'Nothing
This time Audley's mouth remained open.
'You said you were busy doing something important. But you're not doing it
Haddock opened his old hands on his lap in an eloquent gesture. 'Could it be that they want you busy
David?'
Haddock Thomas turned back to Elizabeth. 'I always used to tell my boys that the Latin language is simple and logical. And Greek is even better - more elegant, even. But if you look for complexities, you will only end up by deceiving yourself. So look for the simplicities, and all the nonsense will disappear.'
Audley stood up. 'Can I use your phone, Haddock?'
'My dear fellow, of course - '
The garden gate squeaked and clanged at their backs, cutting him off.
'Or perhaps not,' said the old man, staring past them. 'Because, unless I am very much mistaken, you are about to be taken into custody, David. In which case you will be here for some time, I'm afraid.'
Elizabeth saw two things unforgettably, in the instant of disaster, which were all the more memorable for the difference between them.
The DST men who came through the gate were old Mr Willis's creatures: hounds who moved left and right, ready for anything while they made way for the huntsmen behind them who would make the arrest, if not the kill.
But they were moving, and Audley wasn't.
At least, he wasn't until he raised his glass to Haddock without turning round.
'My mistake - this time, if not last time, Haddock.' He sipped the wine. 'But then, you got me into a lot of trouble then, too, I seem to remember.' He took another sip.
'Oh no!' Suddenly Haddock was very Welsh. 'It wasn't me then, and it isn't me now. We all make our own mistakes in the end, David. We don't need any help from outsiders.'
EPILOGUE:
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Colonel Butler had an atavistic preference for handling difficult situations standing up, like any old red-coated infantryman facing cavalry. So when Audley finally arrived he had positioned himself by the window, away from the funk-hole of the Director's desk.
'Well, David?' For one last moment he pretended to admire the view across the Thames, which he considered vastly inferior to both his neat Surrey hedgerows and his native Lancashire dales.
'Jack.' Audley sounded unabashed. But then he had never been an easily abashed man.
'Good leave?'
'Curtailed leave.' Neither did Audley look more crumpled - tie always carelessly knotted, good suit always creased - than he habitually did. 'What the hell have you been doing?'
'Ah… now
'Oh yes?' Colonel Butler was not disarmed. 'And is that how you would describe what happened to Brian Turnbull, David?'
The grin vanished and the shutters which Butler knew of old came down. 'Yes. That was a bad scene, Jack. But not my fault.'
Butler concealed his astonishment with some difficulty: he had not expected Audley, of all people, to weasel out of it like that. For tactical reasons, if not for moral ones, Audley had always been ready to take the blame in the past, even when it had not been properly his.
'No?' He tested his incredulity casually.
'No, Jack.' Audley shook his head.
Another tack, then. 'Yes. That's what Oliver Latimer says.'
'What?' Audley frowned. '
'Latimer says you were only obeying orders. He has taken full responsibility for everything that has happened.'
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'Well - ' There was a flicker of fire behind the shutters ' - well, you can fuck that for a game of soldiers, Jack - for a start!'
'Indeed?' Torture would not have wrung that from Audley. But, as Butler had calculated, he was never going to let himself owe anything to Oliver St John Latimer. 'But he did give you an order. Is that not so?'
'
'But you didn't.' Butler controlled his own anger. 'So your man in Cheltenham is probably in Moscow by now, with all those American transmissions in his head.
