The Memory Trap

'Handsome fellow.' Richardson smoothed the print, holding it with both hands against its envelope. Typical Spetsnaz.'

'Yes?' Mary Franklin exchanged a glance with Mitchell.

'Yes. Anglo-Saxon type ... or, presumably, Scandinavian or Germanic, from the north-west. Could be one of ours, from much the same stock, way back ... the same as I can pass for a foreigner, coming home.' He held Lukianov at arm's length.

'Yes ... a much-favoured type for missions in the west, eh David?' He offered the picture to Audley. 'You've seen this?'

'Do you remember him, Major?' Mary intercepted the picture.

'No. But, then, I didn't expect to.' Richardson let go of it. 'It doesn't change anything.'

Mitchell sniffed. 'I didn't know you were a Spetsnaz expert.'

'No?' Richardson enjoyed Mitchell's not-knowing. 'Not in my dummy1

file, eh?'

'Not in your file, no.' But Mitchell had recovered his poise.

'Are you?'

'Not really. But I did do a bit of private study on them while I still had clearance — in the Barnet House records, as well as our own — like David's profile of General Kharchenko, from the late sixties . . .' Richardson smiled suddenly. 'It was when I started to plan for my SAS-transfer later on, Spetsnaz and the SAS being mirror-image organizations, in some respects

— ' The smile became lop-sided ' — except they are about a hundred-times bigger . . . But Kharchenko was a great SAS-admirer — ask David.' Then the smile vanished again. 'I just thought if I had a bit of inside-knowledge about them —

Spetsnaz ... it might have increased my suitability, that's all, Dr Mitchell. Because I was a bit long-in-the-tooth for a transfer, maybe. But I didn't much fancy regimental duty —

Salisbury Plain, Ireland, Germany . . . Salisbury Plain, Germany, Ireland. My time with Research and Development had spoilt my taste for playing that sort of soldier, what was left of it originally. Okay?' He took in Mitchell and Mary Franklin together again. 'Does that answer your question?'

Then he nodded at Mary Franklin's handbag. 'Typical Spetsnaz, as I said. Turn his clock back fifteen years and you've got another of those clean-cut Russian boys in Afghanistan I've been seeing on Italian newsreels, is what I mean. Only he would have worn his hair longer. And no one from here to Hereford would have given him a second dummy1

glance . . . except maybe the girls.'

Neither Mitchell nor Mary Franklin looked at each other this time.

'Okay.' Richardson accepted their silence. 'So I've come clean on Spetsnaz. And I heard David on the 'phone to you last night, Dr Mitchell. So what have you got for me, then?'

Mitchell didn't fancy that final arrogant 'me' any more than he fancied the man himself. And it was more than a simple chalk-and-cheese, like-but-unlike, post-Capri reaction, Audley realized. More simply still, because of his own past and background Mitchell disliked the sum of Peter Richardson, everything he stood for and everything about him, from his distinguished good-looks to the way in which he'd twice abandoned his military career (never mind an equally promising one in intelligence) when it didn't please him sufficiently: that last, for Paul Mitchell, would be a betrayal beside which the man's retirement activities were a mere aberration.

'For you?' Mitchell's lip twisted with distaste.

'For me.' Audley pushed the words between them before Mitchell's irritation got the better of him. 'Have you traced the policeman?'

'Yes.'

'Yes.' Richardson wasn't interested in Mitchell's likes and dislikes. 'Well, seeing as I supplied his name that can't have taxed you much.' He lifted his head slightly. 'He'd be retired dummy1

by now, of course — eh?'

Mitchell ignored him. 'Yes. We've traced the policeman, David.'

'He wouldn't be dead, by any chance?' Richardson refused to be ignored.

'He lives with his widowed sister in a village near Hereford, David,' said Mitchell pointedly. 'We have arranged for you to talk to him this morning.'

Richardson leaned forward. 'Did you talk to him, Dr Mitchell

— last night?'

'Yes, Major.' Mitchell bowed to the urgency in Richardson's voice. 'We got him out of his bed at midnight. And we talked to him.'

'Did you ask him about the spade?'

Mitchell looked at his watch. 'We've got a good half-an-hour's drive, David. Shall we go?'

' Did you ask him about the spade?' Richardson refused to be gainsaid.

Audley nodded to Mitchell.

Mitchell stared at him for a moment, then turned to Richardson again. 'Yes, Major Richardson — we asked him about the spade.'