For the Good of the State

‘Sir?’ At least he didn’t need to pretend not to be astonished. Even if he’d been wrong about Willy—even if Willy had been a KGB

major in drag—that wouldn’t justify the presence of Henry Jaggard here in Ranulf’s lane, just by the opening in Ranulf’s bailey ditch.

‘Tom, dear boy!’ Henry Jaggard surveyed him with fleeting distaste. ‘I am sorry to come upon you like this—’ He looked around ‘—in the middle of nowhere.’ He came back to Tom with a basilisk smile. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’

The middle of nowhere was right thought Tom with sudden insight: Jaggard knew exactly what he was doing, and why he was here—

and who he was with, down to the room number in the hotel.

Because it was Jaggard’s right and business to know that. But it Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State was still the middle of nowhere.

‘I’m just doing another motte-and-bailey, sir.’ Tom accepted the fiction, and played up to it deliberately. ‘I think it’s one of the illegal castles Ranulf of Caen built during the reign of King Stephen— mid-twelfth century. But no one’s ever done precise measurements on it.’ Time for a disarming grin. ‘It’s down as a late-13th-century fortified manor in Herrick’s Medieval Earthworks, actually. But I don’t think Herrick ever took the trouble to look at it.’

‘Is that so?’ Polite lack-of-interest in exchange for disarming grin.

No one was fooling anyone. “That’s rather interesting, I should think.‘ Jaggard took another survey of the middle of nowhere. ’But I can perhaps understand why he didn’t—Herrick, was it?‘ Jaggard had plainly no more heard of Professor Albert Herrick than he had of—of, say, Ranulf himself… or of Ranulf’s contemporary, King Boleslas III of Poland, whom Tom’s Dzieliwski ancestors had served. ’It is rather inaccessible isn’t it!‘

Yes, thought Tom. And as good a place as Henry Jaggard could hope for, to meet poor Tom Arkenshaw unobserved and off-the- record!

Jaggard cocked a knowing eye at him. ‘And Miss Wilhemina Groot doesn’t mind braving the wilds of the English countryside with you, then?’

‘No, sir.’ The bugger didn’t need to throw Willy into the conversation so crudely. ‘Her ancestors built forts like this in Iowa and Minnesota, against the Sioux in the 1860s, so she tells me—’

Tom gestured towards Ranulf’s ramparts ‘—not the same design, Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State of course… but the same general defensive idea, more or less—just earth and timber-work and man-hours— plus ca change, and all that.

‘Is that so?’ Henry Jaggard opened his mouth to continue, but Tom owed him one for Willy.

‘If you’ve got the time I can show you how it works. Motte-and-bailey is pretty much a standard Norman design, with minor variations. It’s a bit muddy and overgrown on the other side, but—’

‘Thank you, Tom! But… in the circumstances… no, I’m afraid.’

The very slightest edge of Henry Jaggard’s dislike broke through the surface of his confidence, like a shark’s fin in a smooth sea, warning Tom that whatever he had in store wasn’t going to be one of those plum diplomatic sinecures in safe East European communist countries where the food might be bad, but the scope for terrorism was limited to the point of boredom. Besides which, of course, with Tom’s well-known maternal background he knew himself to be automatically persona non grata in most of them, anyway.

And, also besides which, he had already pushed his luck as far as it was safe to do. So a bit of proper departmental enthusiasm was in order now. So… although this particular son-of-a-bitch will never promote you, Thomas Arkenshaw-Dzieliwski… show proper dutiful-enthusiastic- interest, damn your eyes!

Although, Henry Jaggard was a shrewd operator, who didn’t generally let his prejudices interfere with his duties, to be fair. So maybe he’d been a bit naughty, thought Tom, half-repentantly.

‘Yes, sir?’

Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State Jaggard estimated him for a moment. ‘We have a little bit of a flap, Tom. And… I’m genuinely sorry for descending on you, believe me… but you’ve got the exact profile for it, you see. So your leave’s cancelled, as of this date.’

That’s all right, sir.‘ Tom waved his own olive branch back. ’This earthwork isn’t going to go away.‘

‘And Miss Groot?’ In victory Jaggard was suddenly generous.

‘Senator Groot’s daughter, would that be? Or grand-daughter?’

‘Niece, actually.’ No, not generous at all. Merely politic— politic with Miss Groot, not Sir Thomas, whose true measurements were precisely known, and who was plain Tom in consequence. But he shrugged dismissively, nevertheless. ‘But I don’t think she’ll go away either. Not that it matters.’ Oddly enough, it was beginning to matter; though this was hardly the moment to admit it to himself, never mind to Jaggard. ‘A flap, you said?’ And it was even less the moment to pretend that he wasn’t surprised to see Jaggard in a flap in the middle of nowhere: with Jaggard he not only had no need to play stupid—he positively couldn’t afford to do so. ‘What sort of a flap?’

Jaggard looked past him, to make sure Senator Groot’s niece was not materializing inconveniently on the horizon. But the young policeman appeared to be doing his duty in detaining her where she was, for that one glance was enough. ‘Tom… when did you last have dealings with Research and Development?’

Tom was just about ready for any question but that. It could have related to anything from Beirut to Managua, by way of Belfast; or from Black September to the Red Brigade (as recently Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State reconstituted), by way of the IRA. But… it was one hell of a sight closer to home than that. ‘R & D?’ But Jaggard would know bloody well when he’d last consulted R & D: it was a suspiciously unnecessary question. ‘Not for ages… apart from their routine briefings—the ones I’m cleared to receive, anyway— ?’ He was entitled to end the statement on a question. ‘I mean face to face.

Not the briefings.’

‘Hell!’ Tom concentrated his memory. ‘One of them chipped in his piece at that seminar… He’d been over in Dublin— Field Research, he called it.’ Memory etched the face