October Men

It was gratitude.

The speed of Cox's retreat took Richardson by surprise. And then, even before the door had clicked shut, its implications dummy2

presented themselves to him like the figures on a bill run up by someone else which was about to be passed to him for payment.

Since Macready's arrival, and even more since Cox's, he had seemed to be no more than a spectator of a game in which he had already played his part. But Cox had been sent about his business at this point not simply because internal security was his job, but because Sir Frederick did not intend to involve him in its wider aspect. And he, Richardson, had remained—and was still uncomfortably remaining—because that too was part of the design.

Not for the first time he had the sense of being manipulated—

of having only partial freewill: not a bus, not a train, but a tram. . . .

He had not been pulled out of Ireland because he was the only man who could make Mrs. Clark talk: Hugh Roskill was also one of Clarkie's favourites, and Hugh was still convalescing from his last operation and would therefore have been much more easily usable. So it had all along been planned that if the case developed the assignment would be his, and that most obviously because of his special fitness for Italian operations.

But for once the thought of his second homeland aroused no light in his soul, for it was overshadowed by the realisation of what had really happened at Steeple Horley. What had seemed like a daring display of independence had in fact been nothing of the kind: he had not outfaced anyone with dummy2

his demand to go straight to the top on David Audley's behalf

—he had merely anticipated his own orders.

'You don't look happy, Peter,' said Sir Frederick.

Well, it still might all be conjecture, because it was no good kidding himself that he was up to calculating all their angles yet. But one thing wasn't conjecture, and it ruddy well cooled his ardour now: Superintendent Cox had seized his dismissal like a thirty-year prisoner snatching a Royal Pardon, without asking questions or waiting for answers. And it wasn't just because Cox preferred the safe routine of checking on a dead Hemingway to the mind- bending frustrations of handling live Macreadys and Audleys, but because he knew enough not to want to know more.

'Should I be, then?' Richardson grinned insecurely. It was just like David had once said, the time to worry was when other people looked sorry for you as they said goodbye.

'You don't fancy a trip to Italy?'

Ten out of ten for Answer Number One.

'To bring David back in chains? Not especially, no.'

'Not in chains. . . . Would you rather go back to Dublin?'

'You must be joking!' Richardson shuddered.

'Then what's so awful about Italy?'

'Nothing—about Italy.' Richardson hardened his voice. 'But there are too many loose ends in England.'

'For example?'

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'Hemingway, for a start. If he's the man old Charlie shot—

their inside man here on an outside job—it doesn't damn well make sense—'

'And neither does that.' Macready tossed the file on to the table irritably.

'Why not, Neville?'

'Because the idea of Hotzendorff bringing a plum out of Russia verges on the ridiculous, that's why.'

'He didn't bring it out. He sent it. And he didn't send it to us, so it seems.' Sir Frederick paused. 'And it rather looks as though he died for it.'

'He died of a heart attack—' Macready frowned suddenly.

'You know what's in the file, then?'

'I read it when the news of his death finally reached us. And then there was the—ah—question of the widow's pension to be settled.'

There was a half-second of awkwardness, lost on Macready, whose pension and life expectancy were matters of black and white actuarial certainty, but not lost on Richardson.

'You see, Peter—' Sir Frederick ignored Macready, '—

Hotzendorff worked for us for fifteen years as a courier in Russia.'

'A sort of postman,' amended Macready.

'But useful enough. He travelled for an East German farm machinery company—he was our main source for the Virgin Lands scheme for example.'

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'In North Kazakhstan, which happens to be about 3,000

miles from the North Sea,' said Macready, 'and has no oil.'

'He covered a great deal of territory elsewhere. And he was always very careful—and they trusted him.'

'So did we.'

'With very much better reason. You don't have to play the devil's advocate, Neville.'