'They're back in place now, getting nicely soaked. So you'll have to go out again later on, with your lady and my Mr Tully to draw 'em off.' Buller nodded into his silence. 'Which the three of you all together certainly will, goin' out all together
— no! For fuck's sake don't go and have a look —! ' Buller slid sideways, to block his path. 'Let's be nice and innocent for as long as we can, eh?'
Questions crowded Ian's mind. 'What made you . . .
suspicious?' It was an inadequate word, knowing Buller. But it was suitably vague.
'Huh!' Short of another beer, Buller produced an immense gunmetal lighter with which to set fire to the foul mixture in his pipe, which surely resisted conventional combustion methods. 'As soon as Mr Tully mentioned Masson's name, I thought "Aye-aye! Watch yourself, Reg!"'
'Why?' Ian remembered what Tully had said the first time he'd mentioned Reginald Buller's name: that, whatever you do, wherever you wanted to go, Buller was halfway there before you started towards it.
'I never did rate that much — a senior civil servant lost at sea: dummy2
"what a terrible tragedy!" ... I never rated that, not even at the time.' Buller shook his head. 'I thought . . . here we go again, I thought — ' A foul smoke-screen enveloped him momentarily, so that he had to wave his hand to disperse it '
— I thought aye-aye!'
'But there was nothing ever known against Philip Masson, Reg.'
'Nor there was. And that was what I thought next — quite right, when that was all there was.' This time, a nod of agreement. 'But when he turned up again ... an' miles from the sea, an' dry as a bone — ' From shake, through nod, to shake again ' — what sort of tragedy was that, then?'
That had been what Jenny had wanted to know. Or, anyway, it had been the beginning of what she had wanted to know.
'You tell me, Reg — ?'
'Hmm . . .' Somehow they had progressed out of the dining room and past the study door (and Reginald Buller would have examined all the 'Work in progress' there, too, for a certain guess), into the living room again; but Reg was blocking off the approach to the glorious bow-window, just in case.
'Well?'
'No bugger's saying anything. And you can't get near where they dug him up.' Buller scratched the back of his head.
They've got the local coppers out, both sides of the place, guarding it. There are a couple on the back road to it, never dummy2
mind the front . . . And it was two kids who found the body.
But you can't get to them, either. And the parents aren't talking to anyone.' Another shake. 'And I had to be bloody careful, because there were one or two people there I know, sniffing around, buying drinks — from the Guardian, and the Mirror . . . and so maybe from the big Sundays, too. And the Independent, could be ... But, the point is, there's a smell about it — about Masson — is what there is.'
'So you didn't get anything — ?' He knew Reg Buller better than that.
'Oh . . .' Buller bridled slightly, on his mettle '. . . there was this barmaid I chatted up, who knew someone in the coroner's office. And she said . . . that he said . . . that Masson was planted. And — '
'"Planted" — ?'
'Buried.' Nod. 'In a hole.' Another nod. 'He didn't fall out of the sky, or tip over an' hit his head, or shoot himself, or have a heart attack.' Final nod. The way some of the stories go, there was this pond, an' he was in it. So ... I thought he could have fallen into it — or maybe even jumped into it ... But that isn't the way it was, apparently. Because these children dug him up, it seems.'
'Why — how ... did they do that?' Both questions pressed equally.
'God knows! But it seems that they did. So ... someone buried him. So someone killed him first — that's what the barmaid dummy2
said. And I paid her £50 not to tell anyone else. Although it's even money that I may have made her greedy, so I can't be sure that I haven't wasted . . . your money, my lad — eh?'
Ian winced inwardly at Tully's final bill, which would pile his VAT on Reg Buller's VAT, to complicate matters even if they could finally claim it back; although Jenny's friendly accountants would sort that out for them, also at a price. But he mustn't think of such mundane things now. 'And that was all you got?'
Reg Buller looked offended. That was all I thought it safe to try and get, the way things smelt. Besides which, I rather thought I had other fish to fry, on instruction. Or rather . . .
not other fish — another fish . . . other than Masson, I mean . . .' He tailed off.
' Another . . . fish?'
'Well ... not a fish, exactly.' Buller drew deeply on his pipe.
'More like a shark, if you ask me — ' he breathed out a foul cloud of smoke ' — like, in that film: something you go out to catch . . . but you end up trying not to get caught yourself, maybe.' He drew on his pipe again.
'You mean the man Audley? David Audley?' Ian remembered Jenny's original proposition: she had come to him late at night — or, more precisely, early in the morning, after one of her socialite nights-on-the-tiles — getting him out of bed when he was at his lowest ebb —
dummy2
" Darling, I think I've stumbled onto something really quite interesting — have you got a drink?' (Jenny bright-eyed, even at that unearthly hour, happily burning her candle at both ends and only a little tousled even now, having progressed from a day's work to an embassy party, and then to an elongated dinner, and finally to some flutter 'on the tables' in some hell-hole; except that Jenny had the stamina of a plough-horse and an alcoholic capacity rivalling Reg Buller's, so it always seemed.)
' Jenny!' (At least he had been halfways respectable, face quickly washed, hair quickly brushed, dressing-gown carefully and decently adjusted: only Jenny dared to burst in on him in the smallest hours — she had done it before, and he was half-prepared for such eventualities now.) ' For heaven's sake, Jen! Couldn't it wait until the morning?' (But, strictly speaking, it had been the morning, of course.)' You shouldn 't be walking the streets now — they're not safe. I'll ring for a taxi — '
' I've got a taxi — it's parked outside. The dear man said he'd be quite happy to wait, darling — he said just the same thing.' (Running taxi-meters aside, Jenny could get round any man to do her will if she put her mind to it.) ' So ... just get me that drink. Or do I have to make it myself?'
'I'll get you a coffee — '
'Don't be such a fuddy-duddy, Ian darling! But first. . . have you ever heard of a man named Audley, Ian?'
' Who — ?' (If she was determined to drink alcohol, then he dummy2
would pour it.)
'Audley. AUDLEY — Audley? Christian name "David" — ?'
' No.' (He had recognized the sign then: those innocent eyes weren't alcohol bright, but excited; even, possibly, she hadn't had a drink since that sudden stumble-onto-something, whenever it had occurred; and all the rest of the evening-into-night-into-morning had been cold hard professional Jenny; which was why she needed a drink now.)
'No. But you have heard of Philip Masson, maybe?'