"I wouldn't put it quite as strongly as that. It depends on whether he decided to ride to Oxford before he started drinking or after, which is something we don't know. But he was cracking, that's sure enough."
"The Epton girl corroborated that?"
The Epton girl. Butler felt a stirring of irritation at the memory of her involvement: somebody had not done his job very thoroughly in delving into Smith's background for her to have been overlooked.
"She hadn't seen him for three weeks, but she'd been worried about him for some time. She reckoned he was working too hard—he didn't write to her at all that last week."
"It wasn't exactly a great love affair though?" Audley cocked his head on one side. "Not a very passionate affair, would you say?"
"She may not have been his mistress, if that's what you mean." Butler could hear the distaste in his own voice.
"I'd say that's exactly what I mean. If she had been I think it would have been known up at Cumbria.
Would you say that it was a genuine engagement even?"
"I think it was."
"Hmm . . ." Audley considered the proposition. "He should have been a bit wary of emotional entanglements—and she's no great beauty, is she."
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"I found her a rather attractive young woman myself."
Audley's eyebrows lifted. "A bit overblown—but then she certainly has some attractive family connections, I admit. The vice-chancellor of Cumbria is her godfather."
Beside Polly Epton's apple-cheeked charm Audley's own wife was a thin, washed-out thing, thought Butler unkindly. But it was Smith's taste in women, not Audley's, that mattered.
"I'm aware of it," he rasped. "The Master of King's is her godfather too, as a matter of fact."
"Hah! Yet you still think it was a real romance?"
"If it had been bogus, then I don't think Smith would have kept quiet about it," Butler began awkwardly, fumbling for words to describe what he knew he was ill-equipped to imagine. "It was... a very private thing they had, just between the two of them."
Audley looked at him curiously.
"Well-—damn it!—she's a nice sort of girl—"
He saw Audley's face contort in bewilderment: nice was another of those words which had been twisted and blunted until its meaning was hopelessly compromised.
He felt embarrassment and irritation tighten his shirtcollar round his neck. But what he wanted to say had to be said somehow—
"Damn it all! What I mean is—I don't mean she keeps her legs crossed tight all the time," he plunged onwards. "It's possible they did sleep together now and then when he came down to Oxford. But I don't think it was just a physical thing with them—I'd say she was full of life when a man needed it, but full of
—well, quietness and comfort when he needed that. And she thinks now—because of what I've told her
—that if she'd been up at Cumbria instead of studying—whatever it is —occupational therapy, it maybe wouldn't have happened."
"She thinks it was an accident?"
"No, not after what happened at the bridge. But if she'd been there with him . . ." He shook his head hopelessly. "I'm afraid I'm not expressing myself very efficiently."
"Efficiently?" Surprisingly, the bewilderment had faded from Audley's face. "On the contrary, you've put it very well indeed. If you think this of her—and of them!" Audley nodded to himself. "A girl for all seasons—if she strikes you that way, then that would explain it very well, too."
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"How would it do that?" Butler frowned.
"Well, you had me worried for a moment. But now I think I see the way it was." Audley looked at him.
"You see, our friend Smith had it made—as Peter here would say—he had it made. He had this two-year research fellowship, and after that he was dead certain of a lectureship."
"Certain?"
"So Gracey tells me. Nothing but the best at Cumbria— and Neil Smith was the best. Why does that interest you?"
"Miss Epton thought that might be why he was working so hard: to make sure of a permanent post there.
He wanted that very much."
"He wanted it and he'd got it. It was right in the palm of his hand. He'd got it, and we weren't on to him.
Not even near him. And this engagement with the Epton girl would have made things perfect, socially as well as academically."
Audley paused, watching Butler over his spectacles.
"He should have been on top of the world then. But he was right at the bottom—thanks to Sir Geoffrey we know that, and Gracey checks it out. The last two, three weeks he was one worried young man—a ball of fire with the fire burnt out, Gracey says. Which means that things hadn't gone according to plan after all."
"He had himself pretty well under control at Oxford. Whatever happened to him happened up here."
"I wouldn't be too sure about that. I'd guess you were closer to the mark in your report when you suggested that he took a spiritual knock at Oxford. Freedom of everything must have been a strong drug for a man with his background—"
"You know what his background was then?"
"We've a fair idea now, according to Peter here."
Butler turned towards Richardson.
"Not for sure," said Richardson quickly. "These things take time to establish, and time we haven't had.
What we've got— and Stocker had to go cap in hand to the CIA for it—is that the KGB pulled out one of their old-established 'illegals' from New Zealand a few years back to give someone some polish at their Higher School in Moscow. And we've got a tentative identification for Smith at the School for just dummy2.htm
about that time —only tentative, mind you. And the New Zealand angle fits."
"You think he was never in New Zealand?"
"We reckon he was there, but not for long. Way we see it was that they pulled the switch just before the real Smith was due to fly out. Our Smith wasn't really a very good likeness. Or he was only right in a fairly general way—height and colouring and so on. But he was starting out fresh here, and in a year or two when he'd filled out a bit and grown his hair we think he could have bluffed it out with anyone he'd known back there."
"Even with his aunt?"
"Great-aunt, to be exact. Half-blind, and if she ever leaves New Zealand, then I'll be a greater spotted kiwi. As far as false identities go, they had it pretty well made."
"But a KGB graduate nonetheless," cut in Audley incisively. "And then an Oxford graduate."
"You can't say he wasn't well qualified," murmured Richardson irreverently. "And of course David thinks Oxford cancels out Moscow!"
"Not Oxford by itself. I think he was the wrong man for the job. But it was when he stopped learning freedom of thought and started to teach it that it began to get under his skin." Audley stared directly at Butler. "What I believe is there was one thing about him that his bosses didn't realise— or they didn't realise how important it was going to become: the fellow was a natural born teacher!"
Butler nodded cautiously. "That was what Hobson thought."
"Gracey did too, and he's a sharp man. The crunch came when Smith found out he was in the wrong business. Poor devil, I'd guess he'd become what he was pretending to be— and he liked it better."
Poor devil indeed! thought Butler: the Devil himself had been a mixed-up archangel, and this poor devil had straightened himself out only to discover that there was no escape from Hell. . .
"And falling for Polly Epton put the finishing touch on things?"
"Not quite the finishing touch—no." Audley rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Actually, it had me worried a bit when I first learnt about it. He didn't seem a very highly-sexed man, and I knew she was no Helen of Troy, but I did wonder if that wasn't behind what he did."
"She's not that sort of girl at all—"
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Audley held up his hand. "Precisely. That's why I'm so grateful to you. A nice girl, that's what she is."