'And didn't report it?'
'I put in a separate technical report to the Equipment Section.' Audley paused. 'Yesterday.'
They were now at the exact point of balance, he judged. It must be clear to Clinton that however improperly he had acted, nobody was in any position to prove otherwise, no matter what they might suspect. And if there was one thing that Clinton loved—although he would never have admitted it
—it was low cunning.
All he had to do to keep his job was to throw a few more words into the balance.
And then, to his surprise, he realised that it wasn't the choice of words which mattered to him, but whether he wanted to say them. Faith wouldn't mind if he didn't, she would be glad. But there was still Sergeant Digby's opinion to be consulted.
The sad truth was that he could no longer recall Sergeant Digby's features with absolute clarity, only the colour and dummy5
texture of the boy's threadbare dressing-gown. He remembered thinking that he had once had a dressing-gown exactly like that, which had been threadbare in exactly the same places. You probably couldn't buy dressing-gowns like that any more, not of that durable quality. He should never have let Faith get rid of it—
'Tell me one thing, David—' Clinton was staring at him with unconcealed curiosity. 'Tell me one thing—'
I've missed my opportunity, thought Audley. Now he thinks I don't give a damn either way!
'—as between friends—' Clinton's eyes were no longer angry.
It was too late. The balance had tipped of its own accord.
'—how the devil did you con a smart fellow like Charlie Ratcliffe into doing a damn silly thing like that?'
When he'd finished Clinton sat silent for a few moments.
'A golden cannonball! God bless my soul!' His eyes narrowed. 'A solid gold cannonball?'
'No, not solid gold. Just a thick coating of gold on lead—like a big toffee-apple, really.'
'I see. But even that would have taken quite a lot of gold.'
'It did.'
'Not from the CIA, I trust.'
'No. I have a ... friend who has a tame goldsmith.'
'Matthew Fattorini?'
dummy5
Audley ignored the question.
Clinton frowned suddenly. 'But is it possible? I mean, is it ballistically possible? Wouldn't the gold have distorted in the barrel—and have blown the whole thing to kingdom come?'
He paused, no longer really looking at Audley. 'Though ... I suppose they did use lead bullets in muskets—even in rifled muskets . . . and if the muzzle velocity was very low—
The eyes came back to Audley. 'Is it possible?'
'Nobody knows.' He shrugged. 'Because nobody's ever tried.
It would take a metallurgist who's been a gunner to tell you off the cuff, and even he wouldn't know for sure. Charlie Ratcliffe was only a sociologist.'
'But you didn't actually check—with a metal detector?'
Clinton looked at him, his eyes narrowed again. 'You just dug a hole at random?'
Audley stifled the rising temptation to laugh. 'It isn't there, Fred. Cromwell got it.'
'We shall have to look all the same.' Clinton shook his head as though to clear it. 'But he believed you, anyway.'
'I wouldn't go so far as to say that. I'd guess he saw the possibilities, though.'
'The possibilities?'
'Oh yes. ... He saw that if I betrayed my own side—and the CIA as well—then I wouldn't have a friend in the world. And dummy5
that would change me from a greedy pig into a sitting duck—
for him and his friends. And the fact that I'd not asked him to do the job himself reassured him that he wasn't in danger.'
'Except you'd made sure they wouldn't be there—Gates and Bishop—so he couldn't ask them to do it.' Clinton frowned.
'But he didn't try to ask them, did he? He didn't even look for them?'
'No. But taking them out of circulation was really just. . .
insurance. I was relying on his doing it himself.'
'How could you rely on that?'
