'Yes.' Buller accepted the name, but stopped on his acceptance. Because 'Mitchell' wasn't just another name any more: he echoed distant gunfire now, and maybe more than that.
'He was with Audley?'
'No. Audley was late — I told you. The woman was with him.'
'Yes — of course! Ian's woman.' Jenny dismissed Frances Fitzgibbon once more. 'So ... Mitchell was there with Butler, was he?'
Ian's woman, thought Ian: in a curious way, that was what she had become now — just that. And the need to know more about her obsessed him again suddenly.
'Go on, Mr Buller.' Jenny's patience was beginning to stretch again. 'What — '
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'Tell me about the woman, Reg.' Ian overrode her. 'Mrs Fitzgibbon.'
'Ian! For heaven's sake!'
'Tell me about the woman, Reg.'
'Yes.' Buller ignored Jenny. '"Just a slip of a girl", the old witch said — Mrs Rowe said she said. A pretty little thing, too
— '
'She had good eye-sight, did she? At ninety-one?' snapped Jenny.
'Eighty-four. An' yes, she did.' Buller's voice strengthened.
'But I told you: she had this old telescope. An' she used to sit in her room, by the window, an' spy on everything — on all the people that came to visit the abbey ruins. Like, it was her hobby: see the coaches come over the narrow bridge, down the road, where they used to get stuck. An' then the kids climbin' on the ruins, an' their mothers pullin' 'em off an'
thumpin' 'em — ' He stopped suddenly. 'A pretty little thing.
An' she saw 'er first when the car came. Like a racin' car, slitherin' on the gravel in the car-park. An' out she comes like lightning — didn't even close the door after 'er, before she started runnin': that's what the old woman saw first, that took her eye — the way she went off runnin'.'
Buller paused there, and Ian thought for a moment that he was challenging Jenny to interrupt again. But Jenny didn't speak, and in the next instant he knew why — and why Buller had stopped, as the final picture he was painting for them in dummy2
words began to form again in his own mind — and to move, like a suddenly-animated film.
'It was rainin'.' Buller confirmed that second thought with extra information, to complete the picture. 'It 'ad been rainin'
all day, off an' on. So there 'adn't been any visitors much, before then. An' it was November, in any case.'
November 11. Next day, there would have been the Armistice Day Sunday parades, with everyone wearing their red poppies up and down the country, and the Queen televised at eleven o'clock, laying her wreath at the Cenotaph, before the veterans' march-past.
'An' then ... it was the way she ran.' Buller's voice was matter-of-fact, as it always was when he was totally-recalling what had been said to him. 'Like a boy, the old woman said: with
'er short hair, if she 'adn't noticed 'er skirt when she come out of the car, she'd 'ave thought it was a boy, when she ran up the path by the wall . . . Until she came out at the top, where you turn through the little gate into the ruins — remember?'
Buller was addressing Jenny, as one who knew what he was talking about, quite forgetting Ian now. So Ian had to build his own picture for himself, out of a jigsaw of other pieces, from other places, other ruins: Tintern and Bylands, Fountains and Rievaulx — all the old ruined abbeys . . . And Rievaulx for choice . . . because, hadn't there been cottages nearby there — ?
'You know, the old woman actually saw O'Leary — saw 'im?'
For an instant Buller's matter-of-factness became dummy2
incredulous. ''E must 'ave got there late — like Audley . . . Or, not like Audley. Because Audley would 'ave been VIP, an' 'alf the police in England was lookin' for O'Leary by then, so it wouldn't 'ave been easy for 'im, by Christ!' The next intake-of-breath was incredulity mixed with admiration. They must
'ave been payin' 'im premium rates, for whatever 'e was paid to do — even with all the escape disguises 'e'd got set up behind 'im. Because, 'e was really chancin' 'is arm, that last time — gettin' to Thornervaulx, over the top of the moor there . . . Silly bugger!'
'Yes.' Jenny weakened. 'But . . . what was he doing there, Mr Buller?' The logic strengthened her. 'It had to be Butler, surely — ?' Then doubt intruded. 'Or . . . whoever was meeting him there — ?'
'Aye. That's more likely. Because he must 'ave 'ad a clear shot at Butler — just about, anyway.' Buller sounded as though he'd been there before her, but was still uncertain. 'What about your Philip Masson, though?'
'No.' Jenny was decisive. 'Philly was out of the country that week. He was abroad — ' As she spoke her voice came from Buller to Ian ' — he was talking to the French in Paris. And he must have had all his R & D interviews by then. That's what I think, anyway.'
'So he'd got the job — deputy first ... an' then the gaffer, when Sir Frederick Clinton retired — ?' Buller stopped short, but just a shade too innocently.
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'I didn't say that.' Jenny also stopped there. Because the reality was that they had both been busy calling in their debts from their best sources — Jenny from her friends, and
'Daddy's friends', or even from Daddy himself, while Buller had tapped his 'blokes' in Fleet Street, or the Special Branch, who owed him favours (and who hoped to owe him more in the future?); but, with John Tully dead, this was a situation neither of them would ever have faced before, anyway: with survival at stake, they both had more urgent imperatives.
'You know too much, Reg Buller,' said Jenny.
'Too much?' Buller snapped back at her. 'Lady — I don't know 'alf enough.' Deep breath. 'But Audley was in Washington too, that week — I do know that. So someone tipped 'im off that Butler was in trouble — right?'
'But he got there in time for the fun, all the same — right?'
Jenny still didn't know how much Reg Buller knew, but she wanted all he'd got.
In time for 'Mad Dog' O'Leary! thought Ian. But not in time for Frances Fitzgibbon. 'Mrs Fitzgibbon reached the ruins, Reg. She reached the ruins, Reg — ?'
' Ahh — ' Buller breathed out again, through the silence between his two questions ' — yes, she got there, lad — your
"slip of a girl" — yes! She came out there, at the top, through the gate — the gate, there — ?'
'Where was Mitchell then? Paul Mitchell — ?' Jenny's interest in the final picture still concentrated on Mitchell.
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'He was right there.' Buller agreed with her. 'He was up top, gawpin' about in the main part, under the hillside, where the high altar was, an' the big window at the end — the big round window they all admire — ? That's in all the postcards?'
'The rose window.' Jenny supplied the rest of the tourist information.
'That's right. But there isn't any glass in it now — '
' Reg!' He lost patience with Buller. 'What happened then?'
'It was all rather quick, lad.' Buller sniffed. 'Mitchell was there — coverin' Butler, most likely. An' Butler was there . . .
down in the lower part of the ruins, keepin' the rain off 'im, under 'is big umbrella. An' O'Leary — 'e came down the hillside, over the bracken, an' through the trees . . . An' she shouts at 'im — the woman does — '
'Shouts what?' Jenny burst out, suddenly abandoning Mitchell.
'God knows.' Duller stopped. 'But 'e shot 'er dead, then — as she shouted at 'im. An' then Mitchell swings round, from watchin' Butler ... an' bang-bang-bang! — with 'is little gun!
An' bowled 'im over — O'Leary — like 'e'd been pole-axed.'
Pause. 'Which at that range — an', I tell you, I've been there