For the Good of the State

by Anthony Price

  Audley appeared behind his wife. ‘Faith love—for God’s sake!’ he caught Tom’s eye. ‘I’m sorry, Tom—’

  ‘Sir!’ The Special Branch man tried simultaneously to hold Tom’s attention while giving ground to Audley and his wife and avoiding a rather fragile table piled high with books. ‘Sir—?’

  Come back Athens, come back Nicosia, come back Tel Aviv! But at least Jaggard was quiet now, in his ear—

  ‘Sir Thomas—’ began Mrs Audley again.

  Tom held up his free hand. ‘Just a moment, Mrs Audley—’ He nodded at the Special Branch man ‘—yes?’

  The hill is clear, sir.‘ The man took a deep breath. ’There’s no one up there now—‘ He rolled his eyes sideways ’—but … ‘

  ‘Yes?’

  This time the man swallowed. ‘It was a high-velocity bullet. It went through the window, and then a lampshade on a table, and then into the panelling on the wall, on the far side. But we’ll have to wait for forensic to recover it. They should be able to tell us a lot more.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Properly speaking, there was nothing else Mrs Audley needed to know—properly speaking, she had already heard more than she was entitled to hear, even. But in her own house, and since she was David Audley’s wife, it might be prudent to entitle her to more than that. ‘So what else are you doing?’

  ‘Tom—’ Audley’s mouth opened. ‘Who’s on the phone?’

  ‘It’s okay, David.’ It would never do for Audley to know that: Jaggard was on the other end; it was bad enough to know himself that Jaggard was quite remarkably laid-back with this hideous turn of events, almost as though he’d expected them; or, at least, that they didn’t surprise him, ‘Just the duty man—’ He turned back to the Special Branch man quickly. ‘—Well?’

  ‘There’ll be more support manpower here soon.’ The man didn’t know quite what to say. ‘It’s almost too late for road-blocks—we’re very close to the motorway here. And we’re almost into the Gatwick radius, anyway … ’ He shrugged ‘ … we can’t inhibit traffic inside that without Home Office clearance, sir.’

  So much for Limejuice, thought Tom: if someone in Athens had taken a shot at Colonel Stamatopoulos, or one of his friends, then half of Greece would have ground to a halt. But in the Home Counties of England, and with no blood spilt, the traffic had to get through regardless.

  ‘David—’ Mrs Audley addressed her husband, failing Tom.

  ‘I told you, love—some fool has got his lines crossed, that’s all.’

  ‘You also told me that Limejuice was just a precaution, after last time—’

  ‘That was … that was ten years ago, love.’

  ‘I don’t care if it was a hundred years—’

  ‘Mrs Audley—Faith—’ Obligation and self-interest suddenly coincided: he needed Audley to himself and he had to get the man away from her and here as soon as possible. But now he had a chance to cement a relationship which Mamusia had begun before he had been thought of ‘—your husband’s right, actually.’ He remembered the Special Branch man. “Thank you, Sergeant. I’ll come back to you. But we’ll want an escort vehicle—‘

  ‘And a car for my wife,’ said Audley. ‘I don’t want her here tonight.’

  ‘Right—that too.’ Tom nodded the Special Branch man out of the room before turning back to Faith Audley. But then he also remembered Jaggard. ‘Hullo?’ There really wasn’t anything else that he wanted to say to Jaggard, the bugger seemed so remarkably laid-back in the circumstances of their high-velocity bullet. ‘I’ll call you again when I’m free.’

  ‘Don’t bother, Tom. I’ve got the general picture well enough. You just watch over Audley and his old friend, that’s all. Just get Audley to the rendezvous first—then I want to know what he gets up to—where he’s going, and who he’s talking to. And preferably in advance—do you understand that?’

  ‘Yes.’ It took no effort to slam the phone down. Come back Beirut … but, most of all, where are you now, Willy? ‘I’m sorry, Faith—’

  ‘No.’ Some of the fire seemed to have gone out of her, damped down under the fine drenching spray of cruel reality. ‘I can see that I’m getting in the way of more pressing matters.’ She gave her husband a weary little smile. ‘There’s a right time for being difficult, and this isn’t it.’ She bit her lip. ‘I’ll go quietly, Sir Thomas—in fact, I’ll just go and pack my toothbrush. All right?’

  ‘No.’ It was working out so well that Tom was almost ashamed. ‘What I meant was that some fool has got his lines crossed—and I am the fool. So your husband was really just protecting me.’ He knew that he mustn’t look at Audley, for fear that she might do the same. ‘The bullet was for me, Mrs Audley, you see. Not for him.’

  ‘What—?’ The lie caught her in the act of turning away. But that, most annoyingly, left her half-facing her husband. ‘David—?’

  ‘Ahh … ’ A lifetime of dissimulation had greased the big man’s mental reflexes. ‘Well … to be fair, that’s for the experts to say, Tom.’

  ‘It was for me, David.’ He could only admire the crafty way Audley had fixed the lie, with so little warning. ‘But … you understand, Mrs Audley—Faith … that I can’t tell you what I usually do. But, in any case, I’m not doing it now—’ True, Tom Arkenshaw, you lying bastard! But what could he say next ‘—so I trust it won’t happen again—’ Not good enough! He could see that in her face ‘—but I’ll keep an eye on him now, I promise you, anyway.’ True again! he thought. But what a fearful promise! But, for better or worse, it was made now. And that sort of promise couldn’t be unmade, which was worst of all.

  ‘Huh!’ Audley chuckled obscenely. ‘Just keep away from me—that’s all!’

  ‘David!’ She gave him a broken look. ‘You look after yourself too, Sir Thomas.’ She drew a breath. ‘I have to believe that my husband is indestructible.’ She took another breath. ‘I’ll go and find my toothbrush, anyway.’

  Tom watched her depart, chin up.

  ‘I shall get hell in due course,’ murmured Audley. ‘But, in the meantime—’

  ‘No!’ All Tom wanted to do was to think in peace for a moment, before they all came back to him again: to think about what Jaggard had said, and hadn’t said; and about what Harvey had said, and had hinted at; and about Audley too; and maybe even about Mamusia. ‘You just go and pack your toothbrush too, David. We can talk in the car—okay?’

  At first Audley didn’t reply. Then, when he did, he sounded as though his gratitude was already being stretched. ‘I was only going to thank you for that little white lie. But … ’ he shrugged ‘ … if that’s the way you want it, you’re the boss.’ He turned in the doorway. ‘For the time being, anyway.’

  Tom waited for a moment, then turned back to the huge cluttered desk, staring for another moment at the red phone among the tower-blocks of books and magazines and buff folders, and the scatter of notes and notebooks and photo-copied newspaper cuttings, which together left no square inch of its surface free.

  Jaggard had not really been surprised, he decided—

  Places in the books—and in the magazines—were liberally reminded with numerous slips of differently coloured paper, pale pink and green and blue; and there were passages marked in the newspaper cuttings too, Audley-interest-stained with broad soft-felt pen-ink of similar colours, like cross-references.

  It was always hard to tell for sure on the phone, a practised liar always had the edge on the phone—he could deceive anyone except Mamusia on the phone—

  The whole room was full of books: books shelved from floor to ceiling of every wall, books crammed between the shelves laterally where there was room, books in ranks and piles on the floor; there was only that one little dark gap behind the high-backed oak chair, to the right of the door, where that tall grandfather clock ticked away now in the silence like a monstrous death watch beetle, which had no books, apart from the leaded windows with their fringes of wisteria.

  So … because he had already decided that Ja
ggard had not told him everything, or even half of it … that was a subjective conclusion—

  He turned back to the desk. There were books on it which didn’t fit among their fellows—or, even more, among the pink-stained names in the topmost cuttings from a wide range of Soviet and American specialist publications: Chebrikov from the Politburo, and Aliev, from the KGB … and the geriatric Lomako, who was (wasn’t he?) a survivor from the prehistoric 1940s … and … Shevardnadze—who the hell was he? But there was that bastard Shkiriatov, anyway, from his own recent Syrian experience—

  So this was what Audley was doing right now: trying to pick this year’s Kremlin Grand National winners—or at least fix the odds!

  But then … where did Kennedy’s Revised Latin Primer, and Cassell’s Little Gem Latin Dictionary (the former old and ink-stained, the latter brand new) fit into this field? Or, right in front of him, on top of a pristine copy of yesterday’s Izvestia, this antique little blue Volume IV of Caesar’s Gallic Wars, open at that point where ‘Caesar’s arrival encourages his men—acting on the defensive he retires—stormy weather prevents further action—large forces swell the enemy’s camp, confident of victory.’

  There still wasn’t a sound from that interesting little book-free gap, behind the chair, where there were four framed sets of campaign medals on the wall beside the grandfather clock, and darkness below.

  Quibus rebus perturbatis nostris novitate pugnae tempore opportunissimo Caesar auxilium tulit—God! He couldn’t make sense out of that! But instead he addressed the shadows behind the chair. ‘So what do you know about baronets then, Miss Audley?’

  No sound. But Jaggard had not been surprised, and Tom was ultimately convinced by his own instinct. ‘King James I —1611?’

  Infinitesimal sound, less than the scuffle of an October field-mouse refugeeing in the house. For the defence of Ulster—?‘

  ‘That’s right.’ Tom was torn between his memories of Caesar, and more recent ones of Arkadi Shkiriatov, and the presence of Miss Audley, never mind Jaggard and King James I. ‘To raise money for the defence of Ulster in 1611—go on!’

  ‘People who had enough money had to become baronets. And they had to pay for thirty soldiers, at eight pence a day, for three years.’ The voice strengthened. ‘But Scottish baronets were different. They paid their money for the colonization of Nova Scotia. You aren’t Scottish, though.’

  ‘No.’ So Jaggard must have a damn good idea what Panin wanted, even if he didn’t know for sure. ‘Tell me more?’

  ‘Do people often shoot at you?’

  That was the point: if it wasn’t Panin (and, even apart from that MAD sanction of Audley’s, Panin would hardly have the man he wanted to meet shot before the meeting) then someone else knew about it, and had done it. ‘Does your father often do your Latin prep for you?’ He turned towards the chair.

  ‘No.’ The pale little face barely topped the chair-back. ‘Only when I’m really stuck.’ She blinked behind her glasses. ‘Do you shoot people?’

  That was also a point, thought Tom. Terrorist groups the world over, from his own Mediterranean to that same Ulster which had forced a title on the original Sir Thomas Arkenshaw … terrorist groups shot people without a second thought. But the agencies of the First Division players, the sovereign states, only resorted to violence when they were really stuck—that was also very much the point.

  ‘No.’ It wasn’t funny, but he must smile at her. ‘Only when I’m really stuck, anyway.’ But Audley would have worked all this out much more quickly. ‘I think you ought to go and get your toothbrush too, oughtn’t you?’

  ‘Mother will do that. What I want to know is—’ She stopped as he raised his hand ‘—what—?’

  ‘I also think she’ll be looking for you, Miss Audley.’ What I want to know, thought Tom, is what you meant by ‘Tripoli’. But I don’t think this is the moment for asking! ‘And then she may remember where she last saw you—?’

  The little hand, with its long thin fingers, covered the braced teeth in sudden consternation. At this stage, thought Tom professionally, it was a toss-up whether she’d flower into the slender beauty of her mother or merely end up thin and plain. But either way she would be an interesting young woman one day, for the young man who could match her spirit.

  ‘Golly—you’re right!’ She ducked out from behind the chair, but then halted in the doorway, just as her father had done, but with her chin up, like her mother. ‘You will look after Father, won’t you?’

  What Jaggard had ordered, and what he had almost unthinkingly volunteered to obey in order to get rid of this child’s mother, came home to him again. ‘I’ll do my best. But I rather think he’s quite capable of looking after himself, you know.’ He grinned at her reassuringly.

  But she was totally unreassured. ‘No, he’s not,’ She shook her head almost angrily. ‘That’s what everyone thinks—they think he’s so clever, and so does he. But he isn’t at all—he really isn’t.’

  ‘He isn’t—?’ Tom was totally taken aback.

  ‘Oh—he knows a lot—’ She caught his thought in midair ‘—he knows everything about everything—’ She had to be quoting someone, thought Tom; and most likely it was her mother ‘—but when he wires up a plug he fuses everything, and when he cuts anything he usually cuts himself too—honestly, he does.’

  Definitely, this was Faith Audley overheard; and this child had already proved she was good at overhearing; and yet … in a curious way all this echoed what Harvey had said about Research and Development, too: its unmatched intellectual performance was seldom matched by its performance in the field, whenever it strayed out of its back room.

  ‘He does need looking after, Sir Thomas.’ The little serious face matched her earnestness. ‘So you will look after him, won’t you? Won’t you?’

  He had to get rid of her, for his own peace of mind. But only one answer could do that. ‘Yes. I will look after him.’

  She gave him one dreadful signed-and-sealed nod, and then vanished. But then, just as he was starting to heave a sigh of something less than pure relief, her face appeared again, suspended halfway up the edge of the door.

  ‘I bet you don’t miss!’

  Mm? ‘Miss … ? Miss Audley—?’

  ‘When you shoot at anyone—you don’t miss!’

  Nothing less than a categorical answer was again required. So he turned his hand into a pistol. ‘Never, Miss Audley.’ He pointed the pistol-finger at her, knowing that he mustn’t smile. But that wasn’t difficult because it wasn’t a smiling matter—indeed, it was doubly not so, he thought grimly, because he would need to carry a real gun now, just like in Beirut. And there had been nothing remotely funny about that. ‘Never. So off you go then.’ This time he wanted to smile, but couldn’t. The Special Branch unit would have a couple of revolvers, most likely those ‘safe’ Smith and Wessons they favoured but he didn’t like: he could certainly pull enough rank to get one of those. But meanwhile she was still staring at him fixedly through her pebble spectacles. ‘Otherwise your mother will miss you, Miss Audley. And I don’t think that would be healthy for either of us.’

  As he sighted his finger on her she vanished, and a moment later he heard her whistling in the passage with all the preparatory innocence of an old lady who knew just how to answer the question ‘Where have you been?’ with a calculated half-truth. And that would be a Greek-meets-Greek situation, if ever there was one—

  But he mustn’t waste his thoughts on women and children—even Audley women and children (who both agreed that their man couldn’t look after himself!)—

  He was looking at his pistol-hand, which was still pointing at the half-open door, out of which that shrill, tuneless whistling still issued, far off now—

  He turned back to the desk, to the red phone among the cuttings from Soviet Review and Izvestia and Études Russes, and Caesar’s Gallic War.

  What was that tune? It ought to be from Anna and the King of Siam—

  He needed a ha
nd-gun. And with all the havering that request would occasion he ought to go and ask for it now. But—

  What it ought to be was ‘Whenever I feel afraid/I hold my head erect—And whistle a happy tune/So no one will suspect/I’m afraid—’ But it wasn’t—

  But he wanted to phone Jaggard again, and ask him what the bloody hell was actually happening.

  But it sounded curiously like the proud battle hymn of the United States Marines—

  But Jaggard already hadn’t admitted that he had any idea what Panin wanted, so he was unlikely to admit more than that now. And, for that matter, Audley hadn’t even bothered to ask that same obvious question. So … either he had guessed correctly that Sir Thomas Arkenshaw was not privy to its answer … or he already knew that answer, and therefore didn’t need to ask the question—?

  The sound faded into the otherwise-silence of the crazy old house, with its newly-broken window. But it surely had been that old US marine threat: ‘From the halls of Montezuma/To the shores of Tripoli/We will fight our country’s battles/By the land or by the sea—’

  The whole Audley family was getting its toothbrushes, and Tom Arkenshaw needed a gun—that was the long-and-short of it, he thought.

  But … Tripoli, again?

  He didn’t like guns. The theory with guns was that they settled all arguments finally, of kings and cowboys as well as terrorists. But that was as facile as ‘the best things in life are free’, when Willy (and his best suit, which had not been tailored to suit a Smith and Wesson five-shot hammerless) certainly didn’t come without a credit-card or a cheque-book—guns, experience warned him, were never the end of things, but only the beginning of other things, more complicated and embarrassing first, and more unending afterwards.

  But, in spite of all of that, he still needed a gun—

  Finally, he got the show on the road, more or less.

  There were cases in the hall, with Mrs Audley and Miss Audley beside them, and a plainclothes man beside them.