The Old Vengeful

on the Dark Blues.' He grinned at Mitchell. 'But ... a good hockey player and a good historian ... So what does she do now?'

'She teaches history part-time at the local high school.'

'Only part-time? What does she do with the rest of her time?'

'Nothing at the moment. She waited on her father hand and foot while he was alive, so they say—so Bannen says, anyway.'

'She didn't share in the good life, then? The wine and the food and the good hotels?'

'Apparently not. But we didn't inquire too deeply into her.'

Mitchell studied Audley's face. 'That wasn't in the brief.

Should it have been?'

'Mmm . . . Maybe it should at that.' Audley pursed his lips and held the picture up again. 'Maybe it should . . .'

'For God's sake—why? She's a plain, thirtyish spinster schoolmistress who's never said 'boo' to a goose since she scored the winning goal in the Parks at Oxford ten years ago!' This time Mitchell's cool snapped unplanned. 'What the hell are you up to, David?'

Audley set the picture down carefully. 'I'm not up to anything, Paul. But Colonel Butler is ... and Oliver St John Latimer is too, I shouldn't wonder . . . and the Prime Minister and the President of the United States and the Central Office of Intelligence certainly are.' He looked up. 'Will they do for dummy3

a start?'

The cool came back together instantly, with the join hardly showing even though Mitchell was angry with himself for underrating both Audley and Audley's summoning him from the safe and rather boring job he'd been doing while he put the finishing touches to his own new book, which had been the cover for his tour of duty in Dublin, and its by-product.

'Yes, I'm sure they'll do very well, for someone. But not for me.'

'Why not for you?'

'Because Jack Butler said this was a one-off, David.'

'And so it is. But you haven't finished yet.'

'But I have.' Mitchell selected the green folder from among the papers on the table and pushed it towards Audley. 'You wanted Loftus of the Vengeful, and there he is—investigated, signed, sealed and delivered. And cleared. And dead.'

'But you still haven't finished, Paul.'

'And I still think I have,' said Mitchell obstinately. 'You wanted a good quick job, and you've got it. I had Bannen doing the leg-work over here, and he's a first-rate man.

Smith in Paris covered his research trips there, and Frobisher handled his American jaunt—and they're good men too ... And I put the whole thing together.'

'And you're smart too, of course.' Audley smiled to take the offence out of the statement.

'I'm smart enough not to want to waste any more of my time dummy3

and the country's money.' Mitchell decided not to take offence. 'Look, David ... if we were Inland Revenue, or maybe Fraud Squad, I'd maybe recommend our digging into his apparent excess of spending over income . . . though until his affairs have been sorted out even that's a long shot. But for the rest, if there was the slightest smell I think we'd have picked up a whiff of it between us.' He pushed at the folder again. 'And my assessment of the man is that he was probably embittered—he was undoubtedly bad-tempered and quarrelsome and dogmatic ... he always made more enemies than friends . . . and he treated his daughter like a servant. But he was also brave as a lion and utterly devoted to Queen and Country and the Royal Navy. In fact, he was the archetypal old-style naval officer, pickled in aspic . . . or brandy, more like—like someone out of his own history books. And I'd stake my job on that.'

Audley nodded approvingly. 'That's good, Paul—I accept that

—all of it. But now we need more field work.'

' More field work—?' That approval and acceptance, and then more field work could mean only one thing. 'So you know something that I don't know—that I couldn't know—?'

'Of course! I've no wish to waste time and money either, Paul.'

For a second Mitchell was tempted, but only for that one second. 'Well . . . I'm not a field man now—you know that, David. The Dublin tour was my swan-song—you know that, too.'

dummy3

'Yes.' They both knew that, and Mitchell was pretty sure that Audley had always known why, after Frances Fitzgibbon's death, he had taken the job. And, when he thought about that, it was a strike to Audley, and an unpaid debt too, that the big man hadn't vetoed his private war with the KGB in Dublin. Vendettas were usually grounds for disqualification, not promotion.

'Yes.' The fleeting look of remembrance, of that shared sadness, confirmed Mitchell's suspicion. 'But this time you're the square peg for the square hole, Paul. I wouldn't have asked for you otherwise.'

'Bannen would do as well—I like him, David.' It was odd how liking a man could be a reason for endangering him.

'James Cable would be even better—he's Navy . . . and I can't even swim very well!' Mitchell grinned. 'And I'd guess you need a naval man for this one.'

'Cable's busy . . .' Audley cocked his head '. . . and aren't you into naval matters, in your next book?'