Good for Weston, Audley thought approvingly. So long as there were policemen like him there would be no police state in Britain.
He nodded. 'Very well. I'll just have to trust you, won't I?'
'That's up to you.'
'Of course. . . . But then, you see, after Ferryhill the case is altered for me too, Superintendent. Because Henry Digby was my man at the time. So I have a score to settle too.'
Weston stared at him thoughtfully, then away across the open field beyond the bandstand towards the children's playground. Finally his eyes came back to Audley.
'Off the record, then,' he said.
'Thank you.' Audley paused. 'I have no proof for what I'm going to tell you, and I doubt if I could get it now. But I think I'm guessing right—at last.'
'I understand.' Weston nodded slowly.
'James Ratcliffe was killed in June by a Russian agent—KGB
Second Directorate, Second Division, Ninth Section.
dummy5
Probably a man by the name of Tokaev, operating out of Paris at the time.'
Weston's jaw tightened. 'You knew this when you spoke to me last week?'
'No.' Audley drew a deep breath. 'I thought this was a domestic political matter—which in a sense it still is. Charlie Ratcliffe is a nasty little muck-raking revolutionary, and a lot of useful people have skeletons of one sort or another in their closets. If he became rich suddenly he'd have the resources to cause a lot of trouble—that's what I thought I was dealing with. And the trouble with me was . . . that it didn't interest me one bit.'
'Why not? A job's a job, isn't it?'
'Not for me. I'm a counter-intelligence expert, not a bloody little political errand boy. Besides, I'm not at all sure that a little muck-raking isn't a good thing—if the Americans sometimes go too far we usually don't go far enough. We're a bit too damn good at sweeping secrets under the carpet . . .
I've had the brush in my hands more than once, so I should know.'
'I see. So you just went through the motions, eh?'
'More or less. To be honest, I thought the Double R Society was more interesting than Ratcliffe himself. I didn't think I could prove anything against him—and I never dreamed he was hooked in with the Russians.'
'But your . . . superiors knew better— yet they didn't tell dummy5
you?'
Audley shook his head. 'Frankly— I just don't know. They may just have had a suspicion, with no proof, and they wanted to see what I came up with. They certainly edited Ratcliffe's file, but I thought that was to remove some of the political dirt he'd uncovered. Because I doubt whether even he dares to print everything he digs up.'
'Aye, there's still a law of libel. So you didn't do anything, is that it?'
'Oh, I set about trying to cause trouble for Charlie, in case he could be stampeded —lots of thrashing about was what it amounted to, with us doing the thrashing. There was an outside chance that one of his accomplices might crack. But if no one did . . . well, you can't win 'em all.'
Weston's lip curled. 'Yes. . . . And Henry Digby?'
This was the bitterest part, the price of stupidity that someone else had paid.
Another deep breath. 'At a guess I'd say you'll be able to establish the killers as Irishmen, and maybe as suspected members of a Provo splinter group. But that won't mean a thing.'
'No?'
'The KGB has men in every guerrilla outfit. They used these two to hit Digby, and then turned them into evidence for you.
And you haven't a hope in hell of proving it. It'll be another dead end.'
dummy5
The only thing Weston couldn't control was that muscle in his jaw. The lips and the eyes were steady, but the jaw betrayed him. 'Why Digby? Why not you?'
'They knew about Digby. They don't know about me.'
'I see. Like the old story of King David and Uriah the Hittite—
you put him in the forefront of the battle. Off the record, Audley—I hope that helps you sleep at night.'
'Digby doesn't help me sleep—you're right there. But I didn't get him in the forefront of the battle, I thought I was putting him in the rear rank. I sent him to do a little gentle research into how Charlie Ratcliffe found his gold.'
'And that killed him?'
'Yes, I suppose you can say that it did. I think he went to Professor Nayler, and the Professor told him how Charlie Ratcliffe had done it.'
'We can check on that.'
'It's perfectly innocent, what Nayler told him. But I'd guess Nayler also told Charlie about him, and that frightened him.'
