For the Good of the State

fears away again, possibly letting the sound of his voice blot out the thumping of his heart as usual. But he was also desperate for more information, in the certain knowledge that he was sailing much too close to a rocky shore in almost total darkness, with the boom of the breaking waves in his ears.

‘Nothing more, I’m afraid, David.’ There was a Brentiscombe sign ahead on the empty wind-and-rain-swept road; and Tom could hear the same sound in his head, beneath the steady rhythm of the Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State engine, of those cruel breakers which would accept no error of navigation. ‘Except they’re almost as frightened as I am, I think.’

He took the turning, which split him on to a narrower road, and then on to an even narrower one, further splitting Brentiscombe from Hunter’s Inn, which forced him to concentrate on his driving.

‘Well—’ Audley stopped as Tom negotiated a blind bend between high banks ‘—well, that makes all of us scared shitless—Panin included.’

‘Panin included?’ Trees arched over the road, some naked, some still obstinately refusing to let go of their long-dead leaves. ‘Panin too?’

‘Aye. And that’s what scares me most, Tom.’ Freed from his ancient bocage memories, Audley relaxed again. ‘This bastard Zarubin must be something quite exceptional, to make old Nikolai twitch the way he did, when he said “Follow me” back there.’ He shook his head. This is another of those moments when I wish I had Old King Cole whispering drunken insults in my ear.

Because… because your damn computer print-outs may be good, and all very well if you’ve time to read them. But they add two and two, and two and two ad infinitum… But they never bloody-well tell you when two-and-two equals five— or fifty-five, or minus-five… Because they don’t smell the difference between dead men and dead mules, Tom—it’s all carrion to them… And, if you’ve ever smelt the real-life difference— Christ!‘

They had gone up and down, and now they were going up and across and down; and, although he couldn’t smell the sea, Tom felt its presence. ‘Dead men are worse, are they?’ The road wasn’t so Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State much narrow as ridiculous now, with a rocky stream on one side, and trees on the other, and pot-holes everywhere.

‘God—no!’ The old man lurched against him. ‘Men are just quite unspeakable. But… they ask to be buried, I suppose… I don’t know. But horses are worse, and they take a lot more burying. And so do cows, actually… But mules… You ask Jack Butler about mules—he’s an expert, and he says they’re much worse. Because I never had to bury a mule in the war, after its guts had burst.’

They turned sharply, and Tom suddenly saw the sea ahead of them in a deep cutting between steep forested hillsides, battleship-grey under lighter grey layers of rain-clouds. ‘You said Panin had a name for us, David.’

‘I didn’t say it. He said it, Tom. Remember?’ Audley divested himself from his comparative study of the smell of dead and corrupted flesh. ‘He said Zarubin had the name.’

The road-sign warned of a l-in-4 drop, somewhat belatedly. ‘But what name?’

‘For God’s sake—I don’t know!’ Audley had found his handkerchief again. ‘But I do know that we’ve got someone inside their London operation.’ Sniff. ‘I’m not supposed to know, but I do. And I’m thinking… if I know, then maybe they’re on to him.’

He blew his nose, and then he stuffed the rag back into his pocket.

‘If he traded that name—traded the fact that they knew it… and let us have the man himself, because he’s no damn good to them now: the only thing worth anything is that they know now, that he’s tipping us off— I don’t know, damn it. ’ He shook his head. ‘But that would be good enough to trade for whatever he wants, Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State anyway.’ He looked at Tom suddenly. ‘And don’t get the wrong idea, boy. Because it certainly won’t be “Panin”, that name…

Because Nikolai Andrievich Panin isn’t going to defect—not in this age of the dirty world… Of all men, it won’t be Nikolai Andrievich: I don’t need Basil Cole to tell me that— that I know for myself, even if I know practically bugger-all else!’ He shook his head again, still looking at Tom. ‘If Nikolai Andrievich is scared, the only possible reason I can think of is that it’s Major-General Gennadiy Zarubin who is about to make the great leap from darkness to light, boy.’

There was a stream falling vertically down a moss-covered cliff, with white water splashing across the roadway, covering it with a detritus of twigs and dead leaves; but he had to steer through the mess, because there was a rocky waterfall on the other side, a foot away from his nearside wheels; and there was utter confusion in his mind.

‘But—’ The Cortina crunched through the barrier, with one thicker branch banging against the floor under his foot, and then scraping away behind him ‘—but… Zarubin—? ’

‘He put down your Polish Thomas Becket?’ Audley neatly avoided trying to pronounce Father Popieluszko’s name. ‘My God! That’s maybe only the half of it! What if he was also the man behind that Turkish lunatic who put a bullet into the Pope—how’s that for size as a bonus, eh?’

The last one-in-four descent brought them out into the floor of the combe, where it reached the sea itself between a steep wooded hill on its sheltered southern side ami an even steeper hillside of rocky Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State scree and bracken on the other, with a lush water-meadow between, secret and surprising,

Tom’s mouth opened, but then closed again as he concentrated on negotiating the track’s final constriction—a little bridge so narrow and scarred by previous too-close encounters with vehicles that he feared for the Cortina’s rusty wings—so that for that moment the idea of Zarubin in his wider setting, as the KGB’s religious expert, slipped away from him.

‘Phew! What a place!’ said Audley in an oddly stilted voice. ‘“The Pleasant Isle of Aves”, no less!’

‘What?’ Once over the bridge they were on a wider road, although the remains of its ancient metalling was hardly visible among its pot-holes as it led them towards a scatter of vehicles parked beside a huddle of cottages at the far end of the meadow.

‘Kipling, dear boy.’ Audley craned his neck to take in the scene.

“This isn’t quite Stalky country— Dunsterville country, I should say… But it’s tucked away well enough to qualify, eh?‘ He twisted in order to examine their line of approach. ’No coaches, and precious