A Prospect of Vengeance

'Isn't that where gold is found — in dirt? But we don't make the dirt, Mr Mitchell. People like you do that. We merely find the gold — ' Then she gestured abruptly. ' — I'm tired of metaphors, though ... In answer to your question, Mr Friendly-Mitchell — yes, we are going to write a book.

Because that is what we do. So what?'

'Unless someone stops you.'

'Stops us? Who's going to stop us?' Jenny seemed delighted that he'd picked up her gauntlet so quickly (Ian felt the metaphor shift from gold-mining to single combat: and that would please her, of course!). 'Not you — you're a friend of ours, you said.'

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'Not me, no.' Mitchell nodded towards Ian. 'He does the writing, doesn't he? And someone damn nearly wrote "The End" to his book this afternoon, Miss Fielding. Ask him if you don't believe me.'

'I see.' She didn't even look at Ian. 'Would you like a drink, Mr Mitchell?'

Thank you.' Mitchell didn't relax. 'I would like a drink — yes.'

He watched her pour a generous glass of Mr Malik's plonk.

'So you're just here to frighten us — is that it?' She thrust the glass at him, spilling it as usual in the process.

'Am I?' Mitchell drank thirstily, swallowing and then making a face. 'I think you ought to be frightened.'

'But you don't mind us writing, though? And publishing — ?'

Mitchell considered the question and the wine together, and neither seemed to his taste. 'It all depends on what you write, I suppose.' But he drank, nevertheless.

'Usually we settle for the truth, Mr Mitchell. Our lawyers find that less complicated to defend.' Jenny watched the man drink again. 'And we try not to be too economical with it.'

'Then, you've been fortunate to find such a lot of it. I've always found it somewhat elusive, myself.'

'Like gold?' Her mock innocence was transparent. 'Another drink — ?'

'Sometimes like fool's gold, Miss Fielding. And even the real stuff . . . since we're into metaphor again ... it can be just like a little knowledge — dangerous.' He nodded towards Ian as dummy2

he presented his glass. 'As Ian here surely must have told you

— thank you ... I can't really believe that you haven't told Miss Fielding about our adventures of this afternoon.' Then he frowned slightly over his glass at Jenny. 'Or has she had even more traumatic adventures of her own, maybe — ?'

Ian felt himself frowning. The man was fishing, unashamedly. But he was also behaving as though he still didn't know about Reg Buller. So ... who the devil had he been phoning from the box outside, who also didn't know?

Could Intelligence really be so uninformed — so downright incompetent — ?

'Only very briefly.' The voice inside his head giving the obvious answer seemed louder than his own voice.

'Yes. Too briefly.' Jenny followed him up quickly. 'So perhaps you would elaborate on what Ian said, Mr Mitchell. As a friend?'

'Ah . . .' Mitchell acknowledged the turning of the tables on him with the ghost of a smile. 'What did you tell her, Ian? No point in repeating ... the truth, eh?'

'He thought you might have saved his life, that's all.' Jenny refused to give up her advantage.

'All?' Mitchell sounded a little pained. That seems quite a lot to me.'

'He wasn't sure it was what you did, though. Maybe not the truth?'

'Oh, it is — I did. And rather heroically too, I thought. Or, as dummy2

some might say — foolishly?' He shook his head at Ian. 'You didn't tell her about Father John's gun — ?'

'He did not.' To her credit Jenny resisted this irresistible red herring. But then weakened. 'There were two men — ?'

'Ah? So he did say more!' But then Mitchell weakened in turn. 'Actually, there were three — '

Three?' Since no one had offered him a drink, Ian had been heading for the alcove. But the number stopped him in his tracks.

Three, including me.' Mitchell took his nod from Ian back to Jenny. 'We were all following him. But I was . . .' He shrugged.

'The cleverest?' Jenny put her knife in with a sweetly inquiring smile.

'Undoubtedly — and fortunately.' Mitchell considered the proposition seriously for a moment before continuing. 'But I was actually going to say "better informed". So I got to Lower Buckland ahead of everyone else, from Rickmansworth.

There's a little back road — '

'Why were you following him?' More red herrings bit the dust.

Mitchell frowned. 'Why — to see where he was going, Miss Fielding. Why else would I follow him?' Then he shook his head. 'I'm sorry — '

'Sorry?' Jenny had been about to snap at him. 'Why?'

'Yes. It was a silly answer.' He half-smiled at her. ' "Why did dummy2

the chicken cross the road?" — "To get to the other side" . . .

But we're past the childish Christmas-cracker jokes, I think.

And . . . the chicken had other reasons, of course.' Mitchell twisted the smile downwards. 'But the joke was certainly on this chicken, Miss Fielding: I had no idea how dangerous the road was going to be. And that is the truth, believe it or not.'

Then he lifted his empty glass. 'Could I have a proper drink, please? Like whisky, say?'

Jenny stared at the man for a moment, almost as though she was seeing him properly for the first time, before taking the glass and turning to the alcove. And Ian felt himself sharing the instant, and also seeing more clearly what he had glimpsed before: that, whatever and whoever he was, Mitchell was also flesh-and-blood, and no superman; and that in Lower Buckland they had both of them come upon their own life-and-death, equally unexpectedly. And that was certainly no joke.

'I think Jenny meant . . . how did you get on to us?'

That was a fair question, with a useful answer — if Mitchell was so foolish as to give it. But also, after this afternoon and what he'd just thought, he felt obligated to Mitchell.

'Is that what she meant?'

'What?' Jenny looked from one to the other suspiciously as she handed him a new glass.

Thank you.' Mitchell drank a little of his whisky. 'Well, if I may answer you with an ancient truth . . . " when you sup dummy2

with the Devil, you need a long spoon" — is that right? I can't remember where it comes from. But your spoon just wasn't long enough, it seems.'

Jenny squared up to him. 'What the hell is that meant to mean, Mr Mitchell?'

Mitchell looked at her for an instant. 'I mean ... at least, I think I mean . . . that if you ask particular questions ... of particular people, about other people — ?' He cocked his own question at Ian. 'Then someone's going to start asking questions about you — quite naturally, wouldn't you think?'

Then he smiled at Jenny. 'And we don't want any harm to come to you, of course.'

The square shoulders lifted, as Jenny took a deep breath.

'We're talking about Philip Masson — and David Audley, of course.' Having been offered an olive branch, the Honourable Miss Jennifer Fielding-ffulke hit Mitchell in the face with it.

'Or is this another Christmas-cracker joke?'

Ian saw Paul Mitchell flinch as the branch slashed him — just as the Syrian major in Beirut had done, when he'd been expecting gratitude and had received the rough side of her tongue instead; the only difference was that the Major had saved her life, whereas Paul Mitchell had only saved his —

'Jenny! For heaven's sake!' He saw Mitchell unflinching. But that didn't blot out Major Asad's pilgrim's progress from incredulity to bitterness, which had soured their comradeship into contempt at the last. ' Jenny — '

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'No, Ian.' Jenny shook her head obstinately. 'Don't be wet.

He's starting to bull-shit us now.'

'No I'm not.' Mitchell's jaw tightened. 'You asked me why I followed Ian. I followed him because you had been asking questions — and you asked one too many, of the wrong person. And about the wrong person.'