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'Let's charge your glass again, my dear chap,' said Havergal genially.
Sobered, Roskill allowed himself to be steered away from the group. The crowning indignity was that the Arab actually covered their retreat.
'These technological people,' Roskill heard him begin deprecatingly, 'experts in their own spheres, but politically naive ...'
By God, it was true enough!
Havergal pushed him gently through the crowd to the wizened waiter's corner.
'Same again, Wadsworth,' he commanded, conjuring up more of the elixir from under the table,
He handed Roskill back his glass. 'Nearly a nasty accident there, Ross – it is Ross or haven't I got it right?'
All the British top brass on the Ryle Foundation were politically respectable – reliable even – except Llewelyn's friend Wilkinson, against whom Audley had warned him. In any case, it was hard to imagine Havergal taking any part in the sort of enterprise he must have fought for most of his military career. And the cat was out. of the bag, anyway.
'Roskill.'
'Roskill?' Havergal tested the name. 'I don't think I've seen you at any of our gatherings before. I take it you're just back from the field. Are you Red Sea or the Gulf or the Med?'
Havergal was far too courteous to say 'Who the hell are you, sir?'
but that was what it amounted to. There would be no putting off a dummy2
wily old bird like him for long, either – it would be far safer to conscript his help. But that could only be attempted after positive clearance, and in the meantime put off he had to be.
'I'm a friend of Sir John and Lady Kyle's.'
'Indeed?' Havergal craned his neck and peered over the heads around them. His intention was obvious.
'Lady Ryle doesn't know that I'm here tonight.' He had known in his bones that his failure to reach her during the afternoon might turn out awkward.
'She doesn't?' Havergal's tone was neutral rather than disbelieving.
'Well, it will be a pleasant surprise for her, won't it? She's coming this way – shall we go and meet her?'
The courtesy was rock-hard now – and the good-mannered gesture allowing Roskill to lead the way was a command.
If you only knew, Colonel, thought Roskill, if you only knew...
He saw her first: the dark head so carefully tinted that only an expert might guess the first grey hairs were being kept at bay, her outward air of confidence and breeding tempered as ever by an equally evident inner warmth and gentleness No wonder all those charities liked to have her on their committees. 'My dear, I believe I've got a friend of yours here,' Havergal sounded less assured now, as though he found the prospect of embarrassing her distasteful.
She saw him. 'Hugh!'
'Isobel.'
Hints and lies about desalination clogged in his throat, even though he knew she'd be quick to pick them up: practice had made that dummy2
second nature for them. Already she was covering her surprise with pleasure.
'Hugh – how lovely to see you!' She turned to Havergal. 'Squadron Leader Roskill and I are very old friends, Archie – it was kind of you to help him to find me. But Hugh – I thought you were up at Snettisham?'
'Snettisham?' Havergal snorted the name as though he knew it, frowning. The rank and the place name added up to an active profession which had nothing to do with desalination, but the beard and the clumsy deception contradicted the addition. Even the fact that he might connect the Ryles and Snettisham wouldn't account for the reason why someone like Isobel Ryle should be so happy to meet so dark a horse. 'I know your C.O., Roskill – or I used to know him.'
'Valentine?' said Roskill. Valentine had flown Hunters in Aden and up the Gulf in his younger days. That placed Havergal appropriately.
Havergal nodded, measuring Roskill speculatively.
'Something came up to change my plans,' said Roskill. And to change my plans this evening, too, he thought. However much he hated to involve her it was unavoidable now. 'Can I see you later tonight?'
He glanced at Havergal, coming to an immediate decision. 'And you, too, Colonel Havergal?'
'Are you going to the dinner after this reception, my dear?'
Havergal asked Isobel.
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'No, Archie. I've – I've only just got back from holiday. I've got a million things to do.'
'I'm not going to the dinner either,' said Havergal. 'I had a prior engagement.' He looked at Roskill. 'Which I shall break.'
'Can't it wait until tomorrow, Hugh?' Isobel sounded doubtful. 'I really do have a lot to do – and I'm awfully tired.'
'I don't think it can wait, can it, Roskill?' said Havergal. 'And if it concerns both of us, I'm afraid it's something I've been afraid of for a long time.'
VI
IT WAS ONLY after he had actually parked there that Roskill realised he had driven into Bunnock Street from habit, not necessity.
He hated the dingy cul-de-sac, with its blank-faced houses; it always had orange peel and empty cigarette packets in its gutters, a place altogether out of place in what was otherwise a rather smart district. Even the people who lived in it seemed ashamed of it, for he had rarely seen any of them coming or going; presumably there were back entrances which let into what were now more salubrious mews, leaving their front doors to visiting dustmen.
All that could be said of it now was that it looked better by night, by the barely adequate street lighting.
The trouble was the Bunnock Street had three advantages which in dummy2
the past had always triumphed over his distaste. It invariably offered parking space, as though those of its residents who had cars were unwilling to trust them to it; it was discreetly placed in relation to the Ryles' flat, which was a good five minutes by road, but only an eerie two-minutes' walk through St. Biddulph's churchyard; and, since discretion was all that was normally required, it had a phone box conveniently sited at its junction with King's Row. No adulterer could ask for more.
After he had carefully turned the car round and located it beside one of the lamp posts, Roskill made himself comfortable in the passenger's seat and sat for a time staring down the curving street, as he had done so often before when waiting for Isobel. The waiting then had had a meaning which cancelled out the beastliness of the view, but now it was duty and not even the excellence of the Ryle Foundation's whisky could prevent it from being depressing.
After a time he looked at his watch. It was nearly forty-five minutes since he had left the reception and now half an hour since he had phoned the Department – but that, too, had been depressing with its odds-against encounter with someone who knew him well
– and who now almost certainly knew him even better.
'... Archibald Havergal? You must be joking!'
Howe's Etonian-Oxonian drawl had packed a world of patronising incredulity Into the words.
'Do you know him?'
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'Know him? My dear old Hugh – I can't even believe in him! I didn't know they christened anyone "Archibald" since Queen Victoria's day – but I suppose he could date from her times –
Colonel Archibald Havergal – marvellous!'
'Just get me his record and a security clearance on him, you idiot.
And – ' he had steeled himself to say the name ' – a clearance for Isobel Ryle, too. Sir John Kyle's wife. R-Y-L-E – '
'You don't need to spell it out, old boy. I've seen the Lady Isobel from afar. Strictly Horse of the Year Show, Crafts and Good Works – a dishy piece in a do-gooding sort of way, but a bit long in the tooth for you and me .... Not to worry, though! Your name's back on the V.I.P. card again, so we'll put a girdle round the world for you in thirty minutes if you like – was it thirty minutes? It'll take us half an hour, anyway, Hugh. It's not the facts, but the clearance – we have to find the decision milkers for that...'
Roskill had been squirming by then, and he was squirming still.