Yet it would be a pity, a great pity, not to take advantage of Daniel McLachlan’s unexpected appearance. Apart from what the young man might know about Neil Smith, his acquaintanceship would give substance to Butler’s own false identity at Castleshields House in much the same way as the enemy had obviously intended it to do for Smith at the College.
Indeed, he might even be more useful than that if the scornful reference to Smith’s left-wing politics meant anything. But he needed to know more about the lad before that could be considered seriously.
“Hell!” exclaimed McLachlan. “Here’s Polly and I haven’t got the ruddy drinks.”
Butler followed his glance gratefully. She was smiling again now, but her face had a scrubbed, make-up free look.
“Made a fool of myself, haven’t I!” she apologised breathlessly. “I’ve had a good weep in the loo, too—and I promise not to do that again.” She caught sight of McLachlan attempting to catch the barmaid’s eye. “Hey, Dan—don’t bother about those drinks. It’s time I was going home for lunch, and if I have another beer I’ll have had my calorie quota, darn it.”
McLachlan detached himself from the bar. “I’ll stand you lunch, Polly. Just this once.”
“Or you can lunch with me, Miss Epton,” said Butler quickly. “We’ve—hmm—still quite a lot to discuss, remember.”
“You can’t afford it, Dan. And thanks, Colonel Butler, but I’d rather eat at home—I’ve got the rest of the afternoon off.”
“In fact you can both come back with me and eat pounds of rabbit food. And I’ll make you both omelettes—it’ll do you good.”
McLachlan looked uncertainly at Butler. Then he shrugged. “I suppose we could do worse,” he said ungallantly.
Butler drummed impatiently on the top of the coin box and watched McLachlan through the grimy glass of the phone box. It had been a stroke of luck to find an unvandalised telephone complete with directory, but then the switchboard at King’s had at first obstinately refused to concede that anything could be more important than the Master’s untroubled enjoyment of his lunch, and in the end had moved only after the direst threats Butler could summon from his imagination.
“Colonel Butler?”
The prim voice did not appear to have room in it for irritation.
“I’m sorry to have to disturb you again so soon, Sir Geoffrey.”
“Once more, not at all, Colonel. You are on duty and I don’t doubt it is necessary—salus populi suprema est lex— and I am becoming accustomed to disturbance, anyway. I trust Miss Epton kept her appointment?”
“She did. But we met another of your—ah—students. A fair-haired young fellow named McLachlan. Do you know him?”
“Yes, I do.” There was no hesitation in the reply. “Daniel McLachlan. A scholar of the college in his third year—he takes schools this summer. A mere formality in his case, though.”
“A formality?”
“Short of some unforeseen abberration, yes—he’s very bright indeed. One of the three best brains we have in college at this moment. The other two are chemists.”
The primness was momentarily accentuated, as though chemistry was some form of physical handicap.
“He was a friend of Neil Smith’s.”
“Indeed?”
“You didn’t know?”
“They weren’t in the same year.” The Master shrugged at him down the line. “Smith was a gregarious fellow, of course. But their politics were poles apart.”
“McLachlan’s a Tory, you mean? I had the impression he was a Rhodesian liberal.”
“He doesn’t love apartheid, that’s true. But he’s a politically cautious young man. I think that is because he has been provisionally accepted by the Civil Service, and he’s very ambitious. Very ambitious. In fact he should go far, unless … “ Sir Geoffrey trailed off.
It was easy to see in which direction that “unless” pointed.
“Unless he found something in his pocket that he hadn’t put there himself?” Butler completed the sentence.
“Y—es. That’s about the size of it. A prime target, McLachlan might be. I had my doubts about letting him go to Castleshields this vacation.”
“What’s wrong with Castleshields?”
“Nothing I can put my finger on. Except that Smith was there, of course. But I’m uneasy about it. And young McLachlan doesn’t need any polishing, in any case.”
“But you’re letting him go.”
“He has no home in England, and no relatives over here. Castleshields is probably safer than London, in any case.”
“He doesn’t sound the sort of man to get involved in trouble.”
“He isn’t. He’s ambitious, as I’ve said—he has a remarkably pragmatic mind for one so young. He knows what he wants and he’s not inclined to make artificial difficulties for himself. But then in some ways he’s more experienced than the usual run of undergraduates—and I fancy he may not be so conservative when he reaches a position of power.”
“In what respect is he more experienced?”
“As you’ve discovered—he lived in Rhodesia for some years. Left shortly after UDI, with which he very decidedly doesn’t agree, so I gather. His father is still there and there’s no great love lost between them, which is to young McLachlan’s credit.”
“You know the father?”
“I was instrumental in having him sent down from the college just after the war—for invincible idleness, among other things. Fortunately the son doesn’t in the least take after the father. In fact I’d esteem it a favour if you could keep an eye on him, just in case. He’s very much worth protecting.”
Well, maybe. But maybe if the brighter-than-bright Daniel McLachlan needed to be wet-nursed, then he wasn’t fit to be one of tomorrow’s bosses. No one had ever protected Butler from the working of natural selection, that was for sure. Except that this whole business was a glorified wet-nursing operation.
Butler chewed his lip. There was something funny about that: he didn’t see Audley as a wet-nurse. On the other hand it could be that Audley was simply doing a favour for his influential university friends. With Audley there was usually a personal angle somewhere.
A sharp tapping on the window glass of the phone box roused him. McLachlan was gesturing wordlessly towards a decrepit-looking Volkswagen at the road’s edge. So now there was no time to even consider that unanswerable question about him: how far can he be trusted ? And no time, damn it, to pursue the status of Castleshields House either.
“Thank you, Master.” But those questions could be answered by the Department’s researchers, anyway. “I’ll try not to bother you again.”
“It is no bother—I shall be in your debt if you can resolve this business, Colonel Butler. Just make sure no harm comes to McLachlan.” The dry voice paused. “My next meal commences at 7.30, incidentally … “
McLachlan was holding the door of the Volkswagen open for him.
“If you’d care to sit in the back, sir—it’s no more uncomfortable than the front, but a lot less dangerous. I’m used to Polly’s driving, but she’d have you through the windscreen the first time she noticed any obstacle in her way.”
Butler hunched himself up and stepped gingerly into the little car. What room there was was further reduced by the quantity of objects already stowed within, ranging from an immense sheepskin jacket to a bulging box of groceries.
“Daniel McLachlan, that’s a rotten slander!” Polly Epton’s spirit had obviously recharged itself. “I have never hit anything in my life. I can’t understand why you’ve become so nervous all of a sudden.”
“Nothing sudden about it,” replied McLachlan, contorting himself into the front seat. “It’s the number of things you’ve almost hit that frightens me. You can sink a ship with near-misses, you know.”
“Oh—bosh!”
“Not bosh. You drive too fast, that’s all—hold on, sir!”
The force of gravity pressed Butler back as the little car took off. There wa
s something odd about the suspension, but there was evidently nothing wrong with the engine that howled just behind the small of his back. Wedged between the sheepskin coat and the groceries, with mud-flecked windows on each side of him, he felt blind and powerless. All he could see was McLachlan’s powerful shoulders and the coarse, tight curls at the back of the neck—the young man’s fairness was the variety that often went with fierce ginger whiskers.
He levered himself forward, grasping the front seats, and peered at the road ahead. It was hard to gauge the car’s speed, but he had the impression that McLachlan hadn’t exaggerated much.
“Where are we going?”
“Polly’s got a cottage at Millford. Not far, thank God!”
“From Millford Steeple to Carfax Tower
The Devil can run in half an hour”
Polly recited in a broad Oxfordshire accent. “There used to be a famous running race on May Day. That’s as the crow flies. It won’t take us half the time.”
“More’s the pity,” said McLachlan nervously. “For heaven’s sake, Polly—cool it a bit.”
“Hah—hmm !” Butler growled. The nervousness was catching. “No need to hurry, Miss Epton. Tell me about Castleshields House.”
“Hideous old place,” said Polly, slowing down perceptibly. “And it was falling down when Uncle John had his bright idea.”
“Uncle John?”
“Dr Gracey, vice-chancellor of Cumbria,” McLachlan cut in. “Gracey and Young Hob are Polly’s two godfathers. They hatched up this plan to restore Castleshields and provide a nice, isolated prison for likely lads during the vacations—they don’t hold with us earning an honest penny during the vacations.”
“You mean it’s compulsory?”
“Oh, no—they couldn’t force us. But they’re a crafty pair, Gracey particularly. For a start it’s free—which is useful with the starvation grants we get. And they lay on some really high-powered lecturers. And the grub’s bloody good, Gracey being a proper wine-and-food man. So they don’t have to twist anyone’s arm, I can tell you!”
“And Daddy runs the place,” said Polly. “We’ve still got the west wing for the family, but all centrally-heated now, and the rain doesn’t come in through the roof. So everyone’s happy.”
Understandably, too, thought Butler waspishly. The old boys’ network had functioned once more—at the taxpayer’s expense.
“It isn’t a new idea, actually,” went on McLachlan, lurching with the car as Polly turned it sharply down a minor road. “They used to do the same sort of thing in Victorian times— sort of academic house-parties. Slow up, Polly. They did it at Dick’s—Old Hob used to—“
“Why Dick’s? Who is Dick?”
“Who was, you mean. Our Sovereign and Stupid Lord King Richard II, our illustrious founder. We’re supposed to spend half our time saying perpetual masses for the souls of his equally stupid grandfather Edward II and for his queer friend Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford—for God’s sake, Polly, slow up! This little railway bridge is a deathtrap—“
There was a sharp crack and the whole windscreen went opaque. The little car lurched and bucked, the tyres beginning to slither on the loose gravel on the edge of the road.
“Hold her steady!” McLachlan shouted, instantly swinging his fist and whole left forearm into the window in a blur of action, shattering the glass and sweeping it outwards in thousands of fragments. The brick parapet flashed into view, horribly close. “Don’t brake—hold her steady, Polly—“
There was a clang on the nearside, turning into a rending metal screech as the car shuddered along the brickwork. Then the bricks were gone like a dream and the car was bumping and tipping to the left—tipping—and crashing into branches—
Everything stopped suddenly, with a last convulsive jerk that rammed Butler forward against the front seats. There was a single long moment of incongruous silence which was broken by the clatter of a whole section of the fragmented windscreen on to the bonnet.
Butler drew a deep breath and sat back thankfully in a confusion of tea packets, cornflakes and lettuce leaves. He had been lucky for the second time in two days.
“The bastard, the bastard,” McLachlan was muttering thickly, “—the mad, blerrie bliksem!”
He wrenched fiercely at the car door, found that the hedge held it firmly closed, and turned savagely on Polly, who sat gulping air. “Get out, Polly—get out—move!”
“Hold on, McLachlan,” snapped Butler. The boy had kept his nerve admirably at the moment of danger—indeed, it had been his reflex action which had saved them from disaster. But now he was behaving badly. “We’re quite safe now.”
“Safe!” McLachlan spat the word angrily, reaching over Polly to get at the door handle. “Get out, Polly—the mad bastard—get out—“
He practically pushed the shaking girl out of the car, and wriggled furiously after her.
“McLachlan !” Butler commanded. “Get hold of yourself.”
“It’s him I’m going to get hold of, Colonel—by God I am!”
“Him—?”
“The bastard with an air rifle on the edge of the cutting.” McLachlan started to move off towards the bridge, back the way they’d come. “I’ll teach him to use us for target practice.”
“McLachlan—stop!” Butler pushed the seat forward frantically and stumbled out of the car, scattering groceries left and right. Five minutes earlier he had disdainfully agreed to watch over this angry boy, and now, damn it—it was Eden Hall all over again: he’d been slow as well as careless this time, though.
“McLachlan—get down!”
The young man was standing at the beginning of the brick parapet, searching the far side of the railway cutting.
“Get down!”
He turned back towards Butler, an angry, puzzled frown on his face. “What the hell— ?”
Another crack, sharper and louder, cut off the question. A bullet chipped the brickwork just ahead of McLachlan and whined away over their heads. Butler swept an arm round him and dragged him down into the shelter of the curving end of the parapet.
A .22 rifle, thought Butler: sufficient for the job as it had been planned, and still sufficiently lethal.
But the rifleman had missed his chance and he would now know that there were two men between him and the girl. Nor could he dare assume the men were unarmed; the bridge and cutting that divided them protected each side equally from direct attack.
“What the hell’s going on?” McLachlan whispered.
“I would have thought that was obvious enough,” Butler murmured crossly. “Just keep your head down.”
“But—“
“Ssh!” Butler looked around for inspiration. “You don’t think he missed you by accident? You’re just surplus to requirements—if it’d been Miss Epton or me it would have been very different. But don’t try your luck twice.”
They were safe enough where they were. It might even be possible to creep back to the car unseen, for the road was embanked up to the bridge and if they kept down and on the road they would probably be out of the rifleman’s sight. But he couldn’t risk the skin of Sir Geoffrey Hobson’s most promising scholar on that probability, and equally he couldn’t leave him here alone.
Besides, it had been true about that aimed-off shot most likely, so McLachlan had unwittingly saved his skin not once, but twice in the space of so many minutes …
“Look here—“ he tried to sound reassuring—“we’re all right here. He’s not going to try and cross the bridge while we’re here—“
“Why not? He’s got the ruddy gun!”
“But he doesn’t know that we haven’t got one.”
McLachlan frowned at him. “What would we be doing with a gun? We’re not—“ He stopped abruptly, staring in dismay at Butler. “Oh, my God!” he whispered.” You were expecting something.”
“Not expecting it, no.”
“But you know what’s happening.”
“I’ve got a pretty shrewd idea.�
�
“I’ll bet you have!” McLachlan said bitterly. “And who’s he after—you or Polly?”
“Could be either—or both. But in this case more likely just Polly.”
“Poor old Polly!” McLachlan looked down the road towards the Volkswagen, which lay half off the grass verge with its nose buried in the hedgerow, like some squat animal which had gone rooting for shoots and had found something so juicy that it was no longer interested in its surroundings. The girl was leaning against it, staring white-faced towards them.
McLachlan raised his hand to wave to her. The back of it was smeared with blood from a long, jagged gash along the knuckles.
“Hadn’t we better do something about her?” Before Butler could answer the sound of an engine echoed across the bridge to them. McLachlan lent on his elbow and craned his neck round the edge of the parapet. Then he turned back to Butler with a faint grin on his lips.
“Well, I never imagined an Oxford bus would come to my rescue in a tight corner,” he murmured. “But I think this is one we really ought to catch, Colonel, sir.”
X
BUTLER BENT DOWN and peered through the grubby little window of the pantry, still listening with half an ear to the conversation coming from the kitchen behind him.
“—If only British cars had American windscreens—hold still, Dan—I want to make sure there’s no glass in the wound —this wouldn’t have happened.”
The back yard of Polly’s cottage was hemmed in by the walls of the neighbouring houses, leaving no room for an inefficient assassin to finish the job from that direction.
“It was a German car, actually,” McLachlan said mildly. “And I thought it stood up to that bridge pretty well. Anyway, I shall live—ouch!”
“Baby. Now go and hold it under the tap and let the water clean it.”
The front of the cottage overlooked the Village Green. There were enough people dawdling on it to discourage assassins there too.
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