War Game

Writ by mine owne hand thee fyrst daye of August, the yr of thee Lorde 1643.'

So this was Charlie Ratcliffe's ace in the hole, thought Audley. A copy of a copy of a letter from Colonel Nathaniel dummy5

Parrott to John Pym . . . unsigned and unaddressed, but that was of no great matter in the circumstances. It might be a forgery or it might not, though with the run of the Earl of Dawlish's papers and the technical expertise of the KGB's draughtsmen that might never be established. It might even be genuine.

But it would serve as wel as maibe to make his case: 2,000

pounds of Spanish-American gold had been lost, and 2,000

pounds of Spanish-American gold had been found.

He looked up at Weston. "A poor speller, but an interesting writer. Where did you find it?"

"On Henry Digby."

"And what else did you find?"

"Nothing else."

"Well then—that's all there was, I suppose."

"Don't play games with me, Audley." Weston's voice was cold, but well-controlled. He wouldn't be a man to let anger get the better of him ever. "You know who he obtained this from, I take it?"

"Professor Stephen Nayler at Cambridge, I'd guess. I told him to have a word with the Professor."

"The letter doesn't surprise you, then?"

"Not very much. I'd expect something like that to surface sooner or later. I couldn't get it out of Nayler, but I suppose Sergeant Digby had a more persuasive manner than I have."

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"So he was investigating the gold, not the murder."

"He was following my orders—" Audley lifted a finger quickly

"—which didn't take him anywhere near the Ferryhill Industrial Estate, Superintendent. He must have gone there on a private matter."

Weston stroked his chin. "You seem to have changed your tune in the last few hours."

"I can play lots of different tunes on the same instrument."

"Aye, I can believe that. But I preferred the first tune. It sounded truer to my ear."

"That could very well be. I could play it again if you made it worth my while— just so long as you don't think you can force me to, that's all. Because you can't, you know."

"You don't think so?"

"Not a chance. I may not look it, but I'm top brass, Superintendent. And not in the Home Office, either. And Henry Digby's killers are dead, too."

"But not their killers."

Audley shook his head. "I can't give you them . . . any more than I can give you James Ratcliffe's killer."

Weston pursed his lips. "What can you give me, then?"

"First we have to make our deal, Superintendent."

Weston shook his head. "I don't make deals."

"Better hear the deal before you turn it down. It won't stretch your conscience, I give you my word on that."

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"I can listen."

"Off the record—the way I listened to you beside the Swine Brook?"

"No. After Ferryhill the case is altered." Weston shook his head again.

"I can close your mouth with the Official Secrets Act, man."

"I wouldn't bet on it."

Good for Weston, Audley thought approvingly. So long as there were policemen like him there would be no police state in Britain.

He nodded. "Very well. I'll just have to trust you, won't I?"

"That's up to you."

"Of course. . . . But then, you see, after Ferryhill the case is altered for me too, Superintendent. Because Henry Digby was my man at the time. So I have a score to settle too."

Weston stared at him thoughtfully, then away across the open field beyond the bandstand towards the children's playground. Finally his eyes came back to Audley.

"Off the record, then," he said.

"Thank you." Audley paused. "I have no proof for what I'm going to tell you, and I doubt if I could get it now. But I think I'm guessing right—at last."

"I understand." Weston nodded slowly.

"James Ratcliffe was killed in June by a Russian agent—KGB

Second Directorate, Second Division, Ninth Section.

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Probably a man by the name of Tokaev, operating out of Paris at the time."

Weston's jaw tightened. "You knew this when you spoke to me last week?"

"No." Audley drew a deep breath. "I thought this was a domestic political matter—which in a sense it still is. Charlie Ratcliffe is a nasty little muck-raking revolutionary, and a lot of useful people have skeletons of one sort or another in their closets. If he became rich suddenly he'd have the resources to cause a lot of trouble—that's what I thought I was dealing with. And the trouble with me was . . . that it didn't interest me one bit."

"Why not? A job's a job, isn't it?"

"Not for me. I'm a counter-intelligence expert, not a bloody little political errand boy. Besides, I'm not at all sure that a little muck-raking isn't a good thing—if the Americans sometimes go too far we usually don't go far enough. We're a bit too damn good at sweeping secrets under the carpet . . .

I've had the brush in my hands more than once, so I should know."

"I see. So you just went through the motions, eh?"

"More or less. To be honest, I thought the Double R Society was more interesting than Ratcliffe himself. I didn't think I could prove anything against him—and I never dreamed he was hooked in with the Russians."

"But your . . . superiors knew better— yet they didn't tell dummy5

you?"

Audley shook his head. "Frankly— I just don't know. They may just have had a suspicion, with no proof, and they wanted to see what I came up with. They certainly edited Ratcliffe's file, but I thought that was to remove some of the political dirt he'd uncovered. Because I doubt whether even he dares to print everything he digs up."

"Aye, there's still a law of libel. So you didn't do anything, is that it?"

"Oh, I set about trying to cause trouble for Charlie, in case he could be stampeded —lots of thrashing about was what it amounted to, with us doing the thrashing. There was an outside chance that one of his accomplices might crack. But if no one did . . . well, you can't win 'em all."

Weston's lip curled. "Yes. . . . And Henry Digby?"

This was the bitterest part, the price of stupidity that someone else had paid.

Another deep breath. "At a guess I'd say you'll be able to establish the killers as Irishmen, and maybe as suspected members of a Provo splinter group. But that won't mean a thing."

"No?"

"The KGB has men in every guerrilla outfit. They used these two to hit Digby, and then turned them into evidence for you.

And you haven't a hope in hell of proving it. It'll be another dead end."

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The only thing Weston couldn't control was that muscle in his jaw. The lips and the eyes were steady, but the jaw betrayed him. "Why Digby? Why not you?"

"They knew about Digby. They don't know about me."

"I see. Like the old story of King David and Uriah the Hittite—

you put him in the forefront of the battle. Off the record, Audley—I hope that helps you sleep at night."

"Digby doesn't help me sleep—you're right there. But I didn't get him in the forefront of the battle, I thought I was putting him in the rear rank. I sent him to do a little gentle research into how Charlie Ratcliffe found his gold."

"And that killed him?"

"Yes, I suppose you can say that it did. I think he went to Professor Nayler, and the Professor told him how Charlie Ratcliffe had done it."

"We can check on that."

"It's perfectly innocent, what Nayler told him. But I'd guess Nayler also told Charlie about him, and that frightened him."

"Why should it do that—if it was innocent?"

"Because Digby had been investigating the murder, and now he was investigating the gold. And he was an expert on the Civil War in his own right. Nobody else had those three qualifications."

"Qualifications for what?"

"For working out that the gold wasn't the Standingham dummy5

treasure at all—that it couldn't be the real thing."

Jaw, eyes and mouth this time: Weston wasn't hiding anything.

"What d'you mean—the real thing?"

"It's horribly simple, man. You want to know why I'll always have Henry Digby on my conscience? Not because I was wicked, but because I was stupid, that's why. Because I had all the information too, that's why. I saw where Charlie Ratcliffe found the treasure. I suspected Charlie Ratcliffe of murder, even though I didn't know the KGB did the job for him. And I also know that Oliver Cromwell was one hell of a smart man—" Audley thrust the copy of the alleged copy of Nathaniel Parrott's letter to John Pym under Weston's nose.

"If he knew—and I mean knew—there was a ton of gold in Standingham he'd have found it. And I'm betting he did find it, like the experts always said."

Weston waved the letter to one side. "That's . . . theory. You don't kill men for theories like that. Never in a million years."

"Right. Exactly right." Nothing would make Henry Digby's death less than bitter. But this was the beginning of the expiation. "And that's why the gold isn't the real thing: because it was found in the wrong order."

Weston frowned. "Wrong order? What wrong order?"

"Man—he had James Ratcliffe killed before he could possibly have known the gold was there. He had to bring in a bulldozer and grub up a damn great stone monument and dummy5

two fully-grown apple trees—and even then he had to dig down fifteen feet before he reached it. So he couldn't possibly have known it was there to start with, it had to be just a theory. He couldn't have been sure."

Weston's frown deepened. "But ... he could have used one of those metal detectors. All the treasure-hunting people have them now, we've had complaints from landowners about them tramping over likely sites using the things—"

"At fifteen feet?" Audley shook his head emphatically. "No way, Superintendent. There isn't a detector made that can sniff metal at that depth, most of them don't get below the surface topsoil. Even the very latest induction-balance units—

or pulse induction ones, come to that—they can't manage more than five feet, and they're tricky to handle if there's damp around or the temperature's wrong. He'd have needed proper mining equipment, and he'd never have got through the paving round the monument without making one hell of a mess—which the old gardener would have seen. I tell you, no way."

Weston stared at him, still unwilling to commit himself.

"It had to be a theory," Audley met the stare. "And you've made the rule for that yourself: you don't kill men for theories. Not even the KGB kills men on the off chance. They don't like off-chances—they like certainties. And there was only one way they could make it a certainty: they could supply it themselves. And that's what they did."

Still Weston wouldn't speak. The psychology of a ton of raw dummy5

gold was too heavy for him. And that, thought Audley, was the measure of the KGB's shrewdness: figures with pound signs and dollar signs were mere abstractions, meaningless as the paper on which they were printed. Spend a hundred million pounds on a dying industry, or ten million on tarting up an obsolete warship, or strike as much off for a trade union squabble, and no one saw tons of gold flushed down the lavatory. But slap a single sovereign on the counter and you could catch everyone's eye: that was money.

So now it was beyond this shrewd man's understanding, that ton of gold. Spanish gold, still the rightful property of the Spanish people, stolen twice from them— and stolen before that from the poor sweating Indians who had hacked it out of the ground; Russian gold, a small price to pay for sowing subversion between the decks of America's biggest aircraft carrier, still moored unsinkably off Europe.

Charlie Ratcliffe's gold.

Weston surfaced with an effort of will. "It was planted."

"Right. First dig the hole—then add the gold. Because with one ton of gold Charlie Ratcliffe can spread tons of trouble.

And with what the Russians can feed him, plus what they can arrange for him, that's good business for them. The First Division of the Second Directorate spends ten times as much every year, with not a tenth as much chance of being believed."

"I see ... or I'm beginning to see." The measure of Weston's dummy5

intelligence was the speed with which he was adjusting himself to the new mathematics. "So—you had a deal for me."

"Yes. I don't want you following up Digby's death the way you might have done—I want them to think they've got away with it this time."

"For how long?"

"Until after the storming of Standingham Castle, no longer. If I fail . . . then you can do your best to prove what I've told you."

Weston nodded. "That seems fair enough. So I agree."

"And I shall want your help at Standingham. With no questions asked."

Weston looked at him sidelong. "I won't break the law. Not even for Henry Digby."

"I wouldn't dream of asking you to. I just need you to soften someone up for me, that's all."

"I can do that any time."

"Just this time, is all I want.

"To what end?"

"The other end of the deal, you mean?” No smile this time.

This was a matter of vengeance. "I'm going to try and give you Charlie Ratcliffe—on a plate."

"How?"

"History, Superintendent Weston. They used history against dummy5

us—now we're going to use it against them."

3

TEN minutes, Weston had said. Half a day, or maybe never, for a guilty man, but for an innocent one only ten minutes.

There was a moral in that somewhere.

Audley watched the empty road ahead and wondered what it was like to be leaned on by Superintendent Weston. Probably it would be like being leaned on by an elephant, a remorseless pressure made all the more irresistible by the certainty that resistance was in vain: either the beast would stop of its own accord or that would be the flattening end of everything.

A movement at the roadside caught his eye. Police Constable Cotton was emerging from the Police House for his evening tour, majestic in his tall helmet, his height emphasised by the cycle-clips which tapered his trousers to drainpipes. A dull ache of guilt stirred in Audley's soul as he watched the constable cycle away. Less than a week ago he had sat at this very spot with Henry Digby, and those few days had been the rest of Digby's life. But nothing would change that now, the death sentence for Digby and the life sentence for Audley; not even vengeance, if he could manage it, would reverse those verdicts.

He locked the car and strolled down towards the Steyning Arms. At the corner there was a new temporary signpost, a dummy5

handsome little poster on gold paper bearing a red hand pointing up the road and a boldly-printed legend in black: Standingham Castle

Civil War Siege 1643, 3 p.m.-5.30 p.m. 17th Century Fair, 11 a.

m.-7 p.m.

Adults 30p; children 15p Sat August 30 & Sun August 31

It wasn't the first of such signs he had noticed, there was a rash of them for miles around. Nor indeed was it the only sign of the approaching hostilities and festivities. Stacks of POLICE—NO PARKING cones were dotted in readiness round the village, balanced by cruder posters directing motorists to roped-off fields which were obviously about to yield their owners unexpected cash crops.

Even outside the Steyning Arms itself the coming siege was evident in a fresh notice:

NO VACANT ROOMS

CAR PARK RESERVED STRICTLY

FOR PATRONS AND GUESTS

ONLY

Audley pushed through the hotel entrance door and advanced towards the reception desk.

The girl sitting in the office behind the desk didn't bother to look up from her nail polishing. "We're all booked up until dummy5

Monday," she said to her left hand in a bored little pre-recorded voice.

"I don't want a room. I believe you have a Professor Stephen Nayler staying here," said Audley.

"Eh?" She stared at him as if he had made a lewd suggestion.

"What number room is Professor Stephen Nayler in?" said Audley conversationally.

"Oh . . . Number 10, up the stairs and turn left—" she answered before she realised what she was saying, then frowned at herself for being so unnecessarily helpful. It was a happy thought that next day several hundred rapacious cavaliers would be descending on her. He hoped they would behave with proper attention to historical authenticity, as they had done at Easingbridge, only more so.

The deep murmur of Weston's voice behind the door of Number 10 was stilled by his knock, but for a moment no one answered. Then another voice, high and familiar, answered.

"Come!"

The room had been a small one with no one in it. With Nayler it had grown smaller and with Weston it had become smaller still. But with the large detective sergeant who had accompanied Weston— a man with a marvellously brutal bog-Irish face which looked as if it had been carved out of soft stone and then unwisely exposed to the elements for a century or two—it must have been claustrophobic for those dummy5

ten long minutes.

And now, as Audley eased the door shut behind him, it was the Black Hole of Calcutta.

"Audley!" Surprise and relief were mingled fifty-fifty in the exclamation. And for sure the elephant was the right animal: Nayler's aura was the shape and consistency of a Shrove Tuesday pancake.

"Good evening, Professor." Audley reserved his sharpest look for Weston. "Superintendent Weston—what brings you here?"

"Sir." Weston straightened up deferentially. "We're pursuing inquiries into certain matters."

This was a new Weston, subtly altered: it was Weston playing himself on television, not as he really was, but as the viewers might imagine him.

"Well, I didn't think you were paying a social call." Role for role, Audley played back. "The 'certain matters' are Sergeant Digby, I take it."

"That's correct, Dr. Audley."

Audley pointed towards Nayler. "And just what has Professor Nayler got to do with him, may I ask?"

"That's for us to decide, if you don't mind, sir."

"But I do mind. I mind very much." It occurred to Audley that he was overplaying more than Weston was, but there was no help for it. "I'm not having you trampling around in this matter like a bull in a china shop. And I'm not having dummy5

distinguished scholars like Professor Nayler bullied like this, either."

Weston gave a half-strangled grunt, the sort of baffled noise which Jack Butler produced in moments of excessive official stupidity. The brutish sergeant's face was a picture of perplexed ferocity: nothing like this had ever happened to him.

"I'm sorry, Professor," Audley turned towards Nayler. "There seems to have been some misunderstanding somewhere down the line. These officers will be leaving now."

Nayler was having the same trouble as the sergeant in adjusting to events; for once words failed him.

"Well, sir ... we have our duty to do." Weston was retreating in good order with his face to the foe, but clearly retreating nevertheless. "I shall have to consult my superiors about this . . . Sergeant!"

The sergeant gave him an appalled look and backed unwillingly out of the door which Audley held open for him.

"You do that, Superintendent," said Audley. "And you'd better tell them they should consult the Home Office before they try this sort of tactics next time."

He closed the door on them and lent against it thankfully, watching Nayler through half-closed eyes as he did so. This was the moment when the casting of his next role would be decided: it was up to Nayler to reward his deliverer or to remember old enmities.

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"What an extraordinary bizarre episode," said Nayler to no one in particular. "I wouldn't have thought it possible."

No sign of gratitude, thought Audley. The man was quickly adjusting his self-esteem again as though nothing had happened, putting Weston's visit out of his mind as though it had been no more real than a nightmare.

"Yes. ..." Nayler wrinkled his nose and compressed his lips.

"Quite extraordinary. And now, what do you want, Audley?"

No gratitude for sure. Time had dealt too kindly with the bastard: where better men had lost their figures and their hair, Nayler's lankiness had aged into an acceptable scholarly stoop to which his thick pepper-and-salt thatch added distinction. Only that petulant mouth and the words which came out of it were unchanged.

"Well, Audley?" Nayler raised an eyebrow interrogatively. "I haven't got all night."

The hard way, then. And it was going to be a rare pleasure.

"You haven't got any time at all." Audley came away from the door. "You're in trouble, Nayler."

"What?" Nayler frowned. "What?"

"I said you're in trouble. Big trouble."

"And I don't like your tone." The lips compressed tighter.

"You are beginning to sound like those—those two thugs masquerading as policemen, Audley."

"Oh, I'm not the same as them, don't make that mistake."

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"I don't intend to, I assure you. Now— say what you came to say and get out." Nayler waved his hand in a jerky, insulting little gesture of dismissal. "I have work to do."

"Very well. I believe you spoke to Henry Digby recently."

"I spoke to the fellow—yes—if that's his name."

"It was his name. Sergeant Henry Digby. He's dead now."

"So I gather. But that's absolutely no concern of mine. I spoke to the fellow about purely academic matters."

Audley felt his blood pressure rising, heated and reheated by the repetition of fellow.

"You spoke to Sergeant Digby about Standingham and the gold." With an effort Audley kept his voice neutral. "Now . . .

could you please tell me what you told him, Professor?"

Nayler gazed at Audley for a moment, old memories flickering in his eyes. "Frankly, Audley, I don't see why I should."

"I see." Audley nodded humbly. "Professor, I explained that I wasn't the same as the police—"

"You did indeed." Nayler came in before he could continue, his confidence now fully restored. "And in consequence I can think of no reason why I should give you even the time of day."

That was just about perfect, thought Audley. If Nayler had read the script for a classic hard-soft-hard interrogation pattern he couldn't have played his part better than that.

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"No? Well here's a reason, then." Audley looked at his watch.

"If you don't answer my question in one minute from now—"

he looked up "—I will arrest you —and I have ample authority to do that— and I will take you to the nearest police station, where you will be held under the Prevention of Terrorism Act until such time as I may charge you under the Defence of the Realm Act, or alternatively with impeding the course of justice. And I will further personally ensure that you are thereafter held in custody as being a person consorting, or likely to consort, with known agents of a foreign power engaged in a conspiracy to endanger the safety and security of the realm."

The colour drained out of Nayler's face.

"Fifteen seconds to go." Audley reached inside his jacket.

"Here is my warrant card, which is issued under the joint authority of the Ministry of Defence and the Home Office."

"A foreign power?" Nayler whispered the words as though only hearing them from his own lips would make them real to him.

"Time's up. Professor Stephen Adrian Nayler, I arrest you—"

"No—this is ridiculous!" Nayler squeaked.

"That's one thing it isn't. Professor Stephen Adrian Nayler—"

"I didn't mean that!" The jerky wave was abject now, not insulting. "I mean— I didn't understand—I didn't realise this was a matter of national security, Audley."

"Why the hell did you think I got rid of the police, you fool?"

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said Audley contemptuously. "For old times' sake?"

"I ... no ... I don't know." Nayler licked his lips. There was no room left on his face for anything except fear now. "But I didn't—"

"Shut up. And sit down, Professor."

Nayler sat down as though strings holding him up had been cut.

The very completeness of his collapse steadied Audley. This was how it must be in the Lubianka when the KGB man spoke; or how it had been in Fresnes when the Gestapo ruled there—

Saditye, Professor!

Setzen Sie sich, Professor!

The comparison wasn't flattering, it was sickening—not even the thought of Henry Digby could quite take the sickness away.

"Audley—I had no idea ..." Nayler trailed off helplessly.

Audley swallowed. "You talked to Sergeant Digby about Standingham?"

"Yes." Nayler nodded.

"Did you tell anyone else about your conversation?"

"Only young Ratcliffe—" Nayler stopped abruptly as the implication of what he had said became clear to him

"Only . . . Ratcliffe," he repeated in a whisper.

"Why him?"

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"Why . . ." Nayler blinked. "Well . . . I was surprised—I was worried that someone had come so close to our hypothesis about the storming of the castle . . . as the sergeant had done." He paused. "I mean, some of these amateurs are extremely knowledgeable—and he was a member of the Double R Society. . . . But it was disquieting nevertheless."

"Disquieting? Why was it disquieting?"

"Because we didn't want our secret to be known before the re-enactment of the battle—and my television programme. That would have spoilt the whole thing, you see. There would have been no surprise then. In fact there was no real danger of it, because after I'd spoken to the sergeant he promised not to leak his ideas, but I thought Ratcliffe ought to know about it even though there was no danger any more."

"Except to the sergeant," murmured Audley.

"I beg your pardon?"

So that was how Digby had made Nayler talk, thought Audley. By accident or design he had provided himself with the right lever.

"It doesn't matter. So what was your secret, then?" And there was another painful truth: young Digby had fashioned his lever out of pure knowledge, whereas clever David Audley had required the crude blunt instrument of the State bully.

"Our hypothesis?" Nayler's voice was almost back to normal.

"Yes . . . well, how much do you know about the Standingham affair, Audley?"

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"I've read what the Reverend Horatio Musgrave wrote about it, that's all."

"Indeed? Well, that's quite a lot really. In fact you might say that most of the basic clues are there . . . like one of those children's puzzles with the faces hidden in the picture, you might say."

"I've also assumed that Ratcliffe took his gold out of the site of the old crater, from under the monument. Is that correct?"

Nayler nodded. "Absolutely correct. A sort of double bluff—

that was quite clever of you in the circumstances."

Double bluff, certainly. But not nearly clever enough, Audley thought sadly. Not clever at all.

"Yes, well, we see it—that is, Ratcliffe and I see it—as a story of treachery and murder, Audley. Treachery and murder in a good cause perhaps, but nonetheless treachery and murder . . . Colonel Nathaniel Parrott was a very ruthless man as well as a brave one. He couldn't get the gold out of Standingham, but he couldn't allow it to fall into Royalist hands—it might have changed the whole course of the war.

So it wasn't enough to hide it, he had to make sure no one survived to tell the tale."

"Meaning—he set the explosion?"

"Correct. It's possible that he and Steyning planned the explosion together, of course. But if so then Parrott contrived it prematurely, while all those who were privy to the burial were in the powder magazine, including Steyning. Or maybe dummy5

they were in the shot-casting shed, which was next door, it doesn't matter."

"I see. So that was the murder. Where does the treachery come in?"

"Ah, well you'll remember what Musgrave said—what was it?

—'Parrott took to horse and essayed to escape (and who shall cry "faint heart" or "treachery" in such an extremity?) . . .'.

Even Musgrave suspected that Parrott was just a little too ready to break out, you see. That reference to treachery is an old tradition in the story, too. And there was also the fact that the Royalist forces did seem to be ready and waiting to attack at exactly that point, where the great cannon was dismounted by the explosion."

"So they'd been tipped off in advance?"

"It does very much look like that. They'd never tried to attack from that side before."

"Because of the great cannon?"

"No, not really. Steyning was always firing it, but he never hit anything—'he vexed us not at all', one of the Royalists wrote.

No, it was because the valley bottom is marshy there, and with the field of fire in that open country they wouldn't have had a chance of getting across the marshy ground without taking unacceptable losses. But in the confusion after the explosion—and with Parrott trying to break out on the other side—well, with the preparations they'd made they got across before the defenders could react." Audley nodded. "But then dummy5

Black Thomas double-crossed Parrott in turn." Nayler shrugged. "That, or perhaps the break-out went wrong and he ran into some Royalists who hadn't received the word. . . .

But either way it does give the story a nice ironic twist at the end."

"It certainly does. And Sergeant Digby had worked all this out?"

"Most of it. He is ... that is to say, he was ... a rather shrewd young fellow— for a policeman. But he was really more interested in the gold, I must admit. He wanted to know exactly how Ratcliffe had found it, he was very insistent on my telling him that."

"So you told him?"

Nayler sighed. "Well, in the circumstances I thought it prudent to do so. That was the other half of our secret, of course.

"And what did you tell him?"

Nayler blinked and didn't answer directly. "Well . . . yes, well that began when Ratcliffe came to see me first."

"When was that?"

"Oh—" Nayler lifted his hand vaguely "—some time ago."

"When?"

Nayler looked distinctly unhappy. "About a year ago, it would be."

About a year ago. Long before James Ratcliffe's death, but dummy5

after the sorting of the Earl of Dawlish's archives for the Historical Manuscripts Commission. And for a bet Professor Nayler knew both those harsh little facts, but had chosen to overlook them in his partnership with Charlie Ratcliffe.

Nor was that the only thing he had chosen to overlook, thought Audley with a sudden flash of understanding. It hadn't been simply their old mutual dislike that had closed Nayler's mouth: it had been a good old-fashioned bad conscience about more recent events.

"Of course." He nodded. "And he brought a letter with him—

a very old letter."

Whereas of late have I suceeded to thee Estate whereof mine Fathyr was seised . . .

"You know, then?" Nayler looked at him sidelong. "But of course you will have seen the sergeant's copy."

"Yes, I have. But I would have known anyway. You'd never have mixed yourself up in this just on Ratcliffe's word, there had to be proof of some kind. Was it a genuine letter?"

"It was a genuine seventeenth-century copy of a letter."

"To John Pym from John Dangerfield?"

"To John Pym, certainly. But it wasn't signed—it was obviously the author's copy.

"Didn't you want to know where Ratcliffe obtained it?"

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Nayler's face screwed up with embarrassment. "He said he'd been given it. But he made me promise to keep that a secret until he was ready to reveal it."

There was no point in picking that sore at the moment.

Nayler knew well enough how ugly it looked.

"So you knew the gold was there, then?"

Nayler stared fixedly at the carpet. "No, Audley, to be honest

—I didn't."

"You—didn't?"

Nayler looked up. "I believed it had been there. I didn't believe it was there until Ratcliffe actually found it." He sighed. "Oh, I worked out with Ratcliffe where it might have been, and how it might have got there. But I never believed it was there until he found it."

"Why not?"

"Because I thought Cromwell had found it in '53, that's why.

It takes money to make a revolution, and he needed money to make his. Not to mention making war with everyone in sight. ... He needed money—and he went to Standingham for it. 'He made great excavation in that place', that's what the record says. So I told Ratcliffe the odds were a hundred to one against him, letter or no letter. And I was wrong."

Audley shook his head. "I've got news for you, Professor. You weren't wrong."

Nayler stared at him, humility melting into surprise, surprise yielding to horror. "Oh, my God!" he said. "Oh—my— God."

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This wasn't the face of the Gestapo victim, thought Audley; this was the proud man who saw himself a laughing-stock among his peers, and that made them both brothers under the skin.

He grinned at Nayler encouragingly. "You and me both, Nayler," he said. "Two high IQ's equal one big zero. Because I was wrong too."

The grin wasn't catching. "What are we going to do?" asked Nayler.

What indeed!

Audley thought of Superintendent Weston, who would do anything he was asked to do, short of breaking the laws by which he lived.

And then of Robert Davenport, who had all the resources of the CIA and would exchange most of them for getting himself and the agency off the hook.

And then of Frances Fitzgibbon and Paul Mitchell, who would do exactly what they were told, but would report back to someone what they had done.

And even of William Strode, officer commanding the Roundhead Army, who would serve the cause of law and order in the cause of social democracy and a better prospective Parliamentary seat.

And now Professor Stephen Nayler, who probably thought he had most to lose —and certainly knew more about the storming of Standingham Castle than anyone else alive, dummy5

Charlie Ratcliffe included.

And finally David Audley, who wasn't nearly as sharp as he'd thought he was—

No. Not finally David Audley.

Finally Sergeant Henry Digby, who was to be avenged.

He nodded at Professor Nayler. "I think we might manage something nasty between us," he said.

4

AUDLEY raised the perspective glass to his eye and watched Paul Mitchell guide his horse down the steep side of the earthworks which marked the line of the Old Castle across the valley.

Somebody had taught the boy to ride well, he thought enviously. But then whatever Paul Mitchell did, he did well, and whatever Jack Butler might think of the resemblance between the young bull and the old bull, Mitchell would go further up the ladder than Audley. Twenty years from now, barring wars and revolutions, he wouldn't be mere top brass, he'd be the boss-man; he had the cold heart for it.

But twenty years was twenty years away from today, and today he was a gorgeous messenger boy playing Cavaliers and Roundheads at the Double R Society's dress rehearsal of the storming of Standingham Castle, no less and no more.

Beside him on the rampart the Parliamentary banners stirred dummy5

in the breath of the early evening breeze which had forsaken them during the hottest hours of the day; and below him, beyond the ditch and the glacis, the first of the regiments of the Parliamentary battle-line began to debouch from the trees on his right.

Who would true valour see, Let him come hither—

"Not much of a marching song, but they're in good voice,"

said William Strode. "They make a brave show, think ye not?"

"Aye, Sir Matthew. I doubt not they shall give a good accounting of themselves this day," said Audley.

Away from across the valley, but still hidden and muted by the earthworks, an insistent drumming commenced—

Tarr-rumpa-tumpa- tum, tarr-rumpa-tumpa- tum, tarr-rumpa- tumpa- rumpa-tumpa- tum- tum- tum . . .

Strode smiled at him and nodded approvingly. "That's very good, Audley— you're learning. You just missed one thing, though."

Mitchell urged his horse into the marshy bottom of the valley, where the Willow Stream meandered sluggishly between barely defined banks which would have been bright with king-cups earlier in the year but which now carried little to betray its treacherous swampiness. It had come as a shock to the advance party that the openness of this approach to dummy5

the Royalist stronghold was an illusion; they had found out the hard way why every attack but the last one had been delivered up the other side of the defences. And they had laboured mightily all the afternoon to lay corduroys of brushwood to give the assault columns access to the firm ground of the rampart ridge; as no doubt Black Thomas Monson's engineers had once had to do themselves. . . .

The horse plunged and high-stepped frantically for a minute or two in the ooze, sending Mitchell lurching from one side of the saddle to the other. But he held his seat admirably and with a final effort the animal heaved itself out to the boos and yells of the Parliamentary infantry, who had obviously been hoping for an early Royalist setback.

"What did I miss?" inquired Audley.

The drums sounded a final elaborate tattoo and then settled down to a steady marching beat—

Tum, tum, tum-tum-tum.

Tum, tum, tum-tum- tum—

Up on the skyline of the old earthwork, as though growing out of the ground, came the battle-flags of the enemy.

"You left out God," said Strode. "'By God's grace' you should have added."

The breeze caught the flags, opening them gaily above the long lines of men who rose out of the earth beneath them: musketeers, pikemen, officers with drawn swords . . . bright sashes and scarves and the sunflash of polished steel helmet dummy5

and breast-plate. The opposing hillside was transformed from the parched green of a hot August to a blaze of colour.

Tum, tum, tum-tum- tum—

"Of course," said Audley. "'When I saw the enemy march in gallant order towards us, and we a company of poor ignorant men, I could not forbear but to cry out to God in praise for the assurance of victory, because God would, by those things that are not, bring to naught those things that are'—will that do?"

Strode laughed. "Bravo! Cromwell at Naseby—almost word for word. You have an excellent memory, Audley."

"Yes. Except that Cromwell's 'poor ignorant men'

outnumbered the Royalists two to one, I seem to remember."

"Very true. Whereas we're due for a licking today—or tomorrow, to be exact," admitted Strode. "But it's a splendid showing, you must admit that. We've already got a turn-out of nearly seven hundred—and that's not counting the Angels and the Royalist camp-followers. And there'll be more by later this evening when the muster's complete, so I think we'll give everyone something to remember Standingham by

—wouldn't you say?"

Mitchell had wheeled his horse at the foot of the ridge and had trotted to the extreme right of the Parliamentary line.

Now he wheeled again and galloped the whole length of it insolently, to a barrage of boos and catcalls, until he was level with the corner bastion on which the Parliamentary standard dummy5

flew.

"Yes, I think we might at that," agreed Audley.

With a flourish Mitchell produced a large white handkerchief above his head.

"Parley! Parley" he shouted.

Strode leaned over the top of the bastion to call to a mounted Roundhead—the same trooper, thought Audley, who had advanced across the bridge at Easingbridge.

"Galloper!" Strode's voice was properly military now. "I pray you approach that gentleman and bid him advance under truce, according to the customs and usages of war."

The galloper saluted and spurred forward, up the worn side of the counterscarp and down the glacis towards Mitchell.

Strode turned to the officer on his left, who was busy checking the typed scenario against a very twentieth-century stopwatch.

"How's the timing going, Johnny?" he asked.

"Four and a half minutes extra, crossing the stream. We shall have to allow for that —and it'll take their footmen longer too."

"Very good." Strode stared down at the two horsemen now approaching.

"Gentlemen . . . hats and helmets on, please. This is a full-dress rehearsal, remember."

Discipline was as tight in the Double R Society as dummy5

Superintendent Weston could have wished, thought Audley bitterly as he adjusted the uncomfortable lobster-tailed helmet. Nobody had demurred when Strode had ordered full costume for the afternoon. The general was the general, and that was that; his officers made suggestions, but once an order was given it was obeyed to the letter.

In fact he had already made the interesting discovery that a heavy leather buff-coat, with or without breast-plate, wasn't quite as bad as he'd expected: once a man started to sweat in it (which was within two minutes of putting it on) it trapped the sweat and delayed the dehydration a thin shirt would have accelerated. So even though the salt tablets which the Angels of Mercy had brought round were necessary, the discomfort was endurable.

But the lobster-tailed helmet was purgatory, especially since the hinged face-bars (which refused to stay up in the raised position) made him feel as though he was looking out at the world through the bars of a prison window. Paul Mitchell could just as correctly have provided him with a black wide-brimmed hat like the one Strode was wearing—it was more than likely that Mitchell had deliberately chosen the helmet, therefore. But all he could do was thank heaven that it was the half-armoured Civil War and not the fully-armoured Wars of the Roses which had taken this generation's fancy.

The horsemen checked on the lip of the counterscarp, almost at the same height as the bastion. Mitchell quietened his horse with a caress and swept off his plumed hat.

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"Sirs—I give you good day," he called across the ditch.

Sir Edmund Steyning's hat remained on his head.

"Sir—say thou what thou camest to say. And then get you gone to the place whence you are come," he called back in a loud, harsh voice obviously designed to carry to the battle-line.

"Sir—I will." Mitchell raised his voice to match Steyning's.

The drumming on the hillside had stopped and the murmur of conversation among the Roundheads hushed. Even the wind seemed to have caught the sense of occasion, dying down so that the flags dropped on their poles.

"I am sent—" the voice rose to a shout "—to summon you ...

to deliver into the hands of the Lord General appointed by his Gracious Majesty . . . the House wherein you are, and your ammunition, with all things else therein . . . together with your persons, to be disposed of as the Lord General shall appoint . . . the same to receive fair quarter, save only those officers of quality who shall surrender to mercy. . . .

Which, if you refuse to do, you are to expect the utmost extremity of war."

The twentieth-century had slipped away unnoticed, dying with the breeze. On this very ground the English had killed the English, and if that had been the original summons then killing had been the intention, for "surrender to mercy" was only a hair's breadth away from "no quarter".

Audley felt the sweat cold inside his buff-coat. This was what dummy5

Civil War meant; brother against brother, neighbour against neighbour, north against south, you against me.

Steyning took a pace forward, to the edge of the crumbling parapet, and pointed at the horseman. "Thy master hath shown himself to be—truly—the Beast of the Abomination . . .

and thou art but the serpent's tongue that spits the venom."

He paused. "I for my part shall abide by the Lord God, by true religion and by the just cause of Parliament unto my life's end."

The horseman turned in a full circle, sweeping his hat to cover the Parliamentary line.

"Then these men shall perish by thy means—as thou art prodigal of thy blood, so thou art prodigal of theirs. For God shall give you all into our hands, and we will not spare a man of you when we put you to the storm."

Steyning lent forward. "Then shall men say—'Your storm—

your shame; our fall —our fame'. Depart, thou accursed!"

The horseman waved his plumed hat, jerked at his bridle and galloped back down the slope, the hooves throwing up gobbets of earth. As he passed between two of the Parliamentary regiments he let out a wild shrill cry—an obscene mixture of triumph and glee and menace.

Christ! thought Audley, shocked out of his trance: he had heard the famous Confederate yell in a peaceful English valley. But maybe it was no anachronism at that, for Prince Rupert's cavaliers and Jeb Stuart's cavalry had ridden the dummy5

same path down history into legend.

"I hope the young bugger falls arse over tip," said one of Strode's officers vehemently. "He wasn't fooling then."

Audley watched Mitchell struggle through the mud, praying for that very disaster. But the man and the horse had both required only the one lesson.

"Quicker that time," said the stopwatch man, clicking the button with his thumb and noting the time on his scenario.

"But I'll allow four extra minutes to be on the safe side."

A stocky young man in a loose white shirt, a curious tasselled forage cap on his head, appeared on the edge of the counterscarp where Mitchell had been. He swept off the cap and bowed to Strode.

"Sir. The ordnance awaits your pleasure," he said.

"Another five minutes," murmured the stop-watch man.

"Their guns aren't in position yet."

Strode nodded. "Patiently, Master Rodgers. Do thou await our signal." He smiled again at Audley. "Billy Rodgers always likes to get off the first shot against the Malignants," he confided.

"We go down to the field now," prompted the stop-watch man.

"Gentlemen—" Strode gestured to the left and the right "—in God's name let us look to the ordering of the battle."

Audley lifted the lace at his wrist to check his illegal wristwatch. It was time at last for him to look to the ordering dummy5

of his own battle too.

He touched Strode's arm. "Mr. Strode, I must speak to Charles Ratcliffe now—at once."

Strode ran his eye along the battle line. "He's down there on the right with his regiment, Dr. Audley."

"But I must speak to him up here, alone." Audley pointed along the ramparts towards the Great Bastion. "There, say—

on the redoubt by the big gun."

Strode frowned. "The bastion's off limits, Audley."

"I know. That means we won't be disturbed. It's vitally important I speak to him."

Strode looked from Audley to the battle line, then to the roped-off area of the redoubt, and finally back to Audley again. "Oh—very well, Audley. You've called your dogs off, so I owe you the other side of the bargain, I suppose. . . .

Galloper!"

The Roundhead horseman, who had remained on the counter-scarp in readiness for further orders, raised his hand in salute. "Sir!"

Strode pointed towards the right of the line. "I pray you, carry my compliments to Colonel Ratcliffe together with this strict order: I charge him to repair with the utmost despatch on this instant to the Great Bastion, there to receive of one of my officers further intelligence concerning my will and pleasure."

"Sir!" The galloper wheeled away down the slope.

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Strode turned back to Audley. "But don't keep him too long.

He's in command of the right wing, and although we're not actually fighting today I do want him down there to see that angry brigade of his obeys orders—they're a damned quarrelsome lot."

Audley saluted. "I shalln't keep him long, sir. And then, by your leave, I shall strictly attend your grace once more upon the field of battle."

There was a puff of smoke and a bang from the ridge opposite. The first of the Royalist guns had been brought into action ahead of the scenario's schedule.

Audley put his telescope to his eye and focused on the Roundhead guns just in time to see Billy Rodgers shaking his fist first at the enemy, and then at his own general.

Tum, tum, tum-tum-tum—

The Royalist musketeers were advancing towards the stream, pacing themselves with their musket rests, their ammunition bandoliers dancing. Now the whole elaborate ritual of the seventeenth-century fire-fight was about to begin, with the rival sergeants intoning the long sequence of orders—"Blow off your coal", "Cock your match", "Guard, blow and open your pan" and so on—which preceded each volley, and which according to Strode was an enormous favourite with the watching crowds.

Now too there was movement in the Roundhead ranks as dummy5

their musketeers detached themselves to the sound of drum-and-fife—

Tumpty-tum, tumpty-tum, tumpty- tum—

Charlie Ratcliffe was coming up the hillside, from the right.

Audley swept the telescope to the far left, where the militia regiments were lined up in the shadow of the trees, next to the guard ropes which would keep the spectators off the battlefield tomorrow.

Superintendent Weston was watching him like a hawk.

He snapped the telescope shut and started along the rampart towards the Great Bastion. He could just make out the top of the red powder-tent in the crater behind it.

Red for danger.

Tum, tum, tum-tum- tum—

Charlie Ratcliffe was there ahead of him, scrambling up the half-ruined rampart wall with the agility of a monkey and ducking under the restraining rope.

DANGER!

Authorised persons only may proceed beyond this point Under the broad-brimmed black hat the face was shadowy, but as Audley approached him he lifted it off and shook his fair hair free in the fitful breeze.

Fair hair, blue eyes, high colour—the English subaltern face par excellence, like a million others which stared out of dummy5

group photographs on the walls of school studies and regimental messes, betraying nothing except self-confidence.

"What's all this then?"

"Master Ratcliffe? Master Charles Neville Steyning-Ratcliffe?

Or should I say Colonel Ratcliffe?"

"Who are you?"

"Colonel Hog, you might call me, if I'm to call you Colonel Ratcliffe." Audley felt a trickle of perspiration run down the side of his face inside his cheek-guard. "Hog would be your seventeenth-century name for me."

"Hog?" The blue eyes were bright with intelligence, but just a shade too close together. "I see! 'Hog' in the seventeenth century, so presumably 'Pig' in the twentieth—is that it?"

"Very good! I can see we're going to understand each other very nicely. But I'm a special breed of Pig, just as you are an unusual variety of Rat. And we do have one or two very important things in common which should help us to understand each other."

"You don't say?" A good education had taught Charlie Ratcliffe the art of being insolent without trying. "Such as what?"

"Gold, for one thing."

Charlie Ratcliffe cocked his head on one side. "Do we have that in common? Well, that's news to me. I didn't think it was gold that pigs wallowed in, you know."

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A sudden ragged volley of musketry burst out below them in the valley.

"Ah! Now the battle's starting," murmured Audley, looking at his watch. "And not more than five minutes behind schedule, too. . . . Yes, gold is one thing —see those fellows down there?" He took a casual step sideways and caught Ratcliffe's left arm in a tight grip just above the elbow. "I think it would be as well if we pretended to watch them."

Ratcliffe tried to move his arm, wincing as the grip bit.

"You're hurting my arm," he said in a surprised voice.

"Yes, I know I am. But the pain will help to concentrate your mind on what I'm saying—please don't struggle, you'll only hurt yourself more."

Charlie Ratcliffe graduated quickly from surprise to incredulity. "You're a fucking madman— ouch! ''

"No I'm not. But I am very strong, and if you don't relax and listen I'll cripple you." Audley pointed with the telescope in his free hand. "Now—see those pikemen with the blue flag?

They make a brave show, don't they?" He increased the pressure. "Don't they?"

"Yes—bloody hell!—yes."

"Good. First gold, as I was saying. Then treason. Then murder. And then gold again. That's what we've got in common, Charlie lad."

"You're crazy."

"Next time you say that I'm going to hurt you a lot, Charlie.

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So just look to the front and listen. What I have to say is very much in your interest, I promise you that."

Charlie gritted his teeth. "You have to be joking."

"Joking is the very last thing I'm doing. I don't like you, lad—

but I need your help. And you need mine—look to the front!"

Charlie made the start of a sound and the first twitch of a movement, and then thought better of both. It was beginning to occur to him that if this was madness he was dealing with there might be method in it.

"Your gold first. I know all about it, from A to Z. I know where it came from, and how it was planted—understand?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Madrid - Cartagena - Tunis - Odessa -Moscow. . . .

Standingham."

Ratcliffe still managed to register a proper mystification, but he couldn't control the muscles in his arm.

"I know how you set up Nayler, and I know about the Dawlish letter. And about the Paris meeting, and the other little side-trips—I know about them."

The muscles were like whipcord now, tensed under his hand so that he had to tighten his grip to hold them.

"And I know about Swine Brook Field —that was my old friend Tokaev I presume—and about the Ferryhill Industrial Estate . . . which was a very much better organised operation

—the police haven't tumbled to it, I can tell you that. And you did me a good turn there too, getting rid of that nosey Special dummy5

Branch man—I'm grateful for that."

The musketeers' fire-fight was reaching it's climax, with the dead being carried away behind the clumps of pikemen to recover surreptitiously and rejoin their regiments as reinforcements. Death in the early stages of a Double R

Society battle was clearly a tidy and economical business.

"But I'm not going to bore you with what you already know, lad. Your treason doesn't interest me any more—nor the murders you've ordered either. It's my treason that interests me now—and the next killing. And my gold."

Charlie Ratcliffe grunted derisively. "So it's your gold now, is it?" He shook his head.

"My gold—yes."

"Oh, no ... I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about with your treason and your killing, and all that—

hogwash. . . . But when it comes to gold at least I can begin to understand you. And the answer is—go take a running jump at yourself, fuzz."

"You haven't heard the deal yet."

"I don't need to." Charlie's confidence was reasserting itself, despite the arm-grip. "I should have expected greedy fuzz —

or whatever you are. Just because you've got a good imagination you think you can make things awkward for me, so I have to buy you off—is that it?"

"I've got a lot more than a good imagination."

"No way." Charlie shook his head. "Your bunch would like to dummy5

smear me, I know that. But it takes proof to do that, and proof is what you haven't got. And the same goes for blackmail on the side— I'll enjoy giving you a paragraph or two all to yourself in my next issue, Colonel Hog. Not that it'll surprise anyone— crooked fuzz working for a crooked establishment."

"You think I'm bluffing?"

"I think I'd like you to let go of my bloody arm—you're hurting me almost as much as you're boring me."

Audley held the pressure steady. "That's because you don't listen, Charlie lad. That's one trouble with you—you talk, but you don't listen. And another trouble is ... you're not nearly as clever as you think you are."

"I have trouble figuring out how pigs think—if they do—

ouch!"

"That's enough now. Just listen . . . I have a deal for you and I have proof for you—and the proof is in the deal. Listen!"

His urgency transmitted itself at last. Charlie Ratcliffe stared fixedly into the valley, where the Roundhead musketeers were beginning to withdraw slowly towards their battle line.

On the Royalist side, under the cover of their own guns, pioneers were carrying bundles of brushwood towards the marshy ground. The next phase of the battle was beginning.

"I don't want your Russian gold, Charlie—you can do whatever mischief you like with it, I don't give a damn.

Because you did your seventeenth-century research just a bit dummy5

too well, but not well enough, that's why—and I did it better."

Charlie moved uncontrollably, twisting against the pressure.

"What the hell d'you mean by that?"

"I mean, lad—you can keep the Russian gold. And I'll keep the Spanish gold." Audley released the arm abruptly as he spoke.

Charlie stared at him.

And stared.

Audley nodded slowly, letting himself smile at last. "That's right . . . I've found it." He paused to let the words sink in.

"You see, Charlie, you worked it out—you and Professor Nayler worked it out between you." He paused again. "But the difference between us was that when you'd worked it out you didn't have to look for it, you just had to work out why it was where you intended to put it ... which you did remarkably well. In fact you had me convinced it was the real thing.

"So when I ... found out where your gold really came from I couldn't resist going back over your evidence again—to see if there was a hole in it somewhere—a weakness. And of course there was."

Charlie Ratcliffe frowned, and the frown seemed to loosen his tongue at last.

"A weakness—?"

"Oh yes . . . Nayler saw it too, only the gold blinded him to it—

quite understandably. But that isn't the point. The point is—I dummy5

came up with a different answer. The right answer."

Charlie's tongue had stuck once more: his lips moved, but no word escaped before they closed again.

"That's why I don't want your gold, Charlie. Because—you could say—I've already got your gold." Audley showed his teeth between the smile. "Which is really quite amusing, because there isn't a thing you can do about it. I mean . . .

you can't find the same treasure twice, can you? That's something neither of us can afford now—too much gold would be as bad as none at all."

He turned away from Charlie, focusing the little telescope on the battle lines beneath them. With the help of the brushwood which had been trodden into the ooze earlier in the day the Royalist pioneers were making good progress with their causeway. Another five minutes, or ten at the outside, and the assault troops would be able to move.

"And that's where you come in, lad," he continued, casually running his eye along the Roundhead line. There was Robert Donaldson, Bible in hand, praying on his knees to the Lord of Hosts just behind the Roundhead guns; and there was little Frances among the band of Angels in the shadow of the trees on his left, watching him; and there, staring at him through his binoculars from his post just inside the wood, was Superintendent Weston.

"You see, we've each got our gold, but if we don't do something about it we're each going to lose it, I suspect."

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"Why?" Charlie Ratcliffe's voice was thicker than it had been.

"Why?" Audley's eye ran back along the battlefield. The man had to be there somewhere, but he could no longer afford to wait for him. "See there—behind your cannon —like a black crow."

"Why?"

"I'm trying to tell you. See that man in black down there?"

Charlie Ratcliffe glanced quickly towards the Roundhead guns, then back at Audley. "Bob Davenport, you mean?"

"Right—and wrong." Audley lowered the telescope, reaching under his buff-coat for his trouser pocket with his free hand.

"Name of Donaldson. Operates out of the CIA's station in the Hague normally, but working with our people at the moment.” He offered the telescope to Ratcliffe. "He's been watching you for months."

Charlie raised the telescope to his eye.

"And watching both of us today, but me particularly,"

continued Audley. "Agent Donaldson is just beginning to have his doubts about me, I rather think. ... So please don't stare at him too hard."

Charlie lowered the telescope.

"One American passport, in the name of Donaldson." Audley passed the green book over for Charlie's inspection. "Lifted by me out of his flat yesterday afternoon. Check the picture . . . and the dates of the Channel crossings."

Charlie flipped the pages of the passport.

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"So what?" he said harshly.

"So Agent Donaldson knows too much about you. And he suspects too much about me." Audley paused again. "And what is even worse he's on the way to suspecting too much about our gold."

"How d'you know?"

"Because I've been working with him. All he needs is one cosy talk with Professor Nayler and he'll have everything I've got . . . which talk is scheduled for this evening To be precise

—" Audley raised his lace cuff "—in exactly thirty-five minutes from now."

He took the passport from Charlie's hand. "So you see, Charlie, if our gold is to be preserved one of them has got to go. And for my money it's got to be Agent Donaldson. So you're going to kill him for me."

Charlie's mouth opened, but Audley forestalled him. "Oh, not you personally, lad. You must get one of those nursemaids of yours to do the dirty work for you— Oates or Bishop, I don't mind which. There's not the slightest risk involved, because I've pulled all our people off the three of you, as you may already have noticed. ... All they have to do is to follow my instructions and it won't take a second—I set it all up for them last night."

The distinctive beat of the Royalist drums broke out again on the far hillside, but this time more fiercely—

Tum, tum, tum-tum-tum—

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"Set up what?"

"A shocking accident." Audley nodded towards the red tent.

"The Double R Society is about to have another tragedy."

"You're mad."

"No." Audley let the edge of desperation show. "If I was mad I'd risk doing it myself. It's because I'm sane that I'm determined to be in the clear. It's got to be one of your men who does it—we'll never have another chance like this. So it's now or never."

Tum, tum, tum-tum-tum—the columns of pikemen were beginning to assemble.

"Donaldson thinks he's meeting Nayler in the powder tent at half-past five exactly —when everyone's busy with the battle."

Audley nodded. "And that's exactly where I intend to be—

busy with the battle— when it happens."

"When what happens?"

"There's a First Aid box in the tent, right next to the black powder charge for tomorrow's explosion. Last night I put a fifteen-minute time pencil in the box—a grey plastic cylinder, to arm it all your man has to do is twist the head anticlockwise and press it down. He'll know, anyway—it's standard CIA issue." He smiled coldly at Charlie. "That was another thing I lifted from Donaldson's flat. ... So that's all there is to it: twist and press at 5.15, and we both keep our gold. Or do nothing—and we both keep nothing. That's the deal."

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He gave Charlie one last hard look to go with the ultimatum, and then turned away towards the parapet to examine the progress of the assault.

It was obvious at a glance why the Double R Society found it necessary to rehearse their major operations; the fire-fight had gone according to schedule, and the pioneers had wallowed in the mud to good effect, but the conversion of the lines of pikemen into columns was proving more difficult in practice than in theory. Also, with the advance of the first regiments on to the newly-laid causeways, it was becoming apparent that the width of the column was greater than the width of the causeways.

As he watched, several of the outer files were jostled into the mire, where they quickly discovered that it was one thing to negotiate eight inches of mud unencumbered, but quite another to do so in full seventeenth-century battle order carrying a twelve-foot pike. Nothing could have more effectively illustrated why their ancestors hadn't attacked on this side of the defences until they were confident that treachery would even the odds.

He took a few paces towards the side of the bastion, where the remains of an embrasure still marked the spot from which old Edmund Steyning had intended that the defenders should enfilade any Royalists who might get as far as the ditch below the curtain wall. Not even Sebastian de Vauban could have sited it better, nor could Vauban have used the ground better to shape a peaceful manor house into a dummy5

fortress. The old warrior had deserved a kinder fate than a kinsman's betrayal, no matter what the good cause.

He turned on his heel and faced Charlie, the great cannon between them now, with its flanking pyramids of weathered cannonballs.

"Time's up. Am I your partner? Or do I go back to Robert Donaldson and tell him the meeting's off?"

Charlie watched him intently, brushing nervously at a strand of fair hair which kept falling across his eyes. Audley conjured up the image of Henry Digby, and hardened his heart with the memory. "You still have a problem?"

"That would be one way of putting it." Charlie gave up trying to discipline the look. "I find you . . . intriguing, as pigs go.

But hardly believable."

"No?" Audley stepped forward and placed both hands on the cannon. Then he lent towards Charlie. "You find greed unbelievable—and you know the feel of gold? I find that even harder to believe."

Charlie shook his head. "Oh—not your greed, that I can accept. I can even understand why you're so pig-scared of your own side that you have to give yourself a perfect alibi."

"That's true—I admit it. But then I'm still risking my life for my gold. You only stand to lose your gold and spend a few years in jail."

"Your gold . . . your gold . . ." Suddenly Charlie's expression hardened "Why should I believe in your gold? Why should I dummy5

believe one single word you've said?"

"Why?" Audley drew a deep breath "Well, I'll tell you why. . . . Because your ancestor Edmund Steyning was an artillery expert by profession—a trained gunner."

"So what?"

Audley straightened up. "So he brought his biggest gun— this gun—" he slapped the cannon sharply with the palm of his hand "—and he put it in the one place where it would be absolutely useless."

Charlie frowned. "What d'you mean?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Audley pointed out across the valley towards the earth ramparts of the old castle on the far hillside. "Four hundred yards as the crow flies—that would be point-blank range for this gun. Even the smallest field-pieces could carry far further than that. ... So it's wasted here

—there wasn't anything to fire at anyway: this wasn't the vulnerable side, this wasn't where the Royalist siege works were, or their batteries."

"But this was where they attacked in the end—" Charlie answered automatically, as though he didn't know why he was arguing.

"A surprise attack. So how long d'you think it takes to load and fire this gun? Five minutes—ten minutes? Man, you'd be lucky to get ten shots an hour out of a monster like this—and even if you did you wouldn't hit anything."

"Why not?"

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"Because it's too big to depress the angle of the barrel down the glacis. All he could do was fire straight ahead—" Audley pointed his finger across the valley "—and that's what Edmund Steyning did for a whole week: he fired point blank into a great bank of wet earth and vexed nobody. Except that he vexed Black Thomas Monson and Oliver Cromwell when they came to look for Nathaniel Parrott's ton of gold and found that it had vanished into thin air. And they didn't find it inside the castle defences because it wasn't inside any more

—it was outside."

Charlie Ratcliffe was staring at the old castle as though hypnotised by its grassy banks.

Audley came round the rear of the cannon and stood at his shoulder. "The night before last I took an electronic metal probe and worked all along there," he murmured. "And after an hour it started to sing like a nightingale to me. ... See that scar of earth spread in the middle there—about half-way along—like a big rabbit-hole? They're planted all around there, most of them, not more than three-foot deep, so far as I can make out ... I dug a couple out from there, anyway." He paused for a second. "Because I thought you might like to see a sample."

Charlie turned his head quickly. "A sample?"

"Call it a souvenir, if you prefer. Or even a present." Audley smiled. "I shall have enough for my modest needs, so I can spare you one—if not a present, say a down-payment?"

He lifted his sword-scabbard and jabbed hard at the topmost dummy5

cannonball on the pyramid in front of them.

The ball quivered very slightly in its concrete socket.

"Forty-pounders—or something more, seeing that this one isn't like the others," said Audley. "I rolled the original one into the ditch."

He held the scabbard in both hands and ran the metal tip of it down the dirt encrusted surface. "A very proper token from one traitor to another—in the best tradition, wouldn't you say?"

The scabbard-tip began to bite deeper into the encrustation as it travelled down the arc of the ball towards its widest circumference, until finally it dislodged a whole flake of dirt.

Under the dirt, bearing the bright new scratch of the scabbard-tip in its softness, lay pale gold.

Epilogue

A Skirmish near Westminster

SOMETIMES it was better not to know a man too well, decided Audley. For just as inevitability took all the fun out of victory, so it removed the blessing of hope out of approaching disaster.

But there it was: Sir Frederick Clinton was standing under the John Singer Sargent portrait of Rear-Admiral Sir dummy5

Reginald Hall, the greatest of all of his predecessors, with a glorious blaze of gladioli in the fireplace behind him and a welcoming smile on his lips, as he was accustomed to do before putting in the boot.

"David—good of you to drop in—sit down. . . . And how was Washington?"

Setzen Sie sich, Herr Audley!

"Too hot."

Like this office.

"Yes, you're a cold weather mortal, aren't you! Next time we'll have to find somewhere cooler for you. . . . But we've been having it quite warm here, you know, as a matter of fact."

Too many double meanings there for comfort.

"So I've gathered," said Audley.

Clinton sat down. "Well, I've been reading your reports—"

Plural.

"—the CIA one is most interesting." Clinton paused. "And the Ratcliffe one . . . that's interesting too. What you might call a satisfactory conclusion, fiscally speaking."

Obviously he was expected to fight to the end, thought Audley. He shrugged. "We were lucky."

"Ye-ess . . . I'm inclined to think you were."

Audley smiled back at him. "The Minister said I was lucky.

He'll be glad to know I'm still on form." Put that one in your dummy5

pipe, Fred, and see how it tastes. "It's a great virtue—luck."

"But not everyone would say you'd been virtuous."

"Not everyone would say I'd been given a fair chance. Little Tommy Stocker didn't exactly confide in me at the briefing."

Clinton shook his head. "Ah, now that's not quite fair. We hadn't the faintest idea Ratcliffe's gold wasn't genuine. And we had no proof of the Moscow connection either."

But a suspicion, Audley thought bitterly. And a suspicion would have made all the difference to Henry Digby.

"So this is another one we owe to the CIA, then?"

"Indirectly, you might say." Clinton had had almost enough of sparring now. "But then they did break the rules, didn't they."

"What rules?"

"Ye-ess, from you that's a good question, David." Clinton stirred the files in front of him to reveal a sheet of paper with a pencilled scrawl on it. "I've had a call from the Chief Constable of Mid-Wessex. It seems that you've annoyed one of his officers—a superintendent by the name of Weston."

Audley felt absurdly pleased. It made him feel better not to have put one over on the Superintendent too successfully.

"If I have, then I'm sorry, Fred. He's an extremely capable chap, Weston."

"He is?" Clinton raised an eyebrow. "Well, he thinks you're capable too— capable of anything. And this time he thinks dummy5

you've got away with murder."

Audley enlarged his smile. "Yes . . . well, I often do, don't I?

But I shall have to apologise to him."

"I think he means it literally. So he may not accept your apology."

"Literally? How on earth does he arrive at that conclusion?"

Clinton's smile was no longer even a memory. "Fortunately for you—not with any proof. Otherwise he would have charged you, his Chief says. But he maintains you did it, all the same, somehow or other." Clinton slid the paper back under one of the files and stared at Audley. "He'd just like to know how . . . and so would I, David."

Audley pointed. "You've got my report, Fred."

"So I have. And yet it doesn't say anything about murder in it, or not the one Weston's inquiring after." Clinton tapped the files. "And I've also received a special forensic report from the Mid-Wessex Force."

Audley nodded. "Well, you'll just have to choose the one you like the better, won't you?" he said politely. "As Weston would say, it's proof that counts."

Clinton continued to stare at him. "Oh, but they don't conflict with each other at all. Yours has more . . . shall we say—

theory in it. Plus all the information about the gold . . . But the section relating to the last fatality doesn't differ factually.

Indeed, both reports come to the same conclusion."

"So the Chief Constable's call was unofficial, then."

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"Entirely unofficial." Clinton opened the top file and turned its contents to a marked passage almost at the end. "So ... let me see now . . . what it amounts to is that you both believe that Charles Neville Steyning-Ratcliffe blew himself up while tampering with—or perhaps setting —an explosive device . . .

which according to you was probably intended as a trap for —

who was it"

"Professor Stephen Nayler."

"That's right. Because Nayler knew too much about the gold—

yes." Clinton nodded at the typed words. "And their forensic people have passed on various small objects and specimens to the Bomb Squad . . . which have been identified as parts of an American time pencil detonator—" He looked up. "—the standard CIA fifteen-minute device."

Audley nodded back. "There've been a lot of those around since Vietnam, Fred. Standard terrorist equipment now as well, they are."

"Quite so, David. And of course it was the same type as the one found on the Ferryhill Industrial Estate—which really clinches it, doesn't it?" Clinton paused. "But in any case you were in plain view, playing Cavaliers and Roundheads, for a good half an hour before the explosion. You never even went near the so-called 'Powder Tent'—as the Superintendent himself is the first to testify."

"Mrs. Fitzgibbon will, too."

"I've no doubt she will. So you emerge without a stain on dummy5

your character. . . . Which is just as well, because the Minister will want to see these files, and he would take an extremely dim view of our conniving at an assassination."

"So he made very clear to me, Fred. He just wanted me to make things happen."

"And you did, didn't you?" Clinton shut the file and sat back.

"But you had quite a long conversation with Ratcliffe earlier.

What exactly did you talk about?"

"It's in my report."

"Yes. You say you pushed him a bit with what you'd found out about him. But he must have known you couldn't prove anything?"

"I suggested to him that with Nayler's help we could probably prove quite a lot. I'm a good liar."

"I certainly wouldn't quarrel with that claim." Clinton put his hands on the edge of his desk and considered Audley in silence for a few moments. "So he decided to remove Nayler from the scene—that's what it amounts to, does it?"

"Obviously he intended to remove somebody. Nayler's the best bet."

"Ye-ess. . . . But don't you think it a bit odd that he should have tried to do it himself? He usually let the professionals make his hit for him."

Audley shrugged. "Maybe he didn't have time. Or maybe they just weren't available when he needed them." He looked inquiringly at Clinton. "Did he look for anyone?"

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"Apparently not. He went back to his regiment after you'd talked to him, and then he ducked out again just before the explosion—they didn't miss him at the time." Clinton paused.

"Funny though ..."

"What?"

"Two of the people you suspected might have a hand in things

—the men Gates and Bishop—they had a road accident just before the battle, on their way to Standingham. They ran into an American Air Force lorry—did you know that?"

"No." Audley shook his head. "Nothing serious I hope?"

"Concussion and fractures. And it was their fault, it seems.

You didn't know about that?"

"Why should I? We never proved anything against them—or Colonel Butler didn't. And if Ratcliffe didn't look for them ..."

Audley spread his hands. "We'd pulled our people off them the day before, anyway. All except Frances—I told her to keep her eyes open for Gates and Bishop. And Paul Mitchell kept a sharp eye on Davenport all the time."

"I know. ... So what it amounts to finally is that Charlie Ratcliffe tried to do something for himself for once, and made a balls-up of it."

"It looks that way," Audley agreed. "He should have stuck to revolutionary journalism. It's safer."

"Very well." Clinton leant forward and extracted the piece of paper from under the file again, tore it in two and dropped it into his wastepaper basket. "I accept your report."

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"Thank you, Fred."

Now for it.

"And now, David, let's stop chasing around and get down to the real facts. Weston's a damn good copper, his chief says—

and I'm an old copper of a sort too. . . . And you, as you have already admitted, are a liar."

"So what does that mean?"

Clinton pointed a finger. "It means that you came to some sort of arrangement with the CIA—with that young man you so promptly allowed to get away afterwards, Davenport or Donaldson, or whatever his name was. Which I don't like at all, but which I just might be ready to forgive, in the circumstances."

"You would?"

"I might." Clinton's voice was suddenly cold. "But killing is another matter, David. If you're getting a taste for that as a quick way out of your difficulties then I have to know about it. Because you're no use to me like that."

"You really think I killed him, Fred?"

Clinton stared at him. "Weston said you were after blood—he says he recognises that now."

"I see." Audley nodded back slowly. That was fair enough on Clinton's part, because killing was as much an acquired taste as duelling, and there was only one way a successful duellist could reassure himself that he was still on the top line.

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"The truth now, David."

What was the truth?

"All right. I didn't kill him, Fred. He killed himself."

"But you knew he'd kill himself?"

"I hoped he would. And I did my best to ensure he did."

"Then where's the difference?"

"The difference ... the difference is that it was up to him. If he was willing to kill—then he died. If he wasn't— then he was home and dry. It was his choice."

"That's pretty shaky morality, David."

"Okay. So next time a terrorist blows himself up on his own bomb you weep your crocodile tears and I'll stick to my shaky morality, Fred." Audley made as if to get up. "Is that all, then?"

Clinton waved his hand irritably. "Sit down, man, sit down—

if there was a fault it was mine, in letting you loose."

Audley sat down.

"How did he blow himself up?" asked Clinton.

Audley smiled. "With what they call a 'Judas'."

"Who call?"

"The CIA. When they lost all those fifteen-minute sabotage pencils in Vietnam they were pretty pissed off. And then one of their dirty tricks specialists thought of a simple way of getting even. They withdrew all the existing stocks and doctored 'em for instantaneous detonation, then they dummy5

shipped them out to Vietnam again on the quiet to add to the other stocks. Which is why there have been so many terrorist accidents of late, I should guess."

"And you . . . acquired one from your friend Davenport?"

"Could be."

"But—you picked up that information in Washington?"

Clinton's tone was hostile suddenly.

"I picked up a lot of information in Washington."

"And didn't report it?"

"I put in a separate technical report to the Equipment Section." Audley paused. "Yesterday."

They were now at the exact point of balance, he judged. It must be clear to Clinton that however improperly he had acted, nobody was in any position to prove otherwise, no matter what they might suspect. And if there was one thing that Clinton loved—although he would never have admitted it

—it was low cunning.

All he had to do to keep his job was to throw a few more words into the balance.

And then, to his surprise, he realised that it wasn't the choice of words which mattered to him, but whether he wanted to say them. Faith wouldn't mind if he didn't, she would be glad. But there was still Sergeant Digby's opinion to be consulted.

The sad truth was that he could no longer recall Sergeant Digby's features with absolute clarity, only the colour and dummy5

texture of the boy's threadbare dressing-gown. He remembered thinking that he had once had a dressing-gown exactly like that, which had been threadbare in exactly the same places. You probably couldn't buy dressing-gowns like that any more, not of that durable quality. He should never have let Faith get rid of it—

"Tell me one thing, David—" Clinton was staring at him with unconcealed curiosity. "Tell me one thing—"

I've missed my opportunity, thought Audley. Now he thinks I don't give a damn either way!

"—as between friends—" Clinton's eyes were no longer angry.

It was too late. The balance had tipped of its own accord.

"—how the devil did you con a smart fellow like Charlie Ratcliffe into doing a damn silly thing like that?"

When he'd finished Clinton sat silent for a few moments.

"A golden cannonball! God bless my soul!" His eyes narrowed. "A solid gold cannonball?"

"No, not solid gold. Just a thick coating of gold on lead—like a big toffee-apple, really."

"I see. But even that would have taken quite a lot of gold."

"It did."

"Not from the CIA, I trust."

"No. I have a ... friend who has a tame goldsmith."

"Matthew Fattorini?"

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Audley ignored the question.

Clinton frowned suddenly. "But is it possible? I mean, is it ballistically possible? Wouldn't the gold have distorted in the barrel—and have blown the whole thing to kingdom come?"

He paused, no longer really looking at Audley. "Though ... I suppose they did use lead bullets in muskets—even in rifled muskets . . . and if the muzzle velocity was very low—

The eyes came back to Audley. "Is it possible?"

Well, well! thought Audley. Even Fred Clinton.

"Nobody knows." He shrugged. "Because nobody's ever tried.

It would take a metallurgist who's been a gunner to tell you off the cuff, and even he wouldn't know for sure. Charlie Ratcliffe was only a sociologist."

"But you didn't actually check—with a metal detector?"

Clinton looked at him, his eyes narrowed again. "You just dug a hole at random?"

Audley stifled the rising temptation to laugh. "It isn't there, Fred. Cromwell got it."

"We shall have to look all the same." Clinton shook his head as though to clear it. "But he believed you, anyway."

"I wouldn't go so far as to say that. I'd guess he saw the possibilities, though."

"The possibilities?"

"Oh yes. ... He saw that if I betrayed my own side—and the CIA as well—then I wouldn't have a friend in the world. And dummy5

that would change me from a greedy pig into a sitting duck—

for him and his friends. And the fact that I'd not asked him to do the job himself reassured him that he wasn't in danger."

"Except you'd made sure they wouldn't be there—Gates and Bishop—so he couldn't ask them to do it." Clinton frowned.

"But he didn't try to ask them, did he? He didn't even look for them?"

"No. But taking them out of circulation was really just. . .

insurance. I was relying on his doing it himself."

"How could you rely on that?"

Audley looked at him for a moment, then down at the files on the desk. " 'Information received', I suppose you might say."

"Information from whom?" Clinton was clearly puzzled.

"Oh, it's not in the record, Fred." Audley shook his head slowly. "It wasn't the sort of information that goes in records.

It was much too subjective for that."

"But good all the same—obviously."

"But good . . . yes." Audley nodded. "You see, I talked to this—

well, I guess you could call him an expert on human greed. . . . And he said that the possession of gold does things to people. He made it sound like a contagious disease."

"Contagious?"

"Infectious too—you showed a symptom or two yourself just now. But the contagious variety is the worst, and Charlie had got that badly. Because he'd handled the stuff. . . he'd felt the weight of it, and seen the beautiful colour of it. Which was dummy5

why it didn't surprise him one bit that I was prepared to kill and betray for it—he recognised his own symptoms subconsciously."

"And twice the gold made him twice as greedy, you mean?"

"Maybe. But I don't think he would have seen it like that at all. Because what the Russians had given him was their gold.

What I'd got—what I might be taking from his land right under his nose—that was his gold. And he couldn't bear the thought of it, it was worth almost any risk to stop that—and he couldn't bear the possibility that Gates or Bishop might say 'no' to the risk being taken. So he had to take it himself."

Clinton studied him. "You sound as though you were very sure of him."

"Not totally. But there was one thing I was sure of."

"And what was that?"

Audley's eye was caught for an instant by the rich colours of the flowers in the hearth. "I only met one man who'd actually seen Charlie Ratcliffe in action—who knew him as he was. ...

He was an old gardener who liked growing flowers—the gardener at Standingham Castle."

Clinton waited.

"He said Ratcliffe was a chancer. So I gave him his chance, Fred. That's all. And he took it."

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Author's Note

THE Sealed Knot, the King's Army and the Roundhead Association, which are mentioned in passing in this story, are real organisations. The Double R society and its members in no way resemble these admirable and innocent groups, except perhaps in such virtues as they may share. No comparison between the factual and the fictional is intended.

On the other hand, the story of Soviet Russia's acquisition of the gold of the Spanish Republic is a matter of history; as is also that of General Krivitsky, the one-time Chief of Soviet Military Intelligence in Western Europe, who escaped to tell the tale—and to die in suspicious circumstances in a Washington hotel in 1941.

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