of you served with him in the war, and afterwards; some of you, the younger members of this congregation, were privileged to be his friends in his later years.
There are, however, a few who are here today in our midst in their official capacities, discharging their duties, to whom our Squire can only be a name, albeit an honoured one. It is to them that I say . . . that we who knew him are not here to mourn, but to give thanks for his life, which enriched ours, and to pray not only for him, but also— as he would have wished—for God’s mercy andforgiveness on those who must one day stand before the Judgement Seat to account for their actions—
“You don’t need any more. Except to know that he went on for another page about the perfection of God’s justice, and the imperfection of man’s, and the uselessness of bitterness and anger.
He’s a sharp old bird, is the Vicar, I rather suspect.”
Benedikt looked at him questioningly.
“He’s not in on it, but he might have sniffed trouble, is my guess,”
said Colonel Butler simply. “Because what they plan to do is to get the man who put the bomb in the old General’s car to Duntisbury Chase, and then deliver him to that Judgement Seat themselves.”
“You know this?” Benedikt felt a small twinge of anger. “You have known this all along—since the beginning?”
“I first heard about some of it a very short time ago. I learnt a bit more about it yesterday. Enough to go to your Major Herzner, who owes me a favour.” If the Colonel had noticed his anger, it didn’t dummy1
bother him. “But I haven’t been rock-hard certain until this evening, if that’s what you want to know, Captain.”
Suddenly there was no room for anger, there were too many questions in his head for that.
“Aye—” The Colonel forestalled him “—and now you’ll be asking why I didn’t go straight down to Duntisbury and ask Dr David Audley what the hell he’s playing at, eh?”
That—among other things—
“Instead of which I let you take your chance?” Butler shook his head. “I tell you one thing, Captain Schneider—whatever David Audley’s playing at, it won’t be murder. And it certainly won’t be acting as an accessory to a teenage slip of a girl and a bunch of farm labourers—least of all when he’s given someone his private promise that he’ll look after her. He’s a tricky blighter, if there ever was one, but that isn’t his style.” The grizzled head shook again. “You weren’t in any danger.”
Benedikt recalled the Wiesbaden Kommissar’s print-out on Audley: whatever his failings the man had an intuition for mischief like a bomb-sniffing dog for explosives.
“But someone is in danger, Colonel.” Obviously the Colonel trusted the man up to a point, but only up to a point. “Who was it who set the bomb under General Maxwell’s car?”
For a moment the Colonel looked at him in silence. “They haven’t the slightest idea. They don’t know who—and they don’t know why.”
“They?”
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“The Anti-Terrorist Squad,” said Andrew. “Their inquiries are proceeding—officially. But the truth is, they’re at a dead standstill.”
“And your inquiries?”
Andrew looked at the Colonel, and not too happily, Benedikt thought.
“Do not exist—for anyone else’s consumption. Not yet.” The Colonel’s features hardened. “And we know no more than they do.
As yet.”
It was easy to see why the Chief Inspector wasn’t altogether happy.
“Except that Dr Audley is in Duntisbury Chase?”
“Dr Audley is on leave, Captain.”
“Writing another book,” murmured Andrew. “He writes books.”
On feudalism, remembered Benedikt. And perhaps Duntisbury Chase was at present not such an inappropriate place for him to be, in which to study a text-book example of its survival in the 19805.
But that was not why he was there.
He had come to the real question at last. “But in Duntisbury Chase they know—they know who and why. That must be so, Colonel.”
“Happen they do. Or someone in there does—aye.”
But perhaps . . . but happen . . . that was really not so surprising, thought Benedikt. Peasants the world over kept their own counsel, close-mouthed, rejecting outside interference in their affairs; and if there was a secret in the Chase, the people of the Chase would be more likely to know it than any outsiders, even outsiders with all the resources of the British intelligence and police agencies.
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It was not what they knew, but what they proposed to do about it, and what that signified, which was so startling.
“And . . . whoever it was . . . they know he’s coming to them—”
“Right!” Colonel Butler pounced on him before he could finish.
“They know he’s coming to them! And the Vicar preached to deaf ears: it’s good, old-fashioned Old Testament vengeance for them, and no messing around. But that won’t do for David Audley, Captain—do you see?”
Knowing the man was everything—in this case, reflected Benedikt. Colonel Butler was known to be a stickler for the book, army-trained, which was the antithesis of everything that was known about Dr David Audley. But each was an intelligent and successful officer, and if the Colonel was now consciously and deliberately breaking every rule in his own book there had to be an over-riding reason for it.
“Looking after the girl—that’s what he promised to do, so that’ll be what he’ll be doing. But there’s got to be more to it than that.”
Not knowing the man was the problem. Benedikt ran the film of his memory, marrying it to the print-out: Audley striding away across the field, super-confident—over-confident?—in his old clothes . . . the scholar built like a boxer: in good shape, but physically past his prime—too old for the ring, too old for field-work . . . for guarding a girl—or a secret—from a professional, with a village of unprofessional peasants at his back?
Then he knew what was coming.
“I don’t want to spoil whatever he’s doing. Because it’s my guess dummy1
that he’s seen something that they haven’t seen—it depends how far he is into their confidence, but acting as a bodyguard doesn’t suit him any better than acting as an accessory to murder. I don’t want to spoil it—but I don’t want to leave it to chance, Captain. I need to know what’s really happening in there.”
He knew exactly what was coming. And it would be better to meet it as a volunteer than to wait for the order which would be couched as a request, from one ally to another.
He shrugged. “Major Herzner has lent me to you for a week, Colonel. I could go back . . . But if Dr Audley has contacts of his own ... I do not resemble Dr Wiesehöfer very closely. So I do not think my cover will last so long—always supposing that it has survived this afternoon.”
“Forty-eight hours, at most—if you go back,” said Chief Inspector Andrew. “He’ll have to get back to Germany. Herzner’s got it buttoned up here.”
“No.” Butler shook his head. “Forty-eight hours is too much—it’s making pictures we’d like to see. And with Audley you don’t make pictures. We’ll go for another cover.”
“Another cover?” Benedikt couldn’t conceal his disappointment. It wasn’t that Colonel Butler’s lack of confidence in his Roman roads disappointed him—it was good that the Colonel preferred to plan for the worst, rather than the best. But anything which reminded him of Papa had its own special virtue, and the gentle study of small irregularities in the ground for signs of the passing of mighty Caesar’s legions had recalled happy memories of the old man’s boyish enthusiasm, and his own happiest days.