Digby struggled momentarily with the question, deciding finally that there was no way it could be answered with a straight yes-or-no. "They set off small explosive charges mostly. Anything that involves any sort of danger, too."
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"Such as?"
Digby shrugged. "Falling off things. Falling into water . . .
that type of thing. They put up their ideas to the Safety Committee first, of course."
Audley saw suddenly that the sergeant was being pulled several different ways at once. As a good copper he didn't want to be unco-operative with a superior officer, even though in this instance the superior officer was a Home Office interloper. But as a uniform man attached to the CID
and to Superintendent Weston, who was also his future boss as well as his immediate one, he resented the interloper's presence.
But there was nothing unusual about that professional tug-of-war; what distorted the pull was a third force exerted by his loyalty to the Double R Society, at least so far as he didn't want the interloper to get the wrong ideas about its operations.
"I see." He nodded gravely, stifling the temptation to observe jocularly that James Ratcliffe's final "special effect" had been the most spectacular of all. "But this time he was just in charge of—ah—making smoke, eh?"
Digby gazed at him mournfully. "No, sir."
"No?"
"He was also one of the special casualties." Digby swallowed.
Understatement of the day. But rather than say that Audley managed a mild questioning grunt.
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"The special effects are laid on to ... interest the spectators."
Digby nerved himself to the required explanation with an obvious effort. "On this occasion Jim Ratcliffe led our attack
—the Roundhead attack, that is—on the Royalist line right in front of the crowd—"
7. The battle will commence at 3.15 sharp. (i) Roundhead vanguard fired on by Royalists blocking line of advance along Old Road . . .
. . . (viii) General assault by Roundheads with whole force except vanguard (still engaging road block force). Death of Colonel Flowerdew (Roundhead commander) . . .
Audley frowned. "I didn't know there was a Roundhead attack. I thought the Royalists simply charged, and that was that."
"Oh, that was in the original battle— the real one." Digby's voice lost its official flatness and became at once more animated. "We didn't set out to reproduce it accurately, it wouldn't have been possible because—well, it was one big cavalry charge, and we've only got six horsemen."
"And it would have been over too quickly."
"It would. And it would have been dull for the crowd, too. It isn't that we don't try to be accurate when we can, as far as it's possible without horsemen. But this was a case where we dummy5
had to give people something for their money—"
"And there's nothing like 'the push of the pike' for that, eh?"
Audley decided that a non-patronising smile would be in order. "So—Jim Ratcliffe led the attack. And became a
'special casualty'?"
"That's right, sir. He played the part of Colonel Flowerdew, who was hit by a cannon ball—he really was hit, in the real battle. We simply moved him up closer to the crowd so they could see what happened."
"When what happened?"
"When—he was hit by a cannon ball."
Audley lifted an eyebrow. "And that, I take it, was a special effect—being hit by a cannon ball? I can see that it would be!"
Digby grinned. "Only a small cannon ball. Not from a Saker or a Drake, but a Fawconet or even arabinet—a three-quarter pounder, say."
"Oh, sure." Audley grinned back, happy to have found this easy way through the sergeant's armour. "Just a very little one. But it wouldn't have a very little effect—special effect, I mean."
Digby's grin evaporated, as though he'd remembered suddenly that the discussion was not academic. "No. Blood everywhere. The crowd really goes for that, sir."
Very true, thought Audley. For crowds there was nothing like blood for money.
"So how do you give it to them, then?"
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"There are a number of different ways." Digby shrugged.
"The one we use is the simplest and safest. The casualty wears a loose linen tunic—white for the best effect —and white breeches too if possible. Anything that'll show the blood, anyway. . . . And under it are fixed several contraceptives—condoms—full of red dye and a bit of air to make them easier to burst. Actually, we've tried using balloons, but condoms are better."
But condoms are better: You Can Rely on Durex. Although this was one reliability test the family planners certainly hadn't thought of.
Only Digby was deadly serious now. And more, there was something in his manner which told Audley that it would be a mistake to burst out laughing.
Burst?
"How do you burst them?"
Digby shook his head. "There are some pretty dangerous ways of doing that. I heard of one fellow using explosive caps on a thick leather pad. But we use drawing pins in special gloves: the moment the cannon goes off—and you have to be not less than twenty yards away diagonally from it—you strike the chest hard with the palm of one hand and the back of the other hand." He stared at Audley with peculiar intensity. "It usually works well enough."
"But not this time?"
Digby continued to stare at him. "Then —you haven't read dummy5
my report, sir?" He blinked. "I mean—my statement in evidence?"
Audley shook his head.
"I see." The young sergeant paused. "Well ... it worked . . .
well enough—"
Well enough.
Audley stared out of his study window into the darkness, listening with one corner of his mind to the small dry rasp of the dead leaves on the terrace outside.
Suddenly his nerves tautened at the unnatural sound: there shouldn't be dead leaves moving like that in the gentle night breeze of summer. He half-rose from his chair before his brain relaxed the tension as instantly as it had arisen. The great elm across the lawn there was dying out of season, shedding its leaves for the last time like ten million other elms across the length of England which had been murdered by the invading Dutch elm fungus.
He subsided back into the chair, the knot in his stomach slowly untying itself. Whatever Matthew Fattorini might say, this wasn't the sort of job where the sound of dead leaves rustling in the darkness might not be what it seemed.
Well enough?
Such a beautiful, simple, professional killing, it had been. A pure, almost contemptuous best-laid scheme.
Colonel Flowerdew had died there according to plan on the dummy5
hillside above the Swine Brook, deluged in contraceptive blood to the admiring "oohs" and "aahs" of the crowd.
And Colonel Flowerdew had been carried away, back down the hillside, to where the wounded and dying lay.
And Colonel Flowerdew had then become James Ratcliffe, ready for his next special effect—
(ix) Royalist cannonade resumes. Roundhead wagons set ablaze.
Snugged down in his small gap in the bushes beside the stream he had set off the smoke canisters on schedule, one by one.
(x) Roundhead vanguard begins to retreat.
But now there came an unplanned addition to the Swine Brook Field Scenario—
Enter one murderer.
Identity unknown. Believed professional. Long gone now.
Route—in full view of seven thousand witnesses?
"He came down the stream, sir," said Sergeant Digby. "He couldn't risk coming upstream, because I was there, for one.
And nobody came past me until the rout started."
(xiii) Collapse of Roundhead defence—
"And too many people would have seen him—it's surprising what people see.
Whereas if he came down the stream—" Digby pointed.
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Audley followed the line of the finger, past the fresh growth of the cropped section of bushes, to where the uncut bushes raged in their unrestricted summer tangle. The stream issued out of a green-shadowed tunnel, walled and roofed with leaves and branches. The open fields on either side were parched and dry, and open to prying eyes, the well-grazed summer grass of the meadow on one hand and the evenly-cropped wheat stubble on the other; but the Swine Brook itself ran in a secret place of its own making, nourishing the deep rooted things which shielded it from the sun.