The Old Vengeful

by Anthony Price

  “Dead?” Mitchell’s jaw dropped. “Aske … and Elizabeth?”

  “Accidentally dead.” Audley adjusted his spectacles on his nose. “They ran out of road about five miles from here this evening, on the Three Pigeons bend just outside Buckland. You may know the place—it’s on the back road about a hundred yards before the Three Pigeons pub. It’s a notoriously bad place—the bend’s deceptive and the camber’s wrong, which is why the highways people put up the posts with the warning reflectors there, on the edge of the concrete culvert—a bad place at the best of times.” He shook his head. “It was pelting down with rain, and he was probably driving too fast. And he was tired … tired and scared, I’d guess …”

  The moment was unreal because what Audley was telling him had all the hallmarks of a cover story being rehearsed—the circumstantial detail exact, the reasonable hypothesis for what had actually been an entirely different event, even the note of regret in the voice. Mitchell could remember staging similar lies himself in his time.

  “There really has been an accident?”

  Audley frowned. “That’s what I’m telling you. They skidded and went straight through the posts into the culvert, on the back road there—but she’s all right, I tell you.”

  “What the hell was Aske doing on the back road?” Mitchell couldn’t place the bend, but he knew the Three Pigeons, he’d fortified himself there long ago, in Frances’ time, before a sweaty session in this very room.

  “He was making sure he didn’t meet me, if you want an educated guess.” Audley pushed at the spectacles again.

  “But what does he say?”

  “He’s not saying anything. He’s dead.”

  “Dead?”

  “He went through the windscreen.” Audley’s rugger-player’s chin jutted out. “But that didn’t kill him, it only cut him up and knocked him out. Only then he rolled off the bonnet into the ditch head-first, and there’s always eighteen inches of water in that ditch, even in summer. And that killed him.” The voice matched the chin. “He drowned in eighteen inches of water, Mitchell. And six inches of mud.”

  Mitchell’s mouth dried up. “And Elizabeth?”

  “She’s all right—I told you!” Audley’s aggressive tone became defensive. “Three cracked ribs, and a few bruises … and a bit of shock, naturally. But she’s a tough girl, is your Elizabeth—women’s hockey is a tough game, I’m told … And her seat-belt saved her, anyway.”

  Seat-belt?

  “We’ve got her down as DOA—‘Dead on arrival’—like Aske.” Audley’s voice became suddenly softer, almost apologetic. “I was afraid you might have heard that on the grapevine somehow—it’s the official version at the moment. But actually we’ve got her safe in Hadfield House, under wraps.”

  Safe in the safe house again, thought Mitchell automatically.

  “She’s okay.’” The big man looked at Mitchell helplessly for a moment. “I don’t lie to my wife. If I have to lie to her, I refuse to tell her anything—or is that too Irish for you to understand?”

  Seat-belt, thought Mitchell. “I don’t believe you.”

  Conflicting emotions of anger and honesty warred on Audley’s face briefly. “I’ve talked to her. You can talk to her tomorrow, Paul—in fact, I want you to talk to her tomorrow.” Something almost approaching sympathy came out of the conflict. “That is the truth, Paul.”

  Mitchell shook his head. “I believe that.” He searched for the right words. “But … I didn’t like Aske, David—I hated his guts, I admit that… But if there was one thing he was good at, it was driving a car. He was a bloody good driver—and he was proud of it.” There were no right words: there were only the known and observed facts. “And he was a careful driver too—he always wore his seat-belt, no matter what. He was meticulous about seat-belts—I know, because I travelled with him. So don’t give me accident.”

  “No … you’re right, of course.” Audley paused. “I was going to tell you, but I thought it could wait until we’d both had a few hours’ sleep.” Another pause. “We’re both pretty tired.”

  “Not too tired for the truth. Come on, David.”

  “Very well.” Audley blinked. “She killed him, Paul.”

  “She … what?” The statement was too outrageous for belief. “Elizabeth … ?”

  “Not deliberately.” Audley was committed now. “She didn’t know the culvert was there—she didn’t know he’d end up face-down in eighteen inches of water … But she did it—she admits it.”

  “Did what?” Belief struggled with disbelief.

  “She pressed the button on his safety-belt as she saw the red warning reflectors ahead. And then she twisted the steering wheel.”

  Paul swallowed. “For God’s sake, David …”

  “Why?” Audley gazed at him. “Because she’s a clever young woman, Paul—and a tough-minded one, too. We both agreed on that, but we still underrated her criminally … At least, I did. And so did Humphrey Aske—in his case fatally.”

  Unwillingly Mitchell began to accept what he was being told. He had never doubted the steel in Elizabeth’s backbone, in spite of her long years of the servitude which she had accepted as duty. But now he had to add a quality of ruthlessness to it which he found hard to take, even if—

  “Aske—are you telling me that Aske … ?”

  “Was one of theirs?” Audley nodded slowly. “The fact is, your Elizabeth Loftus did what I never imagined she could do: she guessed that the Shannon was the real Vengeful—quite extraordinary!”

  “How the hell did she manage that?”

  “It was something Professor Wilder said, apparently—she was a bit confused about it … But then she added up two and two. Only then, unfortunately, she told Aske about it after Wilder had gone, and insisted that he phoned London … Which he pretended to do, but didn’t. Because that was the one connection Moscow couldn’t allow, of course.”

  They stared at one another.

  “Yes … we’ve had Comrade Aske tabbed for about six months.” Audley sighed. “Naturally, he was left in place, where he couldn’t do any real harm—the usual procedure … I think the plan was eventually to try and turn him, but I don’t think it would have worked, myself… Because, gay or not, I have the feeling that Comrade Aske was a hard man under his camouflage … But we put him in the bank for a rainy day—and then this came up, when we needed someone of theirs to keep them well-informed on how far off-target we were. And he fitted because Latimer had been cultivating him, and Latimer also likes to keep a rival eye on me—everyone knows that, including Moscow, where they all spy on one another just the same way. So we arranged for Latimer to instruct Aske to do just that.”

  Mitchell felt a surge of anger. “You gave me your word that Elizabeth would be in no danger—and I gave her my word!”

  “I didn’t think there was any danger—“

  “Not with Aske?”

  “Aske was why there was no danger—that was the point, Paul. Aske was her protection, and yours: as long as he was there, helping you chase the wrong Vengeful, he’d make sure the KGB didn’t do either of you any harm—your safety was vital to him.”

  “He didn’t keep the KGB off us in France, by God!”

  “Nonsense! Now you’re not thinking at all, man! Aske put them on to you, like Novikov, to reassure us that we were on to something good. They wouldn’t have touched you—they were there to be seen.” Audley grimaced suddenly. “The trouble was, the French saw them too. And that wasn’t in the script—I wanted us all safe in France, enjoying ourselves, with Aske urging us on to greater and even more useless efforts … And that was my first mistake, if you like— underrating the French … But then, I still couldn’t imagine how anything could go wrong. You were still hot on the Vengeful—the old Vengeful—or on those fellows who escaped from Bonaparte’s clutches, anyway … And if you got a bit bolshie I could rely on Aske keeping you up to the mark.” He half shrugged. “So I whistled up Professor Wilder—I’d had him working on 1812 an
gles, just in case you didn’t come up with anything, ever since Aske first interviewed him, just as I had Del Andrew working on Loftus. But that turned out to be the worst possible thing I could have done, almost.”

  Almost! Wilder plus Elizabeth had almost encompassed—what?

  “What was Aske going to do … with Elizabeth?”

  “That’s another thing we’re never going to know.” Audley gazed at him thoughtfully. “She convinced herself he was going to kill her, and maybe that was what he was going to do … that, or have someone else do it—he made a phone call down the road somewhere—an ambush, with a flesh-wound for him, would have bought them time, and he might have thought he’d get away with that.” He paused. “But it’s irrelevant now, in any case. Because I’ve assured her she was right, and that’s what we’re sticking to. For her sake, Paul—okay?”

  What Mitchell had tried not to think about was staring at him now, with cold eyes: Elizabeth had killed a man, deliberately or not. “How is she taking it—what she’s done?”

  Audley reflected on the- question for a moment before replying. “Remarkably well. Anguished, rather than hysterical. She kept saying ‘What else could I do?’, and she wept a bit. But all things considered she’s pretty steady.” Audley watched Mitchell attentively. “Does that surprise you?”

  There was something not quite right, not quite healthy, about the big man’s glance. “I don’t know. Should it?”

  “You know her better than I do.” Audley was almost casual. “Granted she knew he was lying to her—that he couldn’t have talked to me … and there were a lot of other things she put together … it was still a pretty drastic thing she did—for a spinster schoolmistress, don’t you think?”

  Yes, it was! thought Mitchell. But because the treason of that thought hurt him he reacted against it instantly.

  “She’s been through some pretty drastic experiences—for a spinster schoolmistress.” He thought of himself. “Maybe she was tired of being pushed around by everyone.”

  “Yes …” Audley sounded disappointed. “And then there’s the bloodline, of course …”

  “The bloodline?” Mitchell added Commander Hugh Loftus, VC to the list of pushers-around—perhaps him most of all!

  Audley nodded. “By Loftus, out of Varney: a captain’s daughter and an admiral’s grand-daughter… What my daughter would call ‘a shield-maiden’. Or don’t you go on that sort of thing much?”

  Mitchell smiled. “My father was a conscientious objector—remember?”

  “That’s right.” Audley was unabashed. “And your grandfather a battalion commander at twenty-eight. So you come from a line of fighters one way or another, which illustrates my point.” He reached for his brief-case. “I’ve got some interesting stuff for you here, telexed from Washington by our kindly CIA cousins.”

  “What?” The sudden change of subject threw Mitchell for a second, then he recalled Audley’s technique. “Oh?”

  “Yes. It’s all rather comical, really …”

  “Comical?” Mitchell watched him extract a folder from the case. “Comical” wasn’t a word he’d have chosen.

  “Yes…”Audley flipped open the folder and peered at its contents. “Our kindly cousins are to blame for our present predicament… If they hadn’t got wind of Project Vengeful, neither Moscow nor London would have run scared—they would simply have converged on their collision course, and you and I … and Miss Loftus and Comrade Aske … would not have become involved.” He turned a page. “But they did, and when the President gave Project Vengeful to the Prime Minister he also instructed our CIA cousins to give us every assistance, as befits their old wartime allies.”

  “What’s comical about that?”

  Audley looked up. “What’s comical, my dear Paul, is that the first request we made was for them to disinter facts from the year 1812, when we were last at war with each other. And that tickled them no end—in fact, Howard Morris sent me a special SG: ‘Have given this Immediate Maximum Effort classification—like Amy Carter’s homework’.” He shook his head at Mitchell. “What those poor innocent American academics made of Howard’s IMAXEF teams arriving on their doorsteps I simply cannot imagine.”

  Mitchell refused to be drawn further.

  “Wilder gave us two lists of names.” Audley consulted the folder again. “Living Americans who might be able to tell us about dead ones, as he put it.”

  Mitchell weakened. “Why Americans?”

  “Ah … well, he knew you and Aske were in France, because I told him … And when he knew that he said I ought to check the American end, just to be on the safe side.” He scanned the page under his nose. “I’ve never heard of any of his live Yankees here, but some of the other names … Abraham Timms at the top, naturally …”

  “Tom Chard?”

  “No—no Tom Chard here. But Amos Ratsey, Jas. O’Byrne, Octavius Phelan—aren’t they the fellows from Miss Loftus’s Vengeful box?”

  “What about them?”

  “Nothing about them—they did unearth a couple of references to a Michael Haggerty, who was an associate of an equivocal Irish American named Jim Burns … and there’s a Michael Haggerty in the Vengeful list. But it’s a common Irish name, and they’ve got nothing more at all on him than that. Whereas they’ve got a lot on Abraham Timms … It seems he became quite a distinguished man in the later post-war period—‘self-taught scholar and naturalist; corresponded with Sir Joseph Banks and John James Audubon; issue one son, Thomas Chipperfield Paget Timms, note names’—that’s what it says: ‘note names’—“ he looked at Mitchell “—the names are rather touching, don’t you think? His fellow escapers?”

  “Yes.” Mitchell frowned. “What did the cousins find out about them?”

  “Nothing, I’m afraid. There’s only Timms, and Haggerty—two mentions, associate of the egregious Burns, who was a merchant of some sort, always lobbying Congress to make war with the filthy British—no—no, the really interesting one—and also the most surprising one—is the one you least expect, which shouldn’t be there at all, Paul.” Audley looked at him slyly.

  “Who?”

  “The owner of the Vengeful box, Dr William Willard Pike, no less!” Audley bent over the page. “The CIA liked the sound of him—or, if not the sound, then the smell… because it’s a smell they know, I suspect—even at this length of time—the authentic whiff of the enemy within the gate!”

  This time it wasn’t a question of not being drawn: it was as though Audley was talking to himself.

  “This is pure Howard—pure Howard!” Audley shook his head admiringly. “’There are two schools of thought about Dr Pike, another known associate of Jim Burns (who in our day would have undoubtedly have been wasting our time running hot Armalites across the Canadian border for the IRA to shoot Limeys in Crossmaglen). They both disappeared from the scene here in 1812, never to return, ostensibly to do George III a mischief. But for my money—and for that of Professor John Kasik, who is nobody’s fool—Pike was a British double-agent, who lit out one jump ahead of Burns with whatever passed for microfilm in those days in his pocket, on the first boat (which was a Portuguese brig bound for Lisbon) with Burns in hot pursuit in a Yankee trader licensed for Plymouth and Antwerp. Kasik and I can’t prove anything, but we’ve both got a “pricking of the thumbs”, as you and William S. of Stratford-upon-Avon would say. So forget Timms and check out Burns and Pike. Ends message’.”

  Mitchell had heard of Professor Kasik—had even corresponded with him on an American aspect of Watch by the Liffey, as the best-known living authority on Irish Americans. But that recollection was secondary to his growing sense of unreality over this turn in the conversation. Their interest in the true story of the old Vengeful ought to have ended, yet Audley seemed as enthusiastic about it as ever.

  The big man was smiling at him. “We’re checking what we can of this in the Bodleian, in FitzGerald’s monumental history of the Paddies in America, as well as Kasik’s own book. But Howard’s
chaps probably gained access to a lot of their unpublished material, so our new boy, Phillip Dale—the thin one—is burrowing into the old Foreign Office archives. If Pike was one of our agents he ought to turn up in association with some of Richard Wellesley’s bright boys of the period there. Our very own ancestors, in fact!”

  Was it mere academic interest? But it couldn’t be that, surely— surely? Mitchell’s brain ached with tiredness.

  “If he is … the Portuguese brig accounts for him being in Lisbon, and he picked up the Vengeful there, while Burns was putting out a general alarm for him. Which, of course, could be why the French eventually became so interested in the Vengeful, eh?”

  The Portsmouth Plot, thought Mitchell. If Pike had had information about that which couldn’t wait, then that could be why he had trans-shipped to the less-damaged Fortuné after the battle.

  It was all supposition—all pictures from a distant planet of a drama enacted long ago, in which the competing actors had been dust and forgotten for generations, mixed with the earth enriched by infinite millions of the long-dead heroes of lost causes. But if, when the Last Trump sounded, it was all of immense importance in some ledger of human courage and constancy in adversity, it added up to nothing in the cruel and selfish priorities of now.

  “What’s the point of all this, David—the object of it?” He hated the question even as he asked it, but it was the only honest question left to him in the extremity of his weariness.

  “The point—the object, my dear Paul … is your Elizabeth— potentially our Miss Loftus.” Audley’s voice was gentle, almost sad. “The object and the point is to make your history repeat itself in her … through you … for us—do you see?”

  “No. I don’t see.” A huge disquiet enveloped Mitchell.

  “No. Then perhaps this is not the time—“