The Memory Trap (25 page)

‘Wraps up what?’ Mary Franklin looked from Richardson to Audley, understandably irritated by them both.

‘I don’t really need to see PC Plod—Constable Jenkins.’ Richardson ignored her. ‘Like I said last night, David … our best bet is the SAS at Hereford. All this territory is theirs, pretty much—it used to be, anyway. From the Forest of Dean and the Black Mountains, northwards … And they’ll have contingency plans, you can bet—for the IRA, if not the Russians. And—‘

‘Dr Audley!’ Mary Franklin had graduated from annoyance to anger. ‘What is all this about?’

‘The spade, Mary.’ It was Mitchell who spoke, nodding to her as he did so. ‘Major Richardson’s little all-purpose spade. That’s what it’s all about—eh, David?’

Little spade—Mitchell had got there, then!

Little all-purpose spade, from long ago, carelessly lost—criminal carelessness, that would have been. But quickly recovered, nevertheless. And, meanwhile, that original mixture of bad-luck-accident and criminal carelessness had been attended to with the appropriate antidote of well-calculated ruthlessness—

‘Every Russian soldier has a spade.’ Mitchell nodded to her agaon, almost dreamily. ‘Eh, David?’

It wasn’t really surprising that Mitchell had got there on his own, any more than Mary Franklin’s present incredulity was unsurprising. Getting there was what they were both paid to do, but Mitchell’s private obsession with all things military had given him the edge this time. Indeed, if he hadn’t been so stretched by other events, and so plain dog-tired, he might have got there last night, when the little all-purpose spade had surfaced again, at last.

‘It was a Russian spade?’ Spades, evidently, were tools in garden-sheds to Mary Franklin, with which gardeners dug gardens. ‘How do you know—?’ She spread the question among them. Only now she was less angry and surprised than frankly curious, to her credit.

‘A Spetsnaz’ spade?’ This time, at last, Mitchell addressed Richardson. But it wasn’t really a question: Mitchell was moving on already, to unwrap what had been wrapped up, with all the excitement of understanding animating him, after all his recent humiliations, through not-knowing what was happening down to having to ask for help from Henry Jaggard last night, when all else had failed.

‘What’s a Spetsnaz spade?’ Mary Franklin was on the same road now, but still at its beginning.

‘Same as a Russian army spade, Mary.’ Mitchell still concentrated on Richardson. ‘Every Russian soldier’s most important possession, after his Kalashnikov: the moment he stops shooting, he starts digging. Or paddling. Or cutting up his bread. Or … he sharpens it up, just in case?’ Now it was Richardson who got the nod. This one would have been Spetsnaz-sharp—right?’ Then Mary Franklin got her nod again, at last. ‘That’s for throwing, Mary. Because it’s so well balanced that it’s also one hell-of-a-weapon, in its own right—‘ Then Audley himself got the rest of the nod ‘—the best entrenching tool since the Romans, David? Isn’t there some ancient text about a Legion driving off the barbarians with their spades, when they were attacked while building one of their forts, eh? You’re our resident Roman expert—?’

‘And you are our resident Spetsnaz expert, Dr Mitchell?’ Richardson’s voice had lost all of its animosity. ‘As my successor?’ But then he smiled his old easy smile at Mary Franklin. ‘Dr Mitchell is absolutely right, Miss Franklin: it was a razor-sharp little spade I found. And it was … really, quite distinctive. Because it’s a ruler, to measure … whatever needs to be measured—the length of the handle, and the length and breadth of the blade: 32 plus 18 equals 50, by 18 … centimetres of course. And matt green, overall.’ The smile faded slowly. ‘They’ve got one at Hereford, in their collection—‘ He looked around suddenly, first at the ruins, and then at the wooded hillsides above them ‘—I’d be delighted to show the Hereford one to you, if you still doubt me—and Dr Mitchell, Miss Franklin—?’ Having made his point, he came back to Audley at last. ‘So, now that I really am one of your team, Dr Audley … shall we go, then?’

Audley felt the first spots of rain in the wind spatter his face, out of the darker clouds which had been drifting like smoke among the topmost trees of the ridges.

‘Ah—David … Dr Audley—‘ Mary Franklin had assimilated everything she hadn’t known before, both about Russian military entrenching-tools and about Major Peter Richardson. So now she was as sharp as a Spetsnaz spade turning over in the air before it struck ‘—I must report in, to say where we’re going.’

And she must do bloody-well more than that, now they had wrapped up fifteen-years-ago, to give Henry Jaggard all he needed for his horse-trading. ‘Yes, Miss Franklin.’ Apart from which, he badly needed to know what Henry Jaggard himself was doing, after his own advice from last evening, which not even Jaggard could safely have ignored; but which, equally, he couldn’t ask for now, in front of Richardson, who wanted blood, not glasnost! ‘And perhaps you can also ask Henry to alert Hereford—the SAS—to expect us, while you’re about it.’

‘And to get them off their arses, too.’ Outwardly, Richardson nodded, prudent, one-of-the-team-again commonsense, in agreement. But Audley caught more than that in his enthusiasm. ‘We need to seal off this whole area, if Lukianov is back in it. But not crudely, Miss Franklin: we’ve got to make sure he gets in first. Otherwise he’ll back off—do you see?’

‘Yes.’ For the first time Major Richardson got a Mary Franklin smile. ‘I do take your point, believe me.’ Then Audley received a Mary Franklin frown, which froze him with his mouth slightly open. ‘We have a phone cleared here, Dr Audley. So … if you would stay here—or, maybe get into my car, perhaps?’ Mitchell received the rest of the frown. ‘And, if you care to go with the Major, Dr Mitchell—to Hereford? After I have reported in—?’ The frown reversed itself, quite dazzlingly, as the original smile hit Richardson between the eyes again. ‘I’m sure Dr Mitchell knows the way, Major. And I will follow you, with Dr Audley.’

She might not know about spades. But she knew what she wanted—and how to get it exactly, with that movement order, which split them neatly, beyond argument.

No trouble, Charlie had said.

But … what a waste—that loyalty to Henry Jaggard! Audley thought. ‘Very well, Miss Franklin. Right, Peter—?’

‘DAMN THIS WEATHER.’
Mary Franklin squinted through the rain-blurred windscreen at the rear lights of the Porsche. ‘And we shouldn’t be doing this, anyway. It isn’t necessary.’

‘No.’ Audley settled back comfortably for the first time in days. And she smelt good, too. ‘Is that what Henry Jaggard said?’ He could imagine what Henry Jaggard had said: Don’t let the bastards out of your sight, Miss Franklin. ‘Don’t worry, Paul will look after the Major. And I know the way, if we lose them. I know all this country quite well, as it happens. From my old days.’

‘Yes?’ In spite of what he’d said (but because of what the egregious Jaggard had said?), she was determined not to lose the Porsche. But she gave him a quick glance, nevertheless. ‘How was that? You’ve never had anything much to do with the SAS, have you?’

It was hardly a question; she had his long professional curriculum vitae at her fingertips for sure, Jaggard would have seen to that too. ‘No, not much—hardly anything, really. But I meant the old old days, Miss Franklin … may I call you “Mary”, Miss Franklin?’

‘Of course, Dr Audley.’ She had the measure of the Porsche now: she was a good driver, predictably. And the Porsche was also slowing down somewhat—also predictably, as its occupants began to talk to each other, each having no doubt decided that there was more to be gained from the other by a temporary alliance than by chalk-and-cheese antagonism. ‘What “old” old days?’

‘When I was a student. And after.’ The past pointed conveniently to the present. ‘The Middle Ages was my special period. And the Welsh Marches are very … medieval, Mary. Lots of big castles … Chepstow, Raglan up ahead … Pembroke, to the west.’

‘Yes?’ She nodded politely into the murk. ‘You wrote a book about the Earl of Pembroke, didn’t you?’

‘William Marshall—yes.’ That would have been in the CV. ‘And lots of smaller castles. And middling ones, like the “quadrilateral”—Skenfrith, Grosmont, White and Maerdy, from Marshall’s time. Although Hubert de Burgh held them then, of course.’ He threw the names in deliberately. ‘They control the Monow valley, which is the way into Wales from Hereford. And out of it, into England—Hereford-Worcester, Hereford-Gloucester … and Cheltenham.’

‘Cheltenham?’ Her interest stirred, as he intended it should.

‘Indeed. And do you enjoy working for Henry Jaggard, Mary?’

The rain slashed down more heavily. ‘I thought we were talking about medieval castles, Dr Audley?’

‘You ought to work for Research and Development. You’d have much more fun … Did you do what I asked, last evening? Has Henry made contact with the Russians?’

She reached forward to increase the speed of the windscreen-wipers. ‘A meeting has been arranged for this afternoon. At 4 P.M.—‘

Audley frowned. ‘As late as that?’

‘Is that late?’ She peered at a signpost. ‘”St Briavels Castle” … Is that one of your “middling” castles, Dr Audley?’

The Russians were in no hurry to talk. ‘They’re still looking for Lukianov, I take it?’

‘Yes.’ She shrugged. ‘It seems so. But Mr Aston and Mr Renshaw are both insistent that we don’t do anything without consulting them.’ She glanced at him meaningfully. ‘Nothing must be done to disturb Gorbachev’s visit to London after he’s spoken to the UN in New York.’

Bloody politicians. And also, perhaps, bloody Henry Jaggard, too. ‘Did Mr Jaggard let slip that I was close to finding Major Richardson, as I suggested?’ He could see the river through the bushes, close to the road. But it was muddy and fast-flowing after the night’s rain, not at all the sylvan Wye of his memory and the poet’s imagination. ‘Did he?’

‘I don’t know, Dr Audley.’ Her lips tightened.

It wasn’t like working for Jack Butler. Although even Jack might have had scruples about rocking the boat, the way things were. And that left only Jake Shapiro. But it wasn’t going to be so easy to get through to Jake with Mary Franklin on his own back again.

‘So what do you know?’ He heard the snap in his voice. ‘Is there nothing new on Lukianov? Or the others—what they were up to, between them?’

She relaxed slightly. ‘We’ve heard from Washington … they believe Prusakov and Kulik sabotaged their respective computers, to remove information from them. And either they, or maybe General Lukianov shredded certain files in their Central Records. But that’s all—except there’s been a joint KGB/GRU committee set up, to try and reconstruct what’s missing. And that’s been working round the clock—‘ she frowned at him suddenly ‘—but you said—?’

That about wraps it up? Or does it? Damn Henry Jaggard!

The brake-lights of the Porsche glowed ahead, almost as though its driver had heard his uneasy thoughts. But other brake-lights were also winking on and off: they were approaching the junction of the Monmouth-Gloucester (and Cheltenham!) road, with the old bridge and the fast road to Hereford just ahead. And this early, in this weather, both the junction and the old bridge could be jammed with traffic.

‘You said—‘ The movement of the Porsche once more cut her off. Keeping up with Major Richardson was still part of her priorities, until she’d got him safe under SAS lock-and-key. Or, him and that other bastard, Audley, for an informed guess.

‘Yes.’ There was a jam of vehicles ahead of them. And one element of it, on the main road which they were trying to join, was a tail-back of military vehicles which was not giving way, complete with a goggled motor-cyclist who was holding back the traffic on the side road in his unit’s favour. ‘Castles, I was saying: how the “quadrilateral” group controls the road into England, to Hereford and Cheltenham—yes? Very interesting, they are, too. Skenfrith and Grosmont are in the middle of villages. But White and Maerdy are in the middle of nowhere, pretty much. Particularly Maerdy, up beyond Monmouth a few miles.’

‘Dr Audley—‘ Mary Franklin’s fingers drummed on the steering-wheel impatiently ‘—you said—‘

‘To Hereford and Cheltenham, Miss Franklin—Mary. A few days’ march, in the old days. But only half-an-hour’s drive to Hereford now. And little more than an hour to GCHQ Cheltenham, using the motorways. Right?’

‘What?’ The last of the military convoy was passing. And maybe … it was at least just possible that he had done Henry Jaggard an injustice, at that. Or even that Henry Jaggard knew more than he’d let on, and was actually hedging his bets—?

‘What are you saying, Dr Audley?’ She was torn down the middle by his sudden shift from ancient to disturbingly modern, and the crawl of the Porsche ahead.

He smiled at her. ‘Up ahead, north beyond Monmouth, on the Maerdy road, Mary—that’s where Major Richardson chanced upon that crashed van, with the Spetsnaz spade in it. So it was somewhere up there where they must have planted one of their arms dumps, back in the eary 1970s, it looks like.’

The Porsche was moving and they were moving with it, as though at the end of an invisible tow-rope.

‘The old days, Miss Franklin.’ He spoke into her ear. She had a beautiful little shell-like ear, which didn’t need an earring. ‘You won’t remember them. And they probably wouldn’t have been your concern, anyway. Just as they weren’t mine … or Peter Richardson’s as it happens. But everyone knew the theory of it, of course—it was a theoretical near-certainty that they had to be establishing such dumps, little by little.’

They were on the bridge now, although still moving only yard-by-yard with the town beyond shrouded in rain-mist. So this would have been dangerous weather in the very old days, when the war-beacons, burning in the Black Mountains ahead to warn that the Welsh raiders were coming, would have been blotted out.

‘Those were the Brezhnev days, Miss Franklin—post-Vietnam, early Brezhnev … the deep Cold War days.’ The days of Audley, he thought: the years of endurance! Not like now—eh, Audley? ‘The targets were obvious. Like, the early warning stations. And the communications centres. And, of course, SAS headquarters and GCHQ Cheltenham—those were both prime targets, inevitably, for Spetsnaz assault groups. But their problem wasn’t getting the men in, ahead of D-Day: there are a thousand ways of getting in good-looking fellows like General Lukianov—or Captain Lukianov, he would have been then … Lorry-drivers, tourists, mock-Irishmen to Milford Haven and Holyhead and Liverpool … sailors with a bit of shore-leave, with friendly passports.’ He paused. ‘The problem was their weapons and equipment—machine-guns and mortars, rocket-launchers and the rest. And plenty of Semtex, naturally.’