A Prospect of Vengeance (34 page)

But she had to say
something
.

And, by God! something was going to happen here now!

‘Look!’ She saw a sudden flick of movement in a jumble of rocks on the flank of the ridge.

‘What—?’

‘There—‘ She pointed. ‘It’s a fox—with long pointy-ears—
see!
’

Obligingly, the fox moved again, and became visible for an instant before it vanished into the hillside.

‘Yes—!’ In that same instant Ian’s face lit up, with pure pleasure, and he was just like the old Ian at the sight of any small interesting thing, like a new postage stamp on a letter, or an old building which caught his eye. (Had he welcomed the sight of that first autumn crocus? Or had he had eyes only for Audley, and thought only for his Frances Fitzgibbon?) But then he frowned at her, and was the new Ian again. ‘What are you playing at, Jen?’

Now they were at last facing each other in the face of the enemy, and facing their moment of truth. ‘Audley’s mine, Ian—he’s not for you. I want him.’

He breathed out. ‘Because of Philip Masson?’

‘Because of Philip Masson. And because this was my idea, not yours—
my
truth … not yours, Ian.’

‘Your revenge, more like. And that’s the wrong way to look for truth, Jen—it’s a
bad
way, Jen.’

He was right, of course. He was
always fucking
right—going to church on Sundays, and giving to charity, and never getting drunk on a Saturday night, or any other night! But she wanted to hurt him, not to argue morality with him. ‘And you want the truth about some silly woman who forgot to pack her gun when she went to arrest a terrorist? A woman you’ve never met—who wouldn’t have given you the time of day if you had met her? That’s
stupid
—
‘ The image of Philly came back to her:
Philly smiling his big slow smile at her, when they met
—
Philly hugging her, godfatherly
—
the smell of his pipe-tobacco and his malt whisky, Philly strong and safe
—
Philly praising her, Philly laughing as the champagne cork popped
…
even Philly in that rare unguarded moment, looking at her with that ungodfatherly look, of naked-desire-well-controlled
…
which she
’
d shared
—
oh! how she
’
d shared!
—
but which she hadn
’
t truly understood until it was too late
—

Too late! Too late!

But she had hit him hard. And that was all that mattered. ‘He’s mine, Ian. Even if we don’t write this book … he’s
mine
.’ She corrected her own thought: all that mattered was that
someone was going to pay in full;
that was all that mattered. ‘You can have your bloody Spanish book instead.’ She swept a hand over the Greater Arapile. ‘
But I want Audley, Ian.
’

Ian bit his lip. With Ian—or, at any rate, with the
old
Ian—there had been times when commonsense, and confused affection, and old-fashioned journalism (never mind self-doubt!), had played the very devil with his Christian imperatives! ‘Well … we’ll see, Jen—we’ll see!’

‘Yes—we’ll see, darling.’ If she’d got that much back, to make him question his irrational obsession with the Fitzgibbon woman, then that much was better than nothing.

‘Miss Fielding—?’

‘Oh—?’ Jenny turned quickly towards the question: she had halted Ian, but Cathy Audley had progressed towards her father before she’d realized that she was alone, and had had to turn back to them ‘—we’re coming, dear … This
is
an amazing place—isn’t it? All these lovely little flowers!’ She grinned at the child. ‘We saw a fox, Cathy—down there—‘ She pointed ‘—with great big ears … he’s in the rocks down there, somewhere—‘

‘Did you? Gosh!’ The child scanned the hillside. ‘A fox—?’

‘He’s gone, dear—‘

Audley was still waiting. Although now, after they’d taken such a time to reach him, he had managed to stand up, and had moved out of the shade of the monument into the full sunlight, so that she could see him clearly at last.

‘Daddy—!’

What he looked like, length-and-breadth-and-face, was no great revelation: there had been that picture, which John Tully had uncovered, of David Audley in a line-out—
Cardiff
versus the
Visigoths
, on some dreadful rugger-playing day, when they’d all looked as though they’d been mud-wrestling: and Audley had been wearing a dirty headband, and a look of excited brutality, like an eager Saxon in the shield-wall at Hastings.

(But—
God!
the real-life image, of the man himself, jolted her as though she’d touched a live wire—)

‘Daughter?’ Standing up under the monument, Audley could look down on them, with the huge sky behind him: a sky shading down from purest blue to palest blue-grey, where the distant green line of trees on the next ridge divided it from the yellow cornfields, and he seemed ten-foot-tall for a moment, above them. ‘What’s this, then?’

But it wasn
’
t that
—

‘What’s this, then?’ Audley smiled at his daughter as he repeated the question. And then he looked directly at Jenny. ‘Hullo, there!’

That made it worse. Or
…
not just worse
—
much worse!

‘Daddy—this is Mr Robinson … and Miss Fielding. They know Willy Arkenshaw. And they write books, Daddy. And they want to talk to you.’

‘Yes.’ Audley stared at Jenny. ‘I know.’

‘Dr Audley—‘ The jolt of the shock was still there: it shook her voice, just as it had shaken her hands that time, after she touched that wire beside the ancient Victorian light-switch in the cellar at home. ‘Dr Audley.’ The husky faltering repetition was almost worse: it was so far from the way she had intended to face up to him that it was almost laughable. Except that, if she started to laugh, she was afraid she might go off into hysterics.

‘Daddy—?’ As Audley continued to stare at her—as they both continued to stare at each other—the child picked up the vibration of something strange happening.

‘Miss Fielding.’ Audley spoke at last, drawing her back to him even as relief suffused her. ‘I do recognize you, actually. I saw you on the television once. That time you escaped in Beirut. And, of course, I’ve read your books.’

He had a nice voice. And, although the pictures of that rather battered face hadn’t lied in any factual detail, he seemed much younger than Willy Arkenshaw had suggested:
old
was as much a slander with David Audley as it had been with Philly:
old
was in the mind—

God! She was betraying Philly now
—

‘Oh,
Daddy!
’
Cathy Audley exploded.

Jenny was aware that more of her hair was coming down; and there were beads of sweat crawling down the side of her face, and elsewhere—

But he was so very like
—
so very like, even though he was quite unlike
—
so very like Philly! And she bloody-well fancied him! And
—
what was so ultimately worse: what rocketed that betrayal into unimaginable orbit
—
was that he fancied her, too!

‘Mr Robinson knows all about the battle, Daddy.’ Cathy Audley’s patience ran out. ‘He wants to talk to you about General Le Marchant.’

‘He does?’ Audley let go of Jenny unwillingly. ‘Does he?’ The letting-go stretched itself until it had to snap. ‘Mr Robinson … You are the writer, of course.’ He smiled at Ian. ‘And you have a rare grasp of good English. A quite unjournalistic grasp, if I may say so—?’ All the smile went out of Audley’s face. ‘But that would be because you were at Princess Mary’s Grammar School, and brought up on the classics? Like Gibbon having the Bible hammered into him?’

Jenny looked at Ian, and caught him with his mouth open.

Audley nodded. ‘Hennessey—Henworth—?
Henworthy
… he was your High Master, of course. And he was taught by my old Latin Master, as an inky child, before he gravitated to higher things.’ He nodded again. ‘There’s a descent in such matters, among schoolmasters. Not quite as good as breeding through pedigree bulls, perhaps … but it leaves its mark, nevertheless, I’d like to think.’ Another nod, but this time accompanied by a terrible cold smile. ‘I particularly enjoyed your book on the Middle East. It had several interesting insights, as well as some quite deplorable flights of fancy.’

Jenny felt her own mouth open—
Audley wasn
’
t perfect: the
‘
rare grasp of English
’
and the Hennessey/Henwood one-upmanship was fair enough at a smart cocktail party; but if Audley thought he could patronize Ian Robinson, he had much mistaken his man
! But then it was too late, because Ian was reacting—

In fact, Ian was smiling. ‘Your daughter has told us about your ancestor, Dr Audley—who was killed in the charge here?’ He gave Audley back a nod. ‘But … was he just another bone-headed English dragoon? Or was he one of Wellington’s “Research and Development” officers—the “exploring” officers, were they called? Andrew Laith Hay—? Or John Waters, or Somers Cocks? Or Colquhoun Grant? Or Dr Paul Mitchell?’

Christ! That was giving him both barrels! thought Jenny. Ian, being Ian, really had done his homework!

‘You’re interested in the battle of Salamanca, Mr Robinson?’ Audley, being Audley, was taking Ian’s measure now.

‘Not in the least, Dr Audley.’ Ian smiled at Audley. ‘But—‘

‘Daughter!’ Audley interrupted Ian rudely. ‘Go and see how your mother is—‘ He nodded past the monument, into a stone-quarried gap behind him, which divided the
Greater Arapile
super-tanker into two parts, fore and aft on its port side here, below the tall stone shaft. ‘She’s reading her book … or sunbathing, or something—down there—yes?’

Cathy Audley stared at her father, the huge sunglasses concealing what would certainly be a frown.

‘Go on, Cathy.’ Audley’s voice was gently level now, neither pleading or commanding.

The sunglasses turned towards Ian for an instant. But now the tightened lips and the anger-lines around the mouth told their own story.

‘Off you go.’ This time he actually smiled. ‘There’s nothing to worry about.’

Cathy came back to him. ‘I told them you received a phone-call, I think they pretended not to be interested in it. I’m sorry.’

Audley shrugged. ‘So I received a phone-call. That’s nothing to be ashamed of, love. So—‘

‘Yes—“Off I go”.’ The child started to go, but then stopped. ‘But I’m forgetting my manners—aren’t I!’ She swung towards Jenny. ‘They all say “Don’t talk to strangers—forget about good manners!” But, I forgot my lesson, didn’t I, Miss Fielding?’ No child now—not for her, and not for Ian, in his turn: for Ian, a look which, if he’d been a British dragoon, and Cathy Audley a Frenchman sighting him along her musket, would have knocked him stone-dead from his saddle, beside her ancestor and General Le Marchant. ‘And goodbye, Mr Robinson.’

Wisely (although she didn’t give him time, anyway) Ian didn’t try to answer, as she twisted away again, and dropped down gracefully into the rocks below the monument, leaving the echo of his name on her bullet in the silence.

‘Yes … well, I don’t really need to enlarge on that—do I?’ Audley watched her go, and then turned back to them with the vestiges of his smile still in place, but with a mixture of pride and contempt edging it. ‘But, then, perhaps I am indebted to you both—for teaching her a lesson about the Great British Press, to go with “Don’t talk to strangers”?’

Now it was war to the knife
! thought Jenny. ‘We’re not the Great British Press, Dr Audley. We’re just …
us
, actually.’

‘”Us”?’ Looking at her (rather than at Ian), his expression twisted. And the bugger of it was that she knew that look, having seen it on other men similarly caught between suspicion and desire; but she had not felt about them as she felt about him—
and she must stop feeling like that, right now
!

‘We’re in trouble, Dr Audley.’ Self-preservation came to her rescue, adding tactics to inclination. ‘We need your help.’

‘My …
help
… ?’ His confusion helped her. ‘But … I thought
I
was the one who was supposed to be in trouble. Aren’t you supposed to be investigating me, Miss Fielding-ffulke?’

‘”Fielding”—‘ Everyone who wanted to shit on her waved that ridiculous name in her face ‘—just “Fielding”, please, Dr Audley.’

‘No “ffulke”?’ He cocked an eyebrow at her. ‘But that’s a fine old name, Miss Fielding-ffulke: Rudyard Kipling chose it in
Puck of Pook
’
s Hill
—
which is one of our favourite books, “ffulke”—
Fulke
… he was the double-agent—the traitor. He was the one whom the Lord of Pevensey “turned round” to save England from Robert of Normandy, Miss—
Fielding-ffulke.
’
The eyebrow lowered. ‘So … whose side are you on now?’

Ian loomed up at her side—like the old Ian, at need: like the
older
Ian, when they’d worked together. ‘Didn’t your telephone-caller of last night tell you all about us, Dr Audley?’ Ian-like, he didn’t try to give a smart answer to a silly question.

‘He did—yes.’ No expression for Ian. ‘He said you were investigating me. And he didn’t suggest that I should be flattered, either.’

‘We’re only trying to find out the truth about Philip Masson’s death, Dr Audley.’

‘Only the truth? Well-well!’ Audley sneered at the word, just as Mitchell had done before him. ‘I wish you the worst of luck then, Mr Robinson.’