For the Good of the State

the pub itself. Which was fair enough, since he’d been warned off the phone-box once already.

‘Over here, David!’ Audley’s caution gave him time for a few more words. And then—‘Hold on—here he is now—’ The look of naked and unashamed suspicion on the old man’s face (which his face was well-battered to demonstrate) encouraged him to shout for both of them ‘—my mother would like a word with you, David—’

He thrust the receiver at Audley ‘—here she is now—’

Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State He withdrew a few yards from the call-box, out of pretended tact, but actually because there was nothing he could do now. It all depended on her wits—

(‘Yes?’ She had addressed the phone peremptorily, as she always did, as though it was an inadequately-trained servant who had disturbed her rest.)

(‘Mamusia?’ That hadn’t been the first question, but it came out automatically, from his enormous relief, now that he had a chance.

‘ Do you remember an old boyfriend of yours named David Audley? A big chap— ?’)

(‘Darling boy—! How lovely! Who did you say?’) (If there was anything he hated but about which he could do nothing, it was being addressed as ‘Darling boy!’, like a character out of a play written even before her time. But this wasn’t a moment for recrimination: it was the moment for Question One, repeated.)

(‘Mamusia — do you remember David Audley? Answer me quickly!’)

(‘David—David!’ At the first ‘David’ Tom hung on a thread. But at the second one he was on a ship’s cable. ‘ Darling—of course I do! From long before you were born, darling boy! From Cambridge—before I met your father… Or… perhaps not quite before—’)

(Audley was moving now—)

( I once went to a ball with him—David Audley Question Two Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State started to become redundant before it was asked. ‘ Darling—I went as “Beauty”… and he went as “The Beast”—how could I forget him! Where did you meet him?’)

(Scratch Question Two!)

(‘Mamusia, he’s here now, waiting to talk to you. And he’s my boss. So just tell him I’ve been talking to you for the last five minutes—don’t argue just tell him that—okay?’ No more time.

‘Hold on—here he is now—’)

In the end he dawdled back to the car, plagued by the same old mixture of love and exasperation and admiration and doubt which he had always—or, not always, but at least latterly—shared about her with Dad: she was gorgeous undoubtedly (and what she must have been like in Audley’s youth, and in the full flush of her own, taxed his imagination beyond its furthest limits); but she had always

—no, not always, but sometimes—seemed to him the best and worst of mothers, by turns affectionate and uncaring, tactful and tactless, and intellectually brilliant and embarrassingly feckless: all he had ever known was that he could never be sure of what he knew about her—that he could never be sure of anything. And that had often been good fun, but not always. And now was one of those not-always times, although now he had only himself to blame

—But Audley was coming back now—

Audley got into the car, breathing heavily. ‘That was an exceptionally low-down action.’ The old man fumbled for his Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State safety-belt, and fumbled even more before he snapped it home. ‘

“Darling Boy”—“Darling Boy”?’ He looked at Tom in the darkness. ‘But I thought the phone-box was out-of- bounds—?’

But he didn’t sound angry, thought Tom. In fact, he sounded foolishly at ease, even happy, after that ‘low-down action’. So perhaps, just this important once, she had been not only at her most affectionate, but also tactful and brilliant—not (as she always had been with Willy’s predecessors) the other way round.

‘Yes—I’m sorry, David.’ That was true, and even doubly true: he had said that, but more than that he was vestigially sorry that he had played so very dirty; because, if calling her had been a fearful risk, using her against the old man hadn’t been cricket in Dad’s Cambridge definition of the game; but, then again, in his own definition—and in Mamusia’s— and, for that matter, in Audley’s—

in all of those, Dad’s definition didn’t apply: none of them had played Dad’s Cambridge game for a long time, if ever.

‘Sorry?’ Audley wasn’t so happy now. ‘I thought you Diplomatic Protection people were more into “safe” than “sorry”?’

‘Yes.’ Now he really was sorry, as he realized he must be more careful with Audley. ‘But I didn’t call her until I was sufficiently sure the road was clear. And I really don’t think my mother’s London line is insecure—not unless your old comrade is much better informed than he has any right to be, David.’

‘No?’ Audley was even unhappier. But at least he had been safely diverted from the true truth. ‘No, I might grant you that, Darling Boy. Or… I might, if you can tell me who is better informed— eh?’

Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State They were far from the truth, safely. But they were right into the middle of a much more worrying truth.

Tom backed the car out, and started to drive. ‘Yes.’ He needed the fastest road to the M4 now, to the West Country, when Audley would be taking the M3 to London as his objective. But he wanted a lot more out of the man before the deviation became apparent; so Audley’s attention to road-signs and sign-posts must be diverted for the time being.

‘Yes.’ The trouble was that Audley was quite right, whatever convenient possibilities Jaggard chose to imagine: someone had got to Basil Cole, and very efficiently, even before someone had got to David Audley, even though their cruder solution to that assignment had failed disgracefully. ‘Maybe you should talk to Colonel Butler.’ The road was dark ahead, and dark behind: it was the hour when the early evening drinkers were drinking, and the rest of the world was settling down for its night’s television, or putting its children to bed, or having its supper. ‘You might even ask him for some more protection,