Still nothing behind. Which was reassuring, even if it also shamed Tom a little for all the proper precautions he had wished on the poor old bugger this morning, before and after their hasty breakfast.
‘What do you hate, David?’ Still nothing. And what made him feel worse was that he felt better himself: better after last night (which had been better than better); and better because there still wasn’t anything behind, as they climbed up on to the high shoulder of Cherwell Down, into open moorland, where anything behind would be nakedly following; and best of all (although that was Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State treacherous to Willy, to think it best), because he had always wanted to see Mountsorrel—(to hell with them all—Jaggard and Audley, Panin and his po-faced Minder… even, almost, with Willy herself!)— he had always wanted to see Mountsorrel! ‘What do you hate, David?’
Audley emitted a growling sound, half hate and half common head-cold. ‘I hate Ford Cortinas—and particularly two-tone brown Cortinas!’
Now that, thought Tom happily, was irrational, in the circumstances. ‘Two-tone Cortinas, David?’ There was nothing behind, for a mile or more.
‘My wife bought one once, fourth-hand—’ Audley caught himself suddenly, as though he realized at last what a fool he was making of himself. ‘Damn it, Tom! What the hell are we supposed to be doing at the moment?’
That was fair enough. ‘We’re just taking precautions, David.
That’s all.’ But he mustn’t sympathize with Audley too much.
‘What other things do you hate?’
‘Huh!’ Audley was getting back his cool, in spite of his cold. ‘I’m too old to enjoy your precautions—if that’s what you mean by all this bloody cloak-and-dagger business.’
Should he count ‘cloak-and-dagger’ as Things Two and Three?
‘But I’m your Minder—remember, David?’
‘Remember?’ The old man slumped down resignedly. ‘How could I forget?’ He sniffed against the cold. ‘Although it’s a bloody long time since I’ve been professionally-minded… But no—I Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State remember…’ Then he gestured towards the battered dashboard, with its gaping hole where the radio had been. ‘This is a precaution, is it?’
They came to the cross-roads on the top. ‘This is a different car.
The one we had yesterday was in the hotel car park all night. So I couldn’t watch it absolutely.’ So I was busy last night—okay? ‘So now we’ve got a clean car.’
Grunt. ‘Metaphorically speaking.’ Grunt— sneeze—
Poor old bugger! ‘It was the first place that offered cars for hire, David.’
End of sneeze. ‘So you’re into not trusting anyone, then? Even here?’ Audley considered his handkerchief with distaste, much as he had surveyed the Cortina. ‘Or do you know something I don’t know?’
He mustn’t think ‘ Poor old bugger’ again. ‘We’re meeting Panin this morning—“in the open”, like he wants… And someone took a shot at you yesterday, David—and you didn’t think that was his doing, I know. But that doesn’t matter, because if it wasn’t him then it was someone else… In fact, I’d rather it bloody-well was him—at least we’d know it then, wouldn’t we!’ He put his foot down again, and began to think better of the garage man in spite of the body-rattles. ‘But, in any case, there’s also poor Basil Cole to bear in mind: somebody knows too damn much—you said so yourself. So a bit of cloak-and-dagger is fair enough. Okay?’
Audley said nothing for a few seconds. Then he harumphed chestily, and fumbled again for his handkerchief, and finally blew Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State his nose again. ‘You’re saying someone— somebody— may have bugged that big black monster of yours last night? To keep tabs on us today? Someone— somebody— who managed to follow us all the way to the Green Man last night?’ He paused, to let the memory of the M4/M5 drive speak for him. ‘Like Superman, perhaps?’
It was time to poach Audley to rights. But it might be as well to do it circumspectly. ‘It could have been bugged when I left it outside Basil Cole’s house last evening, David—they could have been watching and waiting for us… So I was careless there: we should have changed horses somewhere down the line yesterday, instead of here… just in case.’ And now was the time to frighten him.
‘Or… alternatively…’
He didn’t have to drive far before Audley cracked. ‘Alternatively
—?’
They were already coming off the high moor, down into one of those ancient valleys where prehistoric men had grubbed a living of sorts: and, in the case of this particular valley, where Gilbert of Mountsorrel had briefly been king of his castle in King Stephen’s short days.
‘Come clean, Tom, damn you!’ snapped Audley.
Tom frowned at the long downhill road ahead. They had come back too quickly to Audley’s ‘ Do you know something I don’t know?’ when he had thought he’d headed the old man off the question. ‘Come clean—?’
‘Huh! Or as clean as you know how, anyway!’ Audley shifted, to fix a direct eye on him. ‘Last night you were pissed off… You Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State didn’t know what the hell was happening, Tom— I know the signs… because I have been there before myself—in no-man’sland, with one hand tied behind my back, and one foot in a bucket, and some silly fool to look after… I have been there, so I recognize the symptoms… so don’t fuck me around, eh?’
This was bad, thought Tom: once again, he had underestimated the man, and he needed more time to sort out the how and the why.
‘What—?’
‘I said—’ Audley stopped suddenly as the road narrowed and fell away steeply between high earth-banks. ‘Watch your speed, man, watch your speed!’
Tom was already doing just that, with the garage man’s warning about the brakes suddenly ringing in his ear. The old car could certainly show a clean pair of rear wheels to its peers on the straight, he had established. But it wasn’t good running he had to worry about now, it was good stopping. And, from the way he was tensed up in the passenger’s seat, Audley was sharing his fears.
Slowly, under insistent pumping of the foot-brake, the car agreed to decrease its speed to the point where he could enlist the gears to help him. ‘I’m sorry, David. I was thinking of other things.’
‘So was I.’ Audley sniffed and hugged himself. ‘This bloody bocage— it always gives me the creeps.’
‘“Bocage”?’ Then Tom remembered Audley’s ancient history as a teenage yeomanry tank-commander in 1944, and seized on it gratefully. ‘You mean, this is like Normandy, is it?’
Audley didn’t reply, but sat hunched up and silent until Tom Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State himself recalled out of his subconscious the long lines of graves in the Polish war cemetery on the road from Caen to Falaise, so many of which marked the last resting place of tank crewmen who had died half a continent away from home, for their country’s freedom and in vain.
‘Yes—’ Audley sat up suddenly ‘—yes and no. Like and unlike.’
Sniff. ‘Funny thing, memory: it goes away for years. Then it comes back.’ He sniffed again, and turned towards Tom. ‘Now, young Thomas Arkenshaw… alternatively, you said. And, alternatively…