The Memory Trap

''Was'? Or 'is'?' Richardson looked at Sophie quickly.

'Should she be hearing all this?'

Good question! 'You've put her in the middle of it.'

'No I haven't. Go and look at my bolognese, Sophie.'

'No. What's 'Spets . . . naz', David?' She folded her arms obstinately.

Sophie! thought Audley suddenly. 'They're the Russian version of our SAS.'

'And none of your business.' Richardson turned back to Audley. 'I've never heard of any of them. I never had anything to do with computers — ours or theirs. Or with anything that was going on over there, come to that. Christ!

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You should know — you must have been through my record enough times now! I never did anything — not as a principal operator, anyway — anything that amounted to a row of beans . . . anything that wasn't straightforward, and signed and sealed and closed, for God's sake!' He half directed the complaint at Sophie. 'Professionally speaking, I was still wet behind the ears — still training and learning. So there was always someone there to hold my hand, more or less.' Then he turned fully to her. 'And, I told you . . . what I learned wasn't always to my liking, as it turned out. And when Fred Clinton told me what he was really grooming me for — ' He shook his head at her ' — that just wasn't for me, I had to tell him. So that was when we agreed to cut our losses.' He swung back to Audley. 'Never heard of any of them. But I take your point, David —'

'What point?' Sophie refused to be dismissed. 'What do you mean?'

'It doesn't matter — to you, my darling. David —'

'He means that if someone wants him dead then it's because he knows something. So all we have to do is to run his memory back until we find it.' Audley smiled at her, and was almost certain — even though he no longer felt like smiling.

'And he's just volunteered to help me. Correct, Peter?'

'If I must.' Richardson half shrugged, and then made a comic face at Sophie. 'The sooner I get out of your hair, the better, Mrs Kenyon. Now that I've become so popular all of a sudden.'

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'Don't joke —'

'I'm not joking. Being so popular is no fun. Neither is being recalled to the colours, come to that. But David here will look after me — he'll keep tight hold of my hand, you can be sure of that! Won't you, David?'

And being so clever, but not clever enough, was no fun either, thought Audley grimly to himself. But he had to play Richardson's game now, as a penance for that. 'Yes. You are worth more alive than dead at this moment — just like me, Peter.' But he owed something to her, all the same. 'And of course . . . once we've got the answer between us, then we won't be in danger anymore, Mrs Kenyon — Sophie. It's really as simple as that.'

Richardson nodded in support. 'As simple as that! Shall I pack my bags now? 'Waste not an hour' — Horatio Nelson?

Or, in your case, David . . . 'Fill the unforgiving minute' —

Joseph Rudyard Kipling?' He stood up to suit his words, bringing the dog to its feet with him. 'No — not you, Buster!'

'David's staying the night,' said Sophie.

'Is he?' Richardson looked down at Audley. 'Is that wise?'

Then he acknowledged Sophie. 'Well, we'll have supper first.

And then we'll see, eh? So ... if you'll attend to my over-cooked bolognese, David and I will start unravelling old times — okay?'

Audley watched the man watch his woman obey him. Then waited for the dark eyes to come back to him.

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'Go with your mistress, Buster!' Richardson pushed at the animal's hind quarters. 'Because, if you break wind like that again, I swear I'll kill you ... O-U-T!' He thrust the dog out of the room. ''Out' and 'run', are words he understands. But being just a rescued stray, like me, he hasn't learnt 'kill' yet, evidently . . . Would you like another top-up, David?

Courtesy of Richard Dalingridge's duty-free allowance.'

'No. Thank you.' The man was too laid-back. Of course, he had always had style, in the old days: good school, plus Sandhurst and university, multiplied by that deceptively generous allowance from his doting (and doted-on) Italian mother. But those small injections of anger at his situation hadn't really carried conviction. 'You got in easily, did you?'

'No problem.' Richard topped up his own glass. 'Now, tell me more about this Russian triumvirate of yours. Why am I supposed to have known them? When I know that I may come up with an idea or two — you never know. Then we can get going.'

Not just too laid-back, but too unfrightened also.

'Kulik, Prusakov and . . . who was it? The Spetsnaz fellow?

Lukianov — yes!' Richardson swilled the whisky round in his glass without drinking it. 'Sounds like 'Caesar, Pompey and Crassus' . . . and, as there's only one left now, you indicated, that makes Lukianov the Caesar of the three. Right?'

And, finally, too helpful, and altogether too willing. After having been so interested to meet him in the first place, and so concerned to be found so quickly and easily after that.

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It was humiliating, really. He had made a picture of Richardson, and on the record it would look as though he'd been exactly right in his prediction, and very clever as usual with it, whatever the outcome. But he hadn't been right at all.