‘Okay.’ Tom steadied the car and himself. The old man was full of surprises, arrogant and humble by turns. But then… but then, because of Mamusia… and, damnably, because of Jaggard too…
their relationship had an extra dimension which might confuse them both. ‘Go to hell, then!’
‘Or go to sleep, and let you get on with your job?’ Audley began to fumble with the seat-adjustment again. ‘Okay!’
‘No!’ Tom recalled himself to his duty, shutting out all other distractions. Jaggard expected more from him; and, even to do the job Audley at last seemed to be accepting as genuine, he needed more than that. ‘Tell me more about Panin. You said “clues”—
remember?’
‘I also said “need to know”—remember?’
‘Yes.’ He preferred Audley sharp and nasty to Audley kindly and fumbling. ‘If I’m to watch your back I need to know what I’m up against—and who. Every last damn thing you know about Panin, I need to know, David.’
Silence. So, although that was the truth, it was not good enough.
So he would have to play dirty.
‘And there are three other reasons. I wish there weren’t.’ That also was the truth, even though it was a truth which dirtied him—which didn’t set him free, but chained him in a dungeon for ever. ‘But there are.’
‘ Three…’ Audley stared at him in the dark, altogether perplexed, Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State his face faintly lit on-and-off by the headlights of the oncoming traffic from the other side of the motorway ‘… three reasons? I can’t even think of one, Tom— three? ’
The bolts on the dungeon-door crashed into their sockets, and the iron key turned in the lock, and the chains rattled, echoing for ever.
‘Someone took a shot at you today, David—and missed.’ He couldn’t go back now, even if he wanted to. Because it would still have been the truth. ‘I’m never going to be able to face your wife… and Cathy… and my mother… if the next shot is a bull’s-eye, David. What am I going to say? I don’t think “Sorry” will be quite enough.’
Silence again. But this time it was a different silence.
The road ahead was suddenly dark, as they crested the last rise before the descent towards Bristol, and the motorway exchange to the West, and the South-West, and the North-West. But there would be no choice there, either: he couldn’t go back. And even if he could, Willy would be well into her steak, au poivre, very rare, by now, with a good Burgundy and a Lieutenant-Commander USN. So there was nothing to go back to, anyway.
‘Nikolai Panin is an interesting man. Even… in some ways… an attractive one. Although he does look a bit like a sad sheep.’ Sniff.
‘But he does his homework. So he’ll know you, Tom, I shouldn’t wonder—so don’t let him catch you off your guard, eh?’
That was about as unreassuring as he’d expected. So it required no astonished reaction.
‘But he’s a bad bugger, all the same—make no mistake.’ Pause.
Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State
‘So, if he wants to talk to me, it isn’t for the good of my health, or the good of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, or for the benefit of the Common Market and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization… or because he admires the Princess of Wales more than Mrs Gorbachev.’
A sign came up, advising them that Bristol was close, but the next motorway service area wasn’t.
‘Either he wants something so badly that he’s prepared to make a deal. But I doubt the deal will be much in our interest, even if it looks that way… Or he’s going to screw us somehow—like he’s the cheese in the trap.’ Pause. ‘And possibly a trap designed for me. Because he knows me. Like the back of his hand.’
That was decidedly unreassuring. Except that presumably Audley and Panin both knew what the other was thinking.
‘But there is another possibility. Which the traumatic events of this day suggest, actually. Though we must be careful not to “make pictures”…’
Now they were coming to it. Because anyone might have followed Audley so far—or even preceded him. But this would be pure Audley.
‘That pot-shot at me… it was quite outrageous—altogether monstrous.’ Disappointingly, the old man seemed to go off at a tangent suddenly, speaking almost to himself. ‘Yet—I cannot say that I was overwhelmed with surprise.’
‘No?’ That was true, for Tom’s recollection was of a blazing rage rather than surprise. What was surprising now was that Audley Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State sounded like nothing so much as an elderly vicar musing sadly on an outbreak of hooliganism in his hitherto peaceful rural parish, for the benefit of his innocent curate.
The Reverend David Audley sighed. ‘There are some very violent types around these days. But then there always have been, I suppose.’
Tom remembered what Jaggard had said on the phone. ‘And you must have made a few enemies in your time, David.’
‘Yes. Haven’t we all?’ The Rev. David sounded properly philosophic. ‘However, as I recall, I was surprised that the blighter missed me.’
‘Not to say also gratified.’ Tom couldn’t resist the curate’s murmur.
‘Eh? Yes—of course.’ The old man had only half heard him. ‘So that was either gross incompetence… But often people are incompetent, it has to he admitted. Yet it could also have been a deliberate act, just to frighten me, or warn me… or even to encourage me to get my skates on.’
There was perhaps the faintest orange tinge to the night sky ahead, which could be either the westwards motorway junction or the city of Bristol itself. ‘But you didn’t think it was Panin, David.’
‘No. Or… if it was, then it has to be a deliberate miss. Because his man wouldn’t have been incompetent. But that, in turn, means that he’s running very scared, and he needs me— me, of all people!—
very badly, for some reason.’
‘Some reason?’ It wasn’t fear in the old man’s voice now: it was something more like satisfaction. ‘What reason?’
Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State
‘God knows!’ It was satisfaction. ‘Interesting, though, isn’t it!’ He fell silent, and Tom decided to let the silence work itself out without rising to it with fool questions.
‘Yes…’ Audley nodded eventually. ‘It was a long time ago…’
Tom waited for two miles, watching the red-orange glow in the distance. Driving towards Hell would be like this, he thought. And then wished he hadn’t thought such an ill-omened image. ‘What was?’
‘Eh?’ Silence again. ‘When I first met Panin, Tom. We knew so little about him… But then, of course, he was an internal security man: he’d never really messed us around. He really wasn’t particularly interested in us even then… Though it seems he became quite interested in me thereafter…’
Another silence.
‘Knowing people is really what our work is all about now—who’s who leads to what’s what. Machines can do most of the donkey-work now: spies-in-the-sky can do the damned spying… It’s who they are, and what’s in their minds, that matters.’ Audley sniffed. ‘I remember…’ But then he trailed off.
Tom was equally grateful that he dropped ‘Darling Boy’ and his irritatingly friendly ‘Nikolai Andrievich’ as the memory of that first meeting came back to him. ‘You remember?’
‘Yes.’ The old man’s voice was suddenly cautious. ‘It was about the time I met my wife… But tell me, Tom: did your dear mother remember me?’