A Prospect of Vengeance (9 page)

‘Flumdiddle’ must be a new word in Jenny’s circle. But. nevertheless, he was beginning to smell the marrow from the broken bone. ‘So what does it mean, then?’

‘Well … I’m by no means quite sure, darling—as I keep saying.’ Knowing him, she was properly cautious still, in spite of all her certainties. ‘But suppose—just
suppose
…
that alongside all the little old
secret
services that we know and love by their initials and numbers … alongside all of them, there was another one, that we didn’t know was there. Like, say, a sort of parallel world, in those science-fiction stories, almost—?’ She cocked an eye at him. ‘Not very big—really rather small—? But more secret, more exclusive—? Say … just responsible to the Prime Minister—the Cabinet Office? Of the Intelligence Sub-Committee of the Joint Chiefs? Or—‘

She wasn’t beginning to frighten him. She was frightening him. ‘Doing what?’

She shrugged. ‘Doing whatever it was told to do. Doing what comes naturally—I don’t know … I tell you, I’m not sure yet … Trouble-shooting? Or maybe trouble-making.’ She blew a strand of hair which had fallen across her face. ‘Because … as well as being very secret, I do rather get the impression that it may not be too popular in certain circles, whatever it is—whatever it does, exactly—‘ She seized the fallen strand and tried to push it back on top, releasing a whole cascade in the process ‘—damn!’

Ian accepted the diversion gratefully. That last revelation at least told him something about her source. Indeed, it fitted into the original dialogue she’d eavesdropped on to make a familiar pattern. In any investigation, the enemies of the subject of the investigation—or even, if the subject was an organization of some sort, any disaffected members within it—were prime sources of information. And … although this source sounded more like an outsider than an insider … it was hardly surprising that the ‘Clinton-Butler’ organization had its enemies, even on its ‘own’ side, never mind among its proper and official opponents.

‘Well?’ Jenny abandoned the wreckage of her bird’s-nest. ‘What do you say to all that then, Ian?’

Its opponents
! he thought, staring suddenly at the window with a stab of disquiet. He had somehow taken it for granted that those watchers (if they were there—?) would be Special Branch, if not MI5. But they could be—who?

‘Yes.’ She grinned happily. ‘It does account for our sudden popularity, doesn’t it, darling?’

‘That’s not the word I was thinking of.’ At least he hadn’t betrayed his fear. ‘Is this what you told Woodward? Or Parsons?’

The grin twisted. ‘Oh, come on, darling! As our Reg might say, “Would I do that, Mr Robinson?” Of course not.’

‘So what did you tell them?’

She sighed. ‘What did I say to them? Well, I said to Dick: “Richard, darling … do you recall that nice Civil Servant named Philip Masson, who was tragically lost at sea, when he fell off his yacht in the Channel nine or ten years ago?” And he said: “Jenny darling, that wouldn’t be the same fellow whose body has just turned up in a wood somewhere, without his lifebelt?”’ She smiled. ‘I was very circumspect, you see.’

‘Get on with it, Jen.’

‘All right, all right! So I said: “Yes, darling—the one all your chaps are running around in circles trying to find out about, to no avail … How would you like the serial rights for our book on what
really
happened, darling? Or shall I go to Rupert Murdoch instead—?” And that was when he patted his cheque-book. Plus, of course, darling Clive will put his cash up front, as usual.’ The innocent face vanished. ‘So what do you say to
that
, then?’

She was too damn sure of herself. ‘I’d say he’s wasting his money. And so are we—and our time, too.’

She frowned. ‘What d’you mean?’

The trouble was, he wasn’t at all sure of himself. ‘If what you say is true … if there
is
a Clinton-Butler operation of some sort, on the level you suggest … and if the man Audley
was
somehow involved with Masson’s death … for heaven’s sake, Jen! It’s going to be buried deeper than we’re likely to be able to dig—that for a start—‘

‘The hell with that!’ She snapped at him. ‘Who said we can’t? Who’s better than us—you and me?’ The Fielding bosom inflated angrily, and pointed at him. ‘Besides which, as you well know … once you
know
there’s a secret, there’s always a way of uncovering it—‘ She caught her anger as she observed his face. ‘We’ve done it before, Ian. We did it in Beirut—didn’t we?’

‘Yes.’ And it was a commentary on her that she still didn’t understand what a damned close-run thing that had been—and how much the memory of it still scared him. And how much the same memory
ought
to frighten her. ‘But this is different.’

‘How—different?’

‘For a start … because they won’t let us publish. Even if Dick Woodward is willing to stick his neck out. Which he won’t be.’

‘Oh—
come on!
’
The fire kindled again. ‘Just because of Peter Wright, and all that … We haven’t signed the Official Secrets Act—
we
aren’t going to publish secret documents—at least, not unless we can get hold of any, that is—‘ She smiled grimly at him through the flames. The Peter Wright thing doesn’t stop us: he’s made it Open Season, more like—don’t you see, Ian?’

‘No. I don’t see. There’s still the law, Jen—‘

‘The law?’ She stopped for an instant. ‘Well, I don’t know … But I’ve talked to Simon Lovell about that. And he says that practicalities are going to come into that now—or
im
practicalities, where they’re dealing with people like us: he says that “acquisition” can’t be an offence, otherwise they’d have prosecuted other people long before. And then, if we’re just the teeniest bit careful … and he’ll vet every line you write, Simon says he will … then there’s a hell of a lot we can get away with, under “Public Interest”—
Pro bono publico
, as John Tully would say.’ The grim smile showed again, quite different from her more mischievous grin. ‘Audley won’t sue. Because they won’t let him—they never defend their own. Not like the KGB … But, if we’re right, he won’t
anyway
—
will he?’

They were back to one of his earliest thoughts. ‘You know him—? Do you know him, Jen?’

‘Never met him in my life, so far as I know.’ She frowned, as though running memories backwards. ‘Big ugly fellow, apparently.’ The frown cleared. ‘That’s a pleasure in store, darling.’

For her, anyway: ‘big ugly fellows’ couldn’t very well thump young lady investigative-writers, certainly—not without the direst consequences. But this time, with time so short, she needed her Ian up there with her, in the forefront of the battle. And that wasn’t reassuring. ‘So why are you so hell-bent on nailing him, Jen?’

‘I’m not.’ No smile, no grin, now: she looked as neutral as Switzerland. Yet there was a cold glitter in her eye he’d never seen before. ‘But this is one book I really want to see published.’

It couldn’t be avarice, surely? ‘We don’t need the money, Jen. Not that badly.’

‘The money?’ Sudden anger replaced the coldness. ‘Don’t be silly, Ian. You’re the one who likes money. I don’t need it—remember?’

That was hurtful—and all the more so because she intended it to be. And that wasn’t really Jenny. ‘I’m sorry—‘

She closed her eyes for an instant. ‘No! I’m the one who should be sorry. That was dirty. And you weren’t being silly—you just don’t know, that’s all. It was before your time—
our
time.’

‘Our time?’ Whatever it was, it had hurt her. And whatever it was she wanted, he was going to do it for her, he realized. ‘What was, Jen? 1978—?’

‘Korea.’ She produced the name like a rabbit out of a top-hat.

‘Korea?’ One of their future possible subjects (which, now he heard himself repeat it, Jenny herself had floated) had been the Korean phenomenon, in anticipation of all the Olympic coverage, and the possible political nastiness which might attend the event.

Jenny nodded. ‘Philip Masson was a lovely man. And he was also a Royal Marine, long ago, in Korea.’

‘A Royal—?’

‘In the war—the Korean War.’ She seemed to lose patience with him, where the moment before she had conceded that he couldn’t know what she was talking about. ‘Philly Masson carried Daddy for miles, on his back, in the middle of winter, with the Chinese shooting at them all the time—Daddy wouldn’t have survived without him: he would have frozen to death before he’d died of wounds, if the Chinese hadn’t finished him off, he said. Philly saved his life.’ She looked at him. ‘So, you could say, he saved
my
life, too. Because I wouldn’t have been born if he hadn’t done that. And … he was my godfather, Ian. And I loved him.’

IT WAS REG BULLER
who put his finger on it. And he put his finger quite literally on it (and slightly drunkenly, slurring his words a little), as he stabbed the protected enlargement of the microfilmed newspaper page.

‘
Thish ish it! You mark my wordsh, Ian lad! Thish ish it!
’

Ian had spent three good hours in the library by then, dissecting the anatomy of an almost perfect murder, albeit without ever getting close to the victim. Because, if there was one certain thing about the death of Philip Masson, it was that he’d never actually been on board the
Jenny III
on the evening and night of Friday/Saturday, November 17/18, 1978.

But, equally certainly, somebody who knew his job had been on the
Jenny III
instead of him.

The reliable
Daily Telegraph
had done its own job well, in reporting the eventual inquest at length on page three. Maybe there hadn’t been a good murder trial that day, to lead the page. Or perhaps some smart editor had calculated that there might be a great many yachtsmen among the
Telegraph
readers, who would study every line of three columns thinking all the time
this could have been me
!

Time: 3.35 P.M., Saturday, November 18; Wind: South-West freshening; sea: moderate to rough
—

The yacht
Jenny III
(no prizes for guessing why she had been so named) had been found by a fisherman, adrift ten miles south of the Needles.

There had of course been no one on board, but (or because of that) the fisherman had been observant: the mainsail had been sheeted hard home, as for close-hauled sailing, and reefed down; the working jib had been set, but was flapping; the jib sheets were lying on deck, shackle in place, but pin missing; the tiller was lashed amidships; the navigation lights and the instruments were switched on, but the battery was almost flat. And the inflatable dinghy was rolled up and still in its locker.

He hadn’t understood a great deal of that, but it had become clearer as the experts and the friends of the missing man had added their evidence and their theories bit by bit.

The
Jenny III
had evidently been Philip Masson’s pride-and-joy (‘Mr Masson, a senior civil servant in the Ministry of Defence, and former Royal Marines Officer, who had won the Military Cross in Korea’—as an ex-Marine, it was no surprise that he had the smell of the sea in his nostrils, of course).

He had kept her at Lymington during the summer. She was an old Folkboat (overall length 25 feet, waterline 19.68, beam 7.22; displacement 2.16 tons), built in the ‘50s in traditional style, and made to last. Probably, he could have afforded something better (or so said Elwyn Rhys-Lewis, his grieving friend and a fellow yachtsman)—

‘But she suited him. He often sailed her single-handed, you see, and he had her fitted out accordingly, with all the halyards led aft to the cockpit, a downhaul on the jib, and a system of cleats to hold the tiller in place if he had to go below. But she was a good sea-boat—she’d stand up to anything the sea would throw at her. After all, Blondie Hasler sailed a Folkboat in the first single-handed race, back in 1960—‘

Elwyn Rhys-Lewis had been a good witness; maybe even a bit
too
good, in building up the picture?

So he had underlined
Elwyn Rhys-Lewis
in his notebook, for possible further consideration.

But this pride-and-joy had been kept in immaculate order, anyway—with a fair amount of help from old George White, over at Hamworthy. George was apparently a shipwright of the old school, and what he didn’t know about wooden boats wasn’t worth knowing. So that was why Philip Masson always laid the
Jenny III
up at Poole during the winter, said Mr Rhys-Lewis.

‘We shall never know exactly what happened. But, thanks to the evidence which we have heard, a fair reconstruction of what may have happened is possible,’ the coroner had concluded at last.

That Friday evening, the deceased went down to Lymington, for his Rover car was found in the car park. He must have gone straight on to his boat, though no one remembers seeing him. But we have heard that he made no secret of his intentions to sail her round to Poole as soon as possible, having already left it a little late in the season owing to pressure of work in London.

‘There was, we have heard, a stiff south-westerly wind blowing that Friday, with the threat of worse forecast. These were not ideal conditions for the passage he planned to take, but nothing that he and his boat could not handle. At all events, he probably heard the late night forecast of a low pressure area building up in the Atlantic, and he must have decided to make a night passage.

‘In that event, he probably motored her down from Lymington to Hurst Point. Or (as we have heard) may have sailed, even though he would have had to tack all the way. But he would have had an ebb tide under him, at all events.’ (This coroner sounded as though it hadn’t been his first sea tragedy, Ian had noted there.)

‘Mr Rhys-Lewis and Mr White are both agreed that he would then have hoisted sail, prudently putting a tuck in the main. And once round Hurst he would have proceeded on the port tack, taking the inshore channel to pass north of the Shingles. With a south-westerly wind he would have made good progress for two or three miles, and gone over to the starboard tack once he was sure of clearing the Shingles.