A Prospect of Vengeance

Wisely (although she didn't give him time, anyway) Ian didn't try to answer, as she twisted away again, and dropped down gracefully into the rocks below the monument, leaving the echo of his name on her bullet in the silence.

'Yes . . . well, I don't really need to enlarge on that — do I?'

Audley watched her go, and then turned back to them with the vestiges of his smile still in place, but with a mixture of pride and contempt edging it. 'But, then, perhaps I am indebted to you both — for teaching her a lesson about the Great British Press, to go with 'Don't talk to strangers'?'

Now it was war to the knife! thought Jenny. 'We're not the Great British Press, Dr Audley. We're just . . . us, actually.'

''Us'?' Looking at her (rather than at Ian), his expression twisted. And the bugger of it was that she knew that look, having seen it on other men similarly caught between suspicion and desire; but she had not felt about them as she felt about him — and she must stop feeling like that, right now!

'We're in trouble, Dr Audley.' Self-preservation came to her rescue, adding tactics to inclination. 'We need your help.'

'My . . . help . . . ?' His confusion helped her. 'But. . . I thought I was the one who was supposed to be in trouble. Aren't you dummy2

supposed to be investigating me, Miss Fielding-ffulke?'

''Fielding' — ' Everyone who wanted to shit on her waved that ridiculous name in her face ' — just 'Fielding', please, Dr Audley.'

'No 'ffulke'?' He cocked an eyebrow at her. 'But that's a fine old name, Miss Fielding-ffulke: Rudyard Kipling chose it in Puck of Pook's Hill — which is one of our favourite books,

'ffulke' — Fulke ... he was the double-agent — the traitor. He was the one whom the Lord of Pevensey 'turned round' to save England from Robert of Normandy, Miss — Fielding- ffulke.' The eyebrow lowered. 'So ... whose side are you on now?'

Ian loomed up at her side — like the old Ian, at need: like the older Ian, when they'd worked together. 'Didn't your telephone-caller of last night tell you all about us, Dr Audley?' Ian-like, he didn't try to give a smart answer to a silly question.

'He did — yes.' No expression for Ian. 'He said you were investigating me. And he didn't suggest that I should be flattered, either.'

'We're only trying to find out the truth about Philip Masson's death, Dr Audley.'

'Only the truth? Well-well!' Audley sneered at the word, just as Mitchell had done before him. 'I wish you the worst of luck then, Mr Robinson.'

'You don't fancy the truth?' Against Audley's sudden dummy2

unpleasantness and the sense and the thrust of his own question, Ian was as respectful as a curate with a bishop nevertheless.

'My dear fellow! I've spent two-thirds of my life looking for the truth. But only in relation to other people, of course —

just like you. The truth about myself... and my many wicked deeds ... is quite another matter.' Cutting his losses, Audley became pleasant again. 'But you must forgive my bad temper

— or make allowances for it, anyway. Because I am on holiday. And with my family — ' He raised a big blunt- fingered hand ' — and yes — I do realize that Dr Goebbels and many other villains — probably Attila the Hun, too —

were good family men, who loved their children, and their wives, and also went on holiday ... I realize that, Mr Robinson!' He smiled a terribly ugly smile, not at all sweetly, in spite of his best efforts. 'But . . . would you like all your little secrets dragged into the harsh light of day? Or of print

— in some book, or some yellow tabloid rag?'

'No.' Ian shook his head, still curate-respectful. 'Especially if they involved the death — or the murder — of another human being, Dr Audley . . . No — I certainly wouldn't like that.'

'I didn't mean that, Mr Robinson. I meant exactly what I said.' Audley twisted slightly, peering down beside the monument where there was a gap in the rocks, as though to make sure that his wife and daughter were not within earshot. 'As it happens I have been 'involved', as you put it dummy2

so delicately, in the death of a number of human beings over the years. Since before you were born, in fact, Mr Robinson.'

The sneer was back. 'I started young, when I didn't know any better, with anonymous Germans in Normandy, saying

'shoot' to my gunner — second-hand work even then, you might say.'

He was that old! thought Jenny. But of course he was, and Cathy Audley had said as much; and even Philly himself had been killing Chinese — anonymous Chinese in Korea only a hand's-breadth of years after Audley's war; and Audley hardly looked older than Philly had done, that last time, when he'd turned up out of the blue at the end of her Finals

— Philly! Oh Philly!

'Ian — Mr Robinson — isn't talking about ancient history, Dr Audley,' she said sharply.

'Neither am I, Miss Fielding.' Audley almost sounded hurt by her sharpness. 'But ... old men have a habit of remembering the wounds they had on Crispin's day.' He shrugged. 'As it also happens ... I had no hand in your godfather's death, for what it's worth — ' He raised his hand as her mouth opened '

— oh yes: I know all about him . . . And by 'all' I do mean all, Miss Fielding. Because I investigated him, once upon a time . . . Or, rather, twice upon a time: first,