"You would?"
"I might." Clinton's voice was suddenly cold. "But killing is another matter, David. If you're getting a taste for that as a quick way out of your difficulties then I have to know about it. Because you're no use to me like that."
"You really think I killed him, Fred?"
Clinton stared at him. "Weston said you were after blood—he says he recognises that now."
"I see." Audley nodded back slowly. That was fair enough on Clinton's part, because killing was as much an acquired taste as duelling, and there was only one way a successful duellist could reassure himself that he was still on the top line.
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"The truth now, David."
What was the truth?
"All right. I didn't kill him, Fred. He killed himself."
"But you knew he'd kill himself?"
"I hoped he would. And I did my best to ensure he did."
"Then where's the difference?"
"The difference ... the difference is that it was up to him. If he was willing to kill—then he died. If he wasn't— then he was home and dry. It was his choice."
"That's pretty shaky morality, David."
"Okay. So next time a terrorist blows himself up on his own bomb you weep your crocodile tears and I'll stick to my shaky morality, Fred." Audley made as if to get up. "Is that all, then?"
Clinton waved his hand irritably. "Sit down, man, sit down—
if there was a fault it was mine, in letting you loose."
Audley sat down.
"How did he blow himself up?" asked Clinton.
Audley smiled. "With what they call a 'Judas'."
"Who call?"
"The CIA. When they lost all those fifteen-minute sabotage pencils in Vietnam they were pretty pissed off. And then one of their dirty tricks specialists thought of a simple way of getting even. They withdrew all the existing stocks and doctored 'em for instantaneous detonation, then they dummy5
shipped them out to Vietnam again on the quiet to add to the other stocks. Which is why there have been so many terrorist accidents of late, I should guess."
"And you . . . acquired one from your friend Davenport?"
"Could be."
"But—you picked up that information in Washington?"
Clinton's tone was hostile suddenly.
"I picked up a lot of information in Washington."
"And didn't report it?"
"I put in a separate technical report to the Equipment Section." Audley paused. "Yesterday."
They were now at the exact point of balance, he judged. It must be clear to Clinton that however improperly he had acted, nobody was in any position to prove otherwise, no matter what they might suspect. And if there was one thing that Clinton loved—although he would never have admitted it
—it was low cunning.
All he had to do to keep his job was to throw a few more words into the balance.
And then, to his surprise, he realised that it wasn't the choice of words which mattered to him, but whether he wanted to say them. Faith wouldn't mind if he didn't, she would be glad. But there was still Sergeant Digby's opinion to be consulted.
The sad truth was that he could no longer recall Sergeant Digby's features with absolute clarity, only the colour and dummy5
texture of the boy's threadbare dressing-gown. He remembered thinking that he had once had a dressing-gown exactly like that, which had been threadbare in exactly the same places. You probably couldn't buy dressing-gowns like that any more, not of that durable quality. He should never have let Faith get rid of it—
"Tell me one thing, David—" Clinton was staring at him with unconcealed curiosity. "Tell me one thing—"
I've missed my opportunity, thought Audley. Now he thinks I don't give a damn either way!
"—as between friends—" Clinton's eyes were no longer angry.
It was too late. The balance had tipped of its own accord.
"—how the devil did you con a smart fellow like Charlie Ratcliffe into doing a damn silly thing like that?"
When he'd finished Clinton sat silent for a few moments.
"A golden cannonball! God bless my soul!" His eyes narrowed. "A solid gold cannonball?"
"No, not solid gold. Just a thick coating of gold on lead—like a big toffee-apple, really."
"I see. But even that would have taken quite a lot of gold."
"It did."
"Not from the CIA, I trust."
"No. I have a ... friend who has a tame goldsmith."
"Matthew Fattorini?"
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Audley ignored the question.
Clinton frowned suddenly. "But is it possible? I mean, is it ballistically possible? Wouldn't the gold have distorted in the barrel—and have blown the whole thing to kingdom come?"
He paused, no longer really looking at Audley. "Though ... I suppose they did use lead bullets in muskets—even in rifled muskets . . . and if the muzzle velocity was very low—
The eyes came back to Audley. "Is it possible?"
Well, well! thought Audley. Even Fred Clinton.
"Nobody knows." He shrugged. "Because nobody's ever tried.
It would take a metallurgist who's been a gunner to tell you off the cuff, and even he wouldn't know for sure. Charlie Ratcliffe was only a sociologist."
"But you didn't actually check—with a metal detector?"
Clinton looked at him, his eyes narrowed again. "You just dug a hole at random?"
Audley stifled the rising temptation to laugh. "It isn't there, Fred. Cromwell got it."
"We shall have to look all the same." Clinton shook his head as though to clear it. "But he believed you, anyway."
"I wouldn't go so far as to say that. I'd guess he saw the possibilities, though."
"The possibilities?"
"Oh yes. ... He saw that if I betrayed my own side—and the CIA as well—then I wouldn't have a friend in the world. And dummy5
that would change me from a greedy pig into a sitting duck—
for him and his friends. And the fact that I'd not asked him to do the job himself reassured him that he wasn't in danger."
"Except you'd made sure they wouldn't be there—Gates and Bishop—so he couldn't ask them to do it." Clinton frowned.
"But he didn't try to ask them, did he? He didn't even look for them?"
"No. But taking them out of circulation was really just. . .
insurance. I was relying on his doing it himself."
"How could you rely on that?"
Audley looked at him for a moment, then down at the files on the desk. " 'Information received', I suppose you might say."
"Information from whom?" Clinton was clearly puzzled.
"Oh, it's not in the record, Fred." Audley shook his head slowly. "It wasn't the sort of information that goes in records.
It was much too subjective for that."
"But good all the same—obviously."
"But good . . . yes." Audley nodded. "You see, I talked to this—
well, I guess you could call him an expert on human greed. . . . And he said that the possession of gold does things to people. He made it sound like a contagious disease."
"Contagious?"
"Infectious too—you showed a symptom or two yourself just now. But the contagious variety is the worst, and Charlie had got that badly. Because he'd handled the stuff. . . he'd felt the weight of it, and seen the beautiful colour of it. Which was dummy5
why it didn't surprise him one bit that I was prepared to kill and betray for it—he recognised his own symptoms subconsciously."
"And twice the gold made him twice as greedy, you mean?"
"Maybe. But I don't think he would have seen it like that at all. Because what the Russians had given him was their gold.
What I'd got—what I might be taking from his land right under his nose—that was his gold. And he couldn't bear the thought of it, it was worth almost any risk to stop that—and he couldn't bear the possibility that Gates or Bishop might say 'no' to the risk being taken. So he had to take it himself."