A stone barn, Butler noted through the gap in the grill— everything in this countryside was in stone, and judging by the recurrent shape of the stones most of them had first seen the light of day under a Roman legionary's chisel: the Wall, away on the skyline at his back, had been this land's quarry for a thousand years or more.
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The rear doors swung smartly open from the outside and Butler looked down on his reception committee.
'Ah, colonel!' Audley began formally.
The Royal Signals subaltern at his side stiffened at the rank instinctively, and then relaxed as Audley ruined the effect with a casual gesture of welcome. 'Come on down, Jack! We've only got about half an hour, and a lot of ground to cover. And you too, Peter. Everything according to plan?'
Butler sniffed derisively. According to plan! It was a sad thing to see a man like Audley take pleasure in the shadow of events rather than their substance.
'Like a dream.' Richardson swung out of the truck gracefully behind. 'Korbel went up Winshields like a lamb, apart from his limp.'
'Good, good.' For a fearful moment Butler thought Audley was going to clap him on the back, but the movement changed at the last instant to a smoothing of the hair.
'If you like to carry on, Mr Masters. Just let us know if any of the suspects behave out of pattern.'
'Very good, sir.' The Subaltern fell back deferentially.
Audley indicated a doorway ahead of them. 'I've got what used to be called a cold collation for you, Jack. Hard-boiled eggs and ham and salad. But a little hot soup from a thermos —we weren't quite sure whether things really would work out. You know what you've been taking part in?'
He eyed Butler momentarily before continuing. 'It's what young Masters calls a 'Low Intensity Operation', by which I gather he means what the Gestapo and the Abwehr used to call 'Search and Identify'. Only now I think we could teach them a thing or two, after all the practice we've had. And with all the equipment!'
'You can say that again,' said Richardson. 'That frequency scanning thing they've got—the American thing— it's bloody miraculous.'
'But just what does it add up to?' Butler growled.
'Add up to? Here—sit on the bale of straw, and Peter will serve your soup.' Audley perched himself on a bale opposite Butler. 'Add up to? Well, at the moment Korbel talks to Protopopov on a very neat little East German walkie-talkie. And Protopopov talks to another colleague of his just over the crest of the ridge back there, down towards Vindolanda— someone we shall be identifying very soon now. Then perhaps we shall know what we're about a little better.'
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'But we don't at the moment,' said Butler obstinately, staring at Audley through the steam of his hot cup of soup. 'We don't know what
Audley blinked uncomfortably, and Butler's earlier intuition was confirmed. Back in the flat in London the fellow had been uncharacteristically nervous. But now he was evidently no closer to an answer, and what had happened this morning was a fumbling attempt to find out more by injecting Butler into the action in the hope that the enemy would reveal more of himself. It was little better than grasping at straws.
'Perhaps I shall know better when you've made your report,' Audley said rather primly. 'I hope you've got something worth listening to.'
'Not a lot, really. You've had my report on the accident.'
'Yes,' Audley nodded. 'He invited his own death, and the invitation was accepted. In effect he committed suicide.'
'I wouldn't put it quite as strongly as that. It depends on whether he decided to ride to Oxford before he started drinking or after, which is something we don't know. But he was cracking, that's sure enough.'
'The Epton girl corroborated that?'
The Epton girl. Butler felt a stirring of irritation at the memory of her involvement: somebody had not done his job very thoroughly in delving into Smith's background for her to have been overlooked.
'She hadn't seen him for three weeks, but she'd been worried about him for some time. She reckoned he was working too hard—he didn't write to her at all that last week.'
'It wasn't exactly a great love affair though?' Audley cocked his head on one side. 'Not a very passionate affair, would you say?'
'She may not have been his mistress, if that's what you mean.' Butler could hear the distaste in his own voice.
'I'd say that's exactly what I mean. If she had been I think it would have been known up at Cumbria.
Would you say that it was a genuine engagement even?'
'I think it was.'
'Hmm . . .' Audley considered the proposition. 'He should have been a bit wary of emotional entanglements— and she's no great beauty, is she.'
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'I found her a rather attractive young woman myself.'
Audley's eyebrows lifted. 'A bit overblown—but then she certainly has some attractive family connections, I admit. The vice-chancellor of Cumbria is her godfather.'
Beside Polly Epton's apple-cheeked charm Audley's own wife was a thin, washed-out thing, thought Butler unkindly. But it was Smith's taste in women, not Audley's, that mattered.
'I'm aware of it,' he rasped. 'The Master of King's is her godfather too, as a matter of fact.'
'Hah! Yet you still think it was a real romance?'
