The Alamut Ambush

'Not at all. It's a sympathetic ear you have, not a nosey nose,' He looked at her affectionately. No elaborate lies now, for she would see through them. And no excuses either, for she deserved better than that; if he couldn't trust Mary's good sense, there was no sense left in the world. 'And I need your ear now, Mary.'

For a moment she regarded him in silence, searching his face. And there was sadness in her own face now as she identified his purpose: he was no longer her special visitor, redeeming a long absence, but a duty caller like the meter reader and the postman, just doing his job.

'It's Alan, isn't it?'

'Yes.'

She held his gaze steadily. 'What is it you want to know about him?'

'He spent his last leave here.' Roskill felt a muscle twitch in his cheek. If he'd ever wondered why one was never normally assigned to a job involving one's own friends and relatives, he had the answer in full now. 'I want – we want to know what he did and where he went. And who he met, and anything he said or saw out of the ordinary.'

He could see from the stricken look on her face that he'd bungled it ridiculously: he'd made Alan sound like Philby and Burgess and Maclean rolled into one, and the report of his accidental death transparently the officifd lie that it was. How could he have been so clumsy?

'Alan hadn't done anything wrong, Mary. But we think he may have had some information for us – something important. And we dummy2

don't know what it was. What I'm doing now, asking you these questions, is really just routine.'

'But it was important?'

'It might be very important.'

'Well, I'm surprised he didn't tell you.'

It was an oddly stupid thing for someone as sharp as Mary to say.

Unless the years really were beginning to tell.

'We never saw him, Mary. The accident was on Tuesday night. He wasn't due back on duty until the next day.'

'I mean in his letter to you.'

Letter?

'His letter?'

'Haven't you had it? He wrote it on Tuesday morning – he borrowed a five-penny stamp off me for it. It had to be a five-penny because he wanted it to go first class.'

'To me?'

'He said it was to you. Because in return for the stamp he said he'd send my love. I thought that was why you were here – because of his letter. The Ice Maiden posted it from Lewes, to make sure of the London post.'

'The Ice Maiden?'

'Sorry – it's the family name for Penny. And you haven't had it?

That's really too bad of them, even though it is usually reliable.'

A letter from Alan. So he had seen something, and knew he had seen it. Or at least wanted a second opinion on what he had seen –

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that made sense. For Alan had never sent him a letter before, but he was the most obvious contact for advice inside the department.

And a letter somewhere in the G.P.O. pipeline, since it had so far reached neither the department nor the flat...

Mary swivelled her chair round and lifted the old-fashioned phone beside her.

'I'll just make sure Penny really did send it,' she said. 'I know she did go to Lewes that morning. But – Penny? That letter of Alan's on Tuesday, the one he wanted to get the next London post – did you take it in?'

She watched Roskill over the receiver, listening. 'You didn't . . .

you did what?' She frowned in puzzlement. 'I think you'd better tell Hugh about that.'

Roskill took the receiver from her.

'Penelope – what did you do with that letter?'

'Haven't you got it? Well, you can blame Alan's friend if you haven't. He was the one who posted it.'

'Which friend was this?'

'Good Lord, I don't know. He turned up on the doorstep about twenty minutes after Alan disappeared in a cloud of blue smoke –

he wanted Alan urgently, but I told him Alan had cleared off.'

'You didn't tell him where Alan had gone?'

' I couldn't very well do that, because I didn't know – he'd just shifted his flat, but he went off in such a rush he forgot to tell us where his new one was. At least he didn't write it in the book, dummy2

anyway, the clot.'