Tomorrow's ghost (11 page)

*   *   *

After the bomb there had been Colonel Butler—

‘
Thank you, Mrs Fitzgibbon
…
Well, there
’
s nothing more you can usef
ully do here, so you
’
d
best go home, and I
’
ll call you if I need you
…
When Mitchell has seen the Minister off he
’
ll give
you one of the cars.
’

*   *   *

He was good, was Colonel Butler, she had decided at that point, observing him control the ant-heap confusion without fuss, without raising his voice, without a nuance of I-told-you-so: it had been like watching a re-enactment of Kipling’s
If
by one quiet, ugly-handsome, totally decisive man who somehow made the time and had exactly the right word of reassurance or encouragement or command for everyone, from the slightly panicky ministerial security officer, whose minister had been whisked away from him by Paul Mitchell, to a Jock Maitland drenched with muddy water and plastered with feathers and flying duck entrails but still—or even more—dourly and gloriously Scottish—

*   *   *

‘
—
ye wain night, sairr
—
and a lateral charge too, of aboot six poounds
…
But that doesna
’
make a nothing of the otherr
—
he
’
s a trricky one, this fella
’
…
’

‘
Happen
you
’
re right too, major
—
‘ Colonel Butler had smiled at him, and it was that rare and private change in his own expression which purged his ugliness; and at the same time the Lancashire which Paul had noticed peeped through the Sandhurst accent, so that for a moment it was like speaking with like
‘
—
so you get yoursel
’
over to t
’
other, an
’
doan
’
t let that young chap Pirie lay a finger on it. He wants t
’
be a hero. I rely on you not to let
him make his wife a widow
-
‘

*   *   *

The other
and
t
’
other
had confused her for a moment, but then she had disentangled them:

There had been a second bomb.

*   *   *

‘Oh sure. Princess, there were two of them … hold on a sec while I fix the seat for you… James’s legs aren’t as pretty as yours, but they are somewhat longer… Because that’s Comrade O’Leary’s
modus operand!
when he’s expected. And the trick is… There! I think that will do nicely… the trick is to distinguish which is the diversion and which is the real killer. Is A intended to set you up for B? Or is
B
intended to divert you from
A
?’

(Under his Chobham-armoured assurance Paul was still angry, but there was something odd about that anger after Colonel Butler had made such a fool of him; and therefore, while one part of her wanted to slip away in the car’s nicely-adjusted seat, as far and as fast and as quickly as possible from the University of North Yorkshire, there was another part which wanted to stay and find out why Paul was still angry when he should be humiliated; because, to give him his due, Paul was usually ready to admit when he was wrong.)

‘Well, I suppose I should be glad that Colonel Butler got it right.’ (She had to find the chink in the armour to make him say more.)

‘Well … that we don’t really know, do we? And now we’ll never know, because he changed the rules.’ (He had looked at her curiously then, and she knew she had found the chink: there was always something which Paul knew that no one else knew, and which he shouldn’t have known.) ‘But I tell you this. Princess—there’s something very odd going on, and that’s a fact.’

‘I wouldn’t dispute that.’ (After swapping British-American for the new Library, and Mr Cavendish’s letters for O’Leary and
The Land of Faerie
that was an understatement of the truth.)

‘I don’t mean your little bomb, duckie -‘

‘It wasn’t little.’ (She had shivered at the memory; even
duckie
was a painful reminder of things best forgotten.) (‘And don’t call me… that.’

‘Okay, Princess. But I mean … they hauled you off a job to come up here, didn’t they?’

‘So what?’

‘So I’ve got news for you. They took me off a job
too.
’

‘I thought you were Colonel Butler’s Number
Two?
’

‘His Number Two? That’s a laugh.’ (But he hadn’t laughed.) ‘More like his errand boy. He didn’t know what to do with me—he didn’t want me under his feet, but he didn’t trust me out of his sight either.’

‘He sent you to collect me.’

‘Oh sure. And to brief you. So I was safely away from the stake-out here, and he knew exactly what I was doing. An errand boy’s job … And when you got here he didn’t know what to do with you either—right?’

(She had had no answer to that: it had been no less than the truth.)

‘Come on, Frances—don’t be dim! This isn’t our scene—you weren’t selected and trained at great expense to carry bombs from one place to another, and I’m not a glorified taxi-driver-cum-public-relations-man. Forty-eight hours ago I was all packed for Washington, to be David Audley’s Number Two—packed and briefed. And I don’t know what you were tarted up for, but I’ll bet it wasn’t for a fancy-dress ball. But whatever it was, it was bugging you when I picked you up, so it has to be bugging you a lot more now—what the hell we’re supposed to be doing here?’

(Of course, it had been bugging her. So now it was all the more important to find out what he made of the nonsense.)

‘I thought we were here to catch O’Leary, Paul.’

‘Is that what you’ve been doing? All I’ve been doing is watch how Fighting Jack does his thing—I know a lot more about him than Comrade O’Leary, as of now, Princess.

Which may be highly educational, but hardly makes up for not being in Washington, I tell you.’

‘Well, don’t look at me, I don’t know—‘ (He had been doing just that: looking at her narrowly, really looking
at
her, not so much to check whether she was saying less than she knew but rather as though by adding her to himself, like two individually meaningless jigsaw pieces, he might catch a glimpse of the whole design.) ‘—and anyway I’m going home, thank God!’

‘Oh, no! He’s sending you home—Fighting Jack is. And that’s a very different thing …

You’re missing the point, Princess. And that’s not like you.’

‘Flattery will get you nowhere.’

‘Not flattery. It’s just that I need straw to make my bricks.’

‘And I don’t?’

‘Sometimes you don’t, I’ve noticed. I was hoping this might be one of those times.’

‘Not this time. Why don’t you ask Colonel Butler?’

‘Ask Fighting Jack? You’re kidding!’

‘No, I’m not … kidding.’ (She had heard the anger in her voice under the weariness, but had no longer cared to conceal it.) (‘You seem to have some sort of bee in your bonnet about him, but I think he’s pretty damn good, what I’ve seen of him. So why don’t you stop bitching—‘ (Sod it! She had used that word again!) ‘—stop complaining and just ask him straight out?’

(He had laughed then.) ‘Oh, Princess—you
are
under par! That’s the whole point—that’s what is
really
odd about us being here, and we don’t know why—that’s bad enough. It doesn’t seem to make sense, but it has to somehow, that’s all … we just can’t work it out.’

‘Yes?’ (She had shivered again: the aftermath of fear was this bone-deep chill, a deja-vu of the grave.) ‘So what?’

‘Christ, Frances!
He doesn
’
t know the answer either
—
like, he’s a convoy commander, and they’ve sent him a couple of battle-cruisers—‘

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Paul … spare me the naval history.’

‘What?’

‘I don’t even know what a battle-cruiser is—and I don’t want to know.’

‘Oh—sorry. Princess. But what I mean is—‘

*   *   *

‘Marvellous!’ said Sir Frederick Clinton. ‘That must be Orion—the belt with the little dagger … and that reddish star in Taurus—‘

*   *   *

‘—what I mean is. Butler doesn’t know why we’re here either. As if he hasn’t got enough to worry about as it is … But then he’s a crafty old devil—which is why he’s packing you off home, Frances dear.’

‘What d’you mean, Paul?’

‘Top brass sends you up—he sends you packing. If we’re meant to be a team he’s splitting us up before we’ve got started. So if they send you back again they’re going to have to do some explaining. I tell you, he may look like the very model of an old-time major-general, but he’s one smart operator, believe me. I’ve been watching him—I haven’t had anything else to do but watch him—and I’ve changed my mind about him.

He’s bloody smart.’

*   *   *

‘—and that reddish star in Taurus must be Aldebaran. And there’s the Plough, bright as anything—quite splendid! Do you know about stars, Frances?’

Butler,
thought Frances. She had learnt precious little about Comrade O’Leary (in fact, she had learnt more about John Ronald Reuel Tolkien than about Comrade O’Leary), and even less about surveillance technology, but she had had a grandstand view of Colonel Butler in action, and so had Paul Mitchell.

‘No, Sir Frederick.’

It was no longer totally black. Her eyes had become used to the darkness, so that she could make out the loom of him against the darker mass of shrubbery.

‘A pity, with this sky of yours.’

Butler. But why Butler? It didn’t make sense.

The darkness which remained was a comfort to her: it not only equalised Robbie’s old dressing 99 gown with what would surely be an immaculate overcoat, but it also concealed her bewilderment.

‘Yes. But do you know about battle-cruisers?’

‘Battle-cruisers?’ She could hear his surprise, the darkness seemed to magnify it.

‘
Battle
-
cruisers?
’

She had the initiative now, but she would have to work hard to keep it.

‘They’re no good for convoy work, I believe.’

‘Yes .. . that is to say, no … unless the enemy was using some powerful surface ships as commerce raiders, I suppose…’ He trailed off uncertainly.

‘So what were battle-cruisers used for?’

‘What were they used for?’ He paused for a moment. ‘Well, if I remember correctly, the theory behind them was big guns plus high speed, but not much armour. So they could catch anything, and run away from anything they couldn’t sink … Though I don’t think it worked out quite like that in practice …’ He paused again. ‘But I thought you were an expert in fairy stories—I didn’t know you were interested in naval matters.’

‘I’m not.’ Frances decided to let the negative serve for both subjects; it would be too exhausting to explain away the first misapprehension, and it really didn’t matter any more, anyway.

‘No?’ The single word was heavy with curiosity and caution, carefully packed in his habitual politeness. He had decided to concede the initiative, and was waiting to see what she would do with it.

‘But Paul Mitchell is.’

‘Paul Mitchell? I thought military history was his special subject. In fact, I’m sure it is.’

‘Well, he’s into naval history now. Sir Frederick.’

‘Is he now? With a particular emphasis on battle-cruisers?’

‘Not particularly. He has some extremely complicated theories—mathematical theories—about the size of convoys in the last war.’

‘Indeed?’ He was smiling at her again. She couldn’t see the smile, but she could sense it. ‘That would be like him, of course—he has an insatiable appetite for facts and figures … and for facts in general. It’s the historian in him … And you get on well with Paul, do you, Frances?’

If we
’
re meant to be a team he
’
s splitting us up before we
’
ve got started,
thought Frances.

He
meaning
Butler
—

It was time to stop sparring.

‘So where did the battle-cruisers come in?’ Sir Frederick jogged her obligingly.

‘Yes. Well—‘ Frances drew a long careful breath ‘—he was wondering—Paul was wondering … and so am I, Sir Frederick … what a pair of battle-cruisers were doing in Colonel Butler’s convoy, where they were absolutely useless—where they weren’t needed and they weren’t even wanted.’

‘Ah—I see…’ For a moment there was silence between them. ‘Yes … and where one of the battle-cruisers was very nearly sunk without a trace this afternoon, to no very good purpose too—so it seemed to you, eh?’

There was no answer to that, only a memory which would have been ridiculous if it had not been still so terrifying:
sunk
without a trace in a duck
-
pond, H.M.S. Fitzgibbon.

‘And did you come to any conclusion about this … incomprehensible piece of naval strategy, Frances?’

Frances swallowed. ‘Not at the time. I think Paul was close, but he didn’t have enough to go on.’

I n
eed straw to make my bricks.

‘But now you have enough to go on?’

He was here, standing in the darkness of her garden, that was all she had to go on, thought Frances. And if that was enough to make her reach for a conclusion, that certainty, it was still not enough to make the conclusion a believable one.

‘I require an answer to that question, Frances.’

That was a direct order, as direct and explicit as he could make it short of grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking an answer out of her;
require
—
she could remember David Audley defining the difference between ‘request’ and ‘require’ in a way which made time stand still over two centuries of military and diplomatic semantics—
require
left a subordinate not a millimetre of choice, one way or another.