someone didn’t need to follow us yesterday because that someone already knew where we were going, hey?’
Tom nodded. Over the next ridge, then Mountsorrel would be somewhere down the other side, to the left. ‘It’s possible.’
‘Yes,’ Audley agreed harshly. ‘Our side knew. And Nikolai Andrievich’s side knew. And neither of those sides can be trusted, for a start. But there’s more to you this morning than that deplorable truth. Which, for another start, wouldn’t cheer you up—’
‘David!’ Old memories of blazing tanks, more often British and Polish than German in the bloody bocage, had given Tom more time, and more time advised him to come clean. Or, at least, fairly clean. ‘Let me—’
‘No!’ Audley cut him off. ‘Don’t attempt to deny it—or explain it… at least until I have finished thinking aloud, anyway.’ Sniff.
‘Yesterday you were unhappy… and, as you have admitted, somewhat careless. Today, you are happy, but careful… And you refused to talk business until we were away from the Green Man and in a safe—huh! relatively safe—car, in the middle of nowhere.
Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State Right?’
Tom managed to open his mouth, but Audley forestalled him. ‘And I do not think—I do not believe— that your happiness is simply the product of youth and a good night’s sleep.’ A handkerchief appeared from nowhere and the old man blew his nose on it.
‘Whereas I had a dreadful night, full of fly-blown nightmares…
But that is because I have heard the chimes at midnight too often, and now I like to have my own true woman within reach beside me, and my own true mattress beneath me… But now the fresh air has blown the cobwebs from my brain and I can see clearly again.’
The old man balled up the damp handkerchief and stuffed it into the pocket of his pale expensive raincoat, and flourished a fresh one from another pocket. ‘So—I tell you this only for your dear mother’s sake—so if you are about to deceive me, I caution you to do it well. Because, for her sake, I have decided to trust you this morning until I think you are playing me false. But then, also for her sake, I will pack you back to that pen-pushing paper-hanger Frobisher, and you can make your peace with him as best you can.’
Audley wiped his face with the fresh handkerchief. ‘Is that crystal clear, now?’
They breasted the new ridge, and Tom caught a glimpse of heather-dark moorland away to his left, with its sharply treeless skyline under the rain-clouds. But he knew that he couldn’t see so far into Audley in spite of Jaggard’s calculations and the man’s own admissions—even in spite of that once-upon-a-time special relationship with Mamusia. Because Audley had his own true woman now; and, anyway, Audley was also not to be trusted, in his Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State own right.
‘Crystal clear, David.’ And yet, in spite of that mistrust (and perhaps because of Mamusia; but more, perhaps, because he had never met anyone in the service like this strange, garrulous, dangerous old man), he felt himself drawn to him, and into the game. ‘If I double-cross you, then you’ll shop me. Right?’
‘Hmm…’ For the first time, Audley was taking notice of his surroundings. ‘Just tell me one thing then, Tom—’
‘One thing?’ They were going down again. But this time he had the right low gear in advance; because, although he could see nothing as the high Devon bocage banks reared up again on each side, he knew that Mountsorrel must be down there somewhere, just ahead and to the left, on its own spit of land above the ancient river crossing.
‘Yes.’ Audley’s tone was casual, but his big hands were squeezing each other nervously on his lap, again as though his bocage-memories of well-sited German 88s and lurking panzerfaust infantry had returned with the earth-banks. ‘One simple question to start off with, anyway. Now that we know where we stand, as it were.’
The road twisted, and then straightened again so that Tom could see clear down to the parapets of a narrow little stone bridge at the bottom of the hill. So there had to be an opening of some sort on the left before that. ‘Go on, David.’
‘Yes.’ The hands continued to work. ‘Just where the devil are we going?’
Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State
‘Ah!’ There was a gap ahead, in the high bank on the left; and although it looked small… and it was unsignposted (but then Mountsorrel wasn’t National Trust, of course)… it was the only gap he could discern in this last hundred yards, before the bridge.
‘ Ah! ’ He pumped the foot-brake furiously, debating whether to overshoot and then back up the hill rather than attempt the turning on his first run. ‘ Here, as it happens, is where we’re going… I think
—’ The hell with it! he thought, swinging the wheel.
The old car creaked in every metal bone and sinew, and canted over dangerously as it slithered in slow motion into a sharp left-hand turn, so that for a moment he feared that it would slam broadside into the bank which rose up again on the lower side of the entrance. But, by the grace of God, it accepted his change of direction, and then stalled in a final protest.
‘Indeed?’ Audley had lurched against him, swearing under his breath, as they had taken the turn. But now his voice was only mildly incredulous. ‘And where, pray, is here, Tom?’
He might well ask, thought Tom, surveying the unpromising vista up the muddy rutted track ahead between future luxuriant banks of stinging nettles.
“That is to say—‘ Audley amended his question suddenly ’—does Panin know how to get to Bodger’s Farm?‘
‘Bodger’s Farm?’ Tom followed Audley’s pointing finger. On the passenger’s side, on the wreck of a five-bar gate propped against two oil drums, a crudely-painted board bore that legend.
‘Is this where you wanted to go?’ inquired Audley politely. ‘And, Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State if it is, will he be able to get here?’
Tom’s confidence weakened. But then long experience of similar places reanimated it. ‘He has my Ordnance Survey map with the rendezvous marked. I gave it to his escort this morning, before breakfast.’
‘His escort? His minder, you mean?’ Audley grinned wolfishly at him. ‘What was he like?’
Tom turned the ignition key, and the engine purred sweetly at the first touch. ‘He didn’t look the part.’ He grinned back at Audley.
‘He seemed a rather inoffensive little fellow, actually.’ He engaged first gear cautiously. ‘Very polite, he was, David. In barely adequate English.’
‘Is that so?’ Audley looked around him curiously. ‘Well, I’m sure appearances are deceptive… We’re going on, are we?’
The wheels squelched and spun, and then took hold.
‘For a little way. Then we shall have to walk across the fields, I expect.’
‘You expect? You haven’t been here before, then?’
‘No.’ Tom caught a glimpse of a grey roof through the straggling hedge on his right, down the side of the hill.
‘You didn’t see Panin himself?’
‘No.’ More roofs, and a hint of yellowish-grey stone. And, in the left foreground, the ruin of an antique farm-tractor half-sunken on the verge beside the track, with the remains of last year’s dead nettles still entwined in it.
Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State
‘I see—’ Audley stopped suddenly as Bodger’s Farm presented itself to them at last, in all its agricultural squalor.
Tom decided against entering the farmyard morass, even though that would take him closer to what must presumably be the farmhouse itself, for lack of a more likely parking place: any vehicle with less than four-wheel drive attempting that yard might find itself a permanent resident—like the abandoned Rover, old but not yet vintage, which lay wheel-less on one side, to serve now (judging by its present occupants) as a chicken-house.