A Prospect of Vengeance dda-18

by Anthony Price

  — oh yes: I know all about him . . . And by "all" I do mean all, Miss Fielding. Because I investigated him, once upon a time . . . Or, rather, twice upon a time: first, before he died, because we needed to know who he really was . . . and then afterwards, when we wanted to know why — or what . . . and then who and how, as well as why.' He stared at her for a moment. 'He was quite a man, was your godfather . . . But, dummy2

  then, you know that already.'

  He was quite a man, too! She started to think. But then she fought against the thought, amending it mutinously: whatever he was, he was also a clever man — and even that instant of mutual recognition might be part of his cleverness, like a python hypnotizing its prey before swallowing it! So now he was trying to make her think what he wanted her to think, perhaps?

  'I know it suited you when he died, Dr Audley.'

  'Did it? Well . . . perhaps it did. And perhaps it didn't. Who can tell?' He shrugged again. 'What I know is ... that it doesn't suit me now to be bothered by you. Because I have other work to do — more important work than having to worry about you.' Now, at last, she got his purely-ugly face.

  'Which is why I asked "whose side are you on?", Miss Fielding.'

  'But you're on holiday now, Dr Audley. So we're not wasting your official time, are we?' Ian came in again, playing uncharacteristically dirty.

  'I don't suppose it would do any good if I told you I have an alibi?' Audley ignored Ian. 'I flew back to Washington the Tuesday after we killed O'Leary — the Tuesday after the Saturday when my very dear Frances died — ?' He switched to Ian suddenly. 'No — ?'

  It was the wrong appeal, to the wrong person.

  'No.' Audley nodded. 'I didn't think it would.' He sighed. 'And dummy2

  you're quite right, of course! It's like an old friend of mine is always reminding me, about what the centurion said to Christ, according to St Matthew: "I am also a man under authority, having soldiers under me; and I say to this Go!

  And he goeth".' He gave them both a twisted grin. 'It's what he calls "one of the hard sayings". Meaning that authority and action and responsibility are all the same thing in the end. So that won't do will it?' He smiled at her. 'So we have a problem. Because you won't believe me unless I tell you what I'm not at liberty to tell you. And even if I do tell you, then you may choose not to believe me. So I'm into a Catch-22

  situation, it seems.'

  'And so are we, Dr Audley.' If Ian had liked the St Matthew throwaway line, he didn't show it. 'Didn't he say — on the telephone?'

  'Oh yes!' Audley bowed slightly. 'You've "raised the devil" — ?

  And now he's after you — is that it?'

  Suddenly Jenny wanted Reg Buller badly. Audley was playing with them, and Ian was still too screwed-up about Frances Fitzgibbon to think as straight as he usually thought. And even she was having trouble with Audley's sharp image imposed on her memory of Philly.

  'Where's Reg, Ian?' What they needed was Reg Buller's no-nonsense brutality: Reg had no hang-ups about Philly or Frances, let alone Audley.

  'Yes — ' Ian raised his binoculars again ' — he has rather taken his time. But — yes, he is coming now, Jen — see?' He dummy2

  lowered the glasses and pointed at a distant dust-cloud in the valley between the Greater Arapile and the lower ridges opposite, across the intervening cornlands which had once been another foreign field that was for ever England.

  'Actually . . . we've begun to think that it may not have been you, Dr Audley — see there, Jen — ?'

  'What?' The information casually dropped after Ian's advice to Jenny, that Buller was approaching at last, caught Audley flat aback. 'What d'you mean?'

  'Mrs Fitzgibbon — ' Ian squared his shoulders, while pretending to concentrate on the foreign field, like a French general watching the advance of the British Army ' — she was Paul Mitchell's girl, wasn't she, Dr Audley?'

  That couldn't be the question — there had to be more than that!

  'What?' Audley frowned.

  It couldn't be the question — even though it fulfilled the 'I-already-know-the-answer' criterion.

  'Frances Fitzgibbon was Paul Mitchell's girl — was she, Dr Audley?' But Ian stuck to his gun like a brave Frenchman with the dragoons upon him, nevertheless.

  'No.' Audley shook his head slowly. 'Actually, she wasn't.

  Although he would have liked her to be. But. . . she wasn't anybody's girl. Not even her husband's, I rather suspect. . .

  But... I don't really see what Frances Fitzgibbon has to do with you, Mr Robinson.'

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  'Or Paul Mitchell, Dr Audley?' Jenny came in on his flank.

  'You asked us which side we're on, Dr Audley.' Ian came back on cue. 'But we don't know for sure whose side anyone is on, now. All we know is that we're in trouble — like Miss Fielding said. And we think you're the only person who may be able to help us.'

  That really was the truth. And, of course, who better than Ian to pronounce it?

  Audley relaxed, suddenly. ' Mitchell — Paul Mitchell —?' Then he laughed, but not happily. 'Oh yes — that would be it, of course! We laid the trail — and you picked it up . . . even after so many years ... is that it? Now I see! You think that Mitchell

  — ? Because of Thornervaulx — ?' He completed the unhappy chuckle. 'It's what my dear wife always says: "too-clever-by-half" — and not half clever enough!' He looked at Ian, and then Jenny, and then away from both of them, down the hillside.

  Jenny waited.

  'Well, Miss Fielding — Mr Robinson — ' Audley came back to them, with a slow shake of the head ' — if you think that, then I think you're both in big trouble now.' He pointed down the hillside. 'So now we'll see?'

  And then there was suddenly Reg Buller, stamping up out of the dead ground among the rocks.

  And then there was Paul Mitchell with him —

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  2

  Reg Buller was puffing like a grampus, from his climb: Reg would be sweating now, even worse than she had done before the sun had dried her, here on the summit of the Greater Arapile.

  But Paul Mitchell wasn't puffing: he was striding easily, swinging up a long black case — half briefcase, half violin-case — as he surmounted the last of the rocks.

  'Paul.' Audley seemed neither surprised nor pleased. 'You took your time.'

  'David!' Mitchell trod disgracefully into the midst of the crocuses, quite regardless of them. 'I'm sorry, David — ' He cradled the not-violin-case in his arms, to his breast, still crushing the flowers. 'Where's Faith? Where's Cathy, David

  — ?'

  'They're down below.' Audley nodded back towards the monument. 'Among the rocks. Sunbathing and reading. And possibly topless . . . Faith, anyway. Do you want me to call them?'

  'No. They'll do well enough where they are.' Mitchell clambered up on to the uneven rocky platform on which the monument had been raised, setting the case down at his feet.

  'No problem, David.'

  'No problem,' Audley growled the words. 'You'd better be dummy2

  right.'

  'Now, David . . .' Mitchell continued to scan the landscape, quartering it segment by segment ' — when have I ever let you down?'

  Audley stared at him, then shook his head resignedly.

  And finally came back to Jenny. 'You've caused us a lot of trouble, Miss Fielding.'

  'Correction: she's caused me a lot of trouble.' Mitchell stepped down from the platform. He looked untroubled, but decidedly rough and quite unlike his previous rather smooth self, thought Jenny unhappily: unshaven, with the beginning of a pronounced designer-stubble and an open-necked shirt inadequately tucked into a pair of shapeless old trousers, he might just have passed for a local. And, oddly enough, the net effect of this was to make him look younger and much more sexy (at least, for those who might be into younger men; but still not in the same class as Audley). 'You've caused me a lot of trouble, Miss Fielding-ffulke — and that's a fact!'

  'I'm sorry, Dr Mitch
ell.' It was hard to think of this ragamuffin as Doctor Mitchell. 'But . . . you caused us some trouble, too. In fact, you frightened us.'

  'So I gather.' Mitchell flicked a glance at Reg Buller, who was mopping his face with an enormous and very dirty handkerchief. 'So — I — gather!'

  Jenny looked at Buller accusingly. 'Mr Buller — ?'

  'Don't blame me, Lady!' Buller wiped his face even more dummy2

  vigorously. "E caught me on the road, not long after you left me. An' . . .'e was very nasty, I tell you.'

  'Oh yes?' There would be no help from Reg Buller now, that wonderfully authentic whine indicated: Reg knew which way the wind was blowing, and he always adjusted himself to his circumstances, which was the secret of his survival from many past disasters. So, in his new role as their unwilling employee he could no longer be relied upon. But that, in turn, freed her from employer's responsibility. 'So, do you still think Dr Mitchell is a murderer, Mr Buller?'

  'I never said that, Lady — I never did!' Buller rolled his eyes, driven to over-play his role even more by such a direct accusation. 'It was Mr Robinson, more than me: I just reported what I found out — like you told me to.'

  That shifted the whole weight to Ian, who hadn't said a word since the world had changed for them.

  That's not true, Mr Buller — '

  'It's all right, Jen.' Ian watched Mitchell.

  'It was Mr Buller, Ian — '

  'It's all right.' He dismissed her, having eyes only for Mitchell. 'And it's true, also.' He blinked for an instant.

  'Maybe we made a mistake. Or ... maybe we didn't— ?' He faced Mitchell unashamedly. 'What was she really like, Dr Mitchell? Tell me?'

  Mitchell stared at him. Then he turned away and reached for the case.

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  'What was she really like?' Ian pursued Mitchell remorselessly.

  'Let him be, Mr Robinson.' Audley took a step down from his eminence, to join them. 'This isn't the place — or the time.'

  'Isn't it?' Ian didn't look at Audley: he watched Mitchell apply his thumbs to the two catches on the case, still concentrating on him. 'What was she like?'

  'She was quite a girl — quite a woman.' Audley annexed the question gently, but firmly. 'But we didn't kill Philip Masson, Mr Robinson. I didn't give the order — and Dr Mitchell didn't carry out the order I didn't give.'

  All the same, Audley was frowning: Audley was frowning, and Mitchell was working on the contents of the case — the bits of dull metal, which clicked and screwed and snapped together, as they had been carefully turned and crafted to do

  — the bits (which were worse than useless by themselves: just bits of metal) became the usual things, custom-built and delicate and ugly: a long-barrelled rifle, slender and deadly.

  'But you're quite right: she was something special.'

  Audley saw that he was losing, and raised the stakes accordingly. 'But how the devil do you know that? You never met her — did you?' He shook his head. 'No! You couldn't have done.'

  Mitchell had completed his work. It was designed to be completed quickly, and he knew his job.

  'No.' He lifted the completed thing up, and squinted through dummy2

  the telescopic-sight which had been its last attachment, staring first up into the sky, and then away across the valley, towards the railway station. 'I'll never hit anything with this

  — not at any sort of range, with the first shot.' He took another squint, and then selected a little screwdriver from the case and made an adjustment. 'I ought to have a couple of sighting-shots, at five-hundred, and a thousand.' He looked up suddenly, and smiled at Jenny. 'But you can't have everything, can you?' He lowered the rifle, resting it carefully on his thigh, and picked out a long steel-nosed, brass-jacketed bullet from a compartment in the case, and opened the breach and snapped the bullet home. Then he set the rifle down and stood up.

  'I was the one who was to blame, actually,' said Audley. 'At Thornervaulx.'

  'But I was the one who should have got the bullet.' Mitchell examined the valley carefully, from the far-off white blue of the village, round the deceptive roll of the cornland between to where the track curved towards them. 'So it all adds up to the same thing, really.' He looked at Reg Buller suddenly.

  'You were quite right, Mr Buller: if I'd thought of it ... then I might just have done it, at that!'

  'No, you wouldn't have done: you're not that stupid,' snapped Audley.

  'Aren't I?' Mitchell's mouth twisted.

  'Yes.' Audley looked from Mitchell to Jenny, and then at Ian.

  And then back to Jenny. 'We were working for Fred Clinton dummy2

  then, Miss Fielding. And he had a rule — a very strict rule.

  And Sir Jack has the same rule. It's what you might call our

  "Rule of Engagement", from the Falklands War — ? Although it goes back much further: it goes back to Lord Mansfield giving judgement in the case of Eurdett v. Abbot, in 1812.'

  'Uh-huh . . . Burdett v. Abbot — ' Mitchell swung towards Audley ' — you know, David, I never have been able to trace that exact case — not even though Jack Butler's so fond of quoting it at us, at regular intervals ... I asked a clever girl I know who works for the Law Society to trace it for me . . .

  and she couldn't. So, maybe Fred just made it up — to annoy us?'

  Ian stirred. 'What did — what was Lord Mansfield supposed to have said — ? In the case of "Burdett versus Abbot", Dr Audley?'

  'Oh, it's quite simple, my dear fellow!' Mitchell annexed the question quickly. 'It's all to do with what you can do — and what you can't do — if you've taken the Queen's Shilling, as David and I have . . . Which puts us in quite impossible situations, of course — '

  'But "if you don't like the heat in the kitchen" — then you add that, Mr Robinson, eh?' Audley relaxed. 'No one ordered you to visit the battlefield of Salamanca, did they? You came here of your own free will, I take it?'

  What were they both driving at? 'But we haven't taken the . . . the "Queen's Shilling", Dr Audley.' Their own old rule dummy2

  drove Jenny to defend Ian. 'We're just . . . journalists.'

  'Doesn't make any difference, Miss Fielding.' A similar rule brought Paul Mitchell back. 'Not to you — not to Peter Wright, or Clive Ponting — or even to Kim Philby: whatever we are, or whatever we do, the same rule applies, according to Chief Justice Mansfield: " It is therefore highly important that the mistake should be corrected which supposes that an Englishman, by taking on the additional character of a soldier — " (but it doesn't matter what additional character you put on: soldier, or journalist, rat-catcher) " — puts off any of the rights and duties of an Englishman" . So how about that, then?'

  Jenny thought, suddenly . . . 1812! Because now they were here, on the top of the Greater Arapile, where the Duke of Wellington had also ruled, on a military truth, in 1812, while Chief Justice Mansfield had ruled on this other legal truth.

  'That's the second "hard-saying",' murmured Audley. 'Fred Clinton and Jack Butler, and St Matthew and Lord Mansfield . . . they all put us on our mettle.'

  'Yes.' Mitchell was staring past him. 'And now Paddy MacManus is about to put us on our mettle, I rather think —

  what can you see through those field-glasses of yours, Ian?'

  He pointed into the great open sweep of the valley. 'What car is that — ?'

  Ian lifted his binoculars, towards a distant dust-cloud on the track.

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  'Mr Buller!' Mitchell didn't wait for an answer. 'You go down and say "hullo" to Mrs Audley, and Miss Audley — okay? And keep them down there, in the rocks, until I call you. And do be a good fellow, and make a noise when you're going down, so as not to embarrass Mrs Audley — okay!'

  'It's a little car — a SEAT, or a Citroen — or a Renault ... a little car — ' Ian read back what he could see automatically.

  That will do.' Mitchell was taking on his 'additional character'

  now. 'Off you go, Mr Buller.'

&nbs
p; 'I'm goin' — I'm bloody-goin' — Dr Mitchell!' Reg Buller was going.

  'It's a Citroen 2-CV, Dr Mitchell,' Ian confirmed his sighting.

  'That's just fine!' Mitchell was Field-Marshal Montgomery and Alexander of Macedon. 'You stay up here, Mr Robinson: talk to Dr Audley about the battle of Salamanca — tell him how you would have fought it from here — okay?'

  'Oh — that's just fine!' Audley complained as he surrendered.

  'We walk up and down, to give him a target — ?'

  'He doesn't want you, David. His payment is on Mr Robinson.' Mitchell looked at Ian. 'Are you prepared to walk, Mr Robinson?'

  That was too much! 'Ian — '

  'Shut up, Jen.' But he grinned at her. 'Like the man said —

  " the rights and duties of an Englishman" — ? And ... at least I've got a better chance than Mrs Fitzgibbon had, this time —

  haven't I, Dr Mitchell?'

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  Mitchell picked up the rifle. 'Down there, Miss Fielding — on your tummy, by that flat rock — there? See?' He held the rifle to his chest with one hand and pointed with the other. The moment he gets out of the car, then I've got carte blanche, if he's got his rifle with him. And you can drop down then, Mr Robinson. And when you're down you stay down. Because I'm not at all sure that I can hit him, with this gun, at this range — not with my first shot, anyway.' He reached down into the open case, and scooped up a handful of the left-behind cartridges, and stuffed them into his pocket. And then grinned at Jenny. 'But... no problem, eh?'

  It didn't seem like that at all, to her. But, then, it was quite out of her experience.

  'What about behind us?' Audley's voice was cold. 'MacManus always operates with a partner — a back-up? And . . . my family is down there, Paul.'

  'Don't worry about behind us.' Mitchell nodded at Jenny. ' If you please, Miss Fielding— ? Go!'

  There was something in Mitchell's face which made any sort of protest contemptible, however much she wanted to argue with him, to assert herself.

  So ... over the dead grass, and the scatter of autumn crocuses, to where he'd indicated, and down behind a safe rock —