Gunner Kelly

Good enough, anyway, to observe the herd of cows munching peacefully far away across the field to his right . . . and no hazards or obstacles in prospect except those designed to give the fox-hunters good practice, with not one yard of barbed-wire, which the riders hated as much as any infantryman.

He pushed forward, keeping to the deepest centre of the stream, where he could almost swim. After a few strokes, the cord on his wrist tugged at his stroke, but a second tug freed the cylinder—that was how the plastic branches were designed: to look real, but to bend and give way as soon as extra pressure was exerted on them, dummy1

to allow the ersatz tree-trunk to follow its master—

It was easy. With the weak current behind him, and the water holding him up and taking the weight of the cylinder, he could make something like walking pace, with his head below the bank.

At intervals, he stood up—always between the clumps of willows to which any inexperienced sentry would inevitably gravitate—but each sweep identified only animals . . . first cows, which took no notice of him, and later sheep, which bleated weakly and uneasily, as though they couldn’t quite remember the nights when the wolves had hunted their remote ancestors, but nevertheless hadn’t lost some dim frightening memory of long-extinct enemies, from which their loving guardians, the good shepherds, protected them all the way to the slaughter-house. But their warning protests were quickly silenced when he sank down into the stream and let himself drift by their wallows, careful only not to sample any of the fouled water.

The River Addle—

Addled eggs his English vocabulary had given him, but Mother’s dictionary had warningly added the definition of addle as ‘stinking urine or liquid filth’; which he could believe now, after having traversed several trampled-down gaps in the Addle’s banks where its fauna drank and defecated, so that he didn’t even like to wipe his sweaty face with Addle-water, let alone quench his thirst with it.

But it was easy. If there were night-guards out in Duntisbury Chase, they were not here, along the Addle—Colonel Butler had calculated correctly. . . . Maybe there were no such guards —

maybe they had imagined the whole thing, between them, and this dummy1

was all for nothing; the only obstacles to his passage were the wires stretched across the stream at field boundaries—not barbed-wires of course (not barbed-wire in the Chase!), but inoffensive strands under which he could duck with no fear of snagging himself even if he had touched them—

It was easy—

And now the wolf—or this fox, anyway—was almost within the fold— this fold—on the edge of the belt of trees which marked the beginning of the Roman villa-site on the outskirts of Duntisbury Royal itself, where he planned to come ashore.

It was easy—

He caught hold of a tree-root eroded out of the bank with his free hand, and jerked the cord which attached him to the cylinder trailing five metres behind him. This was the ideal landfall. Then, suddenly, it was not so easy!

The bright red tip of a cigarette flared briefly, like a fire-fly in the dark, downstream not twenty metres from him, freezing him into immobility in that instant, with half his body out of the water.

The flare died down, then disappeared altogether—there was the thick trunk of an old willow-tree curving out over the stream where it had disappeared—then the fire-fly flew in an arc, out over and into the stream, to be instantly extinguished. Not easy—but too easy: now it was his own undeserved good luck which froze him, congealing the sweat on his face as he sank back noiselessly into the stream, crouching down in it.

He had been foolish; he had not accorded Colonel Butler his dummy1

absolute confidence—and, even worse, not backing his own judgement of Duntisbury Chase, because it had seemed to him over-imaginative: Audley’s not trained to set up anything like this . . . But don’t underrate him for that reason: if there is anything there, waiting for you, it’ll be maybe amateurish . . . But, if he has anything to do with it, it won’t be predictably amateurish.

So we’ll take precautions—

He swore silently under his breath, easing himself closer to a tall growth of water-weeds on the edge of the stream. The damnable truth was that this was both predictable and amateurish, and he had still nearly been caught by it: predictable, because the air photos had shown a narrow footbridge across the Addle not far downstream from here, so that this was where he ought to have expected a hazard . . . and amateurish . . . God! If Audley hadn’t had to make do with an unskilled sentry who smoked on guard-duty he himself would be in no position now to criticise that!

Just in time, he remembered the ersatz tree-trunk— Or not just in time—it was already floating past him downstream, fatally out of reach, and the slimy cord eluded his grip long enough to make it behave—damn it, almost level with the sentry!—as no ordinary drifting log ought to behave. He would have to let the line play out

—

“Dad!”

The unexpected sound caught him with his senses at full stretch: dry mouth, although it wasn’t a Kalashnikov waiting for him in the dark—could the cigarette-smoker see the log?— and the sweet-rotten smell of the stream, of growing and summer-flowering dummy1

things, and dead things, and wet mud in his nostrils, and all the small night sounds of the countryside in his ears.

“Dad?”

This time it was a much louder whisper, urgent inquiry edged with apprehension.

“Ssssh! Over here, boy!”

The soft crunch-and-swish marked the movement of the boy towards the man through the river-bank vegetation.

“Ouch!”

“Ssssh!”

“I stung meself, Dad. Dad—”

“What you doin‘ ’ere? Does your Mum know—?” The sentry began accusingly, cutting off the boy with his first question angrily, then amending his anger with doubt in the second question.

“Yes, Dad. She said for me to come.”

Benedikt recognised the speaker. But of course—if it was anyone, it would be he!

“She—what?”

“She said I could come. She didn’t send me. Mr Kelly sent me—

she said I could come, though—”

Kelly!

“Kelly?”

Mr Kelly sent me! With those four words the greater part of his mission was accomplished: Kelly was in Duntisbury Chase.

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“The police are in the village, Dad,” Benje came to the point breathlessly.

“What?”

“The police, Dad. Mr Russell an‘ another one—an inspector, Mr Kelly told Mum . . . They went to the Bells.”

Benedikt began to play out the line, to let the log drift past the point of danger.

“The Bells?” The father didn’t sound as intelligent as the son.

“It’s okay—they didn’t catch ‘em. The till was open an’ the door locked . . . But Mr Kelly says for me to tell you to stay here

—‘cause Old Joapey can’t come yet, because he was in the Bells when the police came—”

The line tautened to full stretch. The log must be well beyond Dad by now, and there would never be a better moment to follow it, while the man was digesting this news of the police raid.

“Mr Kelly got out the back though—” continued Benje “—an‘ he came straight to Mum—”

Benedikt took a deep breath and sank into the water. It was hardly a metre deep, and he was forced to propel himself downstream like some blind and primitive amphibious creature, half swimming and half crawling: it was like nothing he had ever done before, but the need for absolute silence made further analysis impossible. All he could do was to count his strokes, allowing for the fact that some of them were hardly strokes at all, when his fingers sank into the mud or encountered harder objects—all the waterlogged and sunken detritus from the world outside and above the stream . . .

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fallen branches and tangled lumps of river-weed roots and the submerged stems of the reeds.

He counted almost to the limit before anchoring one hand in a tangle and letting himself surface, pulling sideways on his anchor as he did so, so that he came up close alongside the reeds and away from open water.

For a moment he could hear nothing. Then the soft murmur of voices came through. He had not travelled very far by the sound of them . . . not much further downstream from Dad than he had been upstream of the man before he had started. But the reeds were protectively tall, and the continuing murmur reassured him that his passage had gone unnoticed.

For another moment he was torn between the temptation to stay where he was, to listen to whatever father and son had to say to each other, or to put more distance between himself and them while he had the best chance. But the temptation to stay was a weak one: the boy’s job would have been simply to have warned his father to stay on guard, or out of the village, because his relief

—‘Old Joapey’, presumably—was otherwise engaged. It was unlikely that Kelly ... or, more likely, Audley himself . . . would have confided more to a mere child, however intelligent.

Audley . . . or Kelly ... or both: that was the second and last part of what Colonel Butler wanted to know. And the best way to that was to move now, while he had the opportunity, while the presence of the police would inhibit movement within the village.

He pushed out into the stream again, keeping as close to the reeds as possible, without bothering to use the image intensifier. Either dummy1

the night was less dark now or his own night sight had improved: the loom of the footbridge ahead quickly became the bridge itself, a low structure similar to that beside the ford which he had already negotiated. Beyond it the trees thickened on both sides of the stream and the sun-loving reeds ended. The sky above him became patches of blue-black against a tracery of interlocking branches as he approached the planned landfall.

Everything was all right now: he was in the right place at just about the right time. He had been careless, but he had also been lucky, and the one cancelled out the other to leave him feeling slightly ridiculous. This was England, not the Other Side—and this was the altogether ridiculous River Addle, a tributary of the negligible River Avon (which was confusingly just one of the many English River Avons), not of the Elbe or the Oder or the Danube or the Vistula . . . And that had been Benje’s Dad smoking on the bank back there, not some double-trusted Communist border guard armed with the latest lethal technology and keen to try it out on anyone crossing his line from either side of it.

Ridiculous indeed!

There was an area of not-quite-darkness just ahead, beneath a break in the canopy of leaves, where the spring floods had undercut the bank to create an overhang. That would be a good place to moor the log after he had swopped the wet-suit for its contents, where if it was seen it would be thought to have snagged itself naturally among the exposed tree-roots.

He hauled in the line, bringing the log to his landing place, and eased himself silently on to the bank. For a moment nothing dummy1

stirred, then suddenly a bird squawked in panic just above his head and flapped noisily from its roost, away down the course of the stream, to find some safer refuge.

He hugged the ground, waiting for silence to gather round him again, listening to it thicken until all he could hear came from far away: among the distant night noises he could even distinguish the faint hum of a vehicle on the main road on the ridge, two or three kilometres in a straight line across country from the valley.

Perhaps not quite ridiculous: perhaps practice of a sort . . . or, if not practice, at least a reminder of the risks and discomforts which his successors in the field must endure on his orders—successors who could not depend on luck cancelling carelessness.

Well ... the silence around him was absolute again, and the fox was in the fold undetected, with a job to do ... so whether that job was ridiculous, or a little gentle practice, or a timely reminder of harsher realities ... all of that hardly mattered.

He sighed, and lifted the log out of the water on to dry land, feeling along it in the dark for the concealed catches which opened it.

Out of the wet-suit, and dry, and properly dressed again like an innocent tourist—an innocent Thomas Wiesehöfer—he felt much better.

Of course, he was still an intruder, and if challenged and identified he had only his story of an evening walk on the downland which had been overtaken by darkness and had ended with his becoming hopelessly lost. Even as he rehearsed it to himself while crossing dummy1

the Roman villa field from the stream, it sounded thin and unconvincing to him. But what could they do but believe him?

And, anyway, thin and unconvincing or not, it was better than being caught in a wet-suit: a stranger in slightly crumpled slacks and wind-cheater might or might not be up to no good. But a stranger abroad in a wet-suit after dark could only be either a lunatic or a villain.

But . . . beneath what could they do? that other question still plagued him, as it plagued Colonel Butler: What was Audley doing?

It was extraordinary that the inhabitants of a peaceful English village should conspire together to revenge themselves on a terrorist. And yet, supposing that they had found some way of luring the killer to them, it was not unbelievable.

Even Colonel Butler had admitted that: “We don’t have the death penalty, Captain Schneider— every time it comes up in Parliament on a free vote it’s thrown out. But if you put it to a referendum . . .

which God forbid! . . . we’d have it back— and probably public executions as well. What they’d say is . . . killing children and coppers on the beat. . . ‘String ’em up‘. And rapists who kill, and traitors, and terrorists— ’ Hanging’s too good for them‘, they’d say

— the majority would . . . terrorists— and particularly terrorists with bombs ...”

He could see the churchyard wall ahead, and the stile which he had crossed and recrossed a few hours earlier.

The age of direct action: The Greens and Ban the Bomb, Ban Nuclear Power, Ban War itself. . . And here they had, if not the dummy1

Greens, something like them in England—CND and other peace movements . . . and Greenpeace, and all the animal-lovers, who raided the laboratories and disrupted the hunting of animals.

Hunting humans, now—maybe that wasn’t so wicked!

He climbed the stile, avoiding the gravel path in preference for the noiseless grass between the gravestones.

Colonel Butler: “They’ve got longer memories in the country . . .

Not that they needed them for the Old General. He was something rather special, so it seems— something out of the past, just as Duntisbury Chase and Duntisbury Royal are also out of the past, and rather special. . . I think we have to accept that they conceive they have a duty— that they loved him and that therefore they have the obligation and the right to avenge him, Captain.”

That was the motive-power behind direct action, and what made it so dangerous: it had the powerful fuels of love and duty and self-righteousness in the engine-room, which gave ordinary decent men and women the resolution to act and to endure.

He could see the tall cross of the War Memorial ahead of him now, between two of the ancient yew-trees which the English habitually planted in their churchyards—

The question was not where the true power came from— here, in this churchyard, approaching that cross, which was the symbol of the Saviour of both the English and the Germans in their last hour, commemorating the fallen on both sides— which had been Papa’s cross and Mother’s cross simultaneously . . . the question was who was on the bridge here, at the controls, in the driving seat, dummy1

directing that power to what ends?

He came to the churchyard’s wicket-gate, close by the memorial and with the loom of the Eight Bells on his left. There was a single light in the public house, but in a dormer window in the roof, not at ground level; yet there was no police car in the car park—there were no cars at all... And Colonel Butler had promised that the police would stay in the village, prowling around, until after midnight.

He looked at his watch.

The question was . . . but the question divided itself as he approached it...

Rebecca Maxwell-Smith and the inhabitants of Duntisbury Royal might have desired vengeance, but they would not have known how to encompass it.

Mr Kelly— Gunner Kelly, from long ago—would have desired that same vengeance . . . and if Colonel Butler’s guess was correct Kelly was the extra ingredient in the Duntisbury Chase conspiracy.

But it was Dr David Audley who gave that conspiracy a dimension of importance to the security of the state—who, if the Colonel was right, would not be interested in vengeance, and who would not connive in murder, least of all a murder by Miss Rebecca Maxwell-Smith, whose welfare he had promised to safeguard.

But now the more important question was . . . how long after midnight would the police prowl around Duntisbury Royal? And that relegated all the other questions to temporary obscurity.

Through the wicket-gate—it had been well-oiled at midday, so it dummy1

would not betray him now—and quickly across the road to the grass verge on the other side: at least he possessed the enormous advantage of having walked through the village this afternoon in Benje’s company, even if he had been steered away from the lodge gates, and the lodge, and the manor house itself.

And another thing was for sure: he could not approach the lodge, where Gunner Kelly lived, directly from the road. If there had been someone on watch at the ford and near the footbridge, there would surely be someone in the tangle of shrubbery on each side keeping an eye on those iron gates. But that presented no special problem, because where the grounds of the manor fronted the village there was a thick belt of trees held back by a stone wall; and the wall, neither too high nor (so far as he had observed) topped with spikes or broken glass, he could scale at any point (spikes and lacerating points of glass would not be the Maxwell family style: the esteem in which they were held suggested to Benedikt that they would fight their intruders fairly, without such unpleasantness).

Where to cross the wall, though . . . that had to be an arbitrary decision: not too close to the lodge entrance, but it was a long wall, undulating with the rise and fall of the land itself, so not too far away either.

When he was half-way to the gates, approaching headlights drove him down into the shelter of the convenient gateway of a darkened cottage: he shrank close to a thick hedge until the vehicle cruised past slowly, its lights searching out the road ahead of it; but, with relief, he saw that it was Mr Russell’s police car, unmistakable with its broad red-stripe-against-white as it rolled by, even though dummy1

its illuminated Police sign was not switched on. And with Mr Russell still in Duntisbury Royal now he could reasonably depend on a few undisturbed minutes. Darkness and silence settled back in its wake, and this piece of wall was as good as any other.

Over the wall, under the trees, it was darker still, and he would dearly have liked the help of the torch with which the SAS cylinder had supplied him. But although it was impossible now to move in total silence, the thick carpet of leaves, soft and springy under his feet, blanked out all but the occasional sound.

Also, the trees were not so thick that he couldn’t make out the obstacles ahead of him: separate tangles of branches and thickets of vegetation in clearings routed him through the woods along an obvious path, with no real alternative. And he knew, estimating distance half by experience from the afternoon and half by his sixth directional sense, that he was making progress to where he wanted to go, safely inside the manor grounds at the rear of the house itself.

Then his next step sank deeper into the leaves—

And deeper—

And deeper— and suddenly too deep—

Too late, he tried to throw his weight back, as his foot sank down past ankle, past knee—suddenly he had no foot, no ankle, no knee, no leg, and he was trying to fall back, but he was falling forwards into ground which was opening up underneath him—

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V

The pit, on a quick estimate, was something more than three metres deep—nearer four even—and at least two metres square at the bottom. And its walls were sheer.

Not to panic, Benedikt admonished himself.

He switched off his torch and extended his arms on each side of him, adjusting his position until he lost contact with the side closest to where he had landed. Even with the torch as an extension to one hand he couldn’t touch both walls simultaneously, and the same applied when he swivelled through ninety degrees.

More than two metres wide each way, then. And probably three metres deep. And sheer-walled.

He stood absolutely still, counting off his heart-beats until he was sure he could hear no sound but the thump in his own chest. He had seemed to descend with a great crashing noise, yet most of that must have been in his own ears, and if there was no sentry near the pit his fall might yet be unnoticed.

Not to panic, then!

He shifted his feet. At least he had fallen soft, into what felt underfoot like a mixture of wet broken earth and leaves; and now he was standing almost knee deep in the wreckage of the false floor of the wood above him, through which he had plunged.

Damn it to hell! It was anger, not panic, which momentarily dummy1

clogged his throat and his thinking: To be caught like this, in the oldest, simplest trap of all— like an animal!

With an effort of will he swallowed his anger and cleared his head.

Wasting time on that foolish emotion only compounded his difficulties. And, given time, there was no trap from which a thinking animal could not escape—

He risked the torch again. Down here, at least, it would not betray him far and wide, as it would have done up above, so long as he kept the beam down—

The walls were pale and chalky: this was ideal ground for digging without revetment, like that into which Grandpapa must have dug in France all those years ago, for his Siegfried Stellung—

Above him, almost within reach—perhaps within reach, the remains of the lattice of woven branches which had supported the deceptive roof of the trap gaped downwards: it had been so well-fabricated that he had not dislodged the whole construction in his fall—

If he could reach up and pull the whole of it down . . . would that raise him high enough ... or provide him with anything he could use

—?

He studied the lattice, shading the beam of his torch with his hand.

A single leaf, detaching itself from the thick layer which had concealed the trap, floated down on to him, brushing past his cheek. With a spasm of despair he saw that it was too far above him, undeniably built by someone who knew his business—

someone who had calculated a structure just strong enough to bear dummy1

that treacherous carpet of leaves, which had at first yielded under him like the rest of the forest floor, and then had welcomed him into the pit when it was too late.

He fought back the despair as it edged him again towards that other trap of panic from which he had already forced himself back.

This was not on the Other Side: he was not Benedikt Schneider, whose print-out and voice-print and finger-prints and photograph were all on the A10 KGB Red Code—

This was Thomas Wiesehöfer, and this was England— and if that was also Dr David Audley’s England it was Colonel Butler’s England too—

So . . . what could they do to him, anyway— Dr David Audley— and Miss Rebecca Maxwell-Smith, and Gunner Kelly, and Benje’s Dad smoking on the river-bank— ? What could they do to him?

So ... perhaps what he ought to do, as Thomas Wiesehöfer—as innocent Thomas Wiesehöfer—was to shout ‘ Help’ at the top of his voice, and be Thomas Wiesehöfer thereafter—

What he did do was to uncover the full beam of his torch, as Thomas Wiesehöfer might have done, to examine the unexpected man-trap into which he had fallen.

Another leaf, and then a whole handful of leaves, descended from above with a dry scraping sound, as though dislodged by the light itself. And there, high up and half-hidden amongst the sagging lattice-work on the edge of the pit in the nearest corner to where he had fallen, was the end of a rope-ladder!

Benedikt cursed himself for not noticing it immediately, as an dummy1

innocent Thomas Wiesehöfer would surely have done once he had collected his wits after plunging into the pit. In the direct beam of the torch there was no doubt about it: it was a genuine and undoubted rope-ladder, its rungs stretched and mud-stained with previous use by the diggers of the pit!

It was hardly believable, even for amateurs . . . but someone had been careless again, failing to draw up the rope-ladder which the diggers had used—failing to draw it up that last half-metre, to the lip of the pit—?

Unless—he frowned to himself as an alternative possibility, even more unbelievable, intruded into his mind—unless this wasn’t a man-trap at all—?

An animal-trap? If it was a man-trap then that rope-ladder had no place in it. But an animal-trap—

Yet what sort of animal was there in Duntisbury Chase that they might want to trap—if everything which he and Colonel Butler had imagined was no more than an illusion of a fevered sense of insecurity? There were no wild boar in England, there were only foxes and deer . . . But was this how the English trapped those creatures out of season?

He shook his head. Man or animal, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was getting out of the pit while there was still time to do so: Thomas and Benedikt were both agreed on that!

He turned the torch to the debris in which he stood, foraging among the branches of the fallen part of the lattice. With the right extension to his arm the rope-ladder was well within reach, and dummy1

after that everything depended on whether it was firmly anchored above, sufficiently to bear his weight, or merely piled for removal with that careless end enticing him to disappointment.

He hooked the end of the branch over the rung and pulled gently.

The rope bowed, and then tautened as he increased the pressure. A quantity of leaves and assorted duff from the forest floor above descended on him, together with small hard fragments of chalk from the lip of the pit. For a moment the rope-ladder resisted him while it sorted itself out, then it came free with a sudden rush-and-slither, bringing down a miniature deluge of the same mixture with it, including a larger lump of chalk which struck him sharply and painfully on the cheekbone. The noise of it all, confined within the almost-enclosed space of the pit, seemed as deafening as his orginal fall, so that when the silence came back once more and lengthened again into safety he marvelled at his continued good fortune.

Then reason asserted itself. Man-trap or animal-trap, there must be others like it in other likely places: traps sited like this one, which used the natural forest obstacles to funnel the quarry along convenient routes into them. But the village’s manpower available over every twenty-four hours of light and darkness must be strictly limited, and most of it would have to be used to cover the open country which could not be man-trapped, so that the traps would only be checked at intervals. Not for Duntisbury Royal the vicious anti-personnel mines, and voracious dogs, and merciless heat-seeking sensors of the Other Side’s frontier, thank God!

And, once again, he had been lucky nevertheless, to fall into this dummy1

trap between checks, with time to spare (or perhaps the police raid had dislocated the schedule?)—and luckiest of all to fall into this particular trap, of all others, in which their carelessness had again cancelled out their ingenuity.

But now there was no more time to lose if he was to capitalise on that good fortune: he had to cut his losses and run with what he had

—

He stuffed the torch back into his pocket and reached for the rope-ladder, fumbling in the dark over the rough chalk wall of the pit until his fingers closed on it.

Already his mind was ranging freely above him, mapping out his route to safety: straight up the nearest ridge to the south was the shortest way, but he no longer trusted any part of Duntisbury Royal along which he hadn’t travelled this night, so back along the path by which he had come was the way he intended to leave, wading the River Addle below the footbridge. The SAS cylinder with his wet-suit inside it was safely moored out of sight and could be left to Colonel Butler to recover at his leisure as his problem: the rule now was the same rule for any operation which had gone sour, with the priority on getting the human material out, regardless of loss of equipment. And this time he was the human material—

Get out quickly, or go to ground if you can’t get out!

He grasped the vertical of the rope ladder firmly, at full stretch, and felt for the lowest rung with his left foot— by God, he had gone to ground literally already, but it was out of ground and away that he wanted to go now!

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The rope-ladder stretched under his weight, tapering and twisting as all rope-ladders did, but he was ready for its distortion from his training—compared with that these few metres would be a piece of cake—

His left shoulder banged against the hard wall of the pit— this was the crucial moment when he would really find out whether the damn thing was properly anchored, as he raised his right foot to find the next rung.

It was holding—his foot found the rung—

He was going to get out of the pit—

More of the debris from above cascaded down on him. But one more stretch, and he would be at ground-level again— out of the man-trap at last.

The rope-ladder gave way not quite in the same instant of time when the tremendous concussive bang exploded above him: he was already in mid-air, falling backwards, when the sound of it enveloped him, so that in the moment he had no understanding of where the sound came from—above, or below, or inside—

Then he was on his back, bouncing off the wreckage which cushioned his fall for half another instant, until his head hit the chalk wall behind him, starting another explosion inside his head to mingle with the echoes of the explosion outside—

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He came back to full consciousness in a matter of seconds, but into total confusion: he was aware only that he had threshed about wildly, half-stunned and enmeshed equally in panic and the rope-ladder, which had followed him down into the pit, twining round him like a living thing in the darkness.

Yet it was the awareness—the understanding that he was still alive

—which created the confusion. His head hurt, but it hurt high up at the back, where it had struck the wall of the pit: it didn’t hurt because it had been blown to pieces by that shot from above. That shot—?

But, anyway, there was no sound from above now. The echoes of the explosion and the ringing in his ears had both died away into an unnatural silence.

Yet he wasn’t dead—he could move his legs and his arms and his hands and his fingers—he could feel the leaves and branches beneath him, and he could hear them rasp and crunch beneath him . . . against that other silence—

God damn! It hadn’t been a shot at all—there was no one up there, above him. God damn!

He shook the blasphemy from his head and sat up, fumbling in his pocket for his torch.

Of course there were other pits like this—other man-traps waiting for their quarry. But they couldn’t cover all of them, so they had rigged up a trap-within-a-trap: the convenient rope-ladder offering its help to any thinking animal which might fall into the pit by day or night. . . Only the other end of the ladder wasn’t anchored at all dummy1

—it was simply attached to some sort of explosive device, set in the same fashion as a trip-flare, but attached in this case to a warning maroon which would betray the intelligent prisoner as soon as he put his full weight on it.

Benedikt ground his teeth in anger with himself—and with Audley

—Colonel Butler had warned him that Audley would be tricky—

and then with Colonel Butler, and everyone from Herzner at the Embassy— just a little job for Colonel Butler, Captain Schneider—

to Miss Rebecca Maxwell-Smith and Benje’s Dad . . . and even Thomas Wiesehöfer—

Thomas Wiesehöfer—

Now they would be coming, summoned by that ear-splitting warning— and coming quickly—

Still no sound from above.

He brushed the dirt from his face. There was an egg on the back of his head which was tender to the touch of his fingertips—and . . .

and a slightly raised contusion on his cheekbone, where the lump of chalk had hit him: it even boasted a sticky crater where the chalk had cut into his flesh—

But there was no more time for thought: someone was coming—he could hear voices—

“Help!” shouted Thomas Wiesehöfer, lost on his evening stroll in a dummy1

foreign country and trapped in an incomprehensible pit.

And now there was light as well as sound above—and he must get rid of his own tell-tale torch—

“Help!” He stuffed the torch under the debris beneath him, and stood up on top of it, steadying himself on the nearest wall.

“Help!” He achieved a note of desperation which was too close to the truth for comfortable analysis.

The light intensified, finally shiningdown directly into his eyes.

“Grüss Gott!” exclaimed Thomas Wiesehöfer fervently. “Please! I haff fallen into—into this place—this hole in the ground! Please to help me—I am wounded and bleeding.”

The beam of the torch explored him.

“Please to help me!” appealed Thomas Wiesehöfer.

There was a pause above.

“Please—”

“It’s that bloody Jerry.” The voice ignored his appeal.

“What?” Another voice.

“That Jerry—from this afternoon . . . the one that was nosing around . . . the one that was in the Bells.”

“What?” A second light entered the pit, fixing itself on Thomas Wiesehöfer. “You’m right.”

“Please!” Thomas Wiesehöfer was running out of steam.

“What’ll us do with ‘im, then?” The rich country voice behind the second torch also ignored his appeal.

“Knock the bugger on the ‘ead an’ fill in the bloody ‘ole, I would, dummy1

if I ’ad my way,” said the first speaker uncompromisingly.

“Looks like someone’s already given ‘im one for starters. See ’is face there?”

“Ah, I see’d it. Must ‘a done that when ’e went in. Serve ‘im right!” The first speaker was clearly unmoved by the state of their captive’s appearance. “Serve the bugger right!”

Thomas Wiesehöfer decided to get angry. “You up there— do you not hear me? I haff fallen in this hole—you will help me out at once, please!”

“Arr! So you fell into the ‘ole, did you now, Mister?” The first speaker echoed him unsympathetically. “An’ what was you doin‘

out ’ere in the first place, eh?”

“Poachin‘ on the Old Squire’s land, that’s Miss Becky’s now, mebbe?” The second speaker chuckled grimly. “Bloody foreigner—

poachin’ on Miss Becky’s land! This’ll learn ‘im, then!”

“What?” They were playing with him, the swine! “I do not understand—?”

“Arr? Nor you don’t, don’t you?” The first speaker chipped in.

“Well then . . . you just bide where you are, Mister—you just bide there—see?” The torch flashed out. “Keep clear of anyone we catches, is what they said—just make sure they stays where they are ‘til we can cast an eye on ’em—so that’s what us’ll do.”

They? Damn them!

“You down there—” the words descended through the darkness, which was once again complete “—I got a 12-bore an‘ I knows how to use it. So you stay quiet then . . . understand?”

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Benedikt suddenly understood all too well. If the situation in the Chase was as Colonel Butler had believed it to be ... and everything which had happened to him confirmed that now beyond all doubt . . . then this trap had been built for a very dangerous animal, and the night-guards would have been warned to take no chances with it. Of course, being the amateurs they were, they had forgotten half their instructions immediately and had taken a careless look at their catch, chattering like monkeys; but now native caution had reasserted itself, edged with apprehension.

So ... however Thomas Wiesehöfer might have reacted to that threat in all his injured innocence, Benedikt Schneider wasn’t about to argue with a shot-gun in the hands of a nervous peasant.

Even the prospect of crossing swords at a disadvantage with Audley was to be preferred to that: here in England, with Colonel Butler as his last resort (however humiliating that might be, and more so than his present predicament), he could survive failure there. But a shot-gun was something else, and there would be no surviving that.

So ... better to use what time he had to compose himself, and to rehearse the Wiesehöfer story, weak though it was.

Audley wouldn’t believe it, of course. But that didn’t mean that he wouldn’t accept it, if he judged the risk of turning the mysterious Wiesehöfer loose more acceptable than detaining him, which carried the equal risk of alerting whoever had sent him to—

No. That was wishful thinking, because the risks weren’t equal—

because he already knew too much about the Chase’s defences.

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So Audley must detain him ... at least so long as he stuck to his Wiesehöfer cover . . . until the real target came into sight.

Therefore, at the right moment, he would have to abandon Wiesehöfer for Schneider, in the role Colonel Butler had prepared for just such an emergency—

Benedikt frowned in the darkness as the thought struck him that Colonel Butler might have reckoned all along that his tricky Dr David Audley would catch him. In which case—

His ears, attuned to the slightest variation in the pattern of occasional sounds from above, caught something different, diverting him from further contemplation of the idea that Colonel Butler might have been playing a deeper game: someone else was whispering up there—but stretching his hearing to its limits he still couldn’t make out individual words, only the contrast of the new sound with the gravelly undertones of the two countrymen—it was softer, almost liquid . . .it was a sound which, if amplified, would become a clear, high-pitched cry, where theirs would become an Anglo-Saxon bellow.

“Well now, let’s be seeing you then!”

A light shone into Benedikt’s face, blinding him again. But it came from a different direction—the light came from one side of the pit, the voice from the other.

“Easy now!” The voice tightened as Benedikt raised on£ hand to shade his eyes. “Let’s be seeing the other hand then, if you please!

Because there’s a gun on you— slowly now—and I wouldn’t like for it to go off.”

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Benedikt raised his other hand automatically.

Kelly—

The Irish voice was overlaid with years of English-speaking, but it was unmistakable.

Gunner Kelly—

“Please?” He packed the whole of Thomas Wiesehöfer into the appeal. “What is happening? I do not understand—?”

“Of course you don’t.” Kelly agreed with him. “Mr Wiesehöfer, is it? Or Herr Wiesehöfer—so it is!”

He hadn’t bargained on Gunner Kelly. With Audley he would have known where he was, but the old Irishman was an unknown factor.

“Yes.” No—not quite an unknown factor, more an unexpected one at this stage of the confrontation; and he must not let mere surprise stampede him into error. The essential script still applied, subject only to appropriate amendment where necessary. “Who are you?”

He sharpened his voice.

Gunner Kelly— Michael Kelly, manservant to the late General Herbert George Maxwell—

“Who am I?” The question seemed to surprise the Irishman.

Who was he? Colonel Butler’s Special Branch officer had answered that all too sketchily, with the sort of facts a routine police inquiry might have unearthed about any honest citizen who had never tangled with authority until pure bad luck had placed him near the scene of a crime.

Michael Kelly, born in Dublin 62 years ago, when Dublin had still dummy1

been part of the still-mighty British Empire—

“Who am I, you’re asking?” The note of surprise was edged with banter, as though it ought to be obvious to Thomas Wiesehöfer that such a question had no priority, coming from the bottom of a man-trap.

Michael Kelly, formerly of Kelly’s Taxis in Yorkshire— but . . .

Kelly’s Taxis was one broken-down Austin Cambridge until it ran off the road . . . but, much more to the point— formerly Royal Artillery, long-service enlistment—

“Yes,” snapped Thomas Wiesehöfer stoutly, ignoring the reaction to his own question. “Are you the Police?”

Silence.

“Are you the Police?” Thomas Wiesehöfer, encased in the inadequate armour of injured and angry innocence, might take enough courage from that silence to repeat the question even more stoutly.

“Am I the Pol-iss?” Incredulity. “The Pol-iss?” Derision. “Now, for why should I be the Poliss, in God’s name?” Derisive incredulity.

What should Thomas Wiesehöfer do now—also in God’s name?

Most likely he would not know what to do! And all Benedikt himself could think of was to consult his memory of Colonel Butler’s image of Gunner Kelly, based as it was more on the Colonel’s old soldier’s memory of old soldiers than on any precise and worthwhile intelligence about that man.

“A long-service regular— twenty-one years. . . and the son of a dummy1

soldier too . . . And mustered out in the same rank he started with.” (A curious softening of the expression there, at odds with the harsh bark: Colonel Butler recalling other faces from happier times?) “But don’t make the mistake of thinking him stupid, if you come up against him, Captain Schneider. You must have come up against the same type in the Wehrmacht— the old sweats who knew more about the service than you did, and knew what they wanted—

the ones you tried to promote, who knew exactly how to lose their stripes short of a court-martial. . . If you could ever beat one of them at his own game you’d get the finest non-commissioned material of all— better than the ones who hungered for promotion, even . . . the villains, if you like— but it was St Paul who spread the Gospel to the Gentiles, remember— the biggest villain of all— not St Peter . . . So don’t you underestimate him, Captain . . . And an Irishman too— because with them it’s the heart they give, not the head, when they make the break: you can’t reason with them, and they’re ready for the best and the worst then— they’ll charge machine-guns head-on to save you, or they’ll shoot you in the back

— and you ‘II never know which until it happens, because they’re what God made them, which is smarter than a cartload of monkeys, and not what you’d like them to be—”

More silence. And then the movement of the man above, dislodging more of the surface above into the pit.

“The Poliss—” Gunner Kelly’s voice lifted out of the hole as he delivered the words to those beside him “—would you believe that, now!”

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Benedikt began to believe Colonel Butler’s theories absolutely.

“You are not the Police?” But then a nasty thought dissolved his satisfaction: for where was David Audley? He should have been here by now, after the roar of that maroon. But he wasn’t—and this was therefore an unforeseen circumstance, in which Gunner Kelly might decide, heart over head, to “knock ‘im on the ’ead an‘ fill in the bloody ’ole”, with no more questions asked—that might be the easiest heart-way with an intractable problem.

“Why should I be the Poliss, then?” The question came down to him challengingly, but reassuringly.

Benedikt thought quickly. “You threaten me with guns— with firearms.” Only outraged innocence presented itself as a proper reaction. “By what right? You have no right to threaten me so!”

“No right?” Kelly paused. “Rights, is it then? Well then, Mister—

Mein Herr—you tell me by what right ye are on private property at this hour of the night, when every Christian man should be in his bed, with his loving wife beside him? Can you be telling me that, and I will be telling you about my rights in the matter then!”

Anger for anger, he was being given. And how should poor Thomas Wiesehöfer react to that? He would be frightened, decided Benedikt instantly—he would be scared halfway to death, and not less so for being innocent.

“But. . . but I do not know—I am lost in the darkness upon the hillside, and I saw a light—I do not know where I am!” he protested desperately. “What is this place?”

Again no answer came back directly down to him. And that might dummy1

mean the beginning of doubt up above . . . but, for sure, Thomas Wiesehöfer in his confusion would not be computing any such blessing: rather, far more likely, fear would be sharpening his wits

—

“Please—is this Duntisbury Royal?”

Again there was no immediate answer, though this time he caught the soft murmur of whispering.

“Is this Duntisbury Royal?” he repeated the question.

“Ah . . . now how would you be knowing that then—if you do not know where you are?”

“You know my name—you spoke my name . . . Please, if this is Duntisbury Royal, I wish to speak to Miss Rebecca Maxwell-Smith . . .or. . .to Mr— Dr. . . Dr David Audley—I am known to them, and they will speak for me.”

The sounds from above increased, and someone stepping on the edge of the pit dislodged more debris on top of Benedikt just as he opened his mouth to repeat the request.

He spluttered for a moment. “Please—I wish—”

“Shut up and listen!” The Irishman cut him off. “There’s a ladder comin‘ down to you, Mister. But you come up easy now, an’ don’t try anythin‘ . . . Because there’ll be a light on you, an’ there’ll be a gun on you, an‘ him as holds the light won’t be him as holds the gun—do you take my meaning?”

Benedikt took the Irishman’s meaning. “Yes.”

The ladder came down with a slither and another miniature avalanche, but this time he was ready for the debris, with eyes and dummy1

mouth closed. He fumbled in the dark for it, feeling quickly for the rungs with his foot before the Irishman could change his mind.

“Easy now!” The moment he stepped off the ladder a hand grasped his arm tightly, swinging him round until he sensed that he was facing the pit again. A second later a flashlight from the other side of the pit blinded him. “Steady now!”

They weren’t taking any chances: one push and he was back in the pit. He tensed against the pressure.

Hands ran up and down him—they certainly weren’t taking any chances—practised hands, which knew where to look and how to look through questing fingertips—trained hands, which were never those of any Dorset countryman. But he should have known that even without the soft Irish voice in his ear: Gunner Kelly was British Army-trained, and the British Army had kept up its skills over the years, searching black, brown and yellow as well as white for concealed weapons.

“He’s clean.” Kelly completed his task by lifting Benedikt’s wallet, passport and spectacle-case from the inside breastpocket of the wind-cheater. “You can turn round, Herr Wiesehöfer.”

There was something odd about the man’s voice. It varied slightly, oscillating between its native Irish brogue and the classless English which had been superimposed on it over two-thirds of the man’s lifetime: it was almost like listening to two different persons—the English-Irish soldier, trained and disciplined by his masters to automatic loyalty and obedience, and the soft-voice Irish boy who had crossed the sea all those years before, following his father in dummy1

that hard service which had nevertheless consumed and conquered him at the last, turning him to vengeance.

“Come on, then—follow the red light,” the voice commanded him, English-Irish.

There were two lights: one, from a powerful flashlight, transfixed him; the other, a weaker blob of red, bobbed up and down ahead of him.

“Joapey—you and Blackie cover this sector until you’re relieved.

An‘ no lights, mind you!”

Growl. “What we do that for? We got the bugger, ‘aven’t us?”

“We got this bugger, sure. But suppose he’s just a scout—one of a matchin‘ pair of buggers?” The Irishman paused eloquently. “You get it through your head, Joapey—we’re not playin’ games on this one, like with the Squire’s keepers in the old days, an‘ you get a belt on the ear an’ a kick up the arse if you lose. This one . . . you get careless, you lose like the rabbit loses—you get your bloody neck stretched.”

Growl. “I knows that. But you said they warn’t comin‘ yet, an’—”

“I said I didn’t reckon on ‘em comin’ yet.” Curiously, the Irishmen echoed the man’s accent now, in a third voice unlike his other two.

“An‘ I also said there’s nothin’ cert’n in this life ‘cept birth an’

death an‘ taxes—” the third voice graduated from scorn to gentle chiding “—man, this is your ground an’ you know it better than any stranger poachin‘ in it, but I don’t want Miss Becky pipin’ her eye for you . . . If you ain’t got the guts for it, then just you say so.”

Growl. “No! I never said that—now you’m puttin‘ words in my dummy1

mouth what I never said!”

“A’right, then . . . Now, Mister—” Discipline restored, the Irishman came back to Benedikt “—let’s not keep our betters waiting.”

‘Betters’ could only mean Audley and Miss Becky, and they were infinitely preferable to a shot-gun at his back. But the light blinded him, and he was still close to the pit.

He tried to shield his eyes. “I cannot see where I am going.”

“Put the light on his feet,” snapped Kelly, and the beam instantly followed his order. In the absence of those ‘betters’ there was no question about who was in command in Duntisbury Chase.

Benedikt remembered Thomas Wiesehöfer. “Where are you taking me?”

“Just follow the red light, an‘ maybe you’ll find out.”

The red blob danced ahead like a firefly, and Benedikt stumbled after it. Captivity was a new and wholly disagreeable experience, but he must put this feeling of helpless anger out of his mind first, and at once—

A branch brushed his face, and he lifted his arm ahead of him to clear his way. Follow the red light—

Michael Kelly—

Michael Kelly was no simple Irish peasant—and no oafish unpromotable private soldier either, Colonel Butler was right: that handling of the recalcitrant sentry and the sure voice of command which went with it—more, those three voices which the man turned on and off at will—all of that marked him out as someone dummy1

more formidable in the reckoning.

The red light and the path at his feet twisted and turned; then he caught a glimpse of other lights, pale yellow, flicking on and off through the intervening trees on his left—now ahead—now on his left again: they must be approaching the manor house—

Colonel Butler had been right, but his rightness had hitherto been no more than logic and the shrewd assessment of experience and possibilities: young Miss Rebecca Maxwell-Smith might have the desire for vengeance, and the will to match it, but she surely lacked the stomach for this kind of work, and the certain knowledge to make the work worthwhile—

The lights were brighter now, diffusing through the trees into light itself—

And Audley . . . Dr David Audley ... he had the expertise, or the perverse trickiness, to devise such old-fashioned man-traps; but he had appeared on the scene too late to be their sole architect—

The trees ended abruptly. Simultaneously he was out of the wood and on to the well-kept lawn which ran down to the manor house, smooth springy turf underfoot, and no more trailing branches and bramble tendrils plucking at him in the dark.

And there was the manor itself, brightly lit—

He strove for a moment to hold his inner train of thought on its lines, but the impact of his first true vision of the building was too strong for him, wrenching him irresistibly off course against his will.

He knew already what it was like, with Colonel Butler’s dummy1

photographs and plans etched on his memory: the solid, rectangular three-storey mansion, its incongruous towers at each corner—half house and half castle. Yet now what had seemed to him unnatural and ugly—the towers were no higher than the house, and neither towers nor house were surmounted by roofs, as would have been the case with every such still-inhabited survival in his own country—it had its own reality, dramatically illuminated by lights on the terrace below and from the crenellated parapet above against the intense blackness which framed it: Duntisbury Manor, in Duntisbury Royal, in Duntisbury Chase in the county of Dorset, was where it had been for half a thousand years or more, grown out of its own ground— and woe betide the invader!

“Get on with you, then!” Kelly urged him from behind.

Benedikt stood firm, scrutinising the manor in his own time. “This is Duntisbury Manor—is it?” He let Thomas Wiesehöfer speak.

For, after all, poor Thomas had never seen the Manor, lacking the benefit of Colonel Butler’s researches and advice.

“And what else would it be—Buckingham Palace?” Kelly sniffed.

“Did ye not see it this afternoon—or ‘twould be yesterday afternoon now—when ye were out and about, snoopin’ round the village?”

“Please?” Benedikt decided that Thomas would be unfamiliar with

‘snooping’. In their insularity, the English took it for granted that most foreigners could understand their language and were unconcerned about their own ignorance. “What is ... ‘snoopin’?”

“Don’t turn round! Never mind—just get on—go on with you,”

ordered Kelly.

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There now! thought Benedikt, stepping forward again: Michael Kelly had recalled him to the consideration of what was important again—which was Michael Thomas Kelly himself.

There were three ingredients here, in Duntisbury Chase, which had come together like those in gunpowder to produce an explosive mixture—Miss Rebecca Maxwell-Smith and Dr David Audley and Gunner Kelly. And Colonel Butler had known about the first two of them, and had guessed about the third—and the Colonel had been right: there was a sulphurous smell about Gunner Kelly, he was sure of that now.

Gunner Kelly—

They were approaching the Manor. The flashlight at his feet picked out a gravel path which circled an immense ornamental pond on which the night sky was reflected like a black mirror.

Gunner Kelly—the other two were what they were—and the path, which had been crunching under his feet, ended with a flight of steps leading him downwards, on to a wide stone-flagged terrace on which the flashlight at his back lost itself in the great pool of light which filled the south frontage of the manor: the façade, which had seemed so much longer and lower from that first view, now towered above him, with the curve of the towers on each side embracing him—

Gunner Kelly, with his sharp words of command, and his chameleon voices, and the inner certainty of those voices matching the certainty of his searching fingertips— Gunner Kelly was something more than the faithful retainer the facts had made him, dummy1

the Old General’s loyal servant in life and the Old General’s granddaughter’s obedient instrument now.

He paused, as though irresolute now that he had lost the guiding light at his feet. There were French windows cut into the thickness of the ground floor, with other windows similarly pierced on each side of them betrayed by chinks of light through drawn curtains.

But the true entrance was there in the angle of the south-western tower, shadowed under a twisted canopy of branches and leaves.

Benedikt’s adrenalin pumped. For Benedikt Schneider knew now that, if Miss Becky had supplied the will to this mischief, and if David Audley had fashioned the means to it, the spark must have come from outside them—the spark and the certainty—

“Go on, then!” Kelly circled to his right, carefully out of reach.

“What are ye waitin‘ for?”

And Benedikt Schneider knew that Gunner Kelly was the source of that spark—that Colonel Butler had been right. But he was playing Thomas Wiesehöfer now, and poor Thomas would not know—

could not know—that the postern door of Duntisbury Manor was on his left, shrouded by the famous Duntisbury Magnolia, the seeds of which dated from the days when the Elector of Hanover had ruled American colonies as King of England.

“Please?” The more he suspected Kelly, the more determined he was to play Thomas as long as possible.

The postern door saved them both from more shadow-boxing by opening with the sharp metallic clunk of a heavy latch and an un-oiled whinny of iron hinges.

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“Michael?” The door rattled on a chain. “Have you got him?”

“Madam . . . safe as the Bank of England.” Where Miss Rebecca Maxwell-Smith’s voice had a more nervous ring to it than Benedikt remembered from their first meeting, Kelly’s was cheerfully deferential. “Out of Number Two in the spinney. And

‘tis that German gentleman from this afternoon— Herr Wiesehöfer . . . So Dr Audley was right, would you believe it?”

Damnation! Audley suspicious was one thing. But Audley right—

Audley certain— damnation!

The chain rattled again, and the door opened wide.

“Was he alone—” She stopped as she stared at him.

“That I can’t say, Madam. Until we know how he got in ... But there’s a full alert, an‘ everyone’s posted—”

“What have you done to him?” She cut Kelly off angrily.

“Done to him? We haven’t laid a finger on him, Madam,”

protested Kelly. “Not a finger!”

“Then why is there blood on his face?” Her voice shook.

“Blood on his face?” Kelly paused. “Oh, sure—so he fell into Number Two, didn’t he? An‘ that’s twelve foot if it’s an inch—”

She gestured to silence him. “Herr Wiesehöfer—are you all right?”

Benedikt put his hand to his face. Now ... if there was blood, it would have dried by now . . . but in this fierce light he would look worse than he felt, and that might be to his advantage.

“Madam—” began Kelly. “Madam—”

“Be quiet, Michael!” The strain in her voice confirmed his thought: dummy1

for all that she was the mistress of Duntisbury Chase she was still only twenty years old, and blood spilt in her service was something new to her.

“Madam!” said Kelly sharply, in his turn. “No—”

“Hush, Michael! Herr Wiesehöfer—”

“No, Madam—I will not hush, begging your pardon!” The sharp note vanished into the calmness of obstinacy. “We are standin‘ in the light, with all the dark hill above us—an’ I have this old itch between my shoulder-blades . . . So, I would most respectfully urge you to go inside—for my sake, if not for yours, if you please.”

“Oh, Michael—” As he had spoken she had switched from Benedikt to Kelly, and then from Kelly to the great darkness out of which they had come, and then back to Kelly again “—I’m sorry!

How stupid of me!” Finally she came back to Benedikt. “If you would kindly come into the house, Herr Wiesehöfer—at once.”

Neither Benedikt nor Herr Wiesehöfer required any further order: they felt the same itch in that instant, of the crossed wires in the night-sight, telescopically enlarging each of them out of the dark, shifting from one to the other, looking for a target, making their flesh crawl: that was a memory shared by both of them from the past!

Only at the last moment, when Miss Becky seemed to want him to enter first, did Herr Wiesehöfer assert himself, who had no reason for being frightened of such nightmares, more than he was already terrified: he must let ladies go first, or betray himself.

“Go on, Miss Becky—lead the way!” Kelly resolved the impasse dummy1

quickly. “And now you, Herr Wiesehöfer—get on with you!”

Benedikt followed her thankfully from unsafe light to safety: stone staircase, with worn steps, on his left—arched doorway, low door closed—cellar door?—ahead . . . open door and passage on his right, leading into the house.

He followed her down the passage. The house was cold now—cold because they were into the chill hours beyond midnight, and with no fires lit these thick walls had repelled the inadequate warmth of yesterday’s sunshine all too efficiently; but cold also because he was tired and frightened, Benedikt equally with Thomas.

“Hold on, there,” commanded Kelly from behind him. “The door by you—you can see the wash-basin, and there’s a hand-towel beside it... So you just make yourself presentable for the young lady, then—okay mein Herr?”

It wasn’t solicitude for him, thought Benedikt: the sight of blood had been questioned by Miss Becky, so that blood was better washed off, that was all.

He moved to close the door without thinking, but Kelly kicked out with his foot to hold it open. “Uh-uh! Easy now . . . Just the water and the towel, where I can see you.”

Benedikt studied himself in the small mirror above the wash-basin.

He had not really bled very much—the cut was small, and not very deep—but he had spread what there had been quite artistically, to good effect.

“Michael!”

“Coming, Madam!” But in replying to her Kelly didn’t take his eye dummy1

off his prisoner. A careful man, was Gunner Kelly. A careful man . . .

He wiped his face slowly, taking his time to get his first proper view of the Irishman, and was repaid with similar scrutiny.

“Sure, and that’s nothin‘ then, is it? I cut meself worse than that shavin’ many a morning.” Kelly shook his head. “Ye’ll not be takin‘ an honourable scar home to the Fatherland with that little scratch . . . if you should be so lucky, eh?”

The man was disappointingly nondescript. With that short unstylish haircut—almost cropped brush-like, iron-grey speckled with black—and the rounded blob of a nose in an expanse of leathery skin . . . skin not drawn tight enough to betray any memorable bone-structure beneath ... it was any face in a crowd. In fact, he had seen it before, not just in the inadequate enlargement Colonel Butler had supplied, but now—now that he saw it in that flesh—from his childhood recollections: it was any face in any crowd of British soldiers in the Rhine Army, substituting age and stone-sober suspicion for youth and beer-swilled truculence.

Kelly pointed. “That way, straight ahead . . . An‘ just so we understand each other, there’s no way out of this house that’s not locked or guarded—understand?”

Benedikt gave him Thomas Wiesehöfer’s baffled frown, but with the sinking feeling that poor Thomas was already less than a skin-deep covering, with David Audley waiting for him.

But, to his surprise, there was only Miss Becky in the room beyond the door—a long, low-ceilinged room, bisected with a single huge dummy1

beam which made him want to stoop, the girl standing alone with her back to a great empty fireplace.

“Herr Wiesehöfer—” She looked at him, then past him. “Michael?”

“Dr Audley not back then, Madam?” Kelly had experienced the same surprise, but without the need to conceal it.

“He should be here very soon.” She frowned uncertainly. “You think we should wait?”

“Not at all—‘tis no matter. We don’t need him to ask a simple question of the man.”

The expression on Miss Becky’s face suggested that Audley was exactly what she needed most. “I don’t know, Michael. David understands this better than we do.”

It was time for Thomas Wiesehöfer to speak: “Fräulein— Miss . . .

Miss Maxwell-Smith—” More in bafflement than anger first, with anger in reserve: that was the right note “—Fräulein—I also do not understand this! I do not—”

“No!” Kelly snapped into life. “No—that’s not goin‘ to be the way of it at all!”

Benedikt turned toward him. Anger, then—?

“With your permission, Madam—” Kelly was just too quick for him “—we should ask this . . . gentleman . . . how he came to be night-walkin‘ in the spinney when honest folk are in their beds—

for a start.”

Anger—outrage— forward, then!

“What? W-what?” He spluttered his sudden loss of control.

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“Aye—what, indeed!” Kelly lifted a chin which was blue-grey with stubble. “What the devil were ye trespassin‘ on the lady’s land for? Answer me that now?”

“Trespassing?” Benedikt drew himself up to his full height, remembering the beam too late, but just missing it. “I wish to speak to the Police! I demand to speak to the Police!”

“The Police?” exclaimed Miss Becky.

“The Police, Fräulein—yes!” It was a rotten story he had ready-prepared for them—Kelly, for one, would never believe it. But that was all he had for this moment. “Yes.”

“Aaargh! Don’t you believe him! He tried that one on me—‘Is you the Poliss?’ he says. But I wasn’t havin‘ that one, by God!”

“But, Michael—”

“No, Madam! Leave this one to me.” Kelly’s voice softened, and he looked sidelong at Benedikt, half closing his eyes. “Am I the Poliss, then? No, I am not the Poliss—nor would I ever be. But I’ll tell you who I am, since ye ask.” He paused, reaching inside his jacket, to the waist-band. “I’m the fella with the gun, is who I am.”

Benedikt gaped at the pistol, as much for himself as for Thomas Wiesehöfer, without need for any acting ability. With what he knew they were planning perhaps it should not surprise him so much, it was only one more straw in the wind. Yet in showing it to him now, the Irishman had proved his point dramatically, with no going back: shot-guns were no less lethal—probably more so in unskilled hands—but even in peaceful law-abiding England many thousands of ordinary citizens possessed shot-guns legitimately, dummy1

especially in the country areas like this. But an automatic pistol was something altogether different.

“God in heaven!” he whispered hoarsely.

“Oh-aye, ‘tis one of yours, surely.” The Irishman’s voice was matter-of-fact, as though it was a screwdriver in his hand. He didn’t point the pistol, he held it diagonally across his chest, the fingers of his free hand playing imaginary stops on its frame. “A very fine weapon. But you’d be knowing that well enough, of course.”

It was an old Luger—an old long-barrelled Luger, of the sort which had served in half the world’s armies at one time or another . . . and this one looked so worn that it could have served with most of them, starting even before Kelly himself was born, never mind Benedikt.

He measured the distance between them. Four metres and a long settee, high-backed and heavy-looking: that was too far and too much for any ambitious ideas. And sixty years might have slowed the man, but not sufficiently: age did not wither well-maintained weapons— fine well-maintained weapons . . . not enough, anyway, for him to try his luck with an old soldier.

“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 your 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?”

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“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!”

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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 Duntisbury 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!”

“My father?” Audley’s private source, whatever or whoever it was, was also a damn good one. “He would be delighted to hear himself described as ‘distinguished’, I am sure, Dr Audley.”

“ ‘David’—do call me ‘David’. It’s so much harder to sound offensive with Christian names, don’t you think? So may I call you

‘Benedikt’?” Audley hardly waited for a reply. “He certainly is—

and was—distinguished . . . Distinguished scholar now, and distinguished soldier once upon a time ... An anti-tank gunner, I believe? Eighty-eights in the desert, with the goth Light? I must say I’m extremely glad I was never in his sights!”

Benedikt realised the condition of the ‘good Germans’ to whom dummy1

Audley had been referring, which would be the same for ’good Englishmen‘—and ’good Indians‘—down history, and which was hardly reassuring now.

“The trouble is, Benedikt, that now I appear to be in your sights.

And I’m afraid that I must insist on your telling me why, without more ado,” concluded Audley.

“Insist?”

Audley gave a little shrug.

“Or else . . . what?” Benedikt did not like being leaned on. “If you keep me here I shall be missed—and there will be those who will come to look for me. You can depend on that . . . David.”

“My dear fellow! They may look—” Audley swept a hand over the valley “—it may not seem so very big, but it hid one German in it for fifteen centuries . . . Also the people here are good at digging deep holes, as you discovered last night. And if that sounds rather barbarous . . . there is one thing I’d perhaps better explain which you must bear in mind.”

“And that is?” He sensed that Audley was not so much threatening, whatever he sounded like, as softening him up to make a deal—

which might well be what Colonel Butler had intended all along.

Yet whatever he could get for free he might as well get. “And that is?”

“The Old General—‘the Squire’, interchangeably, as they call him . . . They really did love him . . . He seems to have been a good man in the oldest and best sense of the word—a man of instinctive . . . ‘goodness’ is the only word for it: there simply dummy1

wasn’t badness in him—rather the way some men are utterly brave because they simply don’t know how to be cowardly, like the rest of us ... I met men like that in the war—I’m sure there were lots of Germans just like them—they generally get a lot of other people killed without intending to, in my experience—but the completely good people are much rarer, and nicer . . . though it seems, from what is happening here, that they can produce the same unfortunate result . . .” He shook his head sadly. “But they really did love him.

And now they’re very angry indeed, because Gunner Kelly has undertaken to bring the Old General’s killer—or killers—back here, so they’ve got something to focus their anger on.”

“How is he bringing them back?”

“He won’t say. All he’ll say is that he was the real target of that bomb, so he has the contacts—”

“He was?” Benedikt simulated astonishment.

“That’s right. And he won’t explain that either—it’ll only make them targets as well, he says. And—” Audley stopped as he registered the change in Benedikt’s demeanour. “What’s the matter?”

“If Mr Kelly was the target. . .” Things were going very well indeed: they could hardly go better. “. . . that changes everything, Dr—David!”

“Changes everything—how?”

“Why I am here.” Apologetic sincerity was the proper note to strike. “You have been frank with me. I must return the compliment.”

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“That would be nice, I agree.” Cautious relief, slightly coloured by disbelief, was returned to him.

“It was because of the Old General. We were not satisfied with the progress of your investigations.”

“You—?” Audley frowned. “I don’t see what business the Bundesnachrichtendienst has with the Old General?”

Benedikt betrayed slight embarrassment. “The bomb was of an Irish make . . . but you appear convinced that it was not the work of the IRA. And he was certainly not a logical Irish target.”

“So?”

“So he was a former second-in-command of the British Army of the Rhine, with special responsibility for missile deployment in liaison with the Americans.”

“So he was. And Count von Gneisenau was second-in-command to Blücher at Waterloo—and Flavius Vespasianus commanded the Second Legion—so what?”

Benedikt frowned. “So—?”

“It was a hell of a long time ago. Fifteen years? More, maybe . . .”

“But he was once a prime target for assassination—”

“Oh—come on, man! Once upon a time—maybe . . . But the Russians . . . whatever their faults, they’re not vindictive about elderly generals.”

“Not the Russians, Dr Audley. Our own Red Army Faction, rather.”

“You’re pulling my leg! They were in nappies when he was in uniform. And you’ve got them more or less buttoned up, anyway dummy1

—”

“That is the point, Dr Audley—”

“David, please.”

“David. . . The survivors are looking for soft targets, to make headlines to show they aren’t finished. And . . . they have a reciprocal arrangement with the Irish National Liberation Army, to help each other at need.” Benedikt spread his hands. “We thought it just might be worth checking out, in case . . . And—I am sorry, David—but when I saw you down here yesterday ... I was wrong—

I acknowledge that now . . . But when I saw you, I thought I might take another look, to see what the British were up to. I did not think you would . ..,. tumble upon me so quickly.” He gave Audley a bitter smile. “And I did not expect a big hole in the ground, either.” He pointed at the sentry on the corner of the wood. “Or him.”

Audley grinned suddenly. “Yes ... I can imagine that. Although, oddly enough, it seems to come quite naturally to them. I suppose it’s because they’ve been hunting things hereabouts since the beginning of time—wolves and deer and foxes and rabbits . . . and each other after dark often enough, playing gamekeepers and the poachers.” He nodded at Benedikt. “If they’d had any man-traps still in working order it probably wouldn’t have been a hole you’d have stepped into last night, by God!” Just as suddenly as it had appeared, the grin vanished. “Or if Kelly had had his way there might have been fire-hardened stakes in it. Believe me, you weren’t altogether unlucky.”

Benedikt shivered in spite of himself. But now he had everything.

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“Then I must be glad you were here after all, in spite of what I did because of you . . . But ... I am sorry to have caused you such trouble unnecessarily.”

“No trouble, my dear fellow! You tested our defences, actually.”

Audley studied him. “So now you want to go home, I suppose?”

Exactly right! “I ... I rather think I am in your way now, perhaps?”

He mustn’t seem too eager though. “But if there is anything I can do ... to make amends?”

“Yes . . .” Audley continued to study him. “Well ... as a matter of fact, perhaps there is something, you know.”

Damn! “Yes?” Damn!

“It’s rather awkward, really . . . You see, Benedikt, I’m here ... as it were . . . unofficially, you might say ... In fact, you would say —

unofficially.”

“What?”

“Yes.” Audley looked uncomfortable. “I’m on leave, actually.”

Benedikt stared at him for a moment, then looked round the Chase

— from ridge to ridge, then down the Addle valley — and finally back to Audley. “God in heaven! Then this — ?”

“Is unofficial too. Nobody knows about it except us.” Audley paused. “You see, Benedikt, I came here as a favour ... to a young friend ... to stop Becky making a fool of herself.”

He really was getting everything now, thought Benedikt. But he must look worried, not satisfied.

Audley waved a hand. “Oh ... I could have stopped this easily dummy1

enough. Just one word to the Police would have done that. But that wouldn’t have stopped Becky and Gunner Kelly trying again —

and trying somewhere where the odds were more against them.”

He shook his head. “And it wouldn’t have answered any questions about Gunner Kelly, either.”

“Gunner Kelly?” Now a frown of concentration.

“He’d have vanished. And he knows well how to vanish, I very much suspect. England or Ireland . . . and he can pass as English.”

Audley looked at his watch. “And then we’d never know.”

Curiosity? But it was more than that.

“Let’s start slowly back ... I have an appointment soon—an outing planned, in fact. And I’d like you to come along with me.”

What? “You would like me . . . ?”

“You’ll see some fine Dorset countryside—Hardy country too . . .

you know, they never did really approve of him—it was the divorce, of course, that stuck in their respectable throats . . . and Badbury Rings, under their big Dorset sky if the clouds are right . . . and other things—you’ll enjoy it, I promise you.”

There was more to this than a jaunt in the country. And whether he would enjoy it was another matter also.

“Or, to put it another way . . . they don’t trust you, and they don’t altogether trust me either, out of their sight—maybe Becky does, but Kelly and the rest don’t. . . And if I let you go they’ll trust me even less, and I wouldn’t like that, with all the effort I’ve put in.”

Audley had never intended to let him go. He was merely sugaring the pill now.

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“And, to be strictly honest, I don’t trust you either, Benedikt, my dear fellow ... ‘A good German’, I’m sure you are ... a loyal ally and all that, but goodness isn’t the prime quality of the Bundesnachrichtendienst, in my experience—it’s smart fellows they like . . . Or, let’s say, that I do trust you nine parts out of ten

—”

“Nine parts?” He had to react somehow to this.

“Nine parts—I do believe my contact, you see . . . And, to put it another way again, when I came here it was killing they were up to, and then burying deep. Only I’ve put a stop to that—it’s capturing now, they’ve agreed on.” He looked hard at Benedikt. “Now that we’re close to the house again let’s turn around and admire the view, eh?”

Benedikt turned obediently, and Audley pointed towards the ridge.

“See there—if those trees were a few feet lower we could see the banks of the Duntisbury Rings . . . No, I don’t trust you one hundred per cent. But I trust them even less—and I don’t trust Gunner Kelly at all out of my sight, because I’ve this lingering suspicion that he’s still after blood. I want to know a lot more about him therefore.”

David Audley and Colonel Butler both.

“In fact ... I want the Old General’s killers and Gunner Kelly, you might say—” Audley pointed to the right “—that’s the way Caesar’s Camp lies, as you will know, for it was a full guided tour those two terrible children gave you, wasn’t it? Yes . . . I’m greedy. I want to save Becky, because that’s what I promised to do.

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But I want all my questions answered as well. Because that’s the only way I’m going to be able to extricate myself from this business: bearing gifts to those above me . . . Indeed, if I wasn’t afraid that my colleagues would come down here heavy-footed, to be spotted straight away as you were spotted, I’d have thrown in my hand already . . . But as it is—what Miss Becky and Kelly think I’m doing now is enlisting you as another ally in the Chase—

I’ve promised them I can do that. . . I’ve told them that, as the Germans can have no axe to grind in this—and you’re a decent chap—you may be willing to hang around and help . . . whereas if we knock you on the head, or more likely incarcerate you for a few days in the manor cellar—which would actually be a rather agreeable place in which to be detained, with what the Old General put in it—then there’d be hell to pay, with hordes of Teutonic Fighting Men descending on the Chase again, and trampling the place flat.” He gave Benedikt another sidelong glance. “Which, to be fair to me, is pretty much what you’ve already threatened me with—isn’t it?”

Except, thought Benedikt, it would be Colonel Butler’s British Fighting Men. But he could never admit that now.

He opened his mouth to reply, but the familiar snap of the postern latch cut the words off.

“Don’t turn round.” Audley spoke conversationally, pointing again at nothing in front of them. “Whereas in fact I’m doing no such thing. Although I am certainly trying to enlist you—true enough—”

Another enlistment? Colonel Butler had enlisted him once. And then the people of Duntisbury Chase, where no one seemed to trust dummy1

anyone, had wanted him. And now—

“But I want you just for myself. Because I need an ally here more than anyone— now you can turn round—” Audley followed his own instructions “—ah! Gunner Kelly! Are the boys ready?”

“Ready and waiting, sir.” Kelly looked inquiringly from Audley to Benedikt. “And the Captain?”

“He’s coming with me,” Audley smiled at Benedikt. “Okay, Benedikt?”

That was taking acceptance for granted— alliance for granted—

without leaving the ally any real choice.

He smiled back at both of them. “Okay, David,” he said.

There was at last another German foederatus in Duntisbury Chase.

But this one, at least, would be on his guard, he decided.

VII

All military establishments were somehow alike, decided Benedikt critically, but one had to allow for national peculiarities.

The alikeness here—the true alikeness, apart from the unnaturally tidy ugliness—was its aura of impermanence. It wasn’t that the buildings weren’t substantial. . . the brick-built barracks and married quarters which he had glimpsed were if anything more solid than some of the ancient Dorset villages through which they had passed . . . But those little thatched cottages and small corner shops were part of the landscape, where God and man both dummy1

intended them to be, while this place had merely been drawn on a map by some far-off bureaucrat to serve a finite need, and when that need evaporated it would decay quickly.

Yet at this moment, as Audley slowed the car to turn across the traffic, the British peculiarities were more obvious: not only was this camp bisected by a public road, without any visible sign of security, but there were children climbing on that tank—and wasn’t that an ice-cream van—

The last of the oncoming vehicles passed by, and his view was no longer partially obstructed.

It was an ice-cream van. And there were several tanks, and they were all festooned with children, the nearest of whom machine-gunned them noisily with his pointing fingers as they came within his range.

And there were more tanks—and a pale grey howitzer of ancient aspect—it was all antediluvian equipment in a graveyard of armoured elephants: he craned his neck to the left as the car halted, towards a harassed mother shepherding her ice-cream-licking offspring from the van to the nearest monster; and then to the right, where on the roadside forecourt in front of a hangar-sized shed, he caught sight of the distinctive rhomboid of the sire of all these beasts, squatting on an angled concrete plinth facing the road, which until now he had seen only in old photographs, but which had once crawled out of the smoke and mud against Grandpapa.

“These are the ones they don’t care about,” said Benje disdainfully from behind him. “The proper ones are inside.”

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“These are just for kids to climb on,” supplemented Darren. “You can’t climb on the ones inside.”

Benedikt looked questioningly from one to theother. “Inside?”

“Inside the museum.” Benje raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t you know where we were going?”

“The museum?” The progression of questions was beginning to make him feel a trifle foolish, but Audley was too busy finding a space in an already well-filled car park to rescue him.

“The tank museum,” said Darren.

“Museum machinationum,” said Benje, seizing this unlikely opportunity to demonstrate his Latin vocabulary further. “Or it could be plain machinarum— lacuum doesn’t sound right . . . But David says why not testudinum, from the way the Romans used to lock their shields together into a testudo—what do you think?”

“Yes.” What he thought was that Benje’s obsession with all things Roman, unleashed on the mistaken assumption that Herr Wiesehöfer was a fellow enthusiast, was as exhausting as it was surprising. But Papa would never forgive him for discouraging a young classicist, so he must consider the problem seriously.

“Testudo—a tortoise ... I suspect, if there had been armoured vehicles in the Roman Army they would have had a proper name, as we have in my country—whatever the Latin for Panzerkampfwagen may be ... or perhaps Schuetzenpanzerwagen might be closer to what they might have had. But for a nickname I think testudo does very well—unless the Roman who invented that objected to such an infringement of his copyright.” He frowned at dummy1

Benje. “Was there a Roman copyright law?”

Benje returned the frown. “I don’t know. I hadn’t thought of that.

They had a lot of laws . . . What do you think, David?”

Audley had finally found a space and was nosing into it. “I think testudo—there is actually an appalling monster in there called ‘The Tortoise’ ... 78 tons and quite useless—we started building it in ‘42

and finally got it to move in ’46, to no possible purpose that I can imagine, unless they wanted to play snooker inside it under fire.”

He applied the handbrake fiercely. “But I think also that I do owe you an apology for failing to tell you where we were going, Herr Wiesehöfer. Actually, I thought I had—but it’s young Benjamin’s fault for monopolising you with his theories on Boadicea—”

“Boudicca,” the boy corrected Audley sharply. “Everyone gets it wrong, Mr Burton says. ‘Boadicea’ is a spelling error—

‘Boudicca’ means ‘Victoria’, and she was Queen Victoria I, not to be confused with Victoria II, 1837 to 1901.”

Darren shook his head at Benedikt. “He just talks all the time, that’s his trouble.”

“It’s not me. It’s what Mr Burton says,” snapped Benje.

“What Mr Burton says is that you’ve got verbal diarrhoea—” As he spoke, Darren squared up to resist physical assault.

“Out of the car!” Audley shot an arm between them. “I’ve got a surprise for you both.” He winked at Benedikt.

Benedikt climbed out of the car, and then stared at Audley across its roof. “And for me—a surprise also?”

“For you the museum is the surprise. It’s strictly old hat for these dummy1

two time-expired legionaries.” Audley led the way towards the entrance to the hangar. “They have to have something new every time— semper aliquid novi ex Bovingtonio, as Mr Burton would say.”

“What’s new?” Darren, skipping backwards in order to face them, overtook them.

“They do collect new things all the time—” Benje started out in a blasé tone for Benedikt’s benefit, but suddenly an idea lit up his face and he switched to Audley “—have they got one of those Argentinian personnel carriers from the Falklands? Is that it, David? Is that it?”

“No . . . but you’re warm, young Benjamin.” Audley cocked an eye at Benedikt. “They may very well have bits of General Galtieri’s war surplus before long, they do collect such unconsidered trifles . . . They acquired their Russian SU-100 self-propelled gun from Suez in ‘56—they’re probably negotiating with the Israelis for a Syrian T6a, I shouldn’t wonder. Though where they’ll put it, God only knows.”

Benedikt measured the enormous hangar with his eye. “That is filled with tanks?”

“Bursting at the seams.” Audley nodded proprietorially. “They’ve got pretty well the whole British range, from 1915 onwards, including experimental vehicles and the ‘funnies’ from the last war

—Crabs and suchlike . . . and armoured cars . . . And a very fair foreign cross-section, too—French and American, and all your Panzer marks.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “They’re particularly good on Tigers. Got a 1942 one, and a Royal Tiger dummy1

with the Porsche turret. . . and a bloody great Hunting Tiger the size of a London bus.” He squeezed his eyes shut again, and then looked directly at Benedikt. “I met a Tiger once, on the edge of a wood in Normandy ... I don’t know which one it was, I didn’t wait to find out. All I remember is this enormous gun traversing, and I knew we couldn’t get out of the way quick enough—it was like looking Death himself in the eye and knowing that it was me he’d been expecting all morning. . . We were in a Cromwell, half his size, and we’d lost half our troop already since breakfast.” He shrugged. “Very nasty moment.”

“What happened?” inquired Benje politely. “Did you shoot him—

the Tiger?”

“With my pea-shooter? Not likely! We just looked at each other for about a quarter of a second—maybe he was out of ammunition, having used it all on my late comrades ... or maybe he’d had his ration of Cromwells for that morning, and he was feeling generous

—I don’t know—but in the next quarter-second he didn’t shoot, and after that I’d remembered a pressing engagement for lunch elsewhere.”

“You retreated?” Benje sounded disappointed.

“Well . . . let’s say I advanced in the opposite direction.” Audley looked at Benedikt. “You know, for years I couldn’t bring myself to visit this place. I hated the very thought of tanks, Cromwells as well as Tigers—and Panthers, they were just as bad, if not worse . . . And then one day it didn’t matter at all: it was as though there was a Statute of Limitations on bad memories, and after a certain time the badness no longer had any power. Or perhaps men dummy1

change, and I have changed ... I don’t know. It’s interesting, though.”

The boys were fidgetting now, a little disappointed with Audley’s lack of heroism and quite lost with his theories on the healing quality of time, but above all desperate to discover the nature of their surprise.

Audley observed their impatience. “Shall we go in?”

It was a museum without an entrance fee, but the entrance hall was like a shop dedicated to selling tanks in every form: in books and booklets, pictures and picture postcards, models and elaborate construction kits; and through a wide opening to his right Benedikt caught a glimpse of a vast hall packed with Panzers.

But right in front of him were two soldiers in uniform who showed no sign of moving out of the way, and both of them were looking at Audley.

One of the soldiers came to attention. “Mr Audley, sir?”

“Yes.” Audley’s lack of surprise indicated that this, in some form, was the surprise. “Major Kennedy sent you?”

“That’s right, sir.” The soldier wore sergeant’s chevrons on his arm and the mailed fist of the Armoured Corps on his beret. And now he was looking at Benje and Darren. “And these are the lads, eh?”

“They are.” Audley turned to the boys. “The sergeant here is going to take you both for a ride. In a Scorpion.”

“That’s right.” The sergeant gave the boys a brisk nod. “The Scorpion tracked reconnaissance vehicle, as used recently in the Falklands to put the fear of God up the Argies. Aluminium alloy dummy1

armour, and a Jaguar 4.2 litre engine—road speed 55 miles per hour. A very nice little runabout if you don’t have to pay for the petrol. What would you say to a ride in that, then?”

Surprisingly, Benje looked slightly doubtful.

The other soldier, a button-nosed corporal who reminded Benedikt slightly of Gunner Kelly, grinned at the boys. “And you can drive it, too—what about that?”

Benje thought for a moment. “We haven’t got driving licences,” he demurred.

“Don’t need ‘em for where we’re going, my lad,” said the sergeant.

“No coppers or traffic wardens to worry about, you take my word for it.” He looked at Audley. “About an hour, sir—would that be right?”

“Come on Ben!” Darren encouraged his friend. “What’s the matter with you?”

“Nothing to it, lad,” the sergeant supported Darren. “Remember those pictures on the telly of the Scorpions coming ashore at San Carlos Bay?”

“Off you go, then!”Audley gestured to push the boys towards the door. “I can look after Herr Wiesehöfer for an hour, don’t worry.”

“Ben—” Darren caught his friend’s arm “— come on!”

“All right!” Benje shrugjed off the hand, but looked at Audley.

“And you’ll be here with . . . with Mr—Mr Veezehoffer?”

“I won’t step out of this place. I’ll just show him the tanks,”

promised Audley. “Don’t wcrry about us, we’ll be okay, young dummy1

Benjamin.”

Benedikt watched them depart—Darren eagerly, Benje with the backward look of a prisoner going to a firing squad.

“Hmm . . .” murmured Aadley. “A clever little boy.”

Benedikt turned to him. “But frightened? No ... ?”

“No.” Audley met his gaze. “Our young Benjamin has led a sheltered childhood—he hasn’t learnt to be frightened yet. He’s just too clever for comfort, that’s all. God help Oxbridge when it gets him . . . Perhaps we should put his name on the list, though—

to get him inside our tent.” He shook his head slowly.

Benedikt stared at the Englishman.

Audley sighed. “He knew I was getting rid of him—the chance to drive a Scorpion . . . and he still knew it!” He shook his head again.

“Get... get rid of him?”

“Oh, yes. Kelly’s got Benjamin sewed up tight—and I haven’t had time to unsew him.” Audley nodded. “Young Benjamin is Mr Gunner Kelly’s spy-in-the-sky on this trip— make no mistake about that. I got away last night because I’d given them you and your contact lenses on a plate, and they had to trust me . . . And then I gave them Captain Benedikt Schneider for good measure, to justify that trust . . . But Kelly still doesn’t like anything that happens where he can’t see it—or overhear it... I told you—in Duntisbury Chase I’m still one of the foederati from outside, not one of the native Britons: when it comes to the crunch, they’re not sure whose side I’m on.”

Benedikt struggled with this interpretation of reality, even though dummy1

it coincided with his own. “And that child . . . ?”

“That child is old enough to believe in a cause, if he trusts whoever is feeding him the bull-shit.” Audley’s jaw set hard. “In a year or two he’ll think for himself, and no one will make his mind up for him. But at the moment he can still remember the Old General, and he’s got adolescent yearnings for the way Becky’s shirt bulges, which he doesn’t understand . . . And he believes Mr Gunner Kelly is an extension of those bulges, on the side of Good and Right. And if I tried to tamper with that I’d get my fingers burnt.”

Gunner Kelly. Mr Gunner Kelly ... It always came down to him!

But they were here now—and they had got rid of ‘young Benjamin’, however unsatisfactorily—

“What are we doing here, David?” The organisation of ‘Major Kennedy’ and those Armoured Corps NCOs to get rid of the little spy could only have been encompassed during Audley’s brief period of freedom, which meant that it had been planned in advance for a reason. And there could only be one reason worth such a risk. “Kelly?”

“Kelly.” Audley pointed to the hall of the tanks. “I had one opportunity, three days ago, to get a question out. . . Now we’ll see whether I’ve got an answer to it. Shall we go and find out?”

Benedikt strolled into the hall alongside him. On one side there was a line of Panzers which could obviously hold their own on any modern battlefield, so far as any armoured vehicle could in the present state-of-play on the North German killing ground . . . while on the other—the museum was ranged anti-clockwise, he could see that at a glance—while on the other there were those crude dummy1

rhomboid-shapes—God! But they must have been brave to have faced such things, crawling out of the smoke, crushing barbed-wire and men in their remorseless advance—the ultimate horror of machine against flesh-and-blood on the ground, before rockets and computers had abstracted the collision of the two to petty imagination—

“No time for a proper tour . . . Another day, maybe . . .” Audley’s voice was casual. “It’s a good cautionary tale, really—the story of the tank, right from the beginning . . . Ploughshares into swords, to start with, you might say.”

Benedikt looked at him. “Ploughshares?”

“Oh, yes . . .” The big man gestured vaguely to his left, towards the anti-clockwise beginnings of the fully-fledged leviathans lined up on his right. “The caterpillar track began its life as a bit of agricultural machinery, anyway—‘to boldly plough where no horse had ploughed before’, that sort of thing.” His voice was still casual, but there was something in his face which hinted to Benedikt that the Statute of Limitations on bad memories hadn’t altogether run out, whatever had been said to the contrary. “But it put paid to the cavalry charger much more comprehensively than to the farm-horse and the plough-ox—there are plenty of quadrupeds still at work in the fields in third-world countries well-equipped with tanks. Like I said, a cautionary tale—a matter of human priorities . . . Or, ‘How many armoured divisions has the Pope got?’, as Stalin said—was it Stalin?” He twisted a lop-sided smile, unsmiling, at Benedikt. “But our priority is over there—” he pointed “—past the DD-Sherman with its skirts right up, over by dummy1

the Tunisian Tiger. Okay?”

Benedikt nodded, and followed the Englishman dumbly into the labyrinth. One thing was certain, he thought: if there ever was another day for him here, it would not be David Audley who presided over it. For some reason—perhaps to get rid of those juvenile spies without argument—it suited the man to set up a rendezvous here. But the place was still too painful for any casual visit.

But now Audley was moving purposefully ahead of him down the aisle, ignoring his surroundings. Only when he was half-way down the hangar, level with a cross-aisle, did he pause for Benedikt to catch up.

“We are meeting someone?” The question sounded foolish, but he qualified it by looking about him at the other visitors thronging the museum. So far as he could observe they consisted mostly of family groups, with the fathers showing off their knowledge to their sons and the bored mothers more concerned with the whereabouts of stragglers.

“Trust me.” Audley answered without answering, moving down the side-aisle. “That’s my old tank, the Cromwell. Would have been good in the desert in ‘42 ... bloody death-trap in the Normandy bocage in ’44—not too safe against your old Mark IVs, and suicide against those big sods over there . . . unless you could find one all by itself and get in a shot from the rear. . . which I certainly never did.”

Audley was nodding down another aisle, directly ahead of him, at a sinister desert-yellow Tiger facing them.

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“Head-on—that’s not the way to say ‘hullo’ to a Tiger.” Audley shivered. “One of your chaps—a bright lad named Wittmann—

bagged a whole squadron of London Yeomanry outside Villers Bocage with just this one Tiger of his, so we were told. And apparently he’d already got over a hundred Russian tanks on his score-card—he must have been the Richthofen of his team. ”He eyed the Tiger silently for a moment. “They used to start up with a sort of cough . . . quite distinctive. Once heard, never forgotten, but not wanted to be heard again—”

“Hullo there, David.” The voice which cut off Audley’s reverie came from behind them. “Telling how David slew Goliath?”

Benedikt turned towards the voice.

“Why—hullo, friendly cousin!” Audley greeted the newcomer with cheerful innocence. “Good to see you.”

“A pleasure shared, as always.” Smooth black hair, thin moustache . . . swarthy, almost Mexican complexion . . . and the dark eyes were fixed on Benedikt, appraising him frankly. “You have a friend, I see.” The voice, by contrast, was mid-Atlantic rather than trans-Atlantic, educated American.

“A friend and colleague,” Audley corrected him smoothly. “Allied colleague.”

“Is that so?” The American continued to scrutinise Benedikt. “But additional to our deal, maybe?”

Audley gave a tiny shrug. “Additionally necessary, say. But I have thrown in a little more to balance him. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.”

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“Hell—I’m sure I won’t, at that!” The American flashed white teeth at the Englishman. “It’s just that my ... acquaintance back there may not find your allied friend and colleague so easy to take on board, that’s all—no offence, allied friend and colleague.” He gave Benedikt a share of the teeth. “Just ... I get this feeling he already wishes he didn’t owe me so many favours.”

“He’s nervous, you mean?” Audley contrived to mix innocence and satisfaction in the question. “But not on account of me, surely?”

The American considered Audley coolly. “On account of you . . .

maybe a little. He doesn’t know you as well as I do, I guess.” He paused. “On account of what he’s gotten for you . . . about which, because of our agreement, I have not as yet inquired, you understand ... on account of that, I think he now knows something he’d rather not know.”

“Ah!” Audley’s satisfaction increased. “That’s good.”

“Good isn’t his word for it. In fact, it took all my powers of persuasion to get him down here today. It seems he’s conceived a sudden urge to visit his second cousin in Boston—an overwhelming urge to be somewhere else for the time being—to get away from it all... You know the feeling?”

“I know the feeling.” Audley smiled. “So you’ll just have to use your charm—or whatever—again, won’t you?”

Another cool look. “Seems that way.”

“Which would bring benefits all round, remember.”

“All round?”

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“To you and me all round. It’s all waiting for you at the usual place, what you want—plus the bonus on behalf of my colleague here. All pure and unadulterated.”

The American came to his decision. “Okay, David. You can have him. Half an hour, no more—and don’t frighten him if you can help it, he’s not a bad guy. Just give me a minute to convince him.”

“Agreed. I’ll be sweetness and light itself.”

“And I get this too . . . whatever it is ... in due course?”

“If it concerns you—yes.”

“Fair enough.” The American acknowledged Benedikt. “Watch yourself with this English gentleman, friendly ally. Auf Wiedersehen.” He nodded finally at Audley. “See you, David.”

Benedikt watched the man disappear among the tanks, then he looked at Audley.

“CIA?” It felt like the first thing he had said in hours.

“At its best.”

Benedikt digested that. Praise from Audley was worth remembering. “He knew me.”

“Of course—he would. It’s his business to know you. He just met you face to face a week or two before he expected to, that’s all.”

Audley grinned. “Sorry about all that horse-trading. You inhibited us both, rather.”

Horse-trading was how Audley operated, Benedikt remembered.

“You have a special relationship?”

“Of a sort . . . when it’s in our respective national interests.

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Otherwise we have this old-fashioned gentleman’s agreement about declarations of war preceding hostilities. Short of that we play dead straight with each other, which makes for much greater efficiency as well as simplicity. And we trade on that basis.”

“You gave him something—?”

“That’s right.” Audley caught the expression on his face. “Nothing out of our files—nothing like that . . . Something of mine ... I have these private Israeli contacts, and they want the Americans to know something. But they don’t want it to come from them directly, for the record. Only . . . not everything they’ve given him is strictly kosher, so I’ve given him good value on my own account.”

Benedikt glanced round, but couldn’t see anyone answering to his imagination. “Value for what?” The front runner in the race was obvious. “Gunner Kelly?”

“Gunner Kelly.” Audley double-checked on his own account. “I’ve given you some of it, and you must have put more of it together by now ...”

“The bomb was for Kelly.” He studied a middle-aged man who was loitering near the panel bearing the Tiger’s biography. But then the man’s family joined him. “He knows who was responsible, and he has some way of communicating with him, to get him to try again. Only this time he’ll be ready for him.” Now there was another possibility: a good-looking young man in a beautifully-cut lightweight suit had joined the family group, but was not part of it.

“Correct.” Audley pointed suddenly towards the Tiger’s turret.

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“See that gouge on the trunnion there? That was made by an anti-tank shot . . . six-pounder AP, most likely . . .” He waited until the young man had sauntered past them, to disappear beyond a neighbouring Mark V Panther in the direction of the armoured car hall. “Go on.”

Benedikt stared at him. “Is it really vengeance that he wants? What does he really want?”

“Yes . . .” Audley met his gaze for a moment, then let his glance wander again. “That is the heart of the matter: what is he really up to?”

There was still no likely prospect in sight, only one harassed mother being dragged by one small boy while trying vainly to keep two others in view simultaneously.

“What did he tell the people in the Chase?” Benedikt fended off one of the small boys who was about to collide with him. “Miss Becky? And Blackie Nabb ... and Old Cecil?”

“And others. Wally Grant and Ron Turnbull, the two main tenant farmers. And Ken Tailor, who runs the shop. And Mike Kramer at the garage up on the road and Dave and Rachel in the Bells.”

Audley nodded. “He started with them ... the ones with the influence.”

“What did he say?”

Audley thought for a time without replying. “Yes ... I’ve told you how they all felt about the Old General—the Squire . . . their Squire.” He looked at Benedikt candidly. “I’ve never come across anything quite like it before. I’ve heard about it—I’ve read about dummy1

it ... but I didn’t think it still existed.” He half-smiled. “It’s like stumbling on a secret valley and finding an extinct animal grazing peacefully there ... Or a mythical beast, even—a unicorn, maybe?”

“But this unicorn has a sharp horn.”

“Oh yes! And sharp hoofs to kick with, and teeth to bite with.

Unicorns were only gentle with virgins.” The half-smile faded. “He told them at least some of the truth, it seems—perhaps he told them all of it that could be told. That’s what he says, anyway.”

Benedikt waited. There were two youths in jeans passing by, with two little painted girls, oblivious of everything but each other.

“He said it was all his fault—that the bomb was for him. He admitted that straight off. His fault. But not deliberately his fault—

not expected . . . and not deserved, either—”

“Not deserved?” Benedikt frowned.

Audley held up a finger. “I’ll come back to that. What he said was that there’d been someone hunting him for a long time, trying to get the crossed wires on him—that he’d been running for a long time before he’d come to Duntisbury Chase. And even then he hadn’t come for the job the Squire had advertised—‘ Man Friday wanted, ex-gunner preferred’—he’d simply remembered his officer from long ago, when killing was in fashion, and he’d only come for advice. ‘ In a tight corner, the Squire always knew what to do’, was what he remembered.”

So what followed had been inevitable, thought Benedikt. At least, inevitable, the Old General being the man he had been. “So he got the job instead?”

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“Not instead—because, more likely. The Chase was off the beaten track ... no one comes to Duntisbury Royal, it isn’t on the way to anywhere. And what the job entailed didn’t involve going anywhere, either. . . So four years, he’s been here . . .and the first three of them he didn’t step further than Kramer’s garage, to take the Old General’s car for its occasional service. It was only the last few months he’d driven the old boy to Salisbury and Bournemouth, to his tailor and his wine merchant, and such like . . . Between them, they reckoned the trail must have gone cold . . . Or, it wouldn’t likely be very hot in Salisbury or Bournemouth.”

Benedikt thought of the cathedral and its quiet close, with its old houses and cool green grass; and Bournemouth was the seaside town to which elderly English gentlefolk retired on their pensions and their dividends. Bombs and snipers belonged in neither of them.

“ ‘Sanctuary’—that was Kelly’s word for it: ‘He gave me sanctuary’, he told them—Becky and the rest. ‘And now I’ve killed him for it, as sure as if I’d set that bomb meself.’ ”

They should have known better, the Old General and Gunner Kelly between them, thought Benedikt—that there was no place safe from sudden death if defenders were not vigilant— not the bishop’s Salisbury, not the pensioners’ Bournemouth . . . and not peaceful Duntisbury Royal either—there was the Fighting Man to remind him of that.

No safe place . . . He looked round again, and saw that for the first time they were quite alone beside the Tiger. It must be getting near to the museum’s lunchtime closure.

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“So now the Squire was dead, and he was still a target. Which meant it was time for him to start running again.”

“Why was he a target?”

“All in good time, my dear chap. I’m telling it to you how he told it to them. He could run again—nothing easier. He had his pension from the army, he could have that sent anywhere. And he had his savings, and four years’ wages that he’d hardly touched—he could run a long way on that, and maybe even far enough this time.”

Still no one. The American must be having difficulty persuading his contact that Audley could be trusted.

“But this time was different. He wasn’t going to run this time.

There was a score to settle this time.” Audley paused.

“He’d been lying low in the Chase, working that out. Those that were after him would reckon he’d run already, but when he was ready he had a way of letting them know where he was. And then when they came he was going to repay them in their own coin. He owed that for the Squire. What happened afterwards was no matter.

But, also because of the Squire, he owed them in the Chase the telling of what he was going to do. That was all.”

All? thought Benedikt, lining up what he had observed of the people of the Chase as well as what he had been told about them, and then adding Gunner Kelly to it. Because then, all was what it wasn’t: it wasn’t an end, it could only be—and had been—merely a beginning.

So he could jump the next question, having the answer to it, and go on to the more interesting one that followed it.

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“He knew they’d insist on helping him?” As he spoke he saw that Audley had been watching him. “He calculated it?”

The big Englishman relaxed slightly. “Right. No proof. . . but. . .

right.”

“Do they know?” He thought of Blackie Nabb handling the police at the ford. “They are not stupid, all of them.”

“You’re dead right they’re not stupid, all of them!” Audley spoke feelingly. “But Kelly is a remarkable man, you know.”

“A man of many voices?” He remembered the previous night’s events.

Audley smiled. “You’ve encountered that, have you?”

“The question is ... how many of his tongues are forked . . .?” He did not find it easy to smile back. The roles Gunner Kelly was playing ranged too widely for that: he could be the ultimately loyal soldier, devoted to the avenging of his liege-lord’s murder at the risk of his own life, and therefore not too scrupulous about manipulating others who owed the same service. But he could also be a clever man planning to end a long pursuit by using others to destroy his pursuers.

“I agree.” Audley nodded. “The trouble is ... he is a great performer

—but is he really that good? Because they aren’t stupid—you’re right . . . but at the same time they’re not professionals.” He turned the nod into a slow shake. “In his place . . . he’s taking one hell of a risk . . . in his place I’d run, you know.”

But run from what? thought Benedikt: that was still the final question. “Who wants him dead?”

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“Yes. That’s where we have a problem, I’m afraid.” Audley rubbed his chin as though in doubt. “A real problem . . .”

“He is an Irishman.” That ought to simplify matters, and was surely not to be ignored when it came to killing. With an Englishman, or a German, the possibilities were too numerous to make mere nationality significant; with an Italian, even though the Red Brigades were as good as beaten, there was now the Bulgarian connection as well as the Mafia and the terrorists of the far right.

But with Irishmen, as with Basques and Corsicans and Palestinians, there was a single starting point nine times out of ten, no matter how it splintered afterwards.

“But only of a sort.” Audley studied him. “If I may say so without offence, you continental Europeans don’t understand the Irish at all, you know.”

“And you British do?” Even at the risk of offence, he couldn’t let that pass. “Forgive me for not being able to see the evidence for that.”

Audley smiled. “Oh . . . culturally, perhaps you have some inkling of them. I’m not decrying what the cultivated German tourist observes, even though he probably relishes romantic notions of the pre-urban society . . .just as you are inclined to see Britain in somewhat idyllic Dickensian terms—”

“Now you are patronising me, Dr Audley—”

“Then I’m sorry! But I don’t mean to, I assure you. Would it help if I admitted that the British have no worthwhile insights at all about foreigners? You at least see something—we see nothing at dummy1

all... It’s the curse of insularity . . . No matter how many millions of us go abroad, we’re still the most cretinously ignorant nation in Europe—I admit it.” He smiled again, disarmingly. “And I admit quoting your Nobel prize-winner Boll—Heinrich Boll—at you.

But at least I didn’t suggest he lived in Ireland for tax reasons—

you must admit that, Benedikt.”

How Father would love to cross swords with this man! thought Benedikt. At least it would be a fairer and more rewarding match than Audley’s Cromwell against Father’s deadly 88s.

“No . . . what I meant was that it’s Gunner Kelly we’re up against

—not Michael Kelly.” Audley shook his head. “He was a Royal Artilleryman longer than he was an Irishman in Ireland, you know.

And on a time-span, he’s twice as English as he is Irish.” Another shake. “Apart from which, what he did tell Becky was . . . that his problem was nothing directly to do with ‘the ould country’ . . .

whatever that means, and if we can believe it—”

The words stopped suddenly, and the open expression on Audley’s face closed in the same instant as he stared past Benedikt.

“My dear How—” Audley bit off the rest of the name as though it had burnt his tongue. “Hullo, there, cher cousin!”

“David.” The mid-Atlantic voice came from behind Benedikt, almost lazily, encouraging him to turn towards it without any indication of surprise.

It was the good-looking young man in the well-cut suit who stood at the CIA man’s shoulder. Only, close-up the suit was even better-cut, as only the finest English tailor could mould a suit, and the dummy1

man inside it wasn’t quite so young, with crow’s-feet corrugating the corners of the eyes which were as dark brown and as wary as had ever focussed on him.

“Dr Audley.” The eyes flicked to the Englishman, and then came back to Benedikt. “Captain Schneider.” God in heaven, thought Benedikt. Another Irishman!

VIII

Audley studied the Irishman for a long moment. “You have the advantage of us ... Mr—?”

“Smith.” The Irishness of the voice was there, but it was unobtrusive, only just across the median line between the two countries. “But I doubt that, Dr Audley. For I have heard tell of you.”

“Indeed?” Audley’s eyes moved to the American.

“I have asked my friend to stay,” said the Irishman. “For the record.”

Audley came back to him. “But there is no record.”

“There’s always a record.” Under its softness the voice was hard.

“But. . . shall we say . . . you have a friend with you, who wasn’t in the small print. So now I have a friend, too.” The man’s expression concealed the same contradiction as his voice, decided Benedikt: beneath its superficial amiability there lay distrust as well as apprehension.

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The American’s shoulder lifted slightly in apology: those, plainly, were the Irishman’s terms, and they could take it or leave it.

“I see.” Just as plainly, the terms were not to Audley’s liking, even though he could hardly refuse them.

“Do you, Dr Audley?” One corner of the Irishman’s mouth lifted.

“You know . . . they say you have no liking for my country—and its inhabitants. And is that the truth, would you say?”

Benedikt was torn by the need to watch the Irishman while checking on Audley’s reaction to such baiting.

“ ‘They say’?” Suddenly Audley’s voice was as soft as the Irishman’s. “I would say . . . that if you paid a ha’penny for that information you were shamefully overcharged, Mr Smith.”

“Is that so?” The man seemed perversely pleased by the denial.

“And yet, is it not a fact that you’ll take no job across the water?”

He cocked his head knowingly at the Englishman. “That when they put you down for Dublin once, it was a letter of resignation that they got back? What would you say to that, now?”

Audley looked at his watch. “I would say that I am at last beginning to get an inkling of why they beatified Pope Innocent XI in 1956, Mr Smith. And I’m grateful to you for that, because it’s rather been preying on my mind.”

“What?” Mr Smith frowned.

“It simply has to be because he rang the bells of Rome to celebrate Protestant King Billy’s victory over Catholic King James—1688

and all that.” Audley turned towards Benedikt. “Do you spend a lot of time discussing the relative merits and demerits of North dummy1

Germans and South Germans, Captain Schneider? Let’s see now . . . the North Germans are like the Southern English, aren’t they? Rather more anonymous than the ... it would be the Bavarians, wouldn’t it be? And the Bavarians are the Yorkshiremen of Germany? Or the Lancashiremen? And then there are the Prussians—I presume they rather frighten you, the way the Scots frighten the English . . . But the Ulstermen, who are really only transplanted Scots, frighten us even more—damn good assault troops, I’m told, but dirty in the trenches . . . And then there are the Welsh—far too clever . . . not intelligent, mind you—it’s the Scots who are intelligent—but clever. Good rugger players, though. And I always think a man can’t be all bad, who plays rugby, so there must be some good in the Argentinians . . . And the Rumanians—

and the Fijians . . . It’s not the colour of a man’s skin—it’s whether he plays rugger, that’s what counts, in my view. Black, white or khaki. Jehovah’s Witnesses, Freemasons, Frenchmen—you can always tell—tell at a glance.” He turned back suddenly. “Now, I don’t care whether you like the English or you remember Drogheda and Wexford every time you see one, and spit. You can have any prejudice you like—and if you want to believe that I think the moon is made of green cheese, you’re welcome. All I want to know is who wants Michael Kelly dead, and why. Nothing more, and nothing less.”

The Irishman had a curious expression on his face now, which seemed to Benedikt to be compounded of conflicting emotions, and was altogether incomprehensible to him. But his mouth stayed closed and the silence between them lengthened.

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The American stirred. “You could try giving him your word, David. That you’ll play straight.”

“Word of an Englishman?”

“Just your word. No generalisations—you’ve made your point there, I guess.” The American drew a slow breath. “Hell, man—he may have something which you can play your ‘Great Game’ with.

But it’s his skin that could end up nailed to the wall.”

Audley looked down his nose at the American. “I said there was no record. He said there was, not I.”

“So he doesn’t know you. Him and two billion others.”

Audley thought for a moment. “Very well . . . For what it’s worth, Mr Smith ... I haven’t met you today. I have no memory of you.

Your name— your face—will never be identified by me. You do not exist . . . You have my word on that.” He looked to Benedikt.

“Captain Schneider?”

Benedikt stiffened. “My word is as Dr Audley’s.”

The American looked at Mr Smith. “If the Captain’s word is good enough for David, it’s good enough for me, Jim.” Then he smiled.

“So who the hell is Michael Kelly, then?”

The Irishman looked at all of them in turn. “Who is Michael Kelly?

And you with your great machines that can count the nine billion names of God Himself? He’s nobody, that’s who he is ... He’s John Doe, and William Rowe . . . and William Smith and Wilhelm Schmidt, who never did any harm to anyone—that was all his own harm, and not the harm others gave him to do.” The Irishman spread his glance between them. “He was a British soldier, for his dummy1

sins—his father’s sins—” the glance fixed momentarily on Benedikt “—and probably killed a few Germans in his time, that he never set eyes on at all.”

“We know that.”

“You do? And he was a Bradford taxi-driver after that— you’ll know that, too? And no one looked twice at him, because no one ever looks twice at a taxi-driver, providing he’s there on time and doesn’t over-charge—eh?”

“We know that, too.”

“So you do ... Michael Kelly—John Doe, William Rowe, William Smith, Wilhelm Smith, Wilhelm Kelly, William Kelly, Aloysius Kelly—”

“Aloysius Kelly?”

“A common name. Two common names— Aloysius and Kelly . . .

Though maybe Aloysius is not so common hereabouts. But—”

“Aloysius Kelly.” Audley repeated the name quickly, as though he’d only just heard it the second before. “But he’s dead—” He looked at the American.

“Dead—so he is!” agreed the Irishman. “Dead and gone these six years—seven years?”

“Four years,” the American corrected him.

“Four years, is it?” The Irishman accepted the correction. “But you’re right—it was seven years they were after him, but it’s only four years since they caught up with him—you have the right of it as always, Howard. But dead and gone—four years, or seven years, or seventy years, it’s all the same: dead and gone with all dummy1

that was locked up in his head. And there are those that sleep a lot sounder for that, by God!”

Benedikt looked at Audley. “Aloysius . . . Kelly?”

“Yes.” Audley didn’t return the look. “What is Michael Kelly’s connection with him?”

“Ah . . . now that machine of yours is good, but not good enough—

eh?” The black-brown eyes dismissed the Kommissar as well as the British computer’s memory-bank. “The best connection of all, he had—the one that’s thicker than water, through the sister-son, which is one that counted strong from the old days.”

“Hell!” The swarthy American shared his surprise with Audley.

“He had no next-of-kin, damn it—”

“There now!” Pure satisfaction peeled off the veneer of the Englishness in the man’s voice. “You have to go back . . . and you have to have the connections to get the sense of it, which your man prying wouldn’t take from it in a month of Sundays! For there was an age-gap you wouldn’t credit, between the one of them marrying young, and the other marrying late—and the scandal of the first one, that had to marry, that they always like to forget so they had the chance to ... And it was a Kelly marrying a Kelly, that was no relation at all—and a difference of opinion between the families as well...”

Benedikt gave up trying to disentangle that convoluted relationship. Michael Kelly’s father had served with the British Army, and that might have made for enmity. But he wasn’t sure which generation the man was talking about.

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“What has Michael Kelly go to do with Aloysius Kelly?” The edge of anger in Audley’s voice indicated that he had the same problem, and was cutting through it.

“They grew up together—I’m trying to tell you, Dr Audley. The same church and the same school, and houses in adjoining streets.

And they kissed the same girls down by the river, and put their hands where they shouldn’t under the same skirts . . . Or, perhaps Michael didn’t, because he was the good one, that did as he was told—and enlisted in the British Army, like his father before him . . . Not like Aloysius—he was the clever one—and the bad one, to your way of thinking, Dr Audley.”

“The bad one?” Benedikt was tired of the nuances of their fools’

quarrels, which evidently encompassed Ireland’s own enmities as well as those he more or less understood.

“His father was a Republican. They say he was one of those that lay in wait for Michael Collins.” The Irishman’s mouth twitched.

“Michael’s was a Free Stater. And he wasn’t ashamed of wearing his medal ribbons—the DCM among them—the old man wasn’t.

Out of their frame beside the fireplace, for all to see.”

Mil Eliot zu Ruhm und Sieg, thought Benedikt: like the Elector of Hanover, the King of England had scattered his battle honours far and wide in the days of empire.

“But . . . the two families—it was like there was an armed truce between them, the generation of the Troubles, and the Partition, and the Civil War, because there was blood between them as well as common to them . . . But the boys would have none of that—

they were like brothers in the mischief they got up to between dummy1

them . . . There’s this auntie, blind as a bat and sharp as the razor the barber shaves himself with—she remembers them both . . .

until Aloysius went off to the seminary and Michael went to fight for the English—which was maybe just a little better than being a butcher’s boy, which was all the work he could get when they wouldn’t have him at the garage ... It was always cars he was into, the auntie said: it was a driver he wanted to be for the English, but his father said it was a gunner he must be, because it was only the presence of the guns on the battlefield that turned mere fisticuffs into proper warfare—” The Irishman looked around him quizzically “—which is all these things are, I suppose, if you think about it—just bloody great guns on wheels, with an engine bolted to them . . . Anyway, that’s when the two boys split up—” He slapped his hand on the Tiger “—and went their own ways—and very different ways, by God!”

It was time, decided Benedikt, to cut his own losses ruthlessly: both the Englishman and the American clearly knew what the Irishman was talking about, but he did not.

“Who is Aloysius Kelly?” He could have asked the question of any of them, but Audley was the most likely to give a straight answer.

“David?”

“Hah!” It was the Irishman who reacted first. “Now that’s a question that’s been asked a time or two!”

Benedikt waited. The big Englishman wasn’t looking at him, he was staring past him, past the Tiger, at nothing, as though he hadn’t heard. “David?”

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Finally Audley drew a breath. “Who was Aloysius Kelly ...”

“Of course.” They had all said as much: the Englishman and the American had argued over the length of time since that event, and the Irishman had agreed that it was four years since they caught up with him. “Who was he?”

Audley looked at him. Then he looked at the American. “It was in Spain he was first spotted, wasn’t it?” He frowned. “With General O’Duffy’s Blue Shirts on Franco’s side?”

“That’s probably just a story. He would have been absurdly young to have been with them on the Jarama.” The American frowned back at him. “Too young.”

“They say he lied about his age.” The Irishman turned to Benedikt.

“They say he first went into action alongside your General von Thoma’s tanks—they say the General wanted O’Duffy’s men with him because he reckoned they wouldn’t run away.”

“But I don’t go for it.” The American shook his head. “I don’t reckon he was there so early.”

“But he did go straight from the seminary,” countered the Irishman. “And he lied about his age, they say.”

“Maybe. But if he was there he changed sides damn quick, that’s for sure.”

“Ah . . . well, isn’t that the Irish for you!” Mr Smith smiled.

“Going over from the winners to the losers.”

“He went over—”

“And nothing out of character.” The Irishman stuck to his guns.

“He went there as a True Believer, straight from the seminary. And dummy1

he went across like St. Paul on the road to Damascus, when he found another faith he liked better, having seen both sides—”

“No!” The American shook his head again. “ ‘38—late ’38—is the first year I’ll buy. With Frank Ryan in the International Brigade—

and the Abraham Lincoln Battalion, not the British one, because it was long after the Cordoba trouble.”

“Ah . . . Frank Ryan! Now he was a lovely man in his way, you know.” The Irishman half-closed his eyes. “A great gentleman, they say . . .”

“And IRA since 1918.” The American looked at Audley.

“And in contact with the Nazis, along with Sean Russell, in ‘41—

they had a radio link going,” said Audley.

“Which was a great waste of time for them both, to be sure,”

murmured the Irishman.

“But not for lack of trying,” said Audley.

“That’s not what I mean, Dr Audley,” replied the Irishman mildly.

“What I mean is that Aloysius Kelly was there beside him—and wasn’t he feeding it all back to Moscow, on his account, eh?”

Audley sniffed abruptly, and turned to Benedikt. “Yes. So there you have it in a nutshell, Captain Schneider. Aloysius Kelly went to Spain and teamed up with Ryan, who was a long-time IRA man

—”

“Who’d fought alongside his father, in the Troubles and the Civil War,” supplemented Mr Smith.

“But before that he’d been talent-scouted by one of their Political dummy1

Commissars,” said the American laconically. “He was ordered to attach himself to Frank Ryan, who was an Irishman first and last—

whoever was England’s enemy was his friend, it didn’t matter who

—”

“Which made him politically unreliable—Frank, I mean—”

“Jim! For God’s sake!”

“I was only explaining—”

Audley cut them both off with a gesture. “What they both mean, Benedikt, is that the IRA originated as the military wing of a nationalist movement—a nationalist sectarian movement. The fashionable idea now is that all twentieth-century guerrilla organizations tick because Marx and Lenin wound them up— that it’s all Marxist-Leninist magic that makes them work. But the truth is that most of them owe damn all to Marx, and even less to Lenin

—the halfways successful ones, anyway . . . from Pancho Villa to Fidel Castro, by way of the Jews and the Algerians and the Cypriots . . . and even the Chinese and Vietnamese too. You could say they owe a lot more to any classical guerrilla leader in history—

to Francis Marion, say—” he pointed at the American “—his

‘Swamp Fox’ in the Carolinas, fighting Cornwallis and Tarleton in the American War of Independence—Marx and Lenin didn’t teach him anything . . . And the IRA has always derived a hundred times more from the United States than from Soviet Russia and Colonel Gaddafi . . . But to do that, it was the end of British colonialism—

not the beginning of the socialist revolution—that they campaigned for. The shift to the left in the IRA didn’t start until the ‘6os.”

“Aha!” Mr Smith gave Audley a shrewd look. “And you not an dummy1

expert on Ireland, eh?” Then he nodded. “Ah—but it was you who said what I had was not worth a ha’penny, wasn’t it! So I can’t say you didn’t tell me.”

“I’m not an expert on Ireland, damn it!” snapped Audley irritably.

“We’re not talking about Ireland—we’re talking about Aloysius Kelly.”

“And the Debreczen meetings.” Almost imperceptibly the American had shifted his position from alongside the Irishman, until now he was nearly facing him. And there was a note in his voice which matched his change of position: the mention of

‘Aloysius Kelly’ had ranged him alongside Audley as an ally, he was no longer a neutral ‘friend’.

“Oh no! Debreczen is something else—” Mr Smith held up his hand, fingers widely spread, as though to ward both men off “—

there’s nothing at all I know about that! It’s none of my business . . . what it was, or when it was. And I’m not having any part of it, either.” He looked around him, and Benedikt couldn’t help following his action. But now there was no one at all in sight: the great hall of tanks was inhabited only by fighting machines.

“Fair enough.” Audley’s flash of irritability was gone. “No one could blame you for that. So ... we’ll just forget Debreczen—it’s something else that never existed. Right? And Aloysius Kelly too!”

Debreczen?

The Debreczen meetings? Benedikt frowned as the meetings fixed Debreczen for him. But what would an Irish veteran of the Spanish Civil War be doing in a nowhere-town in eastern Hungary, which—

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so far as he could recall—lay somewhere just on the better side of the Carpathians, almost equidistant from the borders of Slovakia and Rumania and the Ukraine?

The Irishman looked at Audley wordlessly, and Benedikt could see that Audley friendly frightened him more than Audley hostile. But then, perhaps that was what Audley intended.

“It’s Michael Kelly—our very own Gunner Kelly—who interests us, Mr Smith, you see?” Audley smiled, first at the Irishman, and then transferred the smile to Benedikt for confirmation. “Correct, Captain?”

Benedikt nodded. “That is correct.” If anything, he thought, a smiling Audley was more disturbing.

“And we left him taking the King’s shilling . . . forty years ago? No

—forty-five, it must be . . .” Audley carried the nod back to Mr Smith. “Which is a long time ago, when you think about it.”

A long time, indeed! Benedikt tried, and failed, to conjure up pictures of the Ireland of their time—the two Irish youths, one a butcher’s boy, the other a young seminarian . . . one to become a British soldier, the other to travel a very different road, serving under a newer flag and exchanging the true God for a false one.

But both of them had grown old since then, over those long years . . . and yet now one was mysteriously dead, and the other plotted murderous vengeance, when they both ought to have been drowsing in front of the television sets by their firesides among grandchildren.

“So when did they meet again, Michael and Aloysius?” Audley dummy1

prodded the Irishman gently. “Because they did meet again, didn’t they?”

As a guess, it was nothing extraordinary, really: it was the only computation of the possibilities which made any sense of what was happening now.

“They met.” The hand resting on the tank clenched.

“Four years ago?”

“Ten years ago.”

“So long as that?” Audley frowned, and fell silent for a moment.

“Well now . . . ten years . . . and not by chance?”

The Irishman didn’t reply.

“Not by chance, let’s assume. And it was Aloysius who sought out Michael—right?” Audley nodded, but more to himself than to Mr Smith, and then turned to the American. “It was about ten years ago that they put the word out on him, wasn’t it?”

The American stared into space for a couple of seconds. “No. Not so long—more like seven . . . ‘75—not earlier than that, David.”

“Hmm . . . But then he could have seen the writing on the wall before they did. So he could have been setting up his bolt-holes in advance . . . That’s what I’d have done in his place.”

‘They’ . . . ? Both because Audley was who he was and because Aloysius Kelly had been who he had been, they were not the IRA, estimated Benedikt coldly. The long hunt for him— which now seemed to have extended to a pursuit of Gunner Kelly—sounded much more like the KGB’s Special Bureau No 1 on both accounts.

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“So how did Aloysius trace Michael?” Audley came round to Mr Smith again, and beamed suddenly at him. “Ah! He’d go about it just like you did, wouldn’t he!” He nodded at Benedikt. “There now

—that’s a lesson for both of us: the computer gives back only what it’s already been given, and if it lacks that one special bit of knowledge ...” He switched back quickly to the Irishman. “And that’s what’s bothering you at the moment, isn’t it?”

The man’s source—of course! Because once Audley had that, the man himself was superfluous.

“The old auntie.” This time Audley didn’t bother to smile, because he no longer needed to do so.

“No—”

“Yes. You slipped, and now you’re kicking yourself for it—

although it’s easily done, and we all do it when we’re scared . . .

And I could be charitable, and assume that you don’t want the old lady bothered by great gallumphing Britishers with Irish accents . . . Or I could be uncharitable, and suspect that you’re more worried about someone remembering that you’d been to see her just recently, and putting one and one together to make two—

eh?”

The Irishman had composed his features, but the knuckles on his fist betrayed him to Benedikt. “No. I was just thinking . . . word of an Irishman—that’s all.”

“And quite properly.” Audley looked down his nose. “She’s your contact. But you don’t exist, so she doesn’t exist either.” He shrugged. “Simple.”

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“Your word on it?” Apart from the knuckles Mr Smith was steady now.

“No. You already have my word, I can’t give it to you twice. Over here ... a gentleman only has one word-—would you have insulted Michael Collins or Frank Ryan like that?”

The Irishman rolled a glance at the American. “Insufferable! And you wonder why we’re as we are, by God!” Then he relaxed slowly, with a light in his eye not present before. “And yet . . . you have no Irish blood in you by any far remote mischance, Dr Audley?”

“Not a drop. No Irish raiders ever reached Sussex—fortunately for them. Good Anglo-Saxon, Mr Smith, I’m afraid. King Alfred’s men . . . the ones who beat the Danes in the end—remember?”

“But not the Romans. Or the Normans?”

“The Romans were before our time. The Normans were no more than a useful tincture, to tone us up. We assimilated them—as you have assimilated your English aristocracy, Mr Smith . . . We’ve done the same with anyone prepared to stay the course—French Huguenots and German Jews—and the Poles and GI’s left quite a few souvenirs behind them more recently.”

“And now the Pakistanis and the West Indians?”

“Nothing wrong with them. They may not play rugger, but they play damn good cricket. In a hundred years’ time they’ll have improved us—” Audley grinned at the CIA man “— they’ll be as English as Howard is American . . . It’s you Irish who make a tragedy of your history—you have this boring obsession with re-dummy1

living it, as though it mattered what Cromwell did in Drogheda and Wexford any more than what Vespasian did to Maiden Castle with his legion just down the road from here, outside Dorchester .... It doesn’t worry me that we were once a Roman colony—it lends a touch of class to what would otherwise be rather dim tribal history . . . and it makes the archaeology much more interesting.”

He waved a hand. “It’s all a joke, so long as we don’t have to live through it, and we can laugh at our ancestors slipping on the historical banana skins, don’t you see?”

He was challenging the Irishman to disagree with him in a way that no Irishman could disagree, thought Benedikt.

“So what did Auntie tell Aloysius Kelly ten years ago?” Audley came on frontally, like any good tank commander who reckoned he could break through the centre now, with no more messing around on the flanks to draw the Irishman’s reserves away.

“Aargh ... it wasn’t Aloysius she’d kept in touch with—it was Michael who was her boy ... it was always him that she’d been close to—her man had been with Michael Collins, not one of the Republicans—a Free Stater, when it came to the Treaty—and he’d been alongside the English in the trenches too, before that, so it was Michael that was always closer to her. And it was Michael that kept in touch with her over the years.”

“But then Aloysius turned up—?”

“Out of the blue. Asking after Michael.” The Irishman had lost his wary look. “He said there was this debt he had, that had been on his conscience for more years than he cared to remember. But now he’d come into a bit of money—and he showed her a wad of notes dummy1

to prove it .... It was before the darkness had come on her, while she could still see what was close up . . .”

“What did she make of him?”

“She didn’t like the sound of it—of him . . . There were too many notes—and it was English money—and she’d not a lot of time for the English, but she’d no time at all for Aloysius—it was Michael who’d written to her over the years, with never a word from Aloysius until he came through her door as bold as brass, with his handful of money .... No, she didn’t like it at all. But just at that time Michael had been having some bad luck: a bit of bother with his insurance, he said, after he’d had this knock in his taxi . . . but she reckoned it was more likely it was a knock in the betting shop he’d taken, the way he fancied the horses as every good man should ... So in the end, balancing that against the other, she let him have Michael’s address. And that was the last she saw of him

—” he stopped suddenly.

“Yes?” Audley was right: there was more.

“It was some time later ... It was the next year her sight went, and she’s a bit vague about time after that. A year or two, maybe . . .

there were these two fellas came looking for Aloysius—had he been to see her? Did she know where he might be? ‘Old friends’, they were, and for old times’ sake, having lost touch with him, they wanted to meet up again.” Mr Smith paused. “It was just her in the house, with her great-grand-niece for company—and these two fellas.”

An old blind woman, and a child, thought Benedikt. And . . . would dummy1

that be two ‘old friends’ from Special Bureau No 1, come to ask questions only the very brave or the very foolish refused to answer?

“They didn’t have a chance, of course—not a chance!” The Irishman settled his glance finally on Benedikt himself, as though it was he who needed education most. “ ‘Oh yes’, says she—and thinking it’d serve Aloysius right, whatever he was into, but now there was Michael to remember, which was the name and address they were after—‘Oh yes’, says she, ‘that fine boy Aloysius—him that put those two Black-an’-Tans in the gas works furnace at Tralee—a fine boy!‘ And that flummoxed them, because they were foreigners, and if they’d heard of ’Black-an‘-Tan’ it was in the history books—or a drink across an English bar, more likely. ‘Oh no’, says one of them. ‘This is Aloysius Kelly, our old friend—him that was Frank Ryan’s friend in Spain, auntie.’ And she looks into the air between them and nods. ‘Frankie Ryan?’ she says. ‘No—

but he was a fine boy too! Yet he had no part in what was done at Tralee—it was Kilmichael he was at, when they took that Auxie patrol— an’ it was Tralee, where the Tans burnt down the Town Hall afterwards, that Aloysius was—with young Seamus, that was killed by the Free Staters afterwards, and little Patrick Barry, who’d made his fortune in America an‘ wanted me to join him.

Only it was Mr Kelly that I’d given my word to—that you see there on the mantelpiece, above the fireplace, in his silver frame.’ . . . And every time they asked her a question, she gave them an answer that was more than fifty years out-of-date, would you believe it!” Mr Smith shook his head admiringly. “And when I was there, not a week ago, it was Cruise missiles she wanted to dummy1

know about—it’s her great-grand-niece, that’s still not married, who has to read the paper to her every day— The Irish Times, is what she takes—and her an admirer of Margaret Thatcher, by God!

Not a chance, they had: they went away thinking her senile—and she’d run twenty rings round them!”

Audley swayed forwards. “So how did you get her to talk to you?”

“Aargh! She knew my mother—and my grandmother before her.

And she knows where I stand.” The Irishman gave Audley an uncompromising look. “And I told her that Aloysius was dead, and that Michael was on the run because of it. . . And not a postcard she’s had from him, these four years. But I said I’d maybe pass on the word, if I could.” The look softened suddenly. “Is that something I can do—with a clear conscience?”

Audley compressed his lips into a thin line. “To be honest. . . I don’t know.” He considered the Irishman. “But I’ll put it to him, and he can choose for himself. That’s a promise I’ll include with my word, if you like.”

The Irishman gave him back the same consideration. “She would take that as a kindness, for she set great store by him. And . . . and I would take it kindly, too.”

Audley shook his head. “Better not say that, Mr Smith. Better say a debt repaid, and the slate clean—since we have never met.”

The Irishman looked at Audley for another moment, and then turned to his American. “I think it is time for my other appointment. And I’m thinking I would not like to miss it, now, more than ever.”

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“Okay.” The CIA man looked at his watch, and then at Audley.

“David .. . ?” But there was something in the question that was looking for more than mere permission to withdraw.

“Hail and farewell, trusted ally.” Audley lifted a hand. “I’ll be seeing you . . . very soon ... Is that soon enough?”

“Okay.” The American gave Benedikt a nod. “And I guess I’ll be seeing you too, Captain . . . Let’s go, Jim.”

The Irishman started to move, and then paused suddenly, twisting back towards them in mid-step. “Michael. . . Michael was the easy one, and that’s the truth. But that was a long time ago, Dr Audley, and there’s things that a long time teaches.” He closed his eyes for a second. “And if he’s been running . . . running changes a man.

And . . . most of all ... whatever Aloysius touched— don’t you be trusting it not to turn in your hand, Dr Audley. That’s all I’m saying.”

Benedikt watched the two men weave between the tanks until Audley’s voice recalled him.

“Well . . . coming from ‘Jim Smith’, that was a gipsy’s warning, and no mistake!” Audley spoke wonderingly.

“You knew him?”

“I think maybe I do ... by reputation.” Audley half-shrugged. “Not my field, though. But our loyal ally certainly did us proud, no doubt about that, by golly!”

Benedikt frowned. “But he only gave you a connection between . . . Aloysius Kelly and Michael Kelly that was years ago

—ten years?”

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Audley gave him a sidelong look. “He didn’t bother telling me what we both knew. Waste of time, don’t you know!”

That was far enough, decided Benedikt. “No, I do not know. So you need to tell me, I think. And preferably without patronising me.”

The Englishman’s ugly face broke up quite surprisingly. “My God!

I’m sorry, Benedikt! I was, wasn’t I! And quite without justification too. In fact. . . in fact, I wouldn’t like you to put it down to damned insufferable British delusions of superiority—

quite the opposite, rather. . . More like butterflies in the stomach making me nervous.” He grimaced.

“About Aloysius Kelly?”

“About Aloysius Kelly—right.”

“And . . . Debreczen?” It was hard to stay angry with him, even allowing for the certainty that he was also a clever man. “Is it that important?”

“Aloysius Kelly and Debreczen!” Audley drew a breath. “You feed either of them into your computer, and the little red lights will start flashing.” He looked at Benedikt. “I don’t know why . . . but I had this pricking of the thumbs that I was on to something here.” He looked around. “Only . . . I’m not really intuitive—I like little sharp facts, like diamonds—or juicy soft ones, like currants and raisins in a suet pudding.” He came back to Benedikt again. “And now I’ve got something I can’t wear and I can’t swallow, by Christ!”

Benedikt made a disturbing discovery: the disadvantage of playing dummy1

second fiddle to David Audley was that the man’s confidence and omniscience was irritating. But David Audley suddenly nervous was rather frightening.

Audley seemed to sense his disquiet. “Not to worry, though. We’ve maybe got a bit of time . . . The point is that he knew I’d know where Aloysius was killed.” He gave Benedikt an evil grin. “Car bomb in his garage. Spread him like strawberry jam.”

“Where?”

“Airedale. Little cottage on the far side of the valley from Keighley . . . lovely country. Just down the road from Bingley.

Which is just down the road from Bradford, you see.”

“Where Michael Kelly drove his taxi?”

“Just so. And altogether too coincidental.” Audley sighed. “At least, it is now—in retrospect .... At the time, the bomb brought in the Special Branch, and they brought in our people . . . who in turned picked up enough evidence in the cottage to identify the strawberry jam as Aloysius Kelly. And what made him so very interesting was not simply that he’d been on our wanted list for years, but that more recently we’d had word that he was on their wanted list as well. In fact, it was a toss-up who wanted him more

—them or us.”

“Them being the KGB?”

“Them being Spetsburo One—the strawberry jam makers.” Audley showed his teeth. “So now you’re going to ask me why he ran?

And the short and humiliating answer to that is—we don’t know.”

Benedikt frowned. “You mean ... he was not defecting?”

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“From them he was. But not to us, and not to the Americans either.

He went to ground, and he never surfaced—and he had time to pick and choose, too. The way it seems to have been . . . then the troubles began again the Russians sent him back to Ireland—to Dublin—to stir the pot maybe, certainly to watch out for their interests. But then something went sour.” The big man shrugged.

“What went sour—we don’t know . . . He’d been away a long time ... it was the same old enemy, but not the same old country as it was in Frank Ryan’s day . . . and he was older, so maybe he was wiser—or maybe he was just older and very tired. Only God knows now, anyway.” He looked at Benedikt. “All we know is that he ran. Because one day we wanted him—to get what he knew—

and the next day they were after him to make sure we didn’t get it.”

“But the KGB found him first.”

“Yes.” Audley grimaced. “And on our home ground too . . .

Though they had advantages we lacked, to be fair.”

“Such as?”

“He was one of theirs from way back, all nicely filed. So they knew what they were looking for. We never did.” Audley shook his head. “We never even had a decent photo of him—just one smudgy face in an International Brigade group picture that might have been him in his teens. But no real face, let alone prints or distinguishing marks. He was always a man for the shadows, not the sunlight. . . Shit!”

The uncharacteristic obscenity surprised Benedikt, and he looked questioningly at Audley.

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“I was just thinking . . . They were damn good: they let us pick up their sighs of relief after he was dead—that Kelly, Aloysius could be filed as deceased, and the matter was closed. But they must already have had a Kelly, Michael file. And we didn’t even know of his existence, let alone the connection between them. So they’ve been hunting Michael while we’ve been sitting on our arses and twiddling our thumbs—hunting him in our territory.”

Benedikt forgave the lapse, sensing more than wounded pride behind it. “So Aloysius must have passed on information to Michael.”

Audley gestured helplessly. “What other interpretation is there? He ran—and they’re after him, damn it! Damn it!”

Now there was only one thing he needed. And although Kommissar at Wiesbaden could give it to him in no more than the time it took to key the question he wanted it now. “About the Debreczen meeting?”

Audley was studying the Tiger critically as though he was seeing it for the first time, his eye running along the barrel of the deadly 8.8cm gun to the massive armoured shield which fronted its turret.

“What happened at Debreczen?” asked Benedikt.

“What happened at Debreczen?” Audley turned a critical eye towards him. “It was before your time—just about literally before your time, Captain Schneider . . . Damn it! It was before even my time, professionally speaking.”

Early to mid-1950s, that would make it, estimated Benedikt. At least, if one discounted the unconfirmed report that a very young dummy1

Lieutenant Audley had not been a simple tank commander in the last months of the war . . .

“Debreczen is out of the deeps of time—it’s still part rumour and part legend ... we didn’t even get a whiff of it until years afterwards, from the Gorbatov de-briefing, and Gorbatov’s been dead ... for a long time—” Audley smiled suddenly, reminiscently

“—of cirrhosis, I should add. In a piece of Canada which most resembled his native land ... At least the rat-catchers never caught up with him! Just the booze.”

Debreczen? Benedikt wanted to say. But he said nothing.

“It wasn’t actually in Debreczen . . . There was this old Hapsburg castle in the woods. Or ... it was more like a Ruritanian hunting lodge, though God only knows what they hunted there . . . But the Germans had added some huts, and there was perimeter wire—all mod. cons., Nazi-style . . . And, for some reason—perhaps it was accessibility, with no questions asked—for some reason the Russians liked it for what they had in mind.”

Hapsburg castles Benedikt knew, and hunting lodges and huts and perimeter wire too. But he had never visited Debreczen . . . and where was Ruritania?

“First, it was like a seminar centre for experts—not only the GB

specials, but also the foreigners that they really trusted, who could lecture on political conditions in their own countries . . . Like, what they couldn’t do and what they could do—what they’d done wrong in the past, but where the opportunities lay in the future . . . The sort of thing Philby and Co. did a few years later—okay?”

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Philby and Co. had cut the British deep—so deep that for some of them the very names were taboo. But in this, as in so many other things, Audley was different, even though as a Cambridge man himself his wound must be particularly painful.

“And then, over the next year or so, they slipped in people from the West one by one—the promising ones they wanted properly educated for the long-term future . . . Not types connected with the intelligence services—not people who were already actively working for them, nothing like that. . . . These were the young ones who had good prospects in civilian life—in business and industry, and banking and the law, and the arts and academic life . . . The sort who might go over to politics eventually, or turn up in think-tanks. The policy-makers, if you like.” The Englishman regarded Benedikt bleakly. “They came for just a week, or a fortnight at the most . . . The sort of time they could lose quite easily in a European holiday—almost untraceable ... As I well know, because I was eventually one of those who drew the shitty job of trying to short-list our Debreczen possibles. And without alerting them, that we were vetting the vacation they’d taken five or six years before . . . whether they’d really been tasting the wine in Burgundy, or skiing in Austria, or counting the Madonnas and Children in the Uffizi. And it was damn near impossible: I got two

‘certainties’— one of which turned out to be wrong . . . and two probables, both of which were probably wrong . . . and four possibles, who could be pure as driven snow but have my black question mark against their names for evermore, because I couldn’t absolutely clear them.” He scowled, and shook his head at the dummy1

memory. “The best part of four months’ work, and really only one name to show for it. I wished to God I’d never heard of Colonel Gorbatov and Debreczen by the end of it—it was a damned shitty job!”

The adjective was not inappropriate this time, thought Benedikt: an assignment which left other men soiled by unconfirmed suspicion was a dirty one, however prudent and necessary in a dirty world.

“But Aloysius Kelly was the name you obtained?”

“Good God—no!” Audley blinked at him. “Aloysius wasn’t one of the pupils—he was one of the teachers, man—one of the experts running the course. One of the trusted foreigners, don’t you see.”

One of the trusted ones—

“He’d been on the game for years by then,” Audley elaborated.

“He’d nothing to learn, but a hell of a lot to teach.”

Benedikt kicked himself. Both Aloysius Kelly’s years of service, from the Spanish Civil War onwards, and the implacability of the KGB’s pursuit pointed to that truth. And, more than that, of all men a defecting instructor could not be allowed to live: where any Debreczen ‘student’ might, or might not, have glimpsed a fellow-student, their instructors would know them all—

“It was the CIA who identified him, when they squeezed their Debreczen graduate.” Audley’s eyes clouded. “Ours shot himself before we could get to him—he got wind that we were on his tail . . . But the Yanks got theirs—the one they managed to identify. He was an Irish-American, that’s probably why he remembered Aloysius particularly: there were no names in dummy1

Debreczen, only numbers and letters . . . The pupils never saw each other, only their teachers—it was a sort of Oxbridge tutorial system, very elitist and security-conscious. . . . Anyway, this Irish American made Aloysius sure enough—ex-Abraham Lincoln battalion in the International Brigade, ex-sidekick of Frank Ryan . . . But he had a low opinion of the IRA at that time, did Aloysius—it was the early fifties, and he said they weren’t worth a row of beans in Ireland then, but there was good anti-British work the American end could do, playing up British colonialism to weaken the Atlantic alliance, that sort of thing . . .” Audley paused.

“Unfortunately, the third day the Yanks had this chap—in a supposedly safe house outside Washington—somebody sniped him at about seven hundred yards while he was taking a breath of air.”

Audley’s shoulders lifted. “A real good shot. . . and I always wondered whether our chap really pulled his own trigger . . . But it goes to show how much they valued Debreczen, eh?”

Benedikt nodded, and thought of the wide-open view of Duntisbury Manor from the ridge, down across the lawn to the terrace . . . And was the fate of the Irish American—and possibly that unknown English traitor too—one of the things that Aloysius Kelly had passed on to Michael Kelly?

“So the Yanks never finished squeezing their man, anyway— who was the only one they got a line on. And they put Aloysius Kelly’s name on the red side of the tablets—” Audley looked at his watch suddenly “—and didn’t forget about him either.” He looked up at Benedikt equally suddenly. “You saw how our loyal ally perked up at the mention of him?”

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“Yes.” Benedikt’s mind was beginning to accelerate, moving from his own thought— one of the things that Aloysius had passed on to Michael—even before Audley had reminded him that the CIA was in the game now. “How much do you trust your American friend, David?”

“To leave the field to us?” Audley pursed his lip. “In theory quite a lot.” Then he frowned. “But Aloysius Kelly’s memoirs—or whatever he may have passed on to Michael to make a target of him . . . that’ll be a sore temptation to him, I fear. A sore temptation.”

“And he didn’t give his word to Mr Smith.”

“Nor he did! And he’s got Mr Smith, too.” Audley’s features contorted into ugliness. “And any lead to those Debreczen graduates . . . They were just the likely lads in the mid-fifties—

they’ll be the top dogs and the bosses now, the ones who’ve stayed the course.” He shook his head. “A sore temptation!”

Quite suddenly the only course of action open to him became clear to Benedikt: there would have been Germans among those Debreczen traitors— graduates was a weak euphemism for such swine—so his service had an equal interest now in what had started as a purely British affair.

“We cannot sit on this any longer, David.” He shook his head at the big Englishman. “Neither of us can. It is too big for us both.”

Yet he had to leave the man an honourable escape route. “The Americans know. But this is your territory.”

“Yes.” Audley faced reality with traditional British phlegm. Or dummy1

perhaps, thought Benedikt, he had recognised it at the first mention of Aloysius Kelly. “You’re quite right.”

“Who is your chief?” He hoped his expression was impassive.

“Colonel Butler?”

Audley smiled painfully. “Yes. Jack Butler.”

“He will be angry?” He pretended to think about Colonel Jack Butler. “But he is a good man, is he not?”

The smile twisted. “Yes—and yes.”

Benedikt searched for the right words. “We have no choice. But not much time, I think.”

Audley studied him. “Not much time is right. But I still have a choice.”

Benedikt frowned. “What choice?”

Audley continued to study him. “Duntisbury Chase should hold for a few more hours. But how far can I trust you, Captain Benedikt Schneider?”

“Me?” Had he betrayed something?

“Yes. I need to talk to Jack Butler face to face. But I need someone I can trust in the Chase—someone who won’t make Michael Kelly run. But can I trust you?”

He had betrayed something, but Audley didn’t know what it was.

And the only way the man’s dilemma could be resolved would complicate his loyalties even more, by adding Audley’s to them.

Yet there was no alternative. “Would my word-of-honour help you?” He managed to avoid sounding quite humourless. “My dummy1

father’s used to be good enough for your people in the war.”

For a moment Audley’s face recalled Mr Smith’s. Then, like Mr Smith, he relaxed. “Yes, of course.” The big man looked around.

“We need another car for you, so that you can get back with those boys ... No need to hurry back—take them to lunch somewhere, and then round about, to be in the Chase by tea-time—four or five . . . And tell Becky I phoned my wife and she called me home

—say my daughter’s sick, and they can get me at home—” Audley was leading him through the tanks towards the entrance “—I’ll be allegedly in the bath when she phones—if she checks up—and my wife will know where I really am, so that I can phone back . . .

Okay?”

They were passing through a line of modern giants, a British Chieftain and an early German Leopard among them. The entrance ahead of them was empty, except for one of the armoured corps NCOs standing guard in it.

“I want a car, Corporal.” Audley didn’t mince matters. “For the captain here—quick as you can. Hire it or borrow it, I don’t mind.

Major Kennedy will help you.”

“Yes, sir.” The Corporal rolled his eyes at Benedikt, but reacted like any intelligent NCO to a clear and concise order delivered by someone whom he recognised as being in a position to give such orders. “Right away, sir ... Quarter of an hour, sir?”

“That would do well. I shalln’t be here when you come back. The Captain will be in charge of the boys.”

“Right, sir.” The Corporal very nearly saluted, but restrained dummy1

himself with an effort before striding off.

Audley looked at Benedikt. “They could give you a hard time—or young Benjamin could, anyway . . . Darren should be full of tanks, but young Benjamin is a Kelly-admirer and will stick to his orders . . . Tell him more or less who you really are, and that you’ve agreed to help Miss Becky and Gunner Kelly and me—that should give him something to chew on ... And when you get back latch on to Kelly and try not to let him out of your sight—

interrogate him as much as you like, he’ll expect you to ... And if you’re sticking your neck out, you’ve got a right to, after all.”

“But you’re not expecting anything to happen ... for the next few hours?”

Audley nodded. “That’s right. They only acquired their walkie-talkie radios this morning, and they’re reckoning on a practice run tonight. Mrs Bradley’s boy, Peter, at the village shop, has been

‘larnin’ ‘em’, as Old Cecil puts it—he’s a CB radio enthusiast . . .

There’s a lot of quite unlooked-for expertise in Duntisbury Royal, and not just the ancient village skills . . . from Peter in the shop to Blackie Nabb, who was a Royal Marine Commando in Korea.”

The Englishman’s voice was quietly proud. “Blackie was one of Drysdale’s men who fought their way up Hellfire Valley to link with the American marines south of the Chosin Reservoir—the Falklands was a Sunday stroll compared with that . . . Besides which, anyway, it’s Gunner Kelly who knows how to summon up the demons on his tail—he won’t do that until the Chase is ready for them.” He half smiled at Benedikt. “You were an altogether unexpected test of our defences, you know . . .”

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“And I did not get far?” Benedict completed the sentence. “True.

But I was a man alone. And I am not the Special Bureau No 1 of the KGB.”

“True.” Audley’s face creased suddenly, as though with doubt, and then cleared slowly as the doubts resolved themselves. “But there is ... something else which I think you should know.”

“Something else?” It was disturbing that the Englishman had not been frank with him. “Something you haven’t told me?”

“No — not really . . . Something which has only occurred to me since Aloysius Kelly came into the reckoning, you see.”

“Yes?” An instinct told Benedikt that the man was not lying. He had seen that creased look not long before, while Mr Smith had still been with them.

“I don’t know quite how to put it ... Aloysius Kelly’s not been my concern for years — never was, really, I’ve only read the reports . . . The American one originally, and then the others, four or five years back, when he was killed.”

“Yes?” But this was the man’s true skill; to distil truth from the merest broken shards of knowledge buried in ground thickly sown with lies and rumour.

“I swear there’s something Gunner Kelly knows that we don’t ... a certainty — almost a serendipity . . . But more than that.” The creases were back. “It could be just that he’s stopped running and started fighting . . .”

“Or?”

Audley faced him. “Or we can turn the whole thing round.” He dummy1

paused. “Like, bring it back to Mr Smith’s old auntie. Because if there was one thing Comrade Aloysius Kelly was, he was a damned downy bird, and he wouldn’t be easy to kill.” Another pause. “So let’s suppose he wasn’t killed. ”

“Wasn’t — ?” Those creases were justified. “Then who — ?”

“Any tramp by the wayside would do. Any homeless vagrant —