'They didn't mention him by name. They said a policeman had been shot and killed, and that the army had defused a bomb—' She stopped.
'Yes?' He could see that there was more.
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'But there was another bomb that went off—a car bomb. Two other people have been killed.'
'Yes?'
'They think they were in the car. They're not sure, but they think so. And the police think they may have been the bombers themselves.'
There was a nuance of satisfaction in her voice. No one was more resolute against the death penalty than Faith, but when God Himself jogged the hand on the bomb she was as bloodthirsty as any
Now only the clock was staring at him.
Thesis: it had been Watson's 'pure bad luck', with Digby going down to the estate to his death for some simple innocent reason. Bad luck with an Irish accent, and an IRA codeword and an IRA bomb to prove it, begorrah.
The minute hand moved.
Antithesis: bombs and brogues proved nothing, and passwords and codewords were known; and any killer with the price of a phone call could have lured Henry Digby to meet his bullet, anywhere, any time—and who better than Charlie Ratcliffe, who had hired death once already? Charlie, whom they'd been driving towards action, driving with cold deliberation towards the belief that there was something very wrong with his beautiful golden plan.
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And now the car bomb.
Another minute.
Thesis: it had happened before and it would happen again, the bomber fragmented by his own bomb. Bombs were no respectors of persons, Weathermen, Irishmen, Palestinians, housewives on the way to the supermarket, golden lads and lasses. And, as he well knew, those American time pencils from Vietnam were notoriously unreliable.
Antithesis: killers killed to a pattern, and stripped of all their superficial differences this was Swine Brook Field all over again, by God! Because but for the accident of Digby's presence Swine Brook Field would have been a nice neat accident too. Sooner or later in the controlled violence of the Double R Society's battles someone might have caught the butt-end of a pike. And now sooner or later had caught both Sergeant Digby and his killers.
But if his thesis was right?
That was the temptation. All he had to do was to accept his own innocence, and he was in the clear. Without Digby's special knowledge he would be half-blind at Standingham this evening and tomorrow and on Saturday. He could do his best and fail, and no one would blame him very much. Some you won and some you lost, and Sir Frederick would be the first to admit that politics was the very devil.
It didn't even require any special effort. It wasn't as if Digby had been ferreting around in the area of James Ratcliffe's dummy5
murder at Swine Brook Field, and that was the only crime which Charlie Ratcliffe had committed. He'd only been filling in on the details of the gold itself, where Charlie had been on safe ground—his very own ground, where nobody could touch him.
Audley knew that if he pursued the alternative he would have no choice in the outcome. Once he lifted the phone and called Weston again and said No. Screw bad luck. He was working for me and therefore he died for me —until you can prove otherwise then Weston would never rest until that otherwise was established. It wouldn't be a matter of guilt or blame for Weston—it would be a matter of truth, and a matter of keeping faith.
No choice, anyway. He could have no more avoided the alternative than the clock's minute hand could have avoided ticking to the next sub-division of its hour. Only when the clock stopped would the hand stop.
The phone rang in the exact instant that he reached for it, almost as though it had been waiting for him to make up his mind. Audley stared at it in a mixture of exasperation and relief. It had to be Weston, he felt that with a strange calm certainty; it had to be Weston because the moment the heat of the hunt was off Weston would find the accident of Digby's presence on the Ferryhill Industrial Estate sticking in his throat, a question much too sharp to be swallowed. And if he dummy5
had been unexpectedly quick in feeling its point it was no less true that Audley had been fatally slow in anticipating it: he could never bring himself to say 'I was just going to call you'
now, even if there had been the least chance of it being believed. As it was, he had missed his chance by a matter of seconds.
But there was justice in that. The error was still his error, admitting it did not exonerate him of it. No anger or contempt of Weston's would ever hurt him as much as his own self-anger and self-contempt.
'Weston?' He was so certain that the question was unnecessary.
'What?'
Audley blinked with surprise. But he'd only just been talking to Butler—
'Is that you, Audley?'
Butler.
'Yes. I'm sorry—I thought you were someone else.' Audley realised that he had a fresh lease of life where Weston was concerned. 'I'm expecting a call, Jack, so make it quick—
whatever it is.'
