nothing to lose.'
He snorted. 'They're running scared, that's the trouble.'
'I don't wonder at it. But what the hell has Llewelyn been doing?
They must have some idea.'
'Stocker said they hadn't the faintest idea, but things must be bad for them to come crawling to Audley like this when they both hate his guts. But Audley's got a big reputation for puzzle-solving, especially after the business with that Russian last year.
'He swears he hasn't now.'
'So he says. All I know is they want him and they want him badly.
And now it's up to you to get him – you and Nellie No-tits in there.
She's probably giving him hell now. I hope she is; it'll make it easier for you.'
Roskill knew he had to make allowances for Butler's blind spot, but there was a point at which allowances became pusillanimity.
'You really are a bugger sometimes, aren't you? And not even a very clever one this time, as it happens. You want to watch it, Jack.
It might become a habit – making mistakes about women.'
Butler's heavy shoulders slumped and then stiffened again, and Roskill was aware too late that he had hit harder than he intended.
The man had children – three little snub-nosed, red-haired, miniature Butlers, all female – but he had never once mentioned a wife. Roskill had never thought to ask about that, and now he never could.
dummy2
'Aye, that could happen.' Butler stared into the darkness before meeting Roskill's gaze. 'But this is strictly business. They say she has a well-developed social conscience and they aim to catch at him through it. And through you too, Hugh – through you.'
Now there was regret in his voice, and a curious echo of that lost Lancashire accent. If there was anything more to be got out of Butler, now was the time.
'And that was the only reason why I'm involved ?'
A shake of the head. 'I don't know. They know you got Jenkins into the service, that you know his family. And Audley likes you, they know that too. But I think there was something else behind that...
You went to Israel before your leave, didn't you?'
'That was nothing. I only met a few of their pilots — I saw their tame Sukhoi 7 and some Mig 21 modifications, and we talked about the SAMs. It was pure routine.'
Butler nodded. 'I don't know, then. But they want you sure enough.
There's a briefing tomorrow at eleven thirty – not at the office, either. Officially you're at Snettisham. The meeting's set up at the Queensway Hotel, just off Bloornsbury Square. Room 104. You and Audley, if you can swing it. You and your beard, anyway.'
Butler eased himself into the driver's seat of his Rover. He reached for the ignition.
'And Hugh – I'm sorry about young Jenkins. It was bloody bad luck, pure bloody bad luck.'
Alan Jenkins was already a little unreal, thought Roskill sadly.
Already one of the absent friends, fixed forevermore in the past dummy2
tense, merely to be remembered and regretted. Not even a ghost, but just another of the shades, like Harry. It was appalling how quickly death could be accepted. But then he'd never really known Alan as he had kiiown Harry: the age gap had been small enough, yet impassable.
Yet it was civil of Butler to regret him, a decent gesture after their recent passage of words. It called for a civil answer.
'If it hadn't been him it would have been some other poor devil.'
'But it was doubly bad luck for him, though. It should have been Maitland. He was the one on call.'
'Why wasn't it Maitland, then?'
Butler switched on the engine. 'Act of God, the insurance companies would call it. That gale last night brought half a tree across Maitland's telephone wires – he lives out of London, down East Grinstead way. They couldn't get through to him. The other two chaps were out of town and Jenkins had just come back. He was the second stand- by. Pure bad luck.'
He looked up at Roskill as he reached for the transmission selector.
'But if you want to get your own back on bad luck, Hugh – get Audley. It's as simple as that.'
Roskill watched the Rover's tail-lights down the drive until the beech hedge cut them off. So Jenkins's death had been doubly accidental – a useless, cruelly coincidental death. He turned despondently towards the porch. It would take more than coincidence to make Audley change his mind.
He stopped with his hand on the iron latch, staring at. the dummy2
weathered oak. Were those the original adze marks on it? Pure bad luck . , . yet perhaps Audley would be more interested in bad luck, at that – he had once said that he was not a great believer in luck, either good or bad: he maintained it was very often something a man received according to his deserts...
