The Old Vengeful

look.

'So long as they believe Aske and Elizabeth are both dead.

And there's no reason why they shouldn't. . . and even if they are jumpy at this end, there's not much they can do to unscramble their set-up in Scotland now, with Latimer's chaps already closing in—'

'Dead?' Mitchell's jaw dropped. 'Aske ... and Elizabeth?'

'Accidentally dead.' Audley adjusted his spectacles on his nose. 'They ran out of road about five miles from here this evening, on the Three Pigeons bend just outside Buckland.

You may know the place—it's on the back road about a dummy3

hundred yards before the Three Pigeons pub. It's a notoriously bad place—the bend's deceptive and the camber's wrong, which is why the highways people put up the posts with the warning reflectors there, on the edge of the concrete culvert—a bad place at the best of times.' He shook his head.

'It was pelting down with rain, and he was probably driving too fast. And he was tired . . . tired and scared, I'd guess ...'

The moment was unreal because what Audley was telling him had all the hallmarks of a cover story being rehearsed—

the circumstantial detail exact, the reasonable hypothesis for what had actually been an entirely different event, even the note of regret in the voice. Mitchell could remember staging similar lies himself in his time.

'There really has been an accident?'

Audley frowned. 'That's what I'm telling you. They skidded and went straight through the posts into the culvert, on the back road there—but she's all right, I tell you.'

'What the hell was Aske doing on the back road?' Mitchell couldn't place the bend, but he knew the Three Pigeons, he'd fortified himself there long ago, in Frances' time, before a sweaty session in this very room.

'He was making sure he didn't meet me, if you want an educated guess.' Audley pushed at the spectacles again.

'But what does he say?'

'He's not saying anything. He's dead.'

'Dead?'

dummy3

'He went through the windscreen.' Audley's rugger-player's chin jutted out. 'But that didn't kill him, it only cut him up and knocked him out. Only then he rolled off the bonnet into the ditch head-first, and there's always eighteen inches of water in that ditch, even in summer. And that killed him.'

The voice matched the chin. 'He drowned in eighteen inches of water, Mitchell. And six inches of mud.'

Mitchell's mouth dried up. 'And Elizabeth?'

'She's all right—I told you!' Audley's aggressive tone became defensive. 'Three cracked ribs, and a few bruises . . . and a bit of shock, naturally. But she's a tough girl, is your Elizabeth—

women's hockey is a tough game, I'm told . . . And her seat-belt saved her, anyway.'

Seat-belt?

'We've got her down as DOA—'Dead on arrival'—like Aske.'

Audley's voice became suddenly softer, almost apologetic. 'I was afraid you might have heard that on the grapevine somehow—it's the official version at the moment. But actually we've got her safe in Hadfield House, under wraps.'

Safe in the safe house again, thought Mitchell automatically.

'She's okay.'' The big man looked at Mitchell helplessly for a moment. 'I don't lie to my wife. If I have to lie to her, I refuse to tell her anything—or is that too Irish for you to understand?'

Seat-belt, thought Mitchell. 'I don't believe you.'

Conflicting emotions of anger and honesty warred on dummy3

Audley's face briefly. 'I've talked to her. You can talk to her tomorrow, Paul—in fact, I want you to talk to her tomorrow.'

Something almost approaching sympathy came out of the conflict. 'That is the truth, Paul.'

Mitchell shook his head. 'I believe that.' He searched for the right words. 'But ... I didn't like Aske, David—I hated his guts, I admit that. . . But if there was one thing he was good at, it was driving a car. He was a bloody good driver—and he was proud of it.' There were no right words: there were only the known and observed facts. 'And he was a careful driver too—he always wore his seat-belt, no matter what. He was meticulous about seat-belts—I know, because I travelled with him. So don't give me accident.'

'No . . . you're right, of course.' Audley paused. 'I was going to tell you, but I thought it could wait until we'd both had a few hours' sleep.' Another pause. 'We're both pretty tired.'

'Not too tired for the truth. Come on, David.'

'Very well.' Audley blinked. 'She killed him, Paul.'

'She . . . what?' The statement was too outrageous for belief.

' Elizabeth . . . ?'

'Not deliberately.' Audley was committed now. 'She didn't know the culvert was there—she didn't know he'd end up face-down in eighteen inches of water . . . But she did it—she admits it.'