A Prospect of Vengeance

yes. Because then I'd 'ave known how to do it, too —

'specially if I'd 'ad 'Dr D. L. Audley' to help me!' He stared at Jenny. 'But, then again, I'm not sure about Audley to tell the truth. Because, 'avin' 'eard a thing or two about 'im, I reckon dummy2

'e'd 'ave fixed Masson some other way, short of murder.' He cocked his head at her. 'Wasn't it you said on the phone today that 'e likes to out-smart people? That 'e gets 'is jollies that way more than any other? An' she wasn't 'is woman, after all — was she?' He shook his head finally. 'No ... if I was bettin', then I'd say the worst 'e might 'ave done is to 'ave looked the other way. An' my money would all be on Mitchell, Lady.'

Jenny looked at Ian: she had been looking at him ever since she'd got it, he realized. 'Ian — ?'

He had to face it, too. 'She was quite something, Jen.

Everyone who knew her — ' He thought of Mrs Simmonds for an instant ' — everyone who knew her as she really was . . .

she must have been quite a woman, Jen.'

'I don't mean her — ' She brushed irritably at her hair ' — I mean Mitchell, Ian.'

'Yes.' Ian had to face that, too. And with Paul Mitchell there was the matter of the empty shot-gun between them, as well as Frances Fitzgibbon. But it was Frances who made the decision easy. 'Actually, I think Mr Buller has got it wrong, Jen. It's clever . . . but he's wrong. Although . . . it's early days, of course.'

'Oh aye?' Buller frowned at him in surprise.

'Yes.' Never writing this marvellous book was bad enough.

But helping Paul Mitchell to escape was a more immediate problem. And then, quite suddenly, he saw the easy answer.

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'Or is Mitchell a saint, Reg?'

'A—?' The frown deepened.

'Only saints have the gift of bi-location, Reg: they can be in two places at once. But the rest of us can't.' Annoying Reg Buller would also help. 'Even if Mitchell wasn't saving my life this afternoon, I really don't see how he could have been killing John Tully — do you?' There was, of course, a major flaw in that dismissive argument: he didn't really know that Mitchell had been behind him, watching him, until quite late in the afternoon. But Reg Buller couldn't know that. 'I'm his alibi, Reg.'

'Oh aye?' Buller stared at him belligerently as they both faced up to John Tully's death, about which they knew next to nothing. But ... if that had also been Mitchell, then his own ethical problems multiplied hideously. But he would think about that later: it was early days — everyone seemed agreed on that.

Buller grinned suddenly. 'You could be right at that, lad—

back in'78.'

It was Ian's turn to frown. 'What?'

'Someone hired O'Leary. So someone was up to something.'

Buller dropped him, almost contemptuously, in preference for Jenny. 'So now Masson's turned up again, an' there's a great big can of worms goin' to be opened up . . . An' if you want me to try an' guess what's 'appening — Lady, I can't even begin to guess.' He made a face at her. And then dummy2

remembered his whisky chaser on the table beside him, and picked it up and downed it. 'But I tell you one thing: there'll be others as well as Mitchell tryin' to stop up the rat-holes.

An' the rats are all runnin' scared, bitin' whatever gets in their way — like us, for a start, maybe?' He looked at Jenny for a moment, and then nodded. 'So I'm runnin', too. An' not just from Dr P. L. Mitchell, neither, Lady.'

Mitchell himself had said it, thought Ian with a swirl of panic: they had raised the Devil between them! And now the Devil was after them!

Now he found himself looking at Jenny — looking, and trying not to look at her bitterly, without recrimination. Because it had been Jenny who had wanted vengeance for her beloved Philip Masson, against his own better judgement, and that had been what had started them off on this ill-judged enterprise. And from their present experience he now came upon an unpalatable truth belatedly, which his judgement and instinct hadn't been quite strong enough to formulate exactly, before it was too late—

The door opened again, without any knock, as before —

Oh God! Ian thought. Not more drinks! Not when Reg Butler's bulbous red nose seemed even larger than usual, and they needed him stone-cold sober, as never before!

The large barmaid was somewhat breathless, and she didn't smile at Buller this time. 'Call for you, Mr Buller — on the phone downstairs — okay?'

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'Thank you, love — ' Buller addressed the door as it closed again. Then he looked at them in turn. 'Well, 'the bell invites me', as the bard says — eh?'

That was Reg Buller to the life, thought Ian: all those dropped 'aitches', and half-genuine, half-false common speech. But Reg Buller had always been more than he seemed to be. So now, when Jenny had started them off with Macbeth, Reg Buller was quoting Macbeth back to them: he either knew it from old, or he'd looked it up after Jenny had quoted it at him. And now he'd quoted it back at them, when it was too-damn close to the bone for comfort.

'Wait!' Jenny surfaced first: Jenny was never better than in danger. 'If we're running, Mr Buller — Reg — ?' She half-looked at Ian, as though to remind him that even Paul Mitchell had wanted them to run.

That was their old technique: one picked up the unasked question from the other. 'Where are we going, Reg?' He moved slightly, so as to block Buller's passage towards the door. 'We're running . . . where?'