The Alamut Ambush

There was a germ of an idea there: a trick and a deception, certainly, but also an idea. Yet it would have to be good to catch a suspicious-minded Audley; it must do better than fit the facts, but must carry its own inner conviction. It must intrigue him. It must –

Roskill caught his breath, still gripping the latch. It did fit the facts.

It fitted them so perfectly that it ceased to be a deception even as he tested it in his own mind.

God! It was like carrying a supposedly forged masterpiece to an art dealer, only to realise at the last moment that the forgery bore the irrefutable marks of authenticity on it!

He started as the latch moved under his hand and the door opened suddenly in his face. A gust of warm air hit him.

'Hugh! What are you doing standing out in the cold? You look as if you'd seen a ghost.'

Roskill stared at her. 'I think I have, Faith – I think I have.'

Faith put her hand on his arm. 'It's Alan Jenkins, isn't it? I'm so sorry – I can't quite believe it even now.'

'I'm going to ask David to help me. Do you mind?'

'Mind? Of course I don't! I think it's his duty to help you.'

'Even after Jack Butler tried to use the way you felt as a lever?'

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Faith shook her head ruefully. 'I'm used to that sort of thing now.

It's the way they think – always the indirect way. It's the way David himself thinks half the time. He can't help it. You're the only normal one among them I believe, Hugh. And don't you dare change.'

Roskill looked at the floor in confusion, thinking guiltily of what he was planning, and worse still why it would appeal to her dear David. Really, she deserved better than tliis...

'But it's no use, Hugh. He won't help you. It isn't that he doesn't care about people, because I know he does. But they hurt his pride terribly when they took him off the Middle East – he won't admit it, and he laughs it off like he did this evening. But it mattered to him much more than he pretends because he really cared about the Jews and the Arabs. He had real friends among them, on both sides

– that was why he was so good at his job. And I think he really hates that man Llewelyn. So it won't be any use – I haven't even tried to convince him, so I know you won't be able to.'

A pity Butler was on his way back to town; it was a speech he ought to have heard. And if true a valuable insight equally into Audley's mind: beneath that air of calculation the man might even be committed to some sort of humanitarian ideal. He might have a dream like Llewelyn's in fact. Perhaps that was what really fed his dislike of the man.

So much the better now, Roskill thought.

'I must try nevertheless, Faith,' he said gently. 'Because there's something I believe we've all overlooked up to now.'

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Audley was sitting back, waiting for him, his final refusal cut and dried and ready for use.

'It's 'no' to you, too, Hugh. I'm sorry, but I'm like that American statesman who said that if he was nominated for the presidency he wouldn't stand, and if he was chosen he wouldn't sit. So have another drink and don't bother to ask me.'

Roskill smiled. It seemed so clear now: it was like saying that the earth was round. But they had all been so busy thinking of themselves that no one had noticed it – except Faith, who had spoken the truth because she hadn't understood at all.

'Hugh, what's the matter?' Audley was looking at him, perplexed.

'Have I said something amusing?'

The matter was that it was amusing: Llewelyn scared enough to pocket his pride and try to manoeuvre a man he disliked – and who hated him – into rescuing him. And all for nothing.

That was what Audley would surrender to: not the tragedy of it, but the savage joke.

'The bomb in the Princess, David – it wasn't for Llewelyn at all. It was for Jenkins. Just for Jenkins.'

II

ROSKILL LAY ON a groundsheet in the soaking bracken, watching Mrs. Maitland shepherd her children into her dummy2

Volkswagen half a mile below him.

The eight o'clock sun was low enough behind him for the forward slope of the ridge to be a textbook observation position, which made him feel slightly foolish. If she had walked right by him she still wouldn't have known him from Adam: she was a perfectly innocent housewife running her kids to school. But Audley had been insistent on every precaution being taken; nothing must be allowed to alert anyone about what they were actually doing.

He watched the little car bump down the rutted track to the metalled road, and then along the curve of the road for a mile until it disappeared from view. Then he backtracked to the exact point where the Maitland's telephone wires left the main cable, their more slender poles striding across the open field to the cottage and the farm beyond.

He adjusted the binoculars fractionally, scanned the area for the umpteenth time and saw nothing fresh. In all probability there was nothing, or if there had been it had by now been hopelessly obliterated by the repair men whose tramplings were evident even at this distance. At best it was a long shot, but everything had to start somewhere, and this was that inescapable starting place.

He replaced the binoculars in their leather case and folded the groundsheet. Mrs. Maitland would not return for at least forty minutes; Maitland himself had been gone half an hour and would be on his train by now. It was time to move.

He searched the landscape once more, wondering as he did so if he was duplicating the actions of an earlier observer. Then he turned dummy2