‘He turned the job down—David did. Stocker’s job. And he pushed Butler for it—‘
Paul pointed at Colonel Shapiro ‘—and he lobbied all over the place for Butler to get it.
And David doesn’t normally play politics, he despises politics almost as much as Fighting Jack does. Right, Colonel?’
‘Correct.’ Shapiro nodded. ‘And a grave mistake, too. David Audley is a professional who tries to behave like an amateur. He suffers from the gentlemen-and-players syndrome—a common British disease afflicting ex-public schoolboys.’
‘Very true. But not a common Israeli disease afflicting ex-tank commanders,’ Paul agreed, deflecting the insult back at the Colonel. ‘So few gentlemen in that line of business, I suppose?’
Frances looked at them angrily. ‘For God’s sake—both of you—why are they after David, not Butler? What’s David done?’
‘It’s not what he’s done, it’s why he did it,’ said Shapiro.
‘Or rather, dear Princess, why everyone thought he did it,’ said Paul.
Motive again, thought Frances bitterly. She had already found a motive Colonel Butler had had for something he hadn’t done; now all she had to find was a motive David Audley had lacked for something he had done.
It came to her a second before Paul spoke, but too late.
‘They thought David was going for Sir Frederick Clinton’s job,’ said Paul.
Just like that. Simple, obvious and self-evident. Like the nose on Nannie’s face—plain as the nose, plain as the face.
David Audley for Number One.
Therefore, in advance, to prepare the way for the lord, his old friend and colleague—godfather to his daughter—for Number Two.
‘Correct,’ said Shapiro.
David Audley for Emperor.
But first Colonel Butler for Grand Vizier.
It was safe as well as simple: the Grand Vizier never got the Emperor’s job, that required different qualifications as well as cojones. But the Grand Vizier was uniquely well-placed to influence the succession … and—God!—also to eliminate rivals.
Frances stared at Paul. Was he thinking what she was thinking: that whoever was urging them both on to dig the dirt on Colonel Butler, was acting in self-defence, to avert the possibility that before long, otherwise. Butler would be urging Mitchell and Fitzgibbon to dig the dirt on them with his new Ring of Power? Everybody had dirt hidden somewhere, and given time and resources someone else could find that dirt.
(She went on staring at Paul. It wouldn’t take him long to find out that Mrs Frances Fitzgibbon’s marriage had been breaking up because Mrs Fitzgibbon was rotten in bed; and that Captain and Mrs Fitzgibbon both knew that Captain Fitzgibbon wouldn’t come back to her from that last Ulster tour, one way or another. It wouldn’t take him long. He might even know already, at that, being Paul.)
(She mustn’t think of that. She didn’t want Robbie to come back any more than Colonel Butler would not want Madeleine Francoise to come knocking at his mock-Tudor door again.)
David Audley for Emperor.
No wonder there was a palace revolution in progress!
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ said Paul. That wasn’t possible. She had to head him off, anyway.
She turned to Shapiro. ‘Is David after the job?’
‘I wish he was!’ Shapiro scowled at her. ‘But he’s not. He just isn’t hungry enough to fight, that’s the trouble.’
‘Maybe this’ll change his mind,’ said Paul. ‘He may not like to fight, but he doesn’t like to be beaten.’
Paul was hungry, thought Frances. If Paul thought he was being altruistic, he was deceiving himself.
‘I wouldn’t rely on that assumption,’ said Shapiro. ‘And even if he does fight—even if we fight—I wouldn’t rely on our chances of winning.’
Paul nodded. ‘No—I agree. This makes it a different ball-game. It’s relegation or promotion now.’
‘It’s the bloody Cup Final—I beg your pardon, Mrs Fitzgibbon.’ Shapiro acknowledged Frances, but kept his eye on Paul. ‘You think you’ve been shouting for the wrong team, Mitchell?’
Paul grunted ruefully. ‘I don’t think I’ve got any choice now—in this company. The trouble is, I don’t even see how to win by fighting dirty.’ He nodded at Frances. ‘That’s what our little Princess was thinking. You’re going to have to produce one hell of a magic spell to get us out of this one, Princess. Otherwise it’s going to be “unhappy ever after” for us.’
Shapiro saved Frances. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, Colonel… that it won’t be good enough for Fitzgibbon and Mitchell to give Colonel Butler a clean bill of health. We weren’t put on this one to find an answer they didn’t know. We were set to find what they knew already—to make it nice and respectable.’ He shook his head at Frances. ‘Somebody’s already talked—I knew that smug bastard who briefed me was giving me the message, not seeking after wisdom.’
‘What message?’
Paul’s lip curled. ‘Nine years ago. Colonel—nine years to the day, almost—our dear Colonel could have killed his wife. And that was very naughty of him.’
‘He didn’t,’ said Frances.
‘Of course he didn’t. Fighting Jack wouldn’t do a vulgar thing like that—the old General wouldn’t approve. Besides which he knows his Kipling on the subject of service wives—of course he didn’t! He couldn’t.’ He paused. ‘And if he did it would have been a beautiful tragic accident, with an unbreakable alibi built into it, and no comeback nine years later.’
So Paul Mitchell and William Ewart Hedges, travelling from different directions, had reached the same destination, thought Frances.
‘But that doesn’t matter,’ said Paul. ‘Unfortunately our job isn’t to give him a character reference—we just have to breathe suspicion over him. I thought it might be enough if we did the exact opposite—Frances and I. But the stakes are too big for that, and if we don’t provide the right answer they’ll simply send down someone else who will.’
Shapiro looked at Frances.
‘Am I right. Princess?’ asked Paul.
Shapiro continued to look at Frances.
‘Princess?’
Frances looked at Shapiro. ‘When does David get back?’
‘Not until midday tomorrow. He’s got a meeting he can’t break—Washington time,’ said Shapiro.
Washington time. Not enough time.
‘I’ll give you whatever help you need,’ said Shapiro.
Everyone was so helpful. There was altruism everywhere.
‘I’m going to Blackburn,’ said Frances for the second time. But now she knew why she was going there.
CHAPTER 13
FOR THE SECOND TIME in one morning Miss Marilyn Francis was in Thistlethwaite Avenue, at the entrance of the driveway to St. Luke’s Home for Elderly Gentlefolk. But this time she was going inside.
Frances looked at her watch. It was 11.25, which ought to be just about right for visiting.
She turned to the woman beside her. ‘If you could wait here, Mrs Bates—just down the road, perhaps.’
‘Yes, luv.’ Mrs Bates gave her a motherly smile. Mrs Bates was a motherly person, almost grandmotherly. ‘Shall I have Brian bring your own car up, from behind the hotel?’
Mrs Bates was also a well-organised and well-organising person, who thought of everything, as befitted an Israeli intelligence cell commander.
Frances sorted Brian from Evan Owen and Mr Harcourt, who were taking it in turns to keep Colonel Butler in sight. Brian was the plump-faced young man on the motor-cycle, the junior partner in the team. Evan Owen drove the van, and Mr Harcourt was the commercial traveller in the nondescript Cortina.
She also wondered, for the umpteenth time, how Paul Mitchell had made out with Nannie on her return from night duty. The girls, mercifully, had accepted the unscheduled dawn departure of the potential Second Mrs Butler after she had reassured them that Paul was only a colleague, and that he would never be an
ything more than a colleague, and that he was too young for her anyway, and that she would be coming back to see them at the earliest opportunity; which reassurances—three truths and one lie (she would never come back to Brookside House, that was a near-certainty)—had been the least she could do for Paul, whom they would otherwise have either murdered or seduced during the night as an obstacle to their plans. But Nannie was a different problem—she would give Paul a hard time, supposing his charm didn’t work; and she would also report on him to Colonel Butler at the earliest opportunity, after which the cat would very likely be out of the bag. But by then, very likely, it wouldn’t matter much, he could think what he liked, it would be all over; and, anyway, it was all over for Paul, that part of it—Nannie’s part—and by now he would be two hours up the motorway to Yorkshire.
(The same motorway that Colonel Butler had once travelled at another November dawn, nine years ago.)
She felt strangely fatalistic about it all. ‘Thank you, Mrs Bates.’ As she stepped out of the car she saw Mrs Bates reach under the dashboard for the microphone which linked her to Brian and Evan Owen and Mr Harcourt in his Cortina.
* * *
A cobweb of rain brushed her face, fine as gossamer but nonetheless quickly soaking.
This was real northern rain—not so much rain as total wetness. When she had left Brookside House it had been raining—raining obviously, with real raindrops spattering on her. But somewhere along the drive northwards it had stopped raining and had become simply wet, the very air so saturated with moisture that a fish could have breathed it.
She put up Mrs Bates’ big black umbrella, but the dampness ignored it. By the time she reached the porch she could feel it running down her face, spoiling Marilyn’s make-up. If someone didn’t come quickly to answer the bell Marilyn’s blonde frizz, which had jumped so surprisingly from under the wig, would be reduced to unsightly rats’-tails.
The door opened.
‘ ‘Northern Daily Post-Gazette,” said Frances quickly, hunching herself up against a trickle of rain which had infiltrated the top of her plastic mac. ‘I phoned up about an hour ago. To see Mr Sands, please.’
‘Mr Sands?’ A blast of warm air reached Frances’s face.
Rifleman Sands, please, begged Frances silently.
‘Oh, yes—the young lady from the newspaper?’ The green-uniformed nurse was as crisp and fresh as a young lettuce leaf. But she looked at Frances—at Marilyn—doubtfully for a moment, as though she had expected a better class of young lady, not something off the cheapest counter at the supermarket.
‘That’s right,’ said Frances desperately. Marilyn would just have to do, now. But the theory that as Colonel Butler and the North had never seen Marilyn, so that she might purchase a minute or two more of anonymity if the worst came to the worst … that theory of Paul’s didn’t seem so clever now.
She shivered uncontrollably, and the Florence Nightingale training of the lettuce leaf came to her rescue.
‘Ee—but you’re wet, dear—come inside!’ The lettuce leaf opened the door wider. Tut your umbrella down there—in the stand—so it won’t drip on the floor.’
Frances collapsed the umbrella gratefully. The door closed at her back and the warmth swirled around her.
‘And get your raincoat off—let me help you—there now—that’s better! Oh … isn’t it a right miserable day—that’s better!’
That was better. And without the raincoat Marilyn was better too: she was only Marilyn from the neck up. From the neck down she was still Frances, in Mrs Fitzgibbon’s best Jaeger suit.
‘Thank you, nurse.’ Marilyn-Frances took in her surroundings. Everything that wasn’t a cool, freshly-laundered, green-uniformed lettuce leaf was painted and polished in St. Luke’s Home for Elderly Gentlefolk. And on the landing window-sill halfway up the staircase was a great spray of out-of-season flowers, too: one thing St. Luke’s Home didn’t need was a grant from the Ryle Foundation, it was doing very nicely thank-you on the fees from the Elderly Gentlefolk. Colonel Butler was certainly doing right by General Chesney’s ex-gardener, ex-batman, in return for the old man’s 50 per cent share in pulling the General off the barbed wire at wherever-it-was in France sixty years before.
‘And you’ve got an appointment with Mr Sands.’ The lettuce leaf smiled at her this time, it was the influence of the Jaeger suit, no doubt. ‘He is having an exciting time!’
‘Yes?’
‘Oh yes—this way, if you please—‘ The lettuce leaf pointed up the stairs ‘—the Colonel this morning … with a big box of chocolates for us, and flowers for Matron … and the young man yesterday—‘ she glanced over her shoulder at Frances ‘—and he was from your paper too, wasn’t he? What has Mr Sands been up to?’
She was moving at nurses’ quick-step. ‘We’re planning a series on veterans of the First World War,’ said Frances breathlessly.
‘That’s right,’ agreed the lettuce leaf. ‘The young man told me. There aren’t many of them left, I suppose—didn’t he get everything, the young man? Old Mr Sands talked to him for ages.’
‘I’m the woman’s angle,’ said Frances.
‘Ah … of course.’ Nod. ‘Well, when you do a series on the Second World War, you come to me—I wasn’t born then, but my mum remembers it all. Dad was at El Alamein, and had his toe shot off in Italy, in a monastery there—would you believe it? Here we are.’
She knocked at a gleaming door. ‘Mr Sands? Another visitor for you! You’re really in luck today…’ She filled the door for a moment. ‘All right, then? You don’t want the bottle, or anything like that? You’re ready to see your visitor?’
There came a sound from beyond her, a sort of croak.
God! Don’t let him be senile, prayed Frances: he wasn’t yesterday for Paul. Don’t let him be below par for me. I have the right question for him, Paul didn’t.
‘That’s good,’ said the lettuce leaf briskly. But she caught Frances’s arm then. ‘Now, dear. ..’ she murmured into Frances’s ear confidentially ‘… he’s a lovely old man, really—not like most of our old gentlemen, not exactly—but a dear old chap, all the same.’
Most of their old gentlemen would be rich old gentlemen in their own right, that must be the difference.
‘But you’ve got to watch him like a hawk. He pretends he can’t see you properly—and it’s him who’s got eyes like a hawk. And he pretends he can’t hear either, and he hears perfectly well when he wants to. He tells you he can’t hear just to lure you close to him, that’s all—he did it with the Mayor’s daughter, I think it was, when they came to the Home last year, the old devil!’
‘Did what?’ whispered Frances.
‘He put his hand up her skirt, dear—right up’ hissed the lettuce leaf urgently. ‘You should have heard her scream! I was down the passage—it frightened me out of my wits…. We’re used to it, of course. But you—‘ she glanced quickly at Marilyn’s hair ‘—you better just watch him, that’s all.’ She straightened up abruptly, and poked her head round the door again. ‘Here you are, Mr Sands: it’s the young lady from the newspaper.
And you behave yourself, or I won’t let you watch The Sweeney—I’ll take your set away, and that’s a promise!’
Which was The Sweeney? Marilyn had kept up with all the popular TV programmes, from Coronation Street upwards—My God! The Sweeney was the violent one, where the cops and robbers were always putting in the boot.
She entered the room cautiously.
It was a beautiful room, high and peach-and-white, with bright-flowered curtains framing a window which gave a view of trees on a far hillside.
And a big colour TV set for The Sweeney. And a little old man sitting up in bed, against a mound of pillows—Like a little old wizened monkey, Paul had said. Sans teeth, almost sans eyes, but not sans memory.
Paul wasn’t quite so clever though, again: more like a little bird of prey, with bright eyes fastening on her. (Or perhaps that wasn’t quite fair to Paul, and she was being
wise after the nurse’s warning of his predatory habits once the prey was within reach.) He didn’t say anything, he just looked at her. There was a copy of the Sun under his hand, opened to page three’s bare breasts. As she looked back at him he closed the page.
Well, she hadn’t been so clever either. There was obviously nothing wrong with his eyes or his memory, but she’d forgotten to ask what was wrong with his legs… Though perhaps she should be grateful for their weakness, so it seemed. ‘Mr Sands?’
‘Yes?’ He sank back into the pillows. ‘I’m from the Post-Gazette, Mr Sands. A colleague of mine came to see you yesterday… About you war experiences.’
‘What?’ He cupped his hand to his ear. ‘About-your-war-experiences, Mr Sands.’
‘Speak up. Missy. I can’t hear you.’ Frances advanced towards the bed. ‘My colleague came to see you yesterday to ask you about your war experiences. When you were in the trenches with General Chesney.’
‘I still can’t hear you. You’ll have to speak up.’
‘You can hear me perfectly well,’ said Frances clearly.
‘Don’t shout. There’s no call to shout,’ said Rifleman Sands. ‘I’m not deaf.’
‘I want to talk to you about after the war,’ said Frances.
‘Ar? Well, you’ll have to come closer,’ said Rifleman Sands, laying down the price by patting the bed. ‘You can come and sit on the edge here. Then I can hear you.’
Then you can do more than hear me, thought Frances.
She looked down at the hand which had patted the bed, and which now lay resting itself on the coverlet. It was a working hand, one size bigger than the rest of Rifleman Sands, what she could see of him—a hand expanded by work, old and knotted now, the veins standing up from the parchment-thin skin, but very clean and manicured—a St.
Luke’s hand now. When she thought about it dispassionately, it didn’t disgust her at all.
It had been up a good many skirts in its time, that hand, without doubt. Now it was about to go up hers, but it wouldn’t be the first—or the worst—to make that short journey. It had been cleaned by the earth of the old General’s flowerbeds a thousand times over, and by that other earth of France and Flanders too, and it couldn’t possibly do her any harm now. If her skirt was the last skirt, that was just the final bit of the unpaid debt.
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