A Prospect of Vengeance

by Anthony Price

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ Mitchell smiled at her uneasily. ‘Miss Fielding-ffulke, I presume?’

  ‘Plain “Fielding” will do, Mr Mitchell.’

  ‘Not “plain”, Miss Fielding. And my friends call me Paul. That being my name.’

  ‘Is that so? And we are friends?’

  ‘I would have thought so—yes. I’m undoubtedly your friend, Miss Fielding. And you certainly need friends.’ Mitchell was no longer smiling.

  ‘But I already have friends, Mr Mitchell. Lots of them. And in high places, too.’

  ‘Ah … yes.’ Somehow, as Jenny had become less angry and more confident, Mitchell seemed to have become the opposite. ‘But now you may need one in a low place, perhaps—don’t you think?’

  ‘Meaning you, Mr Mitchell?’

  ‘Meaning me, Miss Fielding.’ Mitchell gave Ian a slightly puzzled glance.

  ‘But I really don’t know you, Mr Mitchell. I don’t know who you are. And I don’t know what you do.’

  Mitchell’s head inclined slightly, as though from weariness. ‘Oh, come on, Miss Fielding—I know I was only away for five minutes. But I can’t believe that you’ve been discussing the menu with Ian here. Or the weather. Or your last joint royalty statement. Or … even your next advance, on the book you’re planning to write.’

  ‘How d’you know we’re planning to write a book?’ Jenny knew she was winning.

  ‘Isn’t that what you do?’ By the same token, Mitchell seemed to think that he was losing. ‘You dig the dirt … or should I say pan the gold—?’

  For the first time, Jenny smiled at Mitchell. But not sweetly. ‘Isn’t that where gold is found—in dirt? But we don’t make the dirt, Mr Mitchell. People like you do that. We merely find the gold—‘ Then she gestured abruptly. ‘—I’m tired of metaphors, though … In answer to your question, Mr Friendly-Mitchell—yes, we are going to write a book. Because that is what we do. So what?’

  ‘Unless someone stops you.’

  ‘Stops us? Who’s going to stop us?’ Jenny seemed delighted that he’d picked up her gauntlet so quickly (Ian felt the metaphor shift from gold-mining to single combat: and that would please her, of course!). ‘Not you—you’re a friend of ours, you said.’

  ‘Not me, no.’ Mitchell nodded towards Ian. ‘He does the writing, doesn’t he? And someone damn nearly wrote “The End” to his book this afternoon, Miss Fielding. Ask him if you don’t believe me.’

  ‘I see.’ She didn’t even look at Ian. ‘Would you like a drink, Mr Mitchell?’

  Thank you.’ Mitchell didn’t relax. ‘I would like a drink—yes.’ He watched her pour a generous glass of Mr Malik’s plonk.

  ‘So you’re just here to frighten us—is that it?’ She thrust the glass at him, spilling it as usual in the process.

  ‘Am I?’ Mitchell drank thirstily, swallowing and then making a face. ‘I think you ought to be frightened.’

  ‘But you don’t mind us writing, though? And publishing—?’

  Mitchell considered the question and the wine together, and neither seemed to his taste. ‘It all depends on what you write, I suppose.’ But he drank, nevertheless.

  ‘Usually we settle for the truth, Mr Mitchell. Our lawyers find that less complicated to defend.’ Jenny watched the man drink again. ‘And we try not to be too economical with it.’

  ‘Then, you’ve been fortunate to find such a lot of it. I’ve always found it somewhat elusive, myself.’

  ‘Like gold?’ Her mock innocence was transparent. ‘Another drink—?’

  ‘Sometimes like fool’s gold, Miss Fielding. And even the real stuff … since we’re into metaphor again … it can be just like a little knowledge—dangerous.’ He nodded towards Ian as he presented his glass. ‘As Ian here surely must have told you—thank you … I can’t really believe that you haven’t told Miss Fielding about our adventures of this afternoon.’ Then he frowned slightly over his glass at Jenny. ‘Or has she had even more traumatic adventures of her own, maybe—?’

  Ian felt himself frowning. The man was fishing, unashamedly. But he was also behaving as though he still didn’t know about Reg Buller. So … who the devil had he been phoning from the box outside, who also didn’t know? Could Intelligence really be so uninformed—so downright incompetent—?

  ‘Only very briefly.’ The voice inside his head giving the obvious answer seemed louder than his own voice.

  ‘Yes. Too briefly.’ Jenny followed him up quickly. ‘So perhaps you would elaborate on what Ian said, Mr Mitchell. As a friend?’

  ‘Ah … ’ Mitchell acknowledged the turning of the tables on him with the ghost of a smile. ‘What did you tell her, Ian? No point in repeating … the truth, eh?’

  ‘He thought you might have saved his life, that’s all.’ Jenny refused to give up her advantage.

  ‘All?’ Mitchell sounded a little pained. That seems quite a lot to me.’

  ‘He wasn’t sure it was what you did, though. Maybe not the truth?’

  ‘Oh, it is—I did. And rather heroically too, I thought. Or, as some might say—foolishly?’ He shook his head at Ian. ‘You didn’t tell her about Father John’s gun—?’

  ‘He did not.’ To her credit Jenny resisted this irresistible red herring. But then weakened. ‘There were two men—?’

  ‘Ah? So he did say more!’ But then Mitchell weakened in turn. ‘Actually, there were three—‘

  Three?’ Since no one had offered him a drink, Ian had been heading for the alcove. But the number stopped him in his tracks.

  Three, including me.’ Mitchell took his nod from Ian back to Jenny. ‘We were all following him. But I was … ’ He shrugged.

  ‘The cleverest?’ Jenny put her knife in with a sweetly inquiring smile.

  ‘Undoubtedly—and fortunately.’ Mitchell considered the proposition seriously for a moment before continuing. ‘But I was actually going to say “better informed”. So I got to Lower Buckland ahead of everyone else, from Rickmansworth. There’s a little back road—‘

  ‘Why were you following him?’ More red herrings bit the dust.

  Mitchell frowned. ‘Why—to see where he was going, Miss Fielding. Why else would I follow him?’ Then he shook his head. ‘I’m sorry—‘

  ‘Sorry?’ Jenny had been about to snap at him. ‘Why?’

  ‘Yes. It was a silly answer.’ He half-smiled at her. ‘ “Why did the chicken cross the road?”—“To get to the other side” … But we’re past the childish Christmas-cracker jokes, I think. And … the chicken had other reasons, of course.’ Mitchell twisted the smile downwards. ‘But the joke was certainly on this chicken, Miss Fielding: I had no idea how dangerous the road was going to be. And that is the truth, believe it or not.’ Then he lifted his empty glass. ‘Could I have a proper drink, please? Like whisky, say?’

  Jenny stared at the man for a moment, almost as though she was seeing him properly for the first time, before taking the glass and turning to the alcove. And Ian felt himself sharing the instant, and also seeing more clearly what he had glimpsed before: that, whatever and whoever he was, Mitchell was also flesh-and-blood, and no superman; and that in Lower Buckland they had both of them come upon their own life-and-death, equally unexpectedly. And that was certainly no joke.

  ‘I think Jenny meant … how did you get on to us?’

  That was a fair question, with a useful answer—if Mitchell was so foolish as to give it. But also, after this afternoon and what he’d just thought, he felt obligated to Mitchell.

  ‘Is that what she meant?’

  ‘What?’ Jenny looked from one to the other suspiciously as she handed him a new glass.

  Thank you.’ Mitchell drank a little of his whisky. ‘Well, if I may answer you with an ancient truth … “when you sup with the Devil, you need a long spoon”—is that right? I can’t remember where it comes from. But your spoon just wasn’t long enough, it seems.’

  Jenny squared up to him. ‘What the hell is that meant to mean, Mr Mitchell?’
r />   Mitchell looked at her for an instant. ‘I mean … at least, I think I mean … that if you ask particular questions … of particular people, about other people—?’ He cocked his own question at Ian. ‘Then someone’s going to start asking questions about you—quite naturally, wouldn’t you think?’ Then he smiled at Jenny. ‘And we don’t want any harm to come to you, of course.’

  The square shoulders lifted, as Jenny took a deep breath.

  ‘We’re talking about Philip Masson—and David Audley, of course.’ Having been offered an olive branch, the Honourable Miss Jennifer Fielding-ffulke hit Mitchell in the face with it. ‘Or is this another Christmas-cracker joke?’

  Ian saw Paul Mitchell flinch as the branch slashed him—just as the Syrian major in Beirut had done, when he’d been expecting gratitude and had received the rough side of her tongue instead; the only difference was that the Major had saved her life, whereas Paul Mitchell had only saved his—

  ‘Jenny! For heaven’s sake!’ He saw Mitchell unflinching. But that didn’t blot out Major Asad’s pilgrim’s progress from incredulity to bitterness, which had soured their comradeship into contempt at the last. ‘Jenny—‘

  ‘No, Ian.’ Jenny shook her head obstinately. ‘Don’t be wet. He’s starting to bull-shit us now.’

  ‘No I’m not.’ Mitchell’s jaw tightened. ‘You asked me why I followed Ian. I followed him because you had been asking questions—and you asked one too many, of the wrong person. And about the wrong person.’

  ‘Meaning Audley?’

  ‘So I drew the short straw. Meaning Ian here. Fortunately.’ Mitchell ignored the latest question. ‘Because it would seem that you actually flushed out someone else from the undergrowth with your questions—someone who really doesn’t want any questions being asked.’ He stared at her for a long moment. ‘I don’t know what the hell you’ve been doing today, Miss Fielding. But, if our experience is anything to go by, you’ve been bloody lucky, anyway. Because you’re still alive.’

  Jenny licked her upper lip, and a trick of the light revealed to Ian that there were beads of sweat above it. Which, since she knew about Reg Buller, was fair enough: whether Mitchell knew as much or not, those last words of his had hit her where it hurt.

  Then she resisted the blow. These other two men—the ones who followed you, Ian—‘ but she wasn’t interested in him: it was Mitchell she was looking at ‘—you know them—?’

  ‘I knew one of them.’ Mitchell frowned at him. ‘God! You really didn’t tell her much, did you?’ He shook his head. ‘Yes, Miss Fielding—Jenny: I knew one of them, from the old days. And that makes us all lucky—and maybe Ian and me luckiest of all. Because Paddy MacManus was a hard man when I knew him … Or, more accurately, knew of him, back in Dublin in the late ‘70s. A real hard man—even too bloody hard for the boyos, in the end, when they started to wonder who he was working for.’ He drew a breath. ‘You see, when you keep a tiger, you’ve got to feed him regularly, because he gets hungry … And when he’s a man-eater, and he gets the taste for it … that’s okay when you’re in a killing-phase, because then you can feed him. But when you want to lower the profile—maybe for political reasons, or just for public relations in America, for financial reasons, say … then you’ve got a problem—‘ Mitchell opened his mouth to continue, but then closed it. ‘Mmm … well, let’s put it like this: when the postman comes up the drive, then he’s delivering letters. And when you start asking questions, then you’re thinking about writing a book—or writing for the newspapers … or both.’ Another breath. ‘But when you see Paddy MacManus striding towards you in the middle of nowhere … then he isn’t writing a book. And it’s not the post he’s delivering. Will that do?’

  Jenny breathed out, as though she’d been holding her breath. ‘He works for—? The IRA?’

  ‘No. At least, not any more.’ Mitchelr shook his head, almost regretfully. ‘He’s privatized himself: he’s strictly a contract man now—that I do know … I’m really rather out of that scene, in so far as I was ever into it.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m more like Ian here—a writer. I arrange other men’s flowers, is what I mostly do now.’ He turned to Ian. ‘A much underrated job, not to say unglamorous. But very necessary. And also agreeably safe.’

  ‘I see.’ Jenny moved quickly, as though to discourage any idea of writers’ solidarity. ‘So you work for Research and Development, now?’

  The unexpected question caught Writer Mitchell unprepared, in the midst of offering Ian false friendly sympathy, freezing his smile. ‘I beg your pardon, Miss Fielding? I work for—?’

  ‘Jack Butler.’ Having achieved her desired effect, Jenny herself brightened into innocent friendliness in her turn. ‘Sir James … but always Jack, of course?’ Even a sweet smile now. ‘Why didn’t you say so straight away, Paul? It would have made things so much easier!’

  Paul Mitchell’s desperately-maintained smile warned Ian to attend to his own expression. But neither of them was looking at him, they were concerned only in each other.

  ‘Such a charming man!’ Jen was the Honourable Jennifer now, claws sheathed in velvet. ‘One of the old school, my father always says—and those enchanting daughters of his … Which is the one who’s with Lovett, Black and Porter—Daddy’s quite adorable lawyers—? Is that Sally? Or Diana—or Jane?’

  In the car Mitchell had wondered what she’d been up to, while they had been having their own adventures—and so had Ian himself; and, latterly, they’d worried more than that, each of them, as they’d progressed agonizingly through the evening traffic into London. But now they both knew.

  ‘Jack Butler was in Korea, of course.’ She nodded knowingly. ‘Daddy never met him—not there … not until long afterwards, when he came back from Cyprus.’ The nod, continued, became conspiratorial. ‘But he says—Daddy says—that his MC on that river there—where was it? But … wherever it was … Daddy says it should have been a VC, anyway.’ She turned the nod into a shake, and then returned the shake to Ian. ‘It was only because Jack didn’t get himself killed there that they gave him a Military Cross, Daddy says.’ She came back to Mitchell. ‘But, of course, you must know that, seeing as you work for him.’

  She had the poor devil on her toasting fork now, thought Ian. Sir Jack Butler might not have been quite as heroic as that, long ago, any more than he was ‘charming’ now, after having been so dull only yesterday (any more, too, than his three daughters might be ‘enchanting’ and—least likely of all—that those legal advisers were ‘adorable’). But, when all her calculated exaggerations had been stripped away, Mitchell remained spiked on the facts which he must know were accurate, and on the real possibility that her father knew Butler, even if she didn’t.

  ‘I do?’ Mitchell had managed to get rid of the wreckage of his original smile. ‘Do I?’

  ‘And, of course, that really answers our question, darling.’ Jenny gave Ian a brief nod. ‘Jack wouldn’t want anything nasty … ’ She trailed off as she turned back to Mitchell. ‘But, then again, it doesn’t quite … does it?’

  In place of the smile, Mitchell’s face was stamped with caution. ‘It doesn’t?’

  ‘Mmmm … ’ Jenny eyed him thoughtfully. ‘You are all rather elusive and mysterious, of course—in R & D … But, then, that’s what you’re paid to be, so one can’t really quarrel with that, can one? Daddy said not, anyway.’ She smiled at Mitchell as she turned the toasting fork, with one side of him nicely browned. ‘I really wanted to talk to Oliver, you see—Jack’s No. 2 … I told you, didn’t I, Ian darling—Oliver St John Latimer?’

  ‘Ahh—‘ With his mouth already open, that was the only sound Ian could manage before she re-engaged Mitchell.

  ‘But positively the only person connected with R & D I could track down was Willy Arkenshaw. And that was more by good luck than good management—in the chocolate shop at Harrods actually, buying a little birthday present for Oliver, would you believe it?’ By the second she was becoming more and more her own most-despised self (
‘The Honourable Jennifer Fielding-ffulke, the well-known author, chatting with Mr Ian Robinson, and Mr Paul Mitchell’, as The Tatler might caption her). ‘And Willy’s only a camp-follower, really … You remember Tom Arkenshaw, Ian darling—who was such a sweetie in ‘85—?’

  ‘Yes.’ This time he was ready for her: the very mention of ‘Arkenshaw’, which was a uniquely-memorable name, had already alerted him. And the occasion itself had been memorable too, when Sir Thomas Arkenshaw, baronet, had descended on the embattled embassy in Beirut like the wrath of God: it had been Sir Thomas who had first made contact with Major Asad … It had been Sir Thomas, thought the Major, who had been instrumental in saving Jenny, not so much from a fate worse than death, as from death itself, which was the only truly-worst fate of all! ‘But—he was R & D—?’ The answer seemed to beg the question.

  ‘No, darling—not then.’ She rounded on Mitchell, almost accusingly. ‘Jack’s only just recruited Tom, hasn’t he, Paul—?’

  ‘What?’ Mitchell wasn’t nearly as ready. ‘Tom—?’

  ‘Oh, come on! Now it’s my turn!’ Jenny had dropped enough names (which were probably all she had; but which she thought ought to be enough, evidently). ‘I’ll bet you were at Willy’s wedding—weren’t you, Paul?’

  ‘Yes?’ Suddenly Mitchell was certain. ‘But you weren’t.’

  ‘No. We were both out of the country at the time, as it happens.’ The sharpness of the reply betrayed what was left unsaid; which was not so much pure Fielding-ffulke snobbishness as Jenny Fielding’s stock-in-trade, which required her to be present, and seen-to-be-present, on such occasions, when useful old contacts could be renewed, and future contacts established. ‘But … never mind Tom. Because Willy Arkenshaw—Willy Groot, as she was … Willy and I go back ages, my dear man. We were finished together, by the celebrated Madame de la Bruyere, the dragon-lady of Geneva, more years ago than either of us would care to admit now.’

  Mitchell wilted slightly under this further avalanche of name-dropping—to Jack and Oliver, add Tom and Willy and Madame de la Bruyere. But then he looked mutinously at Ian. ‘Yes … I suppose you would know Tom Arkenshaw, at that! In Lebanon, that would have been?’