Gunner Kelly Read online

  He straightened up. “Sir … Chief Inspector …”

  The thing to remember—Herzner on the Chief Inspector, and the Kommissar print-out from Wiesbaden on Colonel Butler—was that neither of them was a quite typical specimen of the breed he represented: the system had worked on them both, moulding them to its traditions, but they were also both meritocrats who had risen from the ranks, each therefore with his own element of unpredictability. And that wasn’t an altogether comforting thing to have to remember.

  “Captain.” The Chief Inspector acknowledged him with a nod of recognition. “You found Duntisbury Chase, then?”

  “Yes.” Benedikt had expected the Colonel to conduct the meeting, but the Colonel studied him in silence. “I have been there—I have looked around it, as you asked me to do, Chief Inspector.”

  “Interesting place, is it?”

  “Most interesting.” If the Chief Inspector was going to ask the questions, then he would ignore the Colonel until the Colonel chose not to be ignored. “Duntisbury Royal is the name of the village. I arrived there just before midday. I went to the public house, which is named the Eight Bells. I drank a glass of Lowenbrau there, but I was unsuccessful in booking a room for the night. The landlord directed me to the Roman villa which is being excavated nearby. On the site I met Miss Rebecca Maxwell-Smith, who is the owner of most of the land around the village. She introduced me to Dr David Audley, who is presently staying at Duntisbury Manor, where she lives. I returned to the public house, where I had lunch. After lunch I walked round the village, and then on up to Duntisbury Rings, which is an Iron Age earthwork on the ridge to the south. From there I walked along the ridge, westwards, until I reached another earthwork, which is known as Caesar’s Camp, but which is certainly not a Roman construction—it is more likely a tribal fort, like the other earthwork, only much later in date. I then spent the rest of the afternoon ostensibly searching for the line of the Roman road which crosses the valley from south-west to north-east. I left the Chase at 1730 hours, and came directly here, as arranged with you yesterday.”

  Chief Inspector Andrew nodded. About half-way through the recital he had flicked one quick look at Colonel Butler, after the mention of Audley. “What did Audley say to you?”

  “We discussed the antiquities of Duntisbury Royal … briefly.”

  “Oh aye? You know something about antiquities, do you? Iron Age earthworks and Roman villas?”

  “I know little about earthworks. I know a Roman fort when I see one. But more about Roman roads, as it happens.” Benedikt understood that, while he was replying to the Special Branch man’s questions, he was actually speaking to the Colonel, and being assessed on his answers. “You warned me that Dr Audley was in Duntisbury Chase, Chief Inspector. You did not tell me why I might be there, however … and it is not a place to which strangers are likely to come by accident—or perhaps it is only by accident that they may come there, when they wish to be somewhere else, so that they would not wish to remain there, as I had to do. So I needed a reason.”

  They waited for him to continue.

  “The Press Attaché obtained for me photo-copies of newspaper cuttings in which Duntisbury Chase—or Duntisbury Royal—was mentioned.” He shrugged. “Mostly they concerned the death of General Herbert Maxwell … or, so far as Duntisbury Royal was concerned, his funeral … But I could not think of any sufncient reason for Thomas Wiesehöfer to be interested in a victim of terrorism—nor did I judge it prudent to display such an interest, even if I had thought of a reason …. However, there was a report of an archaeological discovery there, and of excavations in progress … And, you see, Chief Inspector, my father was for many years a professor of Roman Archaeology in Germany. As a boy I used to accompany him on his journeys, during the holidays … Later on, when I was at university, I used to drive him—he lost an arm during the war, in Africa. Tracing Roman roads was one of his hobbies, so I am not unacquainted with the terms used—with the metalling and the alignments, and so on …. Even, Chief Inspector, I believe I may have identified a terraced agger this afternoon, on the slopes of the ridge near Caesar’s Camp, though on chalk downland it may be difficult to prove, since such terraces were often unmetalled, and it may be only a pre-Roman tribal trackway, you see—eh?”

  The Special Branch man gave him a thin smile. “You mean … you think you can bullshit David Audley, eh?”

  “He’s not an archaeologist,” said Benedikt mildly. “I believe he is a medievalist… among other things. Is that not so?”

  The smile compressed into an unsmiling line. “What you want to ask yourself, Captain—or, let’s say, what’s more important—is … whatever he is … did you bullshit him?”

  Benedikt shook his head. “That is impossible to say, Chief Inspector. I am not aware of having made any mistakes … But … it is true that he warned me off—”

  “Warned you off?” That made the Special Branch man frown. “How?”

  Benedikt smiled. “He told me what happened—or what might have happened—to another German who strayed into Duntisbury Chase.”

  “What German?” Chief Inspector Andrew obviously didn’t know about the Fighting Man. “What happened to him?”

  “He died there.” Benedikt raised his hand. “It was a very long time ago, Chief Inspector—in the last days of the Romans.” He didn’t want to antagonise the man. “They dug up the bones of an Anglo-Saxon warrior—a Germanic soldier… . He told me about it in some detail. But it was gently done; for me, if it concerned me, in whichever way it concerned something of interest to an archaeologist, but a warning to someone who wasn’t.”

  Colonel Butler stirred. “Aye—that would be Audley!” He spoke with feeling. “That would be Audley to the life!”

  Benedikt turned to him. “But he could hardly have known what I was doing there.” The curiosity which had been consuming him drove him on now. “Or, if he did, he knows more than I know, anyway.”

  “Aye.” The candid expression on Colonel Butler’s face suggested depressingly that such might well be the case. “Happen he does, Captain … happen he does.”

  The English construction ‘happen’ threw Benedikt for a moment, until he concluded it must be a dialect word, meaning ‘perhaps’.

  “But not from me, sir.”

  “No.” Butler’s harsh features softened. “You’ve done very well, Captain Schneider. I’m grateful to you.”

  Now was the time, when the Colonel had spoken to him, but evidently thought that his brief and unimaginative report, plus the Fighting Man episode, was all that he had to tell: now the Colonel was ready for him.

  “I don’t mean just from me—from what I said.” The final lesson of the seminar on de-briefing surfaced in his memory: and this, a de-briefing by a foreigner unwilling to press him too hard, was an exemplar of that lesson, that the correct delivery of information could be almost as important as the information itself, if it was to convince the listener!

  “Go on, Captain.” Colonel Butler knew there was more.

  “Yes, sir.” He could feel the Colonel’s attention concentrate on him. “The brief which was given to me, with Major Herzner’s agreement, was that I should go down to Duntisbury Chase and have a look round it, to see what was there—to see who was there … to see if there was anything to be seen—if there was anything out of place. A reconnaissance, in fact.”

  “A reconnaissance—aye, Captain.”

  “Yes. I was told only that Dr David Audley was there, which might otherwise have surprised me—taken me by surprise, I mean.”

  Colonel Butler said nothing to that.

  “From that I chose to assume that… first… you were using me on unofficial attachment because—”

  “Official attachment, Captain Schneider,” snapped Butler. “Your transfer to London is to liaise with the appropriate British intelligence agencies.”

  “Yes, sir. But not for another ten days—and because I’m not known over here—because I have no experience of British
operations and I’m not known over here … no more than Dr Wiesehöfer is known, as it happens—”

  “All right, Captain. So you’re not known.” Butler lifted his chin belligerently. “Or … let us say … what you did in Sonnenstrand, and what you’ve been doing in Yugoslavia since then, isn’t known—to those who don’t need to know it—right?”

  Benedikt swallowed. It was as Herzner had said: Don’t be deceived into thinking that his bite won’t be as bad as his bark just because he looks like one of their sergeant-majors…

  But he had to go on now, even though he didn’t fancy moving from first to second. “Yes, sir. So …”

  “So I didn’t have anyone else to use at short notice, who wouldn’t be known to David Audley?” Butler brushed his hesitation aside. “Very well—you can assume that, too—just so long as you also assume … no, not assume—so long as you also rely on the certainty that Dr Audley is a senior officer of unimpeachable reliability, on whose loyalty I would bet my life as well as yours—that will save us all time … and it may even save you from a certain amount of worry and embarrassment, according to how accurate the print-out from your Wiesbaden computer has been. Right, Captain?”

  Right, Captain? Audley was a specialist—and very nearly an exclusive specialist, too—on Soviet intentions. And that had been worrying—no question about that! But … so where had the Kommissar got it wrong? That was worrying, too.

  But he still had to go on, jumping some of his clever assumptions which had maybe not been so clever.

  “A reconnaissance, Captain.” Butler exercised the senior officer’s prerogative of mercy. “We’ll come back to Audley later … A reconnaissance, you were saying?”

  The correct response to mercy, when there was no other alternative, was confession.

  “You are quite right. There is something wrong with Duntisbury Chase.” The pressure on him suddenly crystallised all Benedikt’s impressions. “I’ve never been in a place like it—not even on the other side.” The crystallisation left him with an extraordinary and frightening near-certainty which up until this moment had been a subjective theory he would only have dared to advance tentatively. Even … even though he believed it himself, now, as all the pieces of it slotted into the places which had been made to fit them, it seemed quite outrageous for a stretch of peaceful English countryside.

  “Trust Audley.” Chief Inspector Andrew nodded at Colonel Butler. “Jesus Christ!”

  “Ssh!” Colonel Butler raised his hand and nodded encouragingly at Benedikt. “Tell us, Captain. And don’t be put off just because of anything I’ve said.”

  That was the final incentive Benedikt needed.

  “If you wanted me to look at them, I thought they might want to look at me, Colonel. So I prepared my belongings for them.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “They opened the car—and they opened all my baggage. They went through everything.”

  Andrew frowned. “But you came straight here—?”

  “I’m in a multi-storey car-park. And it only took a minute to check, Chief Inspector. Because I set it up to be checked—and it had been searched—”

  Butler gestured to stop him. “Professionally?”

  This time Benedikt frowned. “They did not leave obvious traces—there were no marks on the locks, or anything crude … But they had plenty of time, while I was going round the Chase—”

  “Not Audley.” Colonel Butler nodded to Andrew, then came back to Benedikt. “Opening things up delicately is not one of his skills—it’s a skill he has always been at pains not to acquire. So he had someone else with him who could do it, that’s all.”

  Benedikt stared at him. If it had not been Audley … it had never occurred to him that it had not been Audley. But … Rebecca Maxwell-Smith would not possess that sort of expertise, and neither Old Cecil nor young Bobby fitted the tfill, any better than did the friendly landlord of the Eight Bells, or his nubile assistant—

  “What else?” The Colonel prodded him.

  What else, indeed!

  Yet it still required an effort. “There are no signs to Duntisbury Royal, Colonel. Would you believe that?”

  “Signs?”

  “Signposts… . On the main road there are many little side-roads, all with signs naming villages—even naming farms. But there is no sign ‘Duntisbury Royal’ on the signpost on the main road.”

  “So how did you get there?”

  “I asked the way. There is a petrol-station near the turning— it is the only such place for several miles, and therefore the obvious place at which to inquire.” Benedikt paused. “But later on, when I returned, I examined the signpost. There was an arm on the post, but it has been cut off with a wood-saw.”

  Butler nodded slowly. “So you asked the way.”

  “So I asked the way. So I was expected.”

  “Expected?”

  “Along the way, perhaps ten minutes, I was delayed by a farm tractor, manoeuvring on to the road a trailer. And behind me there came a Land Rover, boxing me in.” He paused again.

  “You mean, the petrol-station attendant warned them that you were coming?” Butler cocked his head. “Why should he do that?”

  “So that I could be examined … scrutinised.”

  “By whom?”

  “There were two men in the Land Rover. Their windscreen was so dirty I could not make them out, but they could have studied me easily enough. But also by David Audley, certainly.”

  “Audley was there?”

  “He arrived there. And he came up to the car to look at me closely—to hear me speak, perhaps.”

  Chief Inspector Andrew shook his head. “But you said you met him … at the Roman place?”

  “I was introduced to him there. I was directed to him there, the second time. But the first time … we were not introduced.”

  “So he wanted to know more about you?”

  “By then he knew more about me, I think. At the public house I explained why I had come to Duntisbury Royal. But he wanted to know more than that—yes.”

  Colonel Butler rubbed his chin, and in the silence of the little stone cell Benedikt could hear the slight rasping sound of the blunt fingers on the invisible stubble.

  “And what did he make of you, Captain Schneider? You said you made no mistakes?”

  “I do not believe I did. Also, at least he would not have taken me for a soldier, Colonel. And if he telephones the embassy they will tell him about Dr Wiesehöfer—they will confirm what I told him. Major Herzner will have seen to that.”

  The two men exchanged glances.

  “He has phoned the embassy?” Benedikt looked from one to the other, and the Colonel nodded to the Special Branch man.

  “Somebody phoned the embassy.” Andrew nodded. “Not from there—we’re monitoring all the calls from Duntisbury Royal. And not Audley either.” He studied Benedikt for a moment. “What did you say Herr—Dr—Wiesehöfer did for a living?”

  “I said he was a civil servant, Chief Inspector.”

  “And what does he do?”

  “He is a civil servant.” They would know, of course. “He is a procurement advisor on the NATO standardisation committee.”

  Andrew half-smiled. “Yes … well, it was from the export director of Anglo-American Electronics, the call was. They specialise in micro-systems for missiles for NATO.”

  But why the half-smile? “So it was a genuine call?”

  Chief Inspector Andrew shrugged. “Could be.”

  “The trouble with David Audley … is that he knows a lot of people, Captain,” said Butler.

  “Like the managing director of AAE, for one,” said Andrew. “So, if he was going to check up on you, this is exactly the way he might do it—on the old boy network. But there’s no way we can check up on that without spooking him, because the MD there owes him a big favour, and we can’t rely on patriotism being thicker than gratitude in his case, because he’s an American.”

  The contradictions of the situ
ation were beginning to confuse Benedikt. In Germany the managing director of a company specialising in NATO missile-systems would be no problem, he would know where his duty lay, and his best interests too. But then in Germany, when Colonel Butler’s opposite number trusted a senior officer to the extent that Colonel Butler trusted Dr David Audley, there would have been no problem to resolve in the first place. It was all very confusing.

  Butler had stopped stroking his chin. “Why would he not take you for a soldier?”

  That, at least, was easy. He extracted the spectacle-case from his pocket, and the spectacles from the case.

  “Soldiers are not half-blind.” He perched the appalling things on his nose. His eyes hurt and the faces of the two men swam in an opaque sea, and he took the spectacles off quickly. “I use them with contact lenses—I became used to them several years ago—” He smiled at Colonel Butler, remembering Sonnenstrand “—in Bulgaria. With contact lenses, it is a matter of growing accustomed to them. Then the glasses by themselves are no problem. Also, with contact lenses and the necessary preparations which go with them, no one questions that I should have all that in my baggage too—they cannot know that the lenses correct the glasses, not the eye-sight, you see.”

  “Huh!” Colonel Butler sniffed. “A gimmick.”

  “But a convincing one, sir. And not inappropriate for a student of Roman roads.”

  Butler remained unconvinced. “But Audley’s no fool. And I didn’t expect him to surface so quickly. I was expecting him to keep in the background.” He shook his head. “So I wouldn’t bet on it—and that gives us less time, I’m afraid … Always supposing that we have any time.”

  “The Roman roads weren’t bad, sir,” demurred the Chief Inspector. “He can hardly have been expecting that, for God’s sake! Not in the time we had—”

  “Huh!” This time it was more like a growl. “He once passed me off as an expert on Roman fortification—or on Byzantine fortification, anyway, which is a damn sight more obscure than Roman roads—and in a damn sight less time, too!” He grimaced reminiscently. “But you couldn’t know that—I doubt whether even Captain Schneider’s computer in Wiesbaden knows it!”