But if Jack was down here – up here – eyes glued to the Old dummy2
Vicarage, what price Audley's – and his own – so clever scheme to make a fool of Llewelyn? Damn it, it looked as though Llewelyn was making a fool of them...
He let Sammy amble back towards the mound at her own snail's pace, covering his doubts with a grin. Whatever the truth, this wasn't the time to admit anything incriminating.
'Hullo there, Jack,' he called out. His eye caught the cover of a book beside Butler's hand in the grass – a Golden Eagle, it looked like, perched on Tennyson's crag – at the very moment Butler plonked the notebook on it. 'Spotted any interesting birds?'
Butler knew about as much about birds as he knew about desalination, most likely.
'I shan't spot anything queerer than you today.' Butler rose stiffly to his feet. 'Where the devil did you spring from, Hugh. And looking like – ' words failed him ' – like that?'
Belatedly Roskill remembered he was wearing the plain glass spectacles, the relics of some East Firle amateur dramatic society's production, not to mention the dilapidated pork-pie hat. But he resisted the temptation to whip them off, which would only be to admit that he realised how comical he looked.
Except that Butler certainly wasn't laughing; if at the best of times that pale, freckled face rarely smiled, it was composed now in an expression of deadly seriousness.
'You don't expect me to go riding in my best suit, do you?' Roskill chided him.
'I don't expect you to go riding at all at a time like this. What are dummy2
you doing up here?'
'I was going to ask you the same question. Doesn't Fred trust me?
Or is it Llewelyn who gives the orders?'
Butler swept the deerstalker off his head and ran his hand through his short carroty hair. Then he looked up at Roskill, his eyes angry.
'Neither of them knows I'm here. And I shouldn't be here if I wasn't daft.' He shook his head bitterly. 'But I guessed you and Audley were up to something, and I'm afraid you're bigger fools than I am even.'
Roskill smiled. 'My dear Jack – some joker fixed my track rods last night. You don't need to tell me how to add two and two. Do you think I've forgotten what happened to Alan?'
'I think you're a fool to keep whatever it is you're doing to yourselves – you and Audley,' Butler said harshly.
'Maybe so. But then you've kept it to yourself too, apparently.'
'I said I was a fool. But then I'm not supposed to be in on this business any more – I was only brought in to make sure you two reached the briefing yesterday.'
'Then what exactly brings you to Firle?'
'David Audley did yesterday at the Queensway – he couldn't resist telling them to their faces, could he?' Butler's lips curled. 'And I remember how quiet you went when I told you about Maitland.'
'So you checked.'
Butler nodded. He wasn't the fastest man alive, but he was very, very sure. And if he'd checked, he'd not have missed anything.
dummy2
'Which still doesn't explain why you're here, Jack.'
Butler looked down at his highly polished boots, then slowly raised his eyes to meet Roskill's. 'To teach you that two and two can be made to equal minus one, lad, that's why. Do you know who you're up against? If you'd just get off that creature I might tell you something interesting.'
There were times when Butler's almost fatherly concern for him irritated Roskill unbearably. But also there were times when the man's caution paid off, and this could be one of them. Roskill disengaged his feet from the stirrups and slid awkwardly off Sammy. Over her back, away to the north-east, he saw the great dark rain column, which now blotted out half the scene below them.
'You'd better make it quick, Jack, or we're both going to get wet.'
Butler looked carefully round the naked hilltop, ignoring the rainclouds, before answering.
'I don't know why they asked me to the Queensway yesterday. Just to put you at ease, I suppose – as I said, my brief was just to hook you both, no more, no less,' Butler still wasn't apologising, merely stating facts. 'Only I got there a shade ahead of time.'
He watched Roskill. 'You can claim what you like for your electronic toys, Hugh – but there's nowt to beat the human ear.
Listen before you knock, that's what my old Dad always used to say!'
Butler's father had been a printer – a head printer, as Butler liked to remind people – in darkest Lancashire, Bolton or Blackburn.
Roskill had always suspected from the way Butler spoke of him, dummy2
half proud, half rueful, that the old man had considered his son's preference for the army instead of an apprenticeship the equivalent of a daughter's choice of prostitution rather than the mill.
'They were arguing,' said Butler, 'Llewelyn and Stocker were arguing over just how expendable you were. The Welshman said that Audley mustn't be risked, but you could be. And Stocker said you were one of Fred's kindergarten and there'd be the devil to pay if you were damaged.'
