A Prospect of Vengeance

O'Leary versus Audley — that's simple. But Audley versus Masson . . . that's bloody complicated, I tell you.'

Suddenly there was no contest, no choice: always, and forever, doing the easy thing — dating the girl who'd say 'yes', in preference for the other girl, who'd already said 'no' — was never worth doing. 'Was Masson involved in the O'Leary killing?'

Buller shook his head. 'God only knows.' Then he looked at Ian sidelong. 'Old Johnny'll maybe answer that, when he comes in out of the cold. Because when that bomb went off, an' killed those ducks on the duck-pond ... he was just a dummy2

senior civil servant, Masson was. An' then, three days for O'Leary, an' a week for Masson . . . an' then they've got something in common, see?'

Then they were both dead, Ian saw. (But that had not been apparent at the time, except by eventual inquest verdict long afterwards. But that, also, was what had started all this now.) He cast around for further objections, taking his accustomed role with Jenny, of Devil's advocate. 'In common with the girl

— ' He fished for the elusive name in his memory, from the follow-up newspaper reports ' — Sandra — ? Marilyn — ?'

'Marilyn.' Buller set his empty glass down on the table. Then he looked up, directly and disconcertingly at Ian, challenging him. 'You know why I started with Thornervaulx — an' the bomb that killed the ducks — ?'

No ducking that challenge. 'The timing.' They both knew the rules. 'We have to start somewhere.'

The challenge remained in place, like a gauntlet thrown down which he somehow hadn't noticed. 'The bloke I talked to first, about Audley — he said 'Look for anything that doesn't quite fit — anything that's somehow out of the ordinary, an' doesn't quite have an easy answer . . . An' then take another look at that ... if it's Audley you're after. Because he doesn't fit, either.''

The challenge was still there. 'How . . . doesn't Audley fit — at Thornervaulx?'

The corner of Buller's mouth twisted. 'Thornervaulx doesn't dummy2

fit — in the bloody back of beyond.'

'But he was there.'

'Aye. And one or two others with him, that Terry remembers.'

The mouth tightened. 'And Marilyn.'

Now the poor girl herself was a challenge. 'Marilyn — ?'

' 'Marilyn Francis' — 'shorthand typist'.' Buller nodded.

'Little slip of a girl — Terry actually saw her, stretched out like a little drowned rat, when they put her in the ambulance.' Another nod. That was just when they twigged who he was — an' bloody-near thumped 'im, one of 'em did ...

an' then they tried to arrest him, before the top brass came up an' threw him out.'

Ian waited.

''Marilyn Francis'.' Buller repeated the name.

Ian waited.

There's no such person,' said Reg Buller.

4

Ian felt pleased with himself as he left the churchyard: pleased, first and foremost, because he was not being tailed (if he ever had been); but pleased, second and professionally, because it was just like old times, with the wind in his hair and the rain on his face; and he hadn't lost all his own skills, when it came to the crunch (or, anyway, it wasn't only Jenny dummy2

who was lucky as well as smart!).

Although, to be honest with himself (and he could afford to be honest now, with all the hot-bath luxury of certainty), he had to give Reg Buller his due: Reg had not only zeroed-in on

'Marilyn Francis', but had added hard investigative graft and shoe-leather to his intuition to come up with British-American Electronics.

Odd though (he thought) that it had been British-American's

'Research and Development' centre, of all its factories, which had recruited 'Marilyn Francis' as a temporary secretary all those years ago, out of nowhere: odd ... or maybe not so odd now — ?

Not so odd. And not out of nowhere — or, not quite nowhere, even after Reg had tracked down the agency which answered Brit-Am's Rickmansworth factory's temporary needs (Reg passing himself off as the pushy manager of another agency, offering his own 'well-qualified young secretarial persons —

we are registered with your local job-centre as a non-sexist, non-racial enterprise' — at competitive rates; and then Reg, having gleaned the name of Brit-Am's favoured agency, suborning its personnel clerk somehow to let him look at her records . . .).

That had been a dead end, in more ways than one: if she had ever lived (which she hadn't), 'Marilyn Francis' would have dummy2