Benedikt looked at the Irishman questioningly. “Yes?”
“Aargh! Do ye not see?” Kelly cocked his head at such obtuseness.
“ ‘Tis us that are the 17-pounders here—you and me, and Dr Audley . . . An’ maybe Blackie Nabb and one or two others at a pinch. So if it’s Miss Becky you’re worried about— why, she shall sleep sound in her bed while we’re doing the business that has to be done, an‘ her none the wiser.” Then he smiled at Benedikt, and for the first time there was a hint of something more than mere calculation in his eye. “I understand you, Captain: a fine young lady, she is—and with a heart as big as her grandsire’s. But she has her life before her . . . And the rest of us can look after ourselves well enough.”
Somewhere far away, but still within the house, a bell rang out a tuneless electrical alarm.
Kelly looked at his watch. “There now! That’ll be young Mr Bradley calling me to my duty with him, havin‘ all our people placed where they should be. The marvels of science!” He smiled at Benedikt again. “Your concern does you credit, Captain. Once upon a time it would have been a pleasure to have fought you—an’
now it’s glad I am that you’re on the same side. But you must dummy1
excuse me while I go to see how young Peter’s getting on. Then I’ll be with you for supper in the kitchen before we put our defences through their paces—eh?”
Schneider knew there was something wrong then, but only by instinct, not by reason, so he says. Kelly was too calm and confident—‘ laid back’, is it? ‘Serene’ almost, Schneider says: not so much like the old phoenix before it goes into the fire, but more like the new one which comes out of the flames, born again.
So he knew something was wrong, just as I always knew something was wrong, but he couldn’t put his finger on it any more than I could, because neither of us is a computer with total instantaneous recall. But he thought he still had some time in his pocket, and he knew Kelly was with Peter Bradley in what passed for their control room, so he went to look for Becky to find out whether she’d confirmed my alleged whereabouts.
Becky was making the supper. She’d phoned my wife, who had said that I was in the bath and would phone back, as I’d instructed her to do. And he talked with her for a few minutes, for the sake of politeness. Only, by that time the thing in the back of his mind, which had been nagging him, but which he still couldn’t reach, was on the way to driving him half frantic. He went out from the kitchen, down the passage and into the main hall.
The main hall at Duntisbury Manor is where a lot of the family portraits are: a selection of military Maxwells down the years, with the Sargent picture of Colonel Julian, the poet, in pride of place.
dummy1
No picture of the Old General, of course— he was never self-considering enough to have one painted. And yet he was there all the same, said Schneider: it was the Old General— the Squire—
who filled his mind, not Kelly. Not either of the Kellys. Just the Old General.
And then he had it. ‘Like it was the Old General gave it to me,’ he says. And you can make what you like of that—
“Miss Rebecca—do not argue, I beg of you! He must not leave the Chase! I have told Peter Bradley to give that order, but he does not know me—he will not obey me. But he will obey you, Fräulein!”
He had to reach her somehow.
“But, Captain—he is with Peter, surely—”
“No! He has gone, I tell you!” He felt time accelerating away from him. “When Peter rang the bell it was to tell him that a car had passed the ford—a car with three men in it.”
“Yes, but—”
“He told Peter not to worry—that they were accounted for and expected. Expected?” If it frightened her—he had no choice. “What men?”
“I don’t know. But—”
“He knows.” He was committed now. “He was expecting them—
and he has gone to meet them.” He cast around desperately in his memory for something with which to convince her. But the truth would be meaningless to her, even if he had had time for it. “This is what he planned—from the start. . . Where are most of your dummy1
people now? They are out of the way on the ridge and along the stream where he sent them. You must believe me, Miss Rebecca!”
Suddenly her hand came to her mouth. “That gun he has—! Oh God!”
Huh! thought Benedikt. But if that would move her, then that must be his way. “I will go, Miss Rebecca—I have the car outside. But you must give that order: he is to be stopped at all costs.”
“Yes—yes—”
“Has he a car?” Without a car the man couldn’t get far.
“No—yes . . . My Metro is at Blackie’s—he’ll know that—” She didn’t stop to wonder why he was asking her.
“Well, you’ve got your road-blocks—set them up, then. And stop him at gun-point—” God in heaven! What would that lead to? But he had no more time to worry about that. “—but give that order, Miss Rebecca—now!”
“Yes.” Her decision reached, she started to move. And then stopped. “You won’t get past the lodge gates. But the key’s hanging up by the backdoor—on a hook—”
Odd how last-minute thoughts make the difference. But then odd about that 17-pounder story . . . of all the stories he could have told. Though perhaps not so odd, on second thoughts, Jack: he told a story for Captain Schneider, and no one else, I suppose.
But if she hadn’t remembered about the locked gates . . . Kelly just nipped over the wall, and headed for Blackie Nabb’s garage. But Schneider went round the back to get the key— and there was this dummy1
KGB heavy lying stone-cold dead (or still warm, rather) by the open backdoor. Three shots for him— he was the back-up man, so maybe he’d smelt something wrong and was moving when Kelly hit him; whereas the squad leader inside the lodge— the one who’d expected to wait for Kelly, and had found Kelly waiting for him—
just one heart-shot for him, nice and clean. Gunner Kelly indeed, by God! But not with an old 25-pounder— and not with an old war souvenir with no firing pin either, which told Schneider all he needed to know, which he’d only suspected until then, but was sure now— the neat head-shot— and also warned him of what lay ahead: two hundred yards away up the road, nicely parked on the verge, under the trees by the estate wall where Kelly had crossed out of the wood— a brown 2-litre Cortina, six years old and as anonymous as you could wish for, except for the driver lying dead across the front seat— another head-shot at close quarters for him, he never knew what hit him.