For the Good of the State (20 page)

‘It seemed a good idea at the time,’ said Audley. ‘We’d just seen Cocteau’s
La Belle et La Bete—
the film. That was what gave us the idea.’

He didn’t want to know about old films, either—

‘Jean Marais played The Beast. I can’t recall the girl’s name, who played Beauty. But Danny—your dear mother, Tom—she was far more beautiful.’

Audley seemed to have forgotten Panin altogether, never mind that bullet of his. And never mind Basil Cole, too.

‘She had a superb dress. Cobwebby lace and pearls, and floating gauze.’ Audley’s voice was dreamy. ‘And I had a superb mask, for The Beast—’

He didn’t want to know about fairy stories and fancy dress balls—

‘But I never got to wear it—’

It had happened in the wrong order—
the thought came to Tom from nowhere—
Basil Cole’s accident and then Audley’s bullet
.

‘I got kicked in the face playing rugger that afternoon. Broken nose and two black eyes, and lips like a Ubangi tribesman. It was so painful I couldn’t get the mask on.’

‘David—’

‘So I had to go as I was, without it—’

‘David—why did they kill Basil Cole in the morning when they were planning to kill you in the afternoon?’

‘But we still won the fancy dress competition. Apparently—all too apparently—I was the beastliest Beast anyone had ever seen,’ concluded Audley. ‘You’re absolutely right, Tom.’

The M4/M5 spaghetti junction loomed ahead. ‘I am?’

‘Yes. That’s the contradictory fact. But only if you look at it from the wrong point-of-view. Plus the fact that Panin’s
internal
security. Plus ancient history repeating itself, even against the odds.’ Sniff. ‘But then, there are some damn queer things happening over there, now that young Gorbachev’s come to the throne. So maybe that’s not so unlikely.’

The interchange traffic was heavy and fast, racing to reach its weekend destinations and forcing Tom to concentrate for a moment on finding a place in it even as Audley’s words sank in.

Damned traffic—

And those other, earlier words—

Damned traffic! It was like this all the way to Exeter—

Earlier words—

He found a slot in the overtaking lane at last. ‘You think Panin’s maybe gunning for someone on his own side?’ He frowned as he spoke. ‘But over here? And you got in the way somehow?’

‘I think maybe he wants me to do the gunning. Like before. And maybe someone else doesn’t like the idea. Also like before. At least, it’s a working hypothesis, for a start.’

‘And Basil Cole?’

‘He’s part of the hypothesis.’ Audley sat up. ‘Slow down a bit, there’s a good fellow—you’re beginning to frighten me.’

‘We’re going to be very late if I don’t get a move on.’

‘Let the bugger wait. Or go to bed, for all I care. I’d rather be very late than
the
late. Just take it easy.’

Tom shifted lanes. ‘Basil Cole?’

‘Oh …
that, I
think, was Panin.’ Sniff. ‘The bastard.’

‘Even though he wants you to help him?’

‘Even though—yes. Just because he wants help, it doesn’t follow that he wants me to know what I’m really doing … which poor old Basil might have had a lead on. So Panin will tell me just enough, but mostly lies.’

Two enemies
, thought Tom. One was usually enough. Plus Henry Jaggard at his own back. ‘While someone else is gunning for you?’

‘Ye-ess … Nasty prospect, isn’t it?’ Audley sat back again. ‘Still, after Lebanon you must be used to this sort of thing. And we’ll get old Nikolai Andrievich on to my would-be executioner, anyway … in return for our services.’

‘You’re going to help him?’

‘I’m going to sleep, actually … Wake me up on Exmoor, Tom.’

Not yet, you’re not
! ‘You’re going to help him?’

‘Yes, I’m going to help him.’ Audley drew a deep breath and snuggled down in his seat. ‘And I’m also going to pay him back for Basil Cole, Tom. In full.’

TOM STARED UP
incredulously at the thin sliver of light which showed through a narrow gap in the curtains of the main window of his bedroom in the Green Man Hotel, Holcombe Bridge.

Not my room
? The night wind blew cold on the back of his neck as he forced himself to question his judgement. He had been given the best room in the hotel, the bridal suite no less—the
Princess Diana Suite
, with dressing-room and sitting room and palatial bathroom as well as oaken-beamed bedroom with a bed the size of a rugger ground; and nothing surprising there really, from past experience of hoteliers presuming that
Sir Thomas
expected his titled due if it was vacant, and could pay for it; and, in this case, nothing surprising that mere
Dr Audley
(attendant physician to
Sir Thomas
, perhaps they’d thought?) had a small room under the eaves nearby.

The thought of Audley made him run his eye along the low bulk of the hotel, darkened now against the starless and soundless night which pressed the Green Man into its fold in the invisible moorland all around. But Audley’s little window was unlit; so Audley, like Panin in the annexe, was taking his rest while he had the chance, it was to be hoped.

His eye came back to his own window
(no mistake: this whole end of the Green Man, above the silent stream by the bridge, belonged to Princess Diana and Sir Thomas this night!)
. And, as it did so, the curtains shivered suddenly, confirming his fear and his certainty beyond further question and shrinking him back against the wall’s safety, out of sight if they were wrenched open.

But they weren’t. Instead the sliver of light was extinguished, and night was complete again in front of the Green Man. But there was someone in his room now.

It didn’t make sense—

The solidity of the wall at his back was comforting, but it was the only thing that was. Because everything else was incomprehensible now.

It was his room, and someone was inside it now. But the key was in his pocket, and it couldn’t be any visiting chambermaid or under-manager, looking to his creature comforts at this hour, close to midnight—

Even, it had almost seemed a foolish conceit, to make this present night-round after he had seen Audley safely locked into his little room, with such precautions advised as could be made, and Audley contemptuous
of them, replete as he had been with the late-night smoked salmon sandwiches and profiteroles which had been all the hotel had offered, together with the hugely expensive wines Audley had chosen to go with them (which had perked up the hotel management almost comically, but which had at least confirmed their estimation of ‘Sir Thomas’ as he’d ordered them, which had taken a knock when they’d got their first sight of Sir Thomas as he was)—

‘They’re offering Beaumes de Venise by the glass, Tom. But if they bought that at Sainsbury’s, or M and S, or wherever
…
that’s a bloody rip-off, isn’t it? So
…
if we had that nice Chateau Climens instead, maybe?
’

Tom had wondered for a moment what Henry Jaggard would make of the Green Man bill, as a departmental expense, with Thomas Arkenshaw in the
Princess Diana Suite
and David Audley into the Chateau Climens: and then he’d thought
the hell with Henry Jaggard
!

And, later on, he’d thought:
I’d better make some sort of night-round, to check the lie of the land, after I’ve put Audley to bed; although, for all the good it will do in total darkness, and with no one else watching our backs, it will be no more than giving me a breath of air before I turn in—

And he’d said to the barman/under-manager, who’d been hovering:
‘I’ll just take a walk outside, for a few minutes
…
to blow away the cobwebs before I turn in
.’ And the barman/under-manager had said: ‘
Well, you’d better take a torch, Sir Thomas. It’s very dark outside—or, it will be when I switch off the outside lights
…
And I’d better give you a key to the outside door, too
.’

And now he felt the solidity of the wall at his back, which had been built, stone and mortar and rough plaster, before Lorna Doone had met John Ridd, back in the deeps of fictional Exinoor. And, with no back-up out there in the night—no back-up because neither bloody Henry Jaggard nor bloody David Audley appeared to have any interest in professional protection—the bloody wall at his back was all he had, in the way of safety, now. But, more to the point,
it simply didn’t make sense—
Because this wasn’t the moment to search his room, at this time of night, when the room would be occupied (and when there wasn’t anything in the room worth looking at, anyway)—
that didn’t make sense—

And …
maybe there was back-up, out there in the night, which Henry Jaggard hadn’t told him about: the ceaseless watch-and-ward of the old Royal Navy, of those storm-tossed ships which the safely-guarded English never saw
,
but simply took for granted—because Jaggard’s attitude didn’t make sense otherwise, by God!

He pushed himself away from the wall, suddenly irritated by his own crass irresolution, to stare again at the darkened facade of the hotel. The only thing he knew for sure about Henry Jaggard was that he was a tricky bastard—almost as tricky as Audley. But the only thing he knew for sure about his present situation was that
someone was in his room, and this was no time to make pointless pictures about anything else—

Mercifully, the night-key turned easily in its well-oiled lock, with only the slightest of clicks.

He closed the door carefully behind him and then stood, listening to the silence. After the pitch-blackness of the night behind him the reception area had seemed bright at first, but now the feebleness of its minimum lighting returned. More pronounced after the clean moorland air were all the stale night-smells of the hotel, dominated by tobacco and alcohol from the bar on his right and the more acceptable hint of wood-smoke from the huge open fire in the residents’ lounge on his left, where the last log of the day sat on its huge pile of ash.

Tom exhaled the smells and was conscious also that he was mixing them with a self-pitying sigh. He knew that he was tired now, and that he had a right to be tired after so long a day, which had started so fairly and had developed so foully, and which had nevertheless kept its last, more dangerous moment to its very end, when he fell least able to cope with it.

Then, from his hidden reserves, he summoned up self-contempt to drive out self-pity. Looked at from the opposite direction (and, just for this final moment of reflection, forgetting Willy), this had been a damn good day—even a lucky one: because Henry Jaggard, faced with an emergency, had chosen Tom Arkenshaw to handle it; and Audley’s would-be assassin had
missed;
and now someone, up in his room, had been
careless—

He reached inside his coat, to settle the .38 in its holster, letting the weight of it comfort him:
now someone had been careless—but this time Poor Tom wasn’t defenceless
!

Two tip-toe steps to the left, and he was off the flagstones and on thick carpet, and on his way silently—

Memory flowed smoothly. The under-manager had led the way, through that door in the corner—
this door—
up the narrow (but still carpeted) private staircase to the Princess Diana suite—
this stair, these stairs, two at a time and soundless now—

The short passage above was empty, and five silent steps took him to the door, back safely to the wall and the .38 in his hand, pressed to his chest.

There would be no sound inside, but he would listen anyway—

Sound — ?

He straightened up again, back to the wall, frowning.

For Christ’s sake! That was
…
? Radio One—Radio Three—whichever was the all-night pop music station—?

Ear to the door again, to confirm the impossible truth that someone was listening to pop music in his room, after midnight, in the Green Man, Holcombe Bridge—
for Christ’s sake
!

All inclination to wait vanished in that instant. And, as his free hand hovered for a second over the room-key in his pocket, that inclination also evaporated. Instead, the hand tried the door-handle, and felt the door yield, inviting him to fact the music and the uninvited music-lover—

The smell hit him first, in the first millisecond of entry, out of that most ancient of human senses, which must once have made all the difference between being the hunter and the hunted, but which had already been activated down below by stale beer and tobacco, and wood smoke, and a menu full of faint cooking smells garnished with a hint of floor-polish—

But—not so much a
smell
as a
fragrance—
an unforgettable, unforgotten fragrance—Chanel, Lancôme, whoever—

‘Darling honey—where the hell have you been?’ Willy raised herself on one elbow, all honey-gold and freckled and frilly silken white on the brocaded rugger-field of the great bed.

Tom felt the warmth of the room on his face, registering another sense, after sound and smell and impossible sight as she flexed one slender leg at the knee, cascading the cobwebbed silk down in a movement so characteristic—so well-remembered from last night, and other nights—that it tore his heart with its reality.

‘Willy—?’ He heard his own voice try to make a question of her, although he knew she was unquestionable—although he knew, as he knew that, that she was real at last, and that everything that he had had before had been an illusion. ‘Hullo, Willy.’ He wanted to keep the defeated unsteadiness out of his voice, but he couldn’t. ‘Well … this is a … a very pleasant surprise, I must say.’

‘Uh-huh?’ She moved slightly, letting the thick glossy page of her magazine spring back, brushing one perfect breast as it did so, and closing both the magazine and their friendship at the same time. ‘Is it, Tom? Is it?’