A Prospect of Vengeance

— the one who spoke English? They were here all yesterday, but they were 'doing' the English side of the battle, and that ridge over there — ' he pointed. 'So today they were going to do the French side. And the French were up there — ' The pointing finger was redirected towards the Greater Arapile '

— and that's where Audley is. But I wish I knew why.'

'Why . . . what?' If he'd wanted to make her feel even more stupid, he was succeeding.

He sighed. 'Why is he studying the battle of Salamanca?'

She mustn't lose her temper. 'Does it matter? He's supposed to be a historian. Don't historians study battlefields?'

'But he's a medievalist. The Peninsular War just isn't his dummy2

period.'

She mustn't lose her temper. 'I expect he'll tell us why, darling, if we ask him nicely.' But now he wasn't even looking at her again, damn it — and damn him! ' I'll ask about Philip Masson, darling. And you can ask about the battle of Salamanca . . . and Mrs Fitzgibbon too, if you like — '

He looked at her then, even as she was already regretting what she'd just said. And the way he'd looked at her made her regret the unnecessary words even more, however much he'd asked for them. 'I'm sorry, Ian — '

'Don't be sorry, Jenny dear. I shall only ask him one question about Frances Fitzgibbon. And I think I already know the answer to it.' He shook his head slowly. 'But it's of no importance to you, I agree. So shall we go, then?'

The hateful corn-stubble ended eventually, but with a deep drainage-ditch (as though it ever rained in this parched landscape!). And Ian leapt the ditch and went on again without a backward glance, leaving her to take the longer route beside it to the track, while he struck off on his own —

Hateful, hateful Ian! It isn't as though I haven't prayed that you'd meet some nice girl at one of your Christian Fellowship meetings, rather than making hopeless sheep's eyes at me! But now you have to go and fall for some crazy dead woman who wouldn't have given you a second look in dummy2

life — a bloody ghost-woman! And now she's going to be the death of our partnership. Because I'm not going to play second-fiddle to any bloody ghost-woman for evermore —

damn you, Ian Robinson! And damn you, Frances Fitzgibbon, too!

She reached the dusty track at last, sweating like a horse and with her hair coming down. And she reached it ahead of him, because he had stopped for another of those exclusive binocular-sweeps of his.

What was he thinking about? Was he 'doing' his battlefield, like David Audley — imagining himself a poor sweating redcoat advancing towards the great unclimbable rocky prow of the headland with French cannon-balls whistling past his ears? Or was he back, not in 1812, but in 1978, with his ghost- woman — his ghost-woman who had been Paul Mitchell's real woman — ? Was he practising his question —

the question to which he already knew the answer?

She walked up the track to intercept him, forcing herself to recover her breath, and some shreds of dignity and self-respect.

It was the daughter, not the wife, she could see now: a tall blonde child mooching up and down the furrows of a newly ploughed field on the edge of the fallen scree from the dummy2

Greater Arapile plateau, head down and intent on the red earth at her feet, as though she was looking for something she'd lost.

She had been foolish. Ian Robinson no longer mattered, any more than Frances Fitzgibbon had ever mattered (let alone Ian Robinson's question about Frances Fitzgibbon). And Paul Mitchell didn't matter. And even David Audley didn't really matter — even he was only a means to an end. It was only Philly, dear beloved Philly, who had always been there when she needed him — always there until some bastard had decided otherwise! And now some bastard was going to pay — that was all that mattered now —

She had a plan.

And she even had time to put back her hair. And it even went back easily.

'I want to talk to the child first, darling. Okay?'

The new Ian frowned at the old Jenny. 'What about Audley?'

Maybe she had done him an injustice. But now wasn't the time to think about injustice and Ian Robinson: this was justice-time and Philly-time now. 'Audley's not going to go away. Not while I'm talking to his daughter.'

'No . . .' Even the new Ian couldn't argue with that. But the new Ian didn't like being thwarted. 'But what's the use of talking to her?'

dummy2

'It's what I want to do.' The old Jenny frankly didn't give a damn. 'You wanted to 'do' the battlefield of Salamanca, darling. So I want to 'do' David Audley's daughter.' She could even smile at him now. 'We're still partners, aren't we?'

'Yes — of course — ' he stopped suddenly. 'If you want to ...

okay, then.'

So now you know, too! thought Jenny. And it was strangely like that first moment of falling-out-of-love, when what one already suspected in oneself was confirmed by the sudden doubt in the no-