“David—it’s exactly as Michael says: when the Police crossed the water we went on the Yellow Alert. . . But until we get the walkie-talkie radios we can’t reach everyone—Blackie’s collecting them tomorrow—”
“Today,” corrected Kelly. “Today—promised, they are, and he’ll be there at eight-thirty to collect them . . . And then we’ll be ready for anything, begod, sir!”
“But. . .” Miss Becky blinked at Benedikt “. . . but then the warning went off, and that was the Red Alert, and Michael went out to check it—we weren’t expecting it so soon, of course, but he wouldn’t let me go—”
“Aaargh! And isn’t that the truth!” Kelly came to her rescue.
“Would I be lettin‘ her go—orders or no orders? Ye weren’t here, an’ it was dark as the pit—”
“Kelly . . .” Audley’s voice turned dangerous. “Don’t you dare play the bloody stage Irishman with me!”
“So to hell with that!” Kelly cut back at him in a new voice, different from all its predecessors. “He was in the trap and I wanted to have a look at him—so what? I know what I’m looking for better than you do, Dr Audley.”
Audley looked down over his big broken nose at the Irishman. “So dummy1
you do, Mr Kelly—so you do. And what did you find, then?
Someone you knew?”
The face-in-the-crowd was inscrutable, as anonymous as ever, but the eyes glittered with dislike. “No, Dr Audley—only someone you so kindly let me see from afar this afternoon, I grant you that. But it was a justifiable risk, nevertheless.”
“It was not a justifiable risk—it was unnecessary.”
Kelly shrugged. “Not in my judgement.”
“And since when has your judgement been worth a brass farthing?” Audley looked at Benedikt suddenly. “Do you know him?”
“No, sir.” Kelly squirmed uncomfortably. “But you were right about him, sir.”
“I was?” Audley continued to study Benedikt. “What has he told you?”
“He hasn’t told us anything. But now I’ve seen him close up ...
He’s good . . . But I know the type.”
“What type?” Audley returned to Kelly.
“Never a civil servant. Soldier or policeman—soldier for choice. . .
I’ve seen enough of them in my time. Regular soldiering marks a man—I don’t care whose army. And I’ve seen his type before—it’s an obstinate look, they have, even when you’ve got the bastards at gunpoint—I know that look, sir!”
Miss Becky stirred. “Michael—David—”
Audley’s expression changed. “Yes, Becky?”
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“He does wear contact lenses—he admitted that ... I mean . . . he’s wearing them now, you see.”
Audley shook his head. “Doesn’t mean a thing, my dear. Or rather ... it does mean quite a lot, to put it another way: it means exceptional attention to detail, as you would expect of him. It means he’s good, as Kelly says.” He turned the look on Benedikt, but with a suggestion of sympathy. “You had bad luck there, I’m afraid. My wife wears contact lenses, and I’ve watched her with them a thousand times. I made her wear them—as a matter of fact, I’ve tried wearing them myself, but I could never really get to terms with them . . . But I know all about them, anyway . . . And there’s a particular way some people touch the area under the eye, instead of wiping the eye—my wife does it, and so do you, and it’s as good as a nod to me . . . It’s a game I play—identifying people who wear them. You can even change eye-colour with them. But you’d know that, of course.” He shook his head. “Still . . . belt and brace is one thing, but contact lenses and spectacles is another, Hauptmann Schneider. Bad luck, you had there.”
Bad luck— Hauptmann Schneider—
For a moment no one spoke, then Miss Becky said “Haupt—?”
cutting the rank off into a hiccup of surprise.
“Captain,” translated Audley. “Captain Benedikt Schneider, formerly of the Army of the Federal Republic . . . more recently of Grenzschutzgruppe 9, and now of the NATO Anti-Terrorist Liaison Group of the Bundesnachrichtendienst, attached to the West German Embassy in London as of next week.”
“Holy Mother of God!” said Kelly. “Grenzschutzgruppe 9!”
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Miss Becky frowned at him. “Grenzschutz—who are they, Michael?”
“GSG 9, for short—I read about them in the Mirror a while back, Madam—what the Germans call their SAS—the real hard boys.”
Kelly shook his head. “I think we caught the wrong tiger, Madam.”
VI
In daylight, finishing his breakfast coffee on the terrace, Benedikt could understand even better how Gunner Kelly had felt the night before. The broad sweep of the manor lawn, wide between thick plantations of woodland on either side of it, rose gently to the ridge itself, without any intervening obstacle: the splendid view, which had surely delighted generations of the Maxwell family, would be no less satisfactory downwards from the crest, almost a thousand metres distant, to delight any well-trained and properly-equipped marksman, day or night; while from the edges of those woods, for those who first looked where they put their feet, even a tiro could hardly miss his mark.
The clunk of the postern door latch, which he had heard for the second time when the nervous servant-girl had ushered him on to the terrace, sounded behind him.
He held his gaze on the ridge deliberately. Nerves were for servant-girls and Thomas Wiesehöfer, not for Benedikt Schneider: that at dummy1
least he must pretend, now that he could be something like himself.
“Captain Schneider—good morning.”
It was Audley behind him—and that was good, for with Audley he knew more nearly where he was.
He turned slowly. “Good morning, Dr Audley.”
“Was the English breakfast to your taste?” Audley inclined his head politely, and then smiled. “But then perhaps your mother has accustomed you to it?”
I know all about you, Captain Schneider, that was the first signal.
“It was excellent.” Coolly, then. “But my mother never locked my bedroom door, even when I was a child. Is that an English custom with guests?”
“No. But it’s a custom to protect them from accidents, and last night there were some very trigger-happy characters around.”
Audley gestured towards the ridge. “You were admiring the view?”
“I was, yes . . . But I was also remembering that last night Mr Kelly did not do the same. He regarded it as unsafe, as I recall.
And so, I think, did you?”
“So I did—quite right!” Audley raised his hand again, indicating the stone steps in front of them, down which Benedikt had stumbled not many hours before with a gun in his back. “Shall we take a stroll? The view from up above, across the valley, is much more interesting ... So I did, indeed. But not this morning—and not for us at any time, I’m sure.”
Benedikt mounted the steps. Far above, on the very skyline, the sheep which grazed the ridge scattered suddenly, catching his eye dummy1
with their panic. A moment later a horseman appeared, and then another. They reined in together and conferred for a few seconds, then split left and right.
“The Dawn Patrol,” murmured Audley at his side. “By autumn the Duntisbury Hunt should be in excellent shape, the exercise the horses are getting.”
They walked in silence for a time, until they came to a curious open grassy ditch which divided off the well-cut manor lawn from the rougher sheep-cropped pasture of the ridge. The upper side of it sloped gently, but the manor side was revetted vertically with stone to form a sunken wall protecting the garden without breaking the clear view from below.
Another sniper’s post, thought Benedikt, running his eye along the trench until he reached its junction with the highest point of the wood on their left. But then he caught a glimpse of movement under the trees—