‘Ahh…’ A lifetime of dissimulation had greased the big man’s mental reflexes. ‘Well… to be fair, that’s for the experts to say, Tom.’
‘It was for me, David.’ He could only admire the crafty way Audley had fixed the lie, with so little warning. ‘But… you understand, Mrs Audley—Faith… that I can’t tell you what I usually do. But, in any case, I’m not doing it now—’ True, Tom Arkenshaw, you lying bastard! But what could he say next ‘—so I trust it won’t happen again—’ Not good enough! He could see that in her face ‘—but I’ll keep an eye on him now, I promise you, anyway.’ True again! he thought. But what a fearful promise! But, for better or worse, it was made now. And that sort of promise couldn’t be unmade, which was worst of all.
‘Huh!’ Audley chuckled obscenely. ‘Just keep away from me—
that’s all!’
‘ David! ’ She gave him a broken look. ‘You look after yourself too, Sir Thomas.’ She drew a breath. ‘I have to believe that my husband is indestructible.’ She took another breath. ‘I’ll go and find my toothbrush, anyway.’
Tom watched her depart, chin up.
‘I shall get hell in due course,’ murmured Audley. ‘But, in the Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State meantime—’
‘No!’ All Tom wanted to do was to think in peace for a moment, before they all came back to him again: to think about what Jaggard had said, and hadn’t said; and about what Harvey had said, and had hinted at; and about Audley too; and maybe even about Mamusia. ‘You just go and pack your toothbrush too, David. We can talk in the car—okay?’
At first Audley didn’t reply. Then, when he did, he sounded as though his gratitude was already being stretched. ‘I was only going to thank you for that little white lie. But…’ he shrugged ‘… if that’s the way you want it, you’re the boss.’ He turned in the doorway. ‘For the time being, anyway.’
Tom waited for a moment, then turned back to the huge cluttered desk, staring for another moment at the red phone among the tower-blocks of books and magazines and buff folders, and the scatter of notes and notebooks and photo-copied newspaper cuttings, which together left no square inch of its surface free.
Jaggard had not really been surprised, he decided—
Places in the books—and in the magazines—were liberally reminded with numerous slips of differently coloured paper, pale pink and green and blue; and there were passages marked in the newspaper cuttings too, Audley-interest-stained with broad soft-felt pen-ink of similar colours, like cross-references.
It was always hard to tell for sure on the phone, a practised liar always had the edge on the phone—he could deceive anyone except Mamusia on the phone ~
Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State The whole room was full of books: books shelved from floor to ceiling of every wall, books crammed between the shelves laterally where there was room, books in ranks and piles on the floor; there was only that one little dark gap behind the high-backed oak chair, to the right of the door, where that tall grandfather clock ticked away now in the silence like a monstrous death watch beetle, which had no books, apart from the leaded windows with their fringes of wisteria.
So… because he had already decided that Jaggard had not told him everything, or even half of it… that was a subjective conclusion
—
He turned back to the desk. There were books on it which didn’t fit among their fellows—or, even more, among the pink-stained names in the topmost cuttings from a wide range of Soviet and American specialist publications: Chebrikov from the Politburo, and Aliev, from the KGB… and the geriatric Lomako, who was (wasn’t he?) a survivor from the prehistoric 1940s… and…
Shevardnadze— who the hell was he? But there was that bastard Shkiriatov, anyway, from his own recent Syrian experience—
So this was what Audley was doing right now: trying to pick this year’s Kremlin Grand National winners—or at least fix the odds!
But then… where did Kennedy’s Revised Latin Primer, and Cassell’s Little Gem Latin Dictionary (the former old and ink-stained, the latter brand new) fit into this field? Or, right in front of him, on top of a pristine copy of yesterday’s Izvestia, this antique little blue Volume IV of Caesar’s Gallic Wars, open at that point where ‘ Caesar’s arrival encourages his men—acting on the Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State defensive he retires—stormy weather prevents further action—
large forces swell the enemy’s camp, confident of victory.’
There still wasn’t a sound from that interesting little book-free gap, behind the chair, where there were four framed sets of campaign medals on the wall beside the grandfather clock, and darkness below.
Quibus rebus perturbatis nostris novitate pugnae tempore opportunissimo Caesar auxilium tulit— God! He couldn’t make sense out of that! But instead he addressed the shadows behind the chair. ‘So what do you know about baronets then, Miss Audley?’
No sound. But Jaggard had not been surprised, and Tom was ultimately convinced by his own instinct. ‘King James I —1611?’
Infinitesimal sound, less than the scuffle of an October field-mouse refugeeing in the house. For the defence of Ulster—?‘
‘That’s right.’ Tom was torn between his memories of Caesar, and more recent ones of Arkadi Shkiriatov, and the presence of Miss Audley, never mind Jaggard and King James I. ‘To raise money for the defence of Ulster in 1611—go on!’
‘People who had enough money had to become baronets. And they had to pay for thirty soldiers, at eight pence a day, for three years.’
The voice strengthened. ‘But Scottish baronets were different.
They paid their money for the colonization of Nova Scotia. You aren’t Scottish, though.’
‘No.’ So Jaggard must have a damn good idea what Panin wanted, even if he didn’t know for sure. ‘Tell me more?’
‘Do people often shoot at you?’
Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State That was the point: if it wasn’t Panin (and, even apart from that MAD sanction of Audley’s, Panin would hardly have the man he wanted to meet shot before the meeting) then someone else knew about it, and had done it. ‘Does your father often do your Latin prep for you?’ He turned towards the chair.
‘No.’ The pale little face barely topped the chair-back. ‘Only when I’m really stuck.’ She blinked behind her glasses. ‘Do you shoot people?’
That was also a point, thought Tom. Terrorist groups the world over, from his own Mediterranean to that same Ulster which had forced a title on the original Sir Thomas Arkenshaw… terrorist groups shot people without a second thought. But the agencies of the First Division players, the sovereign states, only resorted to violence when they were really stuck—that was also very much the point.
‘No.’ It wasn’t funny, but he must smile at her. ‘Only when I’m really stuck, anyway.’ But Audley would have worked all this out much more quickly. ‘I think you ought to go and get your toothbrush too, oughtn’t you?’
‘Mother will do that. What I want to know is—’ She stopped as he raised his hand ‘—what—?’
‘I also think she’ll be looking for you, Miss Audley.’ What I want to know, thought Tom, is what you meant by ‘Tripoli’. But I don’t think this is the moment for asking! ‘And then she may remember where she last saw you—?’