For the Good of the State

‘Yes.’ Audley’s tone was casual, but his big hands were squeezing each other nervously on his lap, again as though his bocage-memories of well-sited German 88s and lurking panzerfaust infantry had returned with the earth-banks. ‘One simple question to start off with, anyway. Now that we know where we stand, as it were.’

The road twisted, and then straightened again so that Tom could see clear down to the parapets of a narrow little stone bridge at the bottom of the hill. So there had to be an opening of some sort on the left before that. ‘Go on, David.’

‘Yes.’ The hands continued to work. ‘Just where the devil are we going?’

Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State

‘Ah!’ There was a gap ahead, in the high bank on the left; and although it looked small… and it was unsignposted (but then Mountsorrel wasn’t National Trust, of course)… it was the only gap he could discern in this last hundred yards, before the bridge.

‘ Ah! ’ He pumped the foot-brake furiously, debating whether to overshoot and then back up the hill rather than attempt the turning on his first run. ‘ Here, as it happens, is where we’re going… I think

—’ The hell with it! he thought, swinging the wheel.

The old car creaked in every metal bone and sinew, and canted over dangerously as it slithered in slow motion into a sharp left-hand turn, so that for a moment he feared that it would slam broadside into the bank which rose up again on the lower side of the entrance. But, by the grace of God, it accepted his change of direction, and then stalled in a final protest.

‘Indeed?’ Audley had lurched against him, swearing under his breath, as they had taken the turn. But now his voice was only mildly incredulous. ‘And where, pray, is here, Tom?’

He might well ask, thought Tom, surveying the unpromising vista up the muddy rutted track ahead between future luxuriant banks of stinging nettles.

“That is to say—‘ Audley amended his question suddenly ’—does Panin know how to get to Bodger’s Farm?‘

‘Bodger’s Farm?’ Tom followed Audley’s pointing finger. On the passenger’s side, on the wreck of a five-bar gate propped against two oil drums, a crudely-painted board bore that legend.

‘Is this where you wanted to go?’ inquired Audley politely. ‘And, Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State if it is, will he be able to get here?’

Tom’s confidence weakened. But then long experience of similar places reanimated it. ‘He has my Ordnance Survey map with the rendezvous marked. I gave it to his escort this morning, before breakfast.’

‘His escort? His minder, you mean?’ Audley grinned wolfishly at him. ‘What was he like?’

Tom turned the ignition key, and the engine purred sweetly at the first touch. ‘He didn’t look the part.’ He grinned back at Audley.

‘He seemed a rather inoffensive little fellow, actually.’ He engaged first gear cautiously. ‘Very polite, he was, David. In barely adequate English.’

‘Is that so?’ Audley looked around him curiously. ‘Well, I’m sure appearances are deceptive… We’re going on, are we?’

The wheels squelched and spun, and then took hold.

‘For a little way. Then we shall have to walk across the fields, I expect.’

‘You expect? You haven’t been here before, then?’

‘No.’ Tom caught a glimpse of a grey roof through the straggling hedge on his right, down the side of the hill.

‘You didn’t see Panin himself?’

‘No.’ More roofs, and a hint of yellowish-grey stone. And, in the left foreground, the ruin of an antique farm- tractor half-sunken on the verge beside the track, with the remains of last year’s dead nettles still entwined in it.

Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State

‘I see—’ Audley stopped suddenly as Bodger’s Farm presented itself to them at last, in all its agricultural squalor.

Tom decided against entering the farmyard morass, even though that would take him closer to what must presumably be the farmhouse itself, for lack of a more likely parking place: any vehicle with less than four-wheel drive attempting that yard might find itself a permanent resident—like the abandoned Rover, old but not yet vintage, which lay wheel-less on one side, to serve now (judging by its present occupants) as a chicken- house.

‘You did say…’ Audley’s tone was gently hopeful, looking for confirmation rather than information ‘… that we weren’t actually meeting… here… didn’t you?’

‘Yes—no—’ Tom caught a flicker of movement at one curtained window in the blank face of the house ‘—I’ll just go and get directions, David. Okay?’ He opened his door, observing what seemed to be the farmer’s domestic refuse pile, which included non-biodegradable washing-up liquid containers among other unspeakable material which was already sodden and well-rotted.

‘If you’d like to go up there, towards the field—by that gate?’

He stepped out gingerly, into the mud in preference to the domestic midden; which, from its smell, included fish-heads as well as cabbage leaves; and thought, as he did so, that a high, dry summer might not be preferable on Bodger’s Farm, because this would be the kingdom of flies, and blow-flies, and all manner of winged insects then. But he must move, now that he was moving, before Audley could protest.

A large dominant cockerel, with bright red upstanding comb and Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State jaunty tail-feathers, eyed him sidelong from its vantage-point on the roof of the Rover with bright reptilian certainty,