Sion Crossing

by Anthony Price

  “Dr Audley’s right: he was meant to be out there.” James nodded.

  Winston Spencer Mulholland was a negro: he was black as the ace of spades—

  “There isn’t enough time to get him out there now, even if that’s what you want sir.”

  Winston Spencer Mulholland. Born Kingston, Jamaica, 5 May 1945—

  Mitchell accelerated to multi-dimensional reasoning: born near VE-Day in 1945, Mulholland was Winston for the same reason that innumerable British girl-babies had been Diana recently, and German boy-babies Adolf back in the early 1940s—

  Irrelevant—

  “There never is enough time,” said Audley. “So that’s a good reason for never doing anything, James.”

  “I wasn’t suggesting we shouldn’t do anything, Dr Audley.” James Cable looked down at Audley. “I am merely advising against you going to the United States at this time.”

  “And I am merely asking why not?”Audley’s tone became deceptively casual, and Mitchell tore himself away from the grinning black face in the file.

  “You are fairly well known, David.” said Butler gently. “In certain circles.”

  As little golden-haired children trailed fleecy clouds of glory and innocence, so David Audley was the thunderbearer of trouble and strife in a clear sky when he came unannounced, that was what the Colonel meant, thought Mitchell.

  “So my card’s marked.” Not even David could argue with that. “So what about Oliver St John Latimer’s card, then?”

  “Dr Latimer isn’t so well known in America—”

  “Damn it! He’s the new Deputy-Director, man!” Audley changed his tack. “His unlovely mug-shot will be on the wall from here to Timbuktoo by now—whatever he does, wherever he goes, some poor sod will be paid good money to ask ‘Why’. So what difference will I make?”

  James composed his expression to one of pure innocence. “Wouldn’t the two of you constitute what you would call ‘unlikely coincidence’, Dr Audley?”

  Ouch! thought Mitchell. Old James was sharper than usual this morning.

  “Besides which …” James let go of Audley like a terrier dropping a dead rat, in preference for a live quarry “… Wing-Commander Roskill is in the United States at the moment, sir. He’s actually lecturing on the Falkland Islands—on V/STOL air superiority tactics—at Annapolis … And we do still have an emeritus link with him—we can use him, and trust his discretion—”

  “That’s ridiculous!” exploded Audley. “Apart from the fact that Hugh’s got a game leg, and can’t go marching through Georgia the way he goes up and down like a yo-yo in a Harrier—apart from that, the Americans know all about his background. So you’ll only be substituting one coincidence for another, is all that will achieve.”

  “I have readied Wing-Commander Roskill therefore, sir.” James ignored Audley. “I’ve prepared a hot-line SG, scrambled on his personal key, telling him all we know. And I have laid on private air and ground transport for him, so he can be on his way from Atlanta to Smithsville in a couple of hours. All he needs is the G-word from you, sir.” At last he came back to Audley. “And with one-and-a-half legs he’s still better than most people with two, Dr Audley.”

  Audley glowered up at James, and Mitchell thought … beautiful—and beautiful not only because it was always good to see James at work, but also because that work was cutting David down to size, which never did any harm.

  “Quite right!” Butler gave James and David that fleeting glance of his which transferred all responsibility to him, as he reached for his hardware, to activate the Beast’s executive rôle. “In the circumstances, Hugh will do very well.”

  Mitchell watched the G-word tapped in, from Whitehall to Washington, and Washington to Annapolis, to launch Hugh Roskill off his comfortable pad towards Smithsville, and Sion Crossing.

  “Jack—for Christ’s sake—this is mine!” Audley cracked under the pressure of technology, which had taken away from him the chance of arguing his way into the forefront of the battle. “Oliver’s there—and it should be me—and now you’re putting Hugh there … and it still should be me, Jack.”

  “Yes.” Butler stared at the screen, waiting for the Beast to reply. “Of course it should be.”

  “Jack—”

  “Shut up, David … there’s a good fellow.” Butler waited another second, until the Beast accepted his order. Then he came back to Audley. “That’s done, then … Now—what was it?”

  “Cancel it, Jack.” Audley tried to be casual. “All you have to do is make it NG not G—Oliver isn’t up to this sort of thing … And this is my can of worms—you know that, too.”

  “Sir—” began James.

  Butler cut him off with a peremptory hand. “You’re quite right, David: this is your thing—Cookridge wanted you, and you knew Macallan … and, for all I know, you’re probably an expert on the American Civil War—”

  “I’m not, actually. But—”

  “It doesn’t matter. You can probably relate it to medieval history somehow … But it doesn’t matter—” Butler refused for once to be overborne “—it is perfectly your thing … And that’s why I’m not giving it to you.” He turned to James Cable. “Right, James?”

  “Yes, sir.” James was obviously vastly relieved to be understood. “We don’t know what they’re at, is the way I see it. In fact, we don’t even know who they are—”

  “So we may lose Oliver St John Latimer?” Audley still wasn’t finished. “And … I admit I hate his fat guts, but it would annoy me rather more than somewhat to have them spilled out unnecessarily—I’ve enough on my conscience as it is …” Suddenly he smiled. “Besides all of which I’ve never been up-country from the coast in those parts, and I can provide you with a perfectly good cover. There’s a very distinguished scholar I’ve corresponded with—he lives in a little town not so far from Atlanta … one that Sherman missed, so it’s full of the most delightful ante-bellum houses, and charming people to go with them, by all accounts … and, Jack, he does just happen to be the world authority on the Mint Julep, you see … And I really won’t be missed at Cheltenham for a few days—”

  “No!” At the best of times Colonel Butler was not a man to be disarmed by a smile, and least of all by one of David Audley’s smiles. “You haven’t been listening to a word anyone’s been saying, damn it!”

  “Yes, I have. You don’t want me to go because someone planned it that way. I think that’s a bloody good reason for going—now we know about it.”

  “I’m not going to say ‘no’ again, David. I have other work for you—and for you, Mitchell.” Butler’s gaze lifted to James Cable. “Where is Senator Cookridge as of now?”

  “Rome, sir.”

  “Okay,” Audley shrugged. “But I wouldn’t leave Oliver to Mulholland’s tender care if I were you.”

  There was something about that ‘tender care’ which made Mitchell look down at the file on his lap.

  Winston Spencer Mulholland was still grinning at him. He looked as though he hadn’t a care in the world. But then, if he was as expensive a bodyguard as James had indicated, he was obviously on top of his job. So—

  A name leapt out of the page—then another—

  Mitchell’s eye raced through the passage. And now there was another name he recognized.

  “Christ!” he exclaimed, and looked at Audley.

  “That’s right.” Audley nodded. “For ‘minding’ he charges hours worked plus expenses, with a bonus for delivery alive on an agreed date. But for killing it’s always a lump sum in advance.”

  Chapter Eight

  Latimer in America: On old Sion land

  LATIMER FOLLOWED LUCY Cookridge down the passage from the air-conditioned coolness of the study into the more temperate climate of the immense living room.

  His head didn’t ache so much now. After all, it had been a useful morning’s work, topped off by his successful handling of her mild interrogation; and there was this reassuring living room, with its well-filled books
helves and its elegant furniture and colour scheme, and its pots of exotic greenery sprouting up to the ceiling or cascading onto the tiled floor. The absent couple from whom the house had been rented were clearly persons of taste and respectability; and somehow that, even at the remove of temporary occupancy, bestowed even greater respectability on Miss Cookridge and on the curious mission he had undertaken.

  For it was a curious mission, and he still had the feeling that there must be more to it than he knew—more perhaps that he had seen, and more than Lucy Cookridge had revealed; in fact, the night before, in the uncertain moments of not-quite-asleep, he had felt very far alike from home and from the certainties and safety of his ordinary life, with its carefully calculated beginnings and ends. But he no longer regretted his actions.

  “Kingston?” Lucy smiled at him as she called the name. “Where are you?”

  Latimer returned the smile. He had known then, in that moment of doubt last night, how far he had strayed on impulse from his accustomed path. And he had never been a creature of impulse … which might very well account for young Mitchell’s irreverent curiosity about his whereabouts during that routine call.

  “Kingston!” Lucy craned her neck towards the dining area.

  Latimer studied the bookshelves. Lucy had said last night that the owner was an academic, and the study had been full of scientific work. Here the range was more catholic …

  He could not honestly quarrel with Mitchell’s curiosity, he decided. And when he got back to England and took up the Deputy-Director’s reins he might cultivate that young man. Because, properly channelled—channelled away from David Audley’s erratic influence—that young man had possibilities. All Mitchell needed was discipline.

  “Miz Lucy!” Kingston’s voice came from far away.

  Now … Kingston was a much more equivocal character: there was more to that man than met the eye, and maybe a lot more. But, in the meantime, he felt at peace with the world.

  “Come here!” Scarlett O’Hara herself could not have sounded more imperious; at least, out of earshot of her mother, who would have admonished her not to raise her voice so at the house-slaves!

  “Ah’s a comin’!” The reply mimicked Miss O’Hara’s command, but from the slave quarters.

  Lucy made a face at him. “But in his own time … But never mind, Oliver. I’ll have him drive you—he’s going to town anyway … So he can show you where to go, and then he can wait for you on his way back.”

  But a slave Kingston certainly wasn’t, thought Latimer. That baffling manner of his, by turns argumentative and then deferential, sometimes that of a mocking—and self-mocking—inferior, and then more like a well-informed and well-educated equal … there was no pinning the man down at all, except to be sure that he was more than he pretended to be.

  And that was another thing the new Deputy-Director would have to zero in on: they must recruit coloured personnel now.

  “Kingston! We’re waiting, darn it! Where—”

  “An’ ah’s a comin’—” Kingston barged through the swing-door from the kitchen, with his accustomed grin on his lips and an automatic pistol in one hand “—you want something to eat, huh?” He pointed the pistol at Latimer.

  “No. Oliver wants to see Sion Crossing. So you can take him in when you go, in Fat Albert … And, for heaven’s sake, do stop playing with that wretched thing before you shoot someone with it!” Lucy gestured irritably. “Is it loaded?”

  The negro returned Latimer’s expression of horror with one of mischievous delight. “Hell no, Miz Lucy!” He opened his other hand to reveal an oily rag and commenced to polish the pistol. “I wouldn’t clean a loaded gun now, would I? That’s the way accidents happen.” Almost impossibly, his grin widened. “I just can’t bear a dirty gun—like my Ma couldn’t bear a dirty kitchen … She just couldn’t stand for anything to be dirty, an’ that’s the truth—always polishing and cleaning, she was, you know, Oliver.”

  Latimer took a grip on the anger which had swiftly succeeded fear inside him. The man had seemed to behave with abominable carelessness, but he couldn’t be sure of that—or at least not sure enough to risk humiliation by expressing outrage. For David Audley had caught him in the past with just such deliberately simulated excesses, albeit never with anything so crude as firearms, for which they both shared an aversion.

  He frowned as he thought of David Audley. Why was he continually thinking of that wretched fellow? Perhaps it was because it should have been Audley standing here now? Or was it because—however aggravating the conclusion might be—Audley might have known better how to handle this black man?

  “Don’t you fret! I wouldn’t have shot you, Oliver.” Kingston misread the frown. “Not unless I’d wanted to.”

  Two of a kind, thought Latimer suddenly. One black and one white, and utterly different. But two of a kind, nevertheless!

  “I wasn’t thinking of that.” The identification relaxed him. “I was thinking … do you always carry a gun? Is that an American custom still—like in the cowboy films?” That was much better; it even had possibilities. “Were there any black cowboys—historically, I mean?”

  Historically was nice, too: after all, he was here—and David Audley should have been here—as a historian.

  “Not my gun.” The smile didn’t disappear, but it wasn’t quite so wide. ”This is one of Professor Booth’s equalizers—”

  “Where did you find it?” Lucy cut in.

  “In the g’rage.” Kingston stuck the pistol into the waistband of his jeans and produced a ring of keys from his pocket. “In the locked drawer in the work-bench.” He jingled the keys. “That’s four he’s got, so far … One in the bedroom—one in the drawer over there—” He pointed towards a low table beside the fireplace “—an’ the squirrel-rifle in the cupboard … an’ this little ol’ piece.” He tapped the pistol. “Like the Professor’s ready for uninvited guests, wherever he may be when they come visiting.”

  “Good God!” exclaimed Latimer. Somehow, the idea of a professor armed to the teeth was more shocking than the armoury itself.

  “There may be more.” Kingston brightened. “You see, you’re quite right, Oliver—it is an old American custom. You can get yourself shot here a whole lot easier than most places … It’s written down in the Constitution—the Right to Get Shot … though they call it the Right to Bear Arms.” The brightness increased. “You being a historian would know that—it dates from when there was open season on British redcoats … and then red Indians and buffalo. And when all of them were shot, that just left us to shoot up each other. But it’s all properly divided up.”

  Latimer couldn’t help himself. “Divided up?”

  “Sure. If you got a badge, then it’s law enforcement. If you haven’t, all you need is a sharp lawyer an’ some extenuating circumstances. Or …” Kingston pointed at the window “… if there’s a lot of trees around, an’ some poor four-legged animals too—an’ it’s the right time of year—that’s a hunting accident, and you won’t do any time at all. You just got to get it right, that’s all.”

  “Kingston!” Lucy bridled at this litany of death. “It isn’t like that at all! Don’t listen to him, Oliver—”

  “Honeychile—it is!” Kingston shook his head. “’Cause, a few years back, if you wuz a nigger here’bouts—you wuz just in the wrong place at the wrong time … It ain’t so now, in that partic’lar sub-division, I grant you—if Oliver was to shoot me they’d probably throw the book at him … less’n there’s a good sheriff round here—and there are some good sheriffs in the South now, I grant you that, too … Okay?”

  Lucy frowned. “He is good—”

  “Sheriff Rinehart?” The negro cocked his head at her. “He’s smart—that’s for sure!” The sidelong look came to Latimer. “Keeps his eye on strangers, is what she means … Knows who Miz Lucy Cookridge is, if you’re a betting man you could make money on that, if I was willing to give you odds—okay?” He grinned. “All you gotta remember with gu
ns, Oliver, is that it’s concealed weapons that are bad medicine.”

  A different world, thought Latimer. The same, but different—and all the more different for its sameness. But then a thought struck him. “Why does … the Professor—Professor Booth … why does he have all these weapons?”

  Kingston raised a hand. “Self-protection.”

  “From what?”

  “From whatever—from whoever.” Self-protection appeared to be self-evident to Kingston. “Man’s got a right to protect himself—a stranger comes round the back, an’ doesn’t knock at the door, he better have his hands empty, that’s all.”

  It was a different world, thought Latimer. Of course, the negro was trying to frighten him with exaggeration, no doubt to see how he reacted. But it was a different world nevertheless—and all the more menacing because of its obvious similarities.

  “You’d shoot him, would you?” All the more reason to keep his cool.

  “No he wouldn’t!” snapped Lucy.

  Kingston grinned. “Not if he was running away, maybe. But if he was trying to get in … you bet your ass I would.”

  “Even if he had no weapons?”

  “I wouldn’t wait to find out … An’ after that … if he hadn’t—I guess I’d just go round to the wood-shed an’ get me the little axe. An’ I’d put it in his hand.” Kingston nodded. “An’ I’d say ‘Hell, Sheriff—when he come at me with that deadly weapon, ah wuz real scairt, an’ ah feared for mah life!’”

  A different world. But the truly horrible thing was that there were beginning to be dangerous places even in England now, where the jungle was encroaching all the time.

  He shook his head. “I see … Yes, well … guns don’t particularly interest me at this moment, Mr Kingston, as I don’t intend to break into anyone’s property. All I want to do is go for a walk along the ridge above the river, from near the bridge and the church to where the old plantation house used to be. Would that be possible?”

  The negro studied him. “Sion Crossing, you mean?”