War Game

by Anthony Price

But it damn well wasn’t the only thing that figured—and that figured even better, Audley thought triumphantly as he stared at Weston.

  We encourage our men to have their hobbies.

  I’ll bet we do!

  “Have you ever been to one of these battles, Superintendent?” Try as he would, he couldn’t make the question sound innocent.

  “I have, yes.” And try as he would, Weston had the same trouble with his reply. “Have you, sir?”

  “No. Not my … scene, as they say.” And not Superintendent Weston’s scene either, for a hundred-to-one bet. “But I’m learning fast—about the police as well as the Civil War.”

  For a moment they stared at each other. Then, as abruptly as it had disappeared a few minutes before, the smile came back to Weston’s mouth. But this time the humour spread, crinkling up the whole face.

  Finally Weston grinned broadly. “All right, Dr. Audley—I give you best there. He did get interested, I told you no lie. It was partly because he is interested in history, too.”

  “But you were interested too, eh?”

  Weston beamed. “It’s a pleasure to do business with you, Dr. Audley.”

  “Even your own business?”

  “Better you than some fool who thinks he knows all the answers.”

  “Quite so. Whereas I don’t even know all the questions yet. … So he came to you and asked permission to join?”

  “Not to me. This was while he was still in uniform as a constable.”

  “Of course. I was forgetting. He went to his uniform superintendent.” Audley nodded.

  “That’s right. But he was due for a CID transfer in a few months’ time, and his super knew I had my eye on the Double R people.”

  “Uh-huh. … So you gave him your blessing—you even encouraged him.” The pleasure, thought Audley, was mutual: this must be a good force, in which the men in charge of the different branches were on the same side, unlike some of those in his own service.

  “One volunteer’s worth a dozen pressed men. And young Digby was made to measure for what I wanted.”

  “Which was?”

  Weston thought for a moment, staring up sightlessly towards the ridge. The hottest part of the afternoon was almost spent, but with no breath of wind the skyline still shimmered with heat. There wasn’t a sign of life or movement anywhere. In an hour or two, with the first cool of evening, it would be different; but now the landscape seemed exhausted, almost stupefied.

  It was hard to imagine that the hillside, this same hillside, had once boiled with murderous activity—that Black Thomas’s cavalry had swept down it, desperate with thirst.

  Audley licked his lips. On second thoughts that thirst wasn’t so unimaginable. And he’d already decided that one place was as good as another when it came to killing, hadn’t he?

  Weston turned back to him. “How much d’you know about these Double R people?”

  “Not a lot yet.” Audley returned the look candidly. “But I think at the moment I’d rather like to avoid jumping to conclusions. Which is pretty much the answer to my question, I suspect: you didn’t just want an inside man—a spy. Would that be about the size of things?”

  “That’s very good. Dr. Audley. You’re absolutely right. Crime’s one thing and prejudice is another, and the copper who mixes them up only makes trouble for himself. My business is crime.”

  “You had a prejudice against them?”

  “Not to start with. It was more like curiosity.

  “Professional curiosity?”

  “Indirectly, I read about one of these battles they staged, when there were a dozen people carted off to hospital. And it occurred to me if that had been a football match I’d have thought ‘Aye aye—the local yobbos are getting out of hand’. So I went to have a look at one of their shows for myself, unofficially.”

  “And—?”

  “Well, they differ, of course. The Sealed Knot—pretty respectable … the King’s Army—lots of beer and good fellowship. Both keen on their history. Discipline not bad really. Safety regulations … well, improving, let’s say.”

  “Safety regulations? So there’s an element of danger—but if they cart people off to hospital obviously there is. Silly question.”

  “Not so silly. Before I read that newspaper report I’d assumed their battles were glorified pageants—cream puffs at five yards sort of thing. And after I’d seen one … well, I must say I was surprised by what I saw.

  “I suppose the size of the battle plays a part in it. Sometimes there are only three or four dozen putting on a parade and a bit of old-fashioned drill at a fete—‘Shoulder Your Pikes’ and ‘Advance Your Pikes’, that sort of thing. But the first big fight I saw the Double R people stage, down in the west of the county it was … there were six or seven hundred of them, and it wasn’t cream-puffs at five yards at all—it was pretty brutal. They really went at each other.”

  “Undisciplined, you mean?”

  “No, they were disciplined all right. Just like the others. They keep together in their regiments, as they call them. And they charge each other in their regiments too, I can tell you.”

  “Like a rugger scrum?” Audley tried without success to envisage a rugger scrum in seventeenth-century battledress, with three hundred a side. “But they’re carrying pikes, aren’t they … ?”

  “And swords. And there are musketeers.” Weston nodded.

  “They charge each other with pikes … Christ! I can see that would be dangerous. It’s a wonder there aren’t more hurt!”

  “Yes … but at the last moment they port their pikes—hold them up diagonally across their bodies—and then smack into each other.”

  Weston slapped his open hands together graphically. “And then they push like buggery until one side gives up. Or their officers break it off.” Weston stopped suddenly. “But you say you don’t want to hear this sort of detail yet?”

  “Oh, I don’t mind the technicalities.” Audley glanced at Weston, unwilling to probe too obviously. What he wanted must be given freely or not at all, that was the essence of it. “But what I still don’t quite understand is why all this interested you… . That is, after you’d seen it… . I mean, so they were playing soldiers— maybe a little roughly. But that’s all it amounts to: playing soldiers. The Americans have been playing their Civil War for years. And now they’re busy playing the War of Independence. If you don’t force people to wear uniforms they’ll put them on of their own accord. At least, some people will. And so long as it’s historical —so long as it isn’t para-military… . You’re not suggesting the Double R Society is para-military in seventeenth-century drag, are you?”

  Weston stared at him in silence for a moment. “No, not exactly para-military.”

  “What then?”

  Again Weston said nothing for a few seconds. Then he shook his head doubtfully. “If I tell you I’ll be helping you to jump to conclusions, that’s for sure.”

  Audley shook his head. “I’m rather afraid I’ve already been helped to this one, so the damage is already done. But I’d be interested to find out whether it’s the same one—and I’ll make allowances for your prejudices, Superintendent.” He smiled the sting out of the words. “So you went on the look-out for—ah—yobbos having a licensed punch-up. And you found … something more interesting, maybe?”

  Weston pursed his lips. “To be honest, Dr. Audley, I’m not at all sure what I found—not yet, anyway.” He paused, as though unwilling to commit himself. “Just let’s say as a policeman I’m prejudiced against … politics.”

  So there it was, thought Audley: the confirmation of what Paul Mitchell and Frances Fitzgibbon had encountered, passed on with all the caution and non-partisanship of the man in the middle, the good copper. There was an irony there which neither of the extremes could stomach, and against which they therefore blinkered themselves: to the far left Weston was a Fascist pig marked for the lamp-post, and to the far right a potential tool to be flattered and used; whereas in reality Westo
n’s breed regarded both sides with equal contempt as it protected each from the excesses of the other.

  “Just so,” he agreed sympathetically. “Not para-military so much as parapolitical. And what was it brought you to that conclusion?”

  “They sang the wrong tune.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Audley frowned. “They sang—?”

  “The wrong tune, aye.” Weston gave him a grim little smile. “Funny thing was, I almost missed it. Because, you see, I didn’t really go on the look-out for yobbos. Or shall we say—I didn’t expect to see any of my yobbos, not at that sort of gathering. Not quite their style, if you see what I mean.”

  True. Yobbos might, or might not, know a great deal about football, but it was unlikely that any of them would be able to satisfy the Double R Society’s membership committees.

  “Of course. I was forgetting—it was the casualties you were interested in. You wanted to see how they’d got themselves organised.”

  “That’s right. And after I’d seen them fight their battle I was in two minds about packing it in and going home. I’d seen what I came to see. But then I thought …” he shrugged “… I was there, so I might as well see the whole thing out. See how they behaved off the battlefield when they’d had a few beers, talk to them and see what made them tick, and so on.”

  Thoroughness. The mark of the good copper.

  “So I waited.” Weston continued simply. “And as they marched off the field I heard them singing. One lot of Cavaliers were singing a dirty song, and some of the Roundheads were singing hymns. But then there was this regiment at the rear, pikemen, all in red coats and steel helmets. Charlie Ratcliffe’s regiment, it was.”

  “Yes?”

  “They were singing The Red Flag, Dr. Audley.”

  5

  THE POLICE HOUSE at Standingham was a solid, red-brick dwelling, with a well-regimented garden which looked as though it was inspected twice a week by a superior officer who regarded weeds as law-breakers.

  After dropping Digby outside it, Audley took the car forward a couple of hundred yards to the forecourt of the Steyning Arms, where it mingled unobtrusively with those of the pub’s early evening drinkers.

  He would dearly have liked a pint now himself, but that would have to wait. It was bad enough to allow the mere indulgence of his curiosity to rule his judgement, though if pressed he could argue that now, if ever, was the time to look the place over, before Ratcliffe could possibly be aware of his presence; but whatever the argument, it would be pointless to expose his presence to the public gaze without good cause.

  And there was the rub, though: there was really no point in coming to Standingham now, if ever, and he was only doing it because Nayler’s smug references to his “little television programme” had galled him—the idea of Stephen Nayler squatting on any secret that interested David Audley was like an itch on the sole of his foot; he couldn’t go on until he’d taken off his shoe and scratched it properly.

  The sudden movement of the white picket gate of the Police House, for which he’d kept one eye cocked on the rural scene reflected in the car mirror, caught him by surprise. Sergeant Digby had transacted his business with remarkable despatch.

  But then the Sergeant Digbys of this world would transact all their business smartly in their accelerated progress to the top, he decided, watching the young man’s light infantry advance. The Good Fairy at the Digby christening had endowed that infant with every virtue necessary for success in the police service, except perhaps an extra portion of imagination. And even that, when one thought about it, might have proved more of a hindrance than a help in his superiors’ eyes, if it had been granted.

  “You’ve been quick,” said Audley encouragingly.

  “Had a bit of luck,” said Digby breathlessly, jerking his head back towards the Police House as he spoke. “PC Cotton—I worked with him before he was posted here, when I was a DC, so I didn’t have to mess around explaining things. And he knows this patch like the back of his hand.”

  “Including the castle?”

  “You bet. Only two men there now. Caretaker-handyman—name of Simmonds —for the inside, and old Burton the gardener for the outside. Caretaker’ll be there now, but Burton’ll most likely be in there—“ Digby nodded towards the Steyning Arms.

  “Charlie Ratcliffe not in residence, then?”

  Digby shook his head. “Doesn’t fancy the place at all, apparently. He didn’t even stay there when he was treasure-hunting— stayed at the pub most of the time. At least, stayed until the last two or three days before he found the gold—then he must have camped on the site, Cotton reckons.” Digby paused. “All by himself.”

  “By himself?”

  “That’s right. When his uncle was alive there was a housekeeper and a trained nurse as well as the handyman and the gardener. After the old man died he paid the two women off and kept the men on. But when he came down to look for the gold he packed them off on holiday—told them to keep away until he sent for them. Which was about three weeks, Cotton says.”

  “So he found the gold single-handed, you mean?”

  “He hired a tractor with a front scoop from a local farmer, but otherwise he was alone right up until the morning he announced he’d found the gold.”

  “A tractor?” Audley frowned. “It wasn’t in the house, then?”

  Digby looked at him in surprise. “Oh, no. It was in the kitchen garden, over by one of the gun-bastions along the north rampart—right out in the open, so Cotton says. He was one of the first outsiders to see it.”

  “What happened, exactly?”

  “That morning? Well, Ratcliffe had it all organised, that’s for sure. The first thing Cotton knew about it was when Ratcliffe phoned him up, about ten o’clock. Cool as a cucumber, Cotton says. He simply said he’d found his family treasure, and would Cotton kindly telephone the local coroner because it was his job to take it in charge now, for the time being anyway. And he’d better phone his divisional HQ as well, because once the coroner had taken it then there’d be a security angle.”

  “And what did—ah—Cotton say to that?”

  “He asked what the treasure consisted of. And Ratcliffe said it was gold, about a ton of it, give or take a hundredweight or two.

  “He said that?”

  Digby nodded, deadpan. “Cotton reckons he’d dug it up bit by bit over those three days, and then worked out exactly what he intended to do. Because by the time he got there on his bicycle there were a dozen of Ratcliffe’s longhaired friends standing guard over it— he’d seen some of them drive through the village that morning, before the phone call. And he had others patrolling the grounds to keep people out as well, and they weren’t there the previous day. Or not in the village, anyway.”

  “His long-haired friends?” Audley considered the possibilities. “Meaning Ratcliffe’s regiment of the Roundhead Wing, I take it?”

  Digby shrugged. “I don’t know. But … probably.”

  “So he kept everyone out of the castle grounds, did he?”

  “Not everyone. He let in the people he wanted—he’d phoned a Sunday newspaper, and the others caught on double-quick. Cotton says it was a nightmare, the next week or two, with journalists and sightseers. But when they found they couldn’t get into the grounds unless they went in through the front gate they cleared off—the sightseers did, anyway.”

  Audley stared at the dashboard. Cool as a cucumber and bloody well organised, Charlie Ratcliffe had been, sitting day after day on a steadily increasing pile of gold ingots—and night after night, alone in the midst of his ancestral loot.

  The gold of the Indies. King Philip’s gold. Captain Sir Edward Parrott’s gold. Colonel Nathaniel Parrott’s gold. And then nobody’s gold for over three hundred years.

  And now Charlie Ratcliffe’s gold by every law and every custom that made any sense. It was hard not to be on Charlie’s side, even with the as yet unproved—and probably unprovable—suspicion that he had played most foully for
it. Because there was a much older and crueller law which applied to gold, a law which transcended every other one: those who had the guts to find it and the wit to keep it were its natural owners. Once it would have held force of arms as well as wit, now it took law as well. But unless Charlie Ratcliffe could be proved a murderer public opinion would be on his side, no matter what his politics.

  “But now there are only two of them looking after the place?”

  “So Cotton says.” Digby nodded. “It was a nine-days’ wonder—and apparently there’s nothing much to see now but one damn great hole in the kitchen garden, like a bomb hit it. You won’t have any trouble finding it, he says.” He glanced shrewdly at Audley. “If you still want to.”

  There was nothing here for him— for either of them—thought Audley. But Digby didn’t know about the secret Nayler had dangled in front of him over the telephone, which was a private matter, having nothing to do with gold or politics or murder.

  “I still want to—yes.”

  Self-indulgence.

  “All right.” Digby was deadpan again. “Cotton will go along to the house and talk to the handyman, and I’ll go to the pub and talk to the gardener. That should give you a clear run for an hour or so.”

  The young sergeant had come to the same conclusion, that Swine Brook, not Standingham, was their only hope; and that this side-trip was either pointless or the product of some information which Audley was keeping to himself. If it had been Paul Mitchell sitting beside him there would have been signs of rebellion, or snide comments at the least; but Digby, mercifully, was better disciplined.

  “How do I get into the castle grounds from here?”

  “Ah—now I’ve got you something that may help there.” Digby produced a tattered booklet from his coat pocket. “I borrowed this from Cotton. There isn’t any modern guide-book to the castle, because it’s never been open to the public. But there was this old Methodist minister who wrote a history of the place back in Victorian times, and there’s a map in the back which shows the layout … it’s a bit out of date, but the castle part hasn’t changed—the village has expanded to the south, that’s all, Cotton says—“