Gunner Kelly

except that it gave him an insight into Colonel Butler which the Kommissar had not printed out.

“And I’ll give you something better than that.” The Colonel became matter-of-fact again. “I’ll tell you what I particularly want to know which shouldn’t be too difficult to find out.”

He was almost diverted from his concentration on what Butler was saying by the change in Chief Inspector Andrew’s expression, which graduated in that instant from proper subordinate interest to equal concentration.

“Yes, sir?” What the Colonel was giving him now was something new to the Chief Inspector also.

“I told you no lie when I said that we don’t know much more than what the Anti-Terrorist Squad knows—other than what we know about Audley being there, of course.” The Colonel bridged the huge gap effortlessly. “But what you’ve told me— the fact that you confirm what we’ve suspected . . . that helps me to see it through Audley’s eyes. And because of that I can see a lot more than I saw before.”

The Chief Inspector’s face confirmed his impression: he was in on dummy1

a new picture of what was happening in Duntisbury Chase.

“Unfinished business. That’s the only thing which could bring back the bomber to Duntisbury. So the bomb didn’t do the job . . .

and he’s dealt with bombers before—and bombs— Audley has. I should have thought of that before, too!” Butler castigated himself for his error.

Bombs—

Benedikt had dealt with bombs, too: bombs were the dirtiest killing method, because no matter what the bombers said—and even when they said it honestly in their hearts—bombs were in the end indiscriminate, counting the risk to the innocent passerby as incidental to hitting the target; and while that might have to be a harsh necessity in war, in peace—in Her Majesty’s peace—

“Unfinished business,” repeated Colonel Butler.

In peace, bombers were the dirtiest killers, never taking the face-to-face risks—killing the bomb-disposal men when they failed to hit their targets—

The chasm opened up at Benedikt’s feet, which he was trained to avoid: Why shouldn’t the bastards be killed like mad dogs? What was so wrong with what the ‘slip of a girl’ and the peasants of Duntisbury Chase planned to do?

“What unfinished business?” Andrew addressed his superior more sharply than he had done before.

“Kelly, of course. Gunner Kelly, man!” Butler snapped back at him.

“Kelly—?”

“He should have gone up with the car—with the General.” Butler dummy1

reacted to the snap harshly. “You’ve been telling me that from the start, damn it! Loyal Gunner Kelly—wasn’t he distraught when they tried to talk to him? Wasn’t he so sick that he couldn’t even go to the funeral? Maybe he thought someone was going to take another shot at him! Or maybe he was busy doing something else, perhaps.”

“But—”

“But he was with the General in the war? And he’s been back with him for the last four years?” Butler stabbed a finger at Andrew.

“But where was he in between? And what’s more to the point. . .

where is he now?”

The Chief Inspector said nothing, and the Colonel encompassed them both. “If you think about what we know, that the Squad doesn’t know—Audley maybe knows ... is that it isn’t finished, what happened in Bournemouth—and Gunner Kelly should have been finished there, with the General.”

Pause.

“So what I want to know—from you, Andrew—is the life-story of Gunner Kelly, from Connemara or wherever, until the day he didn’t drive the General’s car a fortnight ago.”

Pause.

“And what I want to know from you, Captain Schneider, is whether Gunner Kelly is in Duntisbury Chase now—because he’s supposed to have gone away for a holiday somewhere, but I think he is there . . . And if he is there, I want to know what he’s doing there.”

dummy1

IV

The burniture removal van lurched abruptly left and then right in quick succession, following the driver’s scripted indecision, and then suddenly juddered to a stop.

Benedikt stood up in the darkness and applied his eye to the narrow opening which had been left for him in the little sliding hatch in the partition which separated the cargo space from the driver’s cab. The headlights blazed ahead undipped, out across the darkly rippling water of the ford, illuminating the road ahead, and the telephone box, and the overhanging trees.

“You there?” The driver didn’t turn round.

“Yes.” He divided the gap between eye and ear.

“We’re at the water’s edge. I’m going to switch on the cab light so I can look at the map. Then I’ll get the torch, and get out and look for a signpost. Okay?”

“Yes.” The repetition of orders was unnecessary, but it was reassuringly exact. It wasn’t Checkpoint Charlie