All the same, he was uneasy: in full daylight one could expect the worst, and plan accordingly. But after that it was a case of negotium perambidans in tenebris. ‘Let’s go and meet your Basil Cole then, David.’
‘Okay.’ Audley stretched himself, oblivious of any danger, and then took three steps to the mock-Tudor door, and thumped it with his fist. ‘Open up there!’
Tom cringed from the battering-ram challenge: Stephen of Blois hadn’t hammered on the gates of Ranulf of Caen’s motte at Theckham more noisily than that, but half of England had heard him. Or Baldwin de Redvers certainly had—and the Bishop of Salisbury too … and probably Robert fitz Herbert, and Henry fitz Tracy, and William fitz Odo … and probably the unspeakable Earl of Chester too—
‘Open up there!’ Audley hammered on the door again. ‘Basil Cole, you drunken old bugger!’
The porch light flashed on, dousing them both in a sudden pool of yellow light which made Tom skip back out of it instinctively. (Nobody turned on lights in Lebanon: rather, if there were any lights anywhere, they turned them off, inside as well as outside; and then they didn’t open the door until supplied with some very different and less offensive pass-words.)
But this door opened wide suddenly, regardless equally of insult and danger. ‘Yes?’
There was light inside the house, innocent of all precautions. And whoever it was in the doorway, it wasn’t Basil Cole, drunk or sober—it was a woman. ‘What do you want?’
Audley drew himself up to answer, obviously put off by the woman, and by the coldness and unexpected question.
‘Ah … Good evening, madam—’ Then he seemed to flouder.
The wrong house? thought Tom. But that was impossible!
‘Mr Cole—?’ The great shoulders squared, ambushed but not defeated. ‘Mr Basil Cole—?’ Audley’s voice travelled from doubt to greater certainty. ‘You wouldn’t be by any chance Mr Cole’s daughter-in-law—?’
No answer. But there came another sound from inside the house, as of a squeaky mock-Tudor door opening.
‘What is it, dear?’ The new voice followed the mock-Tudor sound, not so much quavering as uncertain. ‘Who is it, dear?’
‘It’s all right—it’s nothing.’ The younger woman in the doorway threw back her answer harshly, almost dismissively.
‘My name is Audley.’ Now there was nothing soft about Audley’s own voice: being dismissed as ‘nothing’ was plainly not to his taste. ‘David Audley—’
There was a fractional pause. ‘David—?’
‘Margaret!’ Audley threw the name past the younger woman.
‘Mother—’ The woman tried to hit Audley’s reply back at him, and away out into the evening, but she was just too late.
‘David Audley!’ Now there was someone else inside the doorway. ‘Why, David—how very kind of you!’ The someone bobbed up and down behind the pearls-and-twin-set obstacle between them.
‘Mother—’
‘Christine, dear—you remember David Audley?’ The woman behind was not to be denied. ‘Come in, David—you remember Dr Audley, dear!’
‘Mrs Cole—’ Audley offered his hand to the obstacle ‘—actually, I don’t think we’ve ever met. But Basil has told me about you, of course.’
The obstacle winced, but still stood her ground obstinately, and without taking Audley’s hand. ‘Mother, I think it might be better if—’
‘And this is my colleague, Sir Thomas Arkenshaw, of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Mrs Cole.’ Audley swept the unaccepted hand round to indicate Tom, like a general revealing a hitherto masked battery of heavy guns. ‘Who has come all the way from London to see—’
‘Sir Thomas—’ The obstacle had just started to frown incredulously at Tom, but now suddenly cut Audley off ‘—Dr Audley, of course, my mother-in-law has spoken of you, as one of my late father-in-law’s oldest friends—do please forgive my bad manners, Dr Audley—I simply didn’t recognize you—but I’m sure you’ll understand, in the circumstances—in the circumstances—’ The younger Mrs Cole had to draw breath there, but she drew it so quickly that Audley only had time to open his mouth, not to speak, before she plunged on ‘—in the circumstances—my father-in-law’s death was so sudden, I’m sure you’ll make allowances for us—you do understand, don’t you?’
‘Ah … ’ Audley opened his mouth again, but then closed it. And then he nodded. ‘Yes, Mrs Cole. Believe me, I do understand,’
‘Thank you, Dr Audley.‘ The younger Mrs Cole stood aside at last, to allow her mother-in-law to get a clear view of their visitors.
‘David! And Sir Thomas—’ The elderly Mrs Cole peered at Tom through smudged spectacles ‘—it is so good of you both to come down so soon after poor Basil’s dreadful accident.’ She shook her head. ‘I still can’t believe it’s true—that I’m not dreaming some awful nightmare.’
‘Mother—’
‘It’s all right, dear. I’m not going to embarrass you, or disgrace myself.’
‘I didn’t mean that, Mother. I’m here, is what I was going to say.’
‘And so you are, dear—and I’m very grateful.’ The old lady smiled at Tom with her mouth as she blinked at him. ‘Having family is a great comfort, Sir Thomas. And now I know that his old friends and colleagues care too—enough to come all the way from London so quickly … when I know how busy you all are— ’ She transferred the smile to Audley ‘—although there really isn’t anything you can do. My dear daughter-in-law—who is more like a daughter—has been so good. So you see, you’ve really had a wasted journey, David. I’m quite all right.’
‘I’m sure you are, Margaret,’ agreed Audley gently. ‘And you won’t need to worry about anything at our end. Colonel Butler and I will deal with everything there. But … if there is anything—?’ Audley rolled an eye at Tom. ‘I suppose there are formalities here … ’
‘There isn’t anything—‘ The younger Mrs Cole stopped suddenly. ’But if you’d like to take Dr Audley through to the sitting room—the coffee’s just percolated—perhaps you would carry the tray for me, Sir Thomas?‘
There was an edge of command in her voice. But more than that, she was deliberately splitting them. ‘I’d be pleased to, Mrs Cole.’
‘Yes … ’ The old lady blinked at Audley. ‘Or perhaps you’d like something stronger, David?’
‘Coffee will do. Mother.’ The cutting edge flashed. ‘Dr Audley is driving, remember.’
‘Yes, dear … of course. Do please stay, David. And I’ll tell you all about it—no, it’s all right … It’ll be good to talk to someone—’ She gestured Audley onwards ‘—it was all so silly—so unnecessary — ’
‘Yes.’ The younger Mrs Cole watched Audley and her mother-in-law cross the hallway, to disappear through a mock-Tudor doorway. ‘So unnecessary—you can say that again!’ She addressed the closing door with cold venom before turning back to Tom. ‘This way, Sir Thomas.’
Tom followed her meekly in the opposite direction. Audley was about to get it all. But he, also, was about to get something. Only his share might not be so palatable, he suspected.
The woman touched the light-switch as she entered the room. For an instant nothing happened, then an overhead strip-light flashed, and flashed again before coming on, reminding him quite inappropriately of the flashing gunfire in the hills above Beirut.
It was just a kitchen: a rather tatty kitchen, styled in the last-word fashion of 1935, with all the attendant mess of a sudden and unexpected bereavement in the house: unwashed breakfast crockery, and innumerable coffee cups on the draining-board.
The woman turned on him in the harsh light: a handsome, yet utterly unfeminine woman, altogether different from his own dear Willy—Willy-on-the-town now, probably with that damned naval attaché—
Mustn’t think of Willy. Must look innocent. ‘Coffee cups—?’ At least he could smell the coffee percolating.
‘Damn the coffee cups!’ she blazed at him. ‘You aren’t the old swine’s “very kind” coll
eagues, are you? You haven’t any idea of what’s happened—have you?’
‘No. We haven’t.’ It was no good lying to this woman, any more than it was any good lying to Willy. And it was particularly no good because she’d obviously heard Audley’s unwise exhortation to his ‘drunken old bugger’ and her ‘old swine’ through the thinness of the mock-Tudor front door.
‘Who are you?’
He was used to this sort of doubt, because he didn’t look like the ‘Sir Thomas Arkenshaw’ people expected. But it was beginning to become irritating, that disbelief. ‘You are Mrs Cole, are you? Basil Cole’s daughter-in-law?’
‘Yes—’
‘Then I am Sir Thomas Arkenshaw, of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Mrs Cole.’ He reached inside his jacket. ‘And this is my identification.’
She examined his warrant card carefully before returning it to him. So she had guts. But he knew that already.
‘Thank you … Sir Thomas Arkenshaw.‘ She watched him return it to its place. But then she waited.
And she wasn’t scared, thought Tom. So he had to be brutal. ‘How did he die, Mrs Cole?’
‘He fell out of a tree.’
She wasn’t scared. But there was more to it than that. ‘He did what—?’
‘He fell out of a tree.’ She repeated the statement so obstinately that he was all the more certain of its inadequacy.
‘What the devil was he doing up a tree, Mrs Cole?’
‘He was cutting off a branch.’ She grimaced at him. ‘All these old trees around the house … the copper beeches … they were planted back in the 1930s, Sir Thomas. And the fool who planted them stuck them too close to the house.’ She reached to turn the percolator off, on the working-surface beside her. ‘So there was this big one, at the back … He had put a ladder up, to get at it. He should have got a professional tree-feller to do it.’
Tom was unbearably reminded of an Irish joke about ‘tree-fellers’, the punch-line of which he couldn’t remember, except that it had something to do with ‘three fellas’ and ’tree-fellers‘. But that had nothing to do with the fixed expression on her face.
Her nerve broke as he tried to remember the end of the joke. ‘When he cut the limb, it knocked him off the ladder … so it seems.’ She uncoupled the coffee percolator from its plug. ‘At least, that’s what the policeman thought … Apparently, people are always killing themselves, messing about with trees.’
Not good enough! She was a fine-looking woman, high-breasted and with a high IQ to match the lift of the twin-set under the pearls; and she had quite properly defended her mother-in-law from their blundering ignorance in the doorway, when they hadn’t known what was happening.
‘But there is something you can do, Sir Thomas.’ She recognized his doubt, and faced it honestly, breasts and IQ lifting together. ‘I never imagined that I’d ask such a thing. But it seems I can.’
Tom watched her reach towards a line of cups hanging on hooks under an old-fashioned glass-fronted cupboard and then search for matching saucers. ‘Ask what thing, Mrs Cole?’
She looked at him. “There’ll be an inquest, of course.‘
He wondered how much she knew about her father-in-law’s work. Or, if she didn’t know, whether she had guessed. ‘Yes. But with an accident like this, it’ll be pretty much a formality.’
She moistened her upper lip. ‘It may not be, I’m afraid.’
He could legitimately frown now. ‘Are you suggesting it wasn’t an accident, Mrs Cole? But you said . . the policeman said—?’
‘I’m not suggesting anything. But … my father-in-law worked for the Ministry of Defence, I believe—even after his retirement. I am presuming that you have influence. Isn’t that the way the world works?’
Tom frowned again. ‘What do you want, Mrs Cole?’
She stared at him, her mouth primly compressed. ‘It would be better … for my mother-in-law’s sake, it would be better if certain questions weren’t asked at the inquest. It won’t hurt anyone if they aren’t asked—no harm or injustice will be done.’ She drew a deep breath. ‘You see, Sir Thomas, I know exactly how he fell out of the tree—and why.’
Well, that was something! thought Tom gratefully. But then his gratitude evaporated as he realized that what he’d been thinking and what she evidently thought no longer matched at all. And one of them had to be wrong.
5
‘WELL?’ said Audley.
Tom caught a last glimpse of the two Mrs Coles in his rear-view mirror: they were standing together in their doorway in a pool of yellow light. Then the dark mass of the rhododendron bushes erased them.
‘Well?’ Audley stabbed the word at him again. ‘What did she want to say to you which she couldn’t say in front of the widow?’
The digital clock registered 7.30, and Tom’s stomach confirmed its accuracy. But now there were more pressing matters than hunger. ‘She wanted me to nobble the coroner before the inquest.’
‘Indeed?’ Audley pointed. ‘Go back to the village and stop at the pub. I want to make a phone-call or two. There’s a call-box just opposite.’
That was convenient. ‘Okay.’ But a little honest curiosity would be natural. ‘May one ask to whom?’
‘One may. When one has answered my first question more adequately.’
‘The old lady didn’t tell you, then?’
‘That he fell off a ladder, do you mean?’
‘No. That he was drunk when he fell.’
‘Ah … No, she didn’t add that ingenious embellishment.’ Audley shifted slightly. ‘But, since he only fell this morning, just how has that been so quickly established beyond a peradventure?’ Audley sniffed. ‘Although I can now well understand why Mrs Cole junior might not wish such choice circumstantial evidence to be emblazoned in the local paper.’ Another sniff. ‘But don’t tell me! He smelt like a distillery and had an empty bottle of Johnnie Walker stuffed in his pocket—right?’
‘Substantially right. Except it was twelve-year-old Bunnahabhain malt, and it was only half empty. And it was in his garden shed, complete with a half-full tumbler.’ Tom could see the lights of the village ahead. And there was nothing behind. ‘Christine Cole says it’ll make her mother-in-law very unhappy, if that comes out.’
‘Bunkum! The old girl’s used to what’s always been the truth—it will make Mrs Christine Cole, who is teetotal, and the Reverend Brian Cole, her husband, unhappy … although they might equally have taken the view that the poor old devil ought to be held up as a horrible example of the evils of drink in death, just as he had been in life. That would be what I would have expected, actually—hmmm … In fact, I would have bet on it even, now that I come to think about it. Damn!’ Audley thumped the dashboard. ‘Damn!’
‘What?’ The man’s sudden vehemence took Tom by surprise.
‘I was just being mildly ashamed of myself for being flippant. He was a drunken, difficult old devil. But—’ He pointed again ‘—the pub’s just ahead, on the corner—remember?’
‘But what?’ They were back to the awkward turning, and there was still nothing behind. ‘But what?’
Audley ignored him.
He negotiated the corner and swung the car on to the pub forecourt.
Audley still didn’t reply, and made no effort to move. ‘Damn!’
Very well! Tom decided. ‘But that didn’t give anyone the right to kill him, were you going to say?’
Audley turned slowly towards him. ‘Evidence?’
‘I hardly think there’ll be any. Not if it was professionally done. Is that what you think, David?’
Audley opened his door. ‘What I think is that I want to make a couple of phone-calls. Have you got any change?’
‘No.’ Tom knew that his pocket was full of coins. ‘Don’t use the call-box. Go and phone from the pub. They’ll give you change.’
Audley stared at him. ‘Is that minder’s rules?’
‘Just a precaution, nothing more.’
‘Okay. Come in and h
ave a drink. I need one.’
Tom shook his head. ‘I’ll mind the car. Just another precaution—okay?’
He waited for two agonizingly long minutes after Audley had disappeared into the pub before going across to the call-box himself. Only two minutes was a risk, he knew. But more than that opened up a risk later on, depending on how quickly the old man managed to make his own calls. But both risks were now outweighed by a greater one, in any case.
He dialled and fed in plenty of money.
‘Consolidated Slide-Dimmers. Can I help you?’
‘This is Thomas Arkenshaw for Henry Jaggard. And I’m in a public call-box, and I’m in a hurry.’ He had to trust Garrod Harvey’s promise. ‘Put me through.’
‘Putting you through directly, Sir Thomas.’
The only trouble was that Jaggard might well expect him to be phoning from halfway to the West Country, thought Tom. But if Jaggard didn’t ask, then he wouldn’t say.
‘Hullo, Tom!’ Jaggard sounded almost genial. ‘All well?’
Tom changed his mind. ‘I’m in a call-box in Hampshire, just off the A34. And I’ve got maybe three minutes.’
‘What the hell—‘ Jaggard stopped ’Yes?‘
‘Do you know of a man named Cole? Basil Cole? He used to work for one of your predecessors.’
‘What’s—’ Jaggard stopped again. ‘Go on.’
‘Audley wanted to talk to him, about his old comrade. He said Cole was the expert now, not him. Only as of this morning Cole isn’t talking to anyone ever again.’
‘How?’
Well, at least Jaggard was getting the message. ‘He fell off a ladder and broke his neck. Apparently he was drunk at the time.’
‘So—?’ Jaggard evinced neither suprise nor regret. ‘Is that true?’
‘No one saw it happen. Audley doesn’t believe it. And neither do I.’
‘Why not? He was always a drinker.’ Jaggard pressed on. ‘Have you talked to the police? What do they say?’
‘Everyone thinks it was an accident.’ Easy was not going to do it, decided Tom. ‘Christ! We’ve already been shot at! What else do you want?’
For the Good of the State Page 12