A Prospect of Vengeance

admiration in assessing the worth of Buller's warning.

'Don't keep calling me 'madam', Reg, for God's sake!' She made a face at Buller.

'No, Miss Fielding-ff — '

'And don't call me that, either.' She cut him off quickly. 'If

'Jenny' is too much for you ... I'm not responsible for the absurdities of my ancestors ... so I'll settle for 'Fielding'.

Okay?' Under the soft, almost pleading tone, there was the steely ancestral Fielding-ffulke voice of command, at which generations of Bullers (and Robinsons too) had jumped to obey. 'Okay. So what have you got for us on Philip Masson and David Audley?'

'I have prepared a report, Miss Fielding.' Buller looked at Tully. 'A written report.'

'It's all right, Mr Buller.' Immaculate as ever and secure in his Winchester tie, Tully nevertheless jumped no less smartly. 'Just the salient points now.'

Jenny caught Ian's eye. 'Reg would probably like a drink, Ian.

And I certainly would. The last lot of church bells I heard, I counted to twelve.'

'No.' It wasn't just that the Robinsons no longer obeyed the Fielding-ffulkes automatically, it was also to suggest that dummy2

Buller hadn't been with him for long. 'I want to hear what Reg has to say first. Go on, Reg.'

'Right, Mr Robinson.' Buller played back to him exactly the correct note of disappointment. 'Masson was murdered —

and Audley works for the cloak-and-dagger brigade. Ours, that is.'

'But Reg ... we know all that — '

'No you don't, Miss Fielding. At least, you may know about Dr Audley — someone may have told you. But it's not written down anywhere. Officially, he's a civil servant on contract, serving on a liaison committee of some sort — no one seems to know quite what — advising various ministries on research projects. And no one knows quite what they are, either.

Right, Johnny?'

Tully nodded. 'Yes. More or less.'

'Yes. Well, I'm telling you that he works for intelligence for a fact.' Buller paused only for half a second. 'And the same goes for Masson: the rumour's all round The Street — and down Murdoch's place in Wapping — that he was murdered.

But the Police haven't said any such thing, they've been shut up tight from the top now. Believe me, I can read the signs.

So I'm just giving you what they'd be saying if they hadn't been shut up.'

'Actually, there have been quite a few rumours,' said Tully.

'There was one that he drowned — drowned himself, that is.'

'Oh yes.' Buller nodded. 'I didn't say they haven't said dummy2

anything. First off ... first off it was 'probably an ancient burial'. Because they're always digging up old bones round there, apparently. Then there was an old local story, that it might be some poor old bloke who'd lived there in the First World War, who'd gone missing in the trenches and laid low.

And then got influenza — there was a lot of that about in the village at the time. So his old woman had just buried him nice and quietly — it's miles from anywhere, on the edge of the marsh there, so she could have done that quite easily, and no one the wiser. But then it all blew up in their faces, of course.'

'They got an identification, you mean?'

Buller grinned. 'Someone blundered, that's what.'

'How d'you mean — 'blundered', Reg?' inquired Ian. 'The Police?'

'No, not the Police. Although I think there was rather more tramping around in the first hours than they'd like to admit

— 'Isolate the scene', that's Rule Number One. But then, of course, these kids dug up the body, playing about ... so they'd already made a right mess of it.' Buller shrugged. 'After that, it would have all been routine. And they'd have twigged pretty damn quickly that it really wasn't an ancient body, too

— that 'ud put 'em into gear, if they weren't in it already. Not exactly top gear, like with a fresh body, when getting quick off the mark is half the battle, often . . . but putting the forensics to work, and checking the records — B14, Missing Persons . . . Salvation Army, Alcoholics Anonymous — they dummy2

all come into it.' Another shrug. 'Bloody thousands of people missing. So it's always nice to find one.'

'Even a dead one?' Jenny frowned at him.

'Even a dead one. You ask a farmer about his missing sheep: he'd rather find one dead than one missing — leastways, if it's been long gone. At least he knows then. And maybe he can do something about it. And that's the way the Police have to think, to make the best of it.' He stared at her for a moment. ''Missing Persons' is a pretty thankless job, I tell you. And a gut-twisting one too, when you have to tell some poor middle-aged couple that their fifteen-year-old daughter

— or son now, the way things are — is probably out on the streets, earning money the easiest way.' He paused again. 'A lot of heartache in 'Missing Persons', Lady.'

Tully stirred, almost as though embarrassed by this revelation of a social conscience where no sort of