The Alamut Ambush

Butler was right. It was like a futile accident – as futile as a sudden skid on a patch of oil. Better to think of Jenkins skidding into a lorry: nothing anyone could do about it, and at least it was quick.

Except that this patch of oil had been deliberately spread by someone, and it would be a sweet thing to see that same someone's dummy2

face rubbed in it.

Roskill savoured the prospect for a moment: Butler had been right about that, too – for him Alan Jenkins overshadowed Snettisham.

So for the first time a desire for a tangible revenge — a new sensation that – would coincide with a job.

Then he stopped short in mid-thought, suddenly at a loss. That wasn't how things worked at all. Further, they worked the opposite way round: any sort of personal involvement, however innocent, was anathema. In this instance he ought to be the last person conscripted, not the first.

And doubly the last. Whatever Llewelyn did it had nothing to do with aviation or avionics, or he would have encountered him already. A bungled assassination was first and last a Special Branch matter, not a fit assignment for an avionics man. One might just as well despatch a chopper to intercept a bomber.

So what the devil was Butler up to? Roskill felt a cold tingle of caution crawl up his back. Butler was a good fellow, solid and sensible, but an establishment man to the core, prepared to put his hand to any awkward job loyally. And notoriously he was given such awkward jobs...

But it would be useless to ask outright for the truth. Butler would be ready to fend off such a question. Better simply to play it straight, with caution.

'And why would anyone want to blow up Llewelyn?'

'Perhaps Dr. Audley could tell us that.'

Audley slowly put down the empty glass he'd been nursing and dummy2

stared at Butler.

'The last time I set eyes on the man was maybe ten years ago. It was in a pub in Richmond – he apologised for treading on my hand in the game we'd played that afternoon. He'd trodden on it deliberately, of course; it was just part of his game. And that was the last time I met him. Ten, maybe eleven years ago.'

'But you know of him, then,' Butler prodded.

Audley looked at Butler reflectively.

'Too late, I did. He was a bastard,' Audley turned towards Roskill.

'But he knows what he wants – just as Butler here knows what he wants. Unfortunately for him, he's not going to get it.'

'David, what on earth are you talking about?' Faith's face, turned towards her husband for the first time, seemed thinner and whiter in the candlelight.

'That's your cue, love,' said Audley. 'In a moment you're going to start disapproving of me. So will Hugh. Or on second thoughts maybe Hugh won't. Hugh's a downier bird than they think – not just an overgrown ex-fighter pilot with a crafty streak. I think Hugh's smelt a rat too.'

A rat, certainly. But what sort of rat?

'Hugh's not talking, very sensibly, love. And Major Butler's not talking either now! Perhaps I'm being rather unfair to Butler, though. He's only doing his job.'

'Unfair?' The irritation was plain in Faith's voice. 'Aggravating and pompous. And under the circumstances callous too, I think.'

'There – you've started to disapprove.' Audley's sudden enjoyment dummy2

of the situation was aggravating: this was the old Audley, one maddening step ahead of the play and relishing the fact. Again, it was all very well for Audley to enjoy himself; Butler hadn't come for him.

Or had he?

It flashed across Roskill's mind that Audley was now behaving exactly as he himself had done when Butler calmly cancelled Snettisham: wriggling in the snare. But Audley was an altogether more formidable creature. When it came to traps he would be a wolverine, almost untrappable...

'You never did finish your story about the hounds of Hell, David, did you?' Roskill murmured. 'I take it that the rake was lucky: the hounds passed him by and he turned into a prodigal? The question is, which of us are the hounds going to take?'

Audley smiled appreciatively. 'You were just a touch slow there, Hugh, but you got there in the end. I think they were after me all the time, don't you?'

Faith looked from one to the other of them. 'What hounds?'

Roskill watched Butler. 'What David means, Faith, is that Jack there could just as easily have waited for me at home if he wanted to preserve my beard. More easily, in fact. But instead he had to come here and tell you all about it, and make a great performance of it, when strictly speaking he shouldn't have done so at all.

' And normally he wouldn't have done. But he did – didn't you, honest Jack? Because it wasn't me you wanted at all. It was David!'

Butler lifted his chin. 'Audley can help. It's as simple as that.'

dummy2

'Well, why the bloody hell – pardon, Faith – can't you ask him straight out?'

'Simple again. He might have refused.'