A Prospect of Vengeance dda-18

by Anthony Price

  'She had a brother — ? He took her things, you said.'

  Her mask tightened. 'That was unfortunate.'

  'How — unfortunate?'

  'He came when I was out, Mr Robertson.'

  'When — ?' But, then, it wasn't unfortunate, of course: it figured exactly, that Marilyn's 'brother' would have watched for his moment.

  'When I was out. She said he would be coming — ' The mask softened ' — and that she would be coming back to see me, some time. But she'd obtained this new position, up north —

  not a temporary one, but a permanent post, with a pension and opportunities for promotion, you see-'

  Ian nodded. There had been no pension, and no opportunities. But it had certainly been up north. And it had dummy2

  been permanent, too. But, in those last hours of her life, Marilyn Francis had been nothing if not professional, sewing up all her loose ends tightly.

  'My maid — my house-keeper — was here.' Mrs Champeney-Smythe corrected herself. 'Her brother cleared everything out . . . And, of course, she — Miss Francis . . . she was paid up to the end of the month — she always insisted on that, even though it was quite unnecessary — ' She stopped suddenly, as she saw his face fall.

  Dead end! thought Ian. Just when he had thought he was there, too. But ... it had happened before, and it would happen again. And maybe Reg Buller would still come up with something, from 'up north', where someone might have been careless — now that he knew, anyway, that there really was something to be careless about with the real Marilyn Francis, who didn't exist in Somerset House, or anywhere else except here, in the Elstree Guest House, and in the sad recollections of Gary and his 'old Mrs Smith'.

  'Well . . .' He smiled at her sadly, and sat up in his chair.

  When one lost, one cut one's losses gracefully. And, in any case, he hadn't wholly lost. 'Well, I'm most grateful to you, Mrs Champeney-Smythe — for your time, and your help.' On impulse he decided to give her more than that, as he stood up. 'I'm glad . . . Miss Francis had such a happy time, before . . . before the tragedy occurred.'

  She stared at him without replying, as though she hadn't heard what he had said. Then she turned away, looking again dummy2

  towards the table with its incongruous collection of souvenirs.

  He coughed politely. 'Mrs Champeney-Smythe — ?'

  She pointed. 'There is something. You can't have it. But you can look at it, Mr Robertson. They belonged to her.'

  He looked at all of it, already defeated: wooden mouse, or brass frog? China tank or spindly glass horse (minus its tail)?

  Old ginger beer bottle, advertising 'Burbank', a 'High Class Chemist' of Oxford? Unless Marilyn had left a message in the bottle, it was all rubbish. But he had to humour her. 'Which object do you mean?'

  'Not the table — ' The thin finger stabbed irritably towards the table ' — the bookcase, Mr Robertson, the bookcase.'

  There was indeed a bookcase behind the table, its mathematically aligned contents also part of the room's ornamentation: she had been looking at that all the time, not the bric-a-brac.

  'Which books, Mrs Champeney-Smythe?' ' We would read our books, until it was time to go to bed' , he remembered. So what would Marilyn Francis's literary tastes run to?

  'At the end there — at the end!' It seemed to irritate her that he needed direction.

  There was a set of Dickens (which didn't look as though it had ever been opened) and a run of diminutive New University Society classics in red-and-gold bindings — and a wealth of better-read washed-out yellow Reprint Society dummy2

  volumes which Basil Champeney-Smythe had surely collected, and which customarily stood out on the shelves of a thousand second-hand bookshops . . . The Robe, The Black Narcissus, Bryant and Pepys, Churchill's My Early Life . . .

  But he didn't even know which shelf, which end: should he be looking for The Life of General Custer — ? Or even A History of the Repeating Rifle? ?

  'The fairy books — I told you — at the end, there!'

  'The — ?' What — ? Then he saw them — one old, and hardback, the other new, and paperback —

  The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Counties, by W. Y. Evans Wentz —

  Who had ever heard of 'W. Y. Evans Wentz', for heaven's sake! Well . . . evidently the Oxford University Press, for a start! And a Penguin book — A Dictionary of Fairies, Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies and Other Supernatural Creatures, by Katherine Briggs —

  He opened the Penguin. The right date, anyway: first published, 1976 — and in Penguin, 1977 . . . And, on the flyleaf, 'F.F. '78' — but who the hell was 'F.F.' — ?

  He looked questioningly at Mrs Champeney-Smythe, then down again at the dictionary of fairies, which had fallen open in his hands at the point where the paperback binding had fallen apart with use, at page 175 — ' Fin Bheara' — was underlined.

  And who the hell was ' Fin Bheara' — ?

  He felt a cold hand on his backbone: Fin Bheara, alias dummy2

  Finvarra, was apparently more than just the Fairy King of Ulster, which was 'Mad Dog' O'Leary's old stamping ground, but also maybe King of the Dead (and therefore a recipient of many of 'Mad Dog's' customers — ?) —

  This foolish diversion of his concentration angered him.

  'Who is "F.F.", Mrs Champeney-Smythe?'

  'You are looking at the wrong book, Mr Robertson.' She closed her eyes as she spoke.

  The paperback almost came apart in his hands as he juggled clumsily with Marilyn Francis's only known possessions to bring the stout OUP hardback to the top —

  'Robbie, with love — Frances — 16.7.72'

  'Who — ?' He realized that there was more than an inscription, there was a folded piece of paper —

  It was a bookseller's bill, with a name and an address —

  He looked back one last time into Lower Buckland churchyard, in which the second of his future book's bodies lay. But, unlike Jenny's lovely heroic Philip Masson, his own lovely, heroic 'Marilyn Francis' would at least remain decently undisturbed. For she was buried properly —

  FRANCES

  his loving wife

  1948-1978

  dummy2

  — alongside her

  ROBERT GAUVAIN FITZGIBBON

  Captain, 39th (Royal Ulster) Lancers 1946-1974

  Meanwhile, the Village Green was still as comfortingly empty as it had been when he had first arrived. Maybe it was just because it was the betwixt-and-between time of early evening, with the threat of rain from the low clouds which touched the trees on each side of the valley, which kept the inhabitants in their houses. But he might as well have been in Fin Bheara's country, in which Captain and Mrs Fitzgibbon now lived as of right. For the only living souls he'd seen so far were the old village-shopkeeper-cum-postmistress (who looked as though she already had one foot in Fin's kingdom, although she had given him useful information) and (quite fortuitously, but more useful still; and who might be said to have some connection with Fin's business) the village priest.

  But the emptiness was reassuring, nevertheless.

  So now he had his bearings again: he had parked the car prudently out of sight down that turning, just in case. So the post office must be down that lane, just to his left. And there should be a phone near that —

  He had been lucky today, it had to be admitted. Lucky with the start Reg had given him, directing him to dummy2

  Rickmansworth . . . and lucky, in a way, at Rickmansworth, during each of his three interviews. But luck was not such a wild card as most people liked to think, it was quite often the just reward for effort, with the Lord helping those who helped themselves. But those roadworks had been pure luck; and he would in any case have sought out the priest next.

  Meeting him like that, right in the churchyard, had saved him time, undoubtedly, but —

  And there was the phone-box. He should have noticed it first time round. And now, because he was lucky today, it wouldn't be vandalized. (Or anyway, phones didn't get vandalized in places lik
e Lower Buckland.) (Tracing Mrs Frances Fitzgibbon wouldn't be too difficult, at least up to a point: it was the sort of thing John Tully and Reg Buller did well and quickly, with their wealth of varied experience.)

  He was barely half an hour late phoning Jenny, which by her standards was nothing. So she'd still be in (and today, anyway, he was lucky). It wasn't vandalized. And he had plenty of change — (Tracing Captain Robert Gauvain Fitzgibbon, of the 39th Lancers, would be even easier: Captain Fitzgibbon, in life and death, would be a matter of record, public and military. Not, in this context, that he would be worth more than a passing reference or two or maybe a footnote, if his family was an interesting one; or — )

  'Hullo? Who's that?'

  That was Jenny, safe and sound and undoubtedly: Jenny dummy2

  never answered the telephone with her own name and number. 'Ian, Jenny — '

  'Thank God for that! Where are you?'

  'What? I'm at—'

  'No!' She cut him off. 'Don't answer that. You're not at home

  — at your flat, Ian — ?'

  'No. What the hell's the matter, Jen?' He had never heard her so flustered. And that, in very quick succession, surprised him and then frightened him. 'Jenny — '

  'Shut up, Ian. Don't say anything. Don't tell me where you are, or what you're doing. Just listen.'

  He opened his mouth, and then remembered what she'd just said. But his fear overrode that. 'Are you all right, Jenny?'

  'Shut up. I've got to be quick — you've got to be quick. Get out of there — wherever you are — and go to that place where the man dropped the soup . . . Remember that? And don't be followed. If you are, then go to my father's place, and don't leave it. And I'll phone you there. Okay?'

  Although he tried to digest all that while she force-fed him with it, there was too much of it, and he gagged on it. Now he was just plain frightened — Beirut-style frightened. Or perhaps even more frightened, because he didn't know what ought to be frightening him in Lower Buckland, or her in London.

  'Okay. It'll take me an hour, Jen.' He estimated the journey from Lower Buckland to Abdul the Damned's restaurant as dummy2

  best he could. But he couldn't leave it at that. 'What's happened, Jen? You must tell me. Then I'll go.'

  There was a fractional pause. 'Reg Buller's dead, Ian. And I can't raise ... his friend — he doesn't answer. I think the police may be there.' Another heart's-beat pause. 'Watch yourself, Ian — for God's sake watch yourself!'

  The phone went dead.

  5

  There were times, under pressure, when everything around him ceased to exist — even he himself seemed disembodied

  — and the only reality was what was going on in his head.

  Jenny was all right, his brain told him. If she hadn't been all right, she wouldn't have spoken like that: when she'd spoken to him that one time in Beirut, when she'd been unfree, she'd been calm and matter-of-fact, almost confident. This time, she'd been free, but neither calm nor well-organized, and far from confident — certainly far from confident that her line was safe —

  He realized that he was still inside the phone-box in Lower Buckland, just down the lane from the Village Green; and he was staring at the dialling instructions blindly, with the phone still in his hand. And his hand was sweaty —

  Oh God! He closed his eyes on the blasphemy. Reg Buller!

  dummy2

  He replaced the receiver, and disciplined himself to accept the world as it now was, both around him in Lower Buckland, and beyond it. Jenny was in her flat, and although she was dead-scared (and although she had been dead-scared she had waited quite deliberately for his call, in spite of that . . . either because she needed him, or because she wanted to warn him — either or both, it could be) . . .

  although she'd been scared, she still thought she could beat the odds, and get away to Abdul the Damned's, where she reckoned they'd both be safe — where little Mr Malik could undoubtedly be trusted: that gave more credence to her present safety than anything else she'd said.

  There was nothing to be seen outside. And nothing included Reg Buller, for evermore in the world as it now was: Reg Buller, with his noisome pipe and drink problem, and his bulbous nose, and his suburban semidetached villa, had moved from evermore to nevermore.

  On that thought, he pushed open the door, and stepped out of the box, with Reg Buller at his back. Because Reg would have had no time for such futile sentiments, and he couldn't afford them either, now. The lane was empty.

  Of course the fucking lane's empty, Reg Buller would have said. Just get to the fucking car and drive, like the Lady said

  — right?

  But it wasn't right. Because Reg Buller had been smart, yet not smart enough. Because Reg had believed in danger before anyone else had done, but Reg was dead now, even dummy2

  though he'd been smart.

  And the car was all that was left to him, whether he'd been as clever (or as lucky) as he'd thought, just a few minutes back: he just might have been clever enough (or lucky enough) . . .

  but Lower Buckland was undoubtedly in the middle of its own commuter-belt nowhere, with a bus once-a-week if at all. So if he wasn't going to walk, then he had to drive —

  It was different now, was Lower Buckland, as he progressed up the empty lane towards the Village Green: it really was Fin Bheara's kingdom, as briefly glimpsed in Mrs Frances Fitzgibbon's — now Mrs Champeney-Smythe's — Dictionary of Fairies: if you were still in the land of the living yourself, then all the people you met there were already dead. And he wished now that he hadn't read that —

  Yet that wasn't so much not right as simply ridiculous: he had had a long day and if he hadn't been so frightened that he'd be dog-tired after all the unaccustomed leg-work and interviewing, never mind the driving; and, as this day — this evening, this night — was now very obviously far from over he had to cool his unfounded fears here, and summon his reserves, and pace himself.

  Also, the Village Green wasn't empty now. There was a woman pushing a pram, with two children and a dog in tow, on the far side. And there was a car — two cars — two lovely, ordinary cars, with drivers and passengers in them — passing just ahead of him. And Fin Bheara surely wasn't into prams, dummy2

  and children, and dogs, and cars full of passengers, to people his shadowy land.

  He swung round the short stretch of road into the parallel lane where the car was, almost angry with himself for his over-fertile imagination. And then halted for an instant before reversing direction, to set off diagonally across the broad expanse of Village Green, towards the great old yew-tree, where he'd paused the first time, and the churchyard and the church behind it —

  God! There had been a man bending over his car, while trying the door to see whether it was unlocked! And, as he'd paused fractionally, the man had looked up, and their eyes had met across fifty yards; but the man hadn't dropped his hand, he had gone on staring — ! God — !

  He accelerated his pace, almost to the beginning of a run, not knowing where he was going, only that he wanted to put distance between himself and the man, his follower — his follower who had caught up with him, to become his pursuer

  — ? Or, after Reg Buller, something more fearful than that

  — ?

  God! He hadn't been so clever, or so lucky, after all! He'd been stupid — stupid to blunder straight here, on the track of Marilyn Francis, without taking proper stock of the situation . . . stupid to delude himself that he was clever . . .

  and stupid, more immediately, to have reacted as he had just done — to have halted for that fatal half-second, and then not shouted angrily like an honest man, but had acted dummy2

  like a thief himself, and given the game away thereby —

  damn, damn, oh damn — ! Stupid! Stupid!

  But the yew-tree was marching towards him by the second, and he was only compounding his stupidity with self-recrimination. Because when he reached it he'd have to know what he would do next, where he woul
d go next; because there were only two roads out of Lower Buckland, according to the map, and both of them were behind him now, on the wrong side of the Village Green, with maybe Fin Bheara himself in the way. And ahead of him . . . ahead of him was the churchyard wall again —

  Damn it! All the citizens of Fin's kingdom would be waiting for him there with old Reg Buller grinning over Marilyn Francis's shoulder!

  And he was there, now. And he must stop thinking this Fin Bheara nonsense before it reduced him to a helpless jelly: simply, he must turn round and face his pursuer. Because . . .

  because — for heaven's sake! — he wasn't in some Beirut wasteland now, like last time: there were no half-smashed tenements full of hooded women and Kalashnikov-armed trigger-happy bandits from half-a-dozen different militias: these were elegant Georgian-Regency-early-Victorian English residences around him on the other three sides of the green, with elegant stockbroker-merchant-banking-high-tech-yuppie wives (with little boys and girls playing computer games at their backs as they started to prepare dinner, while watching the early evening BBC/ITV news on dummy2

  the kitchen TV), waiting for their husbands to return from the high-return, high-risk fray — shit!

  (Shit? That was what Jenny would say. But Jenny was extricating herself from her flat; and he had a rendezvous with her at Abdul the Damned's; which he had to keep — or face her father — )

  He was right underneath the yew-tree now, where he'd been so few minutes before, in the age when he'd still believed himself clever as well as lucky. But it was as much the threatened prospect of having to explain himself to 'Daddy'

  as his own desperation which turned him round, at the last—

  Shit! He had increased the gap to the full width of the Village Green, but there were two of them now!

  From being in trouble, he was in big trouble now, in his own high-return fray, which had also suddenly become as high-risk: the closest of the Georgian houses was away to his left, beyond the corner of the wall, with its manicured box hedge and holly tree, and its owner's wife's big silver Volvo Estate outside; but could he really knock at the door, and say: