Gunner Kelly (5 page)

“I think I’ve just won a pint,” murmured Audley. Then, without taking his eyes off Cecil, he bent down to Benedikt’s level. “Your best bet is the
Eight Bells, just
beyond the church on the left when you get to the village. They don’t really have rooms, but if you tell the landlord I sent you they might put you up—” He straightened as Cecil turned towards them, and spread his hands eloquently.

Cecil stared at them darkly for a second or two, then jammed the cap back on his head and set off after the trailer, which was already hull-down in the next undulation of the road in the distance.

Benedikt watched him for another second or two, and then found to his surprise that Audley was no longer beside the car, but was back inside the field again, Striking across it with long strides, as though he had urgent business elsewhere.

He stuck his head out of the window hastily. “Sir—if you please, sir—!”

Almost without checking, Audley half-twisted in mid-stride. “
The-Eight-Bells …
just-past-the-church—” he waved cheerily “—you-can’t-miss-it.”

After Audley had disappeared into the dead ground of the same slope which had swallowed up the trailer and tractor, Cecil stamping behind, Benedikt sat unmoving for a while. He had encountered David Audley, the legendary David Audley, unexpectedly. But he could
not
have avoided the encounter— and Audley, on the other hand,
could
have avoided it, very easily. Therefore … although Audley, equally, could not have expected
him
, but was expecting
someone
… ?

No. Alternatively, he was not expecting anyone, but he wanted to take a good, close-up look at anyone—any unaccountable stranger—who did appear in Duntisbury Chase … ?

Or … had it been pure accident? And how, indeed, could it be anything else, to combine Audley, appearing from nowhere in the thirty square miles of the Chase, which contained nowhere of importance—nowhere of human importance, anyway—except Duntisbury Royal itself, and its few isolated farmsteads … to combine Audley with Cecil and the youth on the tractor, to detain Thomas Wiesehöfer at this precise point in nowhere?

It could hardly be anything else but pure accident, however curious and inconvenient. Yet all the same, logic notwithstanding, such a pure, curious and inconvenient accident disturbed him when he set Audley’s vast experience and known eccentricity against his own much shorter service. It was not simply that the man was a foreigner—the British, and especially the English, were not all that different, and the differences had been studied and codified—but rather that the man was in some sense a foreigner among his own people, a wild card in his own pack. So, knowing that, he must take nothing for granted.

So … taking nothing for granted as he shifted the gear change into drive … he took one keen look round in the rural emptiness of Duntisbury Chase.

There was nothing on the high naked ridge to his right, with its grass as close-cropped asan American pilot’s head; while on his left the undulations he had already noted were broken only by those carefully placed individual trees, some tall and well-spread with age, some matire but still youthful, with here and there newly-planted saplinjs, until the ridge fell away finally into the bed of the stream itself.

Across the stream the pattern repeated itself. And what it was, what it all added up to, partly by its own topography, partly by what man had made of it, and finally by the descriptive noun attached to it, was marvellous hunting country: a
chase
not for pursuing gane on foot, in the more popular European manner, but in the glorious English style, in the red coats which they so oddly (and typically) characterised as ‘pink’—he could almost hear the hounds baying, and the sound of the horn, and the huntsman’s
view-halloo
as the quarry broke cover—

A loud horn-sound, unmelodious and angry, startled him half out of his seat, hitting him from behind, reminding him even before he could look in his mirror of the farm Land Rover at his back, which he had quite forgotten.

His foot automatically depressed the accelerator, and the big car surged away, leaving the sound echoing behind him. Down and up, down and up—the trees and the empty pastures and the ridge flashed past on each side—down and up, and down and up.

There was a horseman on his left, galloping parallel to the road at full speed, ducking down under the branches of a tree and then emerging, with the clods flying from the horse’s hooves. For a moment the horseman was ahead—not a man, but a boy … or a man, but jockey-size—then horse and rider vanished behind another tree, and the superior horse-power of the Mercedes left both behind effortlessly, and he was alone again.

The trees thickened suddenly on each side of the road, closing in on him, but he caught a glimpse of a squat church tower, grey-green with age, in a gap up in front, on his left.

And now there was a straggle of houses—little dwellings in weathered brick, hidden behind thick hedges under the trees—

But there was no road-sign … he frowned and peered into the overgrown verges, and saw no indication that this was Duntisbury Royal at last. And yet it must be Duntisbury Royal, because it could be nothing else—there
was
nothing else for it to be.

The church came into view, back from the road in its churchyard full of gravestones, some of them upright and some canted over; and further on, separated from the churchyard wall by a square of gravel, a low building with roof coming down to the ground floor, little bigger than an ordinary house but with a hanging sign on one gable-end which bore a representation of bells—eight bells, Benedikt guessed.

He pulled into the empty square of gravel, alongside a tall stone cross, which had a sword in high relief superimposed on it, on a plinth beside the churchyard entrance.

Benedikt stepped out of the car. There were words engraved on the plinth, cut deep, as the English always did cut their inscriptions, but he didn’t need to read them, for he had read them on other similar crosses already.

Lest we forget…
and somewhere, round the other sides, cut just as deep, would be
1914-18
and
1939-45,
each with its list of names even in this tiny place, which was so peaceful and far-removed from the quarrels of the great and powerful.

For the real Thomas Wiesehöfer it might have been a bad omen, he thought, closing the car door without locking it. But for the real Benedikt Schneider there could be no bad thoughts here: if they didn’t want to forget, there was half of Benedikt Schneider which had a right to remember with them, as Mother had once reminded him, for his dead uncles and great-uncles on her side, who would anyway and at this length of time be unlikely to hold anything against his other dead uncles and great-uncles, who had been their enemies.

And, besides, who was he here for now, if not for
their
Elizabeth Regina,
D.G., Fid. Def
.?

He chose the Saloon Bar, because that was the bar Thomas Wiesehöfer would have chosen.

It was a dark little room, all the colder for its big empty fireplace, smelling of furniture polish and slightly of damp, and quite empty.

Eventually someone came to the bar, which was partly in this room, and partly in the adjoining Public Bar, which (so far as he could see through) looked lighter and more friendly.

The someone was a tall, slightly-built young man, who brought the Public Bar’s friendly look with him.

“Please … do you have rooms, with bed-and-breakfast?” It took an effort to emphasise each
s
, and to roll each
r
gutturally, as he would ordinarily have prided himself in not doing, so as to be able to surprise the landlord later.

“Oh, no—I’m sorry—” the young man sounded quite genuinely sorry, too “—we don’t have guests … we don’t really have room—I’m sorry.”

“Ach—so!” Benedikt pretended disappointment. It ought to have been real disappointment, but suddenly he was glad that he wasn’t going to be trapped in Duntisbury Royal, or Duntisbury Chase, tonight. And although his orders prompted him to mention now that a large ugly man who had omitted to give his name had sent him to the
Eight Bells
, those orders were not absolutely precise and instinct had just cancelled them.

“The nearest place, if you’re looking for a bed, is the
Golden Cross
at Fyfield St John, on the main road …” The landlord’s face indicated some doubts about the
Golden Cross’s
beds. “Or, you could go back to Salisbury—if you’ve come from Salisbury, that is … there are lots of hotels there. It’s not far, really.”

Benedikt nodded. The landlord was assuming from his speech, and perhaps from the big car outside, that he was a foreigner who had strayed off the beaten track. But, although there was no room at the inn, that was something which needed contradicting.

“Thank you.” He nodded again. “But this is … Duntisbury Royal—yes?”

“Yes—” The landlord began to polish an already well-polished glass “—that’s right.”

“And … there is here a
Rrroman
villa? The Duntisbury
Rrroman
villa?”

“Yes.” The landlord stopped polishing the glass. “It’s just behind the church, down towards the stream.” He blinked at Benedikt suddenly. “But… it’s on private land … I mean … they’re not excavating it at the moment—they were in the middle of excavating it, but they’ve stopped for the time being.”

Benedikt nodded. “The Wessex Archaeological Society—yes, I know. But I may look at it from the churchyard, perhaps?”

“Yes …” Mention of the Wessex Archaeological Society threw the landlord for a moment, and they both knew that churchyards were public land, in practice if not in law.

“So!” Benedikt nodded again. Nodding was standard practice for foreigners. Then, as though he had just remembered, he felt in his breast-pocket and produced his bit of paper. He adjusted his spectacles, which made the words difficult to read. “Miss Rebecca Maxwell-Smith—” he looked up at the landlord “—it is Miss Rebecca Maxwell-Smith, of the Duntisbury Manor, Duntisbury Royal, to whom I am addressed. Could you direct me to her, please?”

If he had asked to be directed to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth,
D.G., Fid. Def
., at Buckingham Palace, he could hardly have disconcerted the young landlord more. Or … perhaps if he had asked for
David Audley
—?

“Yes.” Now the landlord was nodding. “Miss Becky … but she may not be in. I could phone her from here, if you like?”

“That would be most kind.” If he nodded again, his head would fall off. But he must remember where he was. “I may have a drink, meanwhile?” He looked over the range of bottles behind the bar, and then at the beer pump-handles. “Lowenbrau—a halfpint, please.”

As he watched the landlord draw the beer he realised suddenly what it was that Audley had won from Cecil. “You will join me, please?” He put a £5 note on the bar.

“Thank you, but no.” The landlord set the glass down. “It’s only just gone twelve—too early for me. I’ll go and phone for you, though.”

Benedikt drank some of the beer. He realised that Audley had been right—this was Low-en-brow, not Lowenbrau.

A very pretty girl appeared from a door behind the bar, and smiled at him. “Are you being served?” she inquired.

Benedikt lifted his Low-en-brow. “Thank you, yes. Do you serve lunch, please?”

“Bar snacks—what would you like?” She handed him a menu.

The bar snacks were very reasonably priced. And the Low-en-brow wasn’t at all bad, really. And the girl was pretty, and the landlord was being helpful—come to that, even Dr David Audley had been helpful in his equivocal way, just as Cecil had been polite after his fashion. And here he was, an innocent German scholar, abroad on a summer’s day in a tranquil English valley of the sort that few mere tourists ever discovered, since there wasn’t a single sign-post to direct them to it.

“Thank you, but no.” He looked at his watch. “It is only ten minutes after twelve—that is too early for me.”

The pretty girl gave him another sunny smile, and turned away to start re-arranging the glasses behind the bar.

It was only instinct, of course … that prickling at the nape of the neck which came even against reason from some undiscovered part of the brain, although it always seemed to travel up the spine from the small of his back … or, if not instinct, then more simply his subjective reaction to the oil-and-water mixture of so much innocence here with what he knew about Audley and what lay somewhere in that quiet, tree-shaded churchyard.

Then the landlord came back, and as Benedikt rose from the bench on which he had seated himself he thought the man exchanged a glance with the girl. But he also thought he might have imagined what he thought, for she was the sort of girl with whom glances must often be exchanged.

“I’m sorry, but Miss Becky isn’t at home.” The landlord shook his head apologetically. “But I could phone again—they say she could be back any time … if you like to wait …” He shrugged. “Or … I’m sure it
would
be all right for you to look at the Roman villa—I can’t imagine Miss Becky minding … It’s just that we’re not very used to strangers.” He smiled again, and pointed to a pile of coins and notes on the bar. “And I see that you’re not very used to the price of beer in England, sir.”

“Thank you.” Benedikt was pleased to have established his foreignness. “But you will take for the telephone calls, please … So I will go to the villa, and then return—yes?”

Outside, he first felt so absurdly and irrationally glad to be in the fresh air again, away from the claustrophobic little barroom, that he concluded he was being frightened by shadows of his imagination. In the sunlight, with the green leaves everywhere, and the birds singing and fluttering in the trees, there was nothing to fear.

Not the small boy sitting on the churchyard wall, anyway: it was the same snub-nosed Benje who had pushed past the car, with his racing-cycle now propped up beside him.

He gave the boy a nod of recognition as he pushed open the wicket-gate into the churchyard.