The Labyrinth Makers

you.'

Roskill looked down at his feet, and Audley thought the better of him for it. The use of amateurs in his profession, no matter how attractive, was quite properly anathema to him. It was not that they were stupid, but rather that their ignorance of the basic rules of procedure made them at once dangerous and vulnerable.

'Miss Jones has one unique advantage over us, Hugh,' he explained. 'She's her father's daughter–and that may prove very useful to us. And I'll be with her all the time, in any case.'

Roskill conceded the matter with a graceful nod in Faith's direction. 'Nothing personal, Miss Jones. It's simply that I've also got some concrete information to contribute now, even if I haven't had such an exciting night as you have.'

dummy4

Audley was glad that she had chosen to wear tinted glasses, only to find that it was he whom Roskill was observing speculatively.

He started guiltily.

'The post-mortem on Morrison?'

'My report's in the car. But I'd rather you read it on the way. We've got quite a way to go, and not a lot of time.'

The inside of the Triumph was like a pilot's cockpit. Evidently Roskill was a car enthusiast–and he was beyond doubt a skilled driver, for no unskilful one could drive so consistently fast and stay alive. Audley tore his eyes from the roadside which was flashing by so terrifyingly, and started to unzip the plastic folder Roskill had handed to him. Then he stopped; it was always better to hear a verbal report if possible–reports could not answer questions. And it would serve to bring home the realities of the situation to Faith, if that was still necessary. It might slow down this hair-raising drive, too!

'Did he fall, or was he pushed?' he inquired.

'Neither,' replied Roskill, slowing down not in the least. 'He was dead when he was slung down those stairs.'

He changed gears with casual skill, and drifted the car coolly round a badly-cambered bend with an ease Audley envied bitterly. How was it that some people could bring machines alive, and then achieve a symbiosis with them?

'But you were right, Dr Audley,' Roskill continued. 'It was an accident, most likely. He actually died of heart failure –he had a heart condition that only needed the right shock to set off.'

dummy4

'And that shock was—?'

'Somebody slapped him around a bit. Not hard, but hard enough.

Made his nose bleed. We frightened him, but we weren't in any hurry. Someone else was, apparently.'

'They'd have hit him to make him tell them something?' asked Faith.

'That's right, Miss Jones. He'd just spoken to us, and he knew we were OHMS. He'd know that his next visitors weren't official–but he also knew that we were coming back soon. So he might have tried to stall them and that was very unwise of him.'

'Unwise?'

Roskill was silent for a moment. Then he spoke more seriously:

'Miss Jones, most people think that types like me are just like–the men on the other side. They think we're just tools, like a gun or a fighter; same basic object, just a different make. But it isn't quite true, you know.'

'You're good and they're bad?'

Audley wriggled uncomfortably. The old argument was rearing its head.

But Roskill avoided it.

'I'm bound by laws, very strict laws, and they aren't. In this country, anyway.'

'But you'd stretch those laws.'

'Stretch–maybe. But break–never! With a free press and civil liberties I wouldn't even if I wanted to. Which I don't, oddly dummy4

enough.'

Audley intervened. 'Hugh means that if Morrison had refused to talk to us there isn't a thing we could have done about it. And there aren't many places in the world where that's the case. That's why you're coming up to Knaresborough with us, as I told you: because I've a feeling that Tierney won't be panicked like Morrison.'

Roskill nodded.

'True–but that isn't really what I meant to say, Miss Jones.

'I meant to say that if ever you should be in Morrison's situation, don't try to be brave or clever. Just tell 'em what they want to know. Sing like a canary.'

'I'll remember your advice, Mr Roskill.'

'It was just a thought. And please call me Hugh–everyone else does.'

'Well, then, Hugh–what was it they wanted to find out from that poor man? David didn't seem to think that he had much of value to tell–except that he knew my father brought the treasure in.'

The speed of the Triumph dropped all of three m.p.h., only to rise sharply. Audley remembered from the Dassault interview that Roskill had flown fighters: he drove exactly as one would expect a fighter pilot to drive.