War Game

by Anthony Price

  “A rather dull job.”

  “Sir?”

  “A dull job, pouring dye.”

  “I was recovering from a sprained ankle, sir.”

  “Sprained in the line of duty?”

  “Yes … sir.”

  And now a sprained tongue. It looked like being an uphill struggle, winning Sergeant Digby’s confidence.

  “But normally you would have been— ah—fighting, is that right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And you’re an officer in Orme’s regiment?”

  5. Roundhead Army will muster on Barford Village Green by not later than 2.45. Order of march will be: Allen’s Regiment, Clarke’s Regiment, Bradley’s Regiment, Orme’s Regiment, Cox’s Regiment, Seager’s Regiment, Wheeler’s Regiment, Edward’s Regiment, Ratcliffe’s Regiment. Ms Anderson will assemble Angels of Mercy …

  “Yes, sir.”

  Audley wondered what Ms Anderson would make of Ms Fitzgibbon on Saturday.

  Unimportant. What was important was that Ratcliffe’s Regiment—Charlie Ratcliffe’s Regiment—was last in line of march, and therefore on the extreme left wing of the coming battle. Which, knowing Charlie Ratcliffe, was the appropriate place for them … but which also put them farthest away from where James Ratcliffe had met his killer.

  “And where exactly was James Ratcliffe?”

  Sergeant Digby pointed upstream. “About twenty yards from here, sir. I’ll show you.”

  The trailing blackberry shoots and young hawthorn growth were fighting with the vigorous crop of stinging nettles at the actual scene of the crime. Death left no mark on the ground for one man, recently despatched, any more than it had for hundreds who had been once cut down all around. For a time the nettles would rule here, but by next spring the bushes would again be dominant, and within a year or two this spot would be indistinguishable from any other along the Swine Brook.

  The Sergeant led the way to the edge of the stream.

  “He was down there, tucked in right against the bank,” he said simply. “Out of sight, practically.”

  In the central gap the banks had been trampled down to the water’s edge, but here there were miniature cliffs two or three feet high.

  “There was a narrow opening to the brook here,” explained Digby. “On this side, anyway—on the other it was solid brambles, four or five feet high.”

  “What was he actually doing here— James Ratcliffe?” asked Audley.

  “He was in charge of two of the burning wagons. There were four wagons in all— old things we hired from the farmers—“

  “To burn?”

  “They weren’t actually burnt. They were loaded with smoke-canisters, and it was the job of the special effects section to set them off at intervals.”

  “So James Ratcliffe was in the special effects section?”

  “Yes, sir … and he was also chairman of the Safety Committee, sir.” Sergeant Digby closed his mouth on the last word as though he wanted to make sure no other words escaped custody.

  Audley nodded patiently. “And just what does the special effects section do … when it’s not making smoke without fire?”

  Digby struggled momentarily with the question, deciding finally that there was no way it could be answered with a straight yes-or-no. “They set off small explosive charges mostly. Anything that involves any sort of danger, too.”

  “Such as?”

  Digby shrugged. “Falling off things. Falling into water … that type of thing. They put up their ideas to the Safety Committee first, of course.”

  Audley saw suddenly that the sergeant was being pulled several different ways at once. As a good copper he didn’t want to be unco-operative with a superior officer, even though in this instance the superior officer was a Home Office interloper. But as a uniform man attached to the CID and to Superintendent Weston, who was also his future boss as well as his immediate one, he resented the interloper’s presence.

  But there was nothing unusual about that professional tug-of-war; what distorted the pull was a third force exerted by his loyalty to the Double R Society, at least so far as he didn’t want the interloper to get the wrong ideas about its operations.

  “I see.” He nodded gravely, stifling the temptation to observe jocularly that James Ratcliffe’s final “special effect” had been the most spectacular of all. “But this time he was just in charge of—ah—making smoke, eh?”

  Digby gazed at him mournfully. “No, sir.”

  “No?”

  “He was also one of the special casualties.” Digby swallowed.

  Understatement of the day. But rather than say that Audley managed a mild questioning grunt.

  “The special effects are laid on to … interest the spectators.” Digby nerved himself to the required explanation with an obvious effort. “On this occasion Jim Ratcliffe led our attack—the Roundhead attack, that is—on the Royalist line right in front of the crowd—“

  7. The battle will commence at 3.15 sharp. (i) Roundhead vanguard fired on by Royalists blocking line of advance along Old Road …

  … (viii) General assault by Roundheads with whole force except vanguard (still engaging road block force). Death of Colonel Flowerdew (Roundhead commander) …

  Audley frowned. “I didn’t know there was a Roundhead attack. I thought the Royalists simply charged, and that was that.”

  “Oh, that was in the original battle— the real one.” Digby’s voice lost its official flatness and became at once more animated. “We didn’t set out to reproduce it accurately, it wouldn’t have been possible because—well, it was one big cavalry charge, and we’ve only got six horsemen.”

  “And it would have been over too quickly.”

  “It would. And it would have been dull for the crowd, too. It isn’t that we don’t try to be accurate when we can, as far as it’s possible without horsemen. But this was a case where we had to give people something for their money—“

  “And there’s nothing like ‘the push of the pike’ for that, eh?” Audley decided that a non-patronising smile would be in order. “So—Jim Ratcliffe led the attack. And became a ‘special casualty’?”

  “That’s right, sir. He played the part of Colonel Flowerdew, who was hit by a cannon ball—he really was hit, in the real battle. We simply moved him up closer to the crowd so they could see what happened.”

  “When what happened?”

  “When—he was hit by a cannon ball.”

  Audley lifted an eyebrow. “And that, I take it, was a special effect—being hit by a cannon ball? I can see that it would be!”

  Digby grinned. “Only a small cannon ball. Not from a Saker or a Drake, but a Fawconet or even arabinet—a three-quarter pounder, say.”

  “Oh, sure.” Audley grinned back, happy to have found this easy way through the sergeant’s armour. “Just a very little one. But it wouldn’t have a very little effect—special effect, I mean.”

  Digby’s grin evaporated, as though he’d remembered suddenly that the discussion was not academic. “No. Blood everywhere. The crowd really goes for that, sir.”

  Very true, thought Audley. For crowds there was nothing like blood for money.

  “So how do you give it to them, then?”

  “There are a number of different ways.” Digby shrugged. “The one we use is the simplest and safest. The casualty wears a loose linen tunic—white for the best effect —and white breeches too if possible. Anything that’ll show the blood, anyway… . And under it are fixed several contraceptives—condoms—full of red dye and a bit of air to make them easier to burst. Actually, we’ve tried using balloons, but condoms are better.”

  But condoms are better: You Can Rely on Durex. Although this was one reliability test the family planners certainly hadn’t thought of.

  Only Digby was deadly serious now. And more, there was something in his manner which told Audley that it would be a mistake to burst out laughing.

  Burst?

  “How do you burst them?”r />
  Digby shook his head. “There are some pretty dangerous ways of doing that. I heard of one fellow using explosive caps on a thick leather pad. But we use drawing pins in special gloves: the moment the cannon goes off—and you have to be not less than twenty yards away diagonally from it—you strike the chest hard with the palm of one hand and the back of the other hand.” He stared at Audley with peculiar intensity. “It usually works well enough.”

  “But not this time?”

  Digby continued to stare at him. “Then —you haven’t read my report, sir?” He blinked. “I mean—my statement in evidence?”

  Audley shook his head.

  “I see.” The young sergeant paused. “Well … it worked … well enough—“

  Well enough.

  Audley stared out of his study window into the darkness, listening with one corner of his mind to the small dry rasp of the dead leaves on the terrace outside.

  Suddenly his nerves tautened at the unnatural sound: there shouldn’t be dead leaves moving like that in the gentle night breeze of summer. He half-rose from his chair before his brain relaxed the tension as instantly as it had arisen. The great elm across the lawn there was dying out of season, shedding its leaves for the last time like ten million other elms across the length of England which had been murdered by the invading Dutch elm fungus.

  He subsided back into the chair, the knot in his stomach slowly untying itself. Whatever Matthew Fattorini might say, this wasn’t the sort of job where the sound of dead leaves rustling in the darkness might not be what it seemed.

  Well enough?

  Such a beautiful, simple, professional killing, it had been. A pure, almost contemptuous best-laid scheme.

  Colonel Flowerdew had died there according to plan on the hillside above the Swine Brook, deluged in contraceptive blood to the admiring “oohs” and “aahs” of the crowd.

  And Colonel Flowerdew had been carried away, back down the hillside, to where the wounded and dying lay.

  And Colonel Flowerdew had then become James Ratcliffe, ready for his next special effect—

  (ix) Royalist cannonade resumes. Roundhead wagons set ablaze.

  Snugged down in his small gap in the bushes beside the stream he had set off the smoke canisters on schedule, one by one.

  (x) Roundhead vanguard begins to retreat.

  But now there came an unplanned addition to the Swine Brook Field Scenario—

  Enter one murderer.

  Identity unknown. Believed professional. Long gone now.

  Route—in full view of seven thousand witnesses?

  “He came down the stream, sir,” said Sergeant Digby. “He couldn’t risk coming upstream, because I was there, for one. And nobody came past me until the rout started.”

  (xiii) Collapse of Roundhead defence—

  “And too many people would have seen him—it’s surprising what people see.

  Whereas if he came down the stream—“ Digby pointed.

  Audley followed the line of the finger, past the fresh growth of the cropped section of bushes, to where the uncut bushes raged in their unrestricted summer tangle. The stream issued out of a green-shadowed tunnel, walled and roofed with leaves and branches. The open fields on either side were parched and dry, and open to prying eyes, the well-grazed summer grass of the meadow on one hand and the evenly-cropped wheat stubble on the other; but the Swine Brook itself ran in a secret place of its own making, nourishing the deep rooted things which shielded it from the sun.

  He caught the old familiar stream-smell of cool, damp earth and rotting vegetation, and the smell carried him back to his own childhood. He had explored streams like this a lifetime ago, searching for the shy things that lived and grew and died in hiding along the water’s edge; the memory of soft wet moss under his fingers and smooth squidgy mud between his toes was there with the smell, long forgotten but never forgettable… . And the memory of the solitary little boy who had preferred such dark passages between the woodlands not only for the mysteries they concealed but also because of the invisibility they gave him.

  Invisibility. No matter there were seven thousand pairs of eyes or seventy thousand on the ridge above, it would still have been easy for the killer to have stolen up on Jim Ratcliffe unnoticed.

  “—somebody came down the stream, anyway. The mud was disturbed all the way to the farm bridge a quarter of a mile upstream, in the spinney there.” Digby pointed again. “Couldn’t make out the footprints, of course. Or anything else, except they were recent when we examined them. But someone came down and then went back again, and there’s a road just the other side of the trees there. So it would have been easy, coming and going.”

  Easy?

  “How did Ratcliffe die?”

  For an instant the young sergeant frowned—no doubt Audley’s ignorance of the simplest basic facts of the crime was still confusing him. Then he straightened his expression into formal blankness again.

  “One blow on the back of the neck, sir. What the newspapers call ‘a karate chop’ now, but what used to be called a rabbit-punch.” He paused. “Easy again—if you know how to do it.”

  Easy?

  This time Audley’s eye was caught by the wheat stubble.

  Another memory there, but one much closer to the surface, for he could never pass a harvested field without half-recalling this one … a memory half-golden, because time edged all youthful memories with gold, but dark also because time never quite succeeded in erasing the blurred recollection of unhappiness.

  Not a child any more, nor even a snotty schoolboy though still at school, but a gauche youth … still lonely and introverted—the concept of the mixed-up teenager hadn’t existed then because no one had yet coined the word “teenager”: it had not been his brains which had saved him in that cruel society, but his accidental prowess on the rugger field.

  Tackle him low, Audley!

  No, that was the wrong memory leading him up the wrong cul-de-sac—it was the school harvest camp he wanted, the endless boring stooking of the sheaves in the National Interest.

  And one particular memory, obscene and humiliating—

  It had been just such a corn field in the first year of the war. They had stopped stooking as the binder had come to the final cut in the centre of the field, fanning out in readiness for the rabbits trapped in the last of the standing wheat to make their break—and in the mad exhilarating chase he had driven one big buck right back into the cutting blades—

  Kill it then, man!

  One front paw gone, the other horribly mangled, the thing had suddenly come alive, the hind legs kicking with the strength of desperation.

  Kill it, Audley—go on, man—kill it!

  He had seen it done half a dozen times by the tractor driver, the grizzled man with the patch on his lung and the ten children. It had been a casual, matter-of-fact action: hold the hind legs and strike down with the edge of the stiffened hand.

  Rabbit-punch.

  Easy.

  Four times he had tried, his own increasing desperation rising to match the rabbit’s, but failing to master it. Blood had spattered his trousers—why can’t you die, rabbit?

  Then the tractor driver had snatched it from him—

  Give us ‘un, then, for Lord’s sake.

  One quick professional chop. Then, for final measure, the man had stretched the twitching thing, legs in one hand, neck in the other. He could still hear that stretching sound, the small creaking noise.

  Well, ‘tis a good ‘un, any road. You’m let the other best ‘uns go.

  From that dark memory to the banks of the Swine Brook, and now to the darkness beyond the study window, was a journey across years and hours time-travelled in a fraction of a second… . But he hadn’t returned empty handed.

  There was the short answer to Weston’s off-the-record certainty and young Digby’s word for it.

  Not easy.

  Because it wasn’t so easy to kill a rabbit with one blow, and a man was bigger game and an
other game altogether. It wasn’t simply that they had eliminated all the costumed battlefield actors who’d been playing at killing—he could afford to take that for granted now, the hundreds of statements checked and cross-checked. This was a killing, and more than that, a neat and tidy killing, which was another thing and a very different thing. Because for all the popular claptrap, not one person in a thousand could guarantee to do that with one blow. That guarantee was the hallmark of the professional.

  It had been Digby’s qualification that mattered—

  Easy—if you know how to do it.

  “I see. He came down the stream—that’s the hypothesis. And he hit Jim Ratcliffe once—that’s the forensic fact?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And Ratcliffe was crouching in his gap in the bushes beside the stream—here?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Behind the smoke he was most conveniently making… . And then?”

  Digby pointed. “Ratcliffe was struck down here, sir. Then his body was rolled over the bank—“ he pointed again “—there.”

  “Hypothesis?”

  “Fact.” Digby took two steps. “And he was found in the water—there. Fact.”

  Audley peered over the edge of the bank. The motion of the water was imperceptible, it was like a millpond. At this point, where the Swine Brook flowed out of its tunnel in a gentle curve, the stream had formed a shallow pool behind a miniature dam built with fallen branches and plugged with the accumulated detritus lodged in them by the winter floods. Over the years those same floods had carved the overhang at his feet, through which the feathery roots of the bushes trailed in a curtain towards the surface of the water. In its original state, with the tangle of thorn and bramble all around, this would have been a fine and private place to tuck a body, no doubt about that.

  “Ratcliffe was lying right under the overhang, sir.” Digby seemed to have read his thoughts. “I didn’t actually see him until I was standing right on the edge, where you are now exactly.”

  No need to elaborate on that. Rolled over and then tucked in out of sight. No one who had fallen, or been pushed or knocked, would ever have come to rest so tidily, virtually out of sight in the shallows. That had been the killer’s risk, but one taken coolly to minimise the greater risk of quick discovery and maximise the chance of a trouble-free getaway. And a small risk at that, because only Sergeant Digby’s trained eye would have spotted the dividing line between horrid accident and suspicious circumstance. And only Sergeant Digby, of all people, would then have fortified his suspicions with established police procedure—