War Game dda-7

by Anthony Price

  The deep murmur of Weston's voice behind the door of Number 10 was stilled by his knock, but for a moment no one answered. Then another voice, high and familiar, answered.

  "Come!"

  The room had been a small one with no one in it. With Nayler it had grown smaller and with Weston it had become smaller still. But with the large detective sergeant who had accompanied Weston— a man with a marvellously brutal bog-Irish face which looked as if it had been carved out of soft stone and then unwisely exposed to the elements for a century or two—it must have been claustrophobic for those dummy5

  ten long minutes.

  And now, as Audley eased the door shut behind him, it was the Black Hole of Calcutta.

  "Audley!" Surprise and relief were mingled fifty-fifty in the exclamation. And for sure the elephant was the right animal: Nayler's aura was the shape and consistency of a Shrove Tuesday pancake.

  "Good evening, Professor." Audley reserved his sharpest look for Weston. "Superintendent Weston—what brings you here?"

  "Sir." Weston straightened up deferentially. "We're pursuing inquiries into certain matters."

  This was a new Weston, subtly altered: it was Weston playing himself on television, not as he really was, but as the viewers might imagine him.

  "Well, I didn't think you were paying a social call." Role for role, Audley played back. "The 'certain matters' are Sergeant Digby, I take it."

  "That's correct, Dr. Audley."

  Audley pointed towards Nayler. "And just what has Professor Nayler got to do with him, may I ask?"

  "That's for us to decide, if you don't mind, sir."

  "But I do mind. I mind very much." It occurred to Audley that he was overplaying more than Weston was, but there was no help for it. "I'm not having you trampling around in this matter like a bull in a china shop. And I'm not having dummy5

  distinguished scholars like Professor Nayler bullied like this, either."

  Weston gave a half-strangled grunt, the sort of baffled noise which Jack Butler produced in moments of excessive official stupidity. The brutish sergeant's face was a picture of perplexed ferocity: nothing like this had ever happened to him.

  "I'm sorry, Professor," Audley turned towards Nayler. "There seems to have been some misunderstanding somewhere down the line. These officers will be leaving now."

  Nayler was having the same trouble as the sergeant in adjusting to events; for once words failed him.

  "Well, sir ... we have our duty to do." Weston was retreating in good order with his face to the foe, but clearly retreating nevertheless. "I shall have to consult my superiors about this . . . Sergeant!"

  The sergeant gave him an appalled look and backed unwillingly out of the door which Audley held open for him.

  "You do that, Superintendent," said Audley. "And you'd better tell them they should consult the Home Office before they try this sort of tactics next time."

  He closed the door on them and lent against it thankfully, watching Nayler through half-closed eyes as he did so. This was the moment when the casting of his next role would be decided: it was up to Nayler to reward his deliverer or to remember old enmities.

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  "What an extraordinary bizarre episode," said Nayler to no one in particular. "I wouldn't have thought it possible."

  No sign of gratitude, thought Audley. The man was quickly adjusting his self-esteem again as though nothing had happened, putting Weston's visit out of his mind as though it had been no more real than a nightmare.

  "Yes. ..." Nayler wrinkled his nose and compressed his lips.

  "Quite extraordinary. And now, what do you want, Audley?"

  No gratitude for sure. Time had dealt too kindly with the bastard: where better men had lost their figures and their hair, Nayler's lankiness had aged into an acceptable scholarly stoop to which his thick pepper-and-salt thatch added distinction. Only that petulant mouth and the words which came out of it were unchanged.

  "Well, Audley?" Nayler raised an eyebrow interrogatively. "I haven't got all night."

  The hard way, then. And it was going to be a rare pleasure.

  "You haven't got any time at all." Audley came away from the door. "You're in trouble, Nayler."

  "What?" Nayler frowned. "What?"

  "I said you're in trouble. Big trouble."

  "And I don't like your tone." The lips compressed tighter.

  "You are beginning to sound like those—those two thugs masquerading as policemen, Audley."

  "Oh, I'm not the same as them, don't make that mistake."

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  "I don't intend to, I assure you. Now— say what you came to say and get out." Nayler waved his hand in a jerky, insulting little gesture of dismissal. "I have work to do."

  "Very well. I believe you spoke to Henry Digby recently."

  "I spoke to the fellow—yes—if that's his name."

  "It was his name. Sergeant Henry Digby. He's dead now."

  "So I gather. But that's absolutely no concern of mine. I spoke to the fellow about purely academic matters."

  Audley felt his blood pressure rising, heated and reheated by the repetition of fellow.

  "You spoke to Sergeant Digby about Standingham and the gold." With an effort Audley kept his voice neutral. "Now . . .

  could you please tell me what you told him, Professor?"

  Nayler gazed at Audley for a moment, old memories flickering in his eyes. "Frankly, Audley, I don't see why I should."

  "I see." Audley nodded humbly. "Professor, I explained that I wasn't the same as the police—"

  "You did indeed." Nayler came in before he could continue, his confidence now fully restored. "And in consequence I can think of no reason why I should give you even the time of day."

  That was just about perfect, thought Audley. If Nayler had read the script for a classic hard-soft-hard interrogation pattern he couldn't have played his part better than that.

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  "No? Well here's a reason, then." Audley looked at his watch.

  "If you don't answer my question in one minute from now—"

  he looked up "—I will arrest you —and I have ample authority to do that— and I will take you to the nearest police station, where you will be held under the Prevention of Terrorism Act until such time as I may charge you under the Defence of the Realm Act, or alternatively with impeding the course of justice. And I will further personally ensure that you are thereafter held in custody as being a person consorting, or likely to consort, with known agents of a foreign power engaged in a conspiracy to endanger the safety and security of the realm."

  The colour drained out of Nayler's face.

  "Fifteen seconds to go." Audley reached inside his jacket.

  "Here is my warrant card, which is issued under the joint authority of the Ministry of Defence and the Home Office."

  "A foreign power?" Nayler whispered the words as though only hearing them from his own lips would make them real to him.

  "Time's up. Professor Stephen Adrian Nayler, I arrest you—"

  "No—this is ridiculous!" Nayler squeaked.

  "That's one thing it isn't. Professor Stephen Adrian Nayler—"

  "I didn't mean that!" The jerky wave was abject now, not insulting. "I mean— I didn't understand—I didn't realise this was a matter of national security, Audley."

  "Why the hell did you think I got rid of the police, you fool?"

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  said Audley contemptuously. "For old times' sake?"

  "I ... no ... I don't know." Nayler licked his lips. There was no room left on his face for anything except fear now. "But I didn't—"

  "Shut up. And sit down, Professor."

  Nayler sat down as though strings holding him up had been cut.

  The very completeness of his collapse steadied Audley. This was how it must be in the Lubianka when the KGB man spoke; or how it had been in Fresnes when the Gestapo ruled there—

  Saditye, Professor!

  Setzen Sie sich, Prof
essor!

  The comparison wasn't flattering, it was sickening—not even the thought of Henry Digby could quite take the sickness away.

  "Audley—I had no idea ..." Nayler trailed off helplessly.

  Audley swallowed. "You talked to Sergeant Digby about Standingham?"

  "Yes." Nayler nodded.

  "Did you tell anyone else about your conversation?"

  "Only young Ratcliffe—" Nayler stopped abruptly as the implication of what he had said became clear to him

  "Only . . . Ratcliffe," he repeated in a whisper.

  "Why him?"

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  "Why . . ." Nayler blinked. "Well . . . I was surprised—I was worried that someone had come so close to our hypothesis about the storming of the castle . . . as the sergeant had done." He paused. "I mean, some of these amateurs are extremely knowledgeable—and he was a member of the Double R Society. . . . But it was disquieting nevertheless."

  "Disquieting? Why was it disquieting?"

  "Because we didn't want our secret to be known before the re-enactment of the battle—and my television programme. That would have spoilt the whole thing, you see. There would have been no surprise then. In fact there was no real danger of it, because after I'd spoken to the sergeant he promised not to leak his ideas, but I thought Ratcliffe ought to know about it even though there was no danger any more."

  "Except to the sergeant," murmured Audley.

  "I beg your pardon?"

  So that was how Digby had made Nayler talk, thought Audley. By accident or design he had provided himself with the right lever.

  "It doesn't matter. So what was your secret, then?" And there was another painful truth: young Digby had fashioned his lever out of pure knowledge, whereas clever David Audley had required the crude blunt instrument of the State bully.

  "Our hypothesis?" Nayler's voice was almost back to normal.

  "Yes . . . well, how much do you know about the Standingham affair, Audley?"

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  "I've read what the Reverend Horatio Musgrave wrote about it, that's all."

  "Indeed? Well, that's quite a lot really. In fact you might say that most of the basic clues are there . . . like one of those children's puzzles with the faces hidden in the picture, you might say."

  "I've also assumed that Ratcliffe took his gold out of the site of the old crater, from under the monument. Is that correct?"

  Nayler nodded. "Absolutely correct. A sort of double bluff—

  that was quite clever of you in the circumstances."

  Double bluff, certainly. But not nearly clever enough, Audley thought sadly. Not clever at all.

  "Yes, well, we see it—that is, Ratcliffe and I see it—as a story of treachery and murder, Audley. Treachery and murder in a good cause perhaps, but nonetheless treachery and murder . . . Colonel Nathaniel Parrott was a very ruthless man as well as a brave one. He couldn't get the gold out of Standingham, but he couldn't allow it to fall into Royalist hands—it might have changed the whole course of the war.

  So it wasn't enough to hide it, he had to make sure no one survived to tell the tale."

  "Meaning—he set the explosion?"

  "Correct. It's possible that he and Steyning planned the explosion together, of course. But if so then Parrott contrived it prematurely, while all those who were privy to the burial were in the powder magazine, including Steyning. Or maybe dummy5

  they were in the shot-casting shed, which was next door, it doesn't matter."

  "I see. So that was the murder. Where does the treachery come in?"

  "Ah, well you'll remember what Musgrave said—what was it?

  —'Parrott took to horse and essayed to escape (and who shall cry "faint heart" or "treachery" in such an extremity?) . . .'.

  Even Musgrave suspected that Parrott was just a little too ready to break out, you see. That reference to treachery is an old tradition in the story, too. And there was also the fact that the Royalist forces did seem to be ready and waiting to attack at exactly that point, where the great cannon was dismounted by the explosion."

  "So they'd been tipped off in advance?"

  "It does very much look like that. They'd never tried to attack from that side before."

  "Because of the great cannon?"

  "No, not really. Steyning was always firing it, but he never hit anything—'he vexed us not at all', one of the Royalists wrote.

  No, it was because the valley bottom is marshy there, and with the field of fire in that open country they wouldn't have had a chance of getting across the marshy ground without taking unacceptable losses. But in the confusion after the explosion—and with Parrott trying to break out on the other side—well, with the preparations they'd made they got across before the defenders could react." Audley nodded. "But then dummy5

  Black Thomas double-crossed Parrott in turn." Nayler shrugged. "That, or perhaps the break-out went wrong and he ran into some Royalists who hadn't received the word. . . .

  But either way it does give the story a nice ironic twist at the end."

  "It certainly does. And Sergeant Digby had worked all this out?"

  "Most of it. He is ... that is to say, he was ... a rather shrewd young fellow— for a policeman. But he was really more interested in the gold, I must admit. He wanted to know exactly how Ratcliffe had found it, he was very insistent on my telling him that."

  "So you told him?"

  Nayler sighed. "Well, in the circumstances I thought it prudent to do so. That was the other half of our secret, of course.

  "And what did you tell him?"

  Nayler blinked and didn't answer directly. "Well . . . yes, well that began when Ratcliffe came to see me first."

  "When was that?"

  "Oh—" Nayler lifted his hand vaguely "—some time ago."

  "When?"

  Nayler looked distinctly unhappy. "About a year ago, it would be."

  About a year ago. Long before James Ratcliffe's death, but dummy5

  after the sorting of the Earl of Dawlish's archives for the Historical Manuscripts Commission. And for a bet Professor Nayler knew both those harsh little facts, but had chosen to overlook them in his partnership with Charlie Ratcliffe.

  Nor was that the only thing he had chosen to overlook, thought Audley with a sudden flash of understanding. It hadn't been simply their old mutual dislike that had closed Nayler's mouth: it had been a good old-fashioned bad conscience about more recent events.

  "Of course." He nodded. "And he brought a letter with him—

  a very old letter."

  Whereas of late have I suceeded to thee Estate whereof mine Fathyr was seised . . .

  "You know, then?" Nayler looked at him sidelong. "But of course you will have seen the sergeant's copy."

  "Yes, I have. But I would have known anyway. You'd never have mixed yourself up in this just on Ratcliffe's word, there had to be proof of some kind. Was it a genuine letter?"

  "It was a genuine seventeenth-century copy of a letter."

  "To John Pym from John Dangerfield?"

  "To John Pym, certainly. But it wasn't signed—it was obviously the author's copy.

  "Didn't you want to know where Ratcliffe obtained it?"

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  Nayler's face screwed up with embarrassment. "He said he'd been given it. But he made me promise to keep that a secret until he was ready to reveal it."

  There was no point in picking that sore at the moment.

  Nayler knew well enough how ugly it looked.

  "So you knew the gold was there, then?"

  Nayler stared fixedly at the carpet. "No, Audley, to be honest

  —I didn't."

  "You—didn't?"

  Nayler looked up. "I believed it had been there. I didn't believe it was there until Ratcliffe actually found it." He sighed. "Oh, I worked out with Ratcliffe where it might have been, and how it might have got there. But I never believed it was there until he found it."

  "Why not?"

  "Because I t
hought Cromwell had found it in '53, that's why.

  It takes money to make a revolution, and he needed money to make his. Not to mention making war with everyone in sight. ... He needed money—and he went to Standingham for it. 'He made great excavation in that place', that's what the record says. So I told Ratcliffe the odds were a hundred to one against him, letter or no letter. And I was wrong."

  Audley shook his head. "I've got news for you, Professor. You weren't wrong."

  Nayler stared at him, humility melting into surprise, surprise yielding to horror. "Oh, my God!" he said. "Oh—my— God."

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  This wasn't the face of the Gestapo victim, thought Audley; this was the proud man who saw himself a laughing-stock among his peers, and that made them both brothers under the skin.

  He grinned at Nayler encouragingly. "You and me both, Nayler," he said. "Two high IQ's equal one big zero. Because I was wrong too."

  The grin wasn't catching. "What are we going to do?" asked Nayler.

  What indeed!

  Audley thought of Superintendent Weston, who would do anything he was asked to do, short of breaking the laws by which he lived.

  And then of Robert Davenport, who had all the resources of the CIA and would exchange most of them for getting himself and the agency off the hook.

  And then of Frances Fitzgibbon and Paul Mitchell, who would do exactly what they were told, but would report back to someone what they had done.

  And even of William Strode, officer commanding the Roundhead Army, who would serve the cause of law and order in the cause of social democracy and a better prospective Parliamentary seat.

  And now Professor Stephen Nayler, who probably thought he had most to lose —and certainly knew more about the storming of Standingham Castle than anyone else alive, dummy5

  Charlie Ratcliffe included.

  And finally David Audley, who wasn't nearly as sharp as he'd thought he was—

  No. Not finally David Audley.

  Finally Sergeant Henry Digby, who was to be avenged.

  He nodded at Professor Nayler. "I think we might manage something nasty between us," he said.

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