A Prospect of Vengeance dda-18

by Anthony Price

  '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 dummy2

  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, dummy2

  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 dummy2

  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.'

  2

  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 —

  dummy2

  '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!

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  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?'

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  '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-fful
ke. 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 dummy2

  know what that's about, do you, Ian?'

  'Yes — '

  ' It's about a murder that's gone wrong, is what it's about — '

  So maybe Jenny was right. For certainly Jenny was clever, and she was very often as lucky as she was clever, which was an unbeatable alliance.

  But that still left them with the Unnamed Play expert, who had been unlucky, as well as indiscreet, beside the curtain at the embassy party; he sounded clever too, and maliciously so perhaps. But just how clever had he been with that throwaway Macbeth reference?

  Just generally clever, with Macbeth's hired murderer reporting back on the bodged killing —

  — Is he dispacht?

  — My lord, his throat is cut; that I did for him.

  Or exactly clever, with Philip Masson as well as Audley in mind, after Banquo's grisly ghost had broken up a pleasant dinner —

  — the time has been,

  That, when the brains were out, the man would dummy2

  die,

  And there an end; but now they rise again, With twenty mortal murders on their crowns, And push us from our stools

  Was that it?

  Had Banquo/Masson risen again, in order that Jenny Fielding and Ian Robinson should push David Audley from his stool — ?

  Well . . . Jenny Fielding's castle was now just across the wet road, and he could hear no footsteps behind him, only his old tutor's warning against preconceived ideas which fitted so well that one bought them too easily, without feeling the quality of the shoddy material.

  The road was safe, anyway — as safe as suburban East Berlin on a wet Sunday, never mind Hampstead; and he was probably as unfollowed here and now as he had been there and then — and Jenny could have simply heard two malicious Civil Service tongues chatting imaginative gossip

  —

  He skipped the last few yards, from the road and across the glistening pavement, to the refuge of the flat's entrance, and stabbed the bell with a sense of anti-climax, feeling foolish because he was simultaneously relieved and disappointed.

  Because, if Jenny and Buller were right, it might well be that dummy2

  they didn't even consider him worth following —

  'Yes?' The cool, disembodied voice was haughtiest Jenny.

  'It's me. Who did you think it was?' He heard his own voice too late, as squeakiest Ian.

  'Are you alone? Or already in durance vile, with the cuffs on and a gun at your back?' Now she was stage-Jenny, making fun of all the painted devils of his imagination.

  'For heaven's sake, Jen — let me in!' He couldn't stop himself protesting. 'My feet are soaking, damn it!' He managed to lower the squeak to a growl.

  Click!

  'Darling — I'm sorry — I am sorry . . . But John Tully and dear old Reg insisted — remember?' She patted him like a child after relieving him of his raincoat and umbrella. 'Of course, John wanted my taxi. And he said we'd got nothing to lose, anyway . . . And Reg wanted you to lead the opposition away, so he could do his own thing.' She brushed ineffectually at the huge bird's-nest tangle of hair which she'd pinned up, but which was falling down on all sides. 'I do love Reg — don't you, Ian?'

  'No.' He could smell an unfamiliar smell. And it was as far removed from the usual smell of her flat as what he felt for Reg Buller was separated from love. 'Reg Buller is not lovable.' He sniffed again. 'Have you been cooking?'

  'He is so. Come and have a drink. And he's also one very smart operator. Did you read his report? You did bring it dummy2

  with you?'

  'Yes.' He had to sniff again. 'Is that what I think it is?'

  'Eh? Well, I don't know what you think it is. But the man in the butcher's shop said it was his very best Scotch beef. And he gave me all sorts of advice about what I should do with it

  — he seemed quite worried that I might not treat it with proper respect. I almost asked him to come and roast it for me . . . only I was afraid he might take me up on the offer.'

  She smiled her Scarlett O'Hara smile at him. 'But then he said it needed a good Burgundy with it. Only, I know you like claret, so I asked the other man, in the wine merchants', who sells me my usual plonk . . . and he said this would be about right — ' She swept a bottle off the sideboard ' — he said it had the body ... which really sounded rather gruesome . . .

  But I do remember the name — it has to be named after an Irishman really — "O'Brien"? Because none of that area is

  "haut", it's all flat as a pancake. But it was one of Daddy's favourite tipples, so it can't be bad — can it?' She jerked the bottle to her nose. 'I think it smells rather fun — it reminds me of Daddy, actually. He used to make me smell all his bottles. Here — have a sniff! Is it okay?'

  Ian clamped his hand on the bottle. What he had to remember was that he was almost certainly being taken for a ride, as better men before him had been, and others after him would be. Because Daddy had been a power in the land (and that was part of Jenny Fielding's stock-in-trade, and his also by their literary alliance). And also because she was his dummy2

  only-and-favourite daughter, and a conniving chip off the same block.

  It was Haut-Brion, and he had been in short trousers when it had been in its grapes. This'll do just fine, Jen. It's . . . okay.'

  'Oh — good!' She turned away from him. 'I have to take the little man's beef out of the oven — if I don't, I think he'll come and demonstrate outside, or haunt me when he's dead . . . And there are the vegetables — but they're just out of the freezer, so they're no trouble . . . But I have also made a Yorkshire pudding, according to that recipe the man gave us in Belgium — remember? The one who said that the people in Yorkshire had got it all wrong, after the battle of Waterloo — ? But you must come and help me, Ian — '

  He followed her, towards the smell, with his arm and shoulder frozen, as though it was a bottle of Château Nobel, from the Nitro-Glycerine commune, of an unstable year —

  Waterloo was right, though: the kitchen resembled nothing so much as the farmhouse of La Haye Sainte towards the end of the battle, after the French had stormed it, and Wellington's troops had re-taken it at the point of a bayonet.

  And, quite evidently, the ex-freezer vegetables were already casualties, and the Belgian-Yorkshire pudding had suffered the same fate as the unfortunate Belgian regiments which had been exposed to the fire of Napoleon's artillery for too long —

  'Jen! Let's eat the beef — ' There was just enough space to bestow the Haut-Brion safely on the table. But then, as he dummy2

  rescued what looked like the better part of an Aberdeen Angus from her, he met her eyes ' — all this on my account, Jen — ?'

  'Well. . . you don't eat enough, do you? All those fast-foods —

  junk foods — and take-aways?' She looked down at the beef, and then back up at him. 'The way to a man's heart is supposed to be through his stomach, that's all.'

  She really wanted Audley's scalp. Or someone's scalp, anyway. Or, one way or another, she wanted some more Beirut-style excitement, anyway. And (more to the point) she'd expected him to cast his vote against the enterprise.

  'But all a bloody waste of time?' Having already got what she wanted, she was perfectly happy, and the irritation was hardly skin-deep. 'Shall we throw it away, and go round the corner to the pub, Ian?'

  'Certain
ly not!' As always, the pain was his as he was reminded for the thousandth time of the difference between her need and his desire. 'I'm not going to let this beef — and that plonk of yours — go to waste. Get the carving-knife, Fielding-ffulke! And lay the table — go on!'

  'Yes, master — at once, master!' As always, she was his humble and attentive servant in her moment of triumph, and never more beautiful. 'So what about David Audley, then?

  Isn't he something, eh?'

  'The devil with Audley.' Predictably, her carving-knife was blunt. But the beef was superbly tender. 'Were you followed?'

  dummy2

  'Don't ask me, darling. But if Reg says we're being, then I'm sure we were. And — don't you think it's fun?'

  'No. I don't think it's fun ... Is that enough for you, Jen?'

  'No?' She peered over his shoulder, and the smell of her and the beef aroused different carnal desires simultaneously. 'No, I'm absolutely ravenous . . . and look at all that lovely blood, too! God, I must take up cooking, I think — evening classes in cordon bleu, and all that — and nouvelle cuisine — that'll do, darling. What d'you think?'

  What he thought was that she now had a heavy-manual-worker's plate of roast beef, which would make a nouvelle cuisine chef quite ill to look at. 'What I think, Jen, is ... that being followed scares me. And David Audley terrifies me ...

  since you ask.' He offered her the plate.

  'Can I have a little more of that . . . sort of gravy-stuff.'

  'Blood, you mean?' He accepted the spoon she was holding out to him in anticipation. 'Well, at least you have the right appetite, I suppose.'

  'What?' Greed deafened her for a moment. 'Do you want some of my Yorkshire pudding? I did put cheese in it, like the recipe said.'

  Ian's memory of the outcome of that experiment enabled him to concentrate on his carving, while pretending similar deafness.

  'What d'you mean — "the right appetite"?' She had heard, after all.

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  'People involved with Audley end up dead, according to Reg Buller.' He might as well match her greed: what wasn't eaten here and now would probably be thrown away, and it would be a sin to waste this noble animal.