For the Good of the State

Or whether he was in on it, but he was just obeying orders— I don’t Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State bloody-well know, and that’s the truth!’ He cocked his head over his shoulder, towards Mountsorrel. ‘Which is why we’re going in half-blind now, I’m afraid, Tom.’

Tom’s feet shifted under him. ‘But the KGB were in on it?’

Audley half turned as Tom started to move. ‘Of course they bloody were! Zarubin and Marchuk were the contact-men, with Piotrowski and Pietruszka. And, although I never asked old Basil about Marchuk’s road accident— whether it was genuine old-fashioned accident, or genuine old-fashioned Polish-revenge conspiracy—’

Audley cut off as Tom reached him, on the crest of the ridge.

Mountsorrel, Tom saw and thought the same thing, while trying to listen to what Audley was saying at the same time.

‘So now we have to guess,’ said Audley.

At least neither of them had to guess about Mountsorrel, thought Tom, hugging the view to himself: it was a perfect motte-and-bailey fortress for his collection, built up on its spur of land above the river-crossing below with unerring Norman offensive-defensive insight; and then abandoned, either after King Stephen had put down Baldwin de Redvers at Exeter, or after Henry II Plantagenet had taken firm hold of his kingdom a few years later: a bloody-perfect motte-and-bailey, with its wooden palisades fallen and rotted-away eight-hundred years ago and only marked now by the prickly furze which grew on the earth ramparts which still rose from the green spring cow-pastures of its hillside.

God! If only he had his measuring-kit, and Willy here beside him, like yesterday, to hold the other end of the tape-measure, and to Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State crawl among those prickly furze-bushes!

‘So now we have to guess—?’ Even though David Audley was a bad joke when compared with Willy Groot… And even though he would never come here again, via that muddy yard, with his lost Willy, now… Even, in spite of all of that, he would come here again, to measure Mountsorrel! And that made him smile the question at Audley.

‘But that’s why you’re happy, isn’t it?’ Then Audley looked at him strangely. ‘Isn’t there a chance now… now that you’ve got a vague idea why Panin’s here… that you can maybe settle your Polish score, while I settle up with him? Isn’t that it?’ Audley cocked that knowing eyebrow of his. ‘Don’t we both have a score now? Or…

what else did your young Sheldon-wornan have to say—?’

The old man was going for the big fish, and Tom could see no reason now why he shouldn’t pass on the rest of Willy’s pillow-talk, which he had been husbanding. ‘Zarubin was recalled to Moscow in January, David.’ As he spoke Audley turned back to Mountsorrel, and he thought maybe the old man’s not got it wrong, after all: it would be agreeable, next time he kissed Mamusia, to know that he’d done something to settle that score, even though he could never tell her; for she had wept for Father Jerzy, and had worn black for him. ‘Did you know that?’

‘No. Zarubin’s none of my business.’ Audley continued to study Mountsorrel. ‘But… that would be prudent to get him out, if Marchuk’s accident wasn’t accidental. Which, I suppose, we can now assume it wasn’t… So—?’

‘The word is that he’s gone “diplomatic”.’ He wanted to study Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State Mountsorrel too. But there would be time for that later. ‘At the time of the murder he was officially a cultural attache in Warsaw.

Although his main links were actually with the church affairs section of the Ministry of the Interior— Pietruszka’s department.’

‘Uh-huh?’ Audley nodded at Mountsorrel. ‘This is one of your pristine mottes and baileys, I take it, Tom? “Adulterine”, would it be?’

‘Very likely.’ Tom decided to drop Pietruszka and play the game.

Because, if Audley wasn’t worried about Panin, why should he be?

‘Professor Fraser thinks it’s Gilbert de Merville’s “Mountsorrel Castle”, which surrendered after Stephen took Exeter from Baldwin de Redvers in 1136. Gilbert certainly was one of Baldwin’s men, and he held land in these parts.’

‘Mmm…’ Audley nodded again. ‘And Gilbert was a bad bastard, wasn’t he? Wasn’t he the one who hanged his hostages—including the children? Which good old Stephen never had the heart to do?’

Another nod. ‘So what’s Zarubin doing now, then?’

He had been right to play the game. ‘The word is that he may be coming to England very shortly. Like… any day now, David. Or he may even be here already.’

‘Is that so?’ Audley shifted his gaze slightly, to consider their own approach line to Mountsorrel, along the deeply tractor-furrowed track. ‘You know, I rather think this must be the original road to your castle, Tom—’ He pointed ahead ‘—see how the ridge is deeply cut there? That’s not some old Devon farmer’s spade-work: that’s peasant sweated-labour, that is, or I’m a monkey’s uncle!’

Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State Satisfied nod. ‘So why is he coming? Because it’s safer here, between Exmoor and London, than it is between Czestochowa and Warsaw… at least for him, if not for me? Or has he got work to do?’

Tom listened to Willy’s whisper, editing out the added endearments and the warmth and softness of her in the crook of his arm. ‘It all depends on the progress they make, to get Reagan and Gorbachev together in the autumn, Sheldon thinks.’

‘Ah!’ Audley looked up and down the track again. ‘If there isn’t a road on the other side of that ridge ahead, where the castle is…

then this just has to be the one… if that’s the main entrance there

—’ He pointed ‘—in that gap in the gorse, right?’ He lowered his hand. ‘If they don’t meet, he’s certainly not going to be able to detach our revered Iron Lady from her favourite film star, not even after her happy meeting with Tsar Mikhail… Not with our commitment to Cruise and Trident—’ The hand came up again ‘—