Gunner Kelly

“Not instead—because, more likely. The Chase was off the beaten track ... no one comes to Duntisbury Royal, it isn’t on the way to anywhere. And what the job entailed didn’t involve going anywhere, either. . . So four years, he’s been here . . .and the first three of them he didn’t step further than Kramer’s garage, to take the Old General’s car for its occasional service. It was only the last few months he’d driven the old boy to Salisbury and Bournemouth, to his tailor and his wine merchant, and such like . . . Between them, they reckoned the trail must have gone cold . . . Or, it wouldn’t likely be very hot in Salisbury or Bournemouth.”

Benedikt thought of the cathedral and its quiet close, with its old houses and cool green grass; and Bournemouth was the seaside town to which elderly English gentlefolk retired on their pensions and their dividends. Bombs and snipers belonged in neither of them.

“ ‘Sanctuary’—that was Kelly’s word for it: ‘He gave me sanctuary’, he told them—Becky and the rest. ‘And now I’ve killed him for it, as sure as if I’d set that bomb meself.’ ”

They should have known better, the Old General and Gunner Kelly between them, thought Benedikt—that there was no place safe from sudden death if defenders were not vigilant— not the bishop’s Salisbury, not the pensioners’ Bournemouth . . . and not peaceful Duntisbury Royal either—there was the Fighting Man to remind him of that.

No safe place . . . He looked round again, and saw that for the first time they were quite alone beside the Tiger. It must be getting near to the museum’s lunchtime closure.

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“So now the Squire was dead, and he was still a target. Which meant it was time for him to start running again.”

“Why was he a target?”

“All in good time, my dear chap. I’m telling it to you how he told it to them. He could run again—nothing easier. He had his pension from the army, he could have that sent anywhere. And he had his savings, and four years’ wages that he’d hardly touched—he could run a long way on that, and maybe even far enough this time.”

Still no one. The American must be having difficulty persuading his contact that Audley could be trusted.

“But this time was different. He wasn’t going to run this time.

There was a score to settle this time.” Audley paused.

“He’d been lying low in the Chase, working that out. Those that were after him would reckon he’d run already, but when he was ready he had a way of letting them know where he was. And then when they came he was going to repay them in their own coin. He owed that for the Squire. What happened afterwards was no matter.

But, also because of the Squire, he owed them in the Chase the telling of what he was going to do. That was all.”

All? thought Benedikt, lining up what he had observed of the people of the Chase as well as what he had been told about them, and then adding Gunner Kelly to it. Because then, all was what it wasn’t: it wasn’t an end, it could only be—and had been—merely a beginning.

So he could jump the next question, having the answer to it, and go on to the more interesting one that followed it.

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“He knew they’d insist on helping him?” As he spoke he saw that Audley had been watching him. “He calculated it?”

The big Englishman relaxed slightly. “Right. No proof. . . but. . .

right.”

“Do they know?” He thought of Blackie Nabb handling the police at the ford. “They are not stupid, all of them.”

“You’re dead right they’re not stupid, all of them!” Audley spoke feelingly. “But Kelly is a remarkable man, you know.”

“A man of many voices?” He remembered the previous night’s events.

Audley smiled. “You’ve encountered that, have you?”

“The question is ... how many of his tongues are forked . . .?” He did not find it easy to smile back. The roles Gunner Kelly was playing ranged too widely for that: he could be the ultimately loyal soldier, devoted to the avenging of his liege-lord’s murder at the risk of his own life, and therefore not too scrupulous about manipulating others who owed the same service. But he could also be a clever man planning to end a long pursuit by using others to destroy his pursuers.

“I agree.” Audley nodded. “The trouble is ... he is a great performer

—but is he really that good? Because they aren’t stupid—you’re right . . . but at the same time they’re not professionals.” He turned the nod into a slow shake. “In his place . . . he’s taking one hell of a risk . . . in his place I’d run, you know.”

But run from what? thought Benedikt: that was still the final question. “Who wants him dead?”

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“Yes. That’s where we have a problem, I’m afraid.” Audley rubbed his chin as though in doubt. “A real problem . . .”

“He is an Irishman.” That ought to simplify matters, and was surely not to be ignored when it came to killing. With an Englishman, or a German, the possibilities were too numerous to make mere nationality significant; with an Italian, even though the Red Brigades were as good as beaten, there was now the Bulgarian connection as well as the Mafia and the terrorists of the far right.

But with Irishmen, as with Basques and Corsicans and Palestinians, there was a single starting point nine times out of ten, no matter how it splintered afterwards.

“But only of a sort.” Audley studied him. “If I may say so without offence, you continental Europeans don’t understand the Irish at all, you know.”

“And you British do?” Even at the risk of offence, he couldn’t let that pass. “Forgive me for not being able to