The Alamut Ambush

'Who is it?'

The disembodied voice caught him by surprise, coming from just above his head.

'Speak into the mike above you,' said the voice – a young female voice, apparently rather weary of explaining to idiot callers how they could communicate with her.

Roskill stared up at the apparatus. More of Alan's work. It was skilfully done, too. Made to last – and it would probably outlive the family's tenure of the house, to become a curiosity for future occupants: Alan's memorial.

'Speak into the mike over your head,' the young voice commanded him sharply. 'Who is it, please?'

'It's Hugh Roskill,' he projected upwards.

'Hugh Roskill,' repeated the voice, perplexed. 'Hugh Rosk – Uncle Hugh! Good Lord – come on in, Hugh! The door's open and I'm coming down.'

'Uncle Hugh' could only mean that it was the baby of the family, the unprogrammed late addition that had always mooned around in the background, clad in the hideous uniform of the English schoolgirl and hero- worshipping the godlike Harry from afar. Poor dummy2

kid, the last four years had taken Harry and her father from her, and now Alan too.

He pushed open the door and walked hesitantly into the hall. It was bigger and barer than he had remembered, with no clutter of shoes and gumboots on the red polished tiles, carelessly hung coats and school scarves on the row of wooden pegs.

That was only to be expected, though: there were fewer wearers now, and those who were left were older and tidier. Only to be expected, but saddening. It was as though the house was dying round its occupants, and he, the killer, was returning to the scene of his crime.

'Hugh? It is Hugh, isn't it! I hardly recognised you in that beard – I didn't know the R.A.F. allowed that sort of thing.'

Gone the school uniform and the pony tail; instead a shockingly disreputable shirt and trousers and the long straight hair. Harry's little sister had become indistinguishable from the millions of nubile teenagers who had sprung up like buttercups and daisies in the last decade.

'I don't fly these days, so they don't really mind. Sorry to disappoint you, Penelope.'

'But it doesn't – it doesn't at all! I think it looks madly cinquecento and sexy.'

The beard, thought Roskill grimly, would have to come off, and the sooner, the better. It had never occurred to him that little girls would find it sexy.

Penelope looked at him. 'I suppose you've come down about Alan,'

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she said. There was neither grief nor curiosity in her tone. It was a simple statement of fact.

'Something of the sort,' he replied gently.

'Well, Mother's gone to Lewes to shop, but his room's open and you can poke around it if you like. I don't mind.'

'Why should I want to poke around his room?'

She tossed the hair out of her eyes. 'Well, it was all hush-hush, what he was doing – bugging people with his electronic things, I suppose. So we've been expecting someone to come down and sort out his what's-its.' She regarded him with a trace of truculence.

'Now that you don't fly, do you bug people too?'

It was the rebel generation, of course, and hardly to be wondered at. But in this house it was surprising somehow, nevertheless; and there would have been a pretty tug-of-war in her loyalties if Harry had been still alive.

'I don't bug anybody. Navigation's my line – radar and that type of thing,' he said neutrally. It wasn't the conversation for which he'd mentally prepared himself, and it made the sympathy on his tongue taste more than ever like hypocrisy. 'I'm sorry about Alan, Penelope. It was rotten luck.'

'Yes, it was.' She paused. 'Or I suppose it was, because; they didn't tell us much about it, except that there was this explosion in the laboratory where he was working. Do you know what happened? Is that why you're here – to tell Mother all the ghoulish details?'

'I just happened to be passing by, actually. I don't know anything about the explosion.'

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'Oh.' The flicker of interest faded. 'Well, Mother won't be back for a couple of hours. She may not even be back for lunch if she meets up with anyone. Aunt Mary's in, naturally – you can go up and see her if you like.'

Aunt Mary was in, naturally. Always in, or at least no further than her wheelchair could go. But it was nevertheless Aunt Mary he had come to see, for she of all people saw almost everything and heard in the end what she had not seen. If there had been anything to see or hear around Firle that day, Aunt Mary was as good a bet as any for the information.

'I'll do that. I'd like to see her again.'

'Okay then – just go straight up. She's in the end room, the usual one.' She turned on her heel towards the kitchen. 'I'm on lunch duty today, so I won't come with you. But you can have a bite with us if you like.'

'I'll have to get on my way soon.'

'Suit yourself.'

She left him standing.

The room at the end – that had been Mary's ever since she had finally surrendered to the wheelchair, It was the best room in the house and the whole family had united to force her to accept it.