October Men

by Anthony Price

  “Dr. Audley has been behaving—“ Latimer made a show of pausing judicially, “—eccentrically of late.”

  “Hell’s teeth—he always behaves like that. I’ve never known him act any other way.”

  “Eccentric isn’t quite le mot juste,” said Latimer hurriedly. “I didn’t wish to sound offensive—I still don’t wish to—but to be quite frank he seemed to me to have delusions of infallibility. And when one questioned his conclusions he’s been extremely disagreeable, to say the very least.”

  “Oh, come on!” Richardson cut in derisively. It was the sound of those clichés that suddenly gave him strength: it was precisely that habit of Latimer’s of denying that he intended to be offensive just before he delivered his worst insults, and of proclaiming his frankness when he was about to be less than frank, that drove David Audley farthest up the wall.

  “There’s more to it than that, naturally.”

  “There’d bloody better be, hadn’t there?”

  “There is,” said Stacker bleakly.

  Richardson felt his new-found confidence shrivel up as quickly as it had inflated, like a child’s balloon. If Latimer was quite capable of mounting a palace revolution against a rival, the brigadier was too cautious a man either to join such a plot or to be easily taken in by one.

  “It could be that David has simply been very foolish, but the fact is that he’s gone to Rome with his family, bag and baggage, without any sort of clearance from the department whatsoever. In fact he didn’t tell a soul where he was going—except his cleaning woman, Mrs. Clark. If it wasn’t for her, we wouldn’t have the faintest idea where he was.”

  He paused to let the enormity of the security breach sink in. “He slunk off on the cheap night flight. And if we didn’t have this dead man on our hands we’d never have checked up on him either, because he’s supposed to be on ten days’ leave that was due to him.”

  Foolish! By damn, it was that right enough, thought Richardson bitterly. And more than that: it was almost the classic pattern for a defection, neither too elaborate nor too simple, but just enough to delay precipitate action under normal circumstances.

  Only a dead man had blown it sky high—it hadn’t even required any malice of Latimer’s to stir things after that. No bloody wonder they were all in a muck sweat.

  But he still needed time to think—time, and a lot more information.

  “Mrs. Clark,” he exclaimed suddenly. Almost the classic pattern, but not quite: Mrs. Clark was the odd thread in the design. She was a lot more than David’s cleaning woman, he knew that: she had been an integral part of the landscape of the Old House for over half a century. As a young girl she had mothered the lonely boy after his real mother’s death, had been his confidant in the stepmother era and had naturally graduated to the post of housekeeper when he had come into his kingdom. Indeed, during one long drunken evening on that last assignment in the north David had as good as hinted that it had only been with her approval that he had married Faith. So it was not in the least surprising that she alone knew where he had gone. But if he hadn’t intended to come back he would have sworn her to secrecy, and she would have kept the secret over a regiment of bodies.

  “What about her?” Stocker watched him narrowly.

  “What does she say?”

  Stocker grimaced. “Nothing—that’s the trouble.”

  “Nothing? But she told you David’s Rome address?”

  “She told us that, yes. And she told us that someone shot at her husband. But beyond that she won’t say a word. She won’t even admit that her husband shot back, even though they found him with the shotgun still in his hands.”

  “What does Charlie say?”

  Stocker stared at him, frowning. “He won’t say anything either. Apparently she told him to keep quiet, and that’s just what he’s done. The police can’t get a word out of either of them.”

  He could well believe the news of Charlie’s silence, because Charlie was taciturn by nature as well as obedient to his wife by long-established custom. But Mrs. Clark’s closed mouth was another matter, and a much more suspicious one too. In an unnaturally garrulous moment her husband had once observed that she talked enough for two, and it was the plain truth: she had a tongue like a teenager’s transistor.

  “I’d like to have a go at her then,” said Richardson. “She doesn’t know you, but she does know me and I think I’d stand a better chance with her than most anyone else.”

  “I’m relieved to hear that you think so,” said Stocker, with the ghost of a calculating smile. “Because that, Peter, is one of the chief reasons why you are here.”

  There was a large man in thornproof tweeds talking to another man in a rain-darkened trenchcoat outside the door to the dining room. At second glance Trenchcoat was maybe an inch taller than Tweeds, but Tweeds carried a weight of confidence and authority which gave him extra inches, the boss-man’s eternal unfair advantage.

  When they turned towards Stocker, however, their faces bore exactly the same guarded expression in which deference and hostility exactly cancelled each other out. Richardson had seen that look before and understood it only too well. He even felt a twinge of sympathy: on its own this was a nasty little affair, involving firearms— which the British police violently disliked—and a shooting match between civilians—which mortally offended them. But at least it was clear enough what had happened, or so it must have seemed at first glance.

  But now they faced the added and appallingly tricky dimension of national security, the cloak under which crimes were not only committed but sometimes allowed to go unpunished. So now these guardians of the peace could feel the solid ground of the law shifting under their feet; at the best they might be required to turn a blind eye, which they hated doing, and at the worst they might be forced to connive at felony—that was what they feared most now.

  “Ah—Superintendent!” The clipped tone of Stacker’s voice left nobody in doubt as to who was the senior officer present. “This is the —ah—officer from the Ministry I briefed you about—Captain Richardson.”

  The Superintendent appraised Richardson briefly, then nodded.

  “You think you can make Mrs. Clark tell her husband to talk to us, Captain?”

  Richardson could not help grinning. The difference between them was that the police only wanted old Charlie to admit he’d pulled the trigger, whereas Stocker wanted to know how Audley had taken it into his head to disappear. But obviously both of them were surprised and galled to come up against a pair of old countryfolk who were not overawed by the combined sight of the police and the Ministry of Defence.

  David would have enjoyed that!

  He shrugged. “It’s possible, but I wouldn’t bet on it. Just how much have you got so far?”

  “Not much.” The Superintendent admitted, turning towards his subordinate. “You tell him, John.”

  “Not much indeed.” Trenchcoat grinned back wryly at Richardson, as one journeyman to another. “And most of it comes from the constable here, Yates.”

  He paused. “Mrs. Clark woke him up about half-past one this morning. Said someone had broken in here, they’d seen a torch flashing, and Charlie had gone up—that’s Mr. Clark—to stop ‘em getting away. Yates came on straight up here with Mrs. Clark—she wouldn’t stay behind. They found Clark sitting at the bottom of the stairs, and this other fella up on the landing. Charlie had stopped him right enough.”

  “But Charlie said something?”

  “Aye. Not that it makes much sense. He said—at least Yates thinks he said—‘Bloody Germans—shot at me.’ And then his wife said ‘Hold your tongue, Charlie.’ And not a word we’ve had out of him since.”

  “Germans?”

  “That’s what Yates thought he said, but the old man was in quite a state so he may have misheard.”

  “On the contrary,” Richardson shook his head. “I’d guess that was exactly what Charlie said.”

  “Indeed?” Trenchcoat looked interested. “He was in the
war then?”

  “He was in the army for about a year—he was invalided out after Dunkirk. From what David’s told me I think he had a bad time during the retreat, but it wasn’t a subject you could get him to talk about— not that you could ever get him to talk about anything really. Only he certainly had it in for the Germans… And is that all you got out of them?”

  “The woman gave us Dr. Audley’s address without us asking for it —she had it written on a piece of paper. She just said she wanted to talk to this solicitor of hers and she wouldn’t talk to us.”

  A look of irritation passed across the Superintendent’s face. Glancing sidelong at Stacker, Richardson was rewarded with a similar expression. So that was the size of it: the shrewd old body had not just simply closed up on them—she had claimed her rights with the speed of an old lag! Small wonder the big shots were vexed as well as suspicious.

  It occurred to him suddenly that some of that annoyance had been directed at Trenchcoat as well. That Stocker had not been wholly open with him was no surprise, of course; the detail about the solicitor merely confirmed what could be taken for granted. But obviously no one had thought to warn Trenchcoat. So—

  “I was going to tell you about that, Peter,” Stocker said. “You can see what it means.”

  “Yes, I can see how important it is to stop her blabbing to a solicitor,” Richardson replied helpfully. He turned back quickly to Trenchcoat before anyone could change the action. “What about the rest of it?”

  “You mean the other man?”

  “The other man—“ Richardson held his gaze to the exclusion of anyone else’s warning expression. “—Yes. The other man.”

  Trenchcoat shrugged. “Apart from the imprint of his shoes in the flowerbed at the back where he jumped out of the window, we haven’t got a thing on him. He must have beat it fast after Clark shot his mate, but he didn’t leave his calling card anywhere.”

  So there’d been two of them, and the news—whatever the news was —was out. Two of them, and they hadn’t bothered to tell him: his role was simply to soften up Mrs. Clark and then return to the joys of Dublin.

  “Of course, we haven’t asked round the village yet—“ Trenchcoat stopped abruptly, as though someone had pressed his switch.

  “I think—“ Stocker filled the break smoothly “—we’d better find out first whether you can open up Mrs. Clark before we tie up the loose ends for you, Peter.”

  “Right.” Richardson spread an innocent glance around him; Stocker was playing it deadpan still, although Trenchcoat could not quite conceal his confusion any more than the Superintendent bothered to hide a suggestion of contempt at this turn of events. It was Oliver St. John Latimer’s expression of suspicion which decided him on his course of action: the man was a slob, but not a foolish slob to be taken in by false innocence. The moment he got Stocker alone he would make one thing clear: that Richardson was a disciple of Audley’s, and therefore not to be trusted. And Stocker would believe him—now.

  So there was nothing more to be gained by being a good little boy!

  “Right,” he repeated. “So what sort of deal do I make with her?”

  “Deal?” The Superintendent frowned. “What do you mean—deal?”

  “Just that. She’s not going to talk to me because I’ve got a kind face—she’ll talk because when I offer her a bargain she’ll know she can trust me to keep my side of it. And don’t tell me you haven’t tried that already.”

  “What sort of deal have you in mind, Captain Richardson?” said the Superintendent cautiously.

  “There’s only one that’d do: let old Charlie off the hook.”

  “We’ll promise to go easy on him.”

  “Easy on him? Christ—the poor old bastard hasn’t committed a crime!”

  “He’s killed a man, Captain.”

  “In self-defence—and if he hadn’t he’d be dead.”

  “It doesn’t alter the case.” The Superintendent shook his head. “But we’ll go in and bat for him—that’s the most I can do.”

  “Well, it’s no damn good. It’s the court appearance that’d break Charlie. But you aren’t offering him anything he hasn’t got already— there isn’t a judge or a jury on God’s earth that’ll touch him, and she knows that even if you don’t. But the damage’ll be done all the same —she knows that too.”

  “Then what exactly do you suggest?”

  “We fake it up. The man fell down stairs and blew his own head off. I believe it’s called ‘misadventure’.”

  The Superintendent shook his head. “It can’t be done, Captain.”

  “It’s been done before.”

  “Not by us, it hasn’t.” The Superintendent looked hard at Stocker. “And we aren’t starting now, that’s final.”

  And that, also, was a mistake, thought Richardson happily: it was exactly the sort of challenge Stocker could not afford to overlook.

  “Final?” Stacker’s tone was deceptively gentle. “I wouldn’t quite say that, Superintendent. It seems to me that we might manage something along those lines, you know.”

  “Indeed, sir?” The Superintendent said heavily. “Well, I’m afraid I can’t agree with you there. You’re asking me to break the law.”

  “To bend it, certainly. But not to pervert it. After all, since you’ve already agreed to—ah—bat for Clark the case would be little more than a formality, wouldn’t it?”

  “The law is the law, sir,” the Superintendent intoned the ancient lie obstinately.

  “I’m well aware of the law.”

  The danger signal was lost on the Superintendent. “Of course, you can promise the woman anything you like, sir. As far as I’m concerned you’re free to do whatever suits you.”

  Richardson opened his mouth to protest—the double-crossing sod! —and then closed it instantly as he saw the light in Stocker’s eye. The Superintendent had made his final error.

  “You are exactly right there,” said Stocker icily. “I can promise her anything I like and I am free to do what suits me—you are exactly right.”

  The Brigadier had come to the Department from a missile command, but before that he had been an artilleryman: the words were like ranging shots bracketing the Superintendent’s position.

  On target!

  “And it suits me now to remind you that I am in charge here—“

  Shoot!

  “—and you are absolutely free to telephone your Chief Constable if you have any doubts about that.”

  The two men stared across the hall at each other.

  “You make yourself very clear, sir.”

  Target destroyed! No doubt about that, anyway: it was there in the droop of the tweed shoulders and the immobile facial muscles.

  “It’s better that we understand each other.”

  The Superintendent nodded slowly. “I take it you will be putting this in writing—that you have assumed responsibility?”

  “Naturally,” Stocker nodded back equally slowly. Then he turned towards Richardson. “You can go ahead and make your deal, Peter.”

  “Right—“ In the instant before Richardson’s gaze shifted from the Superintendent to the Brigadier he glimpsed a fleeting change of expression, a change so brief that it should have passed unnoticed “—sir.”

  It was a look of profound satisfaction though, not defeat…

  So that was the way of it after all: that target had been a false one, no more than an incitement of Stocker to take all the responsibility, and to take it over a formal protest and in black and white… Except for that momentary twitch of triumph it had been neatly done, too.

  Not that it would worry the Brigadier, who was as accustomed to carrying the can as he was to breathing. It was simply a reminder that for him the Clarks and their victim were of very little significance.

  What mattered was David Audley.

  IV

  “HULLO, CLARKIE!”

  “Mr. Richardson!” Surprise, relief and then suspicion chased each other across Mr
s. Clark’s face in quick succession. “Well I never!”

  “Never what, Clarkie?” It pained him to see that shrewd, good-natured face so changed: the good nature had been driven out by fatigue, the pink cheeks were pale and the shrewdness had been sharpened into wariness. Standing up to the Superintendent and the Brigadier had not taken the stuffing out of her, but it had pushed her hard nevertheless.

  “I never expected to see you, Mr. Richardson, sir. Not just now.”

  “”Never expected to be here, and that’s a fact.” He turned to the uniformed policeman who stood like a monstrous statue beside the grandfather clock, out of place and out of proportion among the shining brass and polished oak of the dining room. “Very good, officer— you can leave us.”

  The policeman stared at him doubtfully.

  “Out!” commanded Richardson, irritation suddenly welling up inside him. “Go on with you!”

  But as the door closed behind the policeman he pinned down the spasm of anger for what it was and took warning from it: either way this thing was hateful, but it was not that which was fraying his nerves. It was that caution and instinct were pulling him in opposite directions.

  Something of this must have shown on his face, because there was regret in Mrs. Clark’s voice when she spoke.

  “I’m sorry, sir, but I still can’t say anything to you. Not unless Sir Laurie Deacon says I can.”

  “Sir Laurie Deacon?”

  “That’s right, sir. Sir Laurie Deacon.”

  Laurie Deacon! Richardson felt laughter—God! It was almost hysteria—rising up where anger had been seconds earlier. No wonder they were wetting their pants out there in the hall! No wonder Stocker had dragged him all the way from Dublin, expense no object, and was quite prepared to twist the law into knots—and no wonder the Superintendent was only too happy to crawl away into a place of safety!

  Deacon—Sir Laurie Deacon, baronet—was not only a barrister of vast experience and a Tory MP of even vaster influence and notorious independence of mind, but also a veteran campaigner on behalf of underdogs all the way from Crichel Down to Cublington.