“Yes.” Kelly nodded, eyeing him speculatively, almost slyly, as though he could read his prisoner’s mind. “It makes a difference, does a gun—like the Squire himself used to say, in the old days, even with our little pop-guns: ‘The gun, Michael,’ says he, ‘ ’tis the final argument of kings, which is the last argument of all‘—an’
this is a gun I have in my hand, an‘ although it’s even smaller, it will serve for you and me . . . an’ especially for you, because dummy1
you’re the target—aye, an‘ do you know what sort of target, now?”
He paused only for effect, not for a reply. “A ’Mike Target‘ is what ye are.”
It was half in Benedikt’s mind to dismiss the man as a garrulous old fool—were not Irishmen all notoriously garrulous? But there was nothing foolish about a 9-millimetre Luger, no matter in whose hands.
“A ‘Mike Target’,” Kelly repeated the words, savouring them.
“Named after me, it was . . . but that’s another story . . . ‘Mike Target’ was a regimental target—something really worth having—
twenty-four guns on one target . . . three batteries of eight guns, each of two troops of four guns, out of sight of one another . . .
aaargh, but it was a sort of democratic form of gunnery, would ye know . . . The Germans—that’s your lot, begod, an‘ a smart lot of fellas they were— they had the best gun of the war that I saw, that we called ’the eighty-eight‘, an’ a terrible murderous weapon it was . . . But we had the best regiments of guns—an‘ the Squire’s the best of them, no question—for he invented ways of control and command, and different ways of applying fire ... I thank my stars I was on the English side, an’ not facing regiments like his, begod!”
Benedikt tried to make sense of what the man was driving at, but could only think irrelevantly wouldn’t Papa like to be here, instead of me, because those were his guns, those terrible murderous weapons!
“Aaargh! No twenty-four guns have I—just this one little gun—”
The Irishman caressed the Luger “—but a Mike Target ye are all the same, the best I’ve had in range for many a year!” He nodded dummy1
at Benedikt, like a friendly enemy. “So I’ll not be asking you again why you were trespassin‘ on the lady’s land, for you’d only tell me black lies that you’d got all ready for me—later, maybe, but not now . . .”
There was something wrong, alarm bells in his mind warned Benedikt: if Kelly no longer rated why as of the first importance, what could be coming next, instead?
The Irishman’s free hand released the Luger barrel and plunged into his coat-pocket.
“See here.” He brandished Thomas Wiesehöfer’s spectacle case.
“And don’t say ye don’t see, for ye recognised my young mistress upon the terrace, with her under the leaves in the shadow, an‘
what’s in my hand is plain enough, as I can see plain enough for meself, surely.”
A frisson of triumph excited Benedikt. They had been clever—how they had been so clever, he didn’t know, but they had been clever, nevertheless. Only, they had not been clever enough.
“It is ... the case for my spectacles . . . which you took from me—”
He feigned incomprehension.
“So it is! And thick as pebbles are your lenses—blind as a bat in sunlight, ye are, ye have said as much to the children ... So how is it that ye see me now so clearly, with these in my hand, and no spectacles on your nose? Would you tell me that?”
More incomprehension. Frown, and shake your head, Herr Wiesehöfer!
“I do not understand.” He spread his hands. “I am wearing my dummy1
contact lenses . . . Do you not have contact lenses in England?” He had the man now.
“F-what?” For the first time Kelly was taken aback, and Benedikt blessed the ultimate insistence on detail—the final rule which he had obeyed automatically because it was laid down to be obeyed.
Benedikt pointed at his eyes, confident of the tiny plain lenses which only an expert could differentiate from the real thing, and which had once helped him to accustom himself to the false ones.
“I wear my spectacles . . . sometimes . . . and my lenses sometimes . . . If you wish to see them, I can oblige you. But. . . I do not understand—I do not understand anything that you are saying—or doing!” he looked at Miss Becky despairingly. “—
Fräulein, if you would tell me, please, what is happening?”
Miss Becky looked at Kelly. “Michael—?”
Perhaps it was time for the rotten excuse at last, thought Benedikt.
Kelly frowned at him, the lines round his mouth working deeper.
“We still don’t know why he was in the spinney, Miss Becky.”
It was time. “I was walking on the hills ... I left my car at a village
—I do not remember ... it is Rockbourne, perhaps—or Wimbourne ... or Wimbury or Rockbury, or Rockbury St Martin—
I do not remember . . . But I walked upon the hills, and it grew dark, and I lost my way.” With the contact lenses in support, the rotten excuse wasn’t so bad: they weren’t the border police, and he wasn’t behind the line on the Other Side, after all. “I saw the light in the valley—”
There was a dull boom—the sound of a heavy door closing dummy1
somewhere within the house—the echo of which both cut him off and roused them both out of their evident embarrassment.
Another boom, nearer now. Audley ... if it was Audley, they were both glad now, he could see it in their expressions—
But should he be glad? After believing that he was beaten, now he knew he was winning? Except that . . . even if Audley accepted the plain contact lenses in support of his explanation . . . that illegal Luger pistol tied him to the illegality of whatever they were doing, making him too hot to let loose, after all that had happened to him, in the pit and afterwards—
The latch on the door behind Kelly snapped as sharp as a pistol-shot, so that it was a credit to the Irishman’s nerves that he didn’t move a muscle, except to drop the discredited spectacle-case quickly into his pocket, as Dr David Audley came through the doorway like the wrath of God.
“What the hell’s happening?” Audley took in the three of them at a glance. “What’s he doing here?” The glance ranged back from Benedikt to Gunner Kelly, taking fire from what it observed. “For Christ’s sake—what’s that bloody cannon out for?”
“Oh, David—” began Miss Becky, and then stopped.
“We caught him in Number Two pit, in the spinney, sir. And he’s not after telling us why he was there.” Kelly swallowed. “An‘ the Police have been all round the village, the bastards—”
“I know that.” Audley gestured dismissively. “I stopped off at the Bells—”
“They didn’t get anything, sir,” cut in Kelly quickly. “The till was dummy1
open, an‘ the curtains closed—an’ the door locked, an‘ Davey knew the names an’ addresses of everyone that was drinkin‘ there, as was his guests after hours—we’ve taken no trouble from that, I swear.”
“No trouble? Christ, man—the Police weren’t born yesterday!
There should have been nobody there, with the ford covered—and Rachel should have been in her transparent nightgown to make them ashamed for knocking at her door.” Audley shook his head angrily. “I leave the Chase for a few hours . . . and every damn thing falls apart, as though I’d never been here. You’re not fit to take a punt from one side of the Cam to the other!”
Kelly drew a breath. “But sir—”
“Silence, Gunner Kelly!” Audley sniffed. “Small bloody wonder you couldn’t hold the stripe of a lance-bombardier from one pay day to the next—you wouldn’t have held any rank in my regiment either, that did the real work at the sharp end, where there were real Germans, by Christ!”
“Sir!” Doubt and outrage warred in Kelly’s objection.
“Don’t you dare sir me, with that souvenir, taken by a better man than you, in you
r hand! Christ, almighty! As if I didn’t know all I wanted to know about gunners—I should have my head examined . . . Becky now—my god-daughter, who’s no fool, so I’ve fondly believed until now, says you’re no idiot— you tell me . . . what’s supposed to be happening—if you can?”
Benedikt was much reassured by this outburst of anger, in spite of appearances to the contrary. Because . . . if the Kom-missar in dummy1
Wiesbaden had nothing to say about Gunner Kelly and Miss Rebecca Maxwell-Smith, it had had quite a lot to reveal about David Audley, if not who his god-daughter was; and nothing had been said about losing his cool, except for some very good reason, so there had to be a very good reason for this.
“David—it’s exactly as Michael says: when the Police crossed the water we went on the Yellow Alert. . . But until we get the walkie-talkie radios we can’t reach everyone—Blackie’s collecting them tomorrow—”
“Today,” corrected Kelly. “Today—promised, they are, and he’ll be there at eight-thirty to collect them . . . And then we’ll be ready for anything, begod, sir!”
“But. . .” Miss Becky blinked at Benedikt “. . . but then the warning went off, and that was the Red Alert, and Michael went out to check it—we weren’t expecting it so soon, of course, but he wouldn’t let me go—”
“Aaargh! And isn’t that the truth!” Kelly came to her rescue.
“Would I be lettin‘ her go—orders or no orders? Ye weren’t here, an’ it was dark as the pit—”
“Kelly . . .” Audley’s voice turned dangerous. “Don’t you dare play the bloody stage Irishman with me!”
“So to hell with that!” Kelly cut back at him in a new voice, different from all its predecessors. “He was in the trap and I wanted to have a look at him—so what? I know what I’m looking for better than you do, Dr Audley.”
Audley looked down over his big broken nose at the Irishman. “So dummy1
you do, Mr Kelly—so you do. And what did you find, then?
Someone you knew?”
The face-in-the-crowd was inscrutable, as anonymous as ever, but the eyes glittered with dislike. “No, Dr Audley—only someone you so kindly let me see from afar this afternoon, I grant you that. But it was a justifiable risk, nevertheless.”
“It was not a justifiable risk—it was unnecessary.”
Kelly shrugged. “Not in my judgement.”
“And since when has your judgement been worth a brass farthing?” Audley looked at Benedikt suddenly. “Do you know him?”
“No, sir.” Kelly squirmed uncomfortably. “But you were right about him, sir.”
“I was?” Audley continued to study Benedikt. “What has he told you?”
“He hasn’t told us anything. But now I’ve seen him close up ...
He’s good . . . But I know the type.”
“What type?” Audley returned to Kelly.
“Never a civil servant. Soldier or policeman—soldier for choice. . .
I’ve seen enough of them in my time. Regular soldiering marks a man—I don’t care whose army. And I’ve seen his type before—it’s an obstinate look, they have, even when you’ve got the bastards at gunpoint—I know that look, sir!”
Miss Becky stirred. “Michael—David—”
Audley’s expression changed. “Yes, Becky?”
dummy1
“He does wear contact lenses—he admitted that ... I mean . . . he’s wearing them now, you see.”
Audley shook his head. “Doesn’t mean a thing, my dear. Or rather ... it does mean quite a lot, to put it another way: it means exceptional attention to detail, as you would expect of him. It means he’s good, as Kelly says.” He turned the look on Benedikt, but with a suggestion of sympathy. “You had bad luck there, I’m afraid. My wife wears contact lenses, and I’ve watched her with them a thousand times. I made her wear them—as a matter of fact, I’ve tried wearing them myself, but I could never really get to terms with them . . . But I know all about them, anyway . . . And there’s a particular way some people touch the area under the eye, instead of wiping the eye—my wife does it, and so do you, and it’s as good as a nod to me . . . It’s a game I play—identifying people who wear them. You can even change eye-colour with them. But you’d know that, of course.” He shook his head. “Still . . . belt and brace is one thing, but contact lenses and spectacles is another, Hauptmann Schneider. Bad luck, you had there.”
Bad luck— Hauptmann Schneider—
For a moment no one spoke, then Miss Becky said “Haupt—?”
cutting the rank off into a hiccup of surprise.
“Captain,” translated Audley. “Captain Benedikt Schneider, formerly of the Army of the Federal Republic . . . more recently of Grenzschutzgruppe 9, and now of the NATO Anti-Terrorist Liaison Group of the Bundesnachrichtendienst, attached to the West German Embassy in London as of next week.”
“Holy Mother of God!” said Kelly. “Grenzschutzgruppe 9!”
dummy1
Miss Becky frowned at him. “Grenzschutz—who are they, Michael?”
“GSG 9, for short—I read about them in the Mirror a while back, Madam—what the Germans call their SAS—the real hard boys.”
Kelly shook his head. “I think we caught the wrong tiger, Madam.”
VI
In daylight, finishing his breakfast coffee on the terrace, Benedikt could understand even better how Gunner Kelly had felt the night before. The broad sweep of the manor lawn, wide between thick plantations of woodland on either side of it, rose gently to the ridge itself, without any intervening obstacle: the splendid view, which had surely delighted generations of the Maxwell family, would be no less satisfactory downwards from the crest, almost a thousand metres distant, to delight any well-trained and properly-equipped marksman, day or night; while from the edges of those woods, for those who first looked where they put their feet, even a tiro could hardly miss his mark.
The clunk of the postern door latch, which he had heard for the second time when the nervous servant-girl had ushered him on to the terrace, sounded behind him.
He held his gaze on the ridge deliberately. Nerves were for servant-girls and Thomas Wiesehöfer, not for Benedikt Schneider: that at dummy1
least he must pretend, now that he could be something like himself.
“Captain Schneider—good morning.”
It was Audley behind him—and that was good, for with Audley he knew more nearly where he was.
He turned slowly. “Good morning, Dr Audley.”
“Was the English breakfast to your taste?” Audley inclined his head politely, and then smiled. “But then perhaps your mother has accustomed you to it?”
I know all about you, Captain Schneider, that was the first signal.
“It was excellent.” Coolly, then. “But my mother never locked my bedroom door, even when I was a child. Is that an English custom with guests?”
“No. But it’s a custom to protect them from accidents, and last night there were some very trigger-happy characters around.”
Audley gestured towards the ridge. “You were admiring the view?”
“I was, yes . . . But I was also remembering that last night Mr Kelly did not do the same. He regarded it as unsafe, as I recall.
And so, I think, did you?”
“So I did—quite right!” Audley raised his hand again, indicating the stone steps in front of them, down which Benedikt had stumbled not many hours before with a gun in his back. “Shall we take a stroll? The view from up above, across the valley, is much more interesting ... So I did, indeed. But not this morning—and not for us at any time, I’m sure.”
Benedikt mounted the steps. Far above, on the very skyline, the sheep which grazed the ridge scattered suddenly, catching his eye dummy1
with their panic. A moment later a horseman appeared, and then another. They reined in together and conferred for a few seconds, then split left and right.
“The Dawn Patrol,” murmured Audley at his side. “By autumn the Duntisbur
y Hunt should be in excellent shape, the exercise the horses are getting.”
They walked in silence for a time, until they came to a curious open grassy ditch which divided off the well-cut manor lawn from the rougher sheep-cropped pasture of the ridge. The upper side of it sloped gently, but the manor side was revetted vertically with stone to form a sunken wall protecting the garden without breaking the clear view from below.
Another sniper’s post, thought Benedikt, running his eye along the trench until he reached its junction with the highest point of the wood on their left. But then he caught a glimpse of movement under the trees—
“It’s all right,” said Audley soothingly. “It’s ‘one of ours’, as they say. And we are not the target, as I say.”
Benedikt turned towards him. “But Mr Kelly is?”
“Ah . . .” Audley stared back the way they had come. “This will do well enough. We’d see more if we went higher, but you can get some idea of it from here.”
The rise of the lawn was greater than Benedikt had expected it to be. Beyond the manor house below, he could see the roofs of Duntisbury Royal peeping from among the village trees, with the squat church tower to their left marking the position of the Roman dummy1
villa field on the edge of the inadequate River Addle.
“Peaceful little place, isn’t it?” Audley invited him to disagree.
“I did not find it so last night,” Benedikt obliged him.
“No. But then you did rather invite trouble—like Mr King in Colonel Dabney’s covers . . . Do you read Kipling?” Audley raised a mild eyebrow inquiringly. “No ... I suppose not . . . But what am I to do with you, then?”
Now they had come to it. “I do not see that there is anything that you can do with me, Dr Audley—if you know me so well—?”
“Oh, I do, Captain Schneider, I do. And it’s a good report I have of you, too: good soldier, good officer . . . good son, good Christian . . . good German, I suppose one might say, even.” He looked sidelong at Benedikt. “But you know what we used to say about good Germans in the old days? Your distinguished father would know—he was a damn good German, if ever there was one!”
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