War Game

by Anthony Price

  9

  COLONEL BUTLER was standing in a great bow window staring down at the bridge. In his hand he had a large cut-glass tumbler of heavily-watered whisky; Audley knew it was whisky, because Butler hated sherry and avoided beer, which put too much of a strain on his bladder; and he knew it was heavily watered, because Butler was on duty, and if there was a god to whom Butler knelt (other than the one who protected his three small daughters) it would be Mithras, the soldier’s god of Duty.

  The same sun which had bathed Paul Mitchell and Frances Fitzgibbon with seventeenth-century magic, the high midday sun, turned Butler’s fiery red hair to a rich gold, but even in the sunlight Audley could see that there was grey in it now. Colonel Butler had started to grow grey in his country’s service, which would probably have pleased Butler if anyone had dared say as much.

  “Hullo, Jack,” said Audley. “Good to see you.”

  “David.” The effort of saying “David” taxed Butler sorely. It had taken Jack Butler five years to make the great leap from “Audley” to “David”, which he would have managed for his youngest and greenest subaltern in a few hours if he had remained with his Lancashire Riflemen. And by now he would have been commanding that regiment for sure; in fact, with Ulster the way it was he would have been commanding a good deal more than that, certainly more than five surveillance teams and a few Special Branch men. But Duty had got in the way of predictable promotion, and Jack Butler would never wear red tabs on his lapels now, he would live and die a colonel on the general list, seconded to special duty with an obscure department of the Ministry of Defence. And live and die quite happily, by Mithras!

  But that didn’t mean that he had to like calling David Audley “David” when he didn’t even approve of David Audley.

  It had been his god-daughter Catherine Audley who had finally led him to that, and even she hadn’t been enough to make Butler glad to see her father.

  “Politics, Jack.”

  “Politics. Aye, politics.” Butler looked at his watch. “We haven’t much time.”

  “No. Thanks for the photographs. I liked your messengers.” Audley smiled. “The boy didn’t say a word, the girl did all the talking.”

  “That would be her.” Butler didn’t smile back, but his face softened for half a second. “I’m not supposed to communicate with your inside people, that’s why— not even supposed to know who they are. But I’ve seen the young woman Fitzgibbon on the ridge.”

  Audley nodded. “Looks the part, doesn’t she?”

  “It suits her, I’ll say that. And I wouldn’t have thought so.”

  “You wouldn’t?” But he couldn’t have Frances sold short. “More fool you, then. She’s a damn good one.”

  That seemed to please Butler. “If you say so.”

  Which side would Butler have been on in 1643? thought Audley suddenly. That would be a pretty question to settle, with loyalty and duty and honour split right down the middle by common sense and those intellectual qualities which were hidden behind the archetypal red face.

  But that wasn’t today’s problem, thank God!

  “The other one’s Paul Mitchell.”

  “Hah!” That was as close as Butler ever got to laughing.

  “You think that amusing?”

  Butler’s face shut like a portcullis. “I think you’ve got two good ones then, that’s what I think.”

  Audley was irritated at the anger he felt. “But you also think it’s funny. Why?”

  Butler looked at his watch again.

  “Why?” Audley persisted.

  Butler shrugged. “I think it’s … interesting that you don’t like him.”

  “What d’you mean by that?”

  This time Butler sighed, looking at Audley for a moment with his head on one side. “Let’s say … I think you ought to look in the mirror sometime, and then look at Mitchell. But I’d prefer to bring you up to date, if you don’t mind.”

  Audley swallowed. “Very well.”

  “The London end is going satisfactorily. There’s a rumour a foot thick in the City that Ratcliffe’s credit isn’t so good any more. We haven’t attempted to define it, but the way it’s come back to us is that there’s been a break in the murder investigation which implicates him and that there’s a technicality in the treasure trove law which no one has thought of before.”

  “But we didn’t start those rumours?”

  Butler shook his head. “No. We just put you in at the top, that’s all. They’ve done the rest themselves … with a little help from your friend Fattorini. He’s been a tower of weakness in the market.”

  Audley smiled to himself at the thought of Matthew happily serving God and Mammon at the same time.

  “And our five subjects?”

  Butler took a sip of whisky. “Ratcliffe is a bit rattled. He was close to clinching a deal on a nice little second-hand offset press—the printer’s about to go bust—and this has nearly scuppered it. We’ve helped someone else put in a cash bid for the same press backed with a government printing contract, too … he doesn’t know about the contract, but he does know about the bid. And his old printer is baying for the money he owes.”

  “I’d heard about that.”

  Butler’s lip drooped. “There’s a nasty solicitor’s letter in the post. He should have got it by now.”

  “So he should be running scared?”

  “Not scared. I don’t think this lad will scare easily. But angry—yes, I think he may well be angry. Because he’s not stupid and he can put two and two together.”

  “But he can’t prove anything?”

  “Not a thing. And that’s really what’s making him angry: he isn’t used to the other side playing dirty. But beyond that, he must assume that we’re working on something real, and he can’t possibly have any idea what it is.”

  That was true, certainly. Charlie Ratcliffe had too much at stake to assume they were bluffing, and with luck also too much to tempt him to play it cool in the hope of calling their bluff. If he wasn’t off balance yet he was no longer quite steady.

  “Good. And the other four?”

  Butler drew a deep breath. “It’s really too early to say. If there’s a guilty one then he’s got the most reason to play innocent, and the innocent ones haven’t had enough prodding to wonder what the devil’s happening. Also, if the innocent ones are guilty of something we’re not interested in —that can be a problem.”

  “But you’ve done some checking on them?”

  “Oh yes, we’ve checked them. But first time round there’s nothing anyone could put a finger on.”

  “There wouldn’t be. And Mitchell swears Lumley is clean, for one.”

  Butler nodded, lips tightly compressed. “Yes, he would. He knows Lumley from the time before he was with us, when he was a research fellow at the Institute for Military Studies. And I’d be inclined to go along with him there, too. Lumley has the wrong profile for Ratcliffe’s purposes. And also he’s the one of the four that Ratcliffe has never met, so far as we can establish.”

  “But he has met the others?”

  “Oh yes. That’s about all he has done with Oates and Bishop—met them. They’re not in his regiment, and they don’t have his extreme brand of politics, but they’re both postgraduate students at Wessex University, which is roughly what he is.”

  “Sociology?”

  “No. They’re both geographers, actually. One’s doing a thesis on geology now, and the other’s writing a book on meteorology. Ology is about the only thing they have in common that we can find, but it’s early days yet.”

  Early days. But there were only seven days to the storming of Standingham Castle, and after that all days might be too late.

  “And that leaves Robert Davenport.”

  “Ye-ess. …” Butler spread the word reflectively. “That does leave Robert Davenport.”

  “ ‘Preacher’ Davenport.”

  “He certainly does his share of preaching—for a foreigner in a strange land.
”

  “You sound as though you’ve doubts about Davenport, Jack.”

  “Not doubts—reservations.” Butler shook his head. “Davenport is the obvious one, that’s all … and I don’t like obvious ones, they worry me. He fits too well.”

  “How does he fit?”

  “Right politics, for a start—or right left politics,” Butler growled disapprovingly. “Left of left, never heard anything like it in my life. Nor has anyone else, I should think.”

  Audley smiled, thinking of poor Gerard Winstanley and his ragged band of Diggers, who had once tried to cultivate a tiny corner of common land in Christian brotherhood and humility. That had been much too strong for Oliver Cromwell’s stomach too. “I don’t know about that.”

  “You haven’t heard him talk.”

  “Did he talk like that in the States?”

  “We’re working on that.” Butler bridled at the question somewhat, and Audley knew exactly why: it would ordinarily have been the easiest thing in the world to ask the CIA about Davenport, but in this case that might amount to washing their own dirty political linen in an inquisitive neighbour’s machine. And with Davenport’s radical politics there was the added complication that American intelligence might already be well-established in his home territory, wherever it was, so that any British agent moving into it would have to act with the greatest caution. But caution made for slowness.

  “He’s a New Englander, from his voice. And he’s well-educated—he knows his history,” said Audley.

  “We know that. What we don’t know is what he’s been doing since he left his state university nine years ago.”

  “What’s he doing over here—we have to know that, for heaven’s sake.”

  “Officially, just travelling for pleasure. He’s supposed to have had a legacy, or an inheritance of some sort, and decided to do Europe on it. He hasn’t got past England yet.” Butler paused. “Been here eight months now, and clean as a whistle. But he’s still the obvious one—and we’re working on him.”

  The years had mellowed Butler, thought Audley.

  “But … I’ll tell you one thing …” Butler spoke slowly, as though he wanted the words to sink in deeply “… we’re not really working on Ratcliffe himself. We’re pushing him, but we’re not investigating him. That’s specifically outside the brief.”

  “Uh-huh?” And saying as much was also outside the brief, at a guess, thought Audley. It was a glorious defect of Butler’s that his loyalties, even his overriding loyalty to Queen and Country, were still limited by his ideas of fair play.

  “You know, eh?” Butler spelt out his warning with a shrug.

  “I’ve been fairly explicitly warned off,” Audley nodded. “And the file on Ratcliffe is an edited one, too—which means that they already have a shrewd idea what Charlie intends to do when he’s able to do it. So this is in the nature of a spoiling operation.” He smiled at Butler in sudden gratitude; fair play wasn’t friendship, but among equals it was the next best thing, and possibly a better thing at that. “But thanks, Jack.”

  Butler shied away from the smile as though it were a snake in his path, half turning towards the window and putting his nose back into the tumbler. As he did so there came a shout of command from outside and the same brittle drumming which had marked the change of the guard on the bridge fifteen minutes earlier.

  “Well, if you want anything else from me you’d better make it quick,” said Butler. “Your man’s arrived.”

  Audley peered over his shoulder down at the bridge. The Royalist musketeers had formed up in a line alongside one parapet, complete with drummer and standard bearer, all standing rigidly to attention. From the other side of the bridge a trumpet pealed out and a Roundhead trooper rode into view, less gorgeous than the knot of cavalier officers who had gathered at the Royalist end, but much more warlike in his lobster-tailed steel helmet, polished breast-plate and leather buff-coat. For a moment or two he fought with his horse, which clearly disapproved of the trumpet call, but having mastered it rose in his stirrups and lifted a white flag of truce high above his head.

  “You’re getting the full treatment,” observed Butler.

  One of the cavalier officers advanced a few steps and doffed his plumed hat, holding it across his chest. The Roundhead dismounted and advanced on foot across the bridge to meet him. The cavalier, still bareheaded, gave a small bow and the Roundhead lifted his gloved hand in salute—presumably his helmet was rather more difficult to remove. Then, after a few minutes of conversation, each returned to his own side.

  “Just like a film,” said Audley.

  “Aye. And us in the one-and-nine-pennies,” said Butler.

  “That dates you, Jack—the one-and-nine-pennies.”

  The trumpet pealed again and a new figure appeared from the Roundhead side; like the troopers, he wore a steel breastplate and a buff-coat, but these were topped by a wide lace collar and a large, stiff-brimmed black hat.

  “Except I was always in the one-and-threepences,” murmured Butler. “But there he is, anyway: the Parliamentary Labour candidate for Mid-Wessex … alias Oliver Cromwell for today. Which isn’t altogether inappropriate, I suppose.”

  The black-hatted Roundhead paused for a second in the centre of the bridge. The Royalist drummer beat a fierce little ruffle and the King’s flag came down in salute. Once more the cavalier officer advanced to meet his enemies, but this time he wore his hat—and this time when he swept it off he bowed much lower.

  “What’s he like?” asked Audley.

  “William Strode?” Butler sniffed. “He’ll never sit for this seat, I tell you. It’s rock-solid Conservative, no matter how moderate he tries to be, they’ll never elect him here.”

  “But he will sit for somewhere, sometime?”

  “Oh aye. When he’s done his time losing they’ll give him a winner. If your Minister stays in power, that is.”

  Audley ignored the jibe; Butler’s contempt for politics, left, right or centre, was always apt to make him irascible. “He’s a genuine moderate, then?”

  Butler sniffed again. “Aye.”

  “Security rating?”

  “Clean as a whistle. He’ll not be one of Charlie Ratcliffe’s friends, that you can rely on.”

  That was altogether very convenient, thought Audley. The way the moderate left viewed the far left was like the old orthodox Christians had felt about heretics: whereas pagans just didn’t know any better, not having had the True Faith revealed to them, heretics were the devil’s Fifth Column in their own ranks… .

  Which hatred the heretics returned with compound interest, because they also knew that the only historical difference between orthodoxy and heresy was the final winning or losing.

  He nodded at Butler. “So maybe we can do business with him.”

  “Not we—you. I’m damned if I’m going to horse-trade with politicians when I’m not even sure of the business I’m in. I’ll do the donkey-work for you, but this time you do your own dirty work, David.”

  “Suit yourself, Jack.” Audley smiled at Butler. The Colonel’s political hangup went much deeper than his military instincts, he reminded himself; in fact, despite all appearances, he had risen from the ranks and a cloth-cap background in which his subsequent career was regarded as an act of defiance, if not actual treason.

  In close-up the Double R Society’s version-for-the-day of the Grand Plotter and Contriver of all Mischiefs in England was something less impressive than the original, at least in appearance; even in his Roundhead General Staff uniform he was still a ratty little man, sharp-featured and bright-eyed.

  The eyes fastened instantly on Audley, snapping him for future reference. So it wasn’t going to be so easy after all: the prospective Labour candidate for Mid-Wessex was no fool and no beginner, those eyes indicated. The natural selection of political jungle warfare, which forced men like this one to watch their backs as well as their fronts, had made William Strode very wary.

  “Mr—?” Strode di
dn’t wait to be introduced.

  “Audley.”

  “Mr. Audley … Colonel Butler asked me this morning if I could come to see you now—here.” The eyes flicked briefly towards Butler. “You both represent a branch of the security services?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “I can give you five minutes. In ten minutes’ time I’m seeing the Royalist commander. You can have half that time, no more.”

  “I might want more than that, Mr. Strode.”

  “It’s all you can have.”

  Audley smiled his most unfriendly smile. “Then I shall have to be brief, won’t I? Mr. Strode, I want your help.”

  Strode said nothing for a few seconds, as though an appeal for aid hadn’t been what he was expecting.

  “Indeed?” he said finally. “Or?”

  “Or—what?”

  “Or what will you do if I don’t choose to help you?” The gleam in Strode’s eye was obstinate now. “After all, helping the internal security service isn’t going to make me popular in my own party. If I help you I take a risk. It doesn’t happen to be a risk I want to take.”

  “But I haven’t told you what sort of help I want.”

  “You don’t need to. I know the Roundhead Wing has some pretty far-out types in it—political extremists you people are bound to be interested in. But I intend to beat them my way without your help, Mr. Audley. By the rule book and the ballot box, I shall beat them.”

  “Not Charlie Ratcliffe, you won’t beat him that way.” Audley shook his head.

  “Charlie—?”

  “That’s right. Because Charlie isn’t going to use the rule book and the ballot box. He’s going to use the printing press. And he’s going to do to you, Mr. Strode —and people like you—what the South Africans are alleged to have done to the Liberal Party. And there’s absolutely nothing you can do about him, Mr. Strode. But there just may be something I can do—with your co-operation.”

  Strode stared at him. “You mean … you’re just after Ratcliffe, no one else?”

  “Ratcliffe—and whoever helped him murder James Ratcliffe.”