— at — that range, that's target shootin', that is: like, two bulls, an' one inner, at thirty yards or more, before 'e could take over, O'Leary — like bloody lightning, that was!'
Ian thought of the two empty barrels in the shot-gun at Lower Buckland; and of Mitchell's barely-suppressed passion dummy2
after that, which he'd not understood.
'And then?' Jenny, once again, was unencumbered by that first-hand experience of Paul Mitchell. ' What happened ...
Reg?' This time she softened the question finally.
Still no reply. So, there was something here which Reg Buller couldn't quite handle. And that struck Ian as strange, even disconcertingly strange, almost worrying. Because Reg Buller, drunk or sober (or, more-or-less permanently, midway between those extremes), was never a man to be lost for words.
'That is what the old woman saw? What she told her daughter?' Jenny had to be experiencing the same doubts: those were not so much questions as encouraging noises, jollying Buller along with her acceptance of what he was saying. 'Tell us, Reg.'
'Aye. What she saw.' Buller agreed with her reluctantly. 'Of course . . . it's early days yet. So we didn't ought to jump to conclusions an' then stay there. Because you never have before, anyway.' Sniff. 'Which is why you're worth more working for than some I could name.'
The man's reluctance and his change-of-subject fazed Ian completely for a long moment — and, obviously, Jenny also: their surprise flowed together in mutual silence.
' Reg — ' Jenny broke first, albeit in a whisper.
' Jenny — ' Ian reached out to restrain her, but misjudged the distance and caught only a handful of nothing.
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'It's all right, darling.' She got the message, nevertheless. 'Of course it's early days yet. But we ... it does rather look as though we don't have a lot of time. So do please jump to a conclusion for us, Reg dear.' As near as Ian had ever heard —
nearer by far than at any time in Beirut — she was pleading now, to get what she wanted. ' Please — ?'
'All right.' Reg Buller couldn't resist her, any more than any man could when she pushed so hard. 'So O'Leary went down
— like 'e'd been pole-axed ... an' that's probably exactly what the old woman said, because she was country-bred, so she's seen 'em kill their beasts stone-dead, with just the legs kickin' . . . But what she meant, I reckon, was that Mitchell knew 'e 'adn't missed, maybe. But 'e didn't care, anyway —
not about O'Leary.' Reg Buller drank, and they waited for him. 'It was the woman 'e went for — to where she'd dropped down when she was hit.'
Ian was aware that his mouth was dry. He'd hardly touched his non-alcoholic lager. And he had another full glass, untouched, waiting for him.
'It was pissin' down with rain by then. But . . . Jack Butler came up, an' 'e 'ad 'is umbrella down, she said. An' 'e tried to stop Mitchell pickin' up the woman — the girl . . . But Mitchell pushed 'im away, an' cuddles 'er, an' 'olds 'er. So then Jack Butler puts up 'is umbrella again, an' 'olds it over
'em both, while all the rest of 'em comes runnin' up.'
Frances! thought Ian. And then . . . Mitchell — ?
'An' 'e wouldn't let go of 'er, Mitchell wouldn't — not when dummy2
the police came up, an' some others not in uniform . . . An'
not even when the ambulance men finally came, with stretchers: 'e shoved 'em off, an' Jack Butler backs 'im up, an'
points to where O'Leary is — ' Buller moved from the past tense to the historic present' — so they goes to' get 'im. An'
brings 'im down first, with a ground-sheet over 'im, or a blanket . . . an' 'is arm 'anging over the side, like dead-meat
— ' Buller sniffed ' — no proper scene-of-the-crime police-work for ' im, with photographs: just get the bugger away quick, an' 'ave done with 'im! Okay — ?'
Ian realized that he had made a noise of some sort, because Buller was looking at him suddenly, frowning. 'Go on, Reg.'
Buller stared at him. 'What is it?'
'It's nothing. Go on.'
'Okay ... So in the end it was a policeman comes up, because Mitchell won't let go of 'er — like we used to do when there was a road accident . . . I've seen it happen, when they won't let go of 'em, just like that . . . when they know's too late.'
Buller nodded at him. 'But Jack Butler — 'e stops the copper, an' talks to 'im. An' then 'e talks to Mitchell — with the rain still pissin' down, an' Mitchell an' the girl are like a couple of drowned rats by then, with the rain, while Butler's been talkin' to the copper ... So finally Mitchell picks 'er up in 'is arms, an' carries 'er down 'isself . . . with Audley be'ind 'im, an' then a copper that's picked up O'Leary's rifle, carryin' it like it was gold-dust, so as not to smudge the prints on it, with a pencil down the barrel, an' a string through the trigger-dummy2
guard — she even remembered that, the old woman did.'
Ian saw it all, detail by detail, on the hillside he'd not yet seen, among the ruins of the abbey he'd also never seen yet —
not yet! But which he would see, by God, as soon as he was free again!
'Yes?' He almost added, for Jenny . . . this is one we have to write, Jen! But then he suddenly wasn't so sure. 'Go on, Reg
— go on!'
Another frown. 'Well, that's all there is, lad: they took 'er away — an' O'Leary with 'er . . . An' then they started to make bloody-sure no one ever printed the truth about what happened there.' Buller watched him. 'So what else do you want, then?'
Ian couldn't really say anything. But Jenny saved him from admitting so much. 'But . . . you haven't really told us the ending — have you, Reg?'
Buller picked up his chaser, but didn't drink it. 'Yes . . . But maybe that's the bit you won't like, Lady. An' I'd only be guessin' anyway. An' maybe it's too early to start guessin'?
Not when you've got your cheque-book at the ready?' He looked at Ian.
For once Ian knew that he not only knew more than Jenny did, but also understood better what he knew: knew that he had lost forever what he could never have won anyway —
knew utterly and forever that his best book couldn't be written.
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'Go on, Reg.' His knowledge didn't set him free: it chained him. But he wanted Jenny to feel the weight of those chains.
'Okay.' Buller dropped him. 'Your bloke Masson, Lady — he may have been the greatest thing since bread an' alcohol. But he'd still have played his game the only way he knew — the way the clever buggers in the Civil Service always play it.
Which is only the way everyone else plays it, anyway, if they're clever: you use the weapons you've got, that the other bloke hasn't got — okay?'
The man was trying to wrap up his can-of-worms in pretty paper. 'For God's sake, Reg — tell her!'
'Okay — okay!'
Jenny looked from one to the other. Tell me what — ?'
Out of nowhere, Ian suddenly understood why Buller was delaying. And that was remarkably to Reg Buller's credit, when he was so shit-scared of 'Dr P. L. Mitchell' — enough to make them go over that wall in the rain and the dark into the railway cutting so uncomfortably and so recently. But, for his part, he couldn't let himself identify so exactly with Dr Mitchell — not yet, not yet!
He faced Jenny. 'Philip Masson wanted the job, Jen. And . . .
maybe he didn't think Jack Butler was right for it — ' Partly on impulse, and partly to help her accept what he was about to say, he sugared the bitter pill ' — more likely ... So he fixed a test for Butler to prove himself — handling all the different pressures, up north: not just O'Leary, but the Special Branch, dummy2