— and the phenomenon of peaceful transition from fascism to democracy ... I met a woman recently who is an expert on Spanish economic development, and what she had to say was extremely interesting — ahh!'
The new Ian was also becoming sassy in pushing alternative projects to the one which mattered to her. Although the one plus-factor was that at least he seemed for a moment to have forgotten Mrs Frances Fitzgibbon, alias Marilyn Francis, about whom he had obsessively taxed poor Reg Buller all the dummy2
way from London to Madrid to the exclusion of almost everything else.
Reg Buller — ? The thought of Reg (and of Reg complaining about Spanish beer, even more vociferously than about Spanish food) momentarily diverted her: in Spain Reg Buller was much less of an asset than in London; he seemed somehow to have withdrawn into himself, as though he no longer approved of what they were doing in seeking out Audley; although it couldn't be Audley whom he was worrying about — more likely he was torn between self-preservation and his duty to his paymasters on the one hand, and a sneaking identification with Paul Mitchell, their new suspect, on the other hand — could that be it?
'"Ahh"?' It probably was it. Because Reg and the Police Force had parted company long ago not so much because of his drinking (that would have been no great sin, the way he held it) as because of his sneaking sympathy for underdogs and minor villains versus authority. But it was still an added burden now, when Ian had gone funny on her too. 'What is it, darling?'
'I think I've spotted the wife.' He concentrated on the lower part of the plateau.
'Where?' Reg Buller was all the back-up they had, somewhere behind them in the car, and probably drinking already from his hip-flask. But Ian was her immediate problem.
'Or it may be the daughter . . . They're both tall and thin and blonde . . . But what on earth is she doing — ?' He dummy2
concentrated for another moment. Then he lowered the binoculars and pointed. 'Just down there, left of the car — in the ploughed field . . . Come on, Jen — let's get going.'
'Hold on.' It was still a long and uncomfortable walk to where he was pointing and she felt mutinous. 'Why are we walking all this way?'
'Eh?' The bloody binoculars came up again. 'I told you, Jen: I want to think a bit. And I also want to look at the battlefield.'
'You want to — ?' She bit off her anger, and looked round instead to help her count to ten: it was (she could see at a glance) a most excellent and absolute, and suitable and tailor-made . . . battlefield: apart from the modern railway-line which ran diagonally through the valley between the two rocky plateaux, with a couple of grotty station-buildings halfway along it in the middle of the open fields, and that single even grottier hut where Audley's car was parked, there was absolutely nothing to be seen. So, once upon a time, the British and the French could have killed each other in their thousands quite happily, without inconveniencing anyone or damaging anything of value. But that 1812 suitability still didn't answer the question. 'Why do you have to do that, Ian darling?'
'I don't have to. But I want to.' Now he was studying a more distant ridge to the right of the Greater Arapile. 'It's what Audley's doing today, Jen. I told you in the car — remember?'
What Jenny chiefly remembered from the short journey out dummy2
of Salamanca was that he had been irritatingly masterful and matter-of-fact and decisive. But then he had been like that for the last thirty-six hours, ever since Reg Buller had sold them his theory about Paul Mitchell and that wretched woman.
'So what?' What cautioned her was that he had also been efficient with it, in coaxing information about David Audley's whereabouts from a series of slightly bewildered Spaniards while she had stood on the sidelines like an idiot girlfriend whose main function was to stare at the ceiling of a series of bedrooms.
'I told you, Jen.' Now he wasn't so much masterful as quite damnably long-suffering. 'The daughter prattled to that man the receptionist found for us in the hotel after we checked in
— the one who spoke English? They were here all yesterday, but they were "doing" the English side of the battle, and that ridge over there — ' he pointed. 'So today they were going to do the French side. And the French were up there — " The pointing finger was redirected towards the Greater Arapile '
— and that's where Audley is. But I wish I knew why.'
'Why . . . what?' If he'd wanted to make her feel even more stupid, he was succeeding.
He sighed. 'Why is he studying the battle of Salamanca?'
She mustn't lose her temper. 'Does it matter? He's supposed to be a historian. Don't historians study battlefields?'
'But he's a medievalist. The Peninsular War just isn't his dummy2
period.'
She mustn't lose her temper. 'I expect he'll tell us why, darling, if we ask him nicely.' But now he wasn't even looking at her again, damn it — and damn him! ' I'll ask about Philip Masson, darling. And you can ask about the battle of Salamanca . . . and Mrs Fitzgibbon too, if you like — '
He looked at her then, even as she was already regretting what she'd just said. And the way he'd looked at her made her regret the unnecessary words even more, however much he'd asked for them. 'I'm sorry, Ian — '
'Don't be sorry, Jenny dear. I shall only ask him one question about Frances Fitzgibbon. And I think I already know the answer to it.' He shook his head slowly. 'But it's of no importance to you, I agree. So shall we go, then?'
The hateful corn-stubble ended eventually, but with a deep drainage-ditch (as though it ever rained in this parched landscape!). And Ian leapt the ditch and went on again without a backward glance, leaving her to take the longer route beside it to the track, while he struck off on his own —
Hateful, hateful Ian! It isn't as though I haven't prayed that you'd meet some nice girl at one of your Christian Fellowship meetings, rather than making hopeless sheep's eyes at me! But now you have to go and fall for some crazy dead woman who wouldn't have given you a second look in dummy2
life — a bloody ghost-woman! And now she's going to be the death of our partnership. Because I'm not going to play second-fiddle to any bloody ghost-woman for evermore —
damn you, Ian Robinson! And damn you, Frances Fitzgibbon, too!
She reached the dusty track at last, sweating like a horse and with her hair coming down. And she reached it ahead of him, because he had stopped for another of those exclusive binocular-sweeps of his.
What was he thinking about? Was he 'doing' his battlefield, like David Audley — imagining himself a poor sweating redcoat advancing towards the great unclimbable rocky prow of the headland with French cannon-balls whistling past his ears? Or was he back, not in 1812, but in 1978, with his ghost-woman — his ghost-woman who had been Paul Mitchell's real woman — ? Was he practising his question —
the question to which he already knew the answer?
She walked up the track to intercept him, forcing herself to recover her breath, and some shreds of dignity and self-respect.
It was the daughter, not the wife, she could see now: a tall blonde child mooching up and down the furrows of a newly ploughed field on the edge of the fallen scree from the dummy2
Greater Arapile plateau, head down and intent on the red earth at her feet, as though she was looking for something she'd lost.