The Old Vengeful

'Novikov is a KGB professional.' He took it for granted that her silence was a complete answer. 'Like, you might say, PhD, Dzershinsky Street University, Moscow. First Class Honours in Intelligence, Counter-intelligence, Subversion, dummy3

Manipulation, Disinformation, Corruption and Violence, cum laude and so on.'

That PhD identified him as a Cambridge man—the very irrelevance of the thought steadied her. 'Are you trying to frighten me?'

'No. But if I am succeeding, that's fine. Because the bastard certainly puts the fear of God up me, I tell you!'

He spoke lightly, but Elizabeth stole another look, and saw the fighter-pilot's grin—the sub-lieutenant's deliberate false confidence which Father had written of, when the German Z-class destroyers had heavier armament and their E-boats were faster.

Just as deliberately, she turned herself against her own feelings. 'And what's your . . . PhD in, Dr Mitchell?'

'Ah! Good question!' He snuffled at the thought, as though it amused him. 'History, for a start— The Breaking of the Hindenburg Line was a thesis before it was a book, to be exact . . . But after that, you could say that I'm a Secret Policeman—with the emphasis on policeman . . . Or, as David would say, I'm a submarine, and Josef Ivanovitch Novikov is a U-boat—would that be an acceptable distinction for Commander Loftus's daughter?'

'Father hated all submarines, indiscriminately.'

'Hmm . . . destroyer captain's prejudice . . . Then you'd better think of me as an anti-submarine frigate.'

He was mocking her. And, at the same time, he was steering dummy3

her back towards the seventh Vengeful. But that wouldn't do any more, not after Josef Ivanovitch Novikov.

'Those men, at the house . . . were they—?'

'KGB? I wish to hell that I knew! They certainly didn't behave like KGB—they were too bloody careless by half, thank God! Ugh!' He shivered at the memory. 'But then Josef Ivanovitch was careless, too—he wasn't lucky like me!'

'What?' She almost bit her tongue on the question: if he was ready to be indiscreet then she mustn't interrupt him.

'Oh—he was careless! He let me get a sight of him, when he was just slipping into his car to follow you, round the back of the church at the fete ... I was thinking of going for a quick drink, actually.'

'In preparation for a boring evening?'

Instead of replying he put his foot down on the accelerator and overtook the children's car, and the next one, and the next one too, into the flashing lights of an approaching lorry which couldn't quite work up enough speed for a head-on collision.

Then he cleared his throat. ' I was going for a drink, but he was going after you. It was careless of him to let me spot him . . . But if he took the risk that meant he couldn't afford to lose you—and you weren't routine after that—d'you see, Elizabeth?'

She saw—half-saw, didn't see at all, but saw enough to imagine his moment of truth, when this terrible Russian had dummy3

surfaced in the wake of the dull Miss Loftus at the parish church tower restoration fund sale and fete: it was one of those enlivening occurrences which might have been amusing if she hadn't been at the other end of it.

'And we still don't know why—I suppose your burglars may have been contract labour, and he was keeping his eye on his investment . . . but I don't go very much on that—it doesn't have the right feel about it... But we're checking them out, by God! In fact, Elizabeth, after our mutual acquaintance Joseflvanovitch we're checking everyone out—'

'Including me?' She tried to match his tone, even though now she was out of her depth.

'Including you, naturally! And for the second time ... In fact, I did you this morning, Elizabeth—you've been double-washed, and wrung-out and dried on the line . . . and you're what we call 'clean'—'

' 'Clean'?' It was a reflex, not a question: she knew it was true, but the thought of being 'double-washed, and wrung-out and dried' stung her. 'Are you sure?'

'We're never sure.' The joke was lost on him—if it was a joke.

'But we have to draw the line somewhere. Your closest known security-risk is two removes away, and that passes for white in our book. Which . . . presumably ... is why you are privileged to meet Mrs David Audley in the very near future, as I've already said.'

Meeting Mrs David Audley, clean or dirty, wasn't something dummy3

she wished to think about. 'You make me sound very dull.'

'Dull...' He tripped the indicator, swinging the car out of the line on to a side-road. Just in time, as the road sign flashed by, Elizabeth caught the legend Upper Horley—5 and Steeple Horley— 5?. 'Dull . . .'

Horley? She screwed up her memory, from the Book of Wessex Villages and The Parish Churches of Sussex and Hampshire in the bookcase in her bedroom, on the shelf dating from her childhood voyages of exploration in Margaret's company during the holidays, by bus or bicycle.

'Yes, I guess you could say 'dull',' reflected Paul.

The Horleys, Upper and Steeple, had been just outside their range, tucked under the Downs away to the east, or east-nor'-