It didn't even require any special effort. It wasn't as if Digby had been ferreting around in the area of James Ratcliffe's dummy5
murder at Swine Brook Field, and that was the only crime which Charlie Ratcliffe had committed. He'd only been filling in on the details of the gold itself, where Charlie had been on safe ground—his very own ground, where nobody could touch him.
Unless—
Audley knew that if he pursued the alternative he would have no choice in the outcome. Once he lifted the phone and called Weston again and said No. Screw bad luck. He was working for me and therefore he died for me—until you can prove otherwise then Weston would never rest until that otherwise was established. It wouldn't be a matter of guilt or blame for Weston—it would be a matter of truth, and a matter of keeping faith.
No choice, anyway. He could have no more avoided the alternative than the clock's minute hand could have avoided ticking to the next sub-division of its hour. Only when the clock stopped would the hand stop.
The phone rang in the exact instant that he reached for it, almost as though it had been waiting for him to make up his mind. Audley stared at it in a mixture of exasperation and relief. It had to be Weston, he felt that with a strange calm certainty; it had to be Weston because the moment the heat of the hunt was off Weston would find the accident of Digby's presence on the Ferryhill Industrial Estate sticking in his throat, a question much too sharp to be swallowed. And if he dummy5
had been unexpectedly quick in feeling its point it was no less true that Audley had been fatally slow in anticipating it: he could never bring himself to say "I was just going to call you"
now, even if there had been the least chance of it being believed. As it was, he had missed his chance by a matter of seconds.
But there was justice in that. The error was still his error, admitting it did not exonerate him of it. No anger or contempt of Weston's would ever hurt him as much as his own self-anger and self-contempt.
"Weston?" He was so certain that the question was unnecessary.
"What?"
Butler?
Audley blinked with surprise. But he'd only just been talking to Butler—
"Is that you, Audley?"
Butler.
"Yes. I'm sorry—I thought you were someone else." Audley realised that he had a fresh lease of life where Weston was concerned. "I'm expecting a call, Jack, so make it quick—
whatever it is."
"I will indeed," Butler snapped. "You were right."
It was a comfort to have been right about something, after having been fatally wrong once already today, thought dummy5
Audley.
"I was, was I?"
"Davenport. It came in just after you phoned."
"He's started to move?"
"He's moved. And he damn near moved too fast for us. It's a mercy we'd strengthened the surveillance on him or he might have managed it."
Audley half-smiled into the receiver at the typically Butlerian modesty. Butler had been right in his suspicions and Butler had strengthened the surveillance, but nothing would make him admit as much.
"What happened?"
"He'd established a route pattern to London over the past three days. But this morning he ditched his car in Staines and threw our tail. But our lad was smart—he switched the back-up straight to London Airport and put them on red alert there, it's only minutes from Staines, of course."
"And that paid off, I take it?"
Butler allowed himself a small grunt of satisfaction. "He had a flight bag waiting for him there, and a ticket to Holland.
And a spare passport in the name of Donaldson." Butler paused. "Which he's used half a dozen times before in the past year. One trip to Holland, five trips to Paris."
Davenport.
The conflicting implications of what Butler was saying dummy5
suddenly began to jostle Audley, elbowing each other like a crowd which had smelt smoke in the auditorium. Digby was dead and Davenport had run for cover—and that escape kit at the airport made him a pro for sure. But, more than that, if the deed and the action were connected, he ought not to be running, he ought to be playing it cool; and if they were not connected, then that shored up the good luck thesis, undermining his own conclusions about Digby's death. And yet, again, those trips to Paris ... if they were Charlie Ratcliffe-orientated—
But why should a professional run?
What did he think they could prove against him?
"What does he have to say for himself?"
"Precious little. He says his name's Donaldson, and he's an innocent American. And this isn't a police state, but he wants to phone his embassy just in case."
Well, that was playing it by the book. And for a man in Davenport/Donaldson's position that was the only way he could play it, guilty or innocent.
But for his captors the options were more varied. There was no problem in holding him; even without the passport they had the Suppression of Terrorism Act, and with the passport they could probably make a legitimate meal of him at their leisure. But leisure was something they didn't have—he knew that, and Butler knew it too. And, for a guess, Davenport/
Donaldson knew it also: if the ticket waiting for him had dummy5
been for Holland, then he would look to be met there, or at least to announce his safe arrival. So the advantage they had in having taken him on the wing was a fragile one, and every moment wasted gave the enemy time to adjust his defences.
The old clock was still ticking and Butler was waiting for him to do what he was paid for: to out-think the clock.
And he still had to phone Weston, to admit what the Superintendent would never forgive, the squandering of a useful life. That wasn't a pleasant prospect, rendered no more endurable for that it couldn't be avoided.
What can't be cured must be endured.
What must be endured must be used—
"Jack . . . listen—this is what I want you to do—"
He waited while they searched for Weston. It occurred to him that he could still be entirely wrong, and he had already made mistakes enough to make that a fair bet for any honest bookmaker. And if he was wrong he would be raising the devil for himself now.
But that too was what they paid him for, to raise the devil.
"Audley?" Weston's voice was rough with accumulated tension.
And that was also part of the payment, the excitement of backing the judgement and taking the risk. It was a very odd sort of job satisfaction.
dummy5
"I'm sorry to bother you again, Superintendent. You've got your men, then?" He paused deliberately. "But in pieces—is that right?"
"That's the way it looks." The words came with an effort.
"You're sure?"
For a moment Weston didn't answer, but when he did the roughness had been smoothed away. "No. It's too early to be sure of anything."
"But you have some evidence that the men in the car were the killers?"
"I can't say that yet, sir." The voice was hard as toughened steel now; Weston was thinking new thoughts and connecting up old facts with them. He would have thought them eventually, but this way he was being pushed towards them. "I'll let you know in due course, Dr. Audley."
"I'm afraid due course won't do, Superintendent."
"And I'm afraid it will have to do."
"No, it won't." Steel cuts oak— diamond cuts steel. "Look, Superintendent ... I can make you answer me, but it will take time and effort. I don't mind making the effort, but I can't spare the time—neither of us can spare the time. So don't let's waste it while we've still got it, eh?"
That was spelling it out both ways, confirming Weston's new suspicions about Digby's death and Audley's executive authority at the same time. Only the velvet question mark at the end had been a concession that Weston too had an dummy5
authority.
Weston drew one deep, audible breath. "Very well. It is too early to be sure— we've been at the scene of the explosion not very long and we haven't near finished there. But it looks as though they were switching vehicles, and the bomb went off as they were driving away."
"And the connection?"
"It was a small bomb. The man in the passenger's seat was actually holding it, it looks like—on his lap, probably."
Weston paused grimly. "There was a sawn-off shotgun in the back of the car."
"Yes?"
For two seconds Weston was silent.
"The man who shot Digby used a sawn-off shotgun," he said.
Audley held the receiver tightly and forced his eyes to remain open, knowing that if he closed them for even one fraction of an instant he would start seeing pictures. And this wasn't the time for pictures.
"So it's all wrapped up neatly?"
"We haven't established any identification yet."
But they would, thought Audley. They would. And a dingy room somewhere, with bomb-making materials and ammunition, and maybe an Armalite rule or two. There was always an Armalite. Perhaps there'd be a bunch of shamrocks and a couple of tickets for the Holyhead-Dun Laoghaire boat-train for good measure, too.