Announcements of the proposed firing of live ammunition were routinely made in the local newspapers and on the radio. The dateline of the story was five days after Ashton and Benson died.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE When I walked into my office Larry Godwin was sitting at his desk reading Pravda and looking as though he had never left it. He looked up. 'Hello, Malcolm.' He didn't smile and neither did I. We both knew there was nothing to smile about. 'When did you get back?' 'Three days ago-the day after Jack Brent.' 'Henty?' He shook his head. 'Haven't seen him.' 'How did they treat you?' 'Not bad. I felt a bit isolated, though.' 'Has Ogilvie debriefed you?'
Larry grimaced. 'He emptied me as you'd empty a bottle of beer. I still feel gutted. It'll be your turn now.' I nodded, picked up the telephone, and told Ogilvie's secretary I was available. Then I sat down to contemplate my future and couldn't see a damned thing in the fog. Larry said, 'Someone knew the right strings to pull. I tell you, I wasn't looking forward to a stretch in a Swedish jail. They'd have put us in their version of Siberia-up in the frozen north.' 'Yes,' I said abstractedly. I wondered what quid pro quo the Swedes had claimed for our release and their silence. Ogilvie called me in twenty minutes later. 'Sit down, Malcolm.' He bent to his intercom. 'No more calls for the rest of the morning, please,' he said ominously, then looked at me. 'I think we have a lot to talk about. How are you feeling?' I felt he really wanted to know, so I said, 'A bit drained.' 'The Swedes treat you all right?' 'No complaints.' 'Right. Let's get to the crux.
Who killed Ashton?' 'Of my own knowledge I don't know. At the time I thought he'd caught a couple from the Swedes-there was a lot of shooting going on. Then Henty told me Benson had shot him.' 'But you didn't see Benson shoot him.' 'That's correct.' Ogilvie nodded. That fits with what Godwin and Brent told me. Now, who killed Benson?'
'Henty said he did it. He said he saw Benson shooting at Ashton so he drew his own gun and went after him. Apparently Benson was at the top of the slope in the trees. He said that Benson shot at him, too, so he shot back and killed him. I didn't even know Henty was armed.' 'Have you thought why Benson should have killed Ashton? It's not the normal thing for an old family retainer to do to his master.' A humourless thought crossed my mind: in the less inventive early British detective stories it was always the butler who committed the murder. I said, 'I can think of a reason but it doesn't depend on Benson's status as a servant.' 'Well?' 'Henty was coming up on my right, and Brent and Godwin angling in from the left. Ashton was just above, but there was a big boulder screening me from the top of the slope. I didn't see Benson and I don't think he saw me. But he did see Larry, and Larry was a Russian, remember. When Ashton stopped and turned, and showed signs of coming down, then Benson shot him.' 'To prevent him falling into the hands of the Russians. I see.' I said, 'And that makes him something more than a family servant.' 'Possibly,' said Ogilvie. 'But I've been going into the history of Howard Greatorex Benson and the man is as pure is the driven snow. Born in Exeter in 1912, son of a solicitor; normal schooling but flunked university entrance to his father's disappointment. Did clerical work for a firm in Plymouth and rose to be the boss of a rather small department. Joined the army in 1940-rose to be a sergeant in the RASC-he was an ideal quartermaster type. Demobilized in 1946, he went to work for Ashton, running the firm's office. There he ran into the Peter Principle; he was all right is long as the firm remained small but, with expansion, it became too much for him. Remember he never rose to be more than a sergeant-he was a small-scale man. So Ashton converted him into a general factotum which would seem to be ideal for Benson. There'd be nothing too big for him to handle, and he was glad to be of service. Ashton probably got his money's worth out of him. He never married. What do you think of all that?' 'Did you get that from the computer?' 'No. The brains are still baffled. They're telling me now Benson can't be in the data bank.' 'They're wrong,' I said flatly. 'He popped up when I asked Nellie.' Ogilvie looked at me doubtfully, then said, 'But what do you think of his history as I've related it?' 'There's nothing there to say why he should kill Ashton. There's nothing there to say why he should be carrying a gun in the first place. Did he have a pistol permit?' 'No.' 'Have you traced the gun?' Ogilvie shrugged. 'How can we? The Swedes have it.' He pondered for a moment, then opened a quarto-sized, hard-backed notebook and took the cap off his pen. 'I wanted to go for the main point first, but now you'll tell me, in detail, everything that happened right from the time Ashton and Benson left their flat in Stockholm.' That took the rest of the morning. At quarter to one Ogilvie recapped his pen. 'That's it, then. Now you can go home.' 'Am I suspended from duty?' He looked at me from lowered eyebrows. 'There are a few people around who would like to see you fired. Others favour a transfer to the Outer Hebrides so you can counter industrial espionage into the production of Harris Tweed; they're talking about a twenty year tour of duty. Have you any idea of the trouble this enterprise of ours has caused?' 'I have a good imagination.' He snorted. 'Have you? Well, imagine how the Swedes felt about it, and imagine their reaction when we began to put on the pressure at a high level. It got up to the Cabinet, you know, and the Ministers aren't at all happy. They're talking about bungling amateurs.' I opened my mouth to speak, but he held up his hand. 'No, you're not suspended from duty. What you did was under my instruction, and I can't see that you could have done differently given the circumstances. Neither of us expected Benson to kill Ashton, so if anyone carries the can it's me, as head of the department. But this department is now under extreme pressure. There's an inter-departmental meeting tomorrow morning at eleven at which the screws will begin to turn. You will be required to attend. So you will go away now and come back here at ten-fifteen tomorrow, rested and refreshed, and prepared to have a hard time. Do you understand?'
'Yes.' 'And I would be obliged if you do not disclose to the committee that you are aware of the Ashton file in Code Black. We're in enough trouble already.' I stood up. 'All right, but I'd like to know one thing-what happened to the bodies?' 'Ashton and Benson? They were brought back to England two weeks ago. There was a funeral service in Marlow and they are buried in adjoining graves in the cemetery there.'