The Labyrinth Makers (14 page)

She gave him a bleary version of the now familiar shortsighted-haughty stare, which forced him to smile inwardly.

'I took a risk and plugged the kettle in,' she said hoarsely. 'Without a cup of tea I'd have died anyway, so it was a necessary risk.'

Unaccountably Audley felt on top of the world now, better than he had felt for days. But it would be too cruel of him to admit it at that moment.

'I don't feel very spritely myself, to tell the truth,' he lied.

She raised her eyes from the mug.

'To tell the truth, I feel thoroughly—'

She stopped in mid-sentence, realising too late the implication of what she was saying, but making things much worse by leaving the sentence in the air.

He couldn't stop himself from laughing as the colour spread across her cheeks. She buried her face in her hands, and for a cold moment he thought she was weeping. Then he realised her shoulders were shaking with laughter, not tears.

Evidently laughter was the therapy she needed, and it was reassuring to discover that she could laugh against herself. It seemed perfectly natural to take her in his arms, without passion or urgency. She melted against him momentarily, and then held him away from her, shaking her head.

'I'm not grumbling!' she said. 'It was a unique experience! But next time I'd prefer a more conventional setting, I think …'

She put her hand to her mouth suddenly and glanced about the kitchen. Audley realised he had forgotten the possibility of bugs himself, and beckoned her out into the garden.

'They'll be here in half an hour, then!' she said in panic when he told her his news. 'God–and I must look a sight!'

And it was, indeed, exactly thirty minutes later that a smart red Bedford van squealed to a halt on the cobbles. KILL-AND-CURE it promised in bold letters emblazoned on a board fastened to its side panel–'Instant death to wood-borers–relief from rising damp.'

A plump, ginger-haired man in an ill-fitting suit climbed out of the van, accompanied by a younger assistant with trailing hair and a Ringo Starr moustache. They surveyed the house with professional disinterest.

The ginger man rapped sharply on the kitchen door.

'Kill-and-Cure, sir,' he announced loudly. 'About your request for estimates for our woodworm treatment and electro-osmotic damp-courses. I have your letter here, sir–Dr Audley, it is, isn't it–and my authorisation to make a Sunday call. "Sunday stipulated" it says here.'

He held open a red folder for Audley to see. It did certainly contain an authorisation, complete with identification. But no mention was made in it of Sunday or woodworm or electro-osmosis, whatever that was.

The ginger man inclined his head slightly towards the van, and Audley followed him outside.

'I'm Maitland, Dr Audley. That's Jenkins with all the hair. Three men, you said. And they had plenty of time in the house.'

Audley nodded.

'But you think it possible they may not know that you observed them.'

'It's possible. I can't be sure.'

'Well, we won't spoil their fun, just in case. Mr Roskill's coming to take you to London, but we'll check the cars first just in case you want to use them. And the cars'll tell us just how good they are.'

He nodded to Jenkins and gestured towards the cars in the barn. The hairy young man pulled a bag of tools out of the van and trotted off obediently, whistling tunelessly.

'The cars?'

'No one can resist cars these days, Dr Audley. If they really don't like you they'll have done a little surgery on the steering or the brakes. But that's not very likely–much too chancy. A "Bo Peep", though–so they can follow you at a safe distance–that's as near a certainty as dammit is to swearing.'

Jenkins had disappeared into Faith's Mini.

'He won't be long,' said Maitland happily. 'There aren't many places in a Mini. Not many clever places, anyway.'

They made their way back into the house.

'Now, sir,' said Maitland loudly again, 'if you don't mind giving us the run of the house while you're out we'll measure up for the damp-course, internal walls included, and let you have our estimate within three days. But if you could spare time to show me round once before you go—'

As they toured the house Maitland treated him to a continuous, detailed and persuasive catalogue of Kill-and-Cure's techniques, services and previous triumphs. Only the fact that at the same time he virtually ignored the tell-tale holes in the beams and rising damp stains on the walls spoilt the illusion; instead he gently poked and pried into drapes and under furniture.

At length, he led Audley back outside.

'Well, if you've been bugged it's been done by experts,' he said. 'There's nothing obvious to be seen.'

Audley experienced a sinking feeling. Nothing could be more humiliating than a false alarm–if his visitors turned out to be innocent locals looking for unconsidered trifles. And it would also make a sad comedy of what had passed in the hole …

'Maybe Jenkins has struck oil,' continued Maitland.

Audley followed him unwillingly towards the barn. Jenkins had evidently finished with the Mini, which was in itself a bad sign. His legs protruded from beneath the Cambridge. Beside them a transistor radio blared insanely.

The ginger-haired man casually kicked one of the legs.

'You down there! Any joy?'

Jenkins eased himself from under the car. He had certainly struck oil, which he proceeded to rub off with a filthy rag, without much success.

'That Mini'll never pass its MoT test next time,' he observed cheerfully. 'Shocking state underneath! Never buy an old Mini. Old Minis are like—'

He stopped talking and stared past them.

Audley swung round to find Faith standing in the barn doorway.

But it was a very different Faith from the morning-after one he had last seen–and different, too, from the earlier Faiths, funereal, tweedy and jeaned.

He had asked her to dress for action, and that was exactly what she had done: the sage-green medium mini dress in what looked like suede combined expensive simplicity and provocation. The pale hair was pinned up at the back in a vertical roll — was that what Liz had once described 'as a French pleat? And the blue-tinted glasses completed the tantalising don't-touch look.

Certainly the final product had a dynamic effect on Jenkins, who couldn't be expected to know that the line of those breasts now owed more to art than nature.

'And what's wrong with my car?' she inquired sharply, glasses tilted arrogantly.

Jenkins looked questioningly at Audley.

'Miss Jones is aware of the general situation,' said Audley.

Jenkins relaxed. 'Well, in that case,' he said in dulcet public school tones, 'she'd better not go visiting anyone important.'

He held out his open hand to reveal what looked like a dirty Oxo cube with a silver drawing pin stuck in it.

This, presumably, was what a 'Bo Peep' looked like.

Maitland lifted it gently out of Jenkins's palm and held it close to his eye.

'Little beauty, isn't it?' Jenkins spoke admiringly. 'Nicest little navigational aid I've seen in months, nestling in its little bed of mud and rust! If it had acquired a bit of genuine mud I just might not have spotted it, not straight away at least. But they had to make do with some home-made mud of their own, which was rather careless of them.'

Maitland cut through his enthusiasm: 'And the Cambridge?'

'I haven't found it yet–but it's there somewhere. They've got more options in a bigger car.'

Maitland turned to Audley. 'That settles it, then. They wouldn't send three men just to fix the cars. One on the cars, one in the house and one to keep watch. You can take it from me they mean business, Dr Audley.'

'Have you taken the–whatever it is out of my car?' said Faith uneasily. 'Is it safe to drive?'

Jenkins grinned. 'Safe, but so dull, Miss Jones! It'd be much better fun to put it back again. I mean, now we know about it we can take them on a tour of Britain any time –it's the only chance some of their chaps get to see the beauties of the countryside. Saving your presence, of course!'

She regarded him disdainfully. 'Do you think you could turn down your radio,' she said coldly. 'It's getting on my nerves.'

His grin widened. 'Sorry, lady,' he replied in his Kill-and-Cure persona's accents. Then he switched back: 'I don't enjoy it any more than you do, actually. But I haven't checked this barn yet. Pop's marvellous for blotting out conversation in the meantime.'

With his hair cut he would be an uncommonly presentable young man, thought Audley enviously. And more her age.

He moved to cut off the conversation: 'Is the–device–a Russian one?' He couldn't bring himself to use the colloquial term they had used, all too aware that his knowledge of gadgetry was minimal.

Jenkins shook his head. 'Now there you have me. I'd assume it was–it's a first-rate job. You've no reason to think the Americans are interested in you, have you?'

'Why the Americans?' asked Audley, shaking his head in turn.

'Then we'd be in real trouble: the Americans are streets ahead of the Russians. They don't just miniaturise things now–they make them look like something else! I'd have to start unscrewing nuts and bolts to find out if they really were just nuts and bolts.'

Audley remembered that he had initialled a report on the latest developments in such equipment a few days before, without reading it. It had not been in his field then: he wished it wasn't in it now.

But he was saved from further embarrassment by Roskill's appearance at the wheel of a gleaming Triumph which made his own Austin seem depressingly dowdy. Roskill was also more Faith's age, he thought gloomily. And more her style, too. He made Audley feel as shabby as the Austin.

But that was an undignified and unprofitable line of thought. What had happened during the night certainly didn't give him special rights over the girl. Young women set less store on physical relationships these days; it wasn't even as though he had been Faith's first lover. He couldn't even decide whether he was glad or sorry about that, but it was an unarguable fact.

Maitland was talking to him though.

'We'll give the house a thorough going-over, Dr Audley. And when we've finished we'll set someone to keep his eye on the place, and he'll let you have a copy of my report. We'll give you two clear rooms–your study and the kitchen, but we'll leave the rest in place. That may keep them happy for a time. After all–well, these bugs have a limited life span, and they'll know soon enough that we've tumbled to them, likely as not.'

That was to be expected. Even in his own limited sphere Audley knew that advantages were ephemeral. Better to assume the worst quickly.

'And don't trust the telephone any more,' added Maitland. 'I can't guarantee that at all.'

It was the sort of nightmare Audley had never expected to find himself in, but it had to be borne with equanimity. He thanked the man–it was obviously a more high-powered team than he had first thought–and turned to introduce Faith to Roskill.

But he saw at once that he was already too late; they were in deep conversation.

Faith turned to him. 'I took the liberty of introducing myself to Mr Roskill, Dr Audley,' she said with a malicious deadpan formality. 'I told him that I was one of your team now, but I think he still wants a reassurance from you.'

Roskill looked down at his feet, and Audley thought the better of him for it. The use of amateurs in his profession, no matter how attractive, was quite properly anathema to him. It was not that they were stupid, but rather that their ignorance of the basic rules of procedure made them at once dangerous and vulnerable.

'Miss Jones has one unique advantage over us, Hugh,' he explained. 'She's her father's daughter–and that may prove very useful to us. And I'll be with her all the time, in any case.'

Roskill conceded the matter with a graceful nod in Faith's direction. 'Nothing personal, Miss Jones. It's simply that I've also got some concrete information to contribute now, even if I haven't had such an exciting night as you have.'

Audley was glad that she had chosen to wear tinted glasses, only to find that it was he whom Roskill was observing speculatively.

He started guiltily.

'The post-mortem on Morrison?'

'My report's in the car. But I'd rather you read it on the way. We've got quite a way to go, and not a lot of time.'

The inside of the Triumph was like a pilot's cockpit. Evidently Roskill was a car enthusiast–and he was beyond doubt a skilled driver, for no unskilful one could drive so consistently fast and stay alive. Audley tore his eyes from the roadside which was flashing by so terrifyingly, and started to unzip the plastic folder Roskill had handed to him. Then he stopped; it was always better to hear a verbal report if possible–reports could not answer questions. And it would serve to bring home the realities of the situation to Faith, if that was still necessary. It might slow down this hair-raising drive, too!

'Did he fall, or was he pushed?' he inquired.

'Neither,' replied Roskill, slowing down not in the least. 'He was dead when he was slung down those stairs.'

He changed gears with casual skill, and drifted the car coolly round a badly-cambered bend with an ease Audley envied bitterly. How was it that some people could bring machines alive, and then achieve a symbiosis with them?

'But you were right, Dr Audley,' Roskill continued. 'It
was
an accident, most likely. He actually died of heart failure –he had a heart condition that only needed the right shock to set off.'

'And that shock was—?'

'Somebody slapped him around a bit. Not hard, but hard enough. Made his nose bleed. We frightened him, but we weren't in any hurry. Someone else was, apparently.'

'They'd have hit him to make him tell them something?' asked Faith.

'That's right, Miss Jones. He'd just spoken to us, and he knew we were OHMS. He'd know that his next visitors weren't official–but he also knew that we were coming back soon. So he might have tried to stall them and that was very unwise of him.'

'Unwise?'