October Men

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OCTOBER MEN

ANTHONY PRICE

I

THE GENERAL SAT quietly in his car at the airport terminal, waiting for his mother and his mistress.

To have driven himself after dark was, he knew, an emotional action, perhaps even a foolish one. But then he had never attempted to impose on his private life that ruthless discipline which had characterised his professional career.

Indeed, he was convinced that those with great power and responsibility must allow themselves a calculated measure of self-indulgence, which was then not a weakness but a safety valve; as a student of history he frequently reminded himself that in matters that did not concern the state it was Caesar's wife who had to be above suspicion, not Caesar.

He drew on his cigar, puffing the smoke carefully out of the window. He wasn't supposed to smoke cigars either, in fact he had promised both women that he wouldn't smoke at all while they were away. Yet he felt only mildly guilty about his broken promise, for he had also never been able to resist the minor forbidden things of life, like smoking cigars and dummy2

parking in the prohibited area right in front of the terminal.

And from the number of cars parked around him the latter was clearly a national characteristic, and in his view a healthy one.

In any case, it was comforting to know that he had only himself to blame for being at the wheel when most sensible men of his age who worked as hard as he did were in their beds. For even if he might fret at his mother for her ridiculous economy in taking a cheap night flight he had to admit that she had neither asked nor expected him to attend her return. She had simply assumed that he would send his driver—which would have been less embarrassing as well as easier, since he suspected that she knew very well that her companion was as necessary to his peace of mind as to her own.

In fact there were plenty of good, sensible reasons for his not being here at Leonardo da Vinci, truly. Only there were two other reasons, neither better nor more rational, which outweighed them all.

Quite simply and literally, he could not wait to get his hands on Angela. Not (somewhat to his surprise) in any lascivious way, but just in a strangely old-fashioned loving manner. All he wanted to do was to take hold of those splendid hips, one hand to each flank, and look at her. If it went no farther than that tonight he would not be discontented; it had taken him forty years and two marriages to discover that there was more than one kind of intimacy through which a man could dummy2

enjoy a woman's company, and he was almost as excited about that discovery as he had been all those years ago about the otner.

Physically, the feel of those hips would be enough. There was no denying that Angela's legs were long and elegant, her bottom shapely for a woman of her years, and her bosom magnificent. But the General had always liked hips, for they were the one thing about women that reminded him of horses. And Angela's hips were incomparable.

Yet if Angela was one indulgent reason for making this sweaty drive (though a reason more spiritual than his mother might suspect), there was also a contrary physical reason which no one suspected.

For the truth was that the General could no longer see very well at night.

He, whose military reputation was founded on those two famous night actions, one against the British and the other against the Germans, now feared that age was beginning to impair his night vision. And characteristically he was fighting this sign of incipient decay as furiously as he had ever done any of his human enemies.

So to have let anyone else drive this night, as he would have done without a thought a few years earlier, would have been to pass up a challenge to impose his will on his body. It was typical of him to dramatise this as a battle against odds, an immortal rearguard action, just as he saw his relationship with Angela as the bonus of a fully-matured intelligence. He dummy2

would not let it occur to him that the spectres of old age and loneliness, which stalked ordinary men and women, would ever dare approach him.

So now he sat smoking happily in the No Parking lot, thinking of hips and screwing his eyes up in an attempt to watch the late night life of the airport.

Anyway, the car was more comfortable than the lounge at the terminal, with its smart chairs architect-designed for discomfort and its depressing collection of waiting humanity nervous with excitement or querulous with tiredness, and with the bored cleaners manoeuvring their huge vacuum machines over the black rubber floors.

He glanced at his watch. The scream of the reversed jets he had heard a few minutes before would have been those of the Alitalia DC9 from Heathrow, which had probably left Pisa about the same time as he had set out from the villa. Any moment now the first passengers would be spilling out.

Not that they were any different nowadays from coach and railway passengers. The General could remember the old Rome airport in the old days, when the world was young and air travel was high adventure. He could even remember—

how could he ever forget!—being presented to Marshal Balbo there at the beginning of one of his great aerial expeditions.

It had been one of the decisive moments of his life when the Marshal had shaken his hand and looked him in the eye and admonished him never to lead from the back—and had lived dummy2

up to his own words moments later as the formation of long-range bombers roared overhead. Here they began to come.

But there was no need to stir himself, because his mother would be last. She always came last, and he could remember his father ranting at her for it on railway platforms halfway across the world.

Balbo had been wrong, of course. There were times to lead from the front and times to lead from the back. And the hardest times of all were when it was prudent to let others lead. But Balbo had changed his life, nevertheless—though less by the example of his career than by the manner of his death. For it had been on the day that the Duce had murdered the Marshal in the air above Tobruk because he knew the truth about the armed forces and wasn't afraid to speak it that the young Captain Montuori had ceased to be a Fascist. . . .

He nodded to himself philosophically, watching the travellers congregate outside the terminus, idly sorting them into their proper categories with half his mind, natives and foreigners, holidaying couples and rucksacked students—only the unlucky, the ignorant and the young braved midsummer Rome!

Except his mother, naturally, who behaved in her own way, regardless of everything and everyone.

The General watched a pale-coloured car farther up the parked line to his left slide forward smoothly, curving in front of him in the wake of a big grey Fiat into which the dummy2

blonde woman with the baby—

His thought was extinguished by the fierce headlights of another car on his right which for one blinding instant illuminated the driver of the pale car moving across his front.

It was like a photographic flash, so brief was it, but still long enough to transmit an image through the General's eye and etch it on his brain, to be instantly registered, identified and remembered.

Remembered!

He sat rigid with excitement: there was no possibility of mistake, not one ten-thousandth particle of a possibility, no question of failing night sight playing him false with the vision of that profile, unremarkable but unforgotten.

Or unremarkable on this side, anyway. And since the years had changed its hungry outline so little they would have done nothing to erase the scar on the other side which ran from cheekbone to jawline —the General's own parting gift, delivered with the raking stock of his sub-machine gun. And he would not have misused a good weapon so if there hadn't been a company of German Alpine troops on the hillside less than three hundred metres below them: he would have used it as the Beretta company had intended, and good riddance!

But maybe he should have taken the risk at that—he thrust the hot memory down as the car passed out of his range of sight. The Bastard had been out of his territory then, just as he was out of his territory now. Only now he was out of his time too—sitting there alone in his car, sitting alone like the dummy2

General, waiting for someone, also like the General. Except that he had driven off smartly having met nobody—the flashing headlights had shown that too. So someone hadn't come?

The General swore and reached for the ignition. Someone had been here right enough—but the Bastard had not been here waiting to say "Hullo" to him!

He slammed the gear selector over, flicked the light switch and jammed his foot on the accelerator. There was still just about time enough to catch up with him—

Except that his mother was standing directly in his way.

He jammed down his foot on the brake pedal even more fiercely than he had done on the accelerator. The car tyres squealed and slithered.

"Mother, for the love of God—" the General began despairingly "Mother—"

"Raffaele!" The General's mother had a remarkably deep voice for so very feminine a woman, and although her admonitory tone towards him had changed over the course of fifty-eight years, it was fundamentally still that of a long-suffering mother to her slow-witted son. "Don't sit there with your mouth open, Raffaele!"

"Mother—"

The General's mother turned her back on him. It was a well-dressed back too, he noticed bitterly; after four years of widowhood black still dominated her wardrobe dummy2

conventionally—but it was always the black of Antonelli and Mila Schoen and Valentino (and God in His heaven only knew what English house she had probably found by now to spend his money on).

"Angela!" The General's mother did not shout, she simply projected her voice. "Tell that fellow to bring the cases here."

He reached out and switched off the engine: when the odds were hopeless even the bravest man could surrender without discredit, and these odds, as he had good reason to know, were infinitely too much for him.

"Raffaele! Are you going to sit there all night?"

The General groped for the door handle. Already it had a quality of unreality, that sudden vision of the past. And he was really too old for these night games, anyway: there was something more than a little ridiculous about the idea of tearing through the night after his old enemy. And finally, it was too late now—his mother had seen to that. It had been too late ever since he had used the butt instead of the bullet twenty-eight years ago.

And then, as his fingers touched the handle, the General was pricked by that ancient instinct, that atavistic feeling of unease which had once been like an extra sense to him, as to be relied on as sight and hearing and smell.

He had thought that it had atrophied during his long spell behind desks of increasing size. But here it was stirring his innermost soul again: too old, it was saying, if you are too dummy2

old, then so is your enemy. Too old to be waiting in the darkness unless there is really something worth waiting for.

"Raffaele!"

So the grey Fiat was worth waiting for—or rather the grey Fiat's occupants, who would be on the passenger list for all to see.

It was as simple as that.

"Coming, Mother!" said the General happily.

At the precise moment that General Raffaele Montuori put his foot on the tarmac at Leonardo da Vinci Airport, Mrs.

Ada Clark put her foot on the worn piece of carpet beside her bed in her cottage on the edge of Steeple Horley.

It had been the gammon steak at her sister-in-law's, which had been salted enough to preserve it until Judgement Day and which had dried her mouth until she could bear it no longer—it was a wonder to Mrs. Clark that Jim looked so well after so many years of bad cooking, of over-salted meat and under-salted vegetables, and altogether too much out of packets and tins.

And that line of well-used sauce bottles told its own tale too, of flavourless food that went begging for a taste of something real, no matter what.

Mrs. Clark searched irritably with her toes for her slippers in the darkness, looking out of the window as she did so. It had been clear earlier, but had clouded over now in preparation dummy2

for the further rain which the BBC weatherman had forecast, so that it was impossible to see where the dark sky began and the roll of the downs ended.

Suddenly the foot stopped searching, thirst was forgotten and Mrs. Clark was wide awake, staring breathlessly out of her window.

There it was again, only longer this time!

Decisively she reached across the bed and shook her husband by the shoulder.

"Charlie, wake up!"

Charlie Clark groaned unbelievingly.

Mrs. Clark shook the shoulder again. "Charlie, there's someone up at the Old House—someone breaking in! Wake up!"

Charlie rolled on to his back, blinking in the darkness, grappling with the unpalatable sequence of information.

Finally he computed an answer, or at least a delaying question. " 'Ow do you know? You can't see nothing, surely?"

"I can see a light, a flashing light—like a torch going on and off."

"Car lights, that 'ud be."

"That it's not!" Mrs. Clark insisted hotly. "You don't get no reflections all that way, and there are those trees in the way.

And besides—" she overrode his murmur of disagreement triumphantly "—there aren't no cars on the road, or I'd 'uv dummy2

heard 'em. I tell you there's someone up at the Old House.

Someone as don't dare switch the lights on."

Charlie grumbled under his breath and heaved himself out of bed, reaching for his pullover.

"I reckon it'll be some of those tearaways from the town,"

Mrs. Clark said to him over her shoulder, the outrage quavering in her voice. "A gang of them broke into a big house down Midhurst way last week—it was in the paper.

They said there'd been seven robberies round there in the last month."

Charlie felt his way round the bed until he was standing beside his wife. As he bent down to peer out of the little window she pointed quickly.

"There! You see where the flash came—"

"Yes, I see'd 'un." Charlie was not given to believing half he was told or a tenth of what he read, but he always believed his own eyes. And there had been no doubt about that pale light. "It'll be they young buggers right enough—young buggers they are."

Mrs. Clark nodded at the vehemence in her husband's voice.

It frightened her to think of them loose in the beautiful house she had scrubbed and polished for a lifetime—scrubbed and polished so much that she almost felt it was partly hers and she was part of it.

But also it angered her, and the anger grew steadily, crowding out the fear.

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Charlie moved away from her.

"What you goin' to do?" She could hear him fumbling in the darkness. "Don't you put the light on, Charlie!"

"I ain't a fool. I'm lookin' to put me trousers on, an' then I'll get on down to the police house. Let 'em sort it out."

"What!" Mrs. Clark rounded on him fiercely, her sense of outrage now dominant. The police house was at Upper Horley, two long miles away, and half of that uphill. "You'll not do that! You do that an' they'll be out an' gone by the time Tom Yates gets 'ere—out and gone."

A terrible vision of destruction rose in her imagination, compounded of all she had heard and read. They weren't like the old-time burglars she had known in her youth, men who knew the value of things and were interested only in what they could sell—they were destroyers now who did unspeakable, senseless, wasteful things. They were the invaders from a world she could not comprehend, the city jungle spilling into the quiet, ordered countryside.

Charlie stared towards her in the blackness, one pyjama-clad leg half stuffed into his trousers.

"You don't mean for me to go up there—?"

"That's just exactly what I do mean. An' I'll go and get Tom Yates meantime."

"Ah—and they'll make mincemeat of me meantime, too, woman. Them's young an' I'm not."

"Then you just take your old gun with you. They won't 'ave dummy2

the guts to tackle you then, not if you stand up to them."

Charlie had the gravest doubts about the validity of this theory of his wife's—it was not the first time he heard her voice it, that young hooligans had no courage. But he could recall the way the rats had behaved at threshing time, in the days before the combine harvesters when there was still plenty of work to be had on the land: if you left the rats alone they soon made themselves scarce, pests though they were.

But if you cornered them—they fought, rats or no, snapping at the stick as it broke their backs.

And that, it seemed to Charlie, was what she was asking him to do to these young buggers—to corner 'em.

"I dunno about that," he began doubtfully.

"Well I do," Mrs. Clark snapped back, through the rustle of clothes pulled hurriedly over her head. "And I knows something else too: that I promised Master David that I'd look after the house while he was away—and so I will. So if you won't go up to it, then I shall have to. And you can go and wake up Tom Yates."

Charlie swore under his breath and wrenched at his trousers.

Somehow he had been manoeuvred into a corner himself, a corner from which there was no escape except by doing his wife's bidding. He never could fathom how she managed it, but it was a position with which he was all too bitterly familiar.

He was swearing still, steadily and bitterly, as he edged his dummy2

way up the lane towards the Old House five minutes later.

Of all the nights of this rotten summer, this was the worst for such tom-fool behaviour. It was pitch black and chilly and sopping wet, without a breath of wind. The rain must have stopped an hour or more since and the heavy summer foliage had had time to drip off its surplus moisture, so that everything was quiet enough to hear a mouse stir.

It was this stillness that made him swear now. He had tried two or three steps on the gravel drive, but the scrunch of his iron-shod boots had deafened him. His only chance of a silent approach to the house was by the rough strip of grass beside the high hedgerow on his right.

He thought he knew both the grass and the hedge like the back of his hand; he had walked beside the one and picked blackberries and hazelnuts from the other innumerable times. But now he stumbled awkwardly, his trousers already soaked to the knee, his face lashed every now and then by unseen twigs and sodden leaves.

And yet, perversely, this discomfort aroused in him a determination to do the job his wife had thrust upon him.

When he had blundered out of the cottage he had been half decided to save himself the unpleasantness—and very possible danger—of catching the little sods in the act by warning them of his advance with a bit of well-judged noise.

But now, as he moved silently from the grass verge to the springy turf of the lawn, the smouldering irritation inside him ignited into a murderous rage.

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He'd learn they little buggers!

There was a lot in life that irritated Charlie Clark: big cars and noisy motorcycles, long hair and short skirts, letters from government ministries asking him questions he didn't want to answer or telling him things he didn't care to know about, and the high price and the low strength of beer. And most of all being bullied by anyone in the world but his wife—

he didn't like that much either, but he reckoned it was more or less covered by the promise he'd made to the vicar when they'd gone to the altar together.

But always the enemy had been either intangible or plainly beyond his reach—always except those two times.

It was queer that he could never remember either of those two episodes in any detail. He could really only remember what had happened before and what had happened after.

There had been the quick, clever boy at the village school, who had mocked him once too often. And then there had been blood on Charlie's knuckles afterwards, and no more mocking.

And the second time had been more like tonight, even though he had had a rifle in his hands then, not a cranky old twelve-bore.

Not unlike this very night, though it had been much warmer, as was only to be expected in foreign parts. Almost as dark, anyway, except that they'd been fools that time too, and showed a bit of a light to guide the patrol.

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Charlie's eyes picked up the glimmer of the torch inside the Old House the moment he came out from the lane on to the springy turf of the lawn. They'd drawn the curtains now, but it was a powerful bright light, that was sure. Only trouble, it was in a first-floor room—he knew the downstairs pretty well, but wasn't so sure of the lie of the upstairs.

And there'd been more smell the last time, the rich smell of farmyard middens. But then it'd been a farmhouse, longer and lower than this one, huddled into the ground almost.

There was talk in the platoon that the farmers kept all their money in boxes under their beds, not trusting the foreign banks—which showed they had some sense, Charlie had thought, seeing as he didn't trust the banks at home either—

and also that it was all in gold francs, too. By the time of the raid Charlie had privately searched several farmhouses with those gold francs in mind, but either it was an old wives' tale or someone had been there before him; personally he doubted the story, for all the farms seemed to him poor and rough, without a decent suite of furniture between them, not at all like those he was used to in Sussex, where farmers were usually men of substance and very often gentlemen, too.

Still, they didn't ought to have treated that old farm the way they had, throwing the grenades through the windows and kicking in the doors, all shouting like savages.

Charlie knew he had shouted with the rest, and kicked too, but that had only been because he'd been angry, red, raging angry at being drilled and marched one way, then marched dummy2

another way, and forced to cower in ditches in terror of bombs and bullets, with never a chance to get his own back.

But it'd never do to kick in the door of the Old House, even the old kitchen door and even if it hadn't been solid seasoned oak, which he reckoned wouldn't reward anyone's boot. And anyway—she'd given him a key, he had it somewhere, thought Charlie confusedly, fumbling for reality in his mind while he searched his jacket with his free hand.

He had to get it right, just like the sergeant had taught him, making him repeat it until he had the meaning by heart: First you creeps up quiet-like, to take 'em by surprise—then you goes in noisy, to frighten the bollocks off 'em!

And first he did get it right, with the key hardly scratching the keyhole it entered. But no amount of care could stop the lock clicking unmistakably, or the latch clattering or the hinges creaking—it was as though the whole door had turned against him, bit by bit, damn it.

Charlie clutched the twelve-bore against his chest and stood irresolutely, listening to the absolute silence of the house ahead of him.

It was a silence which confused him far more than it frightened him, until the memory of the flashing light in the upstairs room came back to him—the evidence of his own eyes.

The time had come to be noisy!

With a furious growl and in total darkness Charlie launched dummy2

himself across the kitchen. The first chair in his way went spinning; he banged into the edge of the table, driving it back so that it overturned another chair. But the table's position orientated him to the passage door. Three more skidding paces, hobnails skittering on the stone floor, brought him against it. Behind him something breakable crashed to the floor.

Four more paces took him down the passage to the foot of the stairs—the last footfall was muffled by the carpet with the eastern writing on it that his wife had told him never to put a boot on. Well, he'd got both boots on it now!

The tingling silence abruptly descended around him again.

And yet not a true silence any more, but the moment when the gamekeeper and the poacher sensed each other's presence in the same covert, the moment of held breath and stretched senses.

It had not been like this in the farmhouse, it had been just how the sergeant had wanted it, all noise and terror.

Charlie reached out for the light switch.

"I knows you're up there," he said in a loud voice. "You just come on down quiet, an' don't make no trouble. Police is comin'. So you just come on down."

He clicked the switch.

There was bursting paper-bag noise—that had been the farmhouse noise he'd never been able to recall—and a hornet stung his ear.

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Same noise with same result: as the man at the head of the stairs sighted the pistol again, this time on Charlie's heart, Charlie shot him dead.

II

VILLARI'S MANNERS, OR more exactly his attitude towards those whom he considered inferior to himself, had not improved, that was evident.

First the fellow had idly fingered the files and envelopes on Boselli's desk, disarranging their mathematical relation to one another. Then he had admired himself in the little round mirror beside the door, patting the golden perfection of his hair and checking his flawless complexion. And then he had sauntered over to the window to gaze without apparent interest over the roofscape towards the Vittorio Emanuele monument. And finally, when he deigned at last to speak, he didn't even bother to turn round to face Boselli.

"Who's this guy Audley then?"

Boselli stared at the well-tailored back with hatred. If looks could kill he felt that his would have materialised into six inches of steel angled slightly upwards just beneath the left shoulder blade.

"Audley?" The anger blurred his voice.

"The guy you're getting steamed up about, yes."

It was typical of Villari to use that aggravating and unfair dummy2

"you," even though he'd come running across a heat-stricken Rome obediently enough himself. But then Villari had always known when to temper his native insolence with a shrewd instinct for the whims of his superiors. The feet that kicked the Bosellis of the world at every opportunity trod very carefully on the carpets of men like Raffaele Montuori.

"We're not getting steamed up."

"So you're not getting steamed up—fine." Villari moved across the airless room, back to the mirror again. "You're not getting steamed up, but you're here."

That "here" carried the same disparagement as the earlier

"you," turning Boselli's own beloved sanctuary, with its rows of battered steel cabinets and its signed portrait of John XXIII into an unspeakable slum.

"And you are here too," replied Boselli acidly. He mopped his brow with the big silk handkerchief his eldest daughter had given him on his last birthday, fancying as he did so that Villari had chosen even those words "steamed up" with deliberate scorn also. For all his North Italian, almost Scandinavian blondness, the younger man showed not a sign of discomfort in the swelter—it was Boselli himself, the Roman, who was already wilting.

But that bitter little thought raised another much more interesting one which momentarily chased away Boselli's private discomforts. There had to be a reason for the General to recall this gilded Clotheshorse from his leave beyond the fact that he happened to be here in Rome. If the General had dummy2

wanted someone from Venice or Messina —or Benghazi—he wouldn't have thought twice about summoning him. So it was Villari and none other that he wanted now. And since Villari combined fluency in the North European languages with the right colouring and an ability to withstand extremes of temperature, cold as well as hot, it must be that Villari was needed to check up on Audley in England.

Which meant that the General was committed to a line of action, or was at least on the very brink of commitment.

And that was a useful thing to know, even though he had not as yet the faintest idea what Audley—

Villari suddenly loomed up directly in front of the desk, cutting off this intriguing line of reflection. He placed his hands precisely on the two corners—the desk creaked alarmingly as it took his weight—and leaned forward until his face was less than fifty centimetres from Boselli's.

"Little man, little man—" Villari's smile was as devoid of good humour as it was of friendship "—I can hear the cogs and wheels whirring in your little brain but you haven't answered my question. And when I ask a question I expect you to provide an answer."

Boselli sat up stiffly and drew back in the same instant, the faint smell of expensive cologne in his nostrils.

"I haven't been told to answer any questions," he snapped. "I have no authorisation to answer questions."

"Authorisation?" The grin became frozen, but there was a dummy2

glint of anger in Villari's eyes now. "You have the soul of a clerk, little Boselli. A clerk you were born and a clerk you will die."

He straightened up slowly. "But I don't need to lose my temper, because I have my own way with clerks. It's a very simple way—let me show you how I treat clerks who bandy words with me. You could call it my authorisation—"

He put his hand in the middle of Boselli's desk and with an unhurried movement, before Boselli could even think of stopping him, swept half the surface clear.

A second too late, unavailingly, Boselli jerked forward in an attempt to stop the cascade of paper, grabbing desperately and clumsily, catching nothing. Villari watched him scrabbling on his knees for a moment and then, as though bored with the whole affair, turned away towards the window again.

"You're—mad," Boselli heard himself muttering in anguish as he sorted the jumbled documents. "It'll take me hours—hours

—" He cut off the complaint as he realised that it would only give Villari more satisfaction. He had no dignity left to salvage and no hope of lodging any sort of complaint without further humiliating himself (the crafty swine had calculated that exactly). Silence was all that remained to him.

But silence did not seem to worry Villari. He merely waited until the papers had been shovelled more or less into their correct files, and the files had been piled more or less in their original places, in a mockery of their original neatness. Then dummy2

he advanced again.

Instinctively Boselli set his hands over the files in a pathetic attempt to protect them.

Villari laughed.

"If you could see yourself!" He shook his head. "Better death than disorder! So we start again, then: who is the man Audley? Speak up, clerk."

Boselli sighed. "What makes you think it is Audley who concerns you?"

Villari looked at him thoughtfully for a moment, as though undecided as to whether or not to assault the files again.

Then, to Boselli's unbounded relief, he relaxed; the game of bullying had palled, or more likely the need for information from a beaten opponent commended itself more urgently.

"Well, he seems to concern you, little Boselli. His name is written all over your files—three folders all to himself, and one from the Foreign Ministry. What a busy fellow he must be!" The manicured hand pointed carelessly. "And isn't that a photograph too?"

He tweaked open one of the covers and twisted round the contents.

"Hmm. . . . Not a particularly prepossessing type. In fact he reminds me of a bouncer I met in a club in Hamburg—he thought he was a hard man." Villari sniffed at the memory, then held the photograph up at arm's length for a more critical look. "The suit's okay— you can't beat the English for dummy2

tailoring—but he's filling it too much ... a big tough guy running to seed." He nodded to himself. "A bit like that actor of theirs who's always getting into scrapes with the cops.

Another tough one."

Boselli smiled inwardly then, permitting himself to be drawn into the game at last by Villari's crass error of judgement.

"You're looking at the wrong half of the face. Look at the eyes and the forehead."

Villari blanked off the squashed nose and square jaw with his other hand and stared at the photograph again. He shrugged.

"So—a hard man with a brain. But don't let him fool you, clerk: if you let him talk you into a dark alley he'll still break you in small pieces and feed you to the birds."

"Then he has kept that side of his character remarkably secret," observed Boselli with prim satisfaction. "He has a doctorate from the University of Cambridge in England—he is Dr. David Longsdon Audley."

Villari flicked the photograph carelessly on to the table, so that it skidded across the open file and fell to the floor beside Boselli's foot. Then, with elaborate indifference, he turned away towards the window for the third time.

Only this time Boselli watched him with a tremor of satisfaction. It was little enough recompense for that act of vandalism, but it was a start. And there was more to come.

"He's been a member of Sir Frederick Clinton's self-styled Research Group for quite a few years," he went on with smug dummy2

innocence. "I'm rather surprised you haven't heard of him."

Villari appeared not to have heard. For several minutes he remained gazing at the distant skyline as though it interested him, deepening Boselli's pleasure appreciably. Of course he would have heard of the old fox Clinton, and possibly even of the Research Group. But the records showed that he had never encountered either of them personally—perhaps another reason why the General was using him now—and he was too puffed up with his own importance to admit it to Boselli. Conceding ignorance would be unthinkable for him, very different as it was from brutally demanding information.

Finally Villari spoke, only to Boselli's chagrin he did so in almost accentless English.

"This Dr. Audley—is he a dottore doctor or a professore doctor?"

Boselli struggled with the mixture of foreign and Italian words for a moment, and before he could quite disentangle the sentence Villari had grabbed the chance of explaining it with deliberately patronising helpfulness.

"An historian," Boselli cut through the explanation irritably.

"He is an historian."

"A historian?" The interest trickled out of Villari's tone. "A teacher of history?"

"He writes—he's written a history of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem. And he's written books on medieval Arab history.

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He—"

Villari waved his hand. "Okay, okay—he's a real historian too.

So what has he done to interest us?"

Boselli looked at him unhappily for a few seconds. Then he shrugged—there was no way of skirting the question and no way of answering it. "I haven't the faintest idea. He—General Montuori, that is—he instructed me to examine our information on him—on Audley, I mean. He didn't tell me why."

"And naturally you hadn't the guts to ask him. That figures."

"When the General wants us to know, he'll tell us. He knows what he's doing."

Villari reached over and hooked the telephone off its cradle with a ringer. "And I like to know what I'm doing." He started to dial.

"It's no good ringing the General's secretary," Boselli stood up in alarm. "She promised to let me know the moment the General was free."

"I'm not phoning that old cow—tits to her! I'm phoning the General."

Boselli was appalled and elated at the same time. The General's private number was sacrosanct: this Clotheshorse would be hanged, crucified, flayed and impaled. But it was his

—Boselli's—phone on which the unthinkable crime was being perpetrated, rendering him an accessory. At the very least he would be banished to some far-off province still ruled by the dummy2

Communist Party.

"Hey, General—Armando Villari here, General—"

"Armando—good to see you again, my boy!" The General came beaming from behind his vast desk towards Villari, without even a glance for Boselli.

"General." Villari acknowledged the enthusiasm as though it was nothing less than his right, but with a touch of caution now. "This is a hell of a time to want anyone to work."

"Hah!" The General embraced him, keeping his arm round the broad shoulders as he turned back towards the desk. "I know you, boy, I know you! It's those big German girls of yours—you like the big girls, eh? I know it—don't deny it, boy

—I remember them myself when I was your age. Fine breasts and wonderful hips! What hips they had!"

The bitterness rose in Boselli's throat like bile as he watched the hand squeeze the shoulder affectionately. He recognised the whole vomit-making scene for what it was: through some ghastly aberration of judgement the General was identifying himself with the Clotheshorse, or at least his youth, part of which had been spent back in the Duce's day training with the German Special Forces in Bavaria. But that was something which was never mentioned now, an episode very carefully overlooked, if not forgotten—that the General should even indirectly mention it now was an extraordinary personal gaffe.

"I'm too goddamed busy for girls, General," said Villari dummy2

easily. "You should know that—it's your fault."

The General chuckled. "You don't fool me one bit, boy. You'll stop chasing when you stop breathing, not one moment before. I'm much more worried that you aren't keeping up your skiing. You'll never make the national team now, you know—not a chance of it. And don't say you haven't had the leave for it, either."

Boselli, greatly daring, cleared his throat.

"I have the Audley files here, sir."

The General still didn't look at him. Indeed, neither of them gave the least sign that they had even heard him speak. It was just as though he didn't exist, or that he existed in some other space and time, a shadow man with his armful of shadow documents desperately waiting for someone in a warmer, more real world to notice him. He had a sudden pathetic desire to scream and stamp and throw all his paperwork into the air, and shout rude gutter words.

Instead, he felt himself shrinking, the sweat on his forehead cold in the General's air conditioning, and he knew he would stand there, meek and eager, until his turn at the end of the queue came. There was nothing new in this, it was the very pattern of his existence. Rather must he watch patiently for the arrival of his moment, when the General and Villari came down to earth. They would need him then—they always did in the end.

"Not a chance is dead right," Villari gave a snort. "Nobody dummy2

who works for you has time for fun—or games. It's getting so a chap can't even slip through Rome for a day without you catching him. And it's the wrong season for trouble—this Audley of yours has no breeding."

"Audley? So you know about him?" The General's arm delivered a final man-to-man slap and then fell away from the shoulders. He turned abruptly and bent a fierce eye on Boselli at last.

Boselli tried for one second to match the eye and the hard set of the mouth, but his face instantly turned traitor on him with an expression of total obsequiousness.

"I—" Boselli ran out of words after the first squeak, looking helplessly from one man to the other. From Villari he expected—and received—nothing, neither explanation nor even recognition. And from the General—with the General it was always the same: there seemed to lie between them (at least in Boselli's mind) unasked for the knowledge that when he had been a pimply youth toying with the idea of the seminary the General had been a daring Bersaglieri captain, raider of British airfields, and then the leader of the Partisan group which had ambushed Panzergeneral Hofacker in the mountains.

And hot on that memory came the comparison of his wife's sagging body with those of the gorgeous creatures the General always had at heel, despite his age and disabilities.

The General couldn't help it—he rarely even barked at Boselli. The trouble was, he didn't have to.

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"I don't know about him," said Villari offhandedly. "I know of him, of course."

"What do you know of him, boy?" the General snapped.

"Not much, to be honest," Villari gave the General a sidelong glance. "The British don't concern me directly—or do they?"

"Just answer the question," repeated the General with a small cutting edge in his voice now which warmed Boselli.

This was more like the real man he knew.

Villari sketched a shrug, unsnubbed, as though the matter was of little importance to him, ignoring or pretending to ignore the danger sign. "He's a university professor, or that's his cover anyway."

"He has been attached to a university, that's true. Go on."

But only partly true, Boselli thought gleefully. The Clotheshorse was already giving himself away.

"Go on," repeated the General.

"Well, he writes history books of some sort—about the Arabs, I seem to remember. Or something like that. And he's one of Sir Frederick—ah—Clinton's group—"

"And what do you know about that," the General pounced hard.

Villari grinned at him boyishly. "Frankly, damn all, General.

Am I supposed to? I didn't think the British were in my sphere of operations."

"Where did you hear about Audley?"

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"Hell, I don't know," Villari was something less sure of himself now, and something less than convincing. "I keep my ear to the ground—I hear all sorts of things."

Mostly bottles opening and bedroom doors closing, thought Boselli. That was the strength of it.

"You've never met Audley, then?"

"No, never." Villari used the certainty of his reply to cover the relief in his voice, without realising that he was thereby admitting that he knew what Audley looked like, Boselli thought with instant contempt. If this were the pride of the German section, then God help them: no wonder they gave him so much time off to ski. He gave himself away every time he opened his handsome mouth.

But the General was obviously not interested in pursuing Villari's incompetence any farther. He retired to the farther side of his desk and sat down heavily.

"Tell him, Boselli," he ordered dispassionately.

Boselli gave a guilty start. "Tell him what, sir? About Dr.

Audley?"

"The Clinton group first. And don't stand there sweating—sit down." The General waved a hand. "Sit down both of you.

And make it brief, Boselli. I haven't all the afternoon."

"Sir—" Boselli faced the General, then Villari. The punitive gleam in Villari's eye drove him back at once to the General.

"The origins of the group go back to the aftermath of the Suez failure—"

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"Not its history, man. Tell him what it does!"

"Yes, sir. Well—" Boselli began again nervously "—it doesn't exactly do anything. I mean—" Christ! He was getting himself as tangled as Villari had been, and with far less reason. He couldn't ski one metre, or hang expensive suits on himself, or fornicate with foreign women. But this one gift he had.

"It was formed as a passive intelligence group, not an active one," he said firmly, his voice gaining authority with each word. "The various labels it has used have been more for accounting convenience than a guide to its function—it goes under Research and Development at the moment, but its true relation with the conventional intelligence arms is broadly analogous with pure research departments in a university and the applied research departments in major commercial companies."

"What the Americans call a 'Think Tank'," observed the General helpfully, watching Villari.

"Broadly speaking, yes," Boselli nodded. "But there was a considerable spin-off in foreward intelligence."

"They forecasted international trends."

"And trouble spots, sir. And likely reactions. They appear to have done this rather well. The only drawback was that they couldn't do it to order. Clinton just let them follow their inclination, and then passed on what he thought might prove of value to the active departments and the appropriate ministries."

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He risked a surreptitious glance at Villari and was gratified to observe that the mask of aristocratic boredom had descended again. If the fool was stupid enough to show his disdain before the General— disdain of a briefing ordered by the General—then so much the better: the General always noticed things like that.

"Yes . . . that about sums it up. Sir Frederick Clinton is an uncommonly astute and persuasive man," the General murmured, the last words half to himself as though he fancied the idea of a private Think Tank at his own fingertips.

"Quite so, sir," said Boselli quickly, hastily evaluating the note of envy in his master's voice and thoroughly disapproving it. Such a group of intellectual outsiders would tend to devalue his own importance more likely than not.

"But there is a disadvantage in his system—a disadvantage and a temptation. And this man Audley exemplifies each of them."

"Indeed?"

"These men—" Boselli martialled his thoughts very carefully,

"—they are difficult to control. There is a—a rogue factor in them. They pursue truth rather than policy."

"I see . . ." The General nodded thoughtfully. "And if the truth gets out, you mean—?"

"Exactly, sir!" It was an addictive pleasure to talk to a man who always grasped the exact meaning of one's words. "This man Audley specialised in the Middle East. And he was good dummy2

—he was very good. He was too good."

"He was unpopular in some quarters, that's true."

Boselli nodded back. "He became committed to what he saw as the right course. Clinton had to get him out before there was a big scandal." He paused, seeing the pitfall ahead just in time: the General evidently knew all about the Arab-Israeli report, and he disliked being told what he already knew—and what the Clotheshorse did not need to know even if he could grasp its significance.

"And that exposed Clinton to the temptation to use him in a different way—to deal with specific assignments, the sort of awkward thing that would interest him."

The General started to speak and then cocked an eye at Villari, who seemed half-asleep now.

"Would you say that was a temptation, Armando?"

Villari stretched. "Hardly. I rather think—Signor Boselli is making something out of nothing. Clinton uses the fellow as a trouble-shooter, that's all. Nothing strange about that, nothing at all."

Boselli watched the General's almost imperceptible bob of agreement with dismay. He had failed to make his point, even though he felt in his bones he was right; it could only be that he had been a shade too quick to attack the Think Tank idea and the General had seen through him. He retired bitterly into his shell.

Villari seemed to sense that the initiative was going begging dummy2

again. He stirred languidly.

"And just what has this so very terrifying Englishman to do with me, General?"

The hatred inside Boselli was so absolute now that he could feel it as a lump in his chest, choking hum. That adjective had been as much an insult directed at him as would have been an actual blow on the face.

"He is here in Rome at this moment," said the General.

"Doing what?"

"Doing nothing—so far." The General paused. "He arrived on the night flight from London early this morning." He paused again. "With his wife, his child and his German au pair girl."

"His—?" Villari gave a short, incredulous laugh.

Boselli lifted his eyes to the General's face, the leaden lump of hatred instantly dispersed by his renewed interest.

"His wife, his child and his au pair?" Villari repeated the words as though he doubted his ears.

Fool, thought Boselli briefly. Fool not to wait for the additional facts which must lie beneath this one like vipers in a bed of flowers.

"We weren't watching the flight, and he was on the passenger list anyway. It was an ordinary scheduled flight and a routine entry. Purpose of visit—holiday."

Boselli waited patiently for the viper.

"But as luck would have it we did have a man there."

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"He was met?" Villari was trying to sound interested.

"Audley? No, he was not met," the General shook his head,

"not in the sense you mean, anyway. But there was someone there waiting for him all the same. Someone who didn't want to be seen by him. Someone who followed him when he drove off in his Hertz car."

Someone we know, thought Boselli.

The General looked at him. "George Ruelle—does that name ring any bells with you, Boselli? It's possible the bastard was before your time."

George Ruelle. The curious thing was that the General had used the English form of the given name, George.

George Ruelle.

Before his time. But his time here had been almost exactly continuous with the General's—they had both been new boys at the same time, albeit one at the bottom and the other at the top.

And that left one strong possibility at least.

"A partisan, General?"

"Good thinking." The General's smile was heartwarming. "Or should I say 'good guessing'?"

"It was a guess, sir," Boselli admitted.

"But a good one. Yes—Ruelle led a group in the next valley to mine. Group Stalingrad."

Group Stalingrad. Now, that rang a bell, or the faint echo of dummy2

one— a memory of ancient and better-forgotten beastliness: of war to the knife with the Germans, when no prisoners were taken and no questions asked, and when reprisal brought bestial counterreprisal.

It had passed the studious young Boselli by, but it had not left him unscarred.

Group Stalingrad. That had been one of the merciless ones—

and wasn't there also a tale of British POWs (or were they American?) who had escaped in the confusion of 1943 only to be cold-heartedly sacrificed—by George Ruelle?

If that was the man he must be quite old by now—and frighteningly young to have been the leader of a partisan group in those far-off, unhappy days. . . .

"This Ruelle followed Audley?" Villari's voice cut through the memory.

"We think so. He was there at the airport, waiting in his car.

He didn't collect anyone, he went off directly after Audley's car. He doesn't live in Rome and as far as we know he hasn't any business here."

"Where did they go?"

"That's the problem. Our man wasn't in a position to follow them himself. We know where Audley's staying, of course.

But for the rest—" The General's shoulders lifted eloquently.

It was pretty slim. In fact it was really far too slim to act on if that was all there was to it, thought Boselli, still watching the General intently. A viper there certainly was; in fact it was dummy2

patently because of that viper—Ruelle—that the General had become interested in Audley's arrival in the first place, not because of Audley.

He re-ran the General's voice in his head: there had been a tightness about it when it supplied its minimal information about Ruelle, "a group in the valley next to mine. Group Stalingrad." There could very well have been bad blood—if not actual blood—between the two partisan leaders, both young and ruthless, but one a Communist (only a Red would have named his group like that) and the other a blue-blooded army officer. Indeed, the more one thought about it, the more certain it seemed.

But there was precious little in reality to connect Ruelle and Audley beyond the fact that they had left the airport one after another.

"Is Ruelle active?" asked Villari.

Boselli looked at him quickly, annoyed with himself for not asking the same question. The Clotheshorse's mind must be labouring along roughly the same track as his own, but its very slowness had enabled it to see something he had overlooked: tailing people was a young man's game, not an old man's one.

The General considered the question. "If he is, then this is the first we've heard about it," he said slowly. "In fact, if he is then it will be— disturbing."

"Why so?"

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Once again there was an uncharacteristic delay before the General answered. "There was a time—it's a long time ago now—but there was a time when George Ruelle was considered to be a coming man, and a very dangerous one, too."

He looked from one to another of them. "That was after the war, when things were . . . very different from now. Tito hadn't shown his hand then, and Albania was Red, and it was touch and go in Greece. Those were the days when the bastard used to visit Moscow two or three times a year." The General smiled suddenly and frostily. "I rather think that if things had gone his way, then he might have been sitting at this desk. And I would have been very dead, that's certain."

The frosty smile faded. "But they didn't go his way. And when Stalin died, that was the end of him. They didn't want to know him any more."

Villari frowned. "But there's still a Stalinist Wing here—I saw Brusati in the Senate as large as life when I went to see my uncle there in the spring—"

"True, boy!" The General nodded. "But Stalinism is one thing and Stalin's crimes are another. There are some things even the hardliners don't want to be reminded of, and that's what George Ruelle does to them: he reminds them of the dirty things they've done. So they've disciplined him and pensioned him off—and told him to keep the hell out of their way and ours. And so he did, until we spotted him again at the airport."

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So it was even slimmer still. If Ruelle was a has-been, his presence in the car park at the time of Audley's arrival was probably no more than coincidence.

And as for Audley— Purpose of visit—holiday might well be the fact of it. The whole business was simply not worth following up, and the sooner the General was advised to that effect, the better.

"Well—" he began neutrally (the General liked to be shown at least two sides of any problem, no matter how many or how few sides there were), "—in my view—"

"Nothing to it," Villari steamrollered over his words. "If we acted on every chance meeting like this we'd never have time for real work. Ruelle obviously doesn't count any more—the Russians are working towards a detente at the moment, anyway, to take more of the stuffing out of NATO, so they wouldn't use his sort anyway. And—Jesus Christ!—the Englishman's got his family with him! It just adds up to a big zero." He turned at last towards Boselli, but with offensive courtesy. "Of course, Signor Boselli may have other ideas, I've no doubt. . . ."

The lump of hatred came back so fiercely, so suddenly, that Boselli felt the sweat start on his forehead in spite of the air conditioning.

"As a matter of fact, I have," he heard himself say in the far-off distance.

There was a ringing silence in the room, as though even the dummy2

distant hum of the city had been stilled by his words.

But what ideas? he thought wildly.

Only that the bullying swine had pinched his words, just as he had stolen his information, and that he couldn't— wouldn't

— agree with him under any circumstances!

But he couldn't say that.

The General was looking at him expectantly, though: he had to say something.

And something which made sense!

"It's hot in here," he said involuntarily, wiping his forehead with the silk handkerchief.

"Is that an idea?" asked Villari.

An idea?

"Yes, it is," said Boselli suddenly, plucking his line of argument out of space. "This is always the hottest time of year

—and the newspapers said yesterday that this is the hottest end of July we've had since 1794."

"That's right," the General nodded at him, interested curiosity written in his frown. "I read that too."

"He's well off, Audley is," Boselli felt his earlier panic subsiding as he drew on the facts—and that financial fact was always a prime one in any dossier. "At least, he's got enough money of his own not to have to worry too much. So he can afford to pick and choose where he goes on holiday—and when."

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"I fail to see—"

But this time it was Villari who was interrupted, and by the General.

"You mean, only a fool would holiday in Rome at this time of year?" The General stared thoughtfully out of the big window at the midday glare. The sound of the city was hushed not only by the heat and the mezzogiorno, but because it was half empty: as many of the Romans as could abandon it had already done so, as they always did at this time of year.

"Mad dogs and Englishmen," murmured Villari. "It's a song of theirs."

Boselli ignored him. "Only a fool, or a beginner, or someone who had no other holiday time. And he's none of those. Or someone who had a job to do, a job that wouldn't wait."

"With his family in tow—and his au pair?" Villari sneered.

Trust him to remember the au pair. But this time Boselli was ready to meet him sneer for sneer. "The best cover in the world. It's still fooling you, anyway."

He sensed Villari's hackles rising—the barnyard rooster insulted by a worm just out of its reach; or would the rooster become so incensed as to injure itself in a bid for vengeance?

But the man's instinct hadn't altogether deserted him—or it held him back for a moment, anyway, and in the next moment the General saved him.

"Go on, Boselli, go on! I'm listening."

He saved Boselli too, by reminding him of the priority.

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Convincing the General was the important thing, and he could see now that there was one advantage he had which was even greater than his own eloquence: quite simply, the General wanted to be convinced.

It had nothing to do with the Englishman, who was no more than a means to an end. And the end must be the settling of some unfinished score with Ruelle.

"You said that the man Ruelle was dangerous once?"

"Very dangerous."

"And could still be?"

"Men like that don't change."

Boselli nodded. "And I say that this Englishman is dangerous too. Not as Ruelle would have been—he is not an assassin or a thug. But he goes where there is trouble, and where he goes there is more trouble, one way or another."

He had no need of explanation, because the General would not have passed him on unread files. Yet he needed to silence Villari finally.

"You only have to read his dossier to see it—it's spotted with accidental deaths. There was some shopkeeper in '69—just about the time the KGB boss, Panin, was in England. Then there were those two Egyptian officials who were drowned in the Solent—their bodies were never found. And even while he was at the University of— of—" he floundered momentarily, knowing that it was useless to open the file, which was in total disorder now.

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"Cumbria," said the General, his eyes bright.

"Cumbria," Boselli nodded, the sweet tightness of success in his brain. "Two more accidents: the professor and the student

—that was only a few months ago."

"A trail of accidents," the General murmured. "He does seem to make people . . . accident-prone."

With a great effort Boselli held his tongue and assumed his mask of intelligent humility, knowing how his master's mind worked and his own role in its working. He had seen too many overstated cases fail before this, as much because the General disliked having his mind made up for him as for any internal weakness of their own. His only worry now was that he had used his ingenuity in a decidedly doubtful cause. But he could always plead caution, which was more a virtue than a failing in this work, and to see Villari's holiday spoilt by an unprofitable assignment in Rome would be worth a few harsh words from the General.

And already the Clotheshorse appeared to be most gratifyingly chastened, sitting in silence staring at his elegant handmade shoes while the General decided his fate.

Boselli had to work doubly hard to maintain his expression as his thoughts diverged from it. It was quite beautiful really: Villari would have to read the Audley files—the gorgeously disarranged Audley files—and then the Ruelle dossier. And after that he would probably have to follow Audley, and Audley's wife and Audley's baby and Audley's au pair, dummy2

through the stifling streets of Rome—or maybe tail Ruelle in some unspeakable suburban housing estate—all to no useful purpose.

It was so beautiful that he felt like singing—Cavaradossi's aria "Vittoria" rose like a hymn of triumph within him.

"Very good!" The General looked from one to the other of them. "Boselli has read the files, Armando, and you haven't had the chance yet—if you had I think you might very well have agreed with him." He leant forward towards them with his elbows on the table, the knuckles of his clenched fists coming together with an audible crack. "When two potentially troublesome men like Audley and Ruelle come together then we cannot afford to ignore them. I'm inclined to believe that either the British or the Russians are up to something. With the progress of the Common Market negotiation they are both taking a hard line towards each other at the moment. The Russians don't want the British to sign the Treaty of Rome, and the British know it. And as we know, they're both prepared to play dirty to get what they want."

Boselli's jaw dropped in surprise. It wasn't like the General to justify his decisions, least of all with aspects of high policy—

and with mention of the Treaty of Rome he was lifting this non-starter into the realms of very high policy indeed.

"In any case," the General went on harshly, "I do not intend them to create a scandal in Italy."

"You mean—we send Audley packing?" There was a sudden dummy2

hopeful note in Villari's voice. "And there are plenty of ways of shutting up Ruelle—"

"That is exactly what I do not mean. You should know better than that, boy! We would simply be swapping men we know for others we might not." The General gave Villari a pitying look and turned towards Boselli. "First I need to know why Audley is here, and why Ruelle is interested in him. And for that—" he paused, and in that moment's pause Boselli saw an awful unthinkable possibility bearing down on him, "I'm putting you both to work."

Villari and Boselli stared at him speechlessly.

"Together," said the General.

III

IT DIDN'T NEED a ruddy genius to guess that someone had dropped their drawers, or wetted 'em—or even lost the little darlings; not when they'd pulled him out of Dublin at ten minutes' notice and bundled him on the first available flight, and all after they'd just turned down his transfer application flat.

It could be that the rumoured offensive against the Russian industrial espionage apparat was on at last; all they needed was an excuse, and the way the Moujiks had been chancing their arm recently, there ought to be one by now.

But Richardson knew enough now not to waste deep thought dummy2

on infinite possibilities, which could vary from the sublime to the ridiculous. Better to conduct a requiem in his mind for the Guinness, which would be a ruddy sight dearer now, and for little Bernadette, who might worry for a day or two about the sudden disappearance of her passionate Italian boyfriend. She'd probably blame the British, as she always did, and just this once she'd be dead right.

Then he saw the familiar signpost.

It was like the poet said—Chapman's Homer and stout what's-'is-name silent on his peak in Darien: Upper Horley meant Steeple Horley, and Steeple Horley meant David Audley, and David Audley meant something one hundred per cent better than pissing around Dublin pubs on wet evenings.

He hadn't asked the driver because it was bad form as well as agin' the rules to ask. But now he didn't need to pop the question: It was David.

David was a shit, and maybe you couldn't trust him much.

And there were times when he was more than a bit of a bore, when he started theorising and moralising and soul-searching.

But David was also nobody's yes-man. He didn't give one damn for the bosses—he had proved that when the crunch came. And—this above all—David always got the really interesting jobs which nobody else dared touch. At least, he always got 'em in the end.

He grinned to himself and stretched for sheer joy—and dummy2

caught the driver beside him grinning too. So the man had noticed his reaction to the signpost, and understood it and even shared it. And that was interesting in itself, if not a brand new piece of information: it was the people below David who liked him, for his courtesy if for nothing else, while the people alongside and just above him disliked him in what was probably an inverse ratio to how much they needed him.

Good old David! There were inverted chevrons on his coat-of-arms, which was carved over the door of the Old House, but there ought to have been two fingers, raised and improper.

The shock came when they were halfway up the drive to the house, when the rain-caped policeman materialised out of a gap in the hedge to stop the car.

The driver clicked the door lock and wound down the window the regulation half-inch.

"We're expected," he said casually, before the policeman could speak. "Bennett and Captain Richardson."

"Would you please show me your identification, sir?"

"After I've seen your warrant card."

Face immobile, the policemen felt under his cape for the folder and then posted it through the gap. Behind him Richardson could see a civilian and another uniformed man.

He caught a glimpse of sergeant's stripes on the arm that was lifted to take back the warrant card and collect their own dummy2

folders.

They'd got a sergeant on the gate, checking the visitors—a sergeant in the rain, doing the job while his underlings looked on. Christ! It shook him almost as much as the first sight of the high blue helmet: first the discretion—no police cars parked in view anywhere so far— and then this too-high-ranking gateman, two sure signs of the worst sort of trouble.

The car crawled up the last few yards of drive slowly, and the house was still standing at least. But neither David's new grey Austin nor Faith's white Mini were among the half dozen cars parked in the forecourt. He scanned them for one he could identify, but without success.

"Captain Richardson?"

Another policeman had come out to intercept them. The place was crawling with them.

"Would you like to go straight in, sir?"

Inside the front door there was another policeman. And there was also Oliver St. John Latimer.

Richardson and Oliver St. John Latimer regarded each other with concealed distaste. Ordinarily he would not have worried Richardson in the least, because although he was considerably senior and brainier, he was also in Richardson's carefully considered opinion a pompous, arse-licking timeserver—you couldn't throw a snowball at Sir Frederick Clinton's backside without hitting Fatso in the back of the neck.

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But he was also an enemy of David's, and here he was walking about David's house as though he owned it, with an insufferably smug smile on his chops. So it was necessary to tread a little carefully.

"Where's David?" Richardson smiled sweetly. "And where's Faith, come to that? What's up?"

Latimer returned the smile with a smirk. "You'd better ask Brigadier Stacker, old boy."

"I'll do just that when I know where he is—or is that a secret too?"

"Just follow me, old boy."

Fighting off the temptation to kick the fat backside undulating just ahead of him, Richardson followed Latimer to the long, low-beamed sitting room.

"Ah, Peter!" Stocker took the pipe from his mouth and held out his other hand in welcome—a friendly gesture which somehow seemed as insincere as a whore's smile, at least in this setting; Stocker was another one with not so much breeding as brains, or he wouldn't have tried to welcome one man at another man's hearth. Nevertheless, there was a good, tough peasant streak under this ersatz behavior, which made him a man to reckon with, as well as an acceptable boss.

"Hullo, sir." Richardson decided to keep things as casual as possible, if only to give Oliver St. John Latimer less gratification. But the cold question was unavoidable.

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"Where's David and his missus?"

"As far as I know, they're both in Rome at this moment,"

replied Stocker, eyeing him unblinkingly.

"Oh . . ." He couldn't quite keep the relief out of his breath.

". . . then what are all the bluebottles for? I was beginning to think there'd been a death in the family."

"There's been a death right enough. A burglar was shot dead here last night."

Richardson stared at him, his brain adjusting to the information and amending it. Not a burglar, that was for sure

—not a burglar. For whatever Brigadier Thomas Stocker and Master Oliver St. John Latimer were interested in, it wasn't dead burglars.

"Who was he?"

"The burglar? We don't know."

It hardly needed amplifying: the sort of person who broke into David Audley's home and interested Stocker and Latimer wouldn't be carrying his home address and next of kin.

"We're working on it though," continued Stocker. "We don't have his—a—face to go on, but his prints are undamaged."

"He got it in the face?"

Stocker nodded.

"From whom? Who shot him?"

"David's handyman or gardener, I'm not quite sure which he dummy2

is."

"Old Charlie?"

"That's right. Charles Clark. It seems he thought some young hooligans had broken in—they seem to have been causing trouble round here—at least that's what his wife said at first.

But we haven't been able to get a coherent word out of him so far."

Charlie was big and slow—slow in mind and body. Yet he was also slow to anger, not the sort to shoot first and ask second.

"You're quite sure it was Charlie?"

"Not the least doubt about it. His wife had gone to fetch the village policeman—they found him sitting at the foot of the stairs crying his heart out, with his shotgun across his knees.

And on the top of the landing there was this chap with half his head blown off."

He paused, chewing at his pipe, but Richardson waited: there had to be more to it than this.

Stocker shrugged. "Actually we're pretty sure it was pure self-defence. The fellow on the landing shot at Clark—cut his ear with the bullet. There's a bullet hole in the newel post, which would have been just by his head. And of course we found the chap's gun at the bottom of the stairs near Clark. It must have fallen there, because he hadn't touched it. American Army Colt, standard issue—one round fired.

Richardson frowned. That figured well enough: Charlie had reacted instinctively, though faster obviously than anyone dummy2

who knew him would have expected. But that wasn't of any real interest. What mattered was that David's home had been raided by someone quite prepared to shoot it out with anyone who disturbed him, and that ruled out both the pro burglars and the juvenile scum. Steeple Horley was still light years away from New York in that, as in other things.

Also, it wasn't the first time that David had had uninvited visitors, he remembered suddenly: in fact that MVD chappie

—Guriev?—had been given the bum's rush from Britain for that, among several other incivilities.

And that, in turn, might account for Stocker's speedy arrival, for the Old House must by now be in the special Red Book the police had of people and places whose well-being was of interest and importance to security. A gunfight and a dead man in a Red Book house would set all the wires humming to Whitehall.

"Do we have any idea what he was after? Had David got something juicy locked up in that safe of his?"

"Dr. Audley had no classified material at home," Latimer murmured in a plummy, self-satisfied voice. "He wasn't working on a classified sector."

Richardson flicked a contemptuous look at Latimer. "I seem to remember David has a way of catching sharks other people let through the safety nets," he said coolly. "What does David have to say about it, anyway?"

There was a second's silence—a silence prolonged just one dummy2

cold fraction longer than natural, so that it sank down through every layer of Richardson's consciousness until it came to rest in the pit of his stomach.

Too many policemen. Too many policemen and not a word in the morning paper he had read in the plane, or on the radio news. And now Stacker looking solemn and Oliver St. John Latimer looking smug enough to make a chap throw up his Aer Lingus breakfast on to the nearest Persian rug. And neither of them looking at each other— both of them looking at him. . . .

"Christ—bloody no!" Richardson expelled the words as though they were poison. "I don't believe it. Anyone else—but not David."

And yet it sounded feeble in his own ears: too much like an appeal, too little like an affirmation—too much like those other first moments of disbelief.

Not Guy—not Guy and Donald!

Surely not Kim, of all people! George? You don't mean George Blake? But Philip is the last man—David?

He needed time to think.

"Probably not," agreed Stacker. "On the whole I think I would agree with you. But we have to be sure—and at the moment we simply don't know."

"Just what do we know, exactly?" Stacker nodded towards dummy2

Latimer.

"Dr. Audley has been behaving—" Latimer made a show of pausing judicially, "—eccentrically of late."

"Hell's teeth—he always behaves like that. I've never known him act any other way."

"Eccentric isn't quite le mot juste," said Latimer hurriedly. "I didn't wish to sound offensive—I still don't wish to—but to be quite frank he seemed to me to have delusions of infallibility.

And when one questioned his conclusions he's been extremely disagreeable, to say the very least."

"Oh, come on!" Richardson cut in derisively. It was the sound of those clichés that suddenly gave him strength: it was precisely that habit of Latimer's of denying that he intended to be offensive just before he delivered his worst insults, and of proclaiming his frankness when he was about to be less than frank, that drove David Audley farthest up the wall.

"There's more to it than that, naturally."

"There'd bloody better be, hadn't there?"

"There is," said Stacker bleakly.

Richardson felt his new-found confidence shrivel up as quickly as it had inflated, like a child's balloon. If Latimer was quite capable of mounting a palace revolution against a rival, the brigadier was too cautious a man either to join such a plot or to be easily taken in by one.

"It could be that David has simply been very foolish, but the fact is that he's gone to Rome with his family, bag and dummy2

baggage, without any sort of clearance from the department whatsoever. In fact he didn't tell a soul where he was going—

except his cleaning woman, Mrs. Clark. If it wasn't for her, we wouldn't have the faintest idea where he was."

He paused to let the enormity of the security breach sink in.

"He slunk off on the cheap night flight. And if we didn't have this dead man on our hands we'd never have checked up on him either, because he's supposed to be on ten days' leave that was due to him."

Foolish! By damn, it was that right enough, thought Richardson bitterly. And more than that: it was almost the classic pattern for a defection, neither too elaborate nor too simple, but just enough to delay precipitate action under normal circumstances.

Only a dead man had blown it sky high—it hadn't even required any malice of Latimer's to stir things after that. No bloody wonder they were all in a muck sweat.

But he still needed time to think—time, and a lot more information.

"Mrs. Clark," he exclaimed suddenly. Almost the classic pattern, but not quite: Mrs. Clark was the odd thread in the design. She was a lot more than David's cleaning woman, he knew that: she had been an integral part of the landscape of the Old House for over half a century. As a young girl she had mothered the lonely boy after his real mother's death, had been his confidant in the stepmother era and had naturally dummy2

graduated to the post of housekeeper when he had come into his kingdom. Indeed, during one long drunken evening on that last assignment in the north David had as good as hinted that it had only been with her approval that he had married Faith. So it was not in the least surprising that she alone knew where he had gone. But if he hadn't intended to come back he would have sworn her to secrecy, and she would have kept the secret over a regiment of bodies.

"What about her?" Stocker watched him narrowly.

"What does she say?"

Stocker grimaced. "Nothing—that's the trouble."

"Nothing? But she told you David's Rome address?"

"She told us that, yes. And she told us that someone shot at her husband. But beyond that she won't say a word. She won't even admit that her husband shot back, even though they found him with the shotgun still in his hands."

"What does Charlie say?"

Stocker stared at him, frowning. "He won't say anything either. Apparently she told him to keep quiet, and that's just what he's done. The police can't get a word out of either of them."

He could well believe the news of Charlie's silence, because Charlie was taciturn by nature as well as obedient to his wife by long-established custom. But Mrs. Clark's closed mouth was another matter, and a much more suspicious one too. In an unnaturally garrulous moment her husband had once dummy2

observed that she talked enough for two, and it was the plain truth: she had a tongue like a teenager's transistor.

"I'd like to have a go at her then," said Richardson. "She doesn't know you, but she does know me and I think I'd stand a better chance with her than most anyone else."

"I'm relieved to hear that you think so," said Stocker, with the ghost of a calculating smile. "Because that, Peter, is one of the chief reasons why you are here."

There was a large man in thornproof tweeds talking to another man in a rain-darkened trenchcoat outside the door to the dining room. At second glance Trenchcoat was maybe an inch taller than Tweeds, but Tweeds carried a weight of confidence and authority which gave him extra inches, the boss-man's eternal unfair advantage.

When they turned towards Stocker, however, their faces bore exactly the same guarded expression in which deference and hostility exactly cancelled each other out. Richardson had seen that look before and understood it only too well. He even felt a twinge of sympathy: on its own this was a nasty little affair, involving firearms— which the British police violently disliked—and a shooting match between civilians—

which mortally offended them. But at least it was clear enough what had happened, or so it must have seemed at first glance.

But now they faced the added and appallingly tricky dummy2

dimension of national security, the cloak under which crimes were not only committed but sometimes allowed to go unpunished. So now these guardians of the peace could feel the solid ground of the law shifting under their feet; at the best they might be required to turn a blind eye, which they hated doing, and at the worst they might be forced to connive at felony—that was what they feared most now.

"Ah—Superintendent!" The clipped tone of Stacker's voice left nobody in doubt as to who was the senior officer present.

"This is the —ah—officer from the Ministry I briefed you about—Captain Richardson."

The Superintendent appraised Richardson briefly, then nodded.

"You think you can make Mrs. Clark tell her husband to talk to us, Captain?"

Richardson could not help grinning. The difference between them was that the police only wanted old Charlie to admit he'd pulled the trigger, whereas Stocker wanted to know how Audley had taken it into his head to disappear. But obviously both of them were surprised and galled to come up against a pair of old countryfolk who were not overawed by the combined sight of the police and the Ministry of Defence.

David would have enjoyed that!

He shrugged. "It's possible, but I wouldn't bet on it. Just how much have you got so far?"

"Not much." The Superintendent admitted, turning towards dummy2

his subordinate. "You tell him, John."

"Not much indeed." Trenchcoat grinned back wryly at Richardson, as one journeyman to another. "And most of it comes from the constable here, Yates."

He paused. "Mrs. Clark woke him up about half-past one this morning. Said someone had broken in here, they'd seen a torch flashing, and Charlie had gone up—that's Mr. Clark—to stop 'em getting away. Yates came on straight up here with Mrs. Clark—she wouldn't stay behind. They found Clark sitting at the bottom of the stairs, and this other fella up on the landing. Charlie had stopped him right enough."

"But Charlie said something?"

"Aye. Not that it makes much sense. He said—at least Yates thinks he said—'Bloody Germans—shot at me.' And then his wife said 'Hold your tongue, Charlie.' And not a word we've had out of him since."

"Germans?"

"That's what Yates thought he said, but the old man was in quite a state so he may have misheard."

"On the contrary," Richardson shook his head. "I'd guess that was exactly what Charlie said."

"Indeed?" Trenchcoat looked interested. "He was in the war then?"

"He was in the army for about a year—he was invalided out after Dunkirk. From what David's told me I think he had a bad time during the retreat, but it wasn't a subject you could dummy2

get him to talk about— not that you could ever get him to talk about anything really. Only he certainly had it in for the Germans. . . . And is that all you got out of them?"

"The woman gave us Dr. Audley's address without us asking for it —she had it written on a piece of paper. She just said she wanted to talk to this solicitor of hers and she wouldn't talk to us."

A look of irritation passed across the Superintendent's face.

Glancing sidelong at Stacker, Richardson was rewarded with a similar expression. So that was the size of it: the shrewd old body had not just simply closed up on them—she had claimed her rights with the speed of an old lag! Small wonder the big shots were vexed as well as suspicious.

It occurred to him suddenly that some of that annoyance had been directed at Trenchcoat as well. That Stocker had not been wholly open with him was no surprise, of course; the detail about the solicitor merely confirmed what could be taken for granted. But obviously no one had thought to warn Trenchcoat. So—

"I was going to tell you about that, Peter," Stocker said. "You can see what it means."

"Yes, I can see how important it is to stop her blabbing to a solicitor," Richardson replied helpfully. He turned back quickly to Trenchcoat before anyone could change the action.

"What about the rest of it?"

"You mean the other man?"

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"The other man—" Richardson held his gaze to the exclusion of anyone else's warning expression. "—Yes. The other man."

Trenchcoat shrugged. "Apart from the imprint of his shoes in the flowerbed at the back where he jumped out of the window, we haven't got a thing on him. He must have beat it fast after Clark shot his mate, but he didn't leave his calling card anywhere."

So there'd been two of them, and the news—whatever the news was —was out. Two of them, and they hadn't bothered to tell him: his role was simply to soften up Mrs. Clark and then return to the joys of Dublin.

"Of course, we haven't asked round the village yet—"

Trenchcoat stopped abruptly, as though someone had pressed his switch.

"I think—" Stocker filled the break smoothly "—we'd better find out first whether you can open up Mrs. Clark before we tie up the loose ends for you, Peter."

"Right." Richardson spread an innocent glance around him; Stocker was playing it deadpan still, although Trenchcoat could not quite conceal his confusion any more than the Superintendent bothered to hide a suggestion of contempt at this turn of events. It was Oliver St. John Latimer's expression of suspicion which decided him on his course of action: the man was a slob, but not a foolish slob to be taken in by false innocence. The moment he got Stocker alone he would make one thing clear: that Richardson was a disciple of Audley's, and therefore not to be trusted. And Stocker dummy2

would believe him—now.

So there was nothing more to be gained by being a good little boy!

"Right," he repeated. "So what sort of deal do I make with her?"

"Deal?" The Superintendent frowned. "What do you mean—

deal?"

"Just that. She's not going to talk to me because I've got a kind face—she'll talk because when I offer her a bargain she'll know she can trust me to keep my side of it. And don't tell me you haven't tried that already."

"What sort of deal have you in mind, Captain Richardson?"

said the Superintendent cautiously.

"There's only one that'd do: let old Charlie off the hook."

"We'll promise to go easy on him."

"Easy on him? Christ—the poor old bastard hasn't committed a crime!"

"He's killed a man, Captain."

"In self-defence—and if he hadn't he'd be dead."

"It doesn't alter the case." The Superintendent shook his head. "But we'll go in and bat for him—that's the most I can do."

"Well, it's no damn good. It's the court appearance that'd break Charlie. But you aren't offering him anything he hasn't got already— there isn't a judge or a jury on God's earth dummy2

that'll touch him, and she knows that even if you don't. But the damage'll be done all the same —she knows that too."

"Then what exactly do you suggest?"

"We fake it up. The man fell down stairs and blew his own head off. I believe it's called 'misadventure'."

The Superintendent shook his head. "It can't be done, Captain."

"It's been done before."

"Not by us, it hasn't." The Superintendent looked hard at Stocker. "And we aren't starting now, that's final."

And that, also, was a mistake, thought Richardson happily: it was exactly the sort of challenge Stocker could not afford to overlook.

"Final?" Stacker's tone was deceptively gentle. "I wouldn't quite say that, Superintendent. It seems to me that we might manage something along those lines, you know."

"Indeed, sir?" The Superintendent said heavily. "Well, I'm afraid I can't agree with you there. You're asking me to break the law."

"To bend it, certainly. But not to pervert it. After all, since you've already agreed to—ah—bat for Clark the case would be little more than a formality, wouldn't it?"

"The law is the law, sir," the Superintendent intoned the ancient lie obstinately.

"I'm well aware of the law."

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The danger signal was lost on the Superintendent. "Of course, you can promise the woman anything you like, sir. As far as I'm concerned you're free to do whatever suits you."

Richardson opened his mouth to protest—the double-crossing sod! —and then closed it instantly as he saw the light in Stocker's eye. The Superintendent had made his final error.

"You are exactly right there," said Stocker icily. "I can promise her anything I like and I am free to do what suits me

—you are exactly right."

The Brigadier had come to the Department from a missile command, but before that he had been an artilleryman: the words were like ranging shots bracketing the Superintendent's position.

On target!

"And it suits me now to remind you that I am in charge here

—"

Shoot!

"—and you are absolutely free to telephone your Chief Constable if you have any doubts about that."

The two men stared across the hall at each other.

"You make yourself very clear, sir."

Target destroyed! No doubt about that, anyway: it was there in the droop of the tweed shoulders and the immobile facial muscles.

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"It's better that we understand each other."

The Superintendent nodded slowly. "I take it you will be putting this in writing—that you have assumed responsibility?"

"Naturally," Stocker nodded back equally slowly. Then he turned towards Richardson. "You can go ahead and make your deal, Peter."

"Right—" In the instant before Richardson's gaze shifted from the Superintendent to the Brigadier he glimpsed a fleeting change of expression, a change so brief that it should have passed unnoticed "—sir."

It was a look of profound satisfaction though, not defeat. . . .

So that was the way of it after all: that target had been a false one, no more than an incitement of Stocker to take all the responsibility, and to take it over a formal protest and in black and white. . . . Except for that momentary twitch of triumph it had been neatly done, too.

Not that it would worry the Brigadier, who was as accustomed to carrying the can as he was to breathing. It was simply a reminder that for him the Clarks and their victim were of very little significance.

What mattered was David Audley.

IV

"HULLO, CLARKIE!"

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"Mr. Richardson!" Surprise, relief and then suspicion chased each other across Mrs. Clark's face in quick succession. "Well I never!"

"Never what, Clarkie?" It pained him to see that shrewd, good-natured face so changed: the good nature had been driven out by fatigue, the pink cheeks were pale and the shrewdness had been sharpened into wariness. Standing up to the Superintendent and the Brigadier had not taken the stuffing out of her, but it had pushed her hard nevertheless.

"I never expected to see you, Mr. Richardson, sir. Not just now."

""Never expected to be here, and that's a fact." He turned to the uniformed policeman who stood like a monstrous statue beside the grandfather clock, out of place and out of proportion among the shining brass and polished oak of the dining room. "Very good, officer— you can leave us."

The policeman stared at him doubtfully.

"Out!" commanded Richardson, irritation suddenly welling up inside him. "Go on with you!"

But as the door closed behind the policeman he pinned down the spasm of anger for what it was and took warning from it: either way this thing was hateful, but it was not that which was fraying his nerves. It was that caution and instinct were pulling him in opposite directions.

Something of this must have shown on his face, because there was regret in Mrs. Clark's voice when she spoke.

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"I'm sorry, sir, but I still can't say anything to you. Not unless Sir Laurie Deacon says I can."

"Sir Laurie Deacon?"

"That's right, sir. Sir Laurie Deacon."

Laurie Deacon! Richardson felt laughter—God! It was almost hysteria—rising up where anger had been seconds earlier. No wonder they were wetting their pants out there in the hall!

No wonder Stocker had dragged him all the way from Dublin, expense no object, and was quite prepared to twist the law into knots—and no wonder the Superintendent was only too happy to crawl away into a place of safety!

Deacon—Sir Laurie Deacon, baronet—was not only a barrister of vast experience and a Tory MP of even vaster influence and notorious independence of mind, but also a veteran campaigner on behalf of underdogs all the way from Crichel Down to Cublington.

So they'd leaned on this poor old countrywoman without a penny in her purse, and if she'd summoned up the Archangel Gabriel and all the hosts of Heaven she couldn't have frightened 'em more with the name she'd given 'em back.

"Clarkie—how on earth do you come to know Sir Laurie Deacon?" He couldn't keep the admiration out of his voice and he didn't try to. "You really do know him?"

"I do, sir. But I'm not saying more than that."

Richardson stared at her for a moment, then rose from his chair and began carefully and ostentatiously to examine the dummy2

room. First the flower vases, then under the table and chairs, behind the ornaments, in the fireplace. When Mrs. Clark stared at him in surprise he put a finger to his lips and continued the search wordlessly until he was satisfied that there was nothing to be found. Then he listened silently at the door, bending even to peer through the keyhole, and as a final obvious precaution craned his neck quickly through the open window.

"I think we're clear," he murmured conspiratorially, pulling up one of the chairs from under the table until it was directly opposite where she was sitting.

"Clarkie, you're bloody marvellous. . . . Now, you don't need to say anything if you don't want to. You've got 'em all beaten anyway, I tell you—but I just want you to listen to what I've got to say, and listen carefully."

She watched him intently.

"You're worried about Charlie, aren't you? About what it'd do to him—all the police and the newspapermen and so on, never mind what might be said in court. I know that and I understand it."

Mrs. Clark's lower lip trembled and Richardson reached out and patted her knee.

"Well, don't you worry about that, Clarkie. I can fix that—I give you my word I can fix that, even without calling up Sir Laurie Deacon. He's your second line—I'm your front line.

Because I can fix it so Charlie never has to go to court. If dummy2

you'll trust me—and if you'll both promise never to talk about what happened last night—then they're willing to tell everyone it was an accident. Charlie needn't come into it at all. You just heard the shot and went and called Constable—

what's his name—Yates."

She was frowning at him now, but frowning in evident disbelief. But why should she disbelieve him?

"Don't you believe me, Clarkie?"

That frown had deepened at the mention of Yates, the Constable— the village copper. Richardson tried to project himself into her mind to pinpoint the line in it where trust ended and distrust began.

The village copper . . . could it be as simple as that? Could it be that in a world of fallen idols she still believed that some still stood, neither to be bribed nor bullied? That the law really was the law, though the heavens fell?

Or was it even more simply that his word was not enough and she needed to know why he was able to make a mockery of law and truth so easily?

"I'll tell you why you've got to believe me, Clarkie. You see this— business—is a lot more complicated than it seems. It doesn't involve just you and Charlie. It involves Dr. Audley."

"I don't see as how it can do that, sir."

So David and Charlie ranked equally, each to be protected from outrage, the need to speak up for the one cancelling the need to keep silent for the other.

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"Because he isn't here?" The wrong word now would spoil everything.

She nodded cautiously. She was still with him.

"That's just it, Clarkie. He really ought to be here." This, he judged, had to be the moment: the risk had to be taken now whether he liked it or not. "You know that some of the work Dr. Audley does is very important—" if she didn't know it she would be pleased nevertheless at the importance of her Mr.

David "—and very secret. So secret that I'm not allowed to tell you about it."

He paused. "But when you do that sort of work, Clarkie—

when you do it as well as he does—you make enemies. Like people who don't agree with you, or even people who want your job. You know the sort of people." He nodded towards the closed door. "Like the fat one out there—he's been waiting a long time for David—for Dr. Audley—to make a mistake—"

"But he's only gone off on holiday, Mr. Richardson, sir," Mrs.

Clark protested. "They haven't been away together, not for a proper holiday anyway, since little Charlotte was born. And they both needed a holiday, 'specially Mr. David. He's been like a bear with a sore head just recently, he has."

Richardson's heart sank: in her own innocence she was only confirming Oliver St. John Latimer.

"And they'd planned this for a long time, had they?"

"Lord—no, sir! Mr. David only decided just a few days ago.

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And he was that excited—he hadn't been like that since the baby came, sir—he had us running to get everything ready.

He was like a boy with a new bicycle, sir!"

"Excited?" Richardson grabbed at the word like an exhausted swimmer reaching for a lifebelt. "You mean happy?"

"Happy as a sandboy, sir—and so was Mrs. Audley to see him like it. He'd been that grumpy with us both, and then suddenly he was laughing and joking—"

"Because of the holiday?"

"Well, I suppose so, sir. But it was the night of the dinner party he first brightened up."

"The dinner party," Richardson grinned at her. He mustn't spoil it now, letting elation outrun discretion—there was much more to come still if he played his cards in the right order. "You mean it was one of your apple pies that put him in a good mood?"

The dinner party. ... He mustn't probe too quickly into that, or too obviously. She was staring at him now as though she sensed the lightening of his mood, but the slackening of tension was bringing her closer to tears.

He leaned forward and patted her knee again. "It's okay, Clarkie —I really am on your side—on your side and on Charlie's and on David's. And between us I reckon we've got

'em where we want 'em—the other side."

She drew a long breath. "You mean you can do that—what you said you could—for him?"

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"I can and I will. But they couldn't do anything to him anyway, you know—not when it was self-defence and he'd got Laurie Deacon speaking up for him." He smiled. "You never really had anything to worry about."

She shook her head. "You don't know, sir. Charlie's quiet and he seems slowlike, but he's got a terrible temper when he's roused. When we were children he near killed another boy once—he'd been teasing Charlie, you see. And there was that business during the war."

"What business was that? He's never talked about it."

"He wouldn't, no. But it's still there in his mind after all this time, I know, because he has nightmares about it. Not often, he doesn't, now. But he used to have them regular as clockwork."

"About the war?"

"About this farmhouse in France, sir." She stared at him doubtfully, then at the edge of the table. "I never told anyone about it before exactly, not even Mr. David. . . . But there was this farmhouse. . . . Charlie hadn't done any fighting, because he was in the pioneers and they were retreating. And they were bombed a lot by those aeroplanes that made a screaming noise—"

"Dive bombers."

"He didn't call them that—Stinkers he called them."

"Stukas."

"That's it, sir. All the way back until they were near Dunkirk.

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And the Germans were right behind them then, almost mixed up with them, you might say. And they sent Charlie and some other soldiers to find out if they was in this farmhouse. At night it was—that was really why it was. They couldn't really see what they were doing, you see—"

She was staring at the table edge as if it fascinated her.

"And there was Germans in it. One of them shot at Charlie on the stairway, and Charlie killed him. And then he went up and there was another, and he killed him too. And then he heard this door open, and he went at it with his bayonet, sir—

it was dark, and everyone was shouting and shootin'—"

She raised her eyes to his at last. "It was the farmer's wife, sir. But he couldn't see, that was the trouble—it was so dark.

And when she screamed out, then the fanner came for him, tryin' to stop him I suppose, and he—he—he didn't know—"

She was pleading with him now.

"It's all right, Clarkie. Of course he couldn't know. No one could have known—it could have happened to anyone. He shouldn't blame himself."

"That's just it, sir. He doesn't even remember it, or he doesn't seem to remember it clearly, like it was mixed up with the nightmares in his mind."

"But he's told you about it."

"No, sir. That was what the army doctor told me in the hospital when he came back, when he wasn't himself like.

He'd got it all written down, the doctor had. That's why—"

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She stopped, staring at him.

That's why.

Richardson stared back, seeing at last, fully and clearly, right through the pathetic tangle.

He could see her fear now, the reason that had shut her mouth: taken by itself, what Charlie had done was no more than pure self-defence, a reflex action. But if this old horror had been resurrected— the big, simple soldier, more likely wilder with fright than with anger, slaughtering a couple of innocent civilians in the dark and by accident, and then cracking up when he'd found out what he'd done—!

He ought to have realised that Clarkie's fear was a practical one, not an emotional response: she might guess what it would do to old Charlie to have that night raked up in court, that memory he'd locked away self-defensively in his subconscious mind. But what she feared was the doctor's record, the dusty proof not only of Charlie's mental instability but also that once before he had killed first and questioned afterwards.

"And it was my fault, Mr. Richardson, sir—I forgot clean about it when I saw the light up here. I made him come, he didn't want to."

So it wasn't for David's sake, to cover his disappearance, that she had kept quiet, that at least was certain; David had simply become the victim of her concern for Charlie.

But David was no defector, that was certain too: the traitor dummy2

who came to the end of his tether and was forced to abandon his home and his fortune and his country would never have made his getaway happy as a sandboy, excited as a boy with a new bicycle!

He nodded reassuringly at her. "Don't you fret, Clarkie—it's going to be all right, I promise you. I'll see that Charlie's in the clear, don't you worry."

But equally David would not have swanned off so happily without any by-your-leave—not when he'd been acting the way he had—unless he'd been up to something, that too had to be faced.

David was no defector, certainly. But unlike old Charlie, David was still in trouble.

"But first I'd like to know a bit more about that dinner of yours, Clarkie," said Richardson.

V

BOSELLI WAS a long way out of line and he knew it; it was this knowledge rather than the first heat of the day which now raised the prickle of perspiration on his back.

He had never stepped out of line like this before, at least not so dangerously. But this, he admitted candidly to himself, was partly because his work rarely exposed him to such temptations. Indeed, it had been one of his little tasks to watch for signs of such curiosity in others—what the General dummy2

described as the itch to know a little too much for their own good—and he had become adept at spotting them. Only now he was beginning for the first time to sympathise with the deviationists.

He looked up and down the narrow street suspiciously. The prospect of the General's discovery that he was being surreptitiously investigated by one of his own staff didn't really bear thinking about; it made him shiver at the same time as he perspired, which in turn made him remember inconsequentially that his wife had said only yesterday that she had gone "all hot and cold" after nearly being run over by some foreign driver who'd tried to change his mind in the Via Labicana. He'd been on the point of telling her that such a contradictory physical condition was unlikely, and here he was experiencing it himself.

He paused at a street fountain and drank greedily from it. It seemed to have a bitter flavour, but he knew that it was not the water, only the taste already in his mouth.

He splashed his face and wiped it with his silk handkerchief, glancing again up and down the street. It was the General's fault, anyway, even if that was one excuse he would never dare to advance openly. The Ruelle File started—or appeared to start—with impossible abruptness in 1944, as though George Ruelle had sprung from the ground full-grown into the middle management ranks of the newly-respectable Italian Communist Party. From nowhere usually meant from Moscow, but that clearly didn't apply in Ruelle's case; he had dummy2

been fighting in the south in '43, if not earlier, and his first Moscow trip had not been until '46—there was no mystery about those dates. Indeed, there wasn't even any mystery as to just where that missing pre-1944 section of the dossier was: it was reposing safely in the General's own safe—no betting man, Boselli would happily have bet his last lire on that, at hundred to one odds.

Under cover of folding the handkerchief Boselli took a final look at the street. Nothing, as far as he could see, had changed and no one was watching him. Which left him with the reassuring but galling probability that there was no one on his tail and that the General had given him this task because he was the least likely of all men to scratch that dangerous itch.

Half a dozen hurried steps carried him across the pavement and into the alleyway—well, for once the great General hadn't been as clever as he thought he'd been.

Frugoni's apartment—it was a ridiculous exaggeration to call two crummy little rooms an apartment—was predictably jammed under the eaves, without any access to the roof, a rathole fit for a rat.

And that was good, thought Boselli as he knocked sharply on the scarred door: the worse off Frugoni was (and with any luck he would have gone considerably farther downhill since he had last come round bumming for a handout), the cheaper his tongue would be to loosen. There ought to be dummy2

some juicy expenses in this work, but Frugoni's name could never be listed in the accounting so there was no question of generosity, real or fabricated, in his case.

"Who is it?"

That was the voice, the hoarse whine rather.

"Boselli—Pietro Boselli."

"Who? Pietro who?" The whine was suspicious, as though its owner was accustomed to bad news knocking at his door. "I don't know any Pietro."

"Pietro Boselli—General Montuori's personal assistant."

Boselli paused to let the names sink into the man's befuddled mind. "I've got something for you, Signor Frugoni."

"Something for me?"

"That's right. Open up."

There was a rattle as Frugoni feverishly attempted to open his own door, only to discover that he had bolted it top and bottom as well as securing it with what sounded like an old-fashioned padlock. It took him a full two minutes of clumsy grappling with the lock and alcoholic puffing and blowing with the bolts to relax its defences. And even then it caught on the uneven floor and shuddered so violently that it was a tossup whether it wouldn't fall to pieces before it was finally opened.

Frugoni peered at him uneasily in the greenish light from the unwashed landing window.

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"You remember me, Signor Frugoni," said Boselli patiently.

"We last met when you—ah—consulted the General two or three years ago. About your pension."

"My pension?" Frugoni looked at him stupidly.

"Your war wound, I believe—or a war disability of some sort,"

Boselli prompted him with helpful vagueness. "The General didn't tell me the exact details, but I gathered that you and he were old comrades. Once comrades, always comrades—that's what he said."

Frugoni blinked and screwed up his face with the unexpected mental effort needed to resolve the enormous gap between what he must remember had actually happened when he tried to touch the General for a sucker's handout, and the rose-tinted pack of lies he had just heard.

In fact no one knew the extent of that gap better than Boselli himself. It had devolved on him to check up on the man's tear-jerking tale of a veteran fallen on unmerited hard times, and he had very soon found the General's suspicions to be well-founded. Frugoni had fallen not so much on hard times as through the skylight of the restaurant he had been robbing

—his "war wound" had been the compound fracture of the leg and the mild concussion which had resulted from this descent.

Central criminal records had also revealed that in addition to being an inveterate and unsuccessful petty thief, Frugoni was a quarrelsome boozer who had abandoned his wife and children—it had been that last detail, rather than the man's dummy2

actual misdemeanours, which had finally directed the General's charity—

"Put the woman on my list then, Boselli—she's probably better off without him anyway."

"What about the man, sir?"

"Leave him to me. It'll be a pleasure to kick his backside again after all these years. . . ."

"My wound—of course!" Frugoni twitched into full consciousness. "You must pardon me, Signor Boselli—

naturally I remember you— but my health, you understand. . . ." He heaved a gallant sigh ". . . at my age things are hard."

Boselli nodded sympathetically.

"Not that I am grumbling, you understand," Fragoni added hastily, uncertain of the most profitable role open to him until he could establish just how much Boselli knew. "But let us not speak of such things. You said—I believe you said—?"

"That I have something for you. That is correct. But something in turn for something, Signor Frugoni. Perhaps I might step inside for a moment, yes?"

Frugoni regarded him in complete bewilderment; the possibility that he possessed something—anything—which was likely to be saleable, but of which he was totally unaware, seemed to have knocked away what little balance he could muster so early in the day.

"I—but of course, Signor Boselli—"

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The moment he entered the attic room it was Boselli in his turn who was knocked off balance, however. The smell on the dingy landing had been unpleasant enough, combined as it was of all the different aromas of cooking and concentrated humanity which had risen up the stairway from the warrens below. But in Frugoni's room this smell graduated to the rank of stench, in which stale wine and the sweet-sour mustiness of old unwashed linen united into a miasma.

Boselli dragged out his damp silk handkerchief and held it across the lower part of his face, fighting his sickness.

"Signor Boselli—?" Frugoni was looking at him solicitously, oblivious of the foulness.

"A moment's giddiness—no, please do not bother—" Frugoni was removing some unmentionable garments from a rickety-looking chair "—I'd prefer to stand, if you don't mind. It will pass."

"A cup of—" Frugoni looked uneasily towards what must be his kitchen "—coffee?"

"No. . . . thank you." The thought of consuming anything—of even touching anything—coming from these rooms made his stomach turn.

"How can I serve you, then?"

Boselli took a firm grip of his senses. It was always better to offer types like this something in exchange for something if one was not relying on good old-fashioned blackmail. He would have preferred the latter method, and he had no doubt dummy2

that with very little digging he could have uncovered the right lever. But digging took time, which he didn't have—and digging would also involve exposing his actions to others, which multiplied the danger of the General coming to hear of it.

But if unsolicited charity would have roused Frugoni's suspicions, or at least his curiosity, the chance of doing some sort of deal would arouse his trading instinct, and that must be squashed quickly.

"It is nothing of great importance—nothing you will find in the least taxing, my dear Frugoni," he began heartily. "You are simply one among a number of veterans I am consulting for your wartime recollections, you see—for a work of history a colleague of mine is undertaking."

Frugoni's expression sagged with disappointment.

"It will be a scholarly work—a work of reference primarily, so I fear there will be little profit in it for anyone—" Boselli nodded regretfully "—but remembering that you had served with the General in the mountains I knew I could rely on your strong sense of patriotism—" Frugoni looked as if he was about to burst into tears; it was time to dust the pill with a trace of sugar "—and naturally your name would be mentioned in the acknowledgements in addition to the modest honorarium we are making to some contributors."

"Honorari—?" Frugoni abandoned the attempt.

"Payment," said Boselli briskly. "Small, of course. More a dummy2

gesture than a payment. But in deserving cases like yourself we do the best we can ... if the information supplied is of use, of course."

"Of use?"

"Of interest. I'm sure you saw a great deal of action when you were in the mountains immediately after the Armistice of 1943."

"When we threw in the sponge, you mean?" Frugoni gave a short, bitter laugh. "Jesus Christ! You can say that again—

more than I wanted to, that's how much action I saw. But I wasn't in the mountains, Signor Boselli, not at first, anyway."

"Indeed?" Boselli wasn't interested in anything Frugoni had done before he reached the mountains, but it wouldn't do to seem too eager to reveal that fact.

"No—we were in billets just outside Salerno—good billets, too. Then the bloody Germans turfed us out—turfed us all out, and disarmed us too. Shot two of the officers right in front of our billet when they wouldn't play ball, they did—

they knew what was in the wind right enough, the Germans did. What they called Panzer grenadiers— trigger-happy sods, they were. We reckoned afterwards that someone had told 'em the Yanks and the English were going to land there—

which they did, of course. . . ."

"But you stayed and fought?"

"Without our guns?" Frugoni started to laugh again, and then stopped as though he had remembered the more heroic dummy2

role he had to sustain now. "No—'cause we wanted to, but without our guns, see, an' with the place crawling with German tanks—well, this mate of mine and me thought we'd have more chance up Naples way—"

More chance of getting home, more likely. In a word, Frugoni had deserted at the first opportunity.

"More chance of resisting the enemy?"

"That's right, sir. But when we got to Naples things were real bad there, I can tell you—they'd been fighting the Germans in the streets there, the people had. Even the little kids—they're bloodthirsty— and everywhere they'd blocked the streets with trams and lorries so the Germans were shooting everyone on sight, practically." He shook his head unbelievingly at the memory. "The main roads were jammed with supply columns heading south—there was no chance of gettin' through 'em—gettin' through to join up with some proper unit, I mean."

Frugoni had jumped out of the frying pan into a very hot fire: he had escaped formal captivity with his regiment only to find himself in the midst of a popular insurrection. Even Boselli could remember the tales of Neapolitan carnage which percolated northwards as the enraged inhabitants of that dangerous city had turned on the Germans with medieval fury . . . tales of stranded tank crews parboiled and houses full of women and children put to the torch. It had been from such horrors that men like George Ruelle had risen.

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"So you headed for the hills?"

"It was the only thing to do, seein' as how things were, you see

—"

"And met the General."

"Yes." For one second Frugoni failed to keep the bitterness out of his voice. "That was a bit of—luck—for us, of course."

Of course! Twice the wretched man had fled from his duty, though each time in circumstances which would have daunted better men and for which Boselli could not in his heart wholly blame him. And all in order to fall into the clutches of the one man who would make very sure that he had no third opportunity of escaping! Fate had surely played a cat-and-mouse game with Private Frugoni.

"Number One on the Breda, I was for the General, Signor Boselli, sir." All the whine and pretence had gone from the voice now; this at least was genuine. "An' that's a rotten bad gun, too—the Breda 30—a proper swine to clean, with that oil pump in it. An' it's got no carrying handle, either: I'd like to make the silly fucker that designed it carry it up the mountainsides that I had to, carrying it like a bleedin' baby

—"

"That would be a responsible job, I'm sure," Boselli cut through the old soldier's complaint. "The General must have trusted you, then."

"The General. . . ." The memory half strangled the words and then re-injected the old mendacious note. "A major, 'e was dummy2

then, major in the Bersaglieri—'e made us jump, Christ 'e did, an' no mistake. We blocked the road from Campobasso for nearly a week—took a regiment of their Alpine troops, what they call Jaegers, to shift us. An' they wouldn't have done it then if the bastard hadn't let us down."

It was odd, but under the hate which lay like a half-hidden substratum beneath the pretence of soldierly pride there was a thin vein of genuine admiration. It was probably true that—

The bastard?

That was the word which had been lodged in his mind like a tiny thorn under the skin: the General had used it yesterday—

had used it twice in one short space of time. And yet under ordinary circumstances his language was always notably free of such words—beyond an occasional "for the love of God" in moments of exceptional stress the General's vocabulary was as disciplined as a priest's.

Boselli's own mind had been fully extended at the time, yet those two "bastards" had pricked nevertheless; and more, there had been something curious about the sound of them—

the emphasis had been too evenly distributed, just as it had been in Frugoni's tone: too even and lacking in vehemence. . . .

And then he had it: it had quite simply been a name and not an epithet-not "the bastard" but more precisely "The Bastard"!

He examined his fingernails. "You mean Ruelle?" he said dummy2

casually.

"Ah—I guess you've heard a thing or two about The Bastard, eh?" Frugoni leered at him. "You'll 'ave to be careful puttin'

'im in your book alongside of the General, you will—'e won't like that, I can tell you, not at all. Come to that, The Bastard won't neither, if the swine's still around. There wasn't no love lost between them two, there wasn't."

"Yes, so I've heard," murmured Boselli, stifling the rising sense of excitement he felt at so easily getting to the one question he had feared to ask directly.

"I could tell you a thing or two about them," Frugoni confided maliciously. "I bet you ain't 'eard the 'alf of it, not the 'alf of it!"

"I expect I've heard it all before, my dear fellow," said Boselli, controlling the level of disinterest in his voice with scientific exactness. "But do go on all the same."

It was going to be a good day after all.

VI

COMING OUT OF the midday sunlight into the cafe's shadow, for a moment he could see very little. Then, as he peered round the supporting trellis-work of the vine-covered roof, his gaze was directed by the admiring eyes of two young girls towards the corner in which Armando Villari had arranged himself.

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Not that their admiration was going to do them any good.

They weren't in the Clotheshorse's income group for one thing, and the Clotheshorse was on duty anyway (although that was probably the least important consideration). But above all the swine was far too busy admiring his own profile in the mirror on his left—Boselli didn't know which offended his sense of decency the more, the girls' sickening bitch-on-heat look or Villari's narcissism. Almost it made him want to quit the job cold, except that the General's parting words and his own recent discoveries made the situation painfully clear: he had to work with Villari or risk not working at all, and for a man with hungry relatives and no cushion of private savings that was no choice.

But at least that certainty firmed his own meagre reserve of courage. At the time of the General's pronouncement he had been ready to accept the assignment as a test for them both—

a proof that they could sink their personal antipathies in the state's service. He still admired his boss enough to hope that that had played a part in the whole design, but he no longer believed that it played the only part. Because the General was a fair man he would accept honest failure— but because of his personal involvement he would be in no mood to put up with tantrums from either of them.

Villari gave no indication that he had noticed him except to put on the dark glasses which had lain beside his glass, a simple action which he contrived somehow to render affected.

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So it was going to be unpleasant. . . .

Boselli smiled politely. "I do not think I am late, but I am sorry if you have been kept waiting. Is anything happening yet?"

The dark circles considered him briefly. "If anything was happening I would not be here. And then you would have been late."

So it was going to be difficult too, thought Boselli. But he had expected nothing less ever since the fellow had walked out of the meeting without so much as one word to him. And since then he had obviously not bothered to work out any of the implications of the situation.

He sighed as he sat down. The difficulty was all the less bearable for being unnecessary, because the simplest of those implications was that he, Boselli, would be less afraid of offending Villari than of risking General Montuori's anger, but Villari was too stupid to understand that fact.

He stared directly into the dark glasses. "Signor Villari, I will be plain with you—" an eyebrow lifted above one of the gold frames "—I have been ordered to work with you and that is what I must do if it is at all possible. I do not care for you and you do not care for me—"

"I don't really think that much about you either way, frankly, Signor Boselli."

"—But it seems that you clearly do not intend to work with me. Consequently it is not possible for me to work with you."

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Villari's lip curled. "Little man—you do tie yourself into knots when you talk! I tell you again, it's of no consequence to me what you do. I can handle this man Audley perfectly well without you farting about beside me."

"And George Ruelle? Can you handle him as well?"

The lip straightened. "Him also, if I have to."

"And General Montuori too?"

"General—?" Villari cut the name off quickly, but could not stop the question forming.

"What's General Montuori got to do with this? Apart from setting it up?" Boselli nodded with a confidence he did not feel. He had to gauge this bit exactly: he had to put just a touch of fear into Villari, but it mustn't seem a deliberate act

—the man must scare himself, which might not be a quick process in one so lacking in imagination, never mind sense.

But it had to be attempted none the less.

"Tell me, signore—tell me this one thing—" he forced humility into his tone "—why do you think the General has ordered you to work with me?"

He paused only momentarily, because he did not expect any answer—Villari would never admit that he could not think of one. But he must, he surely must, have at least formulated that question in his mind all the same.

"I will tell you then, because the General never does anything without his reasons. ... It is first because in this instance we complement each other. You have all the proven executive dummy2

skills in the field —the daring and the resourcefulness when there is danger—" (Was he laying it on too thick? No! One glance at the arrogant lift of the chin confirmed that!) "—the quickness of mind and body, the firmness. . . ." That was enough—and in another second the words would choke in his throat, anyway.

"And in addition you are not known so well here in Rome—at least not to the agents of the British and those who might associate with Ruelle."

He paused again, opening his hands in a gesture of self-deprecation. "Whereas I—I too am not well known—though for a different reason, of course—and I have some specialist knowledge of—of present political considerations and personalities." (Villari would scorn such knowledge, so he could fairly safely claim it himself.) But this was all window-dressing: now he was coming to the real merchandise hidden in the back room!

"And it is because I have that knowledge that I am frightened, signore—because I have just a little more of it than even the General himself suspects. Enough to frighten me."

He had the man's attention now; even though not so much as a muscle moved in Villari's face Boselli was sure of it.

Whatever scorn the pig might affect, he would be uneasy at the thought of Boselli digging like a termite beneath him.

"You see—first, signore—I happen to know now who it was dummy2

who saw Ruelle and Audley at the airport. I know also that it was not Audley he recognised—it was Ruelle. It was Ruelle that interested him, too. And now I know why he was so interested in the man. ..."

He allowed the sentence to tail off mysteriously.

"Who was it, then?"

As Villari spoke at last a shadow fell across the table between them.

"What—?" Boselli began irritably, only to catch the absence of surprise or irritation on Villari's face.

Much more surprising was that Villari turned back towards him briefly with what was for him a remarkable gesture of courtesy.

"One moment—" the dark glasses tilted upwards again

—"Well?"

"The man and the woman have left the house—they've taken the car."

"In which direction?"

"Towards the Porta San Paolo, signore. Unless he's taken the wrong direction, they're heading out of the city."

Villari stared at the speaker, a compact, youngish man unknown to Boselli. Then he shook his head.

"No. He knows Rome well enough not to do that."

"Then it could be the EUR—there are some big museums there. Or maybe the beach at Ostia. It's going to be hot dummy2

today."

It was damned hot already, thought Boselli. What it would be like later didn't bear thinking about.

"Very good. Depretis is following them, then. I—we—will follow him. You go back and relieve Piccione at the house."

Boselli watched the man out of sight with a twinge of uneasiness. Depretis and Piccione were also names he was unable to place.

"Who is he—and the others?"

"One of the police special squads. The General must have borrowed them—he's had them watching Audley from the beginning, not our own men." Villari watched him, head cocked slightly to one side. "Would you have any thoughts about that, too?"

Boselli rubbed his chin reflectively. The Clotheshorse had changed his tune quickly enough, so perhaps he had some sense after all.

"I might."

"But in the meantime you have a name for me."

Boselli nodded. "Yesterday I took some reports to leave with Signorina Calcagano. She was giving the General's driver the evening off; she said the General would take the car to the airport himself. It slipped my mind until after our meeting.

Then I checked up on it."

He nodded again. "It was the General who spotted Ruelle."

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"You're sure of that?"

"I'm sure. Because General Montuori has wanted George Ruelle dead these twenty-eight years. Only he's had to leave well alone."

"Until now, eh?"

Boselli shrugged. "Maybe . . . but I rather think he's still keeping clear. I'd guess he's hoping the English will do his work for him this time."

"We—shall we have trouble catching them up, then?" Boselli spoke breathlessly, because Villari's legs were each a full fifteen centimetres longer than his and their pace was forcing him into an undignified half-trot behind him down the pavement. After the cool of the cafe he could already feel the sweat running down his body again.

"Eh?"

"If he is already—close to Porta San Paolo—he has—a long start on us—the man Audley. That is—if we are—going to follow him— wherever he is—going."

"Follow him?" Villari replied casually over his shoulder. "We shall let the police follow him. That's what they're paid to do."

"Then what—shall we do?"

Villari stopped suddenly beside a monstrous sports car parked in defiance of the sign above it. Boselli's spirits sank at the sight of it. It was so exactly the sort of car he would dummy2

have imagined for this sort of man that it did not surprise him, yet its shocking disregard of common prudence was dismaying nevertheless—a tank or an armoured carrier would have been hardly less ostentatious.

His reaction must have been evidently headlined across his face, for Villari grinned at him mischievously across the blinding roof— at least the prospect of physical (as opposed to mental) activity appeared to purge his bullying streak and dissolve his petulance, anyway. When he spoke there was almost no cutting edge in his voice.

"Don't panic, little Boselli—this is the easy part. The Englishman drives like an old woman on the way to Sunday Mass—I could catch him if he was already halfway to the coast. But it isn't necessary. The police will follow him in their car, and we will follow them in ours, if I can make myself drive slowly enough. So stop worrying and get in."

Boselli clambered awkwardly into the low-slung black leather bucket seat, first overawed and then abruptly slammed back into the padding by the Ferrari's explosive acceleration.

Then, as he gathered his wits, all thought of the problems and difficulties ahead was submerged in the heady pleasures of speed and power and opulence: this—the snarl of horsepower and the wide bonnet stretching ahead of him away into the distance—was the very stuff of his own private dreams. If success and promotion ever came, if patience and application were ever rewarded, if merit and intelligence were recognised, it would be thus and with this that it would dummy2

be celebrated, not with the petty family aspirations of his wife and her crow of a mother and that rapacious crew of nonentities from Viterbo who had pinned their hopes of comfortable old age on the clever civil servant their only sister had married. . . .

"Chase has joined the Via del Mare—Chase has joined the Via del Mare—Over."

The crackling voice jerked him back to reality, and a reality in which there could be no more day-dreaming if he was to pass the tests ahead.

Villari threw a small switch. "Acknowledge—over and out."

He threw the switch again and smiled almost conspiratorially at Boselli. "You see? Nothing at all to worry about. Nothing to do but talk."

The Tiber sparkled momentarily in a gap on his left and then was gone as the accompanying traffic fell away from them, unwilling to match their insolent speed. That boast at least had substance—and substance which aroused Boselli's reluctant admiration: whatever the Clotheshorse's defects, he used the road like a prince in his own territory, disdainful of laws made for lesser men.

But a prince who was going out of his way to be affable to one lesser man now: patently Villari had at last recognised the need to work with him—or at least to tap that "special knowledge" he had hinted at. Only the working would be on Villari's terms, with Villari leading and getting the credit. The dummy2

nuance of command had been clear in those last words

—"nothing to do but talk" meant that he must now spill all his hard-won information on pain of displeasure. "It rather looks like the Lido, then," he began cautiously. "There is nowhere else to go from the autostrada unless they are heading for the airport. And as they have left the baby and the au pair, I would think—"

But Villari was not prepared to accept this conversational gambit.

"And I would think," he interrupted, "that you have not quite finished telling me why the General wants this man Ruelle dead."

Boselli gestured vaguely. "They are old enemies, signore.

From the war. ..."

Villari looked at him quickly, unsmiling now. "Don't start playing your little games with me again—I know they were in the war together, and I know the General doesn't love Reds.

Answer the question."

Boselli pretended to give in obsequiously. "No, of course—I beg your pardon, signore! It was in 1943, just at the beginning of the— period of co-belligerency, at the time the Anglo-Americans landed at Salerno, that this thing happened. There was a German column crossing the Appennines from Foggia, and the General and Ruelle joined their forces to block the road ... or they were supposed to join, that is."

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"Go on!"

"Well, I do not know the full details of it, but Ruelle double-crossed him, that is what it amounts to ... and he did it cleverly, so that it looked like a misunderstanding. Half the General's men were cut off without a chance—and the Germans did not take any prisoners, either."

Villari grunted. "Typical Red trick—the scum!" The Clotheshorse was probably summing it up more accurately than he knew, Boselli reflected. Ruelle had undoubtedly fought the Germans in his own savage way; but at that stage in the war he was already looking ahead to the struggle for power in postwar Italy, and he had merely used the Germans to weaken his future political opponents, who would be needing men like the fire-eating Bersaglieri major he had betrayed.

"Yes," he nodded, "and the General guessed as much, but there wasn't anything he could do at the time."

"And afterwards? He let the scum get away with it? That doesn't sound like our Raffaele!"

It was typical of Villari that he understood nothing of the realities of the postwar period.

"He had even less chance then, actually. After the war, you remember, signore, the Government sent him with the negotiators to London—he had fought beside the Anglo-Americans and they had given him one of their medals. And then he went with the arms commission to Washington. By dummy2

the time he returned it was too late to settle such a score without causing great scandal." He shrugged. "The Bastard was too important in the Party hierarchy by then—that's what they call him, by the way: The Bastard."

"That makes two of them—our Raffaele's something of a bastard too when the fit takes him."

"Ah—but Ruelle really is one. I mean, he was born out of wedlock. The story is that his father was one of the English soldiers who fought alongside our army on the Piave in the Great War. Apparently he left Ruelle's mother in the lurch, or maybe he was killed in the Vittorio Veneto offensive—no one knows for sure. But Ruelle was born in Treviso in 1919, anyway, and his mother called him George, after the Englishman. And that's all his father left him, just the name.

Perhaps that's why he doesn't like the English."

"He doesn't like 'em?"

"He hates them."

"And yet he calls himself 'George'?"

"Yes, he does." It was curious how Villari was echoing the same questions he had put to Frugoni; and in default of that missing section of the Ruelle dossier he could only advance Frugoni's replies. "Maybe it helps him to keep on hating—a constant reminder. He was a good hater in the old days, so it seems, anyway. . . . Perhaps this other Englishman had better look to his back." Boselli watched the handsome face carefully. "Unless we are busy making something out of dummy2

nothing, of course. . . ."

But there was no hint of change in the aristocratic blankness of Villari's expression, nor any suggestion that he intended to give anything back in return for all the information he had received. He was not simply ignoring Boselli, but even more simply Boselli had ceased to exist for him while he digested what he had been told.

Boselli turned back towards the shimmering highway ahead.

They were out of the city now, almost magically—he had been too busy answering carefully, playing his answers one by one as frugally as he knew how, to notice how fast they had been travelling. Now they were eating up the kilometres to the sea even more rapidly, rushing to whatever rendezvous lay ahead. For this was not square one again, that at least he knew without Villari having to let slip one helpful word. It had been there from the start, even in the man's assumed nonchalance in the cafe: if there had really been nothing to report it would have been scorn, or sarcasm, or even anger waiting for him there, or certainly something very different from that first guarded hostility. Whereas when he had revealed that he had something to offer, Villari had been eager to take it—eager enough to affect that sickening contemptuous jocularity. . . .

So one thing was sure: they had staked out Audley's apartment on the Aventine and against all reasonable expectation it had quietly paid off. He had been right—it no longer mattered for what ridiculous reason; nobody knew dummy2

about that anyway and looking back on it he felt that in fairness to himself it had been logic and instinct as much as any other consideration which had prompted him to suspect that the English were up to something.

He had been right. He hugged the knowledge to himself triumphantly. And Villari had been wrong: that was almost as satisfying.

And he had been right against the odds and in the very presence of the General: that was the sort of thing he needed to establish himself, exactly the sort of thing! He had shown his quality in a way which would be noted: not a man of facts and figures, little more than a clerk, but a man of decision and discernment. . . .

" Chase is turning off main highway," the crackling voice on the radio took him unawares again. " Turning right—sign reads . . . Ostia Antica—do you read me?—Ostia Antica."

"Check—Ostia Antica." Villari flicked the switch and frowned at Boselli. "What is there at Ostia Antica?"

"The excavations."

"Excavations?"

"It was the port of ancient Rome, signore," said Boselli patiently. The Clotheshorse was clearly pig-ignorant of everything that did not concern him, but that was only to be expected. "It was the imperial port until the river course changed. I suppose it silted up first. And there would have dummy2

been the malaria from the marshes too—"

"I didn't ask for a history lesson. I know what the place was,"

Villari snapped. "But what are the excavations like?"

Boselli scratched his head. The truth was he had never visited Ostia Antica, although he did not care to admit it just now.

"Just ruins." He shrugged. That was safe enough: the past was always in ruins, and one ruin was much like another.

"Just ruins. You can see them alongside the road to the Lido—

I'm sure you must have seen them sometime."

"I do not go to the Lido." Villari contemptuously relegated the city's beaches to the city's rabble. "Do the tourists go there?"

"To the Lido?" Boselli gazed at him stupidly.

"To the ruins, you fool—are they crawling with foreign tourists?"

"I—I suppose so," Boselli floundered, irritated with himself for having misunderstood the question and also for not having admitted from the start that he knew nothing about the Ostian excavations. But far more irritating was the realisation that Villari had some idea of why the Englishman was making this trip and that he was sitting on his suspicions out of sheer bloody-mindedness.

Crawling with tourists? He stifled his annoyance and concentrated on the vision the phrase conjured up: of the Trevi submerged and the Forum overrun by hordes of dummy2

sunbeaten Americans and English and Germans, their cameras endlessly clicking and their dog-eared Blue Guides clutched in sweaty hands.

So Audley had come to meet someone or to be met under cover of such crowds; an old trick, but one not much to Villari's taste evidently.

"Yes," he smiled at the Clotheshorse maliciously, "I'm sure it will be crawling with foreigners, signore."

VII

BUT OSTIA ANTICA was not crawling with tourists, native or foreign. It was not crawling with anything at all, except heat and solitude.

Boselli stood miserably in the shadow of an umbrella pine just beyond the entrance building, fanning himself uselessly with the official guidebook, waiting for Villari to finish with the policeman who had stayed behind on the end of the radio. Presumably his partner had gone in after the Englishman and his wife, though there was no sign of them down the tree-lined avenue which led to the ruins.

There was, indeed, no sign of anyone: either it was too hot, or perhaps because of the heat the nearby sea had proved an irresistible counterattraction for all those sightseers who would otherwise have made their pilgrimage to the forgotten port of Rome. But whatever the reason, he could not have been more wrong in his forecast.

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In fact he had been so wrong that Villari had not bothered to rub it in; he had merely grunted derisively at the two cars in the parking lot and had ordered Boselli to purchase the guidebook and wait for him inside, and although Boselli would have dearly loved to hear what the policeman in the car had to say, he had been glad to scuttle off with his tail between his legs, away from the danger of further humiliation and the hot asphalt of the car park under his thin-soled city shoes.

He knew that he ought now to be using these precious moments to familiarise himself with the town's layout, but for the life of him he couldn't, for the place overawed and disquieted him in a way he had not expected.

For he had been wrong also about the nature and extent of the remains. Those few hurried glances from his own driver's seat on the family excursions to the Lido had not prepared him for the actuality: there was much more above ground here than could be glimpsed from the roadside, which must have been merely outlying structures far beyond the town's perimeter.

Not just above ground—he flicked quickly through the illustrations in the back of the little book—but high above ground. There was an absolute labyrinth of buildings standing to the first and even to the second storey here. The problem of tracking down anyone, and of doing so in this emptiness without making themselves obvious, would be formidable.

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Clearly, this must have been the shrewd Englishman's idea in coming to such a place. The streets of Rome provided cover for enemies as well as friends; here it would be possible to accept or decline a contact with far greater certainty of having done the wiser thing.

It was not the Englishman's cunning that disturbed him—the man was enough of a professional to be wary and amateur enough to be I unconventional at the same time in his choice of a rendezvous. It was just pure bad luck that he had fixed a place which aroused the deepest feeling of unease in Boselli's soul.

Ordinarily he was not subject to such odd notions. He was a city-dweller born and bred, with a natural contempt and suspicion for the peasant countryside—he knew those gut reactions of old, and allowed for them. But this place was neither city nor country; nor, without the colourful crowds of tourists and the surrounding noise and bustle of a busy city, was it like the antiquities he was used to back in Rome. It was much more like a bombed and plague-emptied town, something which had been alive yesterday and was newly-dead—a corpse unburied, rather than an old skeleton disinterred ... an obscenity. No sooner had he formulated that thought than he was overtaken by embarrassment with it: it was the sort of mental absurdity he would never have dared admit to his colleagues and for which his wife invariably prescribed a laxative. Even the unshockable Father Patrick, his favourite Dominican, had warned him dummy2

against it: too much imagination, Pietro—a good measure of it is a great blessing, but too much is a weakness. . . .

"Give me the guide, then—wake up!"

Villari whipped the book out of his hand, flipped it open, ripped out the folded map from it and thumped it back into his possession before he knew what was happening.

"Hmm. . . ." Villari scanned the map, frowning at its complexity. Then he turned to the second policeman, who had accompanied him through the entrance, running a slender finger over the paper. "You go ahead along the main street—the Decumano Massimo here—until you spot Depretis. Then you wipe your face with your handkerchief— I assume you've got a handkerchief?"

A muscle twitched in the detective's cheek, high up and very briefly, as he nodded. He was careful not to look at Boselli, who knew nevertheless with certainty that the Clotheshorse, running true to form, had made another lifelong enemy in the last five minutes. It might not be wholly deliberate now—

it might have started as a defence designed to keep inferiors in their place and become second nature over the last few years—but without doubt Villari had perfected the art of being offensive.

"Very well. You will go on past the theatre—there—" the finger stabbed the map "—and wait for me to catch up if the theatre is a high building and there is a stairway on it. If there is then I shall climb it and you will wait until I have seen what there is to see—is that understood?"

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Again the detective nodded.

"Then you will continue down the Decumano Massimo—that is, unless I wipe my face—as far as the Porta Marina."

"And if I do not see him by then, signore?" the detective inquired neutrally.

Villari stared at him for a moment, as though slightly surprised by the question. "Then you will come back, and I will tell you what to do," he said coolly. "But the important thing for you to remember now is that you are no longer interested in the Englishman—you and Depretis. It is his contact you are interested in: who he is and where he goes—

do you understand? Once Depretis is spotted, then you come back here and cover the entrance. When the contact comes out Depretis will be following him, and then it's up to you both not to lose him. Now—move!"

The detective took one last glance at the map, and then turned away down the avenue without a word. As he went he slipped off his jacket and loosened his tie; he did not, thought Boselli, look very much like a student of antique remains, but neither did he look like a policeman, although there was a shiny, threadbare air surrounding him which proclaimed the minor and underpaid government functionary—a guide employed by the Ministry of Public Instruction, maybe, nosing the excavations in search of gratuities.

He watched the thickset figure dwindle among the pines, then faced Villari. "And what do you wish me to do, signore?"

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"Watch him," Villari nodded down the avenue. "And keep from under my feet if anything happens."

"Something will happen, then?"

Villari shrugged.

"But you know that Audley is meeting someone here?"

Villari shrugged again.

"But—" Boselli persisted desperately "—you know something is going on?"

The Clotheshorse shifted his glance from Boselli to the detective and then, lazily, returned it. "The Englishman is being watched."

Boselli frowned at him, perplexed.

"Not just by us, idiot—by others."

"By whom?"

"We are not sure."

Not sure, Boselli digested the tiny fragments of information, trying to make a meal of them.

By others. Logically, Ruelle would be continuing his surveillance, but they were quite properly more concerned with Audley at this point—and with his contact—than with Ruelle, so they hadn't risked trying to find out who was watching on the Aventine for fear of blowing the whole thing, for the contact himself might be keeping an eye on Audley too. That "others" implied as much, anyway, though the English themselves might also be maintaining a protective dummy2

watch on their man if he was as important to them as the file suggested.

Boselli shivered in the heat at the memory of that file, with its cold little facts and hot little theories. He knew so little about what was going on, but he also knew too much for his own peace of mind. Audley and Ruelle, and above them Sir Frederick Clinton and General Raffaele Montuori—they all had one thing in common: they were dangerous men. He thought nostalgically of his little airless room back in the city: by now it would be almost as hot as Ostia Antica, but it would be much safer.

As they advanced down the Decumano Massimo he began to grasp the principle on which Villari was searching the excavations. He was using the two detectives as hunting dogs

—what were they called, pointers?—Depretis to cover the minor streets which ran at right angles to the main thoroughfare, and the threadbare man to watch for him. So long as Depretis kept sight of Audley and remained in sight of the Decumano Massimo at the same time he would serve as a moving signpost to the Englishman.

The trouble was that not all the side streets were absolutely straight, and there were lateral alleys branching off them, so that they needed luck as well as logic. In fact the farther they progressed the more unlikely it seemed to Boselli that they would see anyone at all, certainly anyone who didn't want to be seen, in that maze of walls. The Clotheshorse had dummy2

delivered his briefing decisively and confidently, but the frown of concentration on his forehead indicated that his self-esteem was drying up fast.

Still, he had been right about the theatre: it was a substantial

—or substantially restored—building, with a series of arcades facing the street and a stair leading up to the seating on the other side. But when Boselli made to follow Villari up the stairs, the Clotheshorse gestured angrily down the street towards the detective, who was now loitering fifty metres ahead of them.

"You watch him— can't you remember a simple order?"

Villari hissed.

Chastened, Boselli made for the shadow of the arcade, reaching in his pocket for his handkerchief, and then remembering just in time that the one thing he mustn't do was to mop his genuinely sweaty face with it. He must make do with his equally sweaty palm.

"It's hot, eh?"

Boselli jerked as if stung, and then relaxed, his heart still thumping: one of the arcades had been turned into a refreshment room, and the serving man in it was standing in the shadow just inside the doorway, watching him hopefully.

"Yes," he muttered.

"And it will get maybe just a little hotter." The man squinted up at the sky. "You want a cool drink, eh?"

Boselli was about to refuse when it occurred to him that so dummy2

sharp an eye for custom might have intercepted earlier prospects.

He pretended to consider the question. "Pretty quiet today."

The man nodded. "It is the mezzogiorno, though."

"I reckon we must be the only ones here," Boselli surveyed the scene with a dissatisfied sniff, as though it didn't surprise him now that it was no tourist attraction. "Except for him, at least," he nodded towards the detective in the distance.

The conflict in the refreshment man's expression suggested that he was torn between loyalty to Ostia Antica and the proposition that the customer—especially the would-be customer—was always right.

In the end he compromised, as Boselli had hoped he would.

"Almost the only ones, signore," he said.

"You mean there are others here?" That was just the right note of not-quite-polite disbelief: "I haven't seen anyone."

"Oh, yes—" the refreshment man was on his honour now. He stepped out into the sunlight and stared down the Decumano Massimo —"just a few minutes ago there was a foreign couple

—a big bull of a man and a woman in a big hat, slender like a model-girl—"

"Well, they seem to have disappeared," murmured Boselli.

"Perhaps they knew where to go—where the best things to see are, eh?"

"But there is much to see, signore!" The refreshment man spread his hands. "Behind here there is the Piazzale delle dummy2

Corporazioni— they come from all over the world to see the mosaics there—and—" He stopped suddenly as though it had dawned on him that only a barbarian could have come so far and remained unmoved by his surroundings.

"Where did they go, then, the foreigners," persisted Boselli, like a man who has had what he believes to be a sharp idea which he intends to pursue to the exclusion of better advice.

The man shrugged, disillusioned. "I think maybe they turned off to the right, to the House of Diana or maybe the Temple of Livia. Or they may have gone to the Museum—but it is closed now."

Boselli acknowledged the information with a nod as he heard Villari's footfall on the stair.

But the man was a trier. Even as Boselli turned away from him he called out: "You want for me to get you that drink now, signore?"

Boselli raised a negative hand. He wanted a cool drink, it was true, but it would only make him want to urinate more than he did already —it was that damned drink he had had back at the fountain in the city which was already beginning to discomfort him. Nevertheless— he had made progress, and a good deal more of it than had Villari, who appeared round the corner of the theatre with a face like thunder.

"They went—"

Villari cut him off. "I heard. Come on."

He strode off, bristling. Not a word of approbation, thought dummy2

Boselli hotly, panting after him—not even an encouraging look could he manage. It was childish, even allowing for the fact that Villari had always worked alone in the past, but more than that it might soon become positively dangerous and he could not afford to allow it to go on much longer.

A few metres farther on Villari stopped to examine the map again.

But this time Boselli closed up on him and craned over his shoulder.

"The House of Diana—which is that?" he asked. The map was crudely drawn, and although the streets were named the buildings along them were numbered according to a key which was under Villari's thumb on the far side. "And the Temple of Livia—"

Villari refolded the map just as Boselli had managed to identify a Via di Diana, which seemed to run parallel to the main thoroughfare. There was no way of telling from the numbers where any of the actual buildings were.

"Signor Villari, this is ridiculous—" he began.

"Be quiet!"

It was not the order that stopped Boselli, but the fact that Villari had embarked on a curious sequence of hand signals to the detective ahead of them. But curious or not, the detective seemed to understand what he was trying to convey, for he bobbed his head before starting off again.

"Now—" Villari turned back to him "—what the devil is the dummy2

matter?"

Boselli swallowed, then nerved himself. "I cannot—Signor Villari —I cannot continue like this, not knowing what is happening. You do not tell me anything—and you do not show me anything—" the words foamed out as though a dam had broken "—you ignore me, you treat me like a child! I must insist—"

"Insist?" Villari showed his teeth.

"Yes, signore—insist!" Boselli was desperate now. "If things go wrong—General Montuori spoke to both of us—if things go wrong then I shall be held responsible just as much as you

—"

He paused, aware that his voice was rising towards a plaintive squeak.

"If there is nothing for me to do here, then I will return to the city," he said firmly. "And I will report to the General that you have no use for me."

As a final statement of intent that was not wholly without dignity, he decided. From the spreading smile on Villari's face, however, it seemed to lack something as an ultimate threat, though under the face-concealing glasses it was difficult to make out what species of smile it was.

"Then you have a long walk ahead of you," said Villari equably. "But I have never said I had no use for you—you must have patience, little Boselli. This is a game of patience, you know, is it not?"

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"What use am I, then?" Perversely Boselli found the Clotheshorse's amiability as off-putting as his insolence: it made him wonder whether his real usefulness was not in truth simply as someone to carry half the responsibility for failure. Perhaps he had underrated the man after all. ...

"You can put names to faces for me, I'm told. And that's what we need at the moment, a few more names to add to this Englishman's. Then we can really get started." Villari sounded almost friendly now. "Does that answer your question?"

Boselli stared at him wordlessly, conscious once more of the insistent pressure on bis bladder.

"Is there anything else you'd like?" asked Villari.

"I—I—you must excuse me for one moment," Boselli muttered. "The call of nature—"

He stumbled down the nearest alleyway until he was just out of sight of the main street, fumbling as he went for the zip fastener on his fly. It was partly nerves, of course, as well as nature, but it was also hugely humiliating. Why did people like Villari never, never need to do it, though?

He sighed with relief at the little lizard staring at him with bright eyes from a crack in the wall just above his head. To his right he had a part view of a little courtyard with a faded black and white geometric mosaic pavement already half covered by modern detritus. Around it were splintered columns like a line of tree stumps felled by inexpert foresters.

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A little hysterically, physical and mental relief at two distracting jobs done restoring his spirit, he thought: this is the moment when the Englishman and his contact come strolling round the corner, or if not them then the Englishman's model-girl wife in her wide hat, catching him in the unstoppable moment of midflow.

The thought made him rise on tiptoe and peer round him, and then back away from the spattered wall as he pulled up the zip, still searching the alleyway for prying eyes—

There was a man leaning in a ruined opening halfway down the alley—a man with a bright red cravat like a stain running down his white shirt front—

As he stared, hypnotised, the man raised a red hand to adjust the cravat, turning slightly away from him as he did so, totally ignoring him.

Boselli's mouth opened—he felt it open as though his lower jaw was falling away from the upper one, its muscles severed

—and a meaningless sound rose out of it.

The bright blood rippled over the fingers suddenly and the head sank against the wall as though the man was overcome by weariness. In ghastly slow motion he sank on to his knees, head and shoulder scraping down the stone work; for one instant he remained balanced, then he began to fold forward until he was bent double, the top of his head resting on the ground—

The sound inside Boselli became coherent.

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" Villari!" he wailed.

As though released at last by the sound, the kneeling man pitched over suddenly on to his side, his back towards Boselli. His left leg straightened and kicked convulsively at the stone doorstep on which he had been standing.

" Villari!" This time the wail was much louder, more like a scream.

There was a low, bubbling rattle ahead of him and the sound of running footsteps behind, but both were lost in the tide of sickness which swept over Boselli: he vomited helplessly and painfully into the dust at his feet, the tears starting from his eyes as he did so.

"What the—" Villari stopped dead beside him. " Jesu!"

"He was standing in the—" Boselli choked on the lump in his throat. "He—just fell down."

Villari moved forward, but cautiously now, staring all around him and stooping. As he moved he reached back inside his coat with his right hand, towards his hip. Boselli blinked the tears out of his eyes, fascinated even though fear was now flooding inside him to replace the sickness: it was like watching a cream-fed tomcat transformed into a tiger hunting in the territory of its enemies.

When he reached the opening out of which the man had fallen Villari paused, setting his back against the wall for a moment. Then, with his automatic pistol held at the ready across his chest, its muzzle level with his left breast, he dummy2

peered into the courtyard over his left shoulder. The movement was smooth and continuous: the right shoulder swung away from the wall and Villari pivoted across the gap, facing it squarely for an instant with the pistol now extended to cover the ulterior, stepping over the legs of the man in the alley without looking down and ending up with his back against the wall on the other side in exactly the same stance as he had started. He looked up and down the alley, shifting his pistol from his right to his left hand as he did so, and then sank down on one knee beside the body, reaching with his free hand for the pulse at the neck.

It was unnecessary, thought Boselli, the memory of the man's collapse still horrific in his mind. But it was also enormously reassuring: this was an altogether different Villari from the languid, aristocratic brute of a few minutes ago. A brute still, no doubt—but one with all the necessary jungle qualities and skills.

He recalled with a pang of surprise that he had said as much to Villari in the cafe an hour earlier, ascribing it to the General without believing in it himself. Once more he saw that his instinct had been sound, although he had allowed his personal feelings to confuse it and to doubt the wisdom of the General's design. He should have known better than that.

Villari rose from his knee and beckoned to him.

For a moment Boselli stared at him uncertainly. Irrationally, he felt that so long as he stood where he was then he was somehow safer, and that unseen eyes would disregard him as dummy2

an innocent passer-by who had stumbled by accident on something in which he had no part and sought none. But the first step forward—if his legs didn't buckle under him—would bring him into the front line, however.

"And keep your head down," Villari mouthed at him.

There was no way out or backwards or anywhere except forward. He hunched his shoulders and lurched forward in what he knew was a parody of the other's catlike wariness.

"Stop there!" Villari hissed.

But Boselli had already stopped on the safe side of the ruined doorway. Nothing short of danger from behind, he felt, would induce him to cross that hundred-mile gap out of which death had come.

"I want you to go back and get Porro," Villari whispered across the opening.

"Go back—?" Boselli's squeak was cut off by the registration of the second part of the command. "Who's Porro?"

He blinked with embarrassment as Villari's lips tightened with contempt.

"The policeman?"

Villari nodded. "Tell him to come here, to the Temple of Livia," he whispered patiently, as one explaining a simple game to a dull child. "And tell him that Depretis is dead."

"Depretis!" Boselli's voice rose in shocked surprise.

"Who the hell did you think it was?"

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"I—I didn't think—" Boselli looked down at the body between them and then looked up again quickly. At this distance and from this angle he could see more clearly how Depretis had died and he didn't like what he saw. He felt the lump in his throat rising again sickeningly.

"You didn't think policemen get killed?" Villari spoke softly, almost soothingly. "Little clerk—it happens, and now you know it happens."

"But—" Boselli did not feel at all soothed. Policemen did get killed, and in this line of duty not only policemen, as he had good reason to know from his files. But it only happened when someone became desperate. He looked pleadingly at Villari, struck hopeless by the recollection of his own forecast once more. It was all happening as he had forecast, but it was happening to him!

"Now, Signor Boselli, just don't panic—just do as I tell you—"

the gentleness of Villari's voice was hideously counterproductive: it impressed the gravity of the situation on Boselli more convincingly than urgency or anger could ever have done "—walk, don't run. But don't stop, keep moving—and tell him—"

Villari never finished the sentence: it was lost in the change in Boselli's eyes looking over his shoulder past him down the alley, the fishlike NO forming on his lips and the contraction of his body against the stone wall in a vain attempt to disappear into it.

Boselli was staring into his own death.

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His death was a black finger, a finger which was long at first and then foreshortened as it came up to point directly at him: a shocking extension of the hand of the man who had appeared out of nowhere at the end of the alley.

Ever afterwards, when he relived that instant through the light of his candle burning before the altar, it was with a prayer to the Virgin of Miracles for his deliverance from that finger steadying on his heart. But there was no prayer in his mind or on his lips in the instant itself, only blank horror and disbelief, mindless and soundless; and to his private shame he did not even see the manner of that deliverance. His eyes were already closed when Villari moved. . . .

He heard a thump—more like a blow than a true sound—and a much louder crack of Villari's pistol, which almost blotted out the second thump, shattering the silence of the alley.

Then he was alive again, with the wall still at his back and the hot sun beating down on his head.

The sunlight was white, but not too blinding to conceal the miracle from him: the end of the alley was empty, wonderfully empty!

But his exhilaration was even briefer than his despair—it was quenched by a grunt of agony.

Somehow, during those seconds of darkness, Villari had catapulted himself right across the alley—across it, and back dummy2

down it, and into the shadow of the wall opposite. He was sitting in the dust, his weight on his left hand, his right hand pressed tightly against his ribs. His hair was ruffled and his dark glasses had fallen off on to the ground in front of him—

without them his face seemed naked and pale.

As Boselli gazed at him in mute horror he raised his head slowly and grimaced back.

"Don't—just stand there—man!" The words came out slowly but surprisingly clearly. "My gun—I've dropped it—"

Reality came cold into Boselli's brain, rousing him out of confusion: the other man had gone, but it had been Villari who had been hit—it must have been his sudden movement which had changed the target at the last moment from himself—so that any second the killer might appear round the corner again to finish the job on them.

He looked around wildly for the weapon, not finding it in the first sweep, and then, as his legs came to life at last, spotting it in the shadow beyond Villari's foot.

"Give it to me —argh!" Villari clapped the blood-stained palm back against his side.

It was amazingly heavy for so little a thing. During his military service he had had a rifle, though mercifully for only a short while because he had been no sort of combat soldier and they had soon realised that he was deadlier with his pen and his brain. But this was altogether different from the big, clumsy rifle: its contradictory weight and size, even the snug dummy2

way it fitted into his hand, inspired a sudden confidence in him that resolved the quandary into which he had felt himself falling.

He had wanted to run away, ostensibly to get help, and then he had realised that this would mean leaving Villari wounded and helpless, a sitting target literally. But he himself had been equally helpless, a target also.

Now he was no longer helpless!

"Boselli—you idiot!" Villari coughed painfully. "Don't try it—"

But Boselli was no longer listening.

He felt disembodied as he started down the narrow street, like a camera swinging this way and that to record images of decay and emptiness. Gaps opened up first on the right, and then on the left: another courtyard, another black and white mosaic half covered with drifting sand, a broken stair ending in a blank wall. Hot sunshine and cool shadow as he zigzagged from one gap to the next. Nothing moving and nothing alien—in this stillness movement itself was the only enemy.

Then he was at the intersection.

This, he fully understood, was the moment of greatest danger, for if the assassin was still bent on finishing them off it would be round one of these corners that he would be waiting. Yet if this was the case he knew he was doing the best thing and the only thing left for him to do, for he had no illusions about his ability to hit anything with Villari's pistol dummy2

at any range other than point-blank. Given a fair chance perhaps Villari might have managed it from where he lay back there—and the killer himself had proved that a marksman could do it. But he knew that he could not— even with his old army rifle he had never harmed a target.

So this way the odds were shortened: it was what the General would have called "good thinking" and Father Patrick "a little of God's good sense." But neither the General nor the Irish Father were here now to stop his knees shaking and his hands trembling as he leaned against the last safe piece of wall, contemplating that bright patch of no-man's-land just ahead of him. For God's good sense also warned him that the odds were still too long and that his best was likely to fall ridiculously short of what was needed out there.

If only Villari were here beside him—or better still ahead of him: he would have known what to do and how to do it. And the General would have known too—and the big Englishman would have known and so would the bastard half-Englishman, Ruelle. . . .

But only he, little useless Boselli, was here, up against the wall. God damn them all to Hell!

The blasphemy served to release him from the paralysis which had threatened to set in, but he couldn't bring himself to leave the wall altogether: he bent down and poked his head awkwardly round the corner.

The movement was so clumsy—it was as though his body was unwilling to risk obeying a self-endangering order—that he dummy2

had already started to lose his balance before he saw what lay ahead of him. And what he actually found was so unexpected that pure surprise completed the loss of coordination, twisting his left foot behind his right ankle to pitch him head first into the open.

Yet this unplanned and unorthodox appearance also possibly saved his life, though he was never conscious of any bullet's passage near him but only heard the sound of the shot as he rolled over in the dusty street. The noise was itself more than enough to keep him rolling in a confusion of knees and elbows until he fetched up flat, breathless and half-concealed behind the body of the man Villari had killed stone-dead with his own single snap-shot.

Miraculously he did not lose his pistol in the fall—rather, he held on to it so convulsively that it began to buck furiously in his hand of its own accord as he thrust it out ahead of him over the body. Where the shots went he had not the least idea; by the time he had begun to gather his wits enough to see what lay ahead the street was the usual empty expanse of brick and stone and parched summer grass, broken only by a dark clump of cypresses far down it. As he focused on the cypresses he had a vague feeling that he had maybe seen something moving against them, or in them, in the split second before he had started to fall. The feeling ran out of his brain, down his arm to the pistol: he closed one eye, aimed the short barrel at the clump and pressed the trigger.

To his dismay the first bullet struck sparks from the paving dummy2

stones ten metres ahead of him, and as the little gun jumped the second lost itself in the blue sky. Then, with one final metallic click, it went dead in his hand.

Boselli cowered down behind the body, fumbling desperately to cock the gun. Again there was a click—it came just as he realised that he was pointing it in the direction of his own foot.

He lay flat against the smooth sun-hot pavement, trying to think. But his thoughts were only a jumble of disjointed cries for help inside his mind. There was a little puddle of blood, bright red, just beyond his fingers: a large ant emerged from a hole in the crevice between the stones just beside it, halted as if bewildered at the edge of the puddle, and then set off purposefully into the shadow under the dead man's outflung arm. Beyond the arm, almost in the centre of the street, lay the long-barrelled weapon down which he had stared so recently—he saw now that the long barrel was actually the black tube of a silencer. At least, he supposed that was what it was now he was so close to it: the classic accessory of the assassin.

Another ant emerged from the hole. Like its predecessor it scurried directly to the blood, as though there was some invisible ant path in that direction, paused in exactly the same way, and then set off in the footsteps of the first ant.

Did these tiny creatures leave a spoor just like the larger wild beasts, then?

The coherence of the question roused Boselli: there ought to dummy2

be more bullets in the killer's gun and it was there almost within his reach. But even as he lifted his hand to stretch out for it he heard a tiny scraping sound behind him which turned the movement to stone instantly.

"Signore!"

The voice was almost as startled as he was, but it was not an enemy's voice. With a sigh of relief Boselli relaxed in exhaustion against the paving stones.

"Signore—are you all right?"

Boselli raised his head suddenly as he remembered the hidden marksman: his rescuer must be in plain view behind him. He turned on his elbow just as Porro bent over him.

"There's—" his own voice cracked hoarsely, "—there's someone down the street with a gun. ... By the bushes, I think

—"

The concern vanished from Porro's face immediately as his eyes followed Boselli's nod. But after he had studied the empty street for five seconds he shook his head and sank on to one knee beside Boselli.

"I think he's gone, signore. . . . There was a car just now—

somewhere beyond the trees on the upper road, beside the museum—did you not hear it?"

Boselli shook his head. He had heard nothing and Porro sounded decidedly relieved that the enemy had retreated; certainly under his tan he was almost as pale as Villari had been when—

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Villari!

"Where are you hit? Can you walk?"

"Hit—?" Boselli frowned.

"There's blood on your face," Porro spoke slowly. "Are you wounded?"

Boselli instinctively raised his right hand to search for the injury. There was a stickiness on his temple, and what might be the beginning of a bump.

"I don't know—I don't think so." He stared at his fingers: there was blood on them, but only a little. "I must have grazed myself when I—when he fired at me I threw myself down in the street. I'm not hurt."

"And you got the murdering swine!" There was grim satisfaction in Porro's voice and admiration—undoubted admiration—as his glance shifted briefly to the body and then returned to Boselli. For a moment Boselli was confused both by the tone and the look. Then he saw Porro's error and the circumstantial reasons for it.

"I didn't—" he began, embarrassed, "I didn't mean—"

Porro patted him on the shoulder reassuringly. "That's all right, signore. This is one they won't blame you for—it was him or you and no time for questions." He stood up. "I must get back to the car, signore—we can't get the other swine, but at least we can pick up the Englishman double-quick. And I can call up an ambulance for your friend."

"He's alive?"

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"Your friend's alive—he was a minute ago, anyway," said Porro heavily. "Sergeant Depretis is dead."

"Wait!" Boselli scrambled to his feet. His clothes were covered with dust and there was a tear in his trousers at the knee—his best office trousers. He brushed at himself ineffectually. Alive or dead, Villari was out of it now, and the immediate decisions were up to him.

"We'll lose 'em both, signore—if I stay here."

Boselli screwed up his brain.

"Don't pick the Englishman up. Phone General Montuori's office. Tell him what has happened—get through to the General himself, not some—some underling. Don't touch the Englishman unless he says so. That's an order."

Porro stared at him.

Boselli took a deep breath. He felt appallingly tired—drained.

With the last shred of his will he met Porro's stare.

"That's an order," he repeated.

After Porro had gone he stood in a dream, thinking of nothing. Then he stumbled the few paces to the junction of the streets. It was remarkable, he thought, how his immediate surroundings had contracted: Villari and the dead police sergeant lay only a very short distance up the alley on his left and the killer just those two or three steps behind him. Yet the distances had seemed immense only a few minutes ago.

How many minutes? Maybe it was no more than a matter of dummy2

seconds, during which time as well as distance had somehow been elongated.

The effort of thinking was beyond him. There were probably other things he should have done, or should be doing. But he knew so pathetically little about what was going on. He looked up the alley again: the place was like a battlefield with himself the sole unlikely survivor on it—and he didn't even know why he was fighting. Or who.

But he ought to do something for Villari, anyway.

It was up the General now.

He had done his best.

VIII

THE ELGIN MARBLES gallery wasn't difficult to find, which was just as well in view of the time shortage; and although it was by no means empty a merciful providence had just cleared it of chattering schoolchildren.

It seemed to Richardson that the British Museum itself hadn't changed much in fifteen years: the foyer was still jammed with the little monsters. That last and only time he had been inside the hallowed portals he had been one of the monsters himself, but unlike the present crop he had been a monster regimented and controlled into silence. The crowds through which he had just passed had obviously been just as bored as he had been (the BM probably ranked a poor third dummy2

to the Imperial War Museum and the Science Museum now, as then) but they were as belligerent as a football crowd.

"Professor Freisler."

There was no doubt about the identification, even though he had only seen the old man once before: the huge close-shaven head was unmistakable—it might have served as a model for those old Punch cartoons of square-headed Prussians stamping on the bleeding body of Gallant Little Belgium.

The head froze, and then began to revolve on its jowls until Freisler was facing him.

"Sir?" A hairy hand adjusted the spectacles. Then the little piggy eyes brightened with recognition.

"It is—it is Captain Richardson—is it not?"

"Plain 'Mister' nowadays, Professor."

" Mister Richardson—I beg your pardon!" The old man flashed a hideous steel-toothed smile. "Mr. Richardson—so!"

Richardson returned the smile.

"There was a notice on your door saying you were here. I hope I'm not disturbing you in the middle of something important?"

Freisler dismissed the notion with a wave of his hand. "There is no disturbance. The notice—it is for my students. They come to me when it suits them, and I come here when it suits me. Then they come here and we talk just as well, perhaps better."

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"You come here often, then?"

Freisler nodded. "Indeed so! To live so close to all this beauty and not live with it, I think that would be foolishness, eh?

And who knows—one day you British may decide to give it all back to the Greeks. That would be an even greater foolishness of course, but these are foolish days, I am thinking, are they not?"

The eyes bored into Richardson. Thinking—he was thinking right enough, but not about the marbles and their ultimate fate. That was merely what he was talking about while he took stock of the situation.

Richardson stared round the gallery, pretending to consider the question for a moment.

"I reckon they're safe enough for the time being, you know—

no one even wants to give the present lot in Greece the time of day." He grinned at Freisler. "Not that I'm any sort of judge of such things."

"No, of course." The old man nodded seriously. "It is not your field of interest—of business. And you have come to—see me, not the marbles, is that not so?"

"That's right, Professor."

"About your—business?"

"In a way, yes. But not officially." Richardson dropped his voice. "I need your help and I need it quickly."

"My help?" The eyes were expressionless now, as blank as dummy2

pebbles. "And in what way can I help you, Mr. Richardson?"

"You're a friend of David Audley's."

"I have that honour, yes." The tone as well as the words had a curious old-fashioned formality about them, and the guttural quality was suddenly more pronounced—the "have" had an explosive, Teutonic sound which had been hitherto absent.

"And so have I, Professor. That's why I'm here."

No reply. Prove it, Mr. Richardson, prove it.

"David's put up a big black, Professor—"

"A big black?" Freisler frowned. "A big black what? That is an idiom with which I am not familiar, no."

"Hell—a black mark. A faux pas."

"Now I am with you. An error of judgement, yes?"

"That's it. And somehow I've got to get him off the hook."

"I understand. That is to say I am able to guess your meaning, Mr. Richardson. But I beg you to stop using these unfamiliar figures of speech, or I shall not be able to help you quickly. . . . Now, what was this error he made?"

"He went abroad without telling anyone."

"That does not seem to me so very—erroneous."

"In our—business—there are rules, Professor."

"Rules?" Freisler shook his head quickly. "For a man like David Audley rules are made for other men. I would say—

yes, I would say that half his value lies in that alone. Do you not trust your friend then, eh?"

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"Damn it—it's because I trust David to hell and back that I'm here now, sticking my little neck out!" Richardson paused.

"What I mean—"

Freisler raised his hand. "No. That I do understand. To stick the neck out is a very ancient gesture of trust and submission in the animal kingdom. You have no need to explain it for me. You trust David, but there are others who do not—or they wish to make trouble for him—that I can well appreciate. He is not a man who would be popular everywhere, I would think."

"You're dead right there!"

"Of course I am right. But there is more to it than that I am thinking, eh?"

"How do you mean—more?"

"My good young man—" Freisler adjusted his glasses "—I am not in your business and I would not be if my life depended upon it—no! Only for David I have answered small questions from time to time. And on occasion I have asked questions for him in certain places back in my fatherland, where I am not yet wholly without influence-all out of friendship, you understand, and maybe a little out of gratitude for my quiet life here."

"Professor. I—"

"Please to hear me out, Mr. Richardson. I am not in your business, but I am not stupid and I have studied for fifty years the way men think and act ... causality, Mr.

dummy2

Richardson, causality!"

Richardson blinked. "You're losing me now."

"Then listen. You say David makes a big black mark, breaking a little rule that is no rule to him. And I say that I believe you—that David is in trouble. But not for the breaking of any kleinliche rule. He is in trouble because he is ripe for it

—he has been ripe for it for months, ever since he settled the Zoshchenko affair of yours."

Maybe not in the business, thought Richardson, carefully concealing his surprise, but too goddamn well-informed for comfort if he had had a finger in that pie. Indeed, if the Professor had aimed to impress him he could hardly have chosen a better name to do it with: the late comrade Zoshchenko was not buried under it, and the name he had used was not buried in the Dead Files either, but even deeper in the top secret Closed Active files of the department, like a bit of lethal radioactive waste. . . .

He thrust the memory into the back of his mind; there were more pressing matters now.

"Then you know what David's up to?" he murmured. "Thank the Lord somebody does!"

The bullethead shook in violent disagreement. "No, Mr.

Richardson—I indicated that it is no surprise to me that he is causing trouble. As to what kind of trouble, there I cannot help you."

Richardson stared at him for a moment thoughtfully. "I think dummy2

maybe you can, you know, Professor."

Freisler frowned, his eyes almost lost in the overhanging folds of skin; it was, thought Richardson, a face of absolutely outstanding ugliness, brutality even. And yet everything the man said, and the aura he threw off, contradicted his appearance: so might the Beast in the fairy tale have aged if no Beauty had ever arrived to turn him back into his true princely shape, lonely and gentle—and dangerous only when someone imputed his honour, as he had seemed to do now.

"I don't mean you're holding out on me," he said hurriedly.

"But tell me one thing first: what makes you think David's in trouble?"

The frown dissolved. "Not in trouble—I did not say that—but ready for it, Mr. Richardson. You see, I know the symptoms of his condition."

"His condition?"

"It is not infectious—do not fear!" There was the merest suggestion of a glint behind the glasses. "At least, not to such a person as yourself. It is the scholar's sickness—the good teacher's too. Are you not familiar with accidie?"

"Ace—?" Richardson goggled. "Accidie?"

"Accidie. It is the fourth cardinal sin."

"You're joking!"

"I never joke, Mr. Richardson," Freisler shook his head seriously. "It is regrettable, but I have no sense of humour.

So I do not joke and I am not joking now. So—you do not dummy2

know of accidie?"

"You can say that again."

"Again? I—Ach! Another of your little sayings! But I am being stupid. You are not an historian, as David is—or as he should have been. He knew!"

"You told him, then?"

"But of course! Friendship is for truth telling or it is nothing.

I told him of his sin and he agreed that I was right."

"So—" Richardson bottled his impatience with an effort: this was one hard lesson he had learnt these last three years, not to let the seconds stampede him when time was pressing "—

just what is this sin of his?"

Freisler beamed at him. "Sloth, Mr. Richardson. Sloth and sluggishness. It was a peculiarly monastic sin in the Middle Ages—it is I think a medieval word, accidie, and I do not know the true modern word for it in English."

"But David isn't slothful, Professor. He works like a ruddy beaver with his files and his reports. He eats 'em up by the dozen."

The old man's face fell. "No, then I have missed the right word . . . dégoût, the French would call it, perhaps. ... It is when one loses the interest in—and the desire to do—those things which one does habitually and does well. When some men do well it is for them fulfilment, but for others it is dust and ashes—and David is such a man."

"He's bored with his job, you mean?"

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"So! Except that 'bored' is too little a word."

"And when did you tell him all this?"

Freisler looked at him questioningly. "Pardon?"

"When did you tell him he'd got this—accidie?" Richardson pushed forward gently. "Was it when you had dinner down at his place?"

"Dinner?" For a moment Freisler seemed confused. "It was—

yes —it was then. . . . But you know about it?"

"Not enough. Not nearly enough. And not the right things yet

—I know you had roast beef and apple pie to follow."

The piggy eyes brightened again momentarily at the memory.

So far all Richardson knew of the crucial meal was a cook's view of it: the roast beef had been for the old German himself

—a fine big sirloin, with fiery-hot home-made horseradish sauce and Yorkshire pudding and roast potatoes and three vegetables, because it was heavy eating that he loved; and the apple pie with thick Devonshire cream was for Sir Laurie Deacon, because he had a famous sweet tooth and Mrs.

Clark's apple pies had taken prizes in shows from Steeple Horley to Guildford for twenty years; and the very Englishness of both dishes made them right for the oilman Ian Howard, just back from a year of tinned food and Arab delicacies in Saudi Arabia.

But that cook's view had not been unprofitable. For David Audley loved these apple pies as much as any man—and this one had been good enough to make Sir Laurie promise his dummy2

services free to Clarkie if she ever needed them, to the subsequent utter confusion and discomfort of the authorities.

Yet to Clarkie's chagrin David had left his pie to congeal while he listened with rapt attention to what was being said—

an event so unlooked-for that sharp-eared Clarkie was too disconcerted to eavesdrop into the actual conversation.

That had been the moment, though: something had happened between the cutting of the pie and the serving of the cheese to turn David from a taciturn sorehead into the schoolboy who kissed his wife publicly and outrageously in the middle of the kitchen and pinched Clarkie's backside as she bent over the washing-up.

Whatever it was it had been a cure for accidie, anyway.

And whatever it was Richardson was betting it had already brought one man to his death.

"Not the right things?" The Professor was staring at him now, alert. "You are meaning that I know of those right things, eh?"

"I hope so, yes." Richardson nodded. "What did you talk about over dinner?"

Freisler thought for a few seconds, then spread his hands.

"But —so many things we talked of. ... The food, the European Community—which you insist on calling the Common Market, the Industrial Relations Act—"

"What did David have to say?"

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"He did sot say much. That is, at first he did not say much—it was for that that I finally chided him."

"Go on."

"But I have told you. I spoke of his sin and he agreed. He said he was—" The wide brow crinkled with concentration "—

confined and —'cribbed' I think was the word he used. It must have a meaning other than that my students attribute to it, though."

"It does. 'Cabin'd, cribb'd and confin'd'-"

"Ach! A quotation. I see."

"From Macbeth, Act Three," murmured Richardson, gratified at the surprised lift of Freisler's eyebrows, which decided him not to add that he had once been conscripted into the play at school and knew every line of that act, in which he had featured prominently in ghastly pale green make-up as Banquo's Ghost. "I'm not just a pretty face, you know—but please go on."