Colonel Butler's Wolf (7 page)

“That was your idea?”

“It was. I met the man five years ago, when I was getting material for my book on the kingdom of Jerusalem—he took me through the Cilician Gate. And I tucked him away in the back of my mind for the future.”

It had the ring of truth, for that was the sort of man Audley was; a man who filed names and faces and facts in his prodigious memory, marking them for future use as Wellington had marked the ridge at Waterloo long before Napoleon had set Europe ablaze again.

“Besides—“ Audley paused, and then continued with a touch of diffidence—“I need a man I can rely on with me up north now Smith’s dead.”

Butler frowned. “He was one of
ours?
”

“He wasn’t … “ Audley sighed. “Indeed he wasn’t. But it rather looks as though he might have been in the end. It’s a damn shame—a damn shame!”

He fell silent for a moment.

“Just who was Smith, then?”

“Who indeed!” Audley gave a sad little snort. “He was a junior lecturer in Philosophy at Cumbria, and a good one too.”

“How did he die?”

“He was drowned—or we think he was drowned. He rode his motor-cycle into a little lake—no more than a pond really. But deep enough to die in. He rode off into the night and eventually they found him floating face down among the weeds. Accident, they say—and maybe it was an accident, even though he was floating face down.”

“I beg your pardon?” What was the man driving at? He seemed almost to be talking to himself.

“Eh? Oh, yes—face down! Men should float face up—so Pliny says, according to Huxley.”

My Thames-blown body (Pliny vouches it)
Would drift face upwards on the oily tide
With other garbage …

Aldous Huxley, that is of course, not T.H.—and the female floats the other way—

Your maiden modesty would float face down
And men would weep upon your hinder parts.

“I do assure you there may be something to it, Butler. I had thought it nonsense, but a doctor I know says it may relate to physiology. Something to do with the relative density of fat and muscle—those “hinder parts”, I suppose. But he was afloat in the feminine manner, and there may be something in that. It’s one of the things I’d like you to check for me.”

“The official verdict was accidental death?”

Butler did not quite succeed in curbing the impatience in his tone. If he let Audley tell the tale in his own way they’d be travelling the long way to the truth, no matter how interesting the scenery. Poetry, for God’s sake!

“That’s probably what they’ll call it.” Audley nodded. “He was drunk, you see, very drunk. No doubt about that: there were two hundred and something milligrammes of alcohol in his blood—way over the limit. I wasn’t at the inquest, of course. No one of ours was, naturally, because we didn’t know about him then … “

“Didn’t know about him? What didn’t you know?”

“We didn’t know who he was.”

“He was disfigured? Or had the fish been at him?”

“The fish? No, he hadn’t been in long enough for that—“ Audley stopped. “I’m sorry! I keep forgetting how very little you do know.”

Butler balled his fists and counted—
one, two three, jour
— “Audley, I do not know a little”—
five, six, seven, eight
—“I know absolutely bloody nothing beyond the fact that I was sent to Eden Hall to get Smith’s records. And having seen them I can’t see what use they are to you if you already know you’ve got his body.”

As Butler turned to stare at the blur of Audley’s face in the darkness the taxi pulled in to the side of the street. He caught a glimpse of stone steps and a stucco pillared portico.

Audley moved forward to the edge of his seat, waving his hand vaguely at the window.

“I’ve borrowed a flat for an hour or two—more comfortable than riding around in a taxi.” He turned back towards Butler. “Yes—well, I’m afraid there never has been any question of whose body we’ve got, Butler. It belongs to our Neil Smith. But probably not to yours.”

“Not mine?”

“It rather looks as though your little Eden Hall boy was Neil Smith right enough. But our Neil Smith was actually a man by the name of Zoshchenko—Paul Zoshchenko. Somewhere between Eden Hall and the King’s College at Oxford, the KGB appear to have slipped a ringer on us.”

“
HELP YOURSELF TO
a drink,” said Audley generously, pointing to an alcove in the corner of the room. “My invitation covers incidental hospitalities.”

Butler stared around him. Conceivably this was another of the department’s properties, ready like the taxi to serve when the need arose. On the other hand, department flats were rarely so elegantly furnished and never kept their alcohol on view in cut-glass. And Audley was notoriously chary of using official facilities.

In the end he carried a medium-sized brandy and soda over to the fireplace. When it came to scoring off life it was hopeless to attempt to outdo Audley.

“Zoshchenko. Do we know him?”

“No.” Audley shook his head. “There’s never been a mention of him.”

“Then how do you know who he was?”

“He told us himself.” Audley took several folded sheets of paper from his breast pocket. “Strictly speaking he didn’t tell
us,
we really don’t know what he intended to do. But it looks as though he was in some sort of trouble and he turned to the only man he trusted.”

He passed the sheets to Butler.

Anonymous, greyish photocopying paper; the reproduction of a letter written in a small, meticulous hand, but with the leopards and lilies of ancient royalty on its crest—

The Master’s Lodging,
The King’s College,
Oxford.

Dear Friesler

“Who is this Freisler?”

“A German scholar who lives in London.”

“How did we get hold of the letter?”

Audley regarded Butler silently for brief space.

“He happens to be a friend of mine.”

“Has he a security rating?”

“You read the letter, Colonel. I’ll worry about where it came from.”

Butler noted the slight lift of the big man’s chin and the sudden coolness of his manner. So this German was one of those friends, one of that private network of strategically placed people Audley had charmed or bullied (the man could do either as he chose) into keeping their eyes and ears open for him. Young Roskill had spoken of it half ruefully, half admiringly.

He lowered his eyes to the letter again.

… I have held my hand (if not my tongue) during these last months. But now something has occurred which makes action imperative.
I have heard this day of the death of one of my former pupils, Neil Smith, a graduate of the college who was awarded the Mitchell research fellowship at Cumbria last summer.
Smith was apparently killed in a road accident after he had lost control of his motor-cycle. I have been informed— unofficially—that although only evidence of identification was taken at the preliminary inquest the final verdict will undoubtedly be “accidental death”.
As it happens, however, I am in possession of information which casts doubt not only on this expected verdict, but also on the finding of the preliminary hearing.
On the night of Smith’s death, shortly after dinner I was informed of a long distance telephone call which the Porter had finally decided could not be kept from me. The line was poor (as it often is) and I confess that I was irritated at having to leave my guests, the more so because the butler informed me that it was an importunate Mr Zoshchenko who was asking for me. I was not aware of knowing anyone of that name. 
Also, I speedily formed the opinion that Mr Zoshchenko was drunk, for he insisted on declaiming passages from Plato—mostly from the Apology and the Phaedo—interspersed with parts of what I took to be the American Declaration of Independence. It was most confusing; he was confused and so was I.
And then he said, with perfect clarity: “Master, you think I’m Neil Smith, but I’m not—I’m Paul Zoshchenko. But if I’ve got to die I’m damn well going to die Neil Smith, not bloody Paul Zoshchenko. I don’t even like bloody Paul Zoschenko, even if I have to die for him.”
Now, having taught Smith I recognised his voice as soon as I heard his name—I had no doubt about that either, slurred though it was. So I naturally tried to dissuade him when he said that he was coming to see me that very night, for he was clearly in no position to be abroad. But he took not the slightest notice of me.
Then the pips went—he had put additional coins in twice before—and he said: “No more money, Master,no more time. If I don’t get wet on the way I’ll be with you for breakfast—“

“Wet!” whispered Butler. “God Almighty!” “Finish the letter,” Audley commanded.

“—but if I don’t make it, Master, pay the cock to Aesculapius for me.”

So there you have it, my dear Freisler: if this call was from Smith, then Smith was not what he seemed. And his references to death and wetness clearly suggest suicide, rather than accident.

As to paying the cock, I do not believe he intended me simply to deliver these facts to the coroner. Therefore I am taking the liberty once more of passing on this information to you to act on (as I know you will) in the interests of those to whom we owe our obligation.

“God Almighty!” repeated Butler. “Wet! Do you think that’s really what he said?”

Audley shrugged. “We’ve no reason to doubt it. Old Sir Geoffrey was pretty well oiled himself that night—that’s what he means by all that detail about his guests—they do themselves well at King’s and Sir Geoffrey enjoys his port and brandy. But there’s nothing wrong with his memory. He just didn’t know what he was remembering. But then you wouldn’t expect him to know KGB slang.”

Butler nodded. That was the whole thing in a nutshell. The Master of King’s College, Oxford, would know Ancient Greek and how the Court of the Star Chamber worked—but he wouldn’t know that the Russian slang for Spetsburo Thirteen was
Mokryye Dela
—“The department of wet affairs”. Only “wet” in their context meant “blood-sodden”, and to get wet was the feared, inevitable fate of traitors pursued by the special bureau.

The irony, if that had been Zoshchenko/Smith’s fate, was that he had got wet literally as well as metaphorically, and the Master had added two and two to get five.

“What was all that about paying a cock?” said Butler.

“Ah—that was another bit from the
Phaeda,
the last words of Socrates as he was being executed. You see, Aesculapius was the god of healing, and people who were sick used to sacrifice a cock to him before they went to sleep in the hope of waking up in good health again—or sometimes simply as a thank-offering for having recovered. As Socrates was dying he asked his friend Crito to make such an offering.”

“As he was dying? Wasn’t that a bit late?”

Audley smiled sadly, as though Socrates had been a friend of his too. “It was a sort of a joke—a typical Socratic joke. It’s rather complicated, but he thought the soul mattered more than the body, so maybe he meant that by killing his body they were curing his soul.”

Butler frowned. “Hmm! And that means maybe Zoshchenko rode into the lake deliberately after all!”

Audley pursed his lips thoughtfully, then shook his head.

“You’ll have to sort that one out. But I wouldn’t get in the habit of calling him Zoshchenko. As far as we’re concerned he lived Smith and he died Smith. That’s one wish of his we can grant.”

He paused, rubbing his chin. “We want to know how he died, Butler. But even more we want to find out what brought him to the boil.”

“And what he was doing here in the first place,” said Butler harshly. He held out the photocopied letter. And come to that, he thought, it would be interesting to know just what Audley had been doing too these last few months. But he’d have to fish for that.

“Let me get things straight,” he began innocently. “Hobson first spoke to Freisler some time ago. And did Freisler get in touch with you then?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact he did,” Audley replied a shade guardedly, as though he wasn’t quite sure that Butler had the right to ask the question, never mind be granted an answer.

“So what was this nightmare of his? Reds in the University?”

Audley blinked unhappily at him. “Not so much that, no.”

“What then?” Pinning Audley down gave Butler a perverse but undeniable pleasure.

“He rather thinks they’re framing his lads.”

Butler allowed his jaw to drop. “You’re joking!”

Audley regarded him malevolently.

“You’re not trying to tell me that the KGB has come down to organising student protest?” Butler gave a scornful half-laugh.

“I’m not trying to tell you anything, Colonel. I’m telling you what the Master of King’s thinks. Which is something you will have to check for yourself in due course, so I shouldn’t laugh too much. He may not be quite the man he once was, but he’s still a crafty old bastard, I can tell you.”

He eyed Butler coldly. “And just in case you feel disposed to forget that, Butler, you may care to remember instead when you meet him that he commanded the column that drove Panzer Lehr’s Tigers out of Tilly-le-Bocage in Normandy on D plus six.”

Butler kicked himself for letting Audley ambush him just as he seemed to be on top. He should have known that the man would defend the academics; that deep down inside he identified with them, especially with the Hobson-types who had proved themselves in the jungle beyond their ivory towers.

“He pretends to be a simple old man, with an old man’s fancies,” Audley went on. “But he isn’t simple.”

“Yet he has nightmares.”

Audley puffed his cheeks. “The trouble with the Master is that he’s always been a violent anti-Communist, so much so that he was tarred with the appeasement brush as a young don back in ‘38. Last summer wasn’t the first time he’d seemed to cry ‘Wolf! Wolf!’. He’s been spotting subversive influences for years.”

“Then what was different about last summer?”

“Ah, well, we had—something else to go on at the time, so it seemed. But I’d rather not go into that just now.” Audley smiled apologetically. “The fact was, they’d been having a fair bit of trouble at the universities as well, and the Master’s not without influence. It all added up.”