For the Good of the State

too, in God’s good time, I shouldn’t wonder.‘

‘So?’ The sidelong look was oddly frozen. ‘I didn’t know you were a religious man, David.’

‘I’m not. I’m just an old-fashioned High Days, and Holidays Anglican, seeing as it’s not respectable to worship Mithras these days.’ Audley smiled one of his smiles. ‘But your Poles were probably brought up as good little Catholics, so it’s hell for them in due course—’ The smile curdled suddenly, as though the old man had smelt something more like the charnel-house. ‘Or are they there already? Just to be on the safe side, eh?’

The sidelong glance became full-face. ‘What?’

‘Oh—come on!’ Audley made a vaguely-insulting gesture. ‘If there’s one thing your lot is good at, it’s killing inconvenient Poles.

Like at Katyn, remember—?’ The hand waved some more. ‘Or even letting the Nazis do your dirty work for you… like Warsaw in

’44?‘

Panin tensed, so it seemed to Tom. ‘That is a lie—’

‘No, it bloody isn’t!’ Audley’s vaguely-waved hand clenched. ‘I Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State had some good mates in the 1st Polish Armoured, ’44 to ‘45. And they had fathers and uncles in ’40, at Katyn and elsewhere. And—

and, Christ! They had younger brothers and sons, some of them, at Warsaw in ‘44, where you let them die. ’

‘ It is a lie! ’ As he spoke, Panin squared up to Audley, and the old man matched him, on the very edge of Gilbert de Merville’s rock-cut ditch, each with one elderly fist visible to Tom—ridiculous old fists, clenching and unclenching now, as though in preparation for a pensioners’ punch-up, regardless of age and diplomatic protocol.

‘It’s the truth—and you know it!’ sneered Audley, fixing his big feet squarely in the muddy grass.

‘ David! For God’s sake!’ exclaimed Tom, simultaneously terrified and aware that Audley was not only the aggressor, but would certainly be the victor, with size and weight on his side, if the two old men came to blows here.

Audley twisted a grimace at him, without taking his eyes off the Russian, but relaxing slightly. ‘Maybe not Katyn. But he knows damn well what happened on the Warsaw front in ’44, when they wouldn’t give the RAF landing rights, to drop supplies to the Poles

—never mind not helping the poor bastards themselves, the buggers. Because he was there, by God! Sitting on his arse on the other side of the river!‘

Panin spluttered slightly. ‘You dishonour me—!’

‘If I could—I would!’ Audley’s hand came up. But at least it was a finger now, not a fist. ‘You-were-there—’ He rounded on Tom without warning ‘—and you should know what happened there, of Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State all people, Tom!’

Panin looked at Tom, and Tom himself was astonished at Audley’s indiscretion—so astonished that for a moment all he could think of was the Russian’s description of Audley as ‘ amateur’. ‘I thought we were discussing Gennadiy Zarubin—? Not… not ancient East European military history, anyway—’ He looked from one to the other.

The Russian composed himself first; although that, thought Tom bitterly, was composure born of suddenly- renewed interest in Sir Thomas Arkenshaw, who could not only get his tongue round a Polish name but was also apparently an expert on the Warsaw Rising of ‘44, it seemed. ’That is true.‘ The momentary change in the man’s aura, which had somehow hinted at the presence of a ravening wolf within that elderly sheep, had already vanished so completely that memory queried its existence. ’You must forgive me, Sir Thomas. But I, also, had good comrades in ‘44. And before that, and after that. And also brothers. And I also remember them.’

He drew a slow breath. ‘But I should not. And you are right to draw us back to pressing matters.’ He considered Tom for another five slow seconds before returning to Audley. ‘Thank you, Sir Thomas.’

Audley shrugged, no longer truculent but quite unapologetic. ‘I was only doing my arithmetic. Two dead, four jailed, equals six.

Six from seven equals one. One equals Zarubin. That’s all.’ It was Audley who was battened down now. ‘But you were about to do the rest of the sum for me.’

This time Audley got the five seconds. ‘How much do you know, Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State David?’

‘Uh-uh.’ Audley shook his head. ‘Gennadiy Zarubin, you were saying—?’

‘You know that he’s here, of course.’ Panin waited in vain for Audley to answer. ‘Of course you do!’

Audley looked into the ditch. ‘It isn’t really very hard, the rock here

—is it, Tom?’ He looked up at Tom. ‘Not like the rock ditch on the Roman wall between Carrawburgh and Chesters, by Milecastle 30, where they had to bore holes and split the stuff with boiling water

—or vinegar, was it? And they never did finish the job, at that…

Jack Butler showed me the place, long ago—oh, it must be thirteen years ago, about.’ He nodded. ‘All of that, because I think Faith was pregnant at the time… But this doesn’t look nearly so bad.’

Tom rolled an eye at the Russian, as speechless as Panin himself was.

‘It’s still good work, for a rush job.’ Audley bent over the ditch, hands on knees. ‘But not a great work, is what I mean—not with this crumbly red sandstone… Is that what it is? Or is it—what the devil is it?’ He started to reach down below the lip of the ditch, but then abandoned the attempt.

‘They are going to kill him.’ Panin found his voice at last.