The Alamut Ambush (3 page)

No one would do that, no matter what, thought Roskill bitterly. No one could avenge an accidental death.

‘But if they find out why it was done they can still save Llewelyn,’ said Butler. ‘You can help there.’

‘You can’t refuse, David,’ said Faith.

‘I’m not supposed to have any choice, and that’s a fact. Your tender social conscience and Hugh’s special relationship with Jenkins are designed to weight the scales – just what was so special about Jenkins, Hugh?’

Coming from almost any other man it would have been offensive in its implication. But Audley was curiously naive about such things, and prudish too. He meant exactly what he had said, and if he had suspected anything else he wouldn’t have spoken at all; Roskill simply wouldn’t have been sitting at dinner with him.

But it was none of his business nevertheless, and it was on the tip of Roskill’s tongue to say so when he glimpsed Faith’s face, stricken with ludicrous embarrassment; she was all of fifteen years younger than her husband, but a million years older in this – the embarrassment was for his naivete, not for any homosexual tendencies Roskill might possess.

Ludicrous, though – and how Alan would have laughed at it, with his obsessive pursuit of dolly girls who needed no pursuing!

He had to take pity on her.

‘Nothing like that, Faith. Jenkins was a friend of mine. I got him into the service.’

That would have to do. It was as much as the service knew, anyway. The private guilt and grief was all his own – his own and Isobel’s …

‘Hugh – I’m sorry. But it wasn’t your fault.’

Not his fault. An accident. Nothing they could do about it and he never knew what hit him. Epitath for both the Jenkins brothers. One way or another he’d done for them both now.

But this was mere self-pity. The important thing now was somehow to succeed where Butler had failed: to do what the bastards wanted him to do – to involve Audley.
And
that could never be done by moral blackmail, or not so crudely anyway. Nor could it be done while both of them were still in the dark.

‘I know it isn’t my fault. It isn’t David’s either, so you might as well let him off the hook. Just tell us this, Jack: am I still in on things, or was I just the sprat to catch the mackerel?’

‘They want both of you.’

It might be true. Or it might be that Butler was still trying to catch the mackerel.

‘They’ll just have to make do with me then.’ He couldn’t risk winking at Butler, with Audley sitting directly ahead of him. More likely neither of them would see it in the candlelight, anyway. ‘Just tell me what Llewelyn is up to that might make a target of him.’

Butler shook his head slowly. ‘That’s the rub, Hugh. Apparently Llewelyn isn’t up to anything.’

‘Nonsense!’ Audley exploded. ‘Llewelyn isn’t the sort of man who is ever up to nothing. He isn’t capable of doing nothing.’

Faith said: ‘But you said you didn’t know anything about him.’

‘I said I hadn’t met him for years. Until last year I’d forgotten about him, and when I came up with him again it was too late to take precautions. He’d got me kicked out of the Middle Eastern group.’

Roskill looked at him incredulously. Audley had been the brains of that group and virtually a law unto himself. And under Sir Frederick’s special protection.

‘Nobody told you that, did they, Hugh? Come to think of it, why does everyone think I transferred to the European section? What do people say about it?’

Roskill strove to rearrange his thoughts. The rumour was that Audley had been miffed at having his warnings ignored, and that after the Aden withdrawal he had schemed diligently to manoeuvre himself out of an area in which there was no longer either credit or honour to be gained.

‘They say you were – prudent,’ he replied cautiously.

‘I abandoned a sinking ship, did I?’ Audley smiled bitterly.

‘It was thoughtful of Fred to put that around – better for my image! But actually I was sacked – kicked upstairs and promoted out of Llewelyn’s way. I asked too many awkward questions and gave too many inconvenient answers.’

So Llewelyn was definitely Middle East; it had been on the cards from the moment Audley had been involved.

‘I can’t think how I didn’t meet up with him much earlier. He must have kept very quiet until he was sure the power was in his hands. Then – wham! I think he damn near convinced the J.I.C. diat I was an Israeli agent.’

Rumour had said that too: Audley had worked far too closely with the Israelis.

‘I did a little quiet research on
him
after it was all over.’ Audley sighed. ‘Just for my peace of mind, of course.

‘Outwardly he’s all empiricism and pragmatism, outsmarting the Russians and the Chinese. But inwardly he’s a raving idealist. I think he dreams of becoming a political Lawrence of Arabia – or at least getting back to the U.N. partition lines of ‘47 if he can’t undo 1920. An admirer of all things Arab, anyway – providing they fit in with his dream of the new Middle East.’

‘Would you say there’s any substance in his dreams?’ Butler asked.

‘There’s something in it, certainly. He wants to underwrite the new nationalisms, and that would seem to be backing a winning streak. But he thinks that deep down the Arabs would rather deal with us than with anyone else because we’re the only ones who have had any sort of love affair with Arabia.

‘The trouble is that the real Lawrence types always seem to turn up on the wrong side – like those bright characters in the Yemen. And he tried to stop them.’

Audley gave Butler a sidelong glance, as though it had suddenly dawned on him that he was being drawn. ‘Anyway, that was why I was – promoted: my advice didn’t always fit his scheme of things. And admittedly I’m not exactly anti-Israeli.’

There was a lot left unsaid there, thought Roskill. If Llewelyn was a schemer, so was Audley. In fact Audley could probably be as bloody-minded and obstinate as anyone when it came to the crunch, for all his air of donnish reasonableness.

But for the rest, it made sense. The great powers might be chary of blowing up each other’s civil servants, but some of the smaller powers were much less inhibited, particularly the Middle Eastern ones. There were harassed bureaucrats in Washington and Moscow who sweated without great success to curb such tendencies. The Israelis; went their own remorseless way, apparently regardless – and some of the Arab guerrilla groups were both uncontrollable and unpredictable …

‘But if he doesn’t approve of you, darling, why does he want your help now?’ Faith asked. ‘And why doesn’t he ask you straight out?’

‘It would stick in his throat. But I suppose he thinks I’ve got some useful private contacts.’ Audley shook his head. ‘He’s wrong of course.’

‘He doesn’t think so,’ said Butler. ‘The truth is, Mrs. Audley, your husband was the sharpest man in the group, and they know it. And he had his own grapevine.’

‘ “Had” is right. I haven’t got it now. I’ve been out nearly a year, and that’s a lifetime – I’m out of touch completely. They should know that I can’t pick up the threads just like that. It won’t do – it simply won’t do – and I’m surprised Llewelyn ever thought it would.’

‘He’s seen the driver’s seat in his car, Dr. Audley,’ said Butler harshly. ‘He’s frightened.’

‘Frightened? You’re damn right he’s frightened. So am I – and so should you be. But he’ll put himself on ice and expect me to go poking around. And I’m not going to! I’m not equipped to deal with maniacs.’

‘You don’t have to. Just get a line on the who and the why – that’s all.’

Audley gestured abruptly. ‘No! It’s not on. Besides, I’ve got Faith to think of now. So even if I could, I wouldn’t. You can tell them I’m just not interested.’

Not interested – that would be the heart of the matter for a man like Audley in anything that involved choice. Only because of that would he allow other, weightier reasons to become decisive.

Butler pushed back his chair and stood up.

‘I’ll tell them just that. But on your head be it then, Dr. Audley.’

‘Not on my head, Major Butler. That’s a hat I don’t choose to wear. It doesn’t fit.’

Butler’s eyes shifted momentarily to Roskill, and then back towards Audley, calculation naked in them now.

‘If it’s not yours then it’s Hugh’s, whether it fits or not – spare me a moment outside, Hugh – so I’ll see myself out, Mrs. Audley. And I’m sorry to have troubled you.’

Roskill followed Butler to the square of cobbles in the angle of the old house, in the pool of light from the porch lantern. It didn’t help to be dragged out like this – Audley would know very well what he would be up to – but if there was anything to be salvaged now he had to know more.

‘Don’t ask me to go straight back and convince him, Jack. It won’t do any good now. You’ve botched it – you’ve bloody well botched it. It’ll be damn difficult now.’

Butler faced him, relaxed and without a hint of apology.

‘I warned them. I told them he’d tumble to it. But Stocker reckoned he might quit if they tried to force him – he’s got just enough money of his own to do it – and Fred would play merry hell if that happened. So they seemed to think they’d got nothing to lose.’

He snorted. ‘They’re running scared, that’s the trouble.’

‘I don’t wonder at it. But what the hell has Llewelyn been doing? They must have some idea.’

‘Stocker said they hadn’t the faintest idea, but things must be bad for them to come crawling to Audley like this when they both hate his guts. But Audley’s got a big reputation for puzzle-solving, especially after the business with that Russian last year.
And
he’s got some juicy Middle Eastern contacts of his own, remember.’

‘He swears he hasn’t now.’

‘So he says. All I know is they want him and they want him badly. And now it’s up to you to get him – you and Nellie No-tits in there. She’s probably giving him hell now. I hope she is; it’ll make it easier for you.’

Roskill knew he had to make allowances for Butler’s blind spot, but there was a point at which allowances became pusillanimity.

‘You really are a bugger sometimes, aren’t you? And not even a very clever one this time, as it happens. You want to watch it, Jack. It might become a habit – making mistakes about women.’

Butler’s heavy shoulders slumped and then stiffened again, and Roskill was aware too late that he had hit harder than he intended. The man had children – three little snub-nosed, red-haired, miniature Butlers, all female – but he had never once mentioned a wife. Roskill had never thought to ask about that, and now he never could.

‘Aye, that could happen.’ Butler stared into the darkness before meeting Roskill’s gaze. ‘But this is strictly business. They say she has a well-developed social conscience and they aim to catch at him through it. And through you too, Hugh – through you.’

Now there was regret in his voice, and a curious echo of that lost Lancashire accent. If there was anything more to be got out of Butler, now was the time.

‘And that was the only reason why I’m involved ?’

A shake of the head. ‘I don’t know. They know you got Jenkins into
the
service, that you know his family. And Audley likes you, they know that too. But I think there was something else behind that… You went to Israel before your leave, didn’t you?’

‘That was nothing. I only met a few of their pilots — I saw their tame Sukhoi 7 and some Mig 21 modifications, and we talked about the SAMs. It was pure routine.’

Butler nodded. ‘I don’t know, then. But they want you sure enough. There’s a briefing tomorrow at eleven thirty – not at the office, either. Officially you’re at Snettisham. The meeting’s set up at the Queensway Hotel, just off Bloornsbury Square. Room 104. You and Audley, if you can swing it. You and your beard, anyway.’

Butler eased himself into the driver’s seat of his Rover. He reached for the ignition.

‘And Hugh – I’m sorry about young Jenkins. It was bloody bad luck, pure bloody bad luck.’

Alan Jenkins was already a little unreal, thought Roskill sadly. Already one of the absent friends, fixed forevermore in the past tense, merely to be remembered and regretted. Not even a ghost, but just another of the shades, like Harry. It was appalling how quickly death could be accepted. But then he’d never really known Alan as he had kiiown Harry: the age gap had been small enough, yet impassable.

Yet it was civil of Butler to regret him, a decent gesture after their recent passage of words. It called for a civil answer.

‘If it hadn’t been him it would have been some other poor devil.’

‘But it was doubly bad luck for him, though. It should have been Maitland. He was the one on call.’

‘Why wasn’t it Maitland, then?’

Butler switched on the engine. ‘Act of God, the insurance companies would call it. That gale last night brought half a tree across Maitland’s telephone wires – he lives out of London, down East Grinstead way. They couldn’t get through to him. The other two chaps were out of town and Jenkins had just come back. He was the second stand-by. Pure bad luck.’

He looked up at Roskill as he reached for the transmission selector. ‘But if you want to get your own back on bad luck, Hugh – get Audley. It’s as simple as that.’

Roskill watched the Rover’s tail-lights down the drive until the beech hedge cut them off. So Jenkins’s death had been doubly accidental – a useless, cruelly coincidental death. He turned despondently towards the porch. It would take more than coincidence to make Audley change his mind.

He stopped with his hand on the iron latch, staring at. the weathered oak. Were those the original adze marks on it? Pure bad luck . , . yet perhaps Audley would be more interested in bad luck, at that – he had once said that he was not
a
great believer in luck, either good or bad: he maintained it was very often something a man received according to his deserts…

There was a germ of an idea there: a trick and a deception, certainly, but also an idea. Yet it would have to be good to catch a suspicious-minded Audley; it must do better than fit the facts, but must carry its own inner conviction. It must intrigue him. It must –

Roskill caught his breath, still gripping the latch.
It did fit the facts
. It fitted them so perfectly that it ceased to be a deception even as he tested it in his own mind.