A Prospect of Vengeance

'Meaning . . . you won't ever be able to turn this into one of your lovely bits of dialogue, Ian lad — like with that Yank we found up in those mountains — remember?'

'Why not, Mr Buller?' Jenny was less hampered by any imperishable memories of the Grand Tetons in Wyoming, never mind the horrors of Vietnam.

'Because my eye-witness is dead and buried. So I never got to dummy2

talk to — '

' What?' Ian gulped air.

'Hold on, lad!' Buller cut him short. 'At ninety-one years old she has a perfect right to be dead — and decently buried, too!

You don't need to blame me: it was pneumonia, after she broke her hip getting out of bed, an' fell over, see? An'. . . she was always gettin' up — they never could stop the old girl, that's what her daughter said . . . An' the daughter's nearer seventy now, than sixty . . . But she heard all the commotion, the old woman did, so she got out of 'er bed an' went to look

— see?'

The repetition of see? was maddening. 'You're saying, Reg ...

a ninety-one-year-old woman . . . saw Mitchell shoot O'Leary? At Thornervaulx — ?'

'She wasn't ninety-one then. She was . . . what's ninety-one minus eight?'

'Eighty-three.' Jenny answered automatically, before she could stop herself. 'You're pissing us around again, Mr Buller. And in our time.' She was beginning to get angry again. 'She was . . . bed-ridden. But she was an eye- witness.

And . . . now she's dead?'

'That's right — you got it, Lady.' No one could shrug off Jenny better than Reg Buller. But, then, no one but Reg Buller dared to shrug her off.

'Got what, Mr Buller?'

Buller half-grunted, half-sighed. 'Got the whole thing. The dummy2

story of your life an' mine — how we make a crust, an'

something to drink with it, between us. Like ... no matter 'ow clever they are, or 'ow careful . . . there's always somethin'

that they ' ave thought of. But it still scuppers 'em — see?'

Ian didn't see. And he knew that Jenny couldn't see, either.

But, in the next instant, he knew exactly what Reg Buller meant, all the same — in general as well as at Thornervaulx, on November 11, 1978: Sod's Law was out there, waiting for everyone.

'You've been to Thornervaulx?' When Jenny remained silent Reg simply nodded at her. 'A lot of old ruins, that Henry VIII knocked about a bit? Chucked out the old monks —

privatized the abbey, an' pinched all their savings . . . An' now they charge you a dollar to see what's left, all neat an' tidy.

An' half-a-dollar for the guide-book — right?'

Jenny wasn't meant to interrupt, and she didn't.

'You go up the steps, an' the path, from the car-park, by the road — by the 'Thor Brook', the little river there — when you've paid your money, an' got your ticket... an' you never notice the cottages there, on the other side of the path, alongside the ruins.' Pause. 'Farm-labourers' cottages, they are — God knows how old . . . They're all listed as 'historic buildings', because they're built with the stones from the old abbey, anyway. But no one notices 'em.'

There was a picture forming in Ian's head.

'So they were all there, that day.' Buller warmed to his own dummy2

story. 'It was pissing down with rain — it was a Saturday, an'

it was in November, an' it was pissin' down with rain. An'

then the cars started to arrive.' Pause. 'An' then they started to arrive — first Butler and Mitchell, an' Audley — Dr David Audley . . . an' some more.' Pause. 'An' the woman — 'er too, eventually.'

Ian opened his mouth, but then shut it tightly.

'An', of course, old 'Mad Dog' was there too, somewhere . . .

Up on the hillside, in the bracken an' the trees — good cover there.' Pause. 'So he was there, too.' Pause. 'An' then a police car comes along, over the bridge — soundin' 'is siren, the silly bugger, just to show off.' Pause. They will do it, 'owever much you tell 'em not to, when there's no need — silly bugger!'

'Why was Audley there?' The question burst out of Jenny as though she couldn't contain it.

'God knows.' Buller seemed to dismiss the question. 'It was Butler who was in charge. My bloke that I talked to first didn't know anything about Audley. Or about Mitchell, either . . . Never even got their names.' Pause. 'Good descriptions, though. An' from the old lady too, second hand . . . Bloody shame, that. But even second hand, she was good, though.' Pause. ''The bloke' in charge wore a deerstalker hat, an' carried a golfing umbrella, an' 'e 'ad freckles an' a red face' — how's that, then, for memory?'

Buller grinned. 'When it comes to mindin' other people's business, an' peering through the curtain, an' seein' strangers dummy2