Tomorrow's ghost dda-9

by Anthony Price

  If.

  No!

  Think of Colonel Butler - Major Butler, Captain Butler, Lieutenant Butler, Officer Cadet Butler ... even Private Butler.

  Paul had been right: not quite out of the top drawer, our Jack - she ought to have noticed that, if not noted it (what did it matter where he came from?), because her ear was sharper than Paul's (but maybe it did matter now, remembering how Colonel Butler -

  Captain Butler at the time, it had been - from the wrong side of the tracks had carried off Madeleine Francoise de Latour d'Auray Boucard, of Chateau Chais d'Auray, which sounded a long way beyond the other side of those tracks).

  (Because that had been as out-of-character for the dour Colonel Butler she knew, or thought she knew, as for the Private Butler who had risen from the ranks of his Lancashire regiment, out of the back streets of Blackburn ... somehow inheriting the fortune of General Sir Henry Chesney en route.)

  (There was more in Colonel Butler than met the eye, much more and very different.

  But how much more, and how different?)

  * * *

  'Miss Fitzgibbon?'

  The Adjutant. Widow Fitzgibbon could tell an adjutant when she heard one.

  Wellington and Sandhurst. Or any public school and Sandhurst; Johnnie Kinch, who had danced rather closely with not-yet-Widow Fitzgibbon, had been Eton and Sandhurst and Robbie's adjutant, and that could have been Johnnie Kinch's voice, down to the last inflection.

  'Could I speak to Mr Mitchell, please?' said Frances cautiously.

  'Ah ... jolly good!' Caution met caution. 'Would you hold the line for a tick?'

  For a tick she would hold the line.

  * * *

  (But it wouldn't have been Private Butler, of course - his had been a rifle regiment, or was it a fusilier one? An Army wife ought to have made that important distinction - it would have been Rifleman Butler, or Fusilier Butler ... Except, the truth was, she had never been a very good Army wife, imbued with the proper attitudes, but just a very young one full of learning and politics out of step with her situation, in which there was also more than had met her eye - more and very different.)

  * * *

  'Princess?'

  That was Paul - no doubt about that.

  'Yes?'

  'Where are you phoning from?'

  'Does it matter?'

  'Where-are-you-phoning-from?'

  'A pub in the back of beyond.'

  'The pay phone?'

  'No. The publican's private line. What's your problem?'

  'You got my message. Did Control phone you? Or did you phone Control?'

  'What's the matter, Paul?'

  'For Christ's sake. Princess - answer the question!'

  'I phoned him. For Christ's sake - what's the matter?'

  Silence. Clever Paul was assessing the chances of putting himself on someone else's record. Clever scared Paul.

  'Okay then. Princess. We've got things to talk about.'

  'Like what?'

  'Like ... how you're going to smear Jack Butler, maybe?'

  'What d'you mean - smear?'

  'Have it your own way - "investigate", if you prefer. Just so you keep on digging until something starts to smell. Choose your own euphemism, I don't care.'

  'I seem to recall, last time we met you weren't so pleased with him,' Frances snapped back defensively.

  'Hah! Nor I was. But that was ... let's say professional disagreement, tinged with envy. This is different - and don't tell me you don't know it ... Come on, you tell me you're not digging dirt. If you can do that then okay. But if not...'

  The challenge hit her squarely. That was the way it had seemed to her when Extension 223 had first talked to her, but somehow she'd forgotten her initial reaction.

  And now that he wasn't talking to her - now that his voice wasn't seeping into her ear -

  she could recall how she'd felt -

  'Come on, Frances. Take me seriously just this once - is that what you're doing?'

  Digging dirt - ? Well, crudely put, that was exactly what she was doing, even if she didn't want to find any.

  The voice of Extension 223 had been the voice of Saruman, Tolkien's wicked wizard, who could always daunt or convince the little people.

  'Yes.'

  'Good girl. Because that's what I'm supposed to be doing too - digging dirt. My problem is your problem.'

  A moral Paul? Frances didn't have to test the possibility in order to reject it. A delicate conscience had never hampered him in the past, and it wasn't likely to be spiking him on one of its horns now. Paul's dilemmas were always strictly practical ones.

  'So what? It won't be the first time either of us has dug dirt, Paul.'

  'Very true. That's where the gold is, in the dirt - I know.'

  'Then what's so different now?'

  'Hah! The difference. Princess, is that then we were digging in the national interest.

  What old Jack would call "the defence of the Realm" ... not as part of a bloody palace revolution.'

  'A - what?'

  'You heard me. A bloody-palace-revolution. The Ides of March in the Forum. A quick twist of garrotting wire and a splash in the Golden Horn. The Night of the Long Knives.

  And us in the middle of it, up to the elbows in gore.'

  'Paul ... are you out of your mind?' Frances stared at the white wall in dismay.

  For a moment the phone was silent. 'Paul?'

  'All right ... so I'm exaggerating. We do these things in a more civilised manner, of course ... But if I'm crazy. Princess, then I'm being crazy like a fox, I tell you. And ... you start thinking for yourself, for God's sake. Have you ever taken part in anything as whacky as this before?'

  Frances started thinking.

  'Whacky' was a typical Paul word, but it wasn't too far off the mark. There had been something decidedly odd about this operation from the start, she had been telling herself that all along.

  'Who briefed you, Frances?' He paused only for half a second. 'Top brass? And off the record?'

  'Yes.' Exercise caution. And that applied to her dealings with Paul as well, because if there really was a major security shake-up in progress - 'palace revolution' was also typical Paul - then two things were certain: there would be rival factions jockeying for power, and Paul Mitchell intended to be on the winning side, regardless of the interests of Frances Fitzgibbon, never mind Colonel Butler. 'But I wasn't told to smear Colonel Butler, Paul.'

  'Don't be naive, Princess. Whose side are you on?'

  He was being unusually direct or exceptionally devious, decided Frances. But which?

  'My side. Whose side are you on, Paul dear?'

  'Hah! I deserved that!' He chuckled at his own self-knowledge. 'Okay, Frances dear -

  Princess mine - my off-the-record top brass set me to inquire gently into two small areas of doubt about our Jack's warlike career ... gently and discreetly, but I'd better get the required answer if I value my civil service pension bien entendu. Namely, if he was so bloody good at his job, why was his promotion so slow? And was the late glamorous Madame Butler the pillar of wifely chastity - or wifely virtue - that the official records suggest? To which I strongly suspect the required answers are He wasn't really any good, so he wasn't promoted, and He wasn't really any good because Madame B wasn't so virtuous while he was away at the wars, and he found out and that screwed him up. Right?'

  Frances stared at the white wall. 'Damn you, Paul -'

  'I said required - hold on. Princess - I said required. I didn't say "correct". Those are the answers they want me to come up with, not the answers I may come up with.'

  'Damn you! I haven't started yet!'

  'Well, hard luck! You wanted to know which side I'm on, and I'm telling you.

  Though it's not easy on this bloody instrument - David Audley's right: the telephone is the devil's device, and God rot Graham Alexander Bell or Thomas Alva Edison, or whoever. You may be a female Bachelor of Arts in English Literature, Princess, but I'm a Mas
ter of Arts in History, where facts still count for something ... and I'm not getting the right answers. Which worries me more than somewhat.'

  'I'm sorry to hear that, Paul.' Beneath the froth he did sound worried, and that purged her anger. 'I really am.'

  'So you should be. Because you should be worried for yourself too, my girl. And worried on two counts, also. Or at least two.'

  'And what are they?'

  'Oh, you can laugh.' He didn't sound his casual self, and that equally purged any shred of humour from their situation. 'It's Jack Butler's promotion we're supposed to be superintending. Has it occurred to you ... that might be true?'

  'I assumed it was. Isn't that why it's important?'

  'Too true. But I think I know what the promotion is.'

  The Ring of Power, thought Frances - and then backed off from the image. Whatever power Colonel Butler was in line for, it had nothing to do with fairyland, or Middle Earth, or Cloudcuckooland; it was life-and-death power here on earth, her earth.

  'And what promotion is that, then?'

  'I'm not telling you - on this line. Four hours from now, where will you be, Frances?

  We have to talk, you and I.'

  He really believed his 'palace revolution' theory, she believed that now. And, allowing for paranoia being an occupational hazard of their profession, she was beginning to believe in his belief.

  'I'll be at Colonel Butler's home this afternoon - and this evening, I hope.'

  'Why there, for God's sake?'

  'I have some answers to get, like you, Paul.'

  'Christ! I'm dim, aren't I! Madame Butler, I presume?' He breathed out. 'They're really pushing it, aren't they!'

  'Has it occurred to you that they could be right?' she pushed him deliberately, even though she knew the answer: Paul's distinction between right and wrong was always strictly factual, not ethical. Neither cheating nor any other morality came into it.

  'You better believe that I have. Princess. That's the main thing that worries me. And that's why I need to see you. We have to talk!'

  He wasn't going to go further on his own account. But he might go further on hers.

  'So what's the second thing that should worry me? .You didn't actually get round to telling me.'

  'Nor I did ...' He left the answer hanging in the air for a moment. 'They gave you carte blanche for the job, did they? They said you're the boss?'

  'Yes.'

  'Me too. So who was the first person you wanted to talk to about Jack Butler?'

  David Audley -

  Paul hardly waited for an answer. 'David Audley, of course. Because he's known Jack from way back - even before that file started, if my scuttlebut is correct ... Only carte blanche doesn't include David Audley, does it? Right? Or Hugh Roskill?'

  Now he was pushing her.

  'I'll bet you tried, Frances - because you've got some pull with Hugh Roskill from your happy little secretarial days ... And did they tell you that your handsome Wing Commander just happens to have winged off somewhere on business, where you can't pick his brains - did they tell you that?'

  She hadn't even got as far as a refusal on Hugh, thought Frances: she hadn't even understood what she was into at that stage. 'So what?'

  'Roskill doesn't matter much, but David Audley does - did you know that Jack Butler is godfather to David's daughter, the apple of his eye?'

  'Yes - '

  'Of course, David makes no secret of it. And I bet Jack Butler's a damn good godfather too. He's a great one for anniversaries, so he'd never forget a birthday - and he probably checks on the poor kid's catechism too, I shouldn't wonder.'

  'Get to the point, Paul.'

  'Don't be dim, Frances - that is the point. Among other things David Audley is almost certainly the greatest living authority on the life and times of Jack Butler.'

  'But also a friend of his.'

  'After a fashion. It's more of a love-hate relationship, actually - old Jack doesn't altogether approve of some of David's professional attitudes, David's too much of a maverick for him ... But even if I grant you friendship - and admiration - it wouldn't make a jot of difference if it came to a security crunch. Because under the skin our David is a real hard bastard - which you should know as well as anyone, Frances, having seen him in action.'

  That, undeniably, was true, thought Frances. In professional matters David was not, decidedly not, a follower of the Marquess of Queensberry Rules.

  'Hell, Princess - ' Paul's voice was suddenly edged with anger ' - doesn't it strike you as bad medicine that neither Hugh nor David are here just when we need them most?

  And we can't even damn well talk to them either - and there are such things as communications satellites ... David's only in the embassy at Washington, not on Mars -

  we could have him back here in the flesh by Concorde for tea-time, taxi-time included.

  But... neither of them - you can call that bad management, if you like. Or bad luck. Or coincidence. But if you do, you'd better remember also what David taught us about them, Frances.'

  Bad luck is what the Other Side wishes on you.

  Coincidence is very often a damned liar.

  And bad management -

  Then Frances knew exactly what Paul was up to, why he was going to so much trouble to spell everything out, and - above all - what he intended her to do about it.

  * * *

  (She could recall not only the words, but the occasion; David, fairly tanked-up after dinner, and James Cable and Paul and herself, all relaxing after a hard day's work ... and Paul, very carefully not tanked-up at all, playing his favourite game of capping David's quotations, or anticipating them, and gently needling him.) ('And bad management,' David had said, 'is when you find yourself taking unnecessary risks.')

  ('And good management,' Paul had said, 'is presumably when you find someone else to take those risks?')

  * * *

  'All right, Paul, I take your point. We do have to talk.' She thought hard for a moment. 'You better make it after dark, quite late ... and by the back way, if there is one.

  And if there are any complications I'll park my car pointing out of the driveway.'

  'There's a careful princess, now! And just as well too, maybe ... if your friend Hugo is right.'

  'My friend - who?'

  'Hugo. Hugo Crowe.'

  'Oh - Professor Crowe, you mean. He's not my friend, I've only met him once.'

  'Well, he regards himself as your friend. He says you are a darling - even a Grace Darling, combining heroism with beauty. Just another passing conquest of yours.

  Princess... but obviously you've stopped counting them - fairy princesses are traditionally cruel, of course.'

  He was pleased with himself now that she had taken his point.

  'If he's right? How should he be right?' Frances frowned. 'Right about what?'

  'You told him a story - about a blind prince? A fairy story, presumably.'

  The skin between her shoulder-blades crawled suddenly. 'Yes. Yes?'

  'He says you shouldn't have told it. But particularly he says you mustn't point at anyone. And on no account must you kiss the third prince - you're to choose one of the other two. And don't ask me what all that means, because I don't know, and he wouldn't tell me. For my own good, that was, he said. A very superstitious fellow, your friend Hugo ... though no one has a better right to be, I suppose.'

  Frances closed her eyes. 'I'm not with you at all, Paul. Why is - why has he the right to be superstitious?'

  'You haven't done your homework. He's the author of The Psychology of Superstition...

  why people won't walk under ladders, and all that stuff. Huh! But please don't worry about me, Frances dear - you can point at me any time, I'm not superstitious. And you can kiss me too, I'm not blind - it'll be a pleasure, I assure you... Maybe tonight, and make an honest princess of you.' A kiss sounded down the line. 'Watch out for yourself, Frances - save all your kisses for me.'

  CHAPTER EIGHT

&
nbsp; On the outskirts of Colonel Butler's village there was a big new garage, with a showroom full of gleaming Japanese cars and an unbeatable offer on its petrol.

  Frances pulled on to the forecourt, just short of the pumps, and sat thinking for a moment, hypnotised by the empty phone box beyond the car-wash at the far end of the buildings.

  All she had to do was to go to that box and lift the phone and dial the number and put the money in, and then say a few words. It would be just another phone call, and even if the Mossad line at the Saracen's Head was no longer secure it would be untraceable if she was quick.

  Except it wouldn't be just another call, because once she'd made it she'd be more than halfway committed to one side of Paul's palace revolution and not to the side with the better odds at the moment. Not even, come to that, to the side that had the right on it for certain, notwithstanding her instinct - and William Ewart Hedges' blessing.

  A tousle-headed young man came out of the petrol kiosk and stood staring towards her.

  Paul, on the other hand, was hedging his bets with a vengeance. Though (to be fair to him) he'd gone a lot further than she might have expected him to go, with his ambitions, and with the promises of advancement they would have made to him, like those which had been made to her in return for results.

  The young man pointed towards her, and then to the pumps.

  Mustn't point at anyone.

  What Paul hadn't done, and what he wasn't going to do (because of those ambitions), or at least not yet, until he was sure which way the tide was flowing (also because of those ambitions), was to risk disobeying a direct order.

  (Good management is finding someone else to take the risks, namely, Mrs Frances Fitzgibbon.)

  She rolled the car forward to the five-star pump.

  The young man looked at her, and then the car, and then at the pump. And finally back at her. He was young and beautiful, and he wore an incredibly patched pair of jeans which appeared to have been poured on him, and a dark blue sweat-shirt bearing the legend 'Oxford University'.

  Frances looked down at the fuel gauge: it had registered under half-full when Paul had turned over the car to her yesterday, a long way north, but it was still not quite on empty. It was that sort of car.