Gunner Kelly

Benedikt watched the man disappear among the tanks, then he looked at Audley.

“CIA?” It felt like the first thing he had said in hours.

“At its best.”

Benedikt digested that. Praise from Audley was worth remembering. “He knew me.”

“Of course—he would. It’s his business to know you. He just met you face to face a week or two before he expected to, that’s all.”

Audley grinned. “Sorry about all that horse-trading. You inhibited us both, rather.”

Horse-trading was how Audley operated, Benedikt remembered.

“You have a special relationship?”

“Of a sort . . . when it’s in our respective national interests.

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Otherwise we have this old-fashioned gentleman’s agreement about declarations of war preceding hostilities. Short of that we play dead straight with each other, which makes for much greater efficiency as well as simplicity. And we trade on that basis.”

“You gave him something—?”

“That’s right.” Audley caught the expression on his face. “Nothing out of our files—nothing like that . . . Something of mine ... I have these private Israeli contacts, and they want the Americans to know something. But they don’t want it to come from them directly, for the record. Only . . . not everything they’ve given him is strictly kosher, so I’ve given him good value on my own account.”

Benedikt glanced round, but couldn’t see anyone answering to his imagination. “Value for what?” The front runner in the race was obvious. “Gunner Kelly?”

“Gunner Kelly.” Audley double-checked on his own account. “I’ve given you some of it, and you must have put more of it together by now ...”

“The bomb was for Kelly.” He studied a middle-aged man who was loitering near the panel bearing the Tiger’s biography. But then the man’s family joined him. “He knows who was responsible, and he has some way of communicating with him, to get him to try again. Only this time he’ll be ready for him.” Now there was another possibility: a good-looking young man in a beautifully-cut lightweight suit had joined the family group, but was not part of it.

“Correct.” Audley pointed suddenly towards the Tiger’s turret.

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“See that gouge on the trunnion there? That was made by an anti-tank shot . . . six-pounder AP, most likely . . .” He waited until the young man had sauntered past them, to disappear beyond a neighbouring Mark V Panther in the direction of the armoured car hall. “Go on.”

Benedikt stared at him. “Is it really vengeance that he wants? What does he really want?”

“Yes . . .” Audley met his gaze for a moment, then let his glance wander again. “That is the heart of the matter: what is he really up to?”

There was still no likely prospect in sight, only one harassed mother being dragged by one small boy while trying vainly to keep two others in view simultaneously.

“What did he tell the people in the Chase?” Benedikt fended off one of the small boys who was about to collide with him. “Miss Becky? And Blackie Nabb ... and Old Cecil?”

“And others. Wally Grant and Ron Turnbull, the two main tenant farmers. And Ken Tailor, who runs the shop. And Mike Kramer at the garage up on the road and Dave and Rachel in the Bells.”

Audley nodded. “He started with them ... the ones with the influence.”

“What did he say?”

Audley thought for a time without replying. “Yes ... I’ve told you how they all felt about the Old General—the Squire . . . their Squire.” He looked at Benedikt candidly. “I’ve never come across anything quite like it before. I’ve heard about it—I’ve read about dummy1

it ... but I didn’t think it still existed.” He half-smiled. “It’s like stumbling on a secret valley and finding an extinct animal grazing peacefully there ... Or a mythical beast, even—a unicorn, maybe?”

“But this unicorn has a sharp horn.”

“Oh yes! And sharp hoofs to kick with, and teeth to bite with.

Unicorns were only gentle with virgins.” The half-smile faded. “He told them at least some of the truth, it seems—perhaps he told them all of it that could be told. That’s what he says, anyway.”

Benedikt waited. There were two youths in jeans passing by, with two little painted girls, oblivious of everything but each other.

“He said it was all his fault—that the bomb was for him. He admitted that straight off. His fault. But not deliberately his fault—

not expected . . . and not deserved, either—”

“Not deserved?” Benedikt frowned.

Audley held up a finger. “I’ll come back to that. What he said was that there’d been someone hunting him for a long time, trying to get the crossed wires on him—that he’d been running for a long time before he’d come to Duntisbury Chase. And even then he hadn’t come for the job the Squire had advertised—‘ Man Friday wanted, ex-gunner preferred’—he’d simply remembered his officer from long ago, when killing was in fashion, and he’d only come for advice. ‘ In a tight corner, the Squire always knew what to do’, was what he remembered.”

So what followed had been inevitable, thought Benedikt. At least, inevitable, the Old General being the man he had been. “So he got the job instead?”

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