“back-up”… And too many people already seem to know too much, that I do know. So then we can start putting a stop to that.
So… just wake me up between Chertsey and Sunbury, there’s a Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State good fellow, eh?’
Audley thought he was heading for the M3 to London, to the east, not the M4 to Bristol, in the west, and the M5 and distant Exmoor after that. And there was a lot more also that the poor old devil thought which was just as much in the opposite direction, most of all regarding his Danny’s Darling Boy, who had somehow become one of Henry Jaggard’s hoodlums —
‘In Research and Development our job is to think, not to risk our probably over-valued necks protecting even less-valuable necks in foreign hell-holes… like you, Tom… “poor Tom”…’ murmured Audley. ‘ Thinking’s much more agreeable than worrying… You tend to enjoy a better class of life that way… ’he trailed off into what was more likely oblivion than thought.
Tom realized that he had just begun to fall into the error of being slightly sorry for Audley, even while he had at the same time been beginning to savour the thought of the old man waking up on the other side of England from suburban London and whatever ground he’d chosen for his rendezvous with the Russian. But suddenly he became aware of a greater error—or not so much an error as a hideous mistake: he might no longer be sure where his duty lay in relation to Audley and Jaggard, but nagging regrets and minor gratifications paled into nothing beside the need to keep this man alive. And, after that bullet and Basil Cole’s untimely death, his duty was inescapable.
‘We’re not going to London, David. We’re going to Exmoor.’
‘What?’ Audley swallowed the word.
Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State
‘I said “We’re not going to London”—’
Tom hit the foot-brake to jerk Audley into wakefulness.
‘ What?’ The old man tried to sit up, but couldn’t. ‘To… where?’
‘To Exmoor, David. Panin’s meeting us at Holcombe Bridge—the Green Man Hotel, Holcombe Bridge, on Exmoor.’ He glanced at the digital clock. ‘Actually, we should be meeting him about now.
So I will have to stop before long, because it’s going to take me all of three hours to get there. Apart from warning Panin that we’re going to be late I need to make sure they don’t let our rooms to someone else.’
Audley was struggling to readjust his seat, fumbling and mumbling at the same time.
‘It’s a good hotel, anyway,’ continued Tom with false cheerfulness as the old man’s mumble deepened to a thunderous growl. ‘It’s in Egon Ronay and Rubinstein, and the Good Food Guide.’ Harvey had been envious, indeed. ‘So we shall at least be comfortable, David.’
‘Bugger that!’ Just as he seemed about to resort to brute force Audley was jerked upright. But then, somewhat to Tom’s surprise, the thunder died away into a silence which made him more nervous. Because now at last he had somehow pressed the button, and he sensed the man’s thoughts rocketing up, silently because they had left sound behind. And once that rocket went up, no one knew where it would come down—Jaggard and Harvey were agreed on that. And that, of course, was why he was here.
‘I’m sorry, David—’
Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State
‘Don’t be sorry.’ Audley’s voice was in neutral now, neither angry nor friendly. ‘Let me get things straight: your job is to look after me, and get me to Nikolai Andrievich… and to learn, mark and inwardly digest whatever may pass between us—have I got that right?’
The rocket was up, and in orbit. ‘Well… not quite. I only have to be present because they’ve got someone with Panin—because that’s the deal.’ Shrugging in the dark was useless. “They don’t trust his loyalty as much as you do… of course.‘
‘Of course. Whereas my loyalty is beyond suspicion… of course.
Like yours?’
‘What?’ Just as he had shrugged unseen, so Audley must have nodded ironic agreement unseen.
‘So who are you working for, at this precise but nebulous moment, Tom Arkenshaw? To whom do you report back, at regular intervals?’
At least he had an answer to that now. ‘I’m seconded to Research and Development—Mr Frobisher and Colonel Butler have both agreed to that.’ The half-truth of that chained him fast. ‘I have no instructions from Colonel Butler. But maybe I should have. Next time you call him you might ask him if he’d like me to—what was it?—“learn, mark and inwardly digest”? But isn’t that a misquotation? Isn’t it “read”, not “learn”—?’ But maybe it was a mistake to be clever. ‘But I am sorry, David: I should have told you about Exmoor before. Just… things got in the way, that’s all.’
‘Yes.’ The ensuing silence suggested that Audley had noted what Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State he’d said, but without either agreeing with or accepting it. ‘So…
they’ve let him run free. And so have we.’ Audley spoke to himself.
‘Panin?’ Tom decided to accept the question. ‘I gather he has some sort of diplomatic status. Cultural-dipIomatic status, anyway.’
‘Oh yes?’ Audley perked up, as though his brutish minder had shown an unlooked-for vestige of intelligence. ‘Cultural—of course!’
That had been another nod-in-the-dark. ‘Something to do with an exhibition there’s going to be in the BM next year, I think.’ Tom gave him a matching nod. ‘The Ancient Scythians, would it be? He is a genuine scholar, I believe. Or he was, in the dim and distant past, wasn’t he?’
‘Uh-huh. Weren’t we all?’ Audley sniffed. ‘In the dim and distant past…’He trailed off into silence again.
‘I never was.’ Tom had to break the silence.
‘No?’ The old man came back to him abruptly. ‘Don’t languages count as scholarship? Manchester University, wasn’t it? Russian and French there? And English and Polish before. And how many more now? Plus Latin at Waltham School, of course—they’d never let a linguist go without a dead language in his knapsack, would they! So how many is that then—seven? Eight?’
With the question of his present allegiance unresolved, he was being reminded that the old man had done his homework on Arkeshhaw, Thomas Wladyslaw Archibald. ‘Give or take a couple.’
He remembered the Caesar on Audley’s desk. ‘But my Latin’s a bit rusty now, like yours, David. So if we meet one of the arcani, Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State or the frumentarii, sniffing around Exmoor, just don’t rely on me as an interpreter.’
‘Don’t knock your talent, Darling Boy. “The gift of tongues” is more of a negotiable asset than a nodding acquaintance with medieval history—or Ancient Scythia. If you blot your copybook with Frobisher, someone will always give you a job.’ Sniff. ‘Come to that, Jack Butler certainly would! He’s always on the look-out for people who can read between the foreign lines, not just translate them. Especially if I put in a good word for you.’
There was something odd here. ‘Are you offering rne a job? Or merely bribing me, David?’
‘Do you need bribing? Didn’t your late father do rather well with his merchant banking? Wasn’t he in on the Great Singapore Miracle
—and a good friend of Lee Kuan Yew?’ The old man’s inside information was offered sardonically. ‘Or has your dear mother got all the loot? But then… she sounded most affectionate. And you are the only son of your house—?’
The old devil was laying it on a bit thick. ‘Money isn’t everything.’
‘Isn’t it? Now, that is a great untruth beloved of those who have never been short of a buck. Because there’s always a bill for what you want… always supposing you’re wise enough—or lucky enough—to know what’s good for you, apart from what you want… But there’s always a bill—like self-respect, or honour, or peace of mind, or some such little thing… or talent wasted, even…