For the Good of the State

always.’

Tom thought of Basil Cole. ‘And he kills people, maybe?’

‘Without a second thought—’ Audley twisted away, up the hillside again ‘—or without investigative journalists, or questioning civil servants, or inconvenient questions in Parliament, anyway… if he pulls it off, boy—if he pulls it off!’ He stepped out again, leaving Tom behind.

Tom opened his mouth, wanting to stop the big man reaching the crest before he could, because Mountsorrel ought to be visible from there and he wanted to be the first to make sure that it was.

But Audley’s legs were too long and he had too much momentum, and the first words that came into his head were useless, anyway: if Panin was already ‘in trouble’ they both knew the KGB’s Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State unforgiving attitude to failed overseas operations mounted to restore a waning reputation.

‘David!’ Even as the right Audley-stopping words occurred to him he saw that it was too late: Audley had stopped of his own accord at the top. ‘She did give me something else—’

‘Well!’ Audley was staring ahead, hands on his hips. ‘I might have known!’ He squared his shoulders and shook his head. Then he turned back to Tom abruptly. ‘What else did she give you, Sheldon’s woman?’

Willy described as ‘Sheldon’s woman’ cut deep, and the accuracy of the description turned the knife in the wound. But at least Mountsorrel must be in view at last, and that made him stand firm where he was, down the hillside. ‘What might you have known, David?’ he inquired innocently.

Audley tossed his head. ‘What did she tell you?’

All the pleasure of Mountsorrel was gone before he had set eyes on it. ‘She gave me three names, David.’ He paused deliberately.

‘Does Zarubin ring any of your bells?’

‘Zarubin?’ Against his backdrop of grey rain-clouds Audley looked huge above him. ‘Yes—he rings bells… albeit discordantly, Tom.’ He gave Tom back an equally deliberate pause. ‘He’s a 24-carat KGB shit, is Colonel Gennadiy Zarubin… If that’s his real name. Which it almost certainly isn’t, because only God and Central KGB Records know that.’ Sniff. ‘But yes, he certainly rings bells—a whole bloody peal of them, with umpteen thousand changes: KGB Triple-Cross Major, that might do for him… And I Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State can maybe think of a few people who’d like to see him hanged—or

“hung”, should it be, in this context?—but… strung up, anyway.

And there’d be some jostling in the queue to pull on his rope too, by God!’ He nodded. ‘Gennadiy Ivanovich Zarubin—’ He stopped suddenly, frowning at Tom as though he’d remembered something.

‘Yes, David?’

‘Mmmm…’ The frown was edged with calculations. ‘But you said names, didn’t you, Tom? So ring another bell then—eh?’

It was no good: he’d been too slow. ‘Marchuk. Leonid Marchuk.’

No surprise. Rather… satisfaction? ‘Yes.’ Nod. “That’s a good name.‘

‘Good?’ The old bastard had remembered something.

‘Yes.’ Audley showed the edges of ivory-yellow teeth, which were damn good imitations if they weren’t his own. ‘“Good” in the General Phil Sheridan sense, of the-only-good-Indian being a dead one.’ He stopped again, but this time raised an eyebrow. ‘But you didn’t know that—?’

‘He’s dead is he?’ Tom relaxed slightly. Because if Audley knew…

then that was really rather reassuring, on balance. ‘Marchuk’s dead?’

The eyebrow lifted again, but disbelievingly now. ‘On the Czestochowa road, to Katowice, was it?’ Audley murdered the Polish place-names, as every good Englishman always did.

‘Another tragic accident—like Basil Cole’s? Except that poor old Basil fell out of his tree, and poor Leonid lost control of his KGB-issue Mercedes—?’ Audley tut-tutted insincerely. ‘All these tragic Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State accidents! “In the midst of life we are in death…” It makes me quite grateful that I didn’t take my own car out this morning—or climb one of the trees in my garden… One can be so accidental, can’t one?’

On the Czestochowa road? Willy hadn’t known that detail, so Audley knew more than the CIA did about Marchuk’s death.

‘Perhaps he didn’t have a minder, David. Or maybe he didn’t do what his minder told him?’

Audley acknowledged the message with the very slightest of bows.

‘Perhaps.’ Then he dropped the shutters on casual pretence. ‘Three names. So give me the Third Man, and stop pissing me around, Tom—right?’ He turned, to take another look at what lay beyond, and then came back to Tom. ‘Right?’

Not right. Because (as always), the more he let himself be bullied, the more he would be bullied: but the lesson of King Stephen was that when one was in the weaker position it might be safer to let oneself be bullied than to antagonize someone who was not yet an enemy. ‘You tell me, David.’ Instinct strengthened him. ‘You tell me who your Third Man is—after Zarubin and Marchuk—’

Instinct pushed him further ‘—after them, but before Panin, David?

You tell me—right?’

Audley smiled, and Tom hated the thought that he might be remembering Danny Dzieliwski as he cocked his head. ‘Fair enough!’ Shrug. ‘And we’re short of time, anyway.’ Another shrug. ‘So, for size, let’s say… Piotrowski, Tom?’

Wrong—but close enough! ‘Or Pietruszka— ’

Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State Audley gestured dismissively.