Bastard was right. The truth cut deep inside Audley, to confuse the Kipling-bred ideals.
“I can give you some idea of the contents, if that’s what you want,” said Audley lightly. “Free of charge, of course.”
“You’ve read it?” Roche was beyond astonishment.
“My dear chap—I may be a good Samaritan, but I hope I’m not a complete idiot! Besides which, when ‘Tienne took me in back in ‘44 he picked my brains something horrid to make sure I wasn’t doing la belle France down, so fair’s fair … And, also besides which … if I’m required by old times’ sake to sit on a bomb I like to know what sort of bomb it is… So I took a quick peek at it.”
Roche could only stare at him.
“The end part was still cyphered, or it may have been a report of some kind in a sort of appendix, I don’t know. But the main body was a transcript—in French of course—of a series of meetings in the Kremlin … only it was all pretty much ancient history from last summer and autumn. Mostly Hungary, plus Suez.”
The key material of the RIP sub-committee exactly, in short.
“What I’d guess…”Audley pursed his lips “… is that the French have got one of the special advisers in their pocket—one of the experts they wheel in—probably an Eastern European specialist by the look of it. Quite a smart fellow, too.”
“Yes?” said Roche huskily.
“Well, I didn’t read the stuff carefully once I’d established it was private Franco-Russian history.” Audley waved a hand. “And in retrospect it wasn’t all that explosive … It was just that the Russians were shit-scared of what was happening in Eastern Europe then, and particularly Hungary, and they reckoned the West knew all about it … In fact, they reckoned we were stirring it in order to give ourselves a free hand in Egypt, and there wasn’t a damn thing they could do about it. Hungary was so important to them that they more or less decided just to make loud noises about anything we did in the Middle East, but nothing more than that. In short, Nasser could take his chances, but if we moved one tank towards Hungary the balloon would go up … Oh, and a fellow called Andropov was usually chairman.”
“Yuri Andropov?” Christ!
“Just Andropov. They didn’t run to Christian names. Who’s he?”
“He was their Hungarian ambassador. Top brass KGB.” One of my bosses. “He probably organised the Hungarian business.”
“Sounds like the chap. Anyway, that’s about the sum of what I was able to read, if it’s any help to you … Which I assume it isn’t, because the Frogs must have passed a good deal of it on to your people by way of encouragement. And it’s all ancient history now, as I say—“ he stopped suddenly. “Except … there’s always the identity of their Moscow man, of course.”
“The satellite specialist?”
“That was my guess. It could be one of several people, but it wouldn’t be too difficult to track him down—just a matter of textual analysis and elimination … Is he what you’re after? Or the encyphered stuff?” Audley eyed him speculatively. “But you’d need the full text, either way, and that’s obviously what you want, judging by that sick look.”
“Does d’Auberon know you looked at what he gave you?”
“I shouldn’t wonder. He merely put me on my honour not to get it photocopied, that’s all … the transcripts and the encyphered stuff—you want ‘em both, so one probably complements the other …” Audley was thinking aloud.
“You didn’t get it photocopied, by any chance?”
Are you trying to be offensive? I told you—I owe the man my skin.” All the same, Audley spoke mildly, as though he was only giving Roche half his attention while the other half was engaged in more important matters. “So what’s your position now?”
Roche persisted. “My position?”
“Would you be willing to help me try and get it?” Audley stared at him vaguely. “That’s what I’m thinking about at this precise moment.”
“You mean … you would?”
“Oh yes. Now that I’ve given it back, and fulfilled my bargain, I don’t owe the blighter anything. And I’d still like to be an organ-grinder, you know …” He focussed on Roche. “How long have you known I had the d’Auberon stuff?”
“Why d’you want to know?”
“Not long?” Audley crushed the counter-question aside. “Only a few days?”
“I’d guess … not very long,” admitted Roche. “If you mean how long has Clinton known … But why d’you want to know?”
“Timing … it’s the timing. You popped the question to me at the first opportunity—now, even before breakfast. So Clinton must be pushing you like hell, to go ahead. Am I right?”
Roche nodded. It was almost time to tell Audley about Meriel Stephanides, and the question mark beside Bradford’s name. But he might as well see how far Audley could get unaided. “Timing?” he prodded Audley gently.
“That’s right: you were damn quick but you were still too late, Roche. Which means that my old friend ‘Tienne knew the cat was out of the bag, and he didn’t trust me to resist temptation any more. And that’s only the beginning of it, by God! Don’t you see, man?”
Roche forbore to let slip that in his opinion it was d’Auberon’s placing of the documents in Audley’s care in the first place which was surprising, not his hasty recovery of them at the first sign of danger. And yet it seemed that the Frenchman had judged his Englishman just about right in the end.
“Or are you holding out on me?” Audley gave him a sharp look.
“Holding out?”
“Who else knows about d’Auberon—and me? My God—if the British know, and d’Auberon’s got the wind up, then half the world probably knows!” Mr Hyde was back again.
“What’s the matter?” The Hyde-look alarmed Roche.
“Steffy,” snapped Audley.
Roche manned his defences. “I don’t know.”
“Don’t know if it was an accident? Who was she working for? The Israelis?”
“Yes. And Bradford is with the CIA, we think.”
“Are you suggesting that Mike had her run off the road last night?”
“I’m not suggesting anything. I don’t even know that it wasn’t an accident!” Roche snapped back.
“You know far too little for my peace of mind. If Steffy worked for the Israelis—“
“She did. No ‘if’.”
“All right. Let’s put it together then. Steffy worked for Mossad, and she showed up ten days ago. Mike may be cloak-and-dagger for the CIA as well as Hollywood, and he arrived a week before she did. And you finally made it trop tard yesterday.” Audley’s voice became grimmer with each arrival. “So what about the Komitet Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti?”
Audley’s Russian accent was worse than his French, but there was nothing wrong with his logic, thought Roche equally grimly.
“What about them?”
“Running little girls off the road is more their style, or it used to be in my young days. If the Yankees didn’t do it—and I can’t see them getting violent over the d’Auberon papers, which don’t involve their security … and your lot didn’t do it, because the same applies … and the French themselves didn’t need to do it, because they would have simply run her out of the country as an undesirable … and the Israelis wouldn’t want to cause the French trouble anyway. And that just leaves the KGB, who also happen to have the best reason of all for wanting the papers, to find out who was telling tales out of school… So what about them, then?”
Roche was uneasily aware that this was one question to which he had the exact answer, but one which he still could make no sense of.
“You’re not about to tell me once again that you don’t know?” Audley mistook his unease for embarrassment.
“We haven’t spotted them if they are here.” Unbelievable was more like it: with the way the Comrades had French security sewn up it was unbelievable that they hadn’t known about d’Auberon long ago. And yet, if Genghis Khan wasn’t playing some other, m
uch deeper game, he had no choice but to believe the unbelievable.
“Well, if they aren’t it’s a bloody miracle,” said Audley. “And if it is a miracle it isn’t going to last much longer, because if they’ve got Steffy on their books they’ll be likely to want to know why she ran out of road. And then they’ll start picking up names … and then this place will become extremely unhealthy …” Audley’s eyes unfocussed as the probabilities unfolded “… in fact, I’m damn glad I’m not safe-keeping ‘Tienne’s wretched insurance policy any more—it’s about to transmogrify into his death certificate, I shouldn’t wonder.” The eyes focussed on Roche again. ‘In fact, since I can no longer work my passage back into the old firm … and I have no wish to be caught in your cross-fire … I think I’m just about to remember some pressing business a long way from here, Roche.” He started moving downhill once more, without another word.
“No—wait!” Roche swivelled to follow him. “Where are you going, Audley—“
“To get the bread, of course.” The words were thrown back at him over Audley’s shoulder. “Breakfast first—then a prudent retreat, old boy.”
“But you can’t go—just like that!” Roche started after him, accelerating desperately to overtake him.
“You just watch me. I think I’ll get Bradford to take me to see Hollywood. That should be far enough.”
Everything seemed to have crumbled into ruins just when it had all seemed in his grasp, thought Roche wildly: Audley was quite wrong, but there was no way that he could tell him so. Or was he wrong?
The mist had almost swallowed up Audley. Above him, but far beyond, the crest of the ridge on the other side of the valley rose up out of the misty sea, the trees on it standing out sharply against the deepening blue of the sky. It was going to be a fine, hot day—a fine, hot, cloudless, utterly disastrous day.
Audley’s figure hadn’t disappeared yet. Just when it was losing definition altogether it had firmed up again— Audley was coming back!
Roche watched the big man stumping uphill towards him, a ghostly figure regaining the substance of life with every step, even at last to the expression on his face.
It was a curious face, he thought: the big nose, which looked as if it had been broken more than once in rough scrimmages on the rugger field, divided a boxer’s chin from the high forehead. And yet it was the mouth and the eyes, with their manic changes, which dominated these permanent hereditary features—the same features he had seen in the picture on the staircase in The Old House.
The mouth smiled at him. “Our deal is still on, is it?”
Roche nodded.
“If I show you how to get the papers … I’m back in?”
Roche nodded again.
“With seniority? I have your word on it?”
Yes.” Roche could just about manage that word.
“Jolly good! Because I’ve just had second thoughts.”
Second thoughts?”
“Yes. I don’t know about Avery— Sir Eustace—but Clinton was always a man of his word. So I accept.” Audley nodded. “I’m afraid you’ll have to do the work—I insist you don’t mention my name, in fact … that might well turn him against you. But I’ll tell you what to say. Okay?”
It wasn’t an occasion for caution. “Okay.”
“Okay. So we have our deal: if we succeed I’m in, if we fail I shall work for Mike Bradford, who will undoubtedly pay me better. Heads—I win … tails—I don’t lose. That’s the sort of deal I like, old boy.”
Arrogant, selfish, ruthless and cunning, Latimer had said, among other defects. But that would be Avery’s problem in the future, if there was one.
“So what’s your plan, Audley?” Clinton and Avery were both welcome to this bastard, thought Roche.
“My plan? All you have to do is to make him an offer he can’t refuse.” The smile was pure Hyde now. “If the KGB isn’t here yet it soon will be, and that’s our lever. If he gives the stuff to us, we’ll let them know we’ve got it—and we’ll get the French off his back. That won’t be difficult. And if he won’t play, we’ll feed him to the KGB.”
The bastard! “Straight blackmail, you mean?”
“Blackmail?” Mr Hyde continued to smile. “My dear chap, we’re saving his life for him!”
BATTLE
No plan survives reality
XV
ROCHE ARRIVED AT the southern gateway of Neuville exactly on time.
Below him, the old military road along which help or trouble had marched to Neuville from Cahors ran away into the farmland, empty except for two children playing in the dust with a dog and a ball. The first flush of morning had passed, and the sun was rising fast into its cloudless sky. God was in His heaven, and Jilly Baker was at Les Eyzies, or Le Bugue, or wherever the formalities of death had to be transacted, with Davey Stein along for moral support; and Lexy was still in her bath, for all the good bathing would do her; and Audley was packing, ready for whichever master he would be serving tomorrow, in London or Hollywood, and grunting instructions for the maintenance of the cottage to Bradford, who was staying on to continue his quest (or not, as the case might be, according to which of those masters Audley finally served …).
There was positively nothing he could see to make him nervous, and the children’s voices grew fainter as their ball drew them away into the country, so he sauntered from one side of the gateway to the other, recalling the cold summer wind on the garage forecourt in Sussex, opposite Genghis Khan’s church.
The van arrived five minutes later, drawing in close beside the left-hand bastion of the gateway.
Still remembering Sussex, Roche watched it half-hopefully, half-fearfully, out of the corner of his eye, only to have his half-hopes swiftly dashed as its occupants unloaded boxes of fresh peaches from the rear, each carrying an armful through the gateway into the town, with no more than the typical glance at him which the working peasant reserved for the idle foreign tourist, of boredom lightly iced with envy.
Five more minutes dragged by, then the two men returned to exchange empty boxes for fresh ones. Roche’s half-fears began to strengthen at their inconvenient presence, which must surely account for the delay in Genghis Khan’s appearance. At the best of times the moment of contact was charged with doubt and uncertainty, but here in the open, with miles of countryside below him and a hundred upper-storey windows watching him over the old wall, the dangers were multiplied.
He turned away from them to scan the street again, aware of a prickle of sweat under his shirt which was not caused by the sun’s warmth on his back. But this time, as he moved to give them a wider berth, the elder of the two peasants detoured to pass round him, his face half-obscured by the peach-boxes.
“The van,” half the mouth whispered.
Beneath the three-quarter rolled-up canvas flap at the back, the interior of the van looked hot and dark, and still full of peach-boxes. Several wasps were already buzzing above the lowered tail-board, attracted by the scent of the peaches and working up their courage to leave the safety of the sunlight.
“Look away—don’t look in here,” said Genghis Khan’s voice out of the boxes and the darkness. “Look towards the country.”
Roche looked away quickly, down the Cahors road and over the children, to the fields which the medieval Neuvillians had once tilled when they had been frontier farmers.
“If you can hear me, don’t nod—just say so. You understand?” Roche almost nodded. Every night they had returned to the security of their walls, those old farmers, like the earliest colonists of the Americas. That was how bastides worked.
“Yes,” he addressed the fields. He hadn’t realised until now how deliberately the place had been sited; but, of course, Alphonse de Poitiers had taken the high ground for his new town, like any good commander.
“From time to time, walk away, as though you are still waiting for someone … And if you see anything you don’t like, walk away and don’t come back. You understand?”
Again Ro
che very nearly nodded. It was an unnatural way of conversing, almost like talking to an incubus within him, which was whispering inside his head.
“Yes.” With an effort of will he drove out the dark thought, to join Alphonse de Poitiers. “I understand.”
“Then listen. We know now where Audley’s money comes from—“
“So do I. He wrote Princess in the Sunset,” interrupted Roche quickly. Another advantage was that the memory of that face was less daunting than the actual sight of it: he had to envisage Genghis Khan as he was now— imprisoned in sweaty peach-sweet darkness, with wasps buzzing around his ears, not as the descendant of the Mongols and the out-rider of the next race’ of conquerors.
“He told you?”
“No.” Better to think of the man in there as a Hun than a Mongol: Audley’s Aëtius, the Last of the Romans, and his half-civilised Visigothic allies had beaten them not far from here fifteen hundred years back. So it could be done—it wasn’t impossible if he kept his head.
“What?” The sound of a slight movement inside the van, above the wasp-buzz, encouraged Roche.
“I said ‘no’—he didn’t tell me. He doesn’t want anyone to know he’s Antonia Palfrey. It wouldn’t do his image as a serious historian any good … among the serious historians.” Roche smiled at the fields of Neuville as he thought of what Dr Bodger would make of Antonia Audley. In any last resort there was a weapon to hand there.
But not a weapon to use against Genghis Khan. “What’s more, he’s writing another novel—he’s writing two books, actually: there’s a novel about the Vandals in the 5th century, which I think he’s finished … and there’s a history of the Arab invasion of these parts in the 8th century. Which is why he’s here now—“ the weapon he needed for Genghis Khan fitted snugly into his hand “—all of which I think Colonel Clinton and Sir Eustace Avery already know… among other things,” he lowered his voice deliberately, to make it more difficult for Genghis Khan to hear, for tactical reasons as well as pure sadism.
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