The Memory Trap

Mitchell grinned suddenly. 'We're going to be end-of-season tourists, David.' He swung his door open. 'How would you like to visit old Tiberius's villa on Capri, eh?'

3

For a moment, as he examined the 18-hour stubble on his chin in the mirror of the motor-cruiser's Lilliputian lavatory, Audley forgot about the dead. But then they crowded back into his thoughts, uninvited but insistent.

"It's bad luck, thinking of the dead": who had said that — ?

The question, no sooner treacherously asked, was instantly answered by memory: it had been "Daddy" Higgs — Troop Sar'-Major Higgs himself, no less, of course — of course! Old Daddy Higgs!

"It's bad luck, thinkin' of the dead when there's work to be done, Mr Audley, sir”: memory expanded the superstition automatically, with the words perfectly recalled even though that grizzled face itself had become hazy. (Had it really been grizzled, even?) It had been "Daddy" because the men complained that he was always fussing — but Old because he proudly wore the 1937 Coronation Medal ... so that when he'd been burnt to a crisp on Fleury Ridge he'd been what?

All of 30-years-of-age, plus maybe a year or two, forever after? God!

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He shook his head at his reflection and dried his hands on the dirty scrap of towel. Daddy Higgs was long-dead. And General Raffaele Montuori was five years' dead, alas! But Oleg Filipovitch Kulik and Edward Sinclair and one as-yet-unidentified assassin were very newly-deceased. And —

Damn! Daddy Higgs's theory, behind his admonishment to his youngest and greenest (and most stupid?) subaltern, had been that the dead always had a majority vote; so, by thinking of them, you invited them to vote you into their club

—

Damn!

But he had to think of the newly-dead, all the same, while he could, with both Elizabeth and Mitchell somewhere out there, waiting for him under the tattered canvas awning at the stern, and the politely-suspicious senior Italian intelligence officer whom he'd so briefly just met also expecting an invitation — damn!

He scowled at himself. There could be very little doubt that his own invitation had been given, in Berlin. Kulik, all alone but no doubt sweating with relief now that he'd crossed the Wall safely, had in fact been comprehensively betrayed: date, time and place-betrayed, from the inside. But, with such exact information, all that bloodbath in the restaurant could have so easily been avoided that it must have been intended.

He shook his head at himself. Because all that, while it was enough to give Butler and Mitchell the frights, equally didn't dummy1

make sense, either. So he was back to old Wimpy's despairing anger, when any of his pupils (but, it had always seemed, most of all one David Audley!) had bogged up the logic of the crystal-clear Latin language: "This is nonsense, boy! And nonsense must be wrong!"

There they were, waiting for him.

'Elizabeth.' He had already nodded to her, embarrassed that his most urgent need wasn't information, but a lavatory. But now he could come to the point. 'Tell me about Berlin.'

'There isn't much to tell, David.' Her chin came up. 'I'm afraid I made a hash of it.'

'She didn't make a hash of it, actually,' said Mitchell. 'Henry Jaggard and our Jack mixed the hash. Lizzie never had a chance.'

Elizabeth gave Mitchell a wooden glance, and then dismissed him without bothering to react. 'It was supposed to be routine. But the Germans weren't happy with Kulik coming across under his own steam: they wanted to pick him up straightaway.'

'But you didn't know how he was coming across.' Mitchell again came to her defence. 'No one even knew what he looked like, for God's sake!'

He should have foreseen that Mitchell would be a problem, thought Audley: there had been the beginnings of something between the two of them, Mitchell and Elizabeth, once. But now it was very much a one-sided thing. 'Go on, Elizabeth, dummy1

please.'

'Yes.' The jaw came up again, more determined than before: the Loftus jaw which, on her famous naval ancestors, must have struck terror into friend and foe alike. 'As Dr Mitchell says, we weren't able to supply them with any information, except as regards the RV. So . . . maybe I should have expected trouble. But I didn't.'

'It was . . . "just routine", they told her,' supplemented Mitchell.

Audley coughed diplomatically. 'I take it you weren't armed?'

'The Verfassungsschutz was covering the place, David,' said Mitchell. 'They're always armed to the teeth. And they get uptight if anyone else is. They're always rowing with the Americans about it.'

'Uh-huh —' As the cruiser rocked in the gentle Mediterranean swell Audley pretended to reach for one of the supports of the awning, but missed it and caught Mitchell's arm instead.

'Not like the Italians, fortunately — ouch!' Pain cut Mitchell off.

'Sorry.' Audley kept his grip. 'So neither of you was armed . . .

How did you identify Kulik?'

'We didn't. Not for certain. He was there alone. And there was also an Arab, sitting alone, but we discounted him. So ...

Ted —I sent Ted over, David.'

Babes and innocents! And now she was blaming herself —

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and quite rightly. Except that Henry Jaggard and Jack Butler had even more to answer for between them. 'Uh-huh?' That was all he could say.

'It happened very quickly.'

When it happened, it always happened very quickly.

'Ted reached his table. It was three tables away from where we were sitting. Kulik looked up at him.' She stared through him. It wasn't happening quickly now: it was happening frame-by-frame on slow advance, and she couldn't stop looking at it. 'I think Ted said something.'

'And the Arab?'

'He was by the steps.' She continued to stare. 'He'd got up. At least ... he must have got up ... when Ted Sinclair got up.'

She hadn't been watching the Arab: it had been a routine pick-up, and Arabs hadn't featured in it. But now he was in the frame at last. And by then it had been too late.

'I saw the gun then.' She focused on him suddenly. 'He'd had it behind his newspaper as he walked — he was holding the paper across his chest when I first saw him by the steps.' She frowned at him. "Then ... he simply pointed it.'

'What sort of gun?'

'What sort of gun?' She blinked at him.

'7.65 Browning — North Korean copy. Short silencer.'

Mitchell murmured the information. 'A pro's gun, David.'

'Yes?' Mitchell knew about guns. But to know so much about dummy1

this one he must have been in contact with the Berlin security police on his own account. Or perhaps, in giving him his minder's job, Butler had obliged him helpfully. 'Go on, Miss Loftus . . . You saw the gun — ?'

'Yes.' She drew another deep breath. 'As I saw it ... he dropped the paper and held the gun two-handed. And he shot Ted Sinclair with it first, David.'

So that was why they were all so worried for him. 'And then he shot Kulik?'

'Yes—'

'No!' Mitchell had moved out of reach. 'You're not telling it how it was now, Lizzie, damn it!'

'Mitchell —' Audley began angrily ' — for God's sake!'

'No! He's right, David.' Elizabeth shook her head, blinking again. 'I saw the gun . . . and I don't know ... I knew it was already too late, then . . . But there was this bottle on the table, the waiter had just brought — ' After the hesitations the words suddenly tumbled out ' — so I picked it up and threw it at him, David. At the Arab, I mean.'

'That's more like it.' Mitchell nodded. 'And she bloody hit him too, by God, what's more: that's the way it was! She's not an ex-games mistress for nothing, by golly —cricket as well as hockey was it, Lizzie?'

Audley held up his hand quickly before Elizabeth exploded.

'All right! You threw the bottle, Elizabeth —'

Elizabeth breathed out. 'Yes.'

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'And it hit him.' He kept his hand in Mitchell's view.