A Prospect of Vengeance

'I don't agree.' She savoured her wine, as though she was thinking of Daddy again. 'Zarubin was just an effing-Cossack, by all accounts — not one of dear Mr Gorbachev's blue-eyed boys. Which presumably explains all the friendly co-operation.' Then she was looking at him, and she very definitely wasn't thinking of Daddy. 'I don't say that isn't interesting. And maybe we'll find a place for it eventually.

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Because once we start turning over stones then I expect all sorts of creepy-crawlies will start emerging and running for cover — that's the beauty of it. Because Audley goes back a long way. Long before poor Philip Masson. So God only knows what we'll turn up.'

Now it was poor Philip Masson. And just now it had been

'Philly'. But that could wait. 'And yet no one's ever heard of him, Jen.'

'Of Audley?' She shook her head. 'That's not quite true. In fact, it's entirely untrue: lots of people have heard of him.

Lots of people know him, actually . . . and he seems to know a lot of people, putting it the other way round. They just don't know what he does, exactly.'

'But you think you do know?'

'No — not yet. But . . . it's like, he's often in the background of things, so far as I can make out so far. Like, with a collection of people in group photographs, when you keep seeing the same face somewhere in the back . . . Or, you're not quite sure, because he's always the one who's partly obscured by someone else — or he's moved just as the photographer pressed the button, so he's blurred.' She shrugged. 'Like Reg said, he gives advice to people — to committees, and suchlike. But his name never appears.'

'That isn't so, according to John Tully. He's listed in quite a few places — in Who's Who, for a start. With a CBE in the early 1970s. And an honorary fellowship at King Richard's.'

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'Oh yes.' She wasn't put off in the least. 'But it's all so vague

— isn't it? An 'assistant-principal' here, in one place —

Home Office, was it? Then a transfer to the Ministry of Defence. And writing those books . . . But, darling, it's all got nothing to do with what he really does, of course — it's all flumdiddle. Dear old Reg said it all, didn't he? 'Cloak-and-dagger', is what he is. Only this time it was more like 'dagger-and-cloak', maybe.'

'Reg also said 'research'.' There was something in her voice he hadn't heard before, and couldn't pin down now; almost a hint of underlying passion, of malevolence even. All he knew was that he had to argue against it. ''Advice and research', was it? And the man must be close to retirement, damn it, Jen!' But that hadn't been all Reg had said, he remembered.

And that weakened his resistance to her will. 'If they retire in his line of work.'

'Yes. And that's interesting too.' Her voice was back to normal: maybe he had imagined that hint of genuine feeling under the twenty-four-hour insatiable curiosity which powered her normally, without commitment to any cause other than the truth. 'And particularly interesting to you, as it happens, Ian.'

'To me?' What he was going to get now was one of the arguments she had intended to use in support of the Scotch beef and the Chateau Haut-Brion (which she had surely known for what it was), in the event of his welshing on the deal.

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'Uh-huh.' She gestured towards the Haut-Brion. 'I think I may have some idea of what he does, actually.'

This was that source of hers again: a source she would never mention even as a source, unlike Reg Buller's vague 'There's a bloke I know, in The Street/in the Met/ down the nick/

down the pub/in the business', or John Tully's notated references to 'Contact AB' and 'Contact XY' in his reports, whose identities would all be in a little black book somewhere.

'Go on, darling — don't mind me. I've had more than my share.'

'So you have.' So she had. And if she'd been his, and he'd been hers, he might worry about that; though, as they never would be (which was the old familiar spear in his heart, twisting but never killing), and as she never seemed to change, no matter how much she'd drunk, except that she burned more brightly still, he had no right to worry.

'I've got more — I bought a whole case, darling. And the little man gave me what he called a 'case-price', so our bottle was absolutely free — '

'Jenny! For heaven's sake — !' He had to move, to block her passage towards her Aladdin's cave. 'Just sit down, and tell me about Audley, there's a good girl — sit down!'

As he restrained her he thought . . . and that's another thing: when it comes to money, she's got no bloody idea! 'Just tell me — eh?'

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She sat down. 'Oh . . . you are a bore, sometimes . . . Don't you ever let your hair down — ?' To match the words, she tried ineffectually to recover some of the hair which was coming down all around her face.

He waited until she had done the best she could. 'Audley?'

'Yes — all right!' She abandoned the pushing-and-poking process. There was this man Daddy knew, who was just incredibly high-powered ... I mean, Daddy is high- powered

— he is like God — ' She saw his face, and tried to rescue herself from the blasphemy ' — I mean, he's kind, even though he knows everything . . .' She trailed off, grimacing at him.

That was half her trouble — or maybe all of it: no one could compete against such opposition. And that was also his problem, too. But not just at this moment. 'I don't think I'm quite with you, Jen. This man ... he was Audley?'

'Good God, no! He was an acquaintance of Daddy's, I'm trying to tell you. He's dead now — but quite naturally, I think.'