For the Good of the State

circumstances.’

Tom was beginning to feel foolish. ‘What circumstances?’

‘What circumstances?’ Now Audley seemed surprised. ‘My dear boy, your mother— my Danny Dzieliwski— your dear mother was—

Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State and presumably still is—quite devoted to Napoleon Bonaparte.

And all things French… quite uncritically, if I may say so. The dreadful Corsican was one of her great heroes— after Marshal Poniatowski, of course. “The epic of Napoleonic Poland” was one of her favourite themes… I won’t say that I learnt all my Polish history from her—rather, I learnt it so that I didn’t have to sit listening to her without being able to argue back, when she swept her generalizations halfway across Europe. In fact…’ Audley raised a large dirty finger ‘—in fact, I became quite an authority on Casimir the Great and Jadwiga of Anjou in my own right, thanks to her. But I never really got beyond the medieval period in any detail, to be honest —modern history is mostly far too complicated for me.’

It was happening again—

‘So don’t get the idea that I’m an expert on Bonaparte—’

‘No—’ It must be stopped, thought Tom desperately.

‘No, indeed! I just happen to be reading this book my wife gave me, about Colquhoun Grant, who was Wellington’s Head of Intelligence in the Peninsula—brilliant field operator, quite brilliant… And I had an ancestor who was killed there, you know—

on my mother’s side—charging with Le Marchant at Salamanca in 1812. So she’s always on the look-out for books on the Peninsular War—Faith is, I mean, not my mother—’

‘ David! ’ Tom finally cracked. ‘For Christ’s sake—I don’t want to know about your mother—or my mother… Or Casimir the Great and Napoleon, for Christ’s sake!’ And what the hell had the child meant by Tripoli? ‘Somebody just took a shot at us, David—

Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State remember?’

‘At me, dear boy—not you. How could I forget?’ Audley screwed up his ugly features. ‘I’m only talking because I’m frightened—I told you. It’s a reflex in some people. But at least it’s preferable to other physical reflexes I’ve encountered—’ He stopped suddenly.

‘You don’t think he was shooting at you, do you? But… he would have had to be a very bad shot, surely—?’ He stopped again, and frowned at Tom. ‘But then, he was a very bad shot—wasn’t he!’

Audley had got there at last, however belatedly. ‘Yes.’

‘Yes…’ Audley’s frown deepened. ‘A sitting target—or a standing-still one, anyway… And he would have had plenty of time to sight-up, and make all the necessary allowances, too…’ He stared clear through Tom.

But that had been one of the problems. ‘He would?’

‘Oh yes.’ Audley nodded through him. ‘He would have spotted me in the orchard. But I was moving around, and the trees wouldn’t have given him a clear shot.’ He drew a breath. ‘Only, after we had word of your impending arrival, and the sun came out… after that Faith got the chairs out and put them on the terrace. So then he would have known he’d get a clear shot.’ He focused on Tom again. ‘But then he missed—eh?’

‘Yes.’ That was one problem solved—which only left another in its place. ‘Yes?’

‘So it can’t have been the Other Side?’ Audley cocked his head.

‘But… they have been known to miss, Tom.’

‘Not often.’ It was time to push the old man. ‘And not when Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State someone of Panin’s seniority is involved, David. He wouldn’t have used Sous-Officier Cantillon for the job.’

‘No… no, that’s true.’ Audley drew another breath. ‘But this isn’t Nikolai Panin anyway.’ He shook his head. ‘No.’

They were back to Jack Butler’s ‘Rules of Engagement’. But, whatever Jack Butler and the Duke of Wellington might believe, there were no rules that couldn’t be stretched and broken outside the playing fields of Eton—the small print of military and political necessity legitimized every successful action retrospectively —

that was why the Belgrano was at the bottom of the South Atlantic.

‘He’s a gentleman, is he?’ But Audley had referred to two levels, he remembered. ‘Or is it that you’re old friends, and he’s sentimental?’

‘Huh!’ Audley didn’t mind being needled, Tom realized in that instant; or being Danny Dzieliwski’s boy maybe did confer an advantage, as Jaggard had calculated? ‘Old Nikolai’s no gentleman, that’s for sure! He’s a true-red child of the Revolution

— homo Sovieticus Stalinus— he may have been an old-time cool-head, hot-heart patriotic Russian during the war—the “Great Patriotic War”—and afterwards, for a time… But surviving the last thirty-five years has surely corrupted him into a cold-hearted bastard who knows exactly which side his fresh white bread is buttered, by God!’ He shook his head at Tom, almost sadly.

‘That’s the bugger of their system, young Tom—it corrupts ordinary decent men more efficiently and comprehensively and quickly than ours does… apart from bringing the absolute shits to the top even more quickly than we can manage—eh?’

Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State Interesting, Tom began to think, when a slight sound from outside broke the thought suddenly. ‘So Panin was an ordinary decent man once upon a time—?’ He turned towards the window casually.

‘Was he?’

‘I think he might have been. He was certainly a damn good archaeologist once upon a time, by all accounts. And he’s undoubtedly one of their best disinformation men.’

‘And you know him from way back?’ He was torn down the middle between what Audley was saying and what had just come into sight, down the track from the road.