Butler waited, although he already knew what the point was now, from the recent circulars which had passed across his desk as a matter of routine.
“So as a result the Squad picked up three of them who were out in the open—the Provo bagman who was delivering funds in London, and the girl who was setting up that new safe house … and the INLA hit-man—a real bad bastard we’ve been after for a long time, that the West Germans wanted too.” Andrew paused. “Which our contacts in Dublin and Belfast both confirm—that the boyos there would like to get their hands on whoever did for the General quite as much as we would, and probably even more.”
That made sense … even if the sense it made was the mad and bad illogical sense of terrorism the world over, thought Butler bleakly. But now was the moment for a straight question.
“So how did you come into this, Andrew?”
This time it was a longer pause. “Ah … I heard a whisper, sir—that it maybe wasn’t an Irish job at all … But the bomb was a pro job, like I said.” Pause. “And there was that paper of Wing-Commander Roskill’s on bombs, not long ago … So I thought this one might end up on our plate—
on your
plate, sir …” Modesty disarmed Chief Inspector Andrew “… and I dropped in on the squad anyway, to talk about old times … just in case.”
Intelligent anticipation: another plus for the man. “Could you go down there again?” Pause.
“No, sir. If I go down there again … they’re much too fly for that: they’ll know it won’t be just curiosity this time—especially as they’re looking for someone to take it off their hands. They’ve already tried to unload it on the Dorset locals.”
“With what result?” If Audley hadn’t been involved, Butler might have smiled: the experience was not unknown to him of having intractable problems left at his official door like unwanted babies, lusty and demanding.
“The Chief down there—the Chief Constable—he wouldn’t have it. And quite right, too!” Andrew grunted sympathetically. “He said there was no one on his patch who could set a bomb like that—and if there had been they’d never have set it under the old General. He was the last person anyone would want to blow up. So it had to be political.”
“And you go along with that, do you?”
“I don’t go along with
anything …
sir,” replied Andrew cautiously. “I don’t know enough about it—this was just what I picked up over a few beers. But they certainly didn’t have any local prospects down there with any sort of motive, never mind the know-how, apparently.”
“You mean he had no known enemies down there?”
“That’s right. In fact… no known enemies
anywhere
, would be more accurate. He was a decent old stick—‘much-loved local figure’, as they say … only this time that was the exact truth: they couldn’t find anyone who didn’t have a good word for him. What the local vicar said, was that he disproved the parable about the rich man having difficulty getting into heaven: he’d get through the eye of the needle with plenty of room on both sides.”
“He was rich?”
“Rolling in it. Landed money, too—the sort that’s gone through the roof the last few years.”
“Next-of-kin?” He knew part of the answer to that already. But there might be more.
“Just one grand-daughter—who adored him. And most of his wealth was already in trust for her anyway, apart from that. Nobody stands to gain from his death, if that’s what you’re after. Most people think they
lost
by it.” Andrew sniffed at him down the line. “Too good to be true, eh?”
“I said no such thing!” snapped Butler. One thing the years had convinced him of was the existence of pure evil. Fortunately, whatever the hell-fire preachers thought, it was very rare; but its corollary was the existence of pure good, though unfortunately that was even more rare.
“Well, that’s what some of my old mates down the nick thought, having had some disillusioning experiences in that direction.” Andrew chuckled. “This turned out to be equally disillusioning in its way—for them, actually.”
“How so?” Butler frowned.
“He wasn’t as good as he seemed, was General Maxwell— ‘Squire’ Maxwell—Major-General Herbert George Maxwell, CBE, DSO, MC … and Grade VII on the piano, and heaven only knows what else … and clever with it, sir.”
Andrew was clever too, Butler noted. But maybe he needed slapping down. “Don’t waste my time, Chief Inspector. Get to the point.”
“Yes, sir. He wasn’t as good as he seemed—if anything he was better.”
“Better?”
“Yes, sir. No secret mistresses. No strange perversions. All they dug up was a lot of good he was doing by stealth—and a lot of good he’d done in the past, that no one had known about.” Andrew allowed an edge of incredulity into his voice. “You know, there was even a letter—there were
two
letters—from his official enemies… . They intercepted all the letters to his grand-daughter—”
“His enemies?”
“His
official
ones. One was from some branch of the Hunt Saboteurs—in his younger days he was a great one for foxhunting … there’s a Duntisbury Chase Hunt—saying how courteous he’d always been to them, even while he was outsmarting them … and how he’d always listened to them, and stopped the locals beating them up, and so on—that was one of the letters.”
Good Gracious
! thought Butler.
“And the other was from Germany, with money for a wreath—from some German Old Comrades’ associations, from the war… . They’d read about his death in the papers, and they remembered how well he’d behaved—how he’d looked after their wounded somewhere, and cheered them up by congratulating them on making a great fight of it, and fighting cleanly, and all that—which they’d never forgotten.”
Colonel Butler stared at his bookshelves, and remembered his own war, and the waste and the pity of it. And he could remember a German too, as they had remembered an Englishman—
“Sir?”
Colonel Butler blinked at his shelves, snapping free from the memories which for a moment—or for more than a moment—had taken him outside time, into a past which had had no future.
“Yes.” Only the present mattered now. “Right!” And the first question to be resolved concerned Chief Inspector Andrew himself. “Now … you tell me
exactly
why you became so interested in General Maxwell, Chief Inspector. Right?”
“Yes, sir.” Andrew was satisfactorily ready for the question. “Well… I heard this whisper—like I told you—that it wasn’t an Irish job … what I heard was that they didn’t know what the hell it was, to be
exact
, sir.” The returned emphasis came back to Butler smugly, like a cool return to a hard service. “So I had this feeling that we might get it, you know.”
That was a good and complete answer, even though it ignored the importance of their current preoccupation with the Cheltenham centre.
Or did it? The possibility that someone else might know about David Audley, never mind Jane Butler, chilled Butler.
“Just that? Nothing more?”
“No, sir. Nothing more.” The reply was stoutly delivered, with a very slight colouring of outrage at the suggestion that its honesty had been considered questionable.
“Right.” Butler refused to let himself be embarrassed. Loyalty in exchange for trust, trust in return for loyalty, was what he gave and expected to receive in his appointments, but in this wicked world nothing was certain. Yet in this officer’s case the risk was worth taking. “You’re busy setting up the Cheltenham operation at this moment. I want you to drop that for twenty-four hours.”
“Yes, sir.” The faint red of outrage changed to the amber of expectation.
“I want you to get back in there somehow and pick up everything you can steal on General Maxwell, Chief Inspector.” Butler studied his books, looking for something which might inspire him, and felt belittled by them: there were so many clever men in those volumes, much more clever than he was, but many of them had come unstuck in spite of that. “And I mean
steal
—and I don’t want anyone to know that you’ve done it. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir.” It was understood—but could it be done? Butler waited while the Chief Inspector reconsidered the chances of doing successfully what he had already said he couldn’t do. “There is a way that I can maybe do that—indirectly.”
“All right.” Butler didn’t want to know about the nuts and bolts of the deception. But it was time now to give the carrot of trust to make the whip-lash of loyalty more bearable. And he had already burnt his boats, in any case! “You know where David Audley is at this moment?”
That stopped the Chief Inspector in his tracks, by God!
“He’s on leave, sir. Writing another book. Do you want him?”
“No!” Butler recognised his mistake in that instant: it was no good blaming Jane—it was no good blaming Audley, even—no good telling himself that Audley ought to have behaved differently; that he ought to have behaved better, with his age, and his seniority, and experience, and intelligence—ought to have behaved
best
, not merely
better
.
David Audley had been born into the wrong age—that was what the man himself thought, and had never pretended otherwise: he always saw himself as a prince-bishop from his beloved middle ages, mediating between God and man, and meddling happily in the affairs of both to their discomfort.
Bletchley Park in the war would have suited Audley best— better than the Middle Ages, even—when he would have been safely bowed down not only by the responsibility and the importance and the challenge of the work, but also by the sheer volume of it, so that he wouldn’t have had either the time or the energy to get up to mischief.
That
had been his mistake: he had let Audley free-wheel for too long, while Cheltenham matured—the cleverest man he knew, whom he (of all people) should know was also most capable of behaving irresponsibly when he was bored with lack of responsibility. Jane had only lit that fuse—and perhaps he was lucky that Jane (of all people) had lit it!
Chief Inspector Andrew hadn’t said a word this time. He had waited patiently for the next bomb-shell, with his head down.
“Audley’s in Duntisbury Royal at the moment. I don’t want him disturbed until I know what’s happening down there.”
More silence from the other end of the line. It would be fascinating to know what Andrew thought of Audley: whether he knew enough yet to be as certain as Butler himself was that it could not be murder that Audley was contemplating. It would be something very different.
It would be the easiest thing in the world to find out: all he had to do was to recall the man and ask him what the hell he was up to—the easiest thing, and all the easier because it was in his own nature to do exactly that, to secure good order and discipline through common sense …just as it was in Audley’s maverick nature to pursue his own insatiable curiosity in his own way, regardless of good order and discipline and common sense.
Colonel Butler looked down at his desk, at the note-pad near his left hand, and drew a deep breath. During his military career he had lived very happily by the book, being led and leading others, both of which conditions were as natural to him as breathing. But now the book was gathering dust … and Audley was a man who could be neither led nor driven, but whose unique value to Queen and Country lay in that restless free-ranging intuition. So it was his own plain duty to ensure that Audley functioned to maximum efficiency, however eccentrically, even if it meant temporarily ignoring the easiest thing in the world.
So that was it: he had to leave Audley alone, but not leave him alone; to show confidence in him while lacking confidence; to trust him while not trusting him; to do nothing while doing quite a lot; above all, to let him know none of that … somehow …
As the silence on the other end of the line lengthened, Colonel Butler moved the note-pad to his right, transferred the phone to his left hand, picked up a pencil, and started to write down names, and then to cross them out one after another, as the alternative to the easiest thing in the world became harder and harder.
Foxes in the Chase
BESIDE THE FORD
there was a crude plank footbridge with a single guard-rail, and on the rail was perched a little blonde child in a very grubby pinafore dress.
Benedikt stopped the car at the water’s edge and leaned out of the window in order to address her.
“Please… .” He let the foreignness thicken his voice. “Please, is this the way to … to Duntisbury Royal?”
The child stared at him for a moment, and then slid forwards and downwards until her toes touched a plank, without letting goof the rail.
Benedikt smiled at her. “Please—” he began again. But before he could repeat the question she ducked and twisted, and scuttled away like a little wild creature into a shadowy gap between the bushes on the other side of the water and an antique-looking telephone box.
Well, it was the way to Duntisbury Royal—it had to be, Benedikt reassured himself. “
Up the road about three miles”
, the man at the petrol station had said, and the map said so too. “
There’s
a turning on your left by a dead tree. Down the hill
—
and stay in low gear, because it’s steep
—
and over the water-splash in the trees there, at the bottom, and it’s a long mile from there, what there is of it. You can’t miss it
.”
That was what they always said,
You can’t miss it
, to reassure you at least for a time, until you had missed it.
“
There are road-signs, yes
?” He could read a map and find his way as well as any man, and better than most. But he had bitter experience of the irrationality of English directions and was suspicious of the man’s confidence.
“No. Leastways … there were … but there aren’t at the moment. But you turn by a dead tree, and just follow the road. There ain’t nowhere else to go once you’re on it, see?”
The man had begun to regard him curiously then.
“
Thank you. And there is an hotel there
?” Curiosity, in Benedikt’s experience, was the father of information.