But as certyn shyps thee whych adhere to thee cause of his Majestic make uncertain thee passage twixt Devonshyr and London it seemeth to mee it were not wise to sendyth so grete an cargo by see tho' thatte were in othyr time thee suryst route.
Wherforre will I brynge it mineself bye lande untoe yr Excellencie thatte it maye serve wel as maibe thee cause of thee Lorde and hys Righteouse to bee of use and servyce suche as seemeth wel to y'rselfe.
Writ by mine owne hand thee fyrst daye of August, the yr of thee Lorde 1643.'
So this was Charlie Ratcliffe's ace in the hole, thought Audley. A copy of a copy of a letter from Colonel Nathaniel dummy5
Parrott to John Pym . . . unsigned and unaddressed, but that was of no great matter in the circumstances. It might be a forgery or it might not, though with the run of the Earl of Dawlish's papers and the technical expertise of the KGB's draughtsmen that might never be established. It might even be genuine.
But it would serve as wel as maibe to make his case: 2,000
pounds of Spanish-American gold had been lost, and 2,000
pounds of Spanish-American gold had been found.
He looked up at Weston. "A poor speller, but an interesting writer. Where did you find it?"
"On Henry Digby."
"And what else did you find?"
"Nothing else."
"Well then—that's all there was, I suppose."
"Don't play games with me, Audley." Weston's voice was cold, but well-controlled. He wouldn't be a man to let anger get the better of him ever. "You know who he obtained this from, I take it?"
"Professor Stephen Nayler at Cambridge, I'd guess. I told him to have a word with the Professor."
"The letter doesn't surprise you, then?"
"Not very much. I'd expect something like that to surface sooner or later. I couldn't get it out of Nayler, but I suppose Sergeant Digby had a more persuasive manner than I have."
dummy5
"So he was investigating the gold, not the murder."
"He was following my orders—" Audley lifted a finger quickly
"—which didn't take him anywhere near the Ferryhill Industrial Estate, Superintendent. He must have gone there on a private matter."
Weston stroked his chin. "You seem to have changed your tune in the last few hours."
"I can play lots of different tunes on the same instrument."
"Aye, I can believe that. But I preferred the first tune. It sounded truer to my ear."
"That could very well be. I could play it again if you made it worth my while— just so long as you don't think you can force me to, that's all. Because you can't, you know."
"You don't think so?"
"Not a chance. I may not look it, but I'm top brass, Superintendent. And not in the Home Office, either. And Henry Digby's killers are dead, too."
"But not their killers."
Audley shook his head. "I can't give you them . . . any more than I can give you James Ratcliffe's killer."
Weston pursed his lips. "What can you give me, then?"
"First we have to make our deal, Superintendent."
Weston shook his head. "I don't make deals."
"Better hear the deal before you turn it down. It won't stretch your conscience, I give you my word on that."
dummy5
"I can listen."
"Off the record—the way I listened to you beside the Swine Brook?"
"No. After Ferryhill the case is altered." Weston shook his head again.
"I can close your mouth with the Official Secrets Act, man."
"I wouldn't bet on it."
Good for Weston, Audley thought approvingly. So long as there were policemen like him there would be no police state in Britain.
He nodded. "Very well. I'll just have to trust you, won't I?"
"That's up to you."
"Of course. . . . But then, you see, after Ferryhill the case is altered for me too, Superintendent. Because Henry Digby was my man at the time. So I have a score to settle too."
Weston stared at him thoughtfully, then away across the open field beyond the bandstand towards the children's playground. Finally his eyes came back to Audley.
"Off the record, then," he said.
"Thank you." Audley paused. "I have no proof for what I'm going to tell you, and I doubt if I could get it now. But I think I'm guessing right—at last."
"I understand." Weston nodded slowly.
"James Ratcliffe was killed in June by a Russian agent—KGB
Second Directorate, Second Division, Ninth Section.
dummy5
Probably a man by the name of Tokaev, operating out of Paris at the time."
Weston's jaw tightened. "You knew this when you spoke to me last week?"
"No." Audley drew a deep breath. "I thought this was a domestic political matter—which in a sense it still is. Charlie Ratcliffe is a nasty little muck-raking revolutionary, and a lot of useful people have skeletons of one sort or another in their closets. If he became rich suddenly he'd have the resources to cause a lot of trouble—that's what I thought I was dealing with. And the trouble with me was . . . that it didn't interest me one bit."
"Why not? A job's a job, isn't it?"
"Not for me. I'm a counter-intelligence expert, not a bloody little political errand boy. Besides, I'm not at all sure that a little muck-raking isn't a good thing—if the Americans sometimes go too far we usually don't go far enough. We're a bit too damn good at sweeping secrets under the carpet . . .
I've had the brush in my hands more than once, so I should know."
"I see. So you just went through the motions, eh?"
"More or less. To be honest, I thought the Double R Society was more interesting than Ratcliffe himself. I didn't think I could prove anything against him—and I never dreamed he was hooked in with the Russians."
"But your . . . superiors knew better— yet they didn't tell dummy5
you?"
Audley shook his head. "Frankly— I just don't know. They may just have had a suspicion, with no proof, and they wanted to see what I came up with. They certainly edited Ratcliffe's file, but I thought that was to remove some of the political dirt he'd uncovered. Because I doubt whether even he dares to print everything he digs up."
"Aye, there's still a law of libel. So you didn't do anything, is that it?"
"Oh, I set about trying to cause trouble for Charlie, in case he could be stampeded —lots of thrashing about was what it amounted to, with us doing the thrashing. There was an outside chance that one of his accomplices might crack. But if no one did . . . well, you can't win 'em all."
Weston's lip curled. "Yes. . . . And Henry Digby?"
This was the bitterest part, the price of stupidity that someone else had paid.
Another deep breath. "At a guess I'd say you'll be able to establish the killers as Irishmen, and maybe as suspected members of a Provo splinter group. But that won't mean a thing."
"No?"
"The KGB has men in every guerrilla outfit. They used these two to hit Digby, and then turned them into evidence for you.
And you haven't a hope in hell of proving it. It'll be another dead end."
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The only thing Weston couldn't control was that muscle in his jaw. The lips and the eyes were steady, but the jaw betrayed him. "Why Digby? Why not you?"
"They knew about Digby. They don't know about me."
"I see. Like the old story of King David and Uriah the Hittite—
you put him in the forefront of the battle. Off the record, Audley—I hope that helps you sleep at night."
"Digby doesn't help me sleep—you're right there. But I didn't get him in the forefront of the battle, I thought I was putting him in the rear rank. I sent him to do a little gentle research into how Charlie Ratcliffe found his gold."