The Old Vengeful

by Anthony Price

  The car was accelerating fast. Elizabeth could see the red reflectors of the bend in the distance.

  “I can’t find the catch,” said Elizabeth hoarsely.

  “I’ll find it for you—“ he took one hand off the wheel.

  Faster—the rain slashed down on to the screen—

  “No—I’ve got it now!” said Elizabeth.

  “Fine. Sweet dreams, Miss Loftus, then.”

  There were no sweet dreams, only nightmares in which the red reflectors burned like eyes, increasing in numbers as the car entered the bend.

  Elizabeth released Aske’s safety-belt and twisted the wheel into the red eyes.

  EPILOGUE

  The fate of the hero’s daughter

  THE CAR DOOR slammed outside, but Mitchell discovered that he didn’t want to get up now, after having listened so attentively for so long for any slightest distant noise which might herald Audley’s return: somewhere along the line of time marked by the ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner he had ceased to expect good news and had started to fear the worst, his unwillingness told him.

  And the fear only took hold of him more strongly as he glanced down at the papers on the desk in front of him: his own hand-written account of the untimely passing of Patrick Lawrence Donaghue, William Harold Fullick and Julian Alexander Carrell Oakenshaw, each of whom had died by the hand which had wielded the pen; and, beside it, impeccably-typed, Del Andrew’s report on the three dead men—Copies to the Prime Minister’s Office (restricted); the Home Secretary (restricted); the Director of Public Prosecutions (restricted); The Acting-Director, DI/R & D (Col.J. Butler, CBE, MC).

  Everything was relative to the occasion, he thought. For the past three days he had been worried sick about all this, and it had been in the back of his mind, warping his judgement and disturbing his concentration the whole time except for that one hour with Elizabeth, when he had exchanged need for need.

  But now the bill for that one hour had been delivered, and he couldn’t pay it: he didn’t give a damn any more for the three men he’d killed, yet the thought of Elizabeth, whom he had failed to preserve, was a cure for the original sickness more expensive and painful than he could endure.

  It was no good: he had to make himself get up—he couldn’t put it off any longer. What was coming, was coming whether he wanted to hear it or not.

  He got up, and walked to the door. He felt stiff with sitting, and very tired, and cold inside and out—the house itself was cold now, he could feel the chill of it on his cheeks and on the tip of his nose.

  Not again, he prayed to himself, not again.

  The sound of the door seemed unnaturally loud, as all sounds always did in the small hours. But it wasn’t the only one loose in the Old House; there were other noises night-walking in it now.

  Not Elizabeth—Frances he could accept, had learned to accept—but not Elizabeth too, for Christ’s sake!

  A board creaked loudly, and he saw Faith Audley halfway down the staircase, enveloped in a red velvet dressing-gown with a fur collar, her pale hair unbound, like a ghost out of the Old House’s past. Then the kitchen door at the end of the passage ahead of him banged open, and Audley came through, and he was nothing like any sort of ghost: rain glistened on his face and plastered down his hair, and he carried a bulging brief-case under one arm and an untidily unfurled umbrella under the other.

  “What the hell’s going on, David?” said Mitchell.

  Audley blinked vaguely at him. “You may well ask! There’s a gutter blocked above the kitchen door, and I got a face-full of water as I came in, and I can’t see a thing!”

  Faith Audley swept down the last of the stairs and relieved her husband of his burdens, setting them down at his feet.

  “We’ve been very worried, David,” she said tightly.

  “Oh?” Audley produced a huge silk handkerchief and began to dry off the lenses of his spectacles. “I should have phoned, of course— yes.” He held up the spectacles to the light. “But I’m here now.”

  Faith caught Mitchell’s eye. “Not worried about you—about Elizabeth. And Mr Aske.”

  “About Elizabeth?” Audley brought the spectacles down slightly, so that for an instant he was observing Mitchell through them. “What do you know about Elizabeth?”

  “We don’t know anything about her.” Mitchell heard the sound of desperation, rather than righteous anger, in his voice. “Where is she, damn it?”

  “But you’re worried about her?” Audley hooked the spectacles over his ears with maddening clumsiness. “Why?”

  There was no point in letting anger take over from desperation. “When I got back from London she’d gone—they’d both gone. And you’d gone too …” Steady. “I told Aske quite specifically that he wasn’t to let her out of the house.”

  “And I told Paul that you were worried when you left,” said Faith.

  Audley cast a reproachful look at his wife, then came back to Mitchell. “So what did you do?”

  “I phoned the Duty Officer, of course.” Steady!

  “And what did he say?”

  To hell with steadiness! “Damn it, David—you know what he said! Where the hell is she? What’s happened?”

  Audley’s face became obstinate. “What did the Duty Officer say?”

  This time Mitchell refused to catch Faith’s eye. “The first time he said there was an all-points alarm out on her, and I was told to sit tight. And the second time he referred me to you, fairly politely … And the third time he told me to get the hell off the line, he was busy—okay?”

  “Okay. So he told you—to go to bed, and mind your own business!” Audley was adamantine. “So why aren’t you in bed minding it?”

  “Ff—Elizabeth is my business!” Is or was? he heard himself cry out in pain “Where is she?”

  Faith Audley stirred, tossing back the pale mane of her hair. “Where is she, David?”

  Audley dropped Mitchell instantly, as though he didn’t matter, frowning and pointing at his wife accusingly. “Come on, love—we have a treaty on this—this is business—“

  “But she was a guest in my house, David.” Obstinacy slammed head-on against obstinacy. “And she wasn’t—isn’t—one of your people … So I have a right to know—I don’t care what lies you tell Paul here—I want to know—right?”

  There was some ancient quarrel here—something between them that Mitchell couldn’t even guess at, but cared about less.

  “David—“

  “No, Paul!” Faith cut him off. “Leave this to me … David—I will have an answer.”

  “All right, love.” Audley caved in directly, and so quickly that he took Mitchell by surprise. “She’s alive. And she’s safe. My word on it.”

  “Thank you, David.” This time Faith Audley didn’t catch Mitchell’s eye, she stared directly at him as though to confirm the truth of her husband’s given word. “And now I’ll go back to bed again.” She gave them both a sudden tired smile, not of understanding, but of relief. “If you two have things to discuss, the study will be warmer than out here. But don’t stay up too long—you both look exhausted.”

  As Mitchell followed Audley the words began to sink in: alive and safe—alive and safe—alive and safe. He was aware that they were incomplete words, and that they might have other implications. But for that moment they were all he could handle—alive and safe was enough for this moment, that was all.

  “What’s all that on the desk?” said Audley. He took three steps and peered down at the papers. “What on earth are you bothering with this for?” He frowned accusingly at Mitchell. “You should have been watching over Elizabeth Loftus—not messing with this!”

  Mitchell came back to reality. “There was a message waiting for me at Heathrow when our plane landed.”

  “About this? From whom?”

  “From Del Andrew. Or … not exactly a message—he just tipped me off that CI 6 was sniffing around, and I’d better get my report into the pipeline before they ma
de it official.”

  “Damnation!” Audley smote his forehead. “That makes two mistakes I’ve made—three, counting tonight—“ he glanced at the grandfather clock “—or this morning … God, I’m slipping!”

  “What mistakes?”

  “Your Elizabeth Loftus, for one.” Audley looked at Mitchell keenly. “You like her, do you? That’s the reason for this inquisition, is it?”

  Steady again. “I think she’s quite a woman—if you must know, David…Yes—I like her.”

  “Yes.” The look became rueful. “My dear wife told me as much a couple of nights back—she knew, and I couldn’t see it! I said she wasn’t your type, and she isn’t … But she said I’d better watch out—that you’d get awkward if things started to go wrong.”

  Curiosity. “And that was your first mistake?”

  “That was my third mistake. My first was not to realise quite how bright she really was—is, thank God!” He drew a deep breath. “It never occurred to me that she’d put the whole thing together—or half the thing … and the most dangerous half, too! God Almighty!” He shook his head.

  Humiliation. What had Elizabeth put together that Paul Mitchell had missed?

  And double humiliation: unlike Elizabeth, who didn’t know Audley as he did, he ought to have known that there was something to put together, because with Audley there always was. And what made it worse was that, in a sense, he had known all along—

  “I really am rather an idiot,” said Audley. “I thought I’d got it worked out so well, for once.”

  “Oh, yes?” If that was the case, then there was no point in exploding, Mitchell decided. “But just tell me one thing, David—I am curious about one thing …”

  Audley blinked at him. “Yes?”

  “Can you tell me what the hell I’ve been doing?”

  “Ah …” Audley blinked again, and then looked round the room. “Now … if we were in the library I could show you, from David Chandler’s book on Marlborough. But then, as you’re a military historian, you won’t need to read about it—you’ll know it already.”

  “Know what?”

  “The battle of Ramillies—1706.”

  “What about the battle of Ramillies?”

  “He won it by a diversion: he lured all the French troops to his right flank by attacking there. Then he hit them in the centre.”

  A nasty suspicion crystallised in Mitchell. “Are you telling me that I’ve been on the right flank of your army?”

  “No … that’s not the point—“ Audley’s face creased “—the point is that Marlborough didn’t actually tell the troops on the right that the real attack was in the centre, any more than Monty told us in Normandy that our job was to draw off all the German armour so that the Americans could break out elsewhere.” He gave Mitchell a twisted smile. “We wouldn’t actually have mutinied if we’d known … but he was right not to tell us. Because the Germans would never have believed that we were the main attack if we hadn’t believed it first ourselves, you see. And, in a way, we were right to believe in it, Paul, because our diversionary bloodbath was essential to the breakout—it was all the same battle. And I like to think, when I remember absent friends, that we had the place of honour in it, if not the glory.”

  Mitchell’s eyes strayed to the reports on the table. “The place of honour” was gift-wrapped bullshit for his benefit. But that “diversionary bloodbath” was an accurate description for what had happened on Saturday evening.

  Or worse than that, even. “So those three—“ he pointed “—I killed them … as a diversion?”

  “Ah … no, you mustn’t think of it like that. You saved a valuable life—perhaps a very valuable life. It was like saving a child from three mad dogs—you had no choice.”

  “But it wasn’t planned—it wasn’t part of any plan?”

  “It was better than we’d planned.” Audley paused. “We had to convince Moscow that we were chasing the wrong Vengeful—just for a few days they had to believe we were off in the wrong direction, and we had to give them those days. And you yourself said that the old Vengeful was exactly the sort of hare I’d be tempted to chase—so they thought so too, which was why they let you spot Novikov so easily, of course.”

  “But they didn’t know about … those three … and Loftus’s money?”

  “Not a thing. But when they did, they must have been as pleased as I was—that was a pure bonus for both sides.”

  “But how did they know?”

  “Because we made damn sure they did—“

  “Wait!” Mitchell felt the plot thickening around him too fast. “You said ‘the wrong Vengeful’. So which was the right one?”

  Audley shook his head. “Your old Vengeful was the right one for you, Paul—and it still is.” Then he grinned. “But as your Elizabeth knows, I suppose it’s unrealistic not to tell you too. And you’ll be less trouble knowing than not knowing … The real Vengeful was the Shannon, of course.”

  Of course. Stupid. Obvious. Damn! “The Shannon?”

  “We had our own word on that long ago—that the Russians were planning something … Not the actual project name, but just that they intended dealing with the next generation of our anti-submarine systems.” Audley looked at him. “We don’t have many secrets worth having, but if there’s one area where we can still claim to be ahead, it’s anti-submarine work.”

  That was true, even if it was only the natural legacy of the past, in which Britain alone of all other countries had twice nearly been beaten by the submarine, thought Mitchell.

  “And their plan was made before the Vengeful was renamed? Before she became the Shannon?”

  Audley nodded. “That’s right. It was as simple as that.” He paused. “So Oliver St John Latimer and James Cable set up a counter-plan. An in-depth anti-espionage system, you might say … And that Latimer’s a fat slug, but he’s a bloody good operator—better than everyone except me, in fact.” He gave the grandfather clock a calculating look. “As of two hours from now we’re set to take out the biggest Russian espionage operation of the decade, Paul. Not in the full glare of publicity, alas—which was what Jack Butler and I wanted … It seems that there are political considerations which rule that out—we’re only allowed Philby and Maclean and Blunt in public … But for once we’re about to impress NATO and our American cousins, and we’re going to sell maybe a billion pounds’ worth of anti-submarine systems over the next decade into the bargain, if we’re lucky. And not even a Labour Government—or an SDP one—can quarrel with that.” He looked at Mitchell suddenly. “Do you understand, Paul?”

  Mitchell could only nod. The stakes had been raised far beyond his limit, but at least he could nod.

  Audley gestured towards the papers on the desk. “Which is why I don’t think you’ve got anything to worry about there. We’ve got too much riding on this operation to let anyone make waves about those three … apart from the fact that you were only doing your duty as our diversion man, in any case. And we had to have that diversion.”

  “So you knew about their Vengeful operation long before the Americans told us about it?”

  “That’s right. But when we learned that the Americans knew about it we were pretty sure the Russians would be close behind them, and we didn’t want them to abort the Vengeful one—not after all the trouble we’d gone to. We had to reassure them somehow.” He half-smiled at Mitchell. “So Jack Butler gave me the job of making a fool of myself… and I came up with the old Vengeful as an opening ploy—I was going to make a mystery of it somehow … Or, if it refused to stand up, we’d got a contingency plan to make something out of the other Vengeful—the submarine that was transferred to the Greek navy in ‘46.” He nodded at Mitchell, and then pointed to the papers again. “But then those three turned up … and Novikov. So what we had was better than I’d hoped for—Commander Loftus’s mysterious riches, and three dead gangsters … and the real mystery of the old Vengeful herself—that was a gift from the gods, because it was just the
thing to help them believe that the so-clever Dr Audley was about to be too clever for his own good. With a little help from them, of course.”

  Mitchell looked at him reproachfully. “Why didn’t you trust me? For God’s sake!”

  “I wanted to. But it wasn’t my operation, and Latimer wanted you to be out of it.” Audley shook his head. “The trouble was … I think the clever Dr Audley was a little too clever for his own good” —another shake “—it never ceases to amaze me how what is basically simple becomes distorted and complicated by the human factor—I’ve never been able to make exactly the right allowance for that, you know …”

  “Like what, for example?” Audley in this self-critical mood was too revealing not to encourage.

  “Oh … I never expected that smart policeman of ours to crack the source of Commander Loftus’s ill-gotten gains so quickly …Not that it mattered—but it might have mattered.” Another shake. Then he looked at Mitchell. “And the French putting that red-headed beauty of yours on you—after they’d picked up the KGB so quickly: I didn’t plan for you to be expelled from France like that, or not until our Shannon Operation was complete.”

  “No?” The memory of an icy Nikki MacMahon seeing him off from the departure lounge still rankled with Mitchell too.

  “No. We were meant to be sleeping soundly in Alsace by now—you and I and your Elizabeth … with Comrade Aske watching over us. And after a good Alsatian dinner, too.” But Audley wasn’t smiling. “That’s how the big things go wrong—from too many little miscalculations.”

  “But … nothing big has gone wrong?” Safe and alive comforted Mitchell. He might never see Elizabeth again now; and even if he did he would never be able to convince her that he hadn’t known about his true role—that they had both been ignorant foot-soldiers in the’same battle. But safe and alive was better than nothing—with these stakes and these players it could pass for a happy ending, near enough.

  “No. Nothing seems to have gone wrong … not so far, anyway.” Audley gave the grandfather clock another look. “So long as they believe Aske and Elizabeth are both dead. And there’s no reason why they shouldn’t… and even if they are jumpy at this end, there’s not much they can do to unscramble their set-up in Scotland now, with Latimer’s chaps already closing in—“