For the Good of the State

from them, the safer they are—huh!’

‘Huh?’

‘Huh!’ Audley settled back comfortably. ‘Having a large policeman in the house—in my esteemed mother-in- law’s house…

that’ll poach the old haybag to rights, by God!’ He twisted suddenly towards Tom. ‘In fact, I do her an injustice: she’s a dear old bird—and a tough one, too… But having a policeman there will flatter her, so she won’t quarrel with her daughter, she’ll be too busy making him endless cups of tea, and generally making his Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State life a misery—’ He concentrated on Tom ‘—or… what would your dear mother do, if she suddenly found a large policeman in her parlour, because of you—?’

The car in front swung out of the drive into the road, much too fast for safety and taking Tom by surprise until he saw the uniformed man who was waving them on. ‘I’ve never bothered her that way, David.’

‘No? Mmm…’ Audley trailed off, evidently summoned again by rose-tinted recollections of his undergraduate past. ‘Mmm…’

Well—damn his memories! ‘Where are we going?’

‘Where—?’ A particularly deep pot-hole in the uneven surface of the road helped to shake the old man out of his temps perdu. ‘Ah…

now, I was meaning to tell you about that. A minor detour, no more.’

There was no point in protesting. ‘Yes?’

‘I should have told you.’ Audley suddenly sounded contrite. ‘It was remiss of me—I’m sorry, Tom.’

‘It’s okay.’ The trouble was, contrition didn’t suit the man, it just wasn’t his style; which, if it was because of those ancient memories, would very soon become irritating if it wasn’t nipped in the bud at once.

‘It’s hardly out of your way. We can still pick up the London road… oh, in just a mile or two from there.’ Audley got in before he could start nipping. ‘We may even save time, in the end.’

Unless the old liar had discovered a shorter line between two points than a straight one, they were going in very nearly the Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State opposite direction, that was the truth of it. ‘Just tell me what the hell we’re doing, David.’

‘Yes.’ Audley’s meekness was as bad as his contrition. ‘Well…

we’re going to talk to someone—someone I need to talk to. So when we get to the main road… we bear left there, until we come to the Three Pigeons—which is a big pub with coloured lights…’

Left would be even further to the west, or at least north-west. ‘Yes?’

‘And then, about five miles further on… there’s another pub—just by the church… the Bear and Ragged Staff. You turn sharp left there.’

That would be due-bloody-west. Which was fine for Nikolai Andrievich Panin, who would probably be already within sight of the Bristol Channel by now, speeding down the M5. But for a man who ought to presume that he was going to London it was a bad joke.

‘Yes?’ Tom stifled the temptation to ask Audley whether he habitually navigated across England from pub to pub, with the occasional church thrown in.

‘Yes.’ Audley nodded. ‘It really will save us time. And maybe not time alone, Tom.’

‘Yes?’ But pubs didn’t matter. What mattered more was… who the hell did Audley want to see, who mattered more than Panin, who wanted to meet him so urgently on Exmoor?

And, come to that— Exmoor! Because the Russian would have needed Foreign Office dispensation to go so far. But—never mind the Foreign Office!—he would have required Moscow Centre Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State dispensation too, to swan off into the far unexplored West of England, to meet his old friend, and Mamusia’s—

‘I’ll tell you where to go then. But it’s only a step or two from there.’

A step or two to the west, near another pub? The Red Lion, or the Eight Bells, or the Vine, or the George and Dragon—or the Old Castle, where even now, in a better world, Tom Arkenshaw ought to have been drinking champagne cocktails with Miss Wilhemina Groot, in the privacy of the bridal suite? Bloody hell!

‘Who are we going to see then, David?’ He thrust Willy out of his mind, back to London where Audley thought he was going, but wasn’t.

‘Ah…’ Audley jerked forward as the police car in front illuminated its hazard lights, ahd then slowed; and then signalled left, as it drew aside on to the grass verge by the side of the road. ‘You go ahead here, Tom.’

Tom drove ahead into the first beginnings of evening, unsure whether he was glad or sorry as he lost sight of the flashing lights behind him. He didn’t know where he was, because he’d never castle-hunted seriously in Hampshire. Somewhere to the north of this, or more like north-east, Henry of Blois had thrown up one of his 1138 strongpoints at Farnham, certainly. And there were other 1138 ‘illegals’ at Waltham and Wolvesey. But he couldn’t place either of them on the map in his head. Yet—much more to the point

—the A34 Winchester to Oxford road couldn’t be far ahead, and that would take him fast to the westward- bound M4 and M5.

Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State But it was no use fretting (Farnham was an interesting site, which he’d always intended to measure: the motte there had been revetted with a buttressed shell-wall allegedly comparable with the Crusaders’ keep at Acre in Israel; although that hadn’t prevented good old Henry Plantagenet from demolishing it in 1155). He was going to be late, bringing them together, but that wasn’t his fault—

so it was no good fretting.

‘You were saying, David—?’ The brief intrusion of Henry of Blois and Henry Plantagenet, eventual Lord of England, Wales, Ireland and two-thirds of France, and of their great works, restored his sense of proportion, as always: the two Henrys, and David Audley and Nikolai Panin and Tom Arkenshaw, and all the ants in all the ant-