For the Good of the State

‘Somehow I find that neither flattering nor reassuring, you know.’

Then he sat up suddenly. ‘But now I’ll make the old swine eat his words: he can tell us why Nikolai Andrievich is poaching in my coverts again after all these years. Right?’ He rapped the dashboard sharply. ‘So not another word, not another question— in with you.’

Tom engaged the gear, and turned the big car cautiously past the huge beech tree into an overgrown rhododendron drive, still thick with unswept winter leaves.

They were still a long way from Panin, but he felt better now. Or, anyway, he understood why Audley was doing what he was doing, even if it also suggested that Jaggard was unaware of a real Panin-expert in their midst, who knew more about the Russian than Audley did. But then (to be fair to Jaggard) Cole might have acquired his expertise in retirement service for Research and Development, not in his previous existence.

The headlights picked up the red reflectors of a parked car, and then Tudor black-and-white half- timbering.

Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State

‘Pull round to the left,’ said Audley.

More piles of decaying leaves; and the house wasn’t genuine Tudor, but minor stockbroker’s mock-Tudor, with only just enough room for him to squeeze the Ministry Rover past the elderly Ford which was jammed against its garage doors beside the darkened house. (And he had learnt something about the arcane workings of R & D, too; about which Harvey had been half-scornful, yet oddly envious: that killing wasn’t their style, but that they had long memories when there was a name to enter in the ledger of unpaid accounts.)

‘It doesn’t look as though anyone’s home, David.’ He scanned the unimpressive house again: its most notable attribute was the circle of huge beech trees which surrounded it, embracing it with their enormous limbs and cutting out what was left of the last faint remnants of daylight above them.

‘It wouldn’t—the sitting room’s at the back.’ Audley opened his door. ‘He’ll be in, don’t worry—he never goes out.’ He started to get out, but then stopped. ‘He’s somewhere inside a five-year drink-driving disqualification… not that I’ve ever noticed any difference in him, drunk or sober.’ He started to move again, and then stopped again. ‘Don’t kid yourself, Tom—drunk or sober, he’s good, believe you me. Fawcett was a fool for retiring him, and old Fred Clinton was nobody’s fool—I wish I’d known the game he was playing, years back, in fact—’ Then he grunted, and did at last lever himself out of the car.

Tom switched off the lights, and for an instant it was prematurely night. Then the half-light seeped back through the beech trees, Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State slightly reassuring him, with Beirut as well as this afternoon in mind: this was close country, with no high-rise buildings or distant ridges allowing long shots; and neither the Russian nor the American-Israeli night-sight image intensifiers were much use in these conditions, if he had not been quite as clever and careful in shaking off any pursuit as he thought he had been.

All the same, he was uneasy: in full daylight one could expect the worst, and plan accordingly. But after that it was a case of negotium perambidans in tenebris. ‘Let’s go and meet your Basil Cole then, David.’

‘Okay.’ Audley stretched himself, oblivious of any danger, and then took three steps to the mock-Tudor door, and thumped it with his fist. ‘Open up there!’

Tom cringed from the battering-ram challenge: Stephen of Blois hadn’t hammered on the gates of Ranulf of Caen’s motte at Theckham more noisily than that, but half of England had heard him. Or Baldwin de Redvers certainly had—and the Bishop of Salisbury too… and probably Robert fitz Herbert, and Henry fitz Tracy, and William fitz Odo… and probably the unspeakable Earl of Chester too—

‘Open up there!’ Audley hammered on the door again. ‘Basil Cole, you drunken old bugger!’

The porch light flashed on, dousing them both in a sudden pool of yellow light which made Tom skip back out of it instinctively.

(Nobody turned on lights in Lebanon: rather, if there were any lights anywhere, they turned them off, inside as well as outside; and then they didn’t open the door until supplied with some very Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State different and less offensive pass-words.) But this door opened wide suddenly, regardless equally of insult and danger. ‘Yes?’

There was light inside the house, innocent of all precautions. And whoever it was in the doorway, it wasn’t Basil Cole, drunk or sober

—it was a woman. ‘What do you want?’

Audley drew himself up to answer, obviously put off by the woman, and by the coldness and unexpected question.

‘Ah… Good evening, madam—’ Then he seemed to flouder.

The wrong house? thought Tom. But that was impossible!

‘Mr Cole—?’ The great shoulders squared, ambushed but not defeated. ‘Mr Basil Cole—?’ Audley’s voice travelled from doubt to greater certainty. ‘You wouldn’t be by any chance Mr Cole’s daughter-in-law—?’

No answer. But there came another sound from inside the house, as of a squeaky mock-Tudor door opening.

‘What is it, dear?’ The new voice followed the mock-Tudor sound, not so much quavering as uncertain. ‘Who is it, dear?’

‘It’s all right—it’s nothing.’ The younger woman in the doorway threw back her answer harshly, almost dismissively.

‘My name is Audley.’ Now there was nothing soft about Audley’s own voice: being dismissed as ‘nothing’ was plainly not to his taste. ‘David Audley—’

There was a fractional pause. ‘David—?’

‘Margaret!’ Audley threw the name past the younger woman.

Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State

‘Mother—’ The woman tried to hit Audley’s reply back at him, and away out into the evening, but she was just too late.