Soldier No More (39 page)

“Avery and Clinton expect the man Audley to obtain one of the copies d’Auberon took … of certain documents—that is correct?” Once again Genghis Khan bypassed half a dozen of the questions Roche had expected.

“That’s right.” So the Comrades
did
know all about d’Auberon—but were considerably less well-informed about Audley!

“What makes them so sure that he can do this for them?” It was slightly disconcerting to hear genuine uncertainty in the man’s voice.

“Yes… well, there’s a bit of a problem there.” But at least the questions were coming in the right sequence this time. “It was going to be easy, they thought—“

Easy?”

So they thought. But maybe it wouldn’t have been so easy, at that.”

“How—easy?” Genghis Khan brushed aside Roche’s doubts. “What was he going to do?”

“He was just going to get them out of his bank—or wherever they were—and hand them over.”

“
Audley?
”

“That’s right. In return for letting him back into the service—with promotion backdated, and all that … That was what they were banking on all along, of course … But I’m inclined to think it wouldn’t have been quite as straightforward as that—“

“
Audley
had one of the copies?” Genghis Khan was still struggling with information which plainly astonished him.

Well—so much the better! An astonished Genghis Khan was almost as vulnerable as a wasp-stung one.

“You didn’t know that? He owed d’Auberon a big favour, from back in ‘44, during the war—d’Auberon saved his life apparently, and this was the repayment … And that’s why it might have been difficult, getting him to sell the man out to the British. I think it could have been done… strictly in d’Auberon’s best interest, you know, now that the cat’s out of the bag.” It struck Roche as ironic that the arguments he might have used on Audley were almost identical with those Audley was proposing for d’Auberon. “It might have worked.” It might have worked with Audley, anyway; but the very fact Audley wanted him to do the dirty work with d’Auberon, with no mention of
his
part in the plan, cast further doubt on it now. “You didn’t know Audley had a copy, then?”

He listened to his own words, and they were still exactly the right mixture of arrogance and obsequiousness.

“What has he done with the documents?” It was to Genghis Khan’s credit that his voice was back in neutral so quickly.

“He’s given them back—d’Auberon asked for them. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. I don’t think I was intended to be in on the d’Auberon part of the operation—I suspect they were going to get Audley to London, and then pop the question to him there. But someone’s been talking, and the British had to accelerate things … and I was here, on the spot… But they were still just a few hours too late, as it turned out. That’s my reading of what’s happened—especially after Meriel Stephanides ran out of road.”

At once, and quite naturally, the question he had left behind appeared in front of him again, like an open goal-mouth rewarded to him by attacking play. “Which reminds me … you never did get round to filling me in on that little matter, did you? Or do I have to settle for a tragic accident?”

The children were back on the road again, chasing the dog, which still had the ball clenched between its jaws.

“Well?” In this changed situation the man’s silence emboldened him to press his advantage. “I can’t stand here forever like a spare prick, old boy. Either brief me or de-brief me, or let me go and try my luck with Clinton’s man—he’ll be a damned sight more forthcoming than you are, I hope.”

The dog dropped the ball between its paws and taunted the children noisily. At least it was enjoying the game more than the man in the van..

“He-gave-it-back?” Genghis Khan spaced the words with doubt.

“D’Auberon asked for it back. So he gave it back.” Roche shrugged at the children. “What’s so surprising about that?”

“You’re sure he had it?” Doubt still nagged at Genghis Khan. “He wasn’t bluffing?”

“Why the hell should he be bluffing?” Roche decided to become irritable. “Clinton’s man said he had it—that was what they were banking on, I told you. And he certainly knew all about it, because he’d looked at it—“

“He’d looked at it?”

“Oh—come on!” He let the irritation flare into anger. “This is Audley we’re talking about—not a bloody Sunday School teacher! Do you seriously think a nosey bastard like Audley could resist looking at it? Of course he bloody-well did!” Roche was no longer frightened: Genghis Khan stung into any sort of emotion was thereby further diminished. “That
is
the point—what sort of man Audley is … that’s what Avery and Clinton set me to find out, because everything else was plain sailing, they thought— they thought he wanted to come back, and they were right … and they knew he had the d’Auberon papers, even though they didn’t know time was running out on them … But they also knew from past experience that Audley’s a difficult and contradictory bastard, and if they sent down someone stupid to make the contact—like the time before—then he just might get bloody-minded again, out of sheer perversity …”

There were children’s cries in one ear, and only the wasps’ endless buzzing in the other.

“He’s a Jekyll-and-Hyde character, that’s why. It was Dr Jekyll who took the papers, because he owed d’Auberon a debt he had to repay, as a matter of honour… and it was Mr Hyde who looked at them, to protect himself— and to see how valuable they were.”

“What did he make of them?” Genghis Khan slashed the question at him instantly.

“He thought they were ancient history. But I think Clinton was right—he would have done a deal with us. Mr Hyde would have out-voted Dr Jekyll.” It occurred to Roche belatedly that Genghis Khan might not know Jekyll and Hyde from Laurel and Hardy; he was probably an illiterate sod.

“Yes. Clinton …Clinton…” Genghis Khan was speaking to himself, nodding to himself in the darkness in there, whispering the name of the man whom he saw as his real adversary.

“That’s right,” Roche encouraged him. “Audley was the key—Clinton knew that.” If Genghis Khan fancied he understood Clinton, his own stock-in-trade was understanding Audley, and he must press that advantage to the full. “Maybe he still is the key.”

“What do you mean? If he no longer has the documents—?”

“Yes…But without them I’m never going to get on to the Eighth Floor, alongside Clinton. Turning in Audley won’t be enough by itself—I’d guess that Sir Eustace Avery has set his heart on getting those papers, and he’s not the man to reward failure. Nor is Clinton.” This was a language Genghis Khan understood only too well, not least because his own superiors spoke it even more implacably; and in another moment, after Roche had hooked them both together, he would understand it even better.

“So?” Genghis Khan accepted the cold logic so far.

“So this is where I need your help, old boy. And rather quickly, I suspect. Because if I can get my hands on d’Auberon’s little nest egg, then we win hands down—I can make a copy of them for you
and
I
get my promotion to where you want me to be. But if I can’t, then I’m pretty damn sure someone else soon will. And then we shall
both
be in trouble, I think—eh?”

He was aware, as he delivered the final threat, which was barbed to lodge irremovably in Genghis Khan’s soul, that he was raising his voice against all the competing noises—the dog (which had at last lost the ball), and the children, and the wasps, and the awakening town itself.

“Audley’s got a plan, you see,” said Roche. “Only I don’t think it will work. What I need to know is whether
you
can maybe make it work.”

“Audley has a plan? What plan?”

Roche drew a breath. “Oh … just a simple little mixture of bluff and bribery. He’s a ruthless bastard, Audley is: now Dr Jekyll has paid his debt, Mr Hyde is in charge.”

“Go on.”

Roche decided to try again. “Just who
did
kill Miss Stephanides, by the way?”

The dog and the children had gone again. Only the wasps, his friends and allies, buzzed on regardless.

“I do not know for sure. I can guess, but I do not know, David.”

The ‘David’ surprised Roche. “Then guess for me.”

“No. There is no time for guessing. It will be attended to—be satisfied with that.
Go on
.”

Roche was past arguing. Also, there was a horrible thought rising inside him, like a bloated corpse which had freed itself from the weight of his illusions about the British:
it was only Steffy
’
s death which gave substance to Audley
’
s bluff, and if the Comrades weren
’
t responsible for that, could it be that Clinton—
?

“Go on, David.”

If it was so, then he was really midway between the frying pan and the fire, both equally unforgiving. “
Go on
—“

“I like it,” said Genghis Khan finally. “It has the mark of the man himself about it—the man you have described, and the man we are beginning to know also.”

“What?” Then Roche remembered that Genghis Khan’s first offer had related to the identity of Antonia Palfrey. And, in any case, it was foolish to assume that the Comrades had been idle while he had been so busy: they had been digging discreetly but deeply in their own way into both d’Aube-ron and Audley these last forty-eight hours, that was certain.

“Using us as the threat, to save his friend—and using you to make the offer—“

“He said d’Auberon would deny it, if I mentioned him—“

“He doesn’t want to take any risks, of course! If he has nothing to lose, so much the better. And if you fail, he has lost nothing. His good name as an honourable man will be safe. I like it!”

“But can it work?” Roche forced himself not to look at the van.

“He’s clever—he could cause us trouble in time. But he will cause the British trouble too, while he lasts—they do not like cleverness.”

Roche was astonished by the clear drift of what Genghis Khan was saying. “You think it
will
work?”

“On the contrary … it will most certainly
not
work. There is not the slightest chance that d’Auberon will consider giving anything to the British.”

“Why not?” Roche found himself taking the devil’s advocate’s position against his own judgement. “If d’Auberon thinks that everyone has found out about him, then he hasn’t got anything to bargain with—he
must
get rid of it to someone strong enough to protect him.”

“That would be prudent—yes,” Genghis Khan agreed. “So he provided for that possibility—naturally. But not for the benefit of any foreign power. He is, after all, a Frenchman—perhaps he dislikes us more than the British, but that is only a matter of degree. And you are forgetting why he resigned, also.”

“Over Algeria, you mean?” Roche recalled Madame Peyrony’s version of the d’Auberon scandal.

He realised that he had answered his own question: a man who quit the service for patriotic reasons would hardly be likely to hand over its secrets to another country. So Audley had totally—and rather strangely— miscalculated there. And yet, at the same time, d’Auberon himself had acted out of character in entrusting his insurance policy to the Englishman to pass on to some third and safely French party.

“Politically, he is a Gaulliste,” said Genghis Khan. “If it were not for his ‘sense of honour’—whatever that is—he would have already revealed the documents to his Gaulliste friends, regardless of his safety. And if anything should happen to him, in any event, it is the Gaullistes who will get the documents now. But that is of no importance.”

“No importance?”

“That is one reason why it won’t work,” said Genghis Khan. “Because he’s had his sealed copies lodged all along with two senior Gaulliste deputies, men we wouldn’t dare touch. Not even if we wanted to.”

“You
knew
—“ Roche steadied his voice “—about them?”

“We’ve known from the beginning—about
them
.” Genghis paused. “But not about Audley. It would appear that d’Auberon took an extra precaution there.”

“You knew?” Roche struggled with the contradiction.

“But all is not lost, even though your so-clever Dr Audley has contrived to get almost everything wrong … Even, I think, there is much to gain now,” said Genghis Khan.

At least the relative importance of the d’Auberon papers compared with his own future career had been established, thought Roche. But somehow that was no longer so reassuring.

“And he did get one thing right, in a way. He is relying on us to do his work for him, and we mustn’t let him down. But we shall have to act very quickly.”

“How—“ Roche stumbled over the word, jostled from behind by a new mob of doubts and fears.

“How are we going to help him? Why—we shall give him
our
copy of the d’Auberon documents, David.”

LEXY RAISED THE
top third of herself up off the towel on her elbows and gazed at Roche pensively, cradling her face in her hands.

“Yes?” Lexy almost totally uncovered was somehow less disturbing than the accidental and unplanned vistas she was accustomed to present when fully clothed, he thought.

“It’s all right, David—I’m not about to try and buy your thoughts again for another penny. It isn’t a day for buying other people’s thoughts.”

A sympathetic half-smile was all he could manage. It wasn’t a day for smiles either. “Mine aren’t worth a penny, Lexy.”

“I bet they’re more interesting than mine! I have such dull, ordinary thoughts, that’s the trouble. That’s what David Audley says … and what makes it worse is that he’s right, the wretch!”

“Huh!” The irony made play-acting unnecessary. “I’ll bet you … more than a penny … that he can be stupid too, you know.”

“Yes—but at least he’ll be
cleverly
stupid—‘too clever by half’, that’s what Davey and Mike say. And that’s better than being
plain
stupid.”

She wasn’t stupid at all, thought Roche. Even she made it a day for a full smile, in spite of everything. “Let’s say I’m thinking about you—and you couldn’t be
plain
anything, even if you tried to be—“ he caught his tongue too late as her face fell “—what’s the matter?”