A Prospect of Vengeance (6 page)

‘Yes. That is just about what I mean, I suppose.’ Duller gave Ian a belated guilty look. ‘Except … you could do a book, between you, about something else—like about Colonel Rabuka, and the Fiji Islands, maybe? And Mr Tully and I could go out there … and you could call it
The Imperial Legacy
—
? And we could maybe take in the French nuclear programme as well, that you’ve always wanted to do, which no one else has done properly—right from the Sahara trials, in the old days, when they had those Germans working for them on the rockets … the ones they wouldn’t talk about?’ Buller tossed his head. ‘Either road, we’d be a bloody long way from here for a few months, anyway, Miss Fielding. An’ out of the rain, too.’

Jenny had long waited to do that. But Ian had always been against it because he was scared of the French; and, after the sinking of the Greenpeace ship, they had both been right and wrong; and Buller knew it too. But he also knew more than that, unfortunately—both about Jenny and about David Audley, so it seemed.

‘Yes. That would certainly be agreeable, Reg—you’re right.’ She smiled at him. But then she smiled at Ian. ‘But … the French will wait for us, darling, I think. And David Audley obviously won’t wait, will he—?’

The sort of time-span she was thinking about would produce an indifferent book, he thought—even if it would also divvy up a hefty newspaper fee, for pre-publication of extracts, as well as a whopping advance, and a good transatlantic deal. And, as she was always reminding him, they were only in the business of ‘non-fictional ephemera’, anyway.

‘So do you want to go ahead—in spite of Reg?’ Tully wasn’t chicken: either for honest financial reasons (to keep his children in their private school, and his wife at that standard of living to which she was accustomed), or for the noble freedom-of-information, freedom-of-publication, freedom-to-fcrtow reasons, John Tully was a fearless investigator. ‘Right, Miss Fielding—Mr Robinson?’

‘No.’ Ian saw the ground opening up before him. What he couldn’t bring himself to admit straight off (or not quite yet) was that whatever John Tully might be, Ian Robinson was no longer at heart a journalist, nor at any time a fearless one. And, of course, they all knew that (they hadn’t even bothered to ask him whether it might be anything that
he
’
d
done which had alerted someone: they knew him better than that, by heaven!).

‘Yes, darling—?’ Jenny checked herself suddenly, substituting patience for enthusiasm. For a guess, she was reminding herself that she needed him just as much as he needed her—and never more so than now, when they had to work fast if they were to stay ahead of the pack. And there was the rub.

But he still couldn’t admit to his fear of what the rub meant, not openly. ‘We don’t know who they are.’

‘No, Ian. We don’t.’ Her patience stretched. ‘But that doesn’t matter. Mr Tully … or Mr Buller … will take care of that.’ She smiled at him reassuringly, as to a Bear of Very Little Brain whose special skill was limited to assessing the different varieties of honey she delivered to him. ‘The point is, darling, that they’re
there
. And
that
means … we really are on to something. So we’ve all got to get our skates on now.’

He had delayed too long. ‘I’m not sure I want to get my skates on, Jen. It’s been a long time since … I did this sort of thing. I’m a bit rusty.’

She couldn’t conceal the flicker of contempt which he had hoped he wasn’t going to see. ‘Ian—‘ Then the flicker clouded, as she remembered Beirut, and couldn’t reconcile past experience with present observation ‘—you’re not
scared
, are you—?’

Tully coughed. ‘Mr Robinson hasn’t been … out much, these last two or three years, Miss Fielding. You have rather kept him chained to his word-processor.’ He drank the last of his sherry fastidiously. ‘And to good effect, if I may say so. But … one does get rusty, you know.’

That was surprising loyalty (or male solidarity, equally surprising), coming from John Tully, thought Ian. Or, it might just be that he, unlike everyone else, had not misunderstood the Beirut episode.

‘No.’ Reg Buller sidled towards the window, choosing a place where there was a slight gap between the frame and the curtain, where a sliver of light showed. ‘The Lady’s right.’ He put his eye to the gap, without touching the curtain. ‘Because he’s not stupid, you see.’ He turned back to them, past Tully and Jenny, and nodded to Ian. ‘Welcome to the club, Mr Robinson.’

‘Reg!’ Jenny sounded almost accusing. ‘You’re not scared, are you?’

This bloke Audley …
Dr David Audley
… ’ Buller took out his pipe from his pocket and studied it. And then thought better of lighting it again, and put it back in his pocket. ‘Mr Tully’s right, too: it won’t have been him, that actually topped Masson—he’s getting a bit long in the tooth for digging his own holes, when he needs ‘em.
If
he needs ‘em—‘

‘
When
.’ Jenny emphasized the word coldly.

‘We don’t know that, with Masson.’ Buller shook his head. ‘All we’ve got is a bit of gossip you picked up, that you weren’t meant to hear. And there’s one or two people he’s crossed, you can bet, who might like to fasten something on to him, Miss Fielding.’

‘But you said “when”, nevertheless, Mr Buller.’

‘So I did.’ He studied her for a moment. ‘But before I went out West that time, to the Big …
Grand
…
Tetons, you said to me, “Keep an open mind, Mr Buller: no matter what they say, or what they did, or why they did it … or what it did to
them
…
keep an open mind, Mr Buller”, is what
you
said, as you put me on that Greyhound bus.’

Jenny smiled at him sweetly. ‘We were economizing at the time, Mr Buller. And you still said “when”.’

Buller gave her another long look. ‘And you may have been talking to someone who’s talked to someone I talked to.’

‘That could be.’ The sweet smile vanished. ‘You tell me, Mr Buller.’

Reg Buller sighed, and touched the pocket in which his pipe lay. ‘No names this time, Lady.’ Then he nodded. ‘All right, then. There have been one or two times, over the years, when there’s been some unpleasantness involving Mr David Audley, so they say.’

‘Not “unpleasantness”, Mr Buller.’ Jenny was Miss Fielding-ffulke now, with all her ancestors behind her. ‘And not just “one or two times”. David Audley has a long string of deaths behind him, so I am informed—
reliably
informed.’ Then she weakened deliberately, as she remembered that they were both on the same side. ‘Come on, Reg—you’ve been trying to frighten us out of our wits all along … even with the boiling water in Yellowstone National Park! So don’t bullshit us now.’ She brushed back the tangle of inadequately-combed hair. ‘According to
my
source he presided over an absolute bloodbath, somewhere down in the West Country, a couple of years ago—‘ She shifted to Tully ‘—right, John?’

‘Possibly.’ Not for the first time as Ian looked at John Tully he was reminded of Clive Ponting, whose face was also designed for very dry sherry as well as distasteful revelations.

‘But nothing in 1978—or 1977. And he was in Washington almost the whole of ‘78, into 1979.’ Buller looked to Tully for support. ‘He’s got a lot of friends in the CIA … so
I
am reliably informed—eh?’ Then he registered Tully’s expression. ‘And that wasn’t because I was “exceeding-my-bloody-brief”—I got that for free, as it happens.’

‘
All right
!” Jenny called them all to order. ‘So, then …
I
will take him right now, and see how the land lies at the moment.’ She embraced both Tully and Buller together, but chiefly Tully. ‘John … I think I’d like to know who is out there, getting wet at the moment, if possible.’ She came to Ian. ‘And, as you are the historian among us, darling … and as Audley
wasn’t
doing anything naughty then … do you think you could dig up 1978 for us, Ian—? And, if you like, you can take Mr Buller with you, for protection.’

THE POSSIBILITY
that he was being followed aroused in Ian what he assumed to be the classic symptoms of paranoia: a feeling of unaccustomed importance, verging on pride (‘Better put a tail on Robinson: he needs watching!’), moderated by a much less comfortable disquiet, which might easily develop into a persecution complex.

Of course, he’d been followed before, almost certainly. But that had been in Beirut, which hardly counted, because everyone who was anyone was followed there, by someone or other, and it would have been an insult
not
to be followed; in fact, he’d probably been followed by the Syrians, who had been protecting them both, who had been shadowing other and nastier followers, like the lesser fleas on the bigger fleas on the proverbial dog, and so
ad infinitum
.

Only, he hadn’t much liked the possibility then, and he liked it no better now, with Reg Buller’s final patronizing and belittling words of wisdom echoing in his ear—

‘No good looking for
‘em, because you won
’t see
‘em
—not if they know their job. So no good tryin
’
to be clever, peerin’
into shop windows. An’
whatever you do, don’
t try an’
lose
‘em
—that
’s Rule Number One.
‘Cause, when you do need to slip
‘em, it
’s gotta seem like by accident, an
’
all nice an’
slow. An’
I’
ll stage-manage that, there’
s a taxi-driver I know who’
ll fix it
…
An’
anyway, your job today is to draw
‘em off to let me get off. So you just walk round to the Lady
’s flat for your Sunday lunch like always. An
’
phone me tonight at seven—
from a public pay-box. Okay?
’

Not okay. Because now, with the Sunday streets emptied by rain, and the Sunday pubs filled, the temptation to look over his shoulder at every corner was like an itch in his brain. And all the little antique shops, the contents of whose windows had never much interested him before, seemed full of intriguing objects … which he mustn’t stop and look at, just in case
someone
might think he was trying to be clever. And as there probably wasn’t anyone, that made him feel like a right prick.

But then … if Reg Buller was
right
…

He decided to concentrate on it, partly to help him to forget that itch and its accompanying incipient paranoia, and partly because Reg Buller usually
was
right, when it came to such mundane matters. Which cleared the way in turn for the consideration of the more important matters with which Jenny would hit him during her version of Sunday lunch—
yuk!

Because Jenny, too, had been
right
this time—and not in any mundane matter, either: her little shell-like ears (sensitive appendages, always attuned to items of scandal and indiscretion, as sharp as the diamonds which customarily adorned each of them) had picked up a winner this time, like a blip on a high-tech radar screen which registered not so much ‘Friend or Foe?’ as ‘Profit or Loss?’ unfailingly—

‘What about Masson, then?’

‘A turn-up for the book, you mean?’

‘Not a turn-up. I never did believe that story. It was too neat.’

‘Which story? The official one—? Or
…
?’

‘Neither of them. But I tell you one thing: David Audley won
’t like it.
’

‘David Audley? You don
’t mean
—?
’

‘I don’t mean anything. Except … people who don’t
suit his book have a way of being safely written out of it. And Masson was a front runner then
…
remember?’

‘Yes
…
But, surely, you don’
t think—
?’

‘Not aloud I don
’t
—no! But I think
…
if I was Audley
…
I might be remembering the banquet scene in that play the actors don’
t like naming—
eh?’

‘You
’re sure you
’ve got it right, Jen
—?
’

‘Don
’t be a bore, Ian. Of course I
’ve got it right. I was listening to them.
’

‘To whom?
’

‘To these two men. And don
’t ask me who they were, because I don
’t know
—yet.
’

‘They didn
’t introduce themselves to you?
’

‘Now you
’re being thick. They weren
’t talking to me. I overheard them. And the play
’s
“Macbeth
”, of course
—‘

‘Oh? Not
“Hamlet
”, then?
’

‘Not
—what?
’

‘You overheard them. But I can
’t think they wouldn
’t have noticed you. Because you
’re quite noticeable, Miss Fielding-ffulke. So presumably you were hiding behind some arras, like Polonius in
“Hamlet
”. That
’s all.
’

I see. So now you’re being clever. So at least you’
re awake
…
Well, for your information, I was partly behind an arras, actually. Or a curtain, to be exact
…
And Victor Pollard and Nigel Gaitch were regaling me with inane Palace gossip about Charles and Di, which I really didn
’
t want to know, but which they thought was just up my street. So I stopped listening to them
…
and there must be some sort of acoustic trick just there, because of the alcove there, and the curtain
—
I don
’
t damn well know. All I know is what I heard. And it
’
s
“
Macbeth
”
—
the one the actors won
’
t ever mention. And the banquet scene, too. And you know what that
’
s about, do you, Ian
?’