War Game

'Why should it do that—if it was innocent?'

'Because Digby had been investigating the murder, and now he was investigating the gold. And he was an expert on the Civil War in his own right. Nobody else had those three qualifications.'

'Qualifications for what?'

'For working out that the gold wasn't the Standingham dummy5

treasure at all—that it couldn't be the real thing.'

Jaw, eyes and mouth this time: Weston wasn't hiding anything.

'What d'you mean—the real thing?'

'It's horribly simple, man. You want to know why I'll always have Henry Digby on my conscience? Not because I was wicked, but because I was stupid, that's why. Because I had all the information too, that's why. I saw where Charlie Ratcliffe found the treasure. I suspected Charlie Ratcliffe of murder, even though I didn't know the KGB did the job for him. And I also know that Oliver Cromwell was one hell of a smart man—' Audley thrust the copy of the alleged copy of Nathaniel Parrott's letter to John Pym under Weston's nose.

'If he knew—and I mean knew—there was a ton of gold in Standingham he'd have found it. And I'm betting he did find it, like the experts always said.'

Weston waved the letter to one side. 'That's . . . theory. You don't kill men for theories like that. Never in a million years.'

'Right. Exactly right.' Nothing would make Henry Digby's death less than bitter. But this was the beginning of the expiation. 'And that's why the gold isn't the real thing: because it was found in the wrong order.'

Weston frowned. 'Wrong order? What wrong order?'

'Man—he had James Ratcliffe killed before he could possibly have known the gold was there. He had to bring in a bulldozer and grub up a damn great stone monument and dummy5

two fully-grown apple trees—and even then he had to dig down fifteen feet before he reached it. So he couldn't possibly have known it was there to start with, it had to be just a theory. He couldn't have been sure.'

Weston's frown deepened. 'But ... he could have used one of those metal detectors. All the treasure-hunting people have them now, we've had complaints from landowners about them tramping over likely sites using the things—'

'At fifteen feet?' Audley shook his head emphatically. 'No way, Superintendent. There isn't a detector made that can sniff metal at that depth, most of them don't get below the surface topsoil. Even the very latest induction- balance units—

or pulse induction ones, come to that—they can't manage more than five feet, and they're tricky to handle if there's damp around or the temperature's wrong. He'd have needed proper mining equipment, and he'd never have got through the paving round the monument without making one hell of a mess—which the old gardener would have seen. I tell you, no way.'

Weston stared at him, still unwilling to commit himself.

'It had to be a theory,' Audley met the stare. 'And you've made the rule for that yourself: you don't kill men for theories. Not even the KGB kills men on the off chance. They don't like off-chances—they like certainties. And there was only one way they could make it a certainty: they could supply it themselves. And that's what they did.'

Still Weston wouldn't speak. The psychology of a ton of raw dummy5

gold was too heavy for him. And that, thought Audley, was the measure of the KGB's shrewdness: figures with pound signs and dollar signs were mere abstractions, meaningless as the paper on which they were printed. Spend a hundred million pounds on a dying industry, or ten million on tarting up an obsolete warship, or strike as much off for a trade union squabble, and no one saw tons of gold flushed down the lavatory. But slap a single sovereign on the counter and you could catch everyone's eye: that was money.

So now it was beyond this shrewd man's understanding, that ton of gold. Spanish gold, still the rightful property of the Spanish people, stolen twice from them— and stolen before that from the poor sweating Indians who had hacked it out of the ground; Russian gold, a small price to pay for sowing subversion between the decks of America's biggest aircraft carrier, still moored unsinkably off Europe.

Charlie Ratcliffe's gold.

Weston surfaced with an effort of will. 'It was planted.'

'Right. First dig the hole—then add the gold. Because with one ton of gold Charlie Ratcliffe can spread tons of trouble.

And with what the Russians can feed him, plus what they can arrange for him, that's good business for them. The First Division of the Second Directorate spends ten times as much every year, with not a tenth as much chance of being believed.'

'I see ... or I'm beginning to see.' The measure of Weston's dummy5

intelligence was the speed with which he was adjusting himself to the new mathematics. 'So—you had a deal for me.'

'Yes. I don't want you following up Digby's death the way you might have done—I want them to think they've got away with it this time.'

'For how long?'

'Until after the storming of Standingham Castle, no longer. If I fail . . . then you can do your best to prove what I've told you.'

Weston nodded. 'That seems fair enough. So I agree.'

'And I shall want your help at Standingham. With no questions asked.'