weakness.
One final protest should be enough for the record..
'They might as well ground me anyway. If they won't let me keep up with my flying they're as good as doing that already. Is this Sir Frederick's idea of a gentleman's agreement?'
Faith pushed her chair back from the table and stood up. 'I think I'll go and make a lot of strong coffee – before I'm sent packing.'
Butler turned towards her hastily. 'Don't go, Mrs. Audley. The brandy's fine – please don't leave us.'
Audley grunted angrily. 'I don't think she likes watching Hugh blackmailed any more than I do. It's too much like old times for both of us.'
'At least hear me out,' Butler looked at Roskill. 'I think you may not want to go back to the R. A.F. quite so quickly then – I mean that, Hugh. And it really is perfectly in order for you to listen, Mrs.
Audley. You may even have something to contribute.'
Faith sat down again willingly enough, and Roskill felt a pang of disquiet. It was like her to be curious, but it wasn't like Butler –
solid, security-conscious Butler, who mistrusted women and hated amateurs.
And of all women, Faith. For Butler had deplored Audley's original involvement with her – 'that over-bred, under-sexed schoolteacher with foam-rubber tits.' It was an uncharacteristically facile assessment, except possibly as regards the foam rubber, but what mattered was that it didn't fit this sudden partiality: Faith wouldn't dummy2
hold her tongue, and Butler would know it.
'Get on with it, then, Jack. I can't wait to hear why I have to keep my beard.'
Butler took a slow breath, almost a sigh. 'On Tuesday night somebody stole a car belonging to a Foreign Office man named Llewelyn.'
Audley sat up. 'Llewelyn? David Llewelyn would that be?'
'You know him?'
'I used... to know him.' Audley began guardedly and ended casually. 'I played rugger against him as a matter of fact.'
'So someone pinched Llewelyn's car,' said Roskill after a moment's silence. Butler had evidently hoped that Audley was going to elaborate on his acquaintance, but Audley's mouth was tightly closed again. 'That's a normal occupational hazard in London these days.'
'It was taken in Oxford.'
'Still close enough for the city gangs.' Butler ignored him.
'He parked the car at six thirty p.m. in Radcliffe square, just next to All Souls – he was having dinner in All Souls that evening. By midnight it had gone. They picked it up at Bicester at seven p.m.
next evening.'
Roskill looked at the map in his mind. Bicester was just north, or maybe north-east, of Oxford. And hardly more than a dozen miles away. There was an R.A.F. maintenance unit there, not far from the American base the F-111's were moving into soon. And an Army camp – a fair-sized ordnance depot.
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'So some jokers missed the last bus home and picked their own transport. It happens.'
Butler nodded. 'It happens – aye. In fact it's what the police suggested. They found the car in an Army depot area, beside a public road.'
Audley began to say something, and then stopped abruptly, and looked down into his brandy glass. And if Butler was normally resistant to Faith's charm, Audley equally could never resist hypothesising. So now they were both acting out of character.
Roskill started to stroke his chin and rather to his surprise encountered his beard: the very idea of preserving it was ridiculous, and also out of character...
Butler was a colleague, a friend even, so he must now be doing simply what he had been told to do. But Audley ranked as a friend too, and there was something which had scared him off – even though the hounds of Hell had passed him by. So there was something very wrong with the idea of some R.A.O.C. private lifting the Foreign Office man's car.
'What sort of car was it?'
'Vanden Plas Princess – the 4-litre one.'
The poor-man's Rolls-Royce, the company director's tax dodging limousine.
'All right, Jack. If you want me to play 'spot the deliberate mistake' I'll play it, though you could just as soon have told me.
For starters – the wrong sort of car lifted from the wrong place.
How's that?'
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'Why was it wrong?' asked Faith.
'Too obvious. It's not a popular make. If I wanted to get back to barracks I'd pick something easier to get into and easier to drive.
And something less conspicuous.
