"Somewhere lonely might be nice — for you. However, if you want to shoot me dead you'll do it in the middle of London and get away with it."
I'm glad you understand that."
"Let's say Foxcote Hill, in an hour. See you." McBride put down the receiver. He stepped out of the call-box, and climbed into his car.
He drove out of Andoversford, taking minor roads until he was able, using the OS map, to approach Foxcote Hill from the south. He parked the car at the end of a track which petered out in the copse on Shill Hill, and then climbed until he was above the surrounding countryside. It was misty and autumnal in the fields, and the copses were webbed with mist. In the distance to the north, he could see the village he had left twenty minutes or so earlier, and its main roads. Trees covered the northern slopes of the hill, but he was on short, springy turf, exposed and alone. He descended into the trees again and waited. The morning was still, heavy, but the cloud was thin and transitory.
During the night he had come to the conclusion that Walsingham would let him live — just so long as he knew that the evidence for what had happened in 1940 was in hands other than McBride's alone. Whether he would ask questions first, and so elicit his powerlessness, was another matter. McBride had never possessed a gun, and he could not regret the absence of one now. Nevertheless, during the fifteen or twenty slow minutes before he heard the car approaching from the tiny hamlet of Foxcote to the north, he began to wish for the feel of one in his hand, futile though its possession would have been.
He ground out his third cigarette as he heard the undergrowth move and brush against a body, and slipped back into the shadow of the tree bole against which he had been leaning. A minute later, Walsingham appeared, struggling up the slope, his trilby hat in his hand, his topcoat unbuttoned. He appeared to be alone. He stopped for breath, dabbed his forehead with his handkerchief, felt his pounding heart, and called out.
"McBride — McBride, are you here?"
McBride said nothing. Walsingham looked back behind him, then moved on up the last of the slope to the hilltop, passing the tree that concealed McBride. McBride watched the hill below him, straining to see into the shadows beneath the trees, and listened intently. He could see and hear nothing.
Without moving from the shelter of the tree, he called out after Walsingham, "Don't turn around for the moment, Walsingham. Are you alone?"
Walsingham stopped. "Of course."
"I believe you. I didn't think you'd want our little talk to be overheard. I guess national security covers it, uh?" He heard Walsingham chuckle. "OK, turn around." McBride stepped out from behind the tree. Walsingham was dabbing his brow again. He looked old and vulnerable. "Where's the hit man?"
Walsingham raised his hands, palms outwards in innocence. "My dear fellow—"
"Bullshit." McBride stood higher on the slope than Walsingham. "Let's make it so he has to be a very good shot."
"I'd like to sit down." Walsingham did not appear more ruffled than simply breathless with the short climb. "Over there? You can watch the trees, surely. And I'm not wired for sound, nor am I armed." He held his coat open, and McBride frisked him quickly. Walsingham was aware of the slight tremor through his old body as the American's hands smoothed over his sides and chest, down his legs, between his thighs, around his ankles. Then McBride looked up at him, and the gleam of confidence in his eyes demonstrated that he had sensed the older man's fear.
"OK — a rotten log seems about right."
They sat on the green-coated log in the spaces between the more exotic fungoid growths. Walsingham picked at one, lung-like, then at another the texture and colour of rolled pastry. His fingers were vaguely, senilely destructive. "Entirely appropriate," he answered softly.
"They're all dead. Just like you wanted it, really."
"Oh, no," Walsingham replied quickly. "You were the one who stirred the ant-heap with a stick. On behalf of Goessler." Walsingham's breathing refused to return to normal. Quick, short breaths, as superficial as the relationship of a mayfly to the pond water beneath it. He felt reluctant, and — yes — afraid in the company of this man. He was totally unlike Michael McBride, his father. A superficial physical resemblance, naturally, but nothing marked on the almost bland face except recent tiredness, recent extremity. Even now, he seemed somehow — irresponsible? His innocence as Goessler's pawn forced a comparison of guilt upon Walsingham which made him uncomfortable with himself. Self-esteem, self-confidence both seemed to evaporate.
"You should have buried it all a lot deeper — the hole wasn't big enough to hide what you had to hide. It was all your operation, from first to last, I guess?"
Walsingham's face made the admission with involuntary muscles.
"Yes," he said after a long silence. "I proposed the sinking of the convoy, and Churchill accepted it. It seemed to be a necessity to me at that moment in time, in that situation." He paused, but then hurried on, sensing his physical proximity to Michael McBride's son like a cold wind on his frail skin. "I had nothing to do with the death of your father. That—"
"I know. You would have, if it had helped, but Drummond got there before you. If it had become necessary, you'd have had him killed."
"I liked your father—" Walsingham's voice tailed off as he admitted the inadequacy of the statement. "He was very likable," he added, almost to himself.
"Yes." McBride looked down into the trees for a moment, but in abstraction rather than alertness. Then he returned his gaze to Walsingham. The old man felt McBride's eyes glancing over his face and body in tangible, icy contacts. There was an evident repulsion in McBride's expression. "All men who fight wars are like you, right? Necessity. Then in peacetime it's national security. You make me sick."
Walsingham's face was livid with anger. "You sanctimonious American puppy! Your countrymen were collecting money for the war effort by organizing charity bazaars and dances at the very moment we were in danger of being overrun by the Nazis. You have no room to talk!" As soon as he paused, he seemed to become calmer by an effort of will. His anger had made him more human, more comprehensible to McBride. His thin strands of white hair and his lined face made him less dangerous. "I'm sorry," Walsingham continued. "You could not be expected to understand. Let us get down to the business in hand. As you say, I did not take sufficient care to expunge the evidence of what was done. You have collected a great deal of it. You intend to write a book." Walsingham's thin smile suddenly alerted McBride to the man's intelligence, his superiority of mind, his ruthlessness. It was the American's turn to be disturbed, edgy. He scanned the trees swiftly, knowing as he did so that he would never see the rifleman — if there was one.
Walsingham added: "Were you in fact to write this book of yours, you would be charged with the murders of Goessler and Lobke. You would be convicted."
McBride shivered, then nodded. "And if I keep quiet?"
"Then there would be no need to detain you further, or to charge you. You would be free to go. I would see you onto the aircraft at Heathrow myself." Walsingham attempted an ingenuous smile, but it was an evident false note and he withdrew it from his features.
"Sounds easy. There's a man down there, right? Insurance?" McBride nodded down towards the thicker trees.
"Yes, there's a man down there. As you say, insurance. For my safety."
"It's all for your safety." McBride looked over his shoulder, then back at the trees. A noise? Squirrel or shrew, or the marksman? He wondered about Walsingham, and how desperate he was, and he felt very, afraid. Then Walsingham was speaking again, with a new urgency.