For the Good of the State (10 page)

‘Well—you can stop bloody wondering. It isn’t. At least, not to me, by God!’

The square of gravel was still empty. ‘Not ever?’ He turned towards the open field with the sheep, deliberately not looking at the man.

Audley didn’t reply to the question, and Tom remembered his Arab again as he crossed to the arrow-slit window. ‘Not ever?’

‘In twenty-five years … ’ Audley spoke against his better judgement, just like the Arab ‘ … I’ve had trouble three times here.’

The old Arab had had constant trouble since the 1930s. So Audley had been damn lucky, thought Tom: he was still living in the same house. And the terrace was as empty as the forecourt, so he was still lucky. ‘Three times—?’

‘Only once … ’ Audley searched for the right word, committed now to his indiscretion ‘ … genuinely.’

Now what the hell did he mean by that? wondered Tom.

‘The other two were illegitimate intrusions. And heads rolled because of them, on the Other Side, I can tell you!’

‘They did?’ Tom was disappointed in his man suddenly.

‘They did.’ Just as suddenly all the heat went out of Audley’s voice. ‘You think I’m bull-shitting you, Tom Arkenshaw—I can see that. Right?’

‘No—’

‘If you want to think that, then you do that. And if you think I’m trying to impress you … well, you can think that too.’ Audley paused. ‘The last time was ten years ago. And I was in Italy at the time. It was about the time your section was formed.’ Another pause. ‘And if you care to check the record you’ll find that it was formed on my recommendation. You were in your second year at university at the time. You were secretary of the Anglo-Polish club and treasurer of the Wine and Food Society, which must have been a lot more enjoyable.’ Another pause. ‘And would you like me to give you the name of the woman who recruited you?’

Harvey had been right—
sod the bastard
! ‘Not especially, Dr Audley. But I would like to know why you’re assuming this is the Russians.’

‘I’m not assuming any such thing. And for God’s sake call me David—otherwise I’ll have to call you “Sir Thomas”. It’s bad enough that I’ve had to explain to my daughter what a baronet is, without having to do that.’

‘Yes?’ Tom grabbed the diversion gratefully. ‘What did she say?’

‘She was quite relieved.’ Audley fell for the diversion like any doting father. ‘You had confused her somewhat, I think.’

‘If it’s any consolation to her, she’d confused me too, you can tell her—David.’

‘Yes?’ Then Audley saw through him. ‘I’m not assuming any such thing.’

He’d better not go on underrating Mamusia’s old admirer. ‘No?’ Besides which, he had to keep checking the windows—not so much for some mad bugger with a rifle as for some poor devil of a policeman saddled with an “extreme caution” order. And that meant the forecourt again. ‘Then who else could it be? Who have you offended?’

‘Nobody—that’s the trouble, Tom.’ Audley’s frown indicated that he had already tackled the problem, but in vain. ‘I’m not into Irish matters nowadays—I’m not reliable there … And the same applies to Arab-Israeli business—no one trusts me with them either … except the Arabs and the Jews themselves, that is—and they don’t matter … ’ He bit his lip.

‘But you’re a Soviet specialist—aren’t you?’

‘Supposedly … sometimes.’ Audley bridled slightly.

‘Like now?’

Audley chewed at his lip, as though he didn’t like its taste. ‘In so far as it’s any of your business—yes … But nothing contentious … Interesting, maybe—
bloody fascinating
, if you like—’ But then he shook his head decisively ‘—only I don’t see how it could be them—not this time … if ever.’

Tom felt reality slipping again. ‘You’re sacrosanct, are you?’

‘What?’ Audley focused on him as though he hadn’t heard.

‘Where I come from they aren’t above hitting people, David.’

Audley stared at him for a moment. ‘But you aren’t where you come from. And I’m not “people”, Tom.’ Now Audley was focusing exactly on him. ‘No, don’t get me wrong, my lad: no one’s sacrosanct, I agree … But at my level, over here and over there, there are a few unwritten rules, Tom.’

‘What rules?’

‘
What
rules?’ The brutal look returned. ‘In theory the rules exist at two levels—at least, according to Jack Butler, who’s a great man for rules—“Rules of Engagement”, as he puts it—okay?’ But then he read Tom’s face. ‘You’re used to terrorists, boy—uncontrolled ones and Soviet-controlled ones—
I know
! But that’s not what I’m talking about now.’

‘So what are you talking about?’ The fact that Audley knew the score made it more confusing. ‘What two levels?’

‘Okay!’ Audley nodded. ‘There’s the gentlemanly level— which Jack truly understands. Which is like Wellington at Waterloo, when this artillery officer comes up to him, and says he’s got a clear view of Napoleon and his staff, and a battery pointing in that direction, and he’s ready to fire. But the Duke says “No! no! I’ll not allow it. It is not the business of commanders to be firing on each other.”
Okay
?’

Tom felt he had to argue. ‘But what about us trying to hit Rommel in North Africa—the Keyes commando raid? And the Americans killing Yamamoto with that aerial ambush, after they’d broken the Japanese naval code?’

‘That was different.’ Audley waved a vague hand as he peered out of one of his own windows, across the pacific sheep. ‘That was hot war, not cold war.’

‘Wasn’t Waterloo hot war?’ That had been the second time the man had mentioned the Battle of Waterloo, which fitted neither what Harvey had said about him nor
Ideal and Reality in Frankish and Anglo-Saxon Society
.

The hand waved again. “That wasn’t disgusting twentieth-century war—it was
gentlemanly
…
‘Audley gave him a cautious sidelong look ’ … at least, it was on Wellington’s side, anyway—if you are about to throw Sous-Officier Cantillon at me, eh? But then Bonaparte was no gentleman— he was just a National Socialist born a century too late—‘ The sidelong look suddenly became sardonic’—although I suppose you, of all people, wouldn’t admit that, eh?‘

Bloody hell
! thought Tom: what was ‘
You, of all people
’ meant to mean? ‘Who?’ And this wasn’t either the time or the place for such games. ‘Why—
who!
’

‘Didn’t Bonaparte pretend to be nice to the Poles? Apart from fathering a child on Marie Walewska?’ Audley circled round him, to take a view of the terrace on his own account. ‘Count Walewski—Napoleon III’s ambassador in London, to Queen Victoria, wasn’t he?’ He concentrated on the terrace for an instant. ‘All clear this side.’

The conversation was taking an unreal and tangential turn, reminding Tom of his earlier passage of words with the elfin child on the forecourt. But then the wife had warned him that they were like each other; and everything that had happened here had been unreal—even the house itself was unreal, and this sudden unseasonable outburst of sunshine and blue sky, when he’d left grey clouds and rain in the real world.

‘Hadn’t you better keep an eye on the front?’ Audley chided him gently. ‘The police will come up the drive, like Christians. But they’ll be scared, so I wouldn’t wish not to welcome them—you understand?’

Audley was quite matter-of-fact, but somehow that only made it worse, projecting Tom’s memory back out-of-reason into his own childhood, when Mamusia, beautiful and sweet-smelling, had read him to sleep with some silly story about the
Elf-King and his daughter, who lived Under the Hill, half in their world, and half in our world, where the flowers were brighter but the dangers were more dangerous
…
and this was under a hill, or nearly, and there was an equivocal daughter—and an even more equivocal father, who’d known Mamusia herself, too … and where danger was undeniably more dangerous than it ought to be on a quiet afternoon in England!

‘Yes.’ He pretended to scan the empty forecourt again. The trick in Mamusia’s story was to hold on to something from his own world: the boy in the story had held on to his penknife: all he had to feel the shape of in his coat-pocket was the little wallet with his credit-cards in it; but then nothing could be more
real world
than credit-cards, after all. ‘Who the hell is—or was—“Sous-Officier … Cantillon”—?’

‘Cantillon?’ Audley seemed to expect him to know who the man was. ‘Why—he was the Napoleonic veteran who tried to assassinate Wellington in Paris in 1814, dear boy.’ He paused interrogatively. ‘And the unspeakable Bonaparte left the fellow 10,000 francs in his will—
not
the sort of thing a gentleman would do, as I said—did your dear mother never tell you that story, Tom?’

‘My mother?’

Audley gazed at him for a moment, reflectively. ‘No, I can see that she didn’t—perhaps understandably, in the circumstances.’

Tom was beginning to feel foolish. ‘What circumstances?’

‘What circumstances?’ Now Audley seemed surprised. ‘My dear boy, your mother—
my
Danny Dzieliwski—
your
dear mother was—and presumably still is—quite devoted to Napoleon Bonaparte. And all things French … quite uncritically, if I may say so. The dreadful Corsican was one of her great heroes—after Marshal Poniatowski, of course. “The epic of Napoleonic Poland” was one of her favourite themes … I won’t say that I learnt all my Polish history
from
her—rather, I learnt it so that I didn’t have to sit listening to her without being able to argue back, when she swept her generalizations halfway across Europe. In fact … ’ Audley raised a large dirty finger ‘—in fact, I became quite an authority on Casimir the Great and Jadwiga of Anjou in my own right, thanks to her. But I never really got beyond the medieval period in any detail, to be honest—modern history is mostly far too complicated for me.’

It was happening again—

‘So don’t get the idea that I’m an expert on Bonaparte—’

‘No—’ It must be stopped, thought Tom desperately.

‘No, indeed! I just happen to be reading this book my wife gave me, about Colquhoun Grant, who was Wellington’s Head of Intelligence in the Peninsula—brilliant field operator, quite brilliant … And I had an ancestor who was killed there, you know—on my mother’s side—charging with Le Marchant at Salamanca in 1812. So she’s always on the look-out for books on the Peninsular War—Faith is, I mean, not my mother—’

‘
David!
’ Tom finally cracked. ‘For Christ’s sake—I don’t want to know about your mother—or my mother … Or Casimir the Great and Napoleon, for Christ’s sake!’ And what the
hell
had the child meant by
Tripoli
? ‘Somebody just took a shot at us, David—remember?’

‘At me, dear boy—not you. How could I forget?’ Audley screwed up his ugly features. ‘I’m only talking because I’m frightened—I told you. It’s a reflex in some people. But at least it’s preferable to other physical reflexes I’ve encountered—’ He stopped suddenly. ‘You don’t think he was shooting at
you
, do you? But … he would have had to be a
very
bad shot, surely—?’ He stopped again, and frowned at Tom. ‘But then, he
was
a very bad shot—wasn’t he!’

Audley had got there at last, however belatedly. ‘Yes.’

‘Yes … ’ Audley’s frown deepened. ‘A sitting target—or a standing-still one, anyway … And he would have had plenty of time to sight-up, and make all the necessary allowances, too … ’ He stared clear through Tom.

But that had been one of the problems. ‘He would?’

‘Oh yes.’ Audley nodded through him. ‘He would have spotted me in the orchard. But I was moving around, and the trees wouldn’t have given him a clear shot.’ He drew a breath. ‘Only, after we had word of your impending arrival, and the sun came out … after that Faith got the chairs out and put them on the terrace. So then he would have known he’d get a clear shot.’ He focused on Tom again. ‘But then he missed—eh?’

‘Yes.’ That was one problem solved—which only left another in its place. ‘Yes?’

‘So it can’t have been the Other Side?’ Audley cocked his head. ‘But … they have been known to miss, Tom.’

‘Not often.’ It was time to push the old man. ‘And not when someone of Panin’s seniority is involved, David. He wouldn’t have used Sous-Officier Cantillon for the job.’

‘No … no, that’s true.’ Audley drew another breath. ‘But this isn’t Nikolai Panin anyway.’ He shook his head. ‘No.’

They were back to Jack Butler’s ‘Rules of Engagement’. But, whatever Jack Butler and the Duke of Wellington might believe, there were no rules that couldn’t be stretched and broken outside the playing fields of Eton—the small print of military and political necessity legitimized every successful action retrospectively — that was why the
Belgrano
was at the bottom of the South Atlantic.

‘He’s a gentleman, is he?’ But Audley had referred to
two
levels, he remembered. ‘Or is it that you’re old friends, and he’s sentimental?’

‘Huh!’ Audley didn’t mind being needled, Tom realized in that instant; or being
Danny Dzieliwski’s boy
maybe did confer an advantage, as Jaggard had calculated? ‘Old Nikolai’s no gentleman, that’s for sure! He’s a true-red child of the Revolution—
homo Sovieticus Stalinus—
he may have been an old-time cool-head, hot-heart patriotic Russian during the war—the “Great Patriotic War”—and afterwards, for a time … But surviving the last thirty-five years has surely corrupted him into a cold-hearted bastard who knows exactly which side his fresh white bread is buttered, by God!’ He shook his head at Tom, almost sadly. ‘That’s the bugger of their system, young Tom—it corrupts ordinary decent men more efficiently and comprehensively and quickly than ours does … apart from bringing the absolute shits to the top even more quickly than we can manage—eh?’

Interesting
, Tom began to think, when a slight sound from outside broke the thought suddenly. ‘So Panin was an ordinary decent man once upon a time—?’ He turned towards the window casually. ‘Was he?’

‘I think he might have been. He was certainly a damn good archaeologist once upon a time, by all accounts. And he’s undoubtedly one of their best disinformation men.’