"Fraud? Misappropriation of funds?" Aubrey interjected.
"You're certain? There are all sorts of rumours, you know, John. We'd just like to be certain."
"You? Why should you require reassurance?" There was a cunning in Laxton's expression. His wave in response to the mouthed greeting of a former Cabinet colleague was perfunctory, distracted. Contempt for their superannuation mingled with a desire to probe the depth of their suspicion. Tell me that, Kenneth.
Whatever can it be to do with you?"
Aubrey's past confronted Laxton, giving birth to the suspicion that he might be on some kind of temporary assignment. His questions might be being asked on behalf of…? It had been the tactic which had suggested itself to Aubrey, and towards which he had guided Giles.
Laxton could not know, with any degree of certainty, who in reality was the originator of the questions put to him by a former Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee did old spies, after all, ever really retire? Laxton's confusion amused.
"I'm not at liberty to divulge," whispered Aubrey, leaning forward in his chair.
"You know how these things work."
' What things, precisely?"
"Word to the wise… could you just check something for us, that kind of thing," Aubrey murmured. Indeed, the Club was exactly suited to the conversation. The chimneypiece dwarfed even tall men, suggesting conspiratorial groupings, activities.
"Nothing to worry about, John. Just an assurance sought."
"Assurance of what?"
That there is nothing to come out no detonations to be anticipated."
Laxton evidently regarded Aubrey as a potential ally, Giles as an intruder.
"It's why Giles is here, principally," Aubrey explained.
"We want to be able to assure Marian quieten her. Soothe." Again, he leaned forward. There are some rather alarming instances of work curtailed, of late payments or no payments at all… and your department at the Commission, we know, provided the funding, passed on the grants… mm?"
There's nothing in all this, Kenneth!" Laxton protested, his forehead heated and pink. The money has been disbursed by Brussels by my authority, I suppose and the project is—" '-not on track!" Pyott snapped.
"No, it's no good soothing me, Kenneth. My girl's not the only one to have heard rumours. You may think you can cover up—" Aubrey raised his hand in warning.
"Giles, please? he demanded with mock exasperation.
"I'm sorry, John. You were saying—?"
The project's own complexities account for any delays there may have been, Kenneth. David has assured me—" He appeared to have startled himself.
"You'll see. Go and look for yourself, why not?" His confidence returned like blood-flow released from a tourniquet.
Aubrey felt disappointment like a stone in his chest. After a moment's insight, Laxton was sufficiently confident to become dismissive. He really did have nothing to fear. The diverted river of funding had been restored to its proper course towards the Millennium Regeneration Project.
"Was there a proper DTI investigation?"
"So far as I am aware, there was. As there was at the Commission."
Giles, still in character, harrumphed loudly. Aubrey's smile was bland, retentive.
Laxton, their best, weakest target, could not be shaken. The recent past held no ghosts that would come back to haunt him. He felt safe.
It depended, then, on Gant and Marian.
The line of perspiration along his forehead was like an old branding mark, claiming ownership. His palms were clammy against the old, whitewashed plaster as he pressed back against the wall of the smaller bedroom. A man kneeling, rifle raised, drawing a bead on the house, the slight movements of the barrel caused by his telescopic sight's surveillance of each of the house's windows.
With a great effort he pushed himself away from the wall and across the polished floorboards. A bright rug was disturbed by his clumsy steps.
He crossed the narrow landing and crouched his way to the window of the main bedroom. Slowly, he raised his head at the edge of the window.
His heart was pounding, like panicked footsteps hurrying away from there.
The two men were no more than forty yards from the house and only a few yards apart. Gant smelt the must, age, wood of the house. The afternoon was heady in the empty, closed farmhouse. Both men were dressed in black, accustomed to this kind of encounter. Gant's hand scrabbled for the loops of the rucksack and dragged it across the floor to his side. The two men, seeming to have communicated some silent decision to each other, came on quickly towards the shadow thrown by the house.
He heard the first of them collide gently with the wall beneath the bedroom window, then a further, softer detonation of flesh and clothing against the house.
They would know about the booby-trap, they'd come in via the window he had prised open. He wiped angrily at his forehead. He touched at the revolver Aubrey had supplied. Sweat under his arms, hands clammy. The stigmata of the old game, he realised, his lips parting across his teeth in a feral, threatening expression.
Three, four how many? He withdrew the revolver and checked the chamber, listening beyond the glass to the noises of birds, the rustle of a slight breeze, the sound of footsteps maybe along the wall of the farmhouse. He replaced the Smith & Wesson in his waistband, this time nestling it against his stomach. Its stubby barrel and no-snag front sight were unfamiliar only for a moment. Wood creaked in the afternoon silence.
There was no one between himself and the barn. If he dropped from the window and ran, he would be exposed for no more than thirty yards, a matter of a few seconds… while he ran headlong, enlarging all the while in a telescopic sight, falling away as if kicked by a horse when the first bullet struck. There was no one between him and the barn because they wanted him to go that way, if he had seen them at all.
Gant, still crouching, edged his way across the polished floor, sensing rather than hearing the tiny scuffs and irritations of his rubber-soled shoes against the wood.
Then he straightened on the landing and tiptoed towards the head of the stairs, aware of the dry, crumbling texture of the plaster as his left hand stretched out to steady his unnaturally slow movements. The rucksack was slung across his shoulders. On a table at the head of the stairs was an old oil lamp. Gant could smell the fuel, the burnt wick.
It rested on a clean, neat cloth of lacework, the kind his mother might have made. Strickland's mother, too… shadow across the room, short and stubby with the early-afternoon sun, pausing after having climbed through the window. He listened and could hear the unseen man breathing, and perhaps another's breaths beyond that. One still outside the window. He waited, reluctant to draw the gun, to fire it.
The shadow moved, precisely, carefully. It possessed a bunched hand from which a tiny, sticklike accompanying shadow protruded. They would even expect this one to get blown away, but it would serve to locate him exactly, narrow the field of fire… He was sweating profusely.
The revolver remained in his waistband, his hand instead touching against the polished brass of the old oil lamp, a pattern of leaves etched on its clouded glass bowl.
Three or four more steps and the shadow would be at the foot of the stairs, they would be visible to one another… His grandmother had worked by the light of lamps like this one, his mother had kept one as a memento… He had picked it up as the memory drifted through his awareness, had replaced it like a reluctant purchaser, had opened the box of matches that lay beside it on the lace, had watched the shadow take one step, then another… Had held his breath as he eased off the clouded glass and crooked it against his stomach with a bent arm, had turned up the wick, had struck the match, a loud, slowed-down sound, watched the wick flare up, before-foot of the stairs, the first man, his hand on the banister. Gant threw the flaring oil lamp towards the stocky, square-faced man, who ducked aside. The lamp broke, spilt its oil. The flame ran after it hungrily.