Nothing to fear. He had told them where he was going, and they had set up this meeting, deliberately within his time schedule; and if it was that lunportant to them—or even if it wasn't—they could be relied on to oversee their security; so that if there was the least doubt about that security then there would simply be no contact, and he would have to soldier on until they were ready to try again.
He pushed through the gate and crossed the few yards to the porch with the unhurried step of a Roche with a clear conscience and half an unscheduled hour to kill. If they dummy5
didn't make contact it would be annoying, because the more he knew about Audley, David Longsdon, the better; but at this stage of the proceedings it was no more than that—
merely annoying. So then he would just look at the church, which might well be more interesting inside than out, because that was very much what he would have done if the delay had been genuine, because looking at churches was one of his hobbies.
Absolutely nothing to fear. It even occurred to him, and the thought was an added reassurance, that they had orchestrated this scene out of their knowledge of him, for that very reason.
The heavy latch cracked like a pistol shot in the stillness of the empty church beyond.
If they were here, then still nothing to fear. The time might come when he had everything to fear, but at this moment each side trusted him, and valued him, and it was "This is your big chance, David"—Jean-Paul the Comrade and Eustace Avery, Knight Commander of the British Empire, were in accord on that, if on nothing else. And so it was, by God!
"Mr Roche."
At first sight, half-obscured by a great spray of roses, the fragrance of which filled the church with the odour of sanctity, the speaker might have been the twin brother of the dummy5
Daily Sketch reader outside.
"I am a friend of Jean-Paul. You can call me 'Johnnie', Mr Roche—and I shall call you David."
The flatness of the features and the height of the cheekbones mocked 'Johnnie' into 'Ivan'; or, if not Ivan, then some other East European equivalent, with a Mongol horseman riding through the man's ancestry at about the same time as this church had been built.
"Johnnie," Roche acknowledged the identification.
"How long do we have?" The voice didn't fit the face, it was too accent-less, any more than the face fitted the name; but now, subjectively, the whole man—who wouldn't have merited a second glance in a crowded street—the whole man overawed him no less than Clinton had done.
"About half an hour."
"Where are you going?"
"To Guildford. I'm due to meet a man named Stocker."
"Major Stocker?"
"That's right. You know him?"
"Why?" Johnnie ignored the question. But he couldn't think of Johnnie as Johnnie: the face, and those dark brown pebble-eyes, neither dull nor bright but half-polished in an unnatural way, made him think of Genghis Khan.
"He's going to brief me on this man Audley."
"He's your controller—Stocker?"
dummy5
"No—I don't know . . . I'm to report back to Colonel Clinton when—"
"Clinton?" The eyes and the face remained expressionless, but the voice moved. "Frederick Clinton?"
"Yes—?"
"He was there? At your meeting—on the Eighth Floor?"
"Yes. But—"
"And you are to report back to him—not Avery? Or Latimer?"
Genghis Khan pressed the question at him like a spear.
"Clinton?"
"Yes." It was disturbing to see his own fears reflected in Genghis Khan's evident concern. "Is that bad?"
"You. . . are to report back to. . .Clinton. . . about this man Audley?"
Audley, David Longsdon. Born, St. Elizabeth's Nursing Home, Guildford, 10.2.25. Only son of Major Nigel Alexander George Audley (deceased), and Kathleen Ann, nee Longsdon (deceased), of The Old House, Steeple Horley, Sussex . . .
He didn't even bloody well seem interested in Audley, David Longsdon, damn it!
"Yes. What about Clinton?"
"This man Audley, then—" Genghis Khan ignored the question again, as though it hadn't been asked. But it was no good thinking of him as Genghis Khan, and letting him ride dummy5
all over David Roche as though over a helpless Muscovite peasant: he had to be Johnnie, and he had to be resisted.
"What about Clinton?"
The pebble-eyes bored into him. "He frightened you, did he?"
"If he did?"
"He should. He's good, is Clinton."
"He frightens you, does he?"
"No. But he does interest me." The Slav features failed to register the insult. "He is an interesting man, I think."
"He interests me even more. Because I have to report back to him, and you don't."
Genghis Khan, refusing to be Johnnie, inclined his head fractionally to accept the truth of that. "Maybe later. But not yet—not now. You tell me about Audley now, David."
That was probably as much as he could expect to get about Clinton, decided Roche, since Clinton was evidently a wild card in the pack. But Audley was another matter.
"I thought you would be able to tell me about him."
Genghis Khan almost looked disappointed, as near as he was able to indicate any emotion.
"I gave you his name," said Roche.
"So you did. But what do you expect us to do—to go asking questions?" The head moved again, this time interrogatively.
"And we ask the wrong question in the right place—or the right question in the wrong place, which is no better—and dummy5
then what? Someone asks questions about us—and then someone asks questions about you, maybe? And is that what you want, eh?"
"I didn't mean that. I mean . . . you must have something on him, damn it!"
"On Audley? But why should we have anything on Audley?"
Roche frowned. "But Sir Eustace said—"
Sir Eustace said—
"How long have you been in Paris then, David?" Sir Eustace Avery asked.
"Nearly three years, Sir Eustace. Two years and ten months, to be exact."
"To be exact? You sound as though you've been marking the calendar." Sir Eustace sat back, raising a cathedral spire with his fingers. "Don't you like it there?"
"It's ... a lovely city." Roche decided to push his luck. "And the food's good."
Sir Eustace regarded him narrowly. "But the work's dull—is that it?"
Chin up, Roche. "Mine certainly is." Dull, dull, dull!
“Even though liaison is an integral part of intelligence work?"
The finger-tips at the point of the spire arched against each other. "And you're in charge of communications too—" Sir dummy5
Eustace looked down at the open file in front of him "—and communications are your special skill, aren't they?"
My file, thought Roche despondently: aptitudes, test marks, assessments, with more bloody betas and gammas than alphas.
But that wasn't the point. The point was that the Eighth Floor didn't muck around with communications—or with communications experts.
"I mean, we got you from the Royal Signals, didn't we?" Sir Eustace continued, looking up at him again. "In Tokyo, wasn't it? During the Korean business?"
Since it was all down there in front of him, in black and white, the questions were superfluous to the point of being both irritating and patronising.
"I put down for the Education Corps, sir," said Roche. "I was posted to the Signals."
"Indeed?" Sir Eustace raised an eyebrow over the file. "Let's see ... you'd already been to university . . . Manchester?" He made it sound like Fort Zinderneuf. "Where you read History
—that was before you were called up for your National Service?"