The Englishman’s voice was quietly proud. “Blackie was one of Drysdale’s men who fought their way up Hellfire Valley to link with the American marines south of the Chosin Reservoir—the Falklands was a Sunday stroll compared with that . . . Besides which, anyway, it’s Gunner Kelly who knows how to summon up the demons on his tail—he won’t do that until the Chase is ready for them.” He half smiled at Benedikt. “You were an altogether unexpected test of our defences, you know . . .”
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“And I did not get far?” Benedict completed the sentence. “True.
But I was a man alone. And I am not the Special Bureau No 1 of the KGB.”
“True.” Audley’s face creased suddenly, as though with doubt, and then cleared slowly as the doubts resolved themselves. “But there is ... something else which I think you should know.”
“Something else?” It was disturbing that the Englishman had not been frank with him. “Something you haven’t told me?”
“No — not really . . . Something which has only occurred to me since Aloysius Kelly came into the reckoning, you see.”
“Yes?” An instinct told Benedikt that the man was not lying. He had seen that creased look not long before, while Mr Smith had still been with them.
“I don’t know quite how to put it ... Aloysius Kelly’s not been my concern for years — never was, really, I’ve only read the reports . . . The American one originally, and then the others, four or five years back, when he was killed.”
“Yes?” But this was the man’s true skill; to distil truth from the merest broken shards of knowledge buried in ground thickly sown with lies and rumour.
“I swear there’s something Gunner Kelly knows that we don’t ... a certainty — almost a serendipity . . . But more than that.” The creases were back. “It could be just that he’s stopped running and started fighting . . .”
“Or?”
Audley faced him. “Or we can turn the whole thing round.” He dummy1
paused. “Like, bring it back to Mr Smith’s old auntie. Because if there was one thing Comrade Aloysius Kelly was, he was a damned downy bird, and he wouldn’t be easy to kill.” Another pause. “So let’s suppose he wasn’t killed. ”
“Wasn’t — ?” Those creases were justified. “Then who — ?”
“Any tramp by the wayside would do. Any homeless vagrant —
any drifter . . . Aloysius Kelly could have spotted the bomb — he knew the form: he’d more likely set one than be caught by one. But if the KGB set it — if he gave them a body . . . then no more pursuit: out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety —
the old, old story, Benedikt, man!”
Benedikt stared at him. More likely to set a bomb than be caught by one —
“And Michael Kelly?”
“And Michael Kelly ... It would have been Michael who set him up in that cottage — if he gave Michael money years before, some of it would have been for the betting shop debts, and some for the bolt-hole . . . But after the bomb, if Michael knew he was still alive, then Michael was a little nettle still growing among the flowers. And little nettles have a way of growing bigger.”
But that didn’t fit. “Are you suggesting that Michael got away from Aloysius? That he realised he’d be next?” He shook his head.
“No.”
Audley frowned. “Michael’s no fool. Damn it—you can see that for yourself.” But then he shook his head. “No ... I take your point
—it isn’t likely. But there was something that bound them dummy1
together: blood had been thick enough for Michael. It could have been thick enough for Aloysius ... at least to start with, until the idea of being absolutely safe began to corrode his mind.” Pause.
“Remember Mr Smith’s parting shot? Running changes a man?”
That was more like it. To kill a blood-relative who had also been a friend . . . that might daunt any man; and the Irish were a strange race, in which poetry and romantic chivalry mingled with dark notions of blood sacrifice. Yet also that image of corrosion was right: to leave one’s life in another man’s hands . . . for Aloysius Kelly could never be sure that the KGB would not reach Audley’s conclusion, and look to confirm their suspicion from Michael. And Aloysius of all men would know how unremitting they were in pursuit, too ... to leave one’s life to such a chance—
“Perhaps he just gave Michael a sporting chance, for old times’
sake. ‘I’ll count from one to a hundred—and then watch yourself, me boyo.’ ” Audley’s eyes widened in amazement at his own imagination. “That’s the trouble—why I’d never take an Irish job: I like them too much as people, and I find them totally incomprehensible—I studied their history at Cambridge from Strongbow to Parnell and Gladstone, and I could never answer a single question right, even when I knew the facts. And I wish to hell I’d never promised Jane and Becky— that I’d never promised to make sense of this, damn it!”
Jane?
But Jane didn’t matter. Audley had lifted the stakes far above little girls with the possibility of this final duel between the two Kellys, Aloysius and Michael.
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The outer door of the museum banged behind him, and the Corporal’s boots cracked like rifle-shots on the concrete floor.
“I have a car for you, sir.” The Corporal addressed Benedikt as though Audley was as invisible as he’d promised to be. “Major Kennedy’s wife’s car actually, that the lady brought back with her from our last posting ... I hope you have no objection to a foreign car, sir?”
Benedikt goggled at him. “A f-foreign car, Corporal?”
“Yes, sir. A Volkswagen Scirocco GL—a Jerry car, but very nippy, and I think your young lads will like it ... If you’ve no objection?”
Benedikt looked at Audley, then back at the Corporal. “No objection, Corporal. A Jerry car will do very well for me, thank you. No objection at all.”
Zu Ruhm und Sieg! A Volkswagen would be just right for that.
PART THREE
You pays your money, and you takes your choice The Old House,
Steeple Horley,
Sussex
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My dear Jack,
You will, of course, be getting my official report of occurrences in Duntisbury Chase both before and after my somewhat traumatic meeting with you. But that will be couched in the proper jargon, abbreviated and bowdlerised so as not to offend less understanding official eyes and ears than yours, furnished and ornamented with such excuses and explanations as may mitigate my crimes if not altogether exculpate me from censure, and— apart from the usual suppressio vert suggestio falsi— with one or two outright falsehoods which I consider necessary and which I confide they will swallow.
This private letter I am writing partly to set the record straight, but partly also because you may find out more from another source; and— not least because I must admit a gross original error of judgement— I would not wish you to be wrong-footed in such an event. I must also admit that if I was sure we could get away with it I would not be putting pen to paper now. But better from me now than from some enemy— or innocent source— later.