Colonel Butler's Wolf Read online

  “A great pleasure, Dr Handforth-Jones,” he bellowed. “Most interesting paper, most interesting. Very glad to be here. Time someone said what you’ve said—most interesting!”

  Their meeting in front of the rostrum suddenly became the focus of the People Who Mattered, with introductions flying. Butler found himself shaking hands with Professor Hookham, the president of the society, like a long-lost friend, and then with the celebrated Miss Sidgewick, in quick succession.

  Professor Morley—Colonel Butler , . . Dr Graham (watch out for him Colonel—he’s the author of a fat book on the Roman army)—Colonel Butler … Sir Mortimer Wheeler … Professor This … Doctor That … Mister The Other!

  He had never met any one of them before, but if any one of them recognised his false colours there was no indication of it; either the other Butler—he refused to think of the man as the real John Butler—was totally unknown outside his written work, or there were more in the plot besides Handforth-Jones. It was not important, anyway; all that mattered for him was that the onlookers should see what was happening. This deception must not only be done, it must be seen to be done.

  “Charles, come and meet Colonel Butler,” he heard Professor Hookham exclaim beside him. “Colonel, if you’re planning a descent on the Wall, as I gather you are, then Charles Epton’s the very man for you—he runs Cumbria’s study centre at Castleshields. Perhaps he could put you up for a week or two—“

  Remember Charles Epton, Butler. There’ve been Eptons at Castleshields for over 500 years, as many a Scottish raider learnt to his cost. They used to hang ‘em in droves, the Eptons did. But there’s been a radical streak in the last few generations: Hunt and Corbett used to stay there, and young Charles was in the International Brigade on the Jarama. You tread carefully with him, Butler.

  Butler stared at Epton doubtfully, wondering what a radical was in the 1970s. Vietnam was old hat now, so maybe it was Ulster and South Africa.

  Epton returned the doubtful stare with interest. Maybe it was the uniform that stuck in his throat. To good radicals khaki always meant repression first and defense second— until the enemy were knocking at the gates.

  “Could you spare Butler a bed, Charles?” said Hookham, deliberately leaving the unfortunate man with no room in which to manoeuvre. “There must be a corner in that place of yours. Maybe not a dry one, but I expect he’s used to roughing it!”

  “I couldn’t possibly impose on you,” exclaimed Butler harshly, carefully making matters worse.

  “You could earn your keep,” said Handforth-Jones grinning mischievously. “Belisarius’s siege train in exchange for bed and board sounds fair enough, eh? Of course there isn’t much of the Wall to see near Castleshields, it’s all been swallowed up by the house. Not until you get to High Crags, but it’s superb there. And you’re well placed for Ortolanacum.”

  “I think the Society might even rise to a presentation copy of the new guide to Ortolanacum,” said Hookham, producing a booklet from his briefcase. “In return for whatever comes of the visit, of course.”

  They had effectively and unashamedly by-passed Epton’s defenses, leaving him no opportunity to put off his uninvited guest—or even to invite him. All that was left was to acknowledge his own hospitality as though it had been offered from the start.

  “It will be a pleasure to have you with us, Butler,” he said quickly. “You can stay as long as you like—and I assure you there’s nothing wrong with our guest room, as Professor Hookham well knows. In my father’s time it might have been different, I admit; but now the university pays the bills you have nothing to worry about.”

  It was done, whatever it was they intended to do: you have nothing to worry about.

  Tonight that might just be true: anything else seemed unreal in the midst of these men of letters who fought their fiercest battles in learned journals, shedding only ink. But Neil Smith, whoever he was, whatever he had done, was dead. And so was the unknown man who had so nearly made an end of him, the real Butler, in the blazing attics of Eden Hall.

  So there were other demons loose beside that one he had given the slip.

  “Your taxi, Colonel Butler.”

  A hand touched his shoulder. It was his chaperone, steering him out of the crush in a flurry of good-mannered farewells before the inconvenient questions started. He was glad, in the midst of them, that he was able to take more formal leave of Hookham and Handforth-Jones, who had performed so admirably—the professor maintained a straight face to the last, but there was a glint of curiosity in the younger man’s eyes and a twitch of sardonic amusement on his lips.

  “I hope you have a profitable time on the Wall, Colonel,” he said, grinning. “I may see you up there. But in any case, keep an eye open for the Picts—and the Winged Hats!”

  Butler grunted and nodded non-committally, his gratitude evaporating. This was where the whole thing became ridiculous—the Picts were the aboriginal Scots, but who the Winged Hats were he hadn’t the least idea. They sounded mythological.

  He shook his head as he followed the Ministry man up the stairs and out into the long hallway. He had been a fraction slow answering to his new rank several times, and that too was bad—the sort of small error which aroused suspicion. The fact was that he operated better on his own, away from chaperones who did his thinking for him.

  As if divining his thought Cundell did not follow him into the taxi which rolled out of the London half-light and drew up at the curb beside them, outside the Institute.

  “This is as far as I go, Colonel. Goodbye—and good luck to you!”

  The door slammed and the taxi pulled away before he could answer, or give any instructions to the cabbie.

  He slid back the glass partition. “You know where I want to go, do you ?”

  “Yes, guv’—once round the square an’ left an’ right an’ left again, an’ pick up y’friend, an’ Bob’s y’r’uncle!”

  He couldn’t quite decide whether the fellow was trying to be cheeky or simply repeating what he’d learnt by heart— probably a bit of both. But evidently someone was still doing his thinking for him, and all he could do was to hope that this “friend” round the corner would lighten his darkness.

  He shrugged and stretched—the grip of the tunic as well as the faint lavendery odour of mothballs reminded him how long it had been since he had worn it last—and sat back into the darkness.

  Then the taxi decelerated sharply and cut in towards the kerb. The door was jerked open—

  “Good God Almighty!” Butler barked. “I should have known!”

  Audley rapped on the driver’s window and sank back into the seat beside him.

  “Should have know what? That it was me? They didn’t tell you, then?” Audley sounded satisfied rather than inquisitive.

  Butler nodded his head, but more to himself than to the man at his side. The armed truce between them was no special secret so perhaps they’d reckoned that even his celebrated obedience might have baulked at this.

  “And why should you have known?” Audley repeated mildly.

  They would have been wrong, of course. Personal likes and dislikes didn’t come into it. Only a man’s capabilities mattered, and no one doubted Dr David Audley’s capabilities. If anything, Audley was just a shade too capable for his own good.

  But there was a question to answer—

  “It had your mark on it, what little I’ve been allowed to pick up so far,” he said.

  Audley gave a short laugh. “I’m complimented!”

  “Don’t be! It’s another damned devious concoction you’ve mixed up!” Butler gestured in the darkness. “Even this.”

  “Ah—now you must understand that I’m not supposed to be in London at all. As a matter of fact I’m in a cinema in Carlisle at this very moment, watching Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid I believe—an excellent film. The RAF kindly gave me a lift in a Harrier trainer—they do enjoy showing it off still—“

  “For God’s sake, man!” spluttered But
ler. “What the devil are you up to ? And what are we up to ? I tell you, you may be having great fun—I’m sure you are—but I was damn near burnt alive this morning!”

  Audley’s head nodded soberly. “Yes, so I hear. And I’m sorry about that, Butler. But it wasn’t on the cards I do assure you,though.”

  “So did Sir Frederick, but—“ Butler checked the run of tongue. Apologies and assurances of sympathy were the last things he wanted of Audley. “Damn it, I don’t object to the risk—it was my own fault. What I dislike is being in the dark.”

  “Naturally. My dear chap, that’s exactly why I’m here. Fred could have put you in the picture, but I wanted to do it myself. Tell me first though—did things go well this evening?”

  “I’ve been invited to Castleshields House, if that’s what you mean. Or Colonel John Butler has, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Hah—very good! That’s exactly what I mean! And my congratulations on your promotion, Colonel.”

  Butler snorted bitterly. “I presume that I’ve Hugh Roskill’s game leg to thank for that. He was your first choice, wasn’t he? Were you going to put him up to Group Captain?”

  He despised himself for the words as soon as they were out of his mouth. The plain fact was that Roskill’s public school accent would have gone down better in academic circles than his own bark. It was childish to object to being second choice, when the first choice was self-evidently correct. As usual he was letting Audley nettle him, and if they were going to work in tandem that was something he would have to curb.

  Starting now—with no excuses.

  “No—I’m sorry, Audley,” he forced the words out carefully. “That was a half-baked thing to say.”

  “It was rather,” Audley replied ungraciously. “In view of the fact it isn’t strictly true. We were sending Hugh down to Eden Hall because we thought that was routine—and thank God it was you who went, because Hugh might have bought it with his leg. But Castleshields House is all yours. You have to admit, Butler—your namesake makes you the obvious candidate.”

  “That was your idea?”

  “It was. I met the man five years ago, when I was getting material for my book on the kingdom of Jerusalem—he took me through the Cilician Gate. And I tucked him away in the back of my mind for the future.”

  It had the ring of truth, for that was the sort of man Audley was; a man who filed names and faces and facts in his prodigious memory, marking them for future use as Wellington had marked the ridge at Waterloo long before Napoleon had set Europe ablaze again.

  “Besides—“ Audley paused, and then continued with a touch of diffidence—“I need a man I can rely on with me up north now Smith’s dead.”

  Butler frowned. “He was one of ours?”

  “He wasn’t … “ Audley sighed. “Indeed he wasn’t. But it rather looks as though he might have been in the end. It’s a damn shame—a damn shame!”

  He fell silent for a moment.

  “Just who was Smith, then?”

  “Who indeed!” Audley gave a sad little snort. “He was a junior lecturer in Philosophy at Cumbria, and a good one too.”

  “How did he die?”

  “He was drowned—or we think he was drowned. He rode his motor-cycle into a little lake—no more than a pond really. But deep enough to die in. He rode off into the night and eventually they found him floating face down among the weeds. Accident, they say—and maybe it was an accident, even though he was floating face down.”

  “I beg your pardon?” What was the man driving at? He seemed almost to be talking to himself.

  “Eh? Oh, yes—face down! Men should float face up—so Pliny says, according to Huxley.”

  My Thames-blown body (Pliny vouches it)

  Would drift face upwards on the oily tide

  With other garbage …

  Aldous Huxley, that is of course, not T.H.—and the female floats the other way—

  Your maiden modesty would float face down

  And men would weep upon your hinder parts.

  “I do assure you there may be something to it, Butler. I had thought it nonsense, but a doctor I know says it may relate to physiology. Something to do with the relative density of fat and muscle—those “hinder parts”, I suppose. But he was afloat in the feminine manner, and there may be something in that. It’s one of the things I’d like you to check for me.”

  “The official verdict was accidental death?”

  Butler did not quite succeed in curbing the impatience in his tone. If he let Audley tell the tale in his own way they’d be travelling the long way to the truth, no matter how interesting the scenery. Poetry, for God’s sake!

  “That’s probably what they’ll call it.” Audley nodded. “He was drunk, you see, very drunk. No doubt about that: there were two hundred and something milligrammes of alcohol in his blood—way over the limit. I wasn’t at the inquest, of course. No one of ours was, naturally, because we didn’t know about him then … “

  “Didn’t know about him? What didn’t you know?”

  “We didn’t know who he was.”

  “He was disfigured? Or had the fish been at him?”

  “The fish? No, he hadn’t been in long enough for that—“ Audley stopped. “I’m sorry! I keep forgetting how very little you do know.”

  Butler balled his fists and counted— one, two three, jour— “Audley, I do not know a little”—five, six, seven, eight—“I know absolutely bloody nothing beyond the fact that I was sent to Eden Hall to get Smith’s records. And having seen them I can’t see what use they are to you if you already know you’ve got his body.”

  As Butler turned to stare at the blur of Audley’s face in the darkness the taxi pulled in to the side of the street. He caught a glimpse of stone steps and a stucco pillared portico.

  Audley moved forward to the edge of his seat, waving his hand vaguely at the window.

  “I’ve borrowed a flat for an hour or two—more comfortable than riding around in a taxi.” He turned back towards Butler. “Yes—well, I’m afraid there never has been any question of whose body we’ve got, Butler. It belongs to our Neil Smith. But probably not to yours.”

  “Not mine?”

  “It rather looks as though your little Eden Hall boy was Neil Smith right enough. But our Neil Smith was actually a man by the name of Zoshchenko—Paul Zoshchenko. Somewhere between Eden Hall and the King’s College at Oxford, the KGB appear to have slipped a ringer on us.”

  VI

  “HELP YOURSELF TO a drink,” said Audley generously, pointing to an alcove in the corner of the room. “My invitation covers incidental hospitalities.”

  Butler stared around him. Conceivably this was another of the department’s properties, ready like the taxi to serve when the need arose. On the other hand, department flats were rarely so elegantly furnished and never kept their alcohol on view in cut-glass. And Audley was notoriously chary of using official facilities.

  In the end he carried a medium-sized brandy and soda over to the fireplace. When it came to scoring off life it was hopeless to attempt to outdo Audley.

  “Zoshchenko. Do we know him?”

  “No.” Audley shook his head. “There’s never been a mention of him.”

  “Then how do you know who he was?”

  “He told us himself.” Audley took several folded sheets of paper from his breast pocket. “Strictly speaking he didn’t tell us, we really don’t know what he intended to do. But it looks as though he was in some sort of trouble and he turned to the only man he trusted.”

  He passed the sheets to Butler.

  Anonymous, greyish photocopying paper; the reproduction of a letter written in a small, meticulous hand, but with the leopards and lilies of ancient royalty on its crest—

  The Master’s Lodging,

  The King’s College,

  Oxford.

  Dear Friesler

  “Who is this Freisler?”

  “A German scholar who lives in London.”

&
nbsp; “How did we get hold of the letter?”

  Audley regarded Butler silently for brief space.

  “He happens to be a friend of mine.”

  “Has he a security rating?”

  “You read the letter, Colonel. I’ll worry about where it came from.”

  Butler noted the slight lift of the big man’s chin and the sudden coolness of his manner. So this German was one of those friends, one of that private network of strategically placed people Audley had charmed or bullied (the man could do either as he chose) into keeping their eyes and ears open for him. Young Roskill had spoken of it half ruefully, half admiringly.

  He lowered his eyes to the letter again.

  … I have held my hand (if not my tongue) during these last months. But now something has occurred which makes action imperative.

  I have heard this day of the death of one of my former pupils, Neil Smith, a graduate of the college who was awarded the Mitchell research fellowship at Cumbria last summer.

  Smith was apparently killed in a road accident after he had lost control of his motor-cycle. I have been informed— unofficially—that although only evidence of identification was taken at the preliminary inquest the final verdict will undoubtedly be “accidental death”.

  As it happens, however, I am in possession of information which casts doubt not only on this expected verdict, but also on the finding of the preliminary hearing.

  On the night of Smith’s death, shortly after dinner I was informed of a long distance telephone call which the Porter had finally decided could not be kept from me. The line was poor (as it often is) and I confess that I was irritated at having to leave my guests, the more so because the butler informed me that it was an importunate Mr Zoshchenko who was asking for me. I was not aware of knowing anyone of that name.

  Also, I speedily formed the opinion that Mr Zoshchenko was drunk, for he insisted on declaiming passages from Plato—mostly from the Apology and the Phaedo—interspersed with parts of what I took to be the American Declaration of Independence. It was most confusing; he was confused and so was I.