Our Man in Camelot

by Anthony Price

  Audley caught the second SB man’s eye for a fraction of a second before answering. “Not if I come along for the ride.” He gave Mosby a lop-sided smile. “You didn’t think I was intending to abandon you just when things were becoming interesting, did you, Captain Sheldon?”

  The clatter of the mower began to diminish.

  Mosby walked across the room to the French windows and looked out. It was a big lawn, perhaps nearly a hundred yards of smooth, well-tended grass—the sort of lawn that could only be achieved after a century or two of cutting and rolling and weeding. A slender iron railing divided it from the open parkland beyond, with its self-conscious clumps of beech trees. On the most distant slope, as if deliberately placed to complete an old world landscape, a flock of sheep was scattered across the pasture. Only the man with the guard dog patrolling the railing spoiled the view.

  Presumably this was one of the minor stately homes which the British had taxed out of private hands and now maintained for a variety of official and semi-official purposes, publicised and unpublicised. But exactly where it was he had no idea since the glass of the rear windows and partition of the SB car had been artfully distorted so that it was impossible to read the road signs. But as they had travelled at a moderate speed for little more than an hour, and by no means always on busy roads, it could hardly be more than thirty miles in a direct line from the Handforth-Jones house. And the position of the sun indicated that the line lay more or less to the south, which meant they must be on or near Salisbury Plain and not far from where Mosby had actually intended to be this afternoon. Which, in turn, might or might not be significant.

  He sighed and turned away from the window. The fine mahogany writing desk in the middle of the panelled room suggested that it was (or had once been) the master’s private study, with the double doors to his left leading off into the library. A smart look in that desk would very probably reveal the location of the house, but if it did then they weren’t really concerned to keep the secret. Besides, a dumb American Air Force dentist in shock from being picked up by the British FBI ought not to act like an old pro on the look-out for information.

  But then, the dumb dentist act was starting to feel uncomfortably like the real thing. Because if something or someone had slipped he had not one single idea what or who.

  The sound of the returning mower again began to fog his thoughts. He wondered uneasily where Shirley was. They had put her into the second car, but they had not thereafter driven in convoy. The odds were that she was also in this same house by now, but the damn mower effectively drowned out any sound there might have been of her arrival—

  Maybe not quite no ideas. If what Sir Thomas and Tony Handforth-Jones had said was true about Audley keeping his wife out of his professional affairs then he hadn’t spotted them as American agents straight off. Indeed, it was even possible that he hadn’t suspected anything was wrong until the Special Branch men had appeared.

  Everything depended on how good Howard Morris’s security was. If it was good… then perhaps it wasn’t the fact that they were Americans that was bugging the British, but simply their interest in the time-fused Billy Bullitt.

  But either way, the show had to go on. Because whatever happened the CIA was never going to admit that they’d ever heard of Captain and Mrs Sheldon, that was for sure after what Schreiner had said. They were absolutely on their own.

  The door opened behind him.

  “Captain Sheldon—hullo there.”

  Tall, dark-haired, good-looking, mid-thirties.

  “I’m sorry we’ve kept you waiting like this, Captain.”

  Plus a slight limp and a decidedly upper-class English accent: a very different type from the two Special Branch men and their drivers, unless British police recruitment had changed radically.

  “My name’s Roskill—Hugh Roskill.”

  Mosby ignored the outstretched hand. “Where’s my wife?”

  Roskill looked suitably apologetic. “Quite safe and sound, I assure you, Captain. In fact, they’re just rustling her up some lunch at the moment—I gather you both missed out on it. We’re sorry about that, too. Can I order you something to keep the wolf from the door?”

  The man was different, but the idiom was the same: the British were devilish sorry about the whole beastly business. But one way or another that business was going to be transacted all the same.

  “When can I see her?”

  “Very soon. Just one or two questions first.” Roskill grinned. “How about that lunch?”

  Mosby shook his head. “Being arrested has taken my appetite away, Mr Roskill.”

  “Good lord—you haven’t been arrested, Captain! We simply want to know what you’re up to.”

  “Who’s ‘we’?”

  “The powers-that-be.” Roskill waved a hand vaguely. “The authorities. A rose by any other name… Does it matter?”

  Mosby studied the Englishman. This soft approach could be a carefully calculated phase of the breaking-down process, or it could be that they still genuinely weren’t sure about him.

  “To me it does. I’m a serving officer with the United States Air Force, attached to NATO—but I guess you must know that already, huh?”

  Roskill nodded. “Of course.”

  “Uh-huh. Well, being—picked up, shall we say?—being picked up by your Special Branch isn’t going to make me Man of the Year with my commanding officer.”

  “Yes, I can imagine that.” Roskill smiled sympathetically. “Commanding officers are notoriously—narrow-minded.”

  “That’s right. No matter I haven’t done one goddamn thing, I’m going to do the rest of my time on a weather station on Greenland. And up until this afternoon I’ve enjoyed it over here—so has my wife.”

  “I’m gratified to hear it. But—“

  Mosby held up his hand. “Let me finish, sir. My wife wanted me to phone the embassy when we were back at Dr Handforth-Jones’s house. And if I was going by the book now I ought to be demanding you let me phone the base. But I have the impression that somehow I’ve got into something way over my head—I don’t know what, but it’s sure as hell not parking on a double yellow line.” He looked around him. “All this… and now you, Mr Roskill.”

  “Me?”

  “You don’t look like a cop to me.”

  “What do I look like?”

  “I don’t know…” Mosby paused. “But maybe someone I can make a deal with, I’m hoping.”

  “Well, well… now you are beginning to interest me, Captain. What sort of deal?”

  Mosby shrugged. “You name it. You want me to answer questions—ask the questions. You want me to do something —within reason I’ll do it.”

  “In exchange for what?”

  “In exchange for I don’t make any trouble, phoning the embassy—and you don’t make any trouble calling General Ellsworth if I’ve accidentally stepped out of line somehow.”

  Roskill looked at him quizzically. “You think you may have stepped out of line?”

  Mosby grimaced. “I don’t know all your laws. I guess I’ll know when you start asking the questions.”

  “But you can’t guess what?”

  “I can’t, no… Unless the Special Branch is interested in illegal archaeology—if there is such a crime.”

  “And you’ve done that?” Roskill raised an eyebrow. “Gone treasure hunting, you mean?”

  “No.” Mosby shook his head. “But someone might think I had, that’s all.”

  “I see.” Roskill considered Mosby thoughtfully for a moment or two. “Well now… I’m not exactly empowered to make deals, but it seems reasonable enough. So let’s just try it for size and see how it looks—right?”

  “You mean a gentleman’s agreement?”

  “If you like—a gentleman’s agreement.”

  Mosby swallowed ostentatiously. “Okay.”

  “Fine. You’re with the 7438th Bombardment Wing—F-llls with an attached Phantom Squadron?”

  “Correct.”
<
br />   “Stationed at RAF Wodden. Does the wind still blow up there six days out of seven?”

  “You know it?”

  “I knew it years ago. Built during the war as a basic training field—for Tiger Moths. But when I was there it was Jet Provosts.” .

  “You RAF, then?”

  “Once upon a time.” RoskiU’s lip twisted as if the memory was painful to him. “You must have done a lot of work on it since my day.”

  “They haven’t stopped since they moved in four years back. When the new runway’s ready they’ll be able to take anything that flies now.”

  “’They’? But of course you’re not a career officer, are you. A three-year volunteer?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Which gives you a choice of foreign postings. And you chose England.”

  “We all make mistakes.”

  Roskill smiled. “And you’re a dentist. Which makes you the very man I want to see, actually.”

  “Don’t tell me you’ve got toothache,” Mosby started to smile back, then noticed that RoskiU’s smile had gone. “You have to be joking.”

  “I wish I was.” Roskill sighed. “Truth is, if I hadn’t had to come down here I should have seen my own dentist by now.”

  Mosby blinked with surprise. “Well, there’s nothing I can do about it—I didn’t bring my chair with me.”

  “Ah, but you can put my mind at rest—that’s the least you can do. And knowing what’s wrong will take some of the pain away.”

  It had to be some sort of test, thought Mosby. But why should they want to test him? The Special Branch man had already examined his ID card.

  Then professional curiosity welled up inside him. This was one thing he could do, anyway. “You’ve got a problem?”

  “Not at the moment. But last night after dinner—I’d just finished eating as a matter of fact—it was excruciating. Knocked me sideways for a few minutes, but then it went away. And then this morning, just as I was finishing breakfast—same thing: fearful pain.” He looked at Mosby expectantly.

  “And at lunchtime?”

  “Well, nothing really. But I only had a salad—I didn’t want a third go of it, I tell you.”

  “You had coffee?”

  “Coffee?” Roskill frowned. “Yes, I did.”

  “But it was lukewarm, I guess.”

  “That’s right.” Roskill stared at him. “How did you know?”

  “And the other two times it was hot, eh? When you had the pain, that is?” Mosby nodded. “Come on over to the window and I’ll just have a look.”

  He led the way to the French windows. The man on the mower was still hard at work. So was the man with the dog.

  “Now, just open wide.”

  “Don’t you want me to tell you where it hurt?”

  “If it’s what I think it is I’ll find it. Just open wide.”

  He peered into the Englishman’s mouth. Someone had worked hard on it over the years, but then that figured: the English dentists were paid for what they did, not what they prevented. He worked his way around the jaw, for one happy minute far from reality.

  “Okay… Well, you’ve got a semi-erupted wisdom tooth at the back there, with a large gum flap. But that’s not your problem just at this moment.”

  “So what is my problem?”

  “Posterior left six—the first molar. You’re starting an abscess. There’s a swelling on the gum, the inflammation’s plain to see. Your dentist’ll deal with it in no time.”

  “How?”

  “He’ll extract the tooth, and then you’ll be okay. No problem.”

  “No problem. I see.” Roskill grimaced. “And that was what the coffee grounds told you?”

  “Sure, because I’ve come across it before. People like to drink their coffee when it’s hot. And with an abscess you get small amounts of gas formed, so the heat from the coffee causes the gas to expand and you get terrible pressure on the inflamed nerves. Like you said, it’ll knock you sideways until it cools down again.” He looked at Roskill candidly. “So n6w you know I’m a dentist.”

  “You’re cold-blooded enough for one, I’ll say that.”

  “But there must be easier ways of checking up on me than finding a—a whatever you are—with tooth-ache to diagnose.”

  “Of course. We could have gone straight through to your commanding officer at Wodden. ‘We have this man who says he’s one of your officers, General. Height five foot ten, brown hair, born in Richmond, Virginia—‘”

  “You’ve made your point.” Mosby raised a hand in surrender. “Except I never told you where I was born.”

  “Oh, we’ve done a little checking here and there.”

  I’ll bet, thought Mosby. But that sort of checking must have started earlier than this morning, and possibly even earlier than yesterday, allowing for the Atlantic time difference. In fact it could only mean that they’d started running the check almost as soon as he’d made contact with Audley.

  “And did you turn up anything interesting?”

  Roskill shook his head slowly. “I’m bound to admit we didn’t. Your life is an open book, Captain Sheldon, and a remarkably easy one to read.”

  “I’m sorry to disappoint you, Mr Roskill.”

  “But you didn’t disappoint us—we don’t disappoint so easily. It merely made us wonder whether you were who you said you were.”

  “Whether-r-who?” Mosby screwed up his face in bewilderment. “Now you really have to be joking.”

  “Stranger things have happened, believe me.”

  “You’re telling me! They’re happening right at this moment. Only—I was thinking—maybe you should check up with my wife. She just might be able to help you make your minds up.”

  “Unless she was part of the act, of course.”

  “Shirley?” Mosby packed scorn into his voice. “Oh, come on! I know I’m kind of ordinary-looking, but you’d have to look some to get a ringer for her. And anyway, why the heck should anyone want to claim to be me—or us—for God’s sake? What have we got that anyone else could possibly want?”

  Roskill shook his head. “It isn’t quite like that, Captain Sheldon. As I told you, we’ve done a little checking up on you already. And on your wife.”

  “And we’re a couple of open books.”

  “So it would seem. All except the last page.”

  Mosby frowned. “The last page? I don’t get you?”

  “You don’t?” Roskill gazed at him in silence for a second or two. “But you’re interested in King Arthur, aren’t you?”

  “In—“ Mosby matched silence for silence. “Yes, I am… in a way. But what’s that got to do with you?”

  Roskill grinned. “For a man who’s promised to give all the answers you ask a lot of questions.”

  Mosby lifted his hand helplessly. “Sorry. You’re absolutely right, it’s just—hell—okay, ask the questions, then. Yes, I’m interested in Arthurian history.”

  “And Badon Hill in particular?”

  Mosby drew a deep breath. “You’ve been talking to Audley—and that isn’t a question. Because if you’ve been talking to Audley we can cut the double-talk.”

  “What double-talk?”

  “He’s one of your civil servants. A Special Branch man—or whatever you are—asks him a question, he’s not going to tell you to get lost. Or make deals. He’s going to talk, right?”

  The corner of Roskill’s mouth twitched, but he merely nodded.

  “Right. Then I guess you know everything I told him— right?” Mosby nodded back. “So I’m a dentist I don’t have to be stupid into the bargain. And I’m not going to ask what’s so terrible about looking for Badon Hill, but I’m sure as hell going to think about it until you tell me.”

  “My dear man—think away by all means. But we’re just rather surprised that your friend Major Davies didn’t bother to tell you, that’s all,” said Roskill airily.

  “He didn’t have the chance, is why,” said Mosby. “He—“


  “Yes? He—what?”

  Mosby stared at him. “You sound as though you know.”

  “Know what?”

  “What Davies was going to tell me—about Badon. The way you spoke.”

  “But of course we know. What I’m trying to ascertain now is what you know. Or, to put it rather more charitably, I’m trying hard to believe that you’re half as innocent as you seem.”

  Mosby’s panic button was jammed in the ‘on’ position and the red lights in his brain flickered like a firework display. The British knew what Davies had been up to. Just like that: they knew, and it looked as though they had known for some time.

  He scrabbled desperately in his memory. But only the old bookseller’s taped voice came back to him: I told him if it was true it was a great discovery. And he said ‘And a great load of trouble, too’. And then Schreiner’s voice, leaving no room for misunderstanding: If there’s trouble you are strictly on your own… what matters is the CIA remains uninvolved.

  Roskill looked at him hopefully. “Well, do any answers occur to you now, Captain?”

  “Answers?” All the possible avenues of action opened up before Mosby briefly, and then the gates closed on all but one. “For God’s sake, you must have the answers. All I’ve got now is questions.”

  Roskill shrugged. “Very well. If that’s the way you want to play it…”

  “I’m not playing anything any way. I just—“

  “Of course you’re not.” Roskill lifted the phone at his elbow and dialled a single number. “You’re just—hullo, sir… Yes, I’m ready now… No, he hasn’t… No, I don’t…” He smiled at Mosby “Yes, he is—and I’ve got an abscess starting under my first molar to prove it… Quite so, sir— yes. I think he’s a good dentist. And I also think he’s a good liar.”

  X

  AN IMMENSE MARBLE fireplace, surmounted by an equally huge carved coat-of-arms, dominated the drawing room. But neither of the two men who stood in front of it were dwarfed by their setting: Audley, exuding his Ozymandias aura, looked as though he owned the place, and the man beside him, though half a head shorter, looked as though he owned Audley.

  Mosby’s eyes strayed back for a second to the coat-of-arms, which was held aloft by two winged dragons breathing heraldic fire. So that made four dragons all told, he reckoned dispassionately. Four dragons versus one dentist.