confidence in him — if Stocker ever really had such confidence.
But even if Stocker's confidence was assumed, there was still the reality of Panin. The Russian's coming was the one sure proof that the treasure existed and could be found. Yet it made no sense–or it meant that he'd been approaching the problem from entirely the wrong direction. In that case what was needed was–what was it the Arabs called it?–a
But to do that would mean returning to London, and then to an unwelcoming home full of electronic eavesdroppers. And it would also lose him the chance of getting into a real bed with Faith.
That was the one worthwhile product of the whole operation, and he wasn't going to ruin it now. As he climbed into the car he could see that she looked as gloomy as he felt, but that smartly-pinned hair would look better spread on a pillow. So the idea of quitting and the
They drove off in silence. The last sight he had of Maclean was of the compact man still standing where they had said goodbye to him, deep in his memories. Audley hoped the lifejacket of his clear conscience would keep him afloat. Then a gleaming wing of Wadham Hill cut him off from view.
They continued without speaking, and for once he concentrated on his driving; Butler's Rover was a car which rewarded effort, very different from his undemanding Austin. But in the end he had to break the silence.
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'You didn't enjoy that either?'
'Enjoy it? In a way it was worse than Tierney. You should have been nicer to Tierney and nastier to him–my proxy godfather!'
'And then I would have got nothing out of either of them. But he wasn't so bad; you've just got a prejudice against headmasters.'
'Against that one, anyway. He could have stopped my father dead in his tracks if he'd really wanted to. And I think he knew it, too, whatever he said, the sanctimonious bastard.'
She sighed. 'But then my dear father would have got up to some other murky little scheme, I suppose–gun- running, or something like that. You're right, of course: this way's no worse than any other–and at least I've met you this way, David!'
She reached over and put a slender hand on his, and then leant across and planted a light kiss on his cheek.
''Meet you at the Bull',' she whispered in his ear. 'This way I'm following the family tradition as well!'
XII
If there had ever been any ghosts in the Bull, old ghosts or shadows in RAF blue, they were gone now, thought Audley. The central heating would have been too much for them.
He sat on his luxurious bed and watched Faith double up on hers in helpless laughter. There might be a suggestion of hysterics in it, but it seemed genuine enough even if he was not disposed to share dummy4
it: the Bull had proved a more daunting experience than he had expected. Worse still, the management evidently took them for honeymooners, if not elopers, and this was its special bridal suite.
It might have been the way Richardson had booked them in. It might even have been the awkward way Audley had claimed their room. It might very well have been their arrival without a single item of luggage, an oversight which had struck him much too late.
But he suspected that it had been their actual reaction to the Bull itself which had finally convinced the staff of their romantic status.
No hardened adulterers or casual fornicators would have behaved so eccentrically.
Faith had spent the last half-hour of the journey describing the decaying establishment which had been the rendezvous for the Newton Chester air crews, their families and hangers-on.
Not that the old Bull had been prepared for its sudden wartime prosperity. It had in fact been left high and dry by time until Hitler's rise and renewed friendship with France had caused the migration of the RAF bomber squadrons from their old haunts in the south midlands to a new generation of bases which spread across East Anglia, Lincolnshire and Yorkshire. Newton Chester had been the last and the least of these airfields, a temporary intruder which had never managed to attract the biggest bombers.
But if the creaking beds and antique plumbing of the old pub had been strained to the uttermost, so too had the stamina of the wives and girl friends who descended on it. Its draughtiness and arctic conditions beyond the two cheerless bars had been a byword; it dummy4
was a folk legend that the rear upper gunner of a Hampden, who should certainly have been inured to cold, had frozen to death during the winter of 1940 in one of the bedrooms. Circumstantial evidence for this was that his girl had forsaken him for a pilot in the next room–one of the advantages of the place was that it encouraged passionate night-long embraces simply as a means of keeping warm.
It was famous also–or infamous–for running out of beer, for the landlord's habit of despatching patrons to borrow fresh supplies from a pub in the neighbouring village and for his unblushing overcharging of the Samaritans who had helped him. And his whisky, on the rare occasions when it was available, was so heavily watered that flies falling into it were able to swim to safety and take off at once, cold sober.
The meals were more reliable; except so far as Jewish aircrew were concerned, for the menu was always a Hobson's choice based on illicit pigs which the landlord fattened on the choicest scraps bribed out of the sergeants' mess at the airfield . . .
One way or another, from the reminiscences of her grandmother, mother and step-father, Faith knew the Bull inside out, from the decrepit creaking floorboards at the head of the stairs to the notice in the unlockable upstairs lavatory appealing to the users not to pull the chain after midnight because of the noises which then racked the water pipes. She was an expert in every legend, tradition and horror which 3112 Squadron had inherited from its long-suffering predecessors.
The Bull she raised in Audley's imagination was built of nostalgic dummy4
wartime gaiety and stark discomfort–'The Way to the Stars' staged in Dotheboys Hall. But as the discomfort was more likely to have survived than the gaiety he began to have the gravest doubts about the night ahead of
