meaning “Thank you very much for shooting the bugger dead. So let’s not have any arguments to spoil the good publicity, eh?”’ Buller sniffed. ‘Never quarrel with the bloke who pins the medal on you—not when there’s been a happy ending: that’s the rule.’

‘But it wasn’t a happy ending for Mrs Fitzgibbon, Reg.’ Ian couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice.

For a moment, Buller didn’t reply. ‘”Fitzgibbon”, was it?’ Another pause. ‘You had an interesting day, did you, Ian lad?’

He had to keep his cool. ‘But
she
had a bad day—November 11, 1978?’

Another pause. ‘What was she doing in Rickmansworth?’

‘What was she doing in … where was it?’ Surprisingly, it was Jenny who came to his rescue. ‘At Thornervaulx—the ruined abbey there, wasn’t it?’

‘You know the place, do you?’ Buller had obviously decided that he was giving too much and receiving too little in exchange.

‘I know the place. Daddy used to shoot near Thornervaulx—or hunt, or something.’ Jenny also knew Buller’s game. ‘Or maybe it was racing at Catterick … What was she doing in Thornervaulx, Reg—this Mrs FitzPatrick?’

‘Ah … ’ With Jenny, Buller usually surrendered more quickly than this. ‘Well, it’s like they always say with makin’ omelettes: you ‘ave to break the eggs now an’ then. Only … it’s always the cooks an’ the omelette-eaters talkin’, isn’t it? Never the eggs and the chickens.’

‘So she was just doing her job.’ It was impossible to say whether Jenny was more irritated by Buller’s obstinacy or by fluctuating extremes of the accent he tended to assume with her. ‘But was she Police, Mr Buller? Or was she Intelligence? And … if she was Intelligence, in R & D? Because they do appear to pretend that they’re “equal opportunity”, it seems.’

Equal opportunity to die, in this case, Ian added silently.

‘I tell you one thing, Lady … ’ But Buller trailed off maddeningly as the sound of another train came down the line towards them.

‘One thing—?’ Jenny urged him on, her voice rising against the sound.

‘Aye. She was …
brave, Lady
—
‘ The rest of his shout was cut off by the train, the noise sucking the words away with it again.

This time she waited until the noise had gone, and the hum of the city had reasserted itself as a background to the silence in the cutting. ‘Brave, Mr Buller?’

‘She was the one that picked up the bleedin’ bomb at the University.’

Frances
? thought Ian.
Frances
! ‘How do you know that, Reg?’

‘I thought it was Audley, first. But he wasn’t there—at the University.’ Buller addressed him deliberately in the darkness. ‘An’ then I thought it must ‘ave been Mitchell. But it was ‘
er
—
‘

‘How do you know?’ That it had never occurred to him before seemed like a betrayal, almost: like Buller, he had never dreamt of equating the ‘heroic secret services officer’ of Reg’s favourite tabloid newspaper with its ‘innocent bystander’ at Thornervaulx a few days later. ‘
How do you know, man
?’

‘I talked to a bloke that was there—what d’you think?’ Buller was guarded about his police contacts again. ‘An’ I’ve just put two-an’-two together. An’ they make four, just like always.’

‘She sounds a bit stupid, to me.’ Jenny spoke to no one in particular. ‘But … she was R & D, then—is that what you’re saying, Mr Buller?’

Suddenly Ian didn’t want to talk about Frances any more. And he didn’t want Jenny to talk about her either. ‘I thought we were talking about Mitchell, not Mrs Fitzgibbon.’

‘And we know that he’s R & D,’ agreed Jenny. ‘But … what’s Thornervaulx got to do with Philip Masson, Mr Buller?’ There was doubt in her voice, and she wasn’t arguing now: she was conceding a point while seeming to ask for an explanation.

But Thornervaulx was Frances Fitzgibbon to Ian. ‘He wasn’t there—you said, Reg?’ (If there had been the slightest possibility of that, Jenny wouldn’t have asked her question: it would have been all Thornervaulx then!)

‘No, ‘e wasn’t there.’ Buller dismissed the idea scornfully. ‘The bleedin’ generals don’t go into the front line, lad—‘

‘Mr Buller!’ Jenny snapped him off. ‘Just answer the question, please.’

Buller crunched the dirty people’s refuse under his feet. ‘It’s time we got out of ‘ere, Lady. It’s not too far to that pub I know. An’ I can phone from there—‘

‘Mr
Buller!
’

‘Okay, okay!’ He drew a noisy breath. ‘I don’t know for sure. But if I’m right … then Thornervaulx wasn’t just the death of O’Leary an’ the woman: it was the death of your bloke too, Lady.’

IT WAS ALWAYS
another pub with Reg Buller: it was a mystery to Ian how the man had found enough opening hours in all the days of his life to be so intimately friendly with so many landlords and landladies, barmaids and barmen, so that they were willing to spirit him away into their small back rooms on the nod, safe from prying eyes.

‘Not one of my usual watering ‘oles—not since the brewery done it up,’ Reg had murmured in his ear as he propelled them through the noise and smoke towards a door at the back of the bar-room. ‘But the bloke ‘ere owes me a favour, anyway … Up the stairs, door straight ahead, an’ I’ll join you in a mo’, when I’ve fixed up our travel arrangements—okay?’ Then he ducked back into the noise again, leaving them staring at each other.

‘What travel arrangements, Jen?’ Ian felt that he had left the wet outer darkness of the street outside for a brightly-lit but greater inner darkness.

‘Don’t ask me, darling.’ She shrugged while attempting to repair the ruin of what had probably started out as an expensive hair-do. ‘Mr Buller seems to have taken over, that’s all I know. Don’t you know?’

‘You spoke to him this afternoon, Jen.’

‘But only on the phone, darling. And he didn’t say much then, except that he wanted me to ask around about Paul Mitchell … which I had already started to do on my own account, actually … But I thought
you
knew all about his trip north—?’ She gave up the repair-attempt. ‘I’m not going to argue the toss with you here, darling, in public. So just do like the wretched man said—get up those stairs.’

The only thing he knew—or the only
additional
thing he knew—thought Ian wearily … was that, however scared Paul Mitchell and others might be running now, or soon, Reg Buller was running scared already. And after John Tully, never mind what had happened at Lower Buckland this afternoon, that made sense. So getting up the stairs also made sense.

But the room at the top of the stairs in no way resembled the Shah Jehan room: it had foul red-plastic covered tables and an even fouler smell of stale tobacco-smoke, complete with overflowing ashtrays: it was a meeting-room of some sort, and all that could be said for it now was that it was empty.

‘What about Mitchell?’ He faced her again.

‘Darling—you know him better than we do.’ She returned to her repair work, letting the whole elaborate ruin down in a red cascade. ‘If only I had an elastic band! You don’t happen to have one, do you, darling?’ She glanced at him a little too casually. ‘No—of course you don’t! But … he did save your life—didn’t he? Mitchell, I mean … No … well, of course, we don’t know that for sure, do we? And you were busy with that woman of yours … ’

He had to hit her back. ‘Whom you didn’t think was important?’

‘I still don’t think she’s important.’ She spoke through several hairpins.

‘And Reg Buller going north—?’ Buller had come back with information about Mitchell. So she damn-well couldn’t argue with that. ‘What—‘

The door burst open, and a large young woman with a tray swerved through the opening. ‘One large gin-and-tonic—one low-alcohol lager—?’

Jenny dropped her hair. ‘Mine’s the gin—‘ She seized the glass from the tray, letting her hair fall again.

Thank you—‘ He took one of the three glasses which remained: not the pint in the straight glass, and not the large whisky chaser, and looked interrogatively at the barmaid.

‘Those are for Mr Buller—if you don’t mind, sir?’ She didn’t even look at him.

Ian took Buller’s share, and waited until the door had closed again. ‘But you don’t think that was a wasted journey now, do you, Jen?’

‘No.’ She drank deeply, like Reg Buller. And then set her glass down on the nearest table and returned to her hair. ‘I think that was all part of the scene—the run-up to Philly’s murder. But your woman was out of it by then.’

He hated that—and almost hated Jenny with it. ‘She’s not “my” woman.’ But he hated that, too: he heard the cock crow as he spoke. ‘But I think you’re wrong, Jen. And … I think she’s interesting … I mean, I think she may be important—‘ But he didn’t want to argue about Frances Fitzgibbon. ‘What “scene”, Jen—?’

The door opened again as he spoke, and Reg Buller came through it this time.

‘’E’s goin’ to call me back.’ Buller looked at them briefly, his radar having indicated where the drinks were. “E knows there’s something dodgey goin’ on … ’ He drank. ‘ … maybe ‘e’s ‘eard about poor ol’ Johnny. But I twisted ‘is arm, so ‘e’ll divvy up, you can bet on it … ’ Another drink. ‘ … Kidlington, most likely—if ‘e can ‘andle the paperwork. But he may prefer us to take the hovercraft from Ramsgate, an’ then lay on a plane from the other side, see—?’ He wiped his mouth. ‘What “scene” was that, then?’

‘1978, Mr Buller.’ Jenny answered him coolly. ‘Where are we going … from where was it?’ She frowned. ‘Ramsgate, I know … But “Kidlington”—?’

‘1978!’ Buller tossed off his chaser in one swallow. ‘A soddin’ bad year for the Labour Party! ‘78-‘79 put Mrs Thatcher in. An’ she’s never looked back since then—eh?’

‘Where’s Kidlington, Mr Buller?’

‘Just outside Oxford, Lady.’ Buller grinned at her unsmilingly. ‘It’s the largest village in England, they say. So it’s got its own airfield.’ The unsmiling grin vanished. ‘But you’re right about 1978: that’s the key to the door, of course.’

There was nothing very clever about that. But, if she chose not to be very clever, he must play their game. ‘So what really happened in 1978, Reg?’

Buller looked at Jenny. But Jenny was suddenly pretending to concentrate on her hair again, to their exclusion.

‘Reg—?’

‘All right.’ Buller dismissed her, and drank more of his beer. ‘There was one of their internal bust-ups … like the bloke who ran R & D was going, because ‘e was sick … an’ ‘is No. 2 ‘ad just died with ‘is boots on, of a heart-attack—what was ‘is name, Lady—?’

‘Stocker—‘ The name cut through the hairpins.

‘Ah! Just so … ’ Buller shrugged off the name. ‘So they were all tryin’ to fix things, so it came out right for ‘em, an’ they got the bloke they wanted to sign their expense accounts—okay?’

Jenny half-turned away from him, as though regretting that she’d even given him a name, pretending to fight again with her hair.

‘Okay.’ Buller turned to Ian. ‘So Audley an’ all the rest of ‘em wanted Jack Butler. Because, better the devil you know than the one you don’t know … An’ the one they
didn
’
t
know was the Lady’s bloke—Mr Philip Masson—see?’