The Alamut Ambush

And a letter somewhere in the G.P.O. pipeline, since it had so far reached neither the department nor the flat...

Mary swivelled her chair round and lifted the old-fashioned phone beside her.

'I'll just make sure Penny really did send it,' she said. 'I know she did go to Lewes that morning. But – Penny? That letter of Alan's on Tuesday, the one he wanted to get the next London post – did you take it in?'

She watched Roskill over the receiver, listening. 'You didn't . . .

you did what?' She frowned in puzzlement. 'I think you'd better tell Hugh about that.'

Roskill took the receiver from her.

'Penelope – what did you do with that letter?'

'Haven't you got it? Well, you can blame Alan's friend if you haven't. He was the one who posted it.'

'Which friend was this?'

'Good Lord, I don't know. He turned up on the doorstep about twenty minutes after Alan disappeared in a cloud of blue smoke –

he wanted Alan urgently, but I told him Alan had cleared off.'

'You didn't tell him where Alan had gone?'

' I couldn't very well do that, because I didn't know – he'd just shifted his flat, but he went off in such a rush he forgot to tell us where his new one was. At least he didn't write it in the book, dummy2

anyway, the clot.'

'What did you tell him then?'

'I told him Alan would be back at work next day, so he'd have to make do with that.'

Yes, they'd made do with that all right...

'And the letter? You gave him the letter?'

'The letter? That was just lying on the hall table – I was going to take it in to Lewes for him. I said to him – to Alan's friend – that the new address might be in there, but he said it'd be a bit much to open it because it was marked "private".'

Roskill closed his eyes. The room seemed still and airless and close, but there was a chill down his back. She had killed him. She had killed him in innocence, but as surely as if she'd planted the T.

P.D.X. with her own hands.

'Hullo, Hugh – are you still there?'

He blinked. 'Yes, Penelope. So you gave it to him.'

'Well, he said we shouldn't open it. But he was going straight back to London and he'd post it there. So I gave it to him, of course. I suppose the clot's forgotten all about it. I'm sorry if it was important, but he seemed a sensible type.'

A sensible type of killer, certainly. And lucky too.

'What was he like?'

The friend – he was dishy. Dark hair and a super tan – very Mediterranean. But dressed like a bank clerk, all grey suit and striped shirt and cuff links, you know.'

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If it came to the pinch he could take her up to the gallery in Records, but the fellow might not even be in them, not if he was one of Hassan's men, and in any case was probably long gone by now.

More immediately, Penelope had turned their suspicions into fact.

And not only fact, for she had given the killers the solid motivation they had needed to take such risks and to plan so elaborately: they had known what Alan had seen and what he planned to do about it.

So they had moved to eliminate not a risk, but a certainty.

'It was an accident, was it?'

Mary was staring at him.

'An accident?'

'I'm not blind, Hugh. The look on your face a moment ago – you looked as though someone had read your death sentence. But it was Alan's, wasn't it – that letter the man took away – it was Alan's.'

The risk had been there from the start, that she would suspect there was more to Alan's death than mere accident the moment he started asking questions. But now she too had more than suspicion on which to work.

'Hugh. I know very well that Alan worked for some branch of security. I knew it because he never talked about his work, when he always told me about everything else. But I didn't know it was dangerous.' She looked at Roskill questioningly, almost pleadingly.

'I accept you can't tell me why – if that's your job, I do understand dummy2

it, Hugh. But at least you can tell me how he really died.'

He said softly, 'Does it matter, Mary?'

'It matters to me. Of all of them, Hugh, Alan was my special one.

Betty was ill when he was little, and I practically brought him up.'

She paused. 'I'm not bargaining – I'll tell you everything I know.

But I'd – I'd feel better if I knew that he died to some purpose, and not because of a silly mistake he made in his work.'

The rules said 'no'. The rules said he must always wear a double face and tell outsiders nothing more than was needed to make them co-operate. But the rules were not ends in themselves, just as the interest and security of the realm was not an end in itself.

So to Mary the rules must say 'yes', or go straight out of the window: her peace of mind was what it was all about.

'It wasn't an accident.' He put his hand over hers. 'It looked like an accident, but it wasn't. And I don't believe it had anything to do with his job, Mary. It wasn't a particularly dangerous job. But he saw something, or maybe heard something, while he was down here on leave, and he was killed before he could report it. And he didn't feel a thing – I promise you.' Mary remained silent for a moment.

'Thank you, Hugh,' she said at length. 'I'll never tell anyone what you've told me, not even Betty.' She drew a deep breath. 'And now you must ask me your questions – you want to know what Alan did on his leave.'

'I think it's just that Tuesday morning that matters – the day he left.

He left in a hurry, didn't he.'

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'In a frightful rush,' Mary nodded. 'He was going to go after lunch, but when he came back from the Beacon he'd changed his mind.'

'He'd walked up to the Beacon?'

'He rode up on Sammy – Penny's horse. She's half his horse, actually. She was, I mean ... He paid half Sammy's bills on condition he had first choice during his leaves. He always used to take Sammy out on the hills first thing in the morning. Then he used to spend the rest of the day pottering. He was fixing up the two-way speaker in the porch this leave, so that I could answer the door from here when the family was out. I don't believe he went out anywhere else during the whole time he was here.'

Like Harry, Alan had always used home for relaxation and family life: his London existence had been frenetic, and Firle was where he recharged his batteries.

'He rode up to the Beacon, then.'

'He walked Sammy up the steeper parts – he liked to get to the top as quickly as possible. I used to watch him through the telescope –

he'd wave when he reached the top.'

'And you watched him on Tuesday.'

She looked at him in despair. 'Hugh, I didn't – not on Tuesday. I had a bad day on Tuesday — I try not to take the pills the doctor gives me. They make me whoozy and I want to keep them for when I shall really need them. But I just had to take one that morning, and I didn't feel up to anything after that. I'm sorry.'

Roskill couldn't hide his disappointment. It had been a black Tuesday indeed – not only because Alan had chosen to ride to the dummy2

Beacon at that fatal moment in time, but because twice thereafter the chance of learning what he had seen had been lost.

'But you saw him when he came down.'

'Only very briefly. I was resting and he only came to borrow a stamp, and then to say goodbye. He was always very considerate when I had a bad day, and I'm not very good company then.'

'Did he say anything?'

'He said he was writing to you. He was excited, Hugh – he certainly wasn't frightened. I do remember asking him why he wasn't staying for lunch, because Penny was cutting the asparagus for him. But he just said "The sooner I'm off, the better" – I think he said.'

Like Harry, Alan had a broad streak of ambition in him. And if he'd had some idea of what he'd seen, he might also have had an inkling that it might be dangerous as well as important. And that would account for the letter, and for his leaving it to Penelope to post, as well as for the quick getaway. It might even account for his not leaving his new address.