But he wasn’t going into the wuzzy like the rabbit: the gorse was old and thick on both sides of him, and even if he could break through it (which he didn’t think he could, anyway), it would slow him down too much—or it might even stop him altogether. And that was all the man with the rifle needed—
(‘The Green Machine’, Audley had called it, of course: ‘They had a break-in and lost a couple—’: and they had one in the car now—but the other was up there on his flank somewhere! Damn, damn damn!)
He had to keep moving: so long as he was moving sideways—then he had a chance. Not even the best marksman liked deflection shooting: marksmen liked sitting targets—
But the damned wuzzy was still too high on either side, and he could feel the land falling away under his feet with each rabbit-bound. So what he was doing now was running back the way he’d come, parallel to the invisible path below him and the great grey sea itself. So this route would trap him on the very point of the high ground, on that last straight stretch after the zig-zags had brought them up from Brentiscombe meadow. So … he must bear right—must take the risk that they were on an interception course above him: once down in that heather-and-bracken, among the stone outcrops, then he’d have a chance as they came over the skyline in their turn, because he still had his gun—
Even as he changed direction the slope in front of him seemed to drop away and the whole combe sprang into view far beneath him, with its tiny houses huddled under foreshortened trees and the line of model cars parked beyond them. But in the very instant that he saw the combe a bullet cracked viciously—cracked and double-cracked—the sound was above him, yet also somehow behind him and ahead of him too in the same fraction of time before the howling wind carried it away.
As Tom threw himself forwards he already knew that he could never keep his feet on such a descent, but he managed an impossible succession of downward rabbit-leaps towards the nearest outcrop before the ground slipped from under him on the rain-sodden bracken. Yet even then, by some acrobatic miracle, he contrived to control his slide for another twenty yards, first on his bottom and then on his back, until one foot suddenly snagged in a deep-rooted patch of heather, twisting him sideways with an explosion of pain. And then earth and sky whirled, and he was rolling and tumbling helplessly, grabbing—grabbing—
Christ Jesus! He’d lost the gun!
Heather and bracken tore his hands as he tried to slow his descent, but then the hopelessness of recovering the weapon opened them again, even though he felt that it was like letting go of life itself as he slid and tumbled the last few yards to drop over a miniature cliff on to the path below.
The fall jarred stars in front of his eyes for a moment—red and yellow stars, seen hazily through blurring rain and sweat. But then they weren’t stars at all: they were a huge red-and-yellow kite, straining to escape from their owner up the path, a few yards away.
‘Get away! Get away!’ Tom screamed at the boy as he tried to struggle to his feet. ‘Get away!’
The kite and the boy parted company: the kite soared upwards and outwards, and the boy seemed to disappear outwards and downwards, over the edge of the track. And Tom cried out in anguish as his ankle grated and gave way under him.
He fell on his side, and for a second he wanted only to curl up into a ball and disappear. But then his brain ordered hands and knees—hands and knees if not feet, Tom!
He heard himself cry out again in agony as he righted himself and the broken bones of his ankle screamed at him. And then it was too late.
It seemed hugely unfair that Major Sadowski had made the same descent somehow intact: the Major should have fallen too, and lost his gun, and even broken his bloody neck, thought Tom angrily. But Sadowski hadn’t. And neither had the man in the combat jacket, who swam into view—unfocused and then focused—with the white eyes in the blackened face and the rifle in his hands. And that was unfair, too.
In fact, everything was unfair—even being killed on his hands and knees on a muddy path was unfair. And his ankle hurt like hell, too—
He wiped his sweaty face with one hand, hypnotized by the muzzle of the gun in Sadowski’s fist, which was pointing at him. But then, inexplicably, it wasn’t pointing at him as the man in the combat jacket said something—or started to say something as Sadowski shot him at close quarters, spinning him clear off the path.
Tom frowned uncomprehending at Sadowski, watching him replace the gun methodically in its holster. Then the Major took three steps and started to reach down for the rifle, which his murdered comrade had so suddenly relinquished.
‘Leave it!’ shouted a shrill voice from far behind Tom.
The Major froze for a second, his hand halfway to the rifle. Then his head moved slightly, so that he was staring past Tom, up the path towards the sea.
The urge to turn himself in the direction of Sadowski’s stare and towards that weird far-off imperious voice, yet at the same time keep his eyes on the Major himself, was too much for flesh-and-blood: wishing to do both taxed Tom’s enfeebled powers of decision so that he attempted to do both, and ended up by doing neither as he exerted pressure again on his smashed bones and was facing uselessly into space across half an empty mile, towards the zig-zag path on the hillside on the other side of the combe, as the blinding pain and the explosive chatter of a machine-pistol confused his senses.
The distant hillside blurred and the treacherous wind took the noise and spread it into infinity, so that the echo was only inside his head instead of reverberating up and down the combe and far and wide over the high empty Devon coastline. But it froze him nevertheless, just as the strange shrill voice had held Major Sadowski for that lost moment in the past, before he had come to what Tom knew—knew without needing to understand—had been his final and inevitable decision, because that had always been the Major’s game—
Kill, or be killed!
The far hillside became crystal-clear, so that Tom could observe with detached interest that it was steeper than his own, with less vegetation and with avalanches of rocky scree; and thought (light-headedly) that if Major-General Gennadiy Zarubin (who was dead) had climbed that way, then maybe Major Sadowski (and maybe the man-in-the-combat-jacket, with the black-face-but-white-eyes) wouldn’t be dead; but he hadn’t, and they were—he was, and they were … so now Tom Arkenshaw—so Tom Arkenshaw, against all the odds—
He lifted his bad ankle again. And, though it still screamed out at him, he was almost grateful for the pain’s reassurance that he was still in his own world, the world of the living, as he contrived to look over his shoulder at last—
He saw the child’s push-chair first, on the bend in the patch where it turned to follow the coastline a dozen yards away, almost on the very spot where he said ‘I shall resign’ to Audley, five hundred feet above the great grey angry sea, so very recently—so very recently and so long ago for Zarubin and Sadowski and the camouflaged man … for them, in fact, it had been the rest of their whole lifetimes—
The head-scarfed mother detached herself from the overhang, still holding the machine-pistol stiffly at the ready, ignoring him and her empty push-chair equally as she sidled step-by-careful-step across the path—the old professionally well-balanced step, ready for anything: he had seen that before, the fluid careful body, the steady gun and the watchful eyes! But he had never really been in that class, in which preservation was not a sequence of precautions, but a violent pre-emptive action against the terrorists—
She reached the edge of the path, and took one quick up-and-down glance over it, only to confirm what she already knew while hardly taking her eye off the path over Tom and beyond him, just in case (and just in case was another hallmark of the pro)—
But now, at last, she looked at him, and advanced towards him. And, just as he was testing the idea that maybe she wasn’t a woman after all, she smiled at him, and he knew that she was, of course: it wasn’t just that remembered voice, and certainly not the smile, it was everything about her which mad
e her a woman.
‘Hi there, Sir Thomas.’ She was late-thirties at close quarters, but not noticeably hard-as-nails. ‘I’m Shirley.’
Tom felt at a disadvantage. ‘Hullo … Shirley.’ Part of the disadvantage was a feeling of intense gratitude. Which, because she had only been doing her job, made him also feel foolish. But there was also the fact that he couldn’t stand up: as she moved cautiously past him and he tried to keep her in sight his broken bones reminded him painfully of his fall. ‘I’m afraid I’ve broken my ankle.’
‘Is that a fact?’ The path was empty except for the rifle which Sadowski had reached for in vain. But she wasn’t interested in that. ‘Is there anyone else up there, Sir Thomas?’ She watched the hillside as she spoke.
‘No.’ The pain made him catch his breath. ‘There were just the two of them.’
Two?‘ She shifted her attention to the outside edge of the path. ’Hmm … well that surely makes two.‘ She studied what he couldn’t see for a moment, then she peered further back. ’You can come on up, Wilhemina.‘
Tom’s disadvantaged feeling expanded into embarrassment. He should have known, of course—children, clogs or kites, none of them were Willy’s scene. But chiefly it was obstinate disobedience which came naturally to her.
‘Wilhemina!’ This time Shirley shouted the name. ‘Come on up!’
‘I’m coming—I’m coming!’ Willy sounded angry, rather than scared, in the distance. ‘I fell halfway down the hill, darn it, Shirl!’
Tom sat up with difficulty, holding his injured leg with both hands unsuccessfully. Not that he was about to regain much dignity, with his knuckles skinned and bloodied by his fall through the gorse, and his face not much better, by the feel of it.
‘Hmm … ’ Shirley stared down at him. But there was a surprising lack of disdain in her expression. ‘You got the other one, huh?’
Tom hid his surprise beneath his pain. But then he realized that she must have been round the point of the path when Sadowski had killed his comrade: she must have been covering Audley when the freak wind had carried the sound of Sadowski’s shot—or one of the shots—back to her; and Willy had been behind her, and therefore been closer to this point; so Willy had arrived here first—was that it?
Quite deliberately, he let the bones grate again, and cried out in genuine agony.
Tom honey! For God’s sake—!‘ Willy’s anguished cry also came to his rescue.
‘He’s okay.’ Shirl’s voice was coldly matter-of-fact. ‘He’s just hurt his ankle—that’s all.’
‘Tom honey!’ With the hood of her anorak down and her hair out she was Willy. ‘I thought you were shot!’
‘I’m all right.’ She was going to fuss over him, and he liked the idea of that because it gave him time to think. ‘Honestly I am, Willy,’
‘Oh, Tom—you’re a mess!’ Her eyes were dark with concern, ‘You’re not fit to be allowed out on your own—that’s the truth!’
What Tom thought first, as she brushed his own hair out of his eyes, was—I’m the only one who knows what really happened, in all its confusing completeness—
And then the thought betrayed him: in the second place it wasn’t quite so confusing now—
But he looked at Shirley, with sudden knowledge conferring power greater than pain. ‘Is Audley all right?’
‘When I last saw him he was just fine.’ Shirley rewarded him with a look of undeserved professional approval. ‘I think he was quite enjoying himself, maybe.’
Tom tried to concentrate on her, to the exclusion of Willy’s perfume and her soft solicitous touch. ‘Enjoying himself?’
‘Yeah.’ Shirley shared one efficient minder’s secret with another less-efficient minder. ‘Dr Audley likes winning, Sir Thomas.’
‘W — ‘ Tom caught the word before it betrayed him, and turned it into a very different word. ’Willy … I love you, Willy.‘ But, as he changed the word, it became the absolute and ultimate truth. ’Do you love me, Willy?‘
Wilhemina Groot considered the wreck of Sir Thomas Arkenshaw critically. ‘I don’t know about love, Tom honey. But someone has got to look after you—that I do know!’
This was what mattered, in the third place, after knowledge and power. And, also, Willy Groot would know how to keep Mamusia in her place:. ‘Will you become the umpteenth Lady Arkenshaw, in Debrett’s, and Burke’s Peerage, Willy?’
The wind and rain swirled round them, and Tom felt the wetness of the puddle in which he was sitting chill his backside. But that was a minor discomfort compared with the importance of Willy Groot’s decision, which would decide Tom Arkenshaw’s fate—and possibly Dr David Audley’s fate, and the future of Research and Development, and that preux chevalier Colonel Jack Butler with it … and maybe even Henry Jaggard too … but bugger all of them! Tom Arkenshaw first—first and last!
Tom honey! I thought you’d never ask—‘
‘Christ O’Reilly!’ Shirley exploded. ‘We’ve got two dead men within spitting distance—and a Russian with diplomatic privilege just round the corner—’
‘Shut up, Shirley,’ said Willy. ‘Yes, Tom.’ She turned to Shirley at last. ‘Being married to Tom will never be dull: he’s a full-time job. He’s half-Polish, you see—half good Anglo-Saxon-Anglo-Norman, but half Polish. It’s a great mixture: half of him is steady and calculates both ends against the middle—but half is into charging the machine-guns on horseback … Isn’t that the truth, Tom honey?’
Tom thought of Sadowski, who had charged his last machine-gun in vain. But then he thought of David Audley, who had calculated everything exactly in the end—even including Tom Arkenshaw himself.
‘More or less, Willy—yes.’ But what he actually thought was … being married to Willy Groot would never be dull either, although it might be uncomfortable at times; but then being married—professionally married—to David Audley would be much the same; but now they had both asked for his hand in marriage, and they both needed him, albeit for different reasons: so who was he to go against the vote of the majority?
He smiled at Shirley. ‘I can give you a telephone number to ring, to clear up the mess. And I think I shall also need a stretcher, to carry me back to civilization.’
Or, anyway, what passed for civilization, in an age as dark as that of King Stephen and the Empress Matilda. And in so dark an age the prudent man must look to his own interests with the greatest care.
‘I’d like to talk to David Audley, too,’ he added. ‘There are things he needs to know.’
PART THREE
WINNERS AND LOSERS AND WINNERS
IN THE EVENT, it was Garrod Harvey who began the inquiry into ‘The Exmoor Massacre’, not Henry Jaggard himself.
However (as Jaggard was at pains to explain very quickly), this was not because the whole thing had been his (Garrod Harvey’s) idea in the first place, but rather because his (Henry Jaggard’s) view of Research and Development was all too well-known; so that if justice was to be seen to be done (if not actually done), it would be far more distinctly seen to be so if it resulted from a recommendation from below rather than a simple act of joyful obedience on his (Henry Jaggard’s) part to a Ministerial and FCO ultimatum.
Which was the truth, up to a point.
By then the mortal remains of Major-General Gennadiy Zarubin—the victim of a tragic heart attack while en route to a tour of the Westland helicopter works at Yeovil—were themselves en route to Moscow, accompanied by his grieving comrade, Professor Nikolai Andrievich Panin. And the Gorbachev appeasers in the FCO, who knew exactly what had happened to the General’s heart, had expressed ‘I-told-you-so’ delight at the Soviet Embassy’s friendly desire to hush up the whole affair, subject only to the punishment of whoever had been responsible for such lax security on the British side; which quite properly pointed to the serving up of David Audley’s head on a platter, suitably garnished with a lettuce leaf, two radishes and a carrot Julienne, in the Nouvelle Cuisine manner.
So the outcome of the i
nquiry was cut-and-dried, and every prospect was pleasing on the surface. But in retrospect Henry Jaggard still shuddered at the risks he had taken in going along with Garrod Harvey’s lateral thinking, for he was by nature a belt-and-braces man. And, also, he had wind of certain rumours which were going the rounds beneath the surface, which most disconcertingly combined outrageously inaccurate elements with disturbingly accurate ones; so that it was to these rumours that he turned the conversation first, when Garrod Harvey came back from his exploratory interview with Colonel Jack Butler, following his final de-briefing of Sir Thomas Arkenshaw …
‘Yes.’ Harvey pushed a chair across the carpet towards the desk, and lowered himself into it gingerly, as though in pain. ‘Well, there are basically two of them, with variations: there’s what might be called “the Irish joke” and “the Polish joke”.’ He flexed his shoulders cautiously. “The Irish joke appears to have emanated from somewhere in the Special Branch, and is simple and circumstantial, and quite amusing. But wildly wide of the mark, in more senses than one.‘ He paused for an instant, in order to concentrate on his right shoulder. ’Whereas the Polish one is much more ingenious, Henry. But not nearly so funny, because it is substantially true, I rather think.‘
It was reassuring that Garrod Harvey had done his homework properly as usual, thought Jaggard. ‘And that’s the one David Audley himself has put abroad, I take it?’
‘Well … actually … no. I rather think his was the Irish one.’ Harvey stopped flexing his shoulder. ‘He has quite a few friends in the Branch. In fact, although he has a lot of enemies, he does also seem to have a surprising number of friends, Henry. Particularly in Grosvenor Square.’
‘Indeed? Well they’re not going to be able to help him now.’ Special Branch friends or American friends, he must expect Audley to take defensive measures. ‘But you have the truth from Tom Arkenshaw, Garry?’
For the Good of the State Page 32
