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If such a thing were possible, Billy actually grew paler. He looked over to Collins.

‘Time for explanations, Billy. Time to get it all off your chest.’

‘Miles, this is madness. Do you know the danger you’re in?’

Miles shrugged. Billy rested for a moment, seemed to make up his mind, then leaned forward in his chair.

‘You know me, Miles, I’ve always liked to know what’s going on in the world and in the firm particularly. I like to think of myself as the eyes and ears of the place. Well, that goes for past events as well as present. You know that your sidekick here murdered Philip Hayton?’

‘In exchange for some guns, yes.’

‘And that the middleman on the job was—’

‘The Israeli assassinated by Latchkey, yes.’

Billy nodded.

‘Then you know a great deal,’ he said.

‘But you, Billy, you knew it all the time. And you knew that something was up, that someone was trying to get me out of the way.’

‘I tried to warn you when you were leaving for—’

‘Some warning,’ spat Miles. He rose to his feet and walked around to the back of the sofa, where heavy net curtains hid them all from the darkened city.

‘Some warning,’ he repeated evenly. ‘You let me walk right into it every step of the way, without knowing what I was getting into. You and your friend Gray. He’s CIA, yes?’

Billy nodded.

‘Something like that.’

‘And you’re his eyes and ears, Billy, his puppet, nothing more than a puppet. Yes?’

Billy touched the side of his face, but said nothing.

‘Yes,’ Miles answered for him, ‘or maybe a performing monkey would be a better description. At first I suspected you of being behind the whole thing, but it didn’t fit. You wouldn’t have gone near Sheila if you had been.’ He turned toward Billy and rested his hands on the back of the sofa. ‘She had nothing to do with this, did she?’

Billy thought about his answer for a long time. He had detected a hint of pleading in Miles’s voice. If he were to lie and say yes, she was involved, then he could reverse the roles, could... But he was past all caring. The game had become too complex, and he couldn’t be bothered anymore to read the new rulebook. So he shook his head.

Miles nodded, thankful and satisfied. Collins just sat there. This was a revelation to him, like some grand, unfolding soap opera. But, he had to keep reminding himself, this was for real. He couldn’t allow himself to forget that.

‘So,’ Miles continued, ‘you were a magnet for gossip, bits and pieces of information, and Gray used you as an informer.’

‘It was mutual,’ said Billy, growing more confident. ‘He gave me information, too. He knew quite a lot about the other side, about his own people, and’ — he paused — ‘about us. He knew, for example, about the Hayton business, not all of it, but enough. Between us we put together a pretty fair picture of the whole thing. Philip Hayton had been... involved.’

‘Meaning?’

‘The love that dare not speak its name.’

‘He means homosexuality,’ Miles said to Collins, who had furrowed his brow.

‘Yes,’ said Billy. ‘Well, nothing new in that, is there, Miles? Not in our profession. But the man with whom Hayton was involved was trying to break it off. Perhaps he had been scared by the whole “Fourth Man” business. Hayton didn’t want to lose him, was threatening public exposure, moral blackmail, all that sort of thing, I suppose. I’m a bit hazy on this part of the story. There was a kind of triangle, you see, and Hayton was going to cause trouble for all. So he was eliminated. It looked like a terrorist killing’ — he looked to Collins — ‘and so was hushed up, but it had been arranged from within the firm, quite clandestinely, utilizing the firm’s own channels and techniques.’

‘All a very long time ago now,’ said Miles as Billy sipped at his coffee, made a face, put it aside, and rose to fetch a bottle from the cabinet. They all sipped the whiskey for a moment or two, savoring the break in tension. Miles checked the tape in the cassette recorder.

‘It’s not as good as the Irish stuff, is it, Mr. Flint?’ said Collins.

‘You’re right, Mr. Collins,’ said Miles.

‘So,’ began Billy, not sure quite whether he were joking, ‘you’ve gone over to the other side, eh, Miles?’

‘Perhaps,’ answered Miles. Then, ‘Do go on with your story, Billy.’

‘That was it so far as the Hayton thing went. No one was any the wiser. He was seen as a victim of the troubles, nothing more. But Gray got hold of something, I’m not sure what. Hayton’s lover, having used the firm as cover for the operation, had aroused some interest. The Israeli, I would guess, worked for everyone: CIA, Mossad, us. I think Gray got his information from him.’

‘And?’

‘And’ — Billy paused again, rather overplaying his hand — ‘the trail led back to our own Mr. Partridge.’

‘Partridge?’

‘None other. He’d been Philip Hayton’s lover all those years ago, had tried to break it off, and had, well, finally taken stronger action.’

‘My God,’ whispered Miles. It was beginning to fit into place. ‘You mentioned a third man?’

‘Quite a lowly political huckster then as now. Harold Sizewell.’

‘Who was almost blown up at Kew?’

‘Quite. He’s my local MP actually. I’ve a place in his constituency, Chillglade.’

‘Well, well.’ Miles had the feeling that he was burrowing quickly into some warm and rotten piece of wood.

‘But all this was, as you say, Miles, a long time ago.’

‘So what happened?’

‘Several things. A concatenation of circumstances, you might say. For one thing, Partridge has worked his way up to a position where he is next in line to run the show.’

‘He’s worked hard and fair to get there, hasn’t he?’

‘Oh, yes, I’m not disputing that. But skeletons do have a way of appearing from the cupboard just when one doesn’t want them to. So our friend decided to tie up the only loose ends in his past.’

‘Which necessitated putting out of action those people who could be dangerous to him: Mr. Collins here, the Israeli, and Sizewell.’

‘As to Sizewell I can’t be sure. Gray seems to think that the bombing was coincidental. No, Sizewell wasn’t the threat. He would have as much to lose as Partridge should anything have emerged from the cupboard. But as for the others, yes.’

‘Where do I fit in to all this, Billy?’

‘You were an accident, Miles. Partridge had arranged it so that the tail on Latchkey should lose him. Gray reckons it worked something like this.’ Billy was on the edge of his chair now, becoming something like his old brash self again. ‘Partridge had found out that Latchkey’s target was to be the Israeli—’

‘How?’

‘Well, the closer you come to the top of the chain of command, the more intelligence comes your way. Perhaps it was a trade-off with one of our allies or our enemies.’

‘Go on.’

‘All Partridge had to do, having gleaned this information, was to ensure that the surveillance, which had already begun by this time, botched the job. Voilà, one of the thorns in his past disappears, and no one’s any the wiser. It was beautifully simple really. He must have thought it divine intervention when the opportunity arose. But then you entered the picture, just when you weren’t supposed to. You went along on the surveillance, you ended up being the one to lose Latchkey, and you became suspicious. In Partridge’s mind, you became another problem.’

Miles shook his head.

‘He was way off the mark, Billy. Yes, I was suspicious, but I hadn’t a clue what was going on, and I certainly wasn’t getting any closer to solving it.’