A Prospect of Vengeance

An' she's never looked back since then — eh?'

'Where's Kidlington, Mr Buller?'

'Just outside Oxford, Lady.' Buller grinned at her unsmilingly. 'It's the largest village in England, they say. So it's got its own airfield.' The unsmiling grin vanished. 'But you're right about 1978: that's the key to the door, of course.'

There was nothing very clever about that. But, if she chose not to be very clever, he must play their game. 'So what really dummy2

happened in 1978, Reg?'

Buller looked at Jenny. But Jenny was suddenly pretending to concentrate on her hair again, to their exclusion.

'Reg—?'

'All right.' Buller dismissed her, and drank more of his beer.

'There was one of their internal bust-ups . . . like the bloke who ran R & D was going, because 'e was sick ... an' 'is No. 2

'ad just died with 'is boots on, of a heart-attack — what was

'is name, Lady — ?'

'Stocker — ' The name cut through the hairpins.

'Ah! Just so . . .' Buller shrugged off the name. 'So they were all tryin' to fix things, so it came out right for 'em, an' they got the bloke they wanted to sign their expense accounts —

okay?'

Jenny half-turned away from him, as though regretting that she'd even given him a name, pretending to fight again with her hair.

'Okay.' Buller turned to Ian. 'So Audley an' all the rest of 'em wanted Jack Butler. Because, better the devil you know than the one you don't know . . . An' the one they didn't know was the Lady's bloke — Mr Philip Masson — see?'

He had already seen that much. 'So — ?'

'So Butler was their front runner. Because he was there— he knew the form.' Buller forgot to drop his aitches. Which was a sure sign that what he was saying was more important to him now than how he was saying it. 'An' Butler was a crafty dummy2

choice because he was working-class — not Eton and the Royal Marines . . . but grammar school scholarship, an'

commissioned-in-the-field, in some second-rate North Country infantry regiment in '45 ... An' 'is dad was a big trade unionist, who'd been a mate of Ernie Bevin's in the TUC in the old days, before his boy had learned to be an officer an' a gentleman — ' He swung towards Jenny ' — so you may think your bloke was the greatest thing since sliced bread, Lady . . .

But Jack Butler was a front runner while chief Petty Officer Jim Callaghan was still Prime Minister, an' running the show

— right?'

Jenny tossed her hair aside. 'Philly was the man for the job, Mr Buller.'

'Oh aye?' Reg Buller's lip curled. 'More like . . . 'Philly' was the man in the Civil Service who could fix things so Butler fell on his face — how about that then?'

Jenny held her hair up with one hand, while finishing her gin with the other. 'What do you mean by that, Mr Buller?'

'What do I mean?' Buller had consumed enough alcohol to be unafraid of her now, even apart from the fact that he appeared to be running their show at the moment, however temporarily. 'I mean we just tipped all the pieces of the jigsaw out on the table so far. An' we don't even know we got all the pieces yet. In fact, we certainly ain't got 'em all ... But that don't mean we can't try an' put the bits together that look like fitting, eh?'

'I see.' Her lips compressed. 'So you've just picked up some dummy2

dirty little rumour about Philip Masson — is that it?'

'Oh aye? An' you didn't pick up some dirty little rumour about David Audley, Lady? I thought that was what started us off. Correct me if I'm wrong, Lady — ?'

'But we've already had confirmation that it was a strong rumour going around Audley played dirty back in '78, Mr Buller. John Tully and I both picked that up, quite independently: there was going to be a big shake-up in R & D. Fred Clinton was coming up for retirement, and his deputy had already gone. And Audley was backing Jack Butler. But the Cabinet Secretary and others were backing Philip Masson.'

'Ah?' Buller emptied his beer glass and instantly stamped heavily on the floor, like a magician summoning up spirits from the underworld. 'So the smart money was on your bloke, then. But Audley's a man who likes to get 'is own way

— '

'That's precisely it, Mr Buller: Audley likes to get his own way. So Philly had an accident — and Audley got his own way, didn't he?'

Buller stared at her for a moment. Then he stamped again, more heavily than before. Then he sniffed. 'You don't think killin' someone on 'is own side ... or 'avin' 'im killed . . . you don't think that's comin' on a bit strong — even for 'im?'