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'I doubt that.' He regarded her steadily. 'Paul usually hits what he's aiming at. He has a natural talent that way. But he just doesn't like squeezing the trigger.'
'That's not what I've heard. But it's early days yet. So I suppose I could be wrong.' Philly, defending one of his friends, would have said exactly that.
'You could be. And you are.' He gave her a little sad smile. 'It was the mention of Frances that unsettled him. It always does. And I'm afraid it always will.'
'He loved her — didn't he?'
'Oh yes.' The smile twisted. 'But that's not his problem, my dear. His problem is that he knows she didn't love him.
And . . . but we're not really discussing Frances Fitzgibbon, are we?' The sad smile faded. 'It's vengeance we're discussing
— and publication?'
He couldn't have had more than five minutes with Ian — or had time tricked her? But even only five minutes would have been enough for the new Ian to put his question. And if Audley had demanded a price for the answering then the new Ian would have paid at once, without a second thought, even though he believed he already knew the answer to it.
'You've been talking to my partner, Dr Audley.'
He nodded. 'I have had that opportunity — yes.' He stared at her in silence for a moment. 'And I must tell you that he no longer seems so keen on writing about me, Miss Fielding.'
Surprise, surprise! But . . . there were plenty more fish in the dummy2
sea, even if it would be hard to find one that swam so gracefully as Ian. 'I hope he didn't suggest that he was speaking for me?' It was the original Philly she must remember, not this equivocal copy.
'On the contrary. He made it abundantly plain that he was not speaking for you, Miss Fielding. And ... he explained your commitment.' Suddenly he looked away from her for an instant, down into the valley. But then came back to her.
'But, for his part . . . perhaps he remembers that old Chinese proverb about revenge?'
Jenny didn't look into the valley. If he thought he could weaken her so easily, then he was much mistaken. 'What proverb is that?'
'"He — or, in this instance, she, of course — she who embarks on revenge should first dig two graves", Miss Fielding.' He tried the valley again. 'The way you're going, it looks as though you'll need more than two, though.'
She summoned Philly to her aid. 'There was a grave dug before we started, Dr Audley. And we — I — didn't dig that one.'
No answer this time: he simply stared at her, testing her.
'You think we're digging our graves now?'
He tried once more, this time gesturing towards the new battlefield of Salamanca. 'Don't you think so, my dear?'
Now she had him. 'I don't quite know what to think yet.
Except ... at the moment the only people I know who might dummy2
want to stop us are yourself and Dr Mitchell.'
'And that man?' He repeated the gesture. (Big, blunt-fingered hand, quite unlike Philly's: she must hold on to that dissimilarity!) 'MacManus— ?'
She could shake her head honestly. 'I don't know who sent him. So ... it could have been you, Dr Audley.' Now she really had his attention. 'To frighten us off ... if Dr Mitchell doesn't like squeezing the trigger, as you say . . . Because you do seem to have succeeded in frightening my partner. And what happened to John Tully certainly frightened me.' The thought of John Tully came to her shamefully late. But, having come, it allied John to Philly and finally hardened her heart against Audley. 'John Tully was acting under my orders, Dr Audley. So what happened to him is my responsibility, St Matthew would say.' She clenched her teeth, knowing that she had almost betrayed Philly because of a freak imagined resemblance which had knotted her up.
But now that was in the past, and she was herself again. 'And Burdett versus Abbot also cuts two ways, Dr Audley: if you think I'm going to walk away and forget John Tully, then you have the wrong woman — ' Even, in fairness, she must make it stronger than that ' — and the wrong journalist.'
He looked at her for what seemed an age. But finally he nodded. 'Well . . . suppose I told you a story, then? How would that be?'
'A story?' Careful, now. 'Fact or fiction?'
'Just a, story, Miss Fielding. An old Chinese story— ?'
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'With nothing promised on either side?'
'With nothing promised on either side — of course!'
'Then I'd listen.' Suddenly she had to play fair with him: that much, from their first sight of each other, she owed him.
'With all my "rights and duties" relating to Philip Masson and John Tully protected, Dr Audley?'
He nodded again, and the compact was made. 'There was this problem in this Intelligence department, nine years ago —
nine years, give or take a few months, either way-'
'Research and Development — '
' This department — ' He cut her off sharply — ' — because its director was retiring . . . and his deputy had just dropped dead in his tracks, of over-work and a dickey heart. So the question was . . . who was going to run the show?'
The compact had been made, so all she had to do was to nod.
'It was an important job. Because, whoever got it, it opened up a lot of secret — very secret — ultra secret files to him —
okay?'
Him wasn't okay. But she had to ride that, this time. So ...
another nod.
'So we had to get the best man for it — '
She didn't have to ride that. 'But there were two best men, weren't there?' And then she had to pin him down. 'Philip Masson and Jack Butler. And you wanted Jack Butler.'
He looked down on her, and his face became quite dummy2
beautifully ugly. 'It really is quite irrelevant now who wanted who, Miss Fielding. Or, anyway, quite unimportant in this context ... so please don't interrupt.' He set his jaw. 'There was of course the usual manoeuvring and lobbying and fixing that one expects on such occasions — ' Then his face broke up almost comically ' — actually, Fred and I both wanted Jack. And we underestimated the opposition, too. And perhaps that isn't irrelevant, I agree! Because they started testing poor old Jack, to see how he'd measure up. And neither Fred nor I expected that.' He paused. 'And then, so it seemed, Jack nearly got killed on the job — twice in the same week . . . And the second time was within a hair's breadth, so we thought.'
'But it was the other candidate who died, Dr Audley — '
He stared her down — just as Philly had used to do. 'That was an accident, we supposed. And it wasn't our business to inquire into it: that was a police job first, and then Special Branch, with MI5 in reserve.' He drew a breath. 'And they didn't find one thing out of place — anymore than we did, later on.' He let the breath out with the words. 'Everybody did his job properly, believe me.' Finally he nodded.
'Whoever did it was a real pro. And, as Paddy MacManus was O'Leary's side-kick and junior partner then, maybe it was him . . . But we don't know, now . . . And then, when they'd given it a clean bill-of-health, we were quite relieved. Because it took all the heat off Jack Butler, so he got the job. And because all we were concerned with was why they were dummy2
trying to kill him, you see — do you see?'
Jenny didn't see. What she saw, in the next second, was that the little car was still burning in the valley: as always, it was amazing how long a collection of bits of metal burned, once they took fire. 'Why — ?'
He shook his head at her. 'This isn't the Middle East, Miss Fielding: we don't go round killing their chaps. And they don't go round killing ours — it's bad for business.' His lip curled. 'You journalists steal stories from each other, and that's fair enough. But if you started killing each other every time, then you'd pretty soon have a recruitment problem —