the meantime — ?'
'I think the traffic-lights have broken down.' She shook her head helplessly at him. 'But ... the spade, David — ?'
'Ah! That was the start of it, yes.' He could see Mitchell dummy1
nodding at Richardson through the rear-window of the Porsche. 'What I think is, one of Lukianov's pals — or his men, rather — ran out of road one day, purely by accident.
Because some of those little back-roads are tricky, believe me ... But he'd maybe been making a delivery. And he was hurt, but he didn't want to hang around.' He turned back to her. 'He shouldn't have had his spade with him, that's for sure. But he did have it. And he was sufficiently knocked-about to forget it. And then he remembered too late.
Because the police were there. And Peter Richardson.'
The car jerked forward this time, reminding Audley of Mitchell at Naples. But then it stopped again. 'Wasn't that a remarkable coincidence, Dr Audley?'
'If you like to call it that.' She had been taught to mistrust coincidences. 'I'd prefer to call it carelessness, plus accident, plus bad luck. Richardson was visiting one of his girlfriends, at Pen-y-ffin, just up the valley, on the way back from one of his trips to Hereford. Coincidence or not, that's what happened.' But that, of course, had been the whole point: they had been taught the same thing — the Russians too.
'When they sent someone back, the police were there. And so was Richardson. And once they'd picked up his name — or maybe even someone identified him, for all I know . . .
Because they'd sure as hell be on the look-out for anyone who wasn't local, sniffing around the Maerdy area: you can be damn sure of that, anyway . . . But, when they picked up his name or his face they'd have checked up, one way or dummy1
another . . . then they'd ask exactly the same questions, Miss Franklin: 'who's this Major Richardson?'. And then they'd start to wonder about coincidences, too. Just like you.'
They were up to the far side of the bridge at last, and the cause of the confusion was instantly apparent.
'How's that for coincidence?' He craned his neck to emphasize what she could hardly miss. The traffic-lights had failed, and there were two angry drivers blaming each other for their recent collision, while a rain-soaked policeman attempted to sort out the doubled traffic jam.
'You were right about the lights. So what does that make this? It looks more like carelessness, plus bad luck and accident to me.'
'Yes . . .' But for a moment she was more concerned to remain behind the Porsche '. . . maybe.'
'No 'maybe' about it after that. They'd have had Peter Richardson on file. And me with him — because, we were at the sharp end in Italy the year before, Mary. And they certainly knew all about me. So when Lukianov decided to use his special knowledge, we were part of all the information which had to be erased from the record, just in case. Along with everything else from this other little episode.'
'Erased — ?' Mitchell was accelerating. But there looked like another related traffic jam ahead. 'But ... if they thought Richardson was on to them — ' She slammed her brakes on, slithering to within an inch of Mitchell's pride-and-joy ' —
dummy1
sorry! But... his accident, what about that?' She shook her head at him. 'Why didn't they kill him?'
'Maybe they bodged it. Or 'Murphy' did ... Or maybe they were smart.'
'Smart?'
'They weren't sure about him. He'd resigned from R and D . . . And they'd got their little spade back. And killing him wouldn't have seemed so 'accidental', they might have reckoned — not if he was still working for us ... It all depends how much they'd got in their dump, too: if they'd only just started they might have been able to re-locate. And then all they really needed was a little time — just to slow him up, and take his mind off his work.' He nodded, as much to himself as to her. 'Because that's what they damn-well did, anyway: they took his mind off everything, Mary, is the way it looks.' The second traffic jam was moving again. 'The proof of the pudding is always in the eating, don't you think?'
'Until now.' She put her foot down. 'But I still don't see why Lukianov was so worried about you and Richardson —
after he'd removed you from the record.'
'Yes. But now we're talking about Lukianov. And the other two . . . And that's quite different.' They were almost free now, on the approach to a big new roundabout. 'I don't know . . . It's possible that Lukianov wanted to get rid of his partners, as well as Peter and me. And that would have dummy1
been a neat way of doing it. Or he may have been afraid that there was
