A Prospect of Vengeance

She smiled at him. But then she smiled at Ian. 'But . . . the French will wait for us, darling, I think. And David Audley obviously won't wait, will he — ?'

The sort of time-span she was thinking about would produce an indifferent book, he thought — even if it would also divvy up a hefty newspaper fee, for pre-publication of extracts, as well as a whopping advance, and a good transatlantic deal.

And, as she was always reminding him, they were only in the business of 'non-fictional ephemera', anyway.

'So do you want to go ahead — in spite of Reg?' Tully wasn't chicken: either for honest financial reasons (to keep his children in their private school, and his wife at that standard of living to which she was accustomed), or for the noble freedom-of-information, freedom-of-publication, freedom-to-dummy2

fcrtow reasons, John Tully was a fearless investigator. 'Right, Miss Fielding — Mr Robinson?'

'No.' Ian saw the ground opening up before him. What he couldn't bring himself to admit straight off (or not quite yet) was that whatever John Tully might be, Ian Robinson was no longer at heart a journalist, nor at any time a fearless one.

And, of course, they all knew that (they hadn't even bothered to ask him whether it might be anything that he'd done which had alerted someone: they knew him better than that, by heaven!).

'Yes, darling — ?' Jenny checked herself suddenly, substituting patience for enthusiasm. For a guess, she was reminding herself that she needed him just as much as he needed her — and never more so than now, when they had to work fast if they were to stay ahead of the pack. And there was the rub.

But he still couldn't admit to his fear of what the rub meant, not openly. 'We don't know who they are.'

'No, Ian. We don't.' Her patience stretched. 'But that doesn't matter. Mr Tully ... or Mr Buller . . . will take care of that.'

She smiled at him reassuringly, as to a Bear of Very Little Brain whose special skill was limited to assessing the different varieties of honey she delivered to him. 'The point is, darling, that they're there. And that means ... we really are on to something. So we've all got to get our skates on now.'

He had delayed too long. 'I'm not sure I want to get my dummy2

skates on, Jen. It's been a long time since ... I did this sort of thing. I'm a bit rusty.'

She couldn't conceal the flicker of contempt which he had hoped he wasn't going to see. 'Ian — ' Then the flicker clouded, as she remembered Beirut, and couldn't reconcile past experience with present observation ' — you're not scared, are you — ?'

Tully coughed. 'Mr Robinson hasn't been . . . out much, these last two or three years, Miss Fielding. You have rather kept him chained to his word-processor.' He drank the last of his sherry fastidiously. 'And to good effect, if I may say so.

But . . . one does get rusty, you know.'

That was surprising loyalty (or male solidarity, equally surprising), coming from John Tully, thought Ian. Or, it might just be that he, unlike everyone else, had not misunderstood the Beirut episode.

'No.' Reg Buller sidled towards the window, choosing a place where there was a slight gap between the frame and the curtain, where a sliver of light showed. 'The Lady's right.' He put his eye to the gap, without touching the curtain. 'Because he's not stupid, you see.' He turned back to them, past Tully and Jenny, and nodded to Ian. 'Welcome to the club, Mr Robinson.'

'Reg!' Jenny sounded almost accusing. 'You're not scared, are you?'

This bloke Audley . . . Dr David Audley . . .' Buller took out dummy2

his pipe from his pocket and studied it. And then thought better of lighting it again, and put it back in his pocket. 'Mr Tully's right, too: it won't have been him, that actually topped Masson — he's getting a bit long in the tooth for digging his own holes, when he needs 'em. If he needs 'em — '

' When.' Jenny emphasized the word coldly.

'We don't know that, with Masson.' Buller shook his head.

'All we've got is a bit of gossip you picked up, that you weren't meant to hear. And there's one or two people he's crossed, you can bet, who might like to fasten something on to him, Miss Fielding.'

'But you said 'when', nevertheless, Mr Buller.'

'So I did.' He studied her for a moment. 'But before I went out West that time, to the Big . . . Grand . . . Tetons, you said to me, 'Keep an open mind, Mr Buller: no matter what they say, or what they did, or why they did it ... or what it did to them . . . keep an open mind, Mr Buller', is what you said, as you put me on that Greyhound bus.'

Jenny smiled at him sweetly. 'We were economizing at the time, Mr Buller. And you still said 'when'.'

Buller gave her another long look. 'And you may have been talking to someone who's talked to someone I talked to.'

'That could be.' The sweet smile vanished. 'You tell me, Mr Buller.'

Reg Buller sighed, and touched the pocket in which his pipe lay. 'No names this time, Lady.' Then he nodded. 'All right, dummy2

then. There have been one or two times, over the years, when there's been some unpleasantness involving Mr David Audley, so they say.'

'Not 'unpleasantness', Mr Buller.' Jenny was Miss Fielding-ffulke now, with all her ancestors behind her. 'And not just

'one or two times'. David Audley has a long string of deaths behind him, so I am informed — reliably informed.' Then she weakened deliberately, as she remembered that they were