The Labyrinth Makers

And no single Dakota could carry enough mere loot to hold the Russians' interest down the years. Or in the first place, when they were bulging with German valuables.

'I assume,' he said tentatively, carrying on his thoughts aloud, 'that the Russians are still interested. That's why we are here now, at this hour, without our breakfasts?'

Fred smiled.

'They are indeed, Dr Audley. In fact I'm afraid they were down at the crash site pouring beer down navvies and interviewing talkative aircraftsmen before we were. But I meant have you anything to add to the Steerforth File in the light of his reappearance?'

Audley started to adjust his spectacles, and then stopped awkwardly. He had been trying to control that gesture for years, without real success.

'I mean, are the Russians still interested, after having learnt that those boxes contained rubble? Did they learn that? It's an important dummy4

distinction.'

'Assuming that they did–what then?'

'I should have to know rather more about Steerforth. There is a possible sequence of events, but I wouldn't like to advance it yet.'

'Why not?' This was Stocker at last. 'You have a reputation for drawing remarkably accurate deductions out of minimal information. I'd very much like to hear what you make of this.'

Audley felt a flush of annoyance spreading under his cheeks. It galled him that he had a reputation for understanding without reason. Intuition had its place, and was valuable. But only in the last leap from the ninth known fact to the inaccessible tenth, and never at the very beginning. And even at the last it was not to be trusted.

He knew he ought to control his feelings, and hold the only real card he possessed. But he couldn't.

'I'll tell you one thing I do know'–he tapped the Steerforth File with his index finger–'that Major Butler was more right than he knew when he said that this was non-information. I'd like to see the original file, for a start.'

'The original?'

Audley sighed. Maybe he did have that flair. It would be easier to admit an inspired hunch than to explain that he could look between the lines of this material to see the gaps in the narrative, the sudden thinness of the material, the changes of style, the tiny inconsistencies of editing. All of which suggested the removal of something too intriguing to be left to the common gaze.

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He looked to Fred for support.

'Quite right too,' said Fred. 'You shall see it. Stocker only wanted to know—'

'—I only wanted to see Audley pull a rabbit out of his hat.' Stocker smiled, and was transformed by his smile from a faceless JIC man into a human being. Audley felt that he had been small-minded and pompous.

'And you did pull a rabbit out. Only it was not the one I expected.

I'm sorry to have played fast and loose with you. Sir Frederick warned me. But the missing bits don't concern Steerforth, I assure you. You'll still have to find out about him for yourself. Which I believe Sir Frederick is arranging for you.

'On which note I will bid you good morning. It has been a pleasure to see you at work, even if only briefly. But I shall be seeing you again soon.'

Audley could only blush, and shake the hand thrust out to him.

Then Stocker was gone, and the atmosphere lightened perceptibly.

Audley observed that both Butler and Roskill were grinning.

'I really cannot understand,' said Fred, 'why the JIG always produces threat reactions in you people–even in you, David.'

There was no point in suggesting that Fred himself had formalised the conference in Stocker's presence by dropping all the Christian names he usually affected. He probably intended to foster the JIG

mystique, not reduce it.

'It has a perfectly reasonable co-ordinating function, which you all know perfectly well. But no matter. Have you any more immediate dummy4

questions?

Roskill stirred. 'One thing–only I don't quite know how to put it.

This Russian interest, after all these years–couldn't it be just a case of bureaucratic obsession?'

'And we could be making a fuss about nothing? Or something that has become nothing? It could be, Hugh, it could be. But if it isn't–

then it could be rather interesting. Weighing the possibilities, I think we have to go ahead, at least for the time being.'

'Have you got any more questions, David?'

'I have–yes. But not about Steerforth. First, if it is decided that I must attend his funeral–I must assume it is his funeral–I must be allowed to have my breakfast first. I cannot go to a funeral on an empty stomach. Second—'

Fred held up his hand.

'David, I do apologise. You shall breakfast with me in a few moments. Mrs Harlin has the matter in hand. And then you will be going to the funeral–you've got the transport laid on, Hugh?'

'8.45 from here, Sir Frederick. It's a good two hours to Asham.

We'll pick up the other car in Wantage.'

'Very good. And you're concentrating on locating the original cast, Jack?'

Butler nodded. 'Mostly routine, but it may take a little time. They may be all dead, except the Joneses.'

'I hope not for all our sakes. In the meantime, gentlemen, I have some explaining to do, I believe, for Dr Audley's benefit. I'll excuse you that.'

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The departure of Roskill and Butler cued in Mrs Harlin, with breakfast. And breakfast conceived on a scale which shattered Audley. The condemned man's meal, or at least one designed to give an elderly vicar strength to go out to evangelise the Hottentots.

Before they had even sat down Fred moved to forestall argument.

'I know you're not a field man, David. But I don't see this quite as a field assignment. More an intellectual exercise in human archaeology.'

'But I deal with words, Fred, not people. I'm no good at interrogating. I don't know how to start.'

Fred snorted.

'Absolute nonsense. You interrogate our people all the time.

Extremely closely, too, if what I hear is true.'

'I know them. That makes it different. Get me the reports on this as they come in. I'll do the job just as well that way–probably better.

But why me, anyway? I'm a Middle East man.'

Fred lowered his knife and fork.

'And a damned unpopular Middle Eastern man, too.'

Audley stopped eating too. Here was the truth at last.

'Did it ever occur to you, David, that you might annoy someone with that recent forecast of yours–before the Lebanese business?'

Audley bridled. 'It was true.'

Fred regarded him sadly. 'But undiplomatically packed. It didn't leave anyone much room to manoeuvre in.'

He cut off Audley's protest. 'Damn it, David, it wasn't a report–it dummy4

was a lecture. And an arrogant lecture, too. You're a first-rate forecaster who's stopped forecasting.'

'I've never twisted the facts.' Audley could sense that he was digging his heels into shifting ground. 'That forecast was accurate.'

'If anything, too accurate. If you were a gambler I'd say your cards were marked. And you're too far in with the Israelis.'

'I've used Israeli sources. I don't always believe what I get from them though.'

'You lunch with Colonel Shapiro every Wednesday.'

'Most Wednesdays. He's an old friend. But so are Amin Fawzi and Mohammed Howeidi. I meet a great many people.'

Fred sighed, and started eating again.

'I don't give a damn, of course. As far as I'm concerned you can have your own old boys' network. You can poke your nose anywhere, as it suits you. But that last report was the final straw.'

Good God, thought Audley: he was being taken out of circulation.

Banished to the Steerforth File, where he could not cause any annoyance except to four ageing members of the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve.

Yet Fred was smiling, and that didn't fit.

'For a devious character you are sometimes surprisingly transparent, David. If you think that you are going to be put out to grass, you are mistaken. You ought to appreciate your value more clearly than that. What you need is a dose of reality. You've been leading a sheltered life for too long.