Soldier No More (47 page)

And, having deduced that, he concluded then that there was really no point in asking anything of his nurse, or of the basilisk sister who superintended her; and the doctors themselves were of course even more out of the question, whatever the question was. So he retreated into the wasteland within himself, knowing that he wasn’t going anywhere, and that they would come when they were ready, which would be when he was ready, and there wasn’t anything he could do about it.

Only it was Audley who came; and, more surprisingly, he came alone, towards the end of an Indian summer’s afternoon.

“Are you all right?” Audley mistook his surprise for weakness, by the inflexion he gave to the routine inquiry.

“I’m fine,” said Roche. It occurred to him out of habit that he could spin out the game by pretending not to be fine, but he quickly dismissed the notion as ridiculous. He had nothing with which to play games any more, besides which there were things he wanted to know very badly which Audley of all people might actually tell him.

Or, at least, there was one askable thing, which protruded out of the oily surface of both his daydreams and his nightmares.

“How’s Lady Alexandra?”

“Disgustingly healthy.” Audley still smiled that lop-sided smile, but there was something different about him nevertheless: part of it was greater self-assurance, in so far as that was possible, yet there was also something hesitant, which was new. But that might be because he wasn’t used to sick-rooms; or it might just be in the confused eye of the beholder.

“Really?” He dropped the irrelevant thought to concentrate on the important one. “Honestly?”

“Really—honestly.” Audley pulled up the chair. “I told you—the Perownes are practically indestructible by conventional means—they’re all built like Tiger tanks. In fact, she’s even making the most out of her scar, Lexy is … she tells all and sundry that she got it duelling at Heidelberg.
In fact
…
I’ve got a letter from her for you somewhere—“ but he made no move to produce the letter “—are you sure you’re okay? The dragon-lady out there said I mustn’t be too long …”

So the letter had to be earned, and the game had to be played even here, after the final whistle.

“Honestly … I’m fine.” Roche jibbed at the prospect, but he wanted the letter. “Sister says … ‘we’ have been very ill, but ‘we’ are on the mend. It’s just that … ‘we’ expected someone … different.” Roche opted for the truth, for want of anything better.

Audley regarded him doubtfully. “Ah … well, we have a special dispensation from above—a bit of the old influence-in-high-places, old boy. There will be somebody along to de-brief you formally in due course, naturally. But not yet.”

“De-brief me?” Roche wasn’t surprised by Audley-with-influence-in-high-places. But he knew that self-confessed traitors weren’t de-briefed, they were interrogated.

“Uh-huh.” Audley fielded his doubts confidently. “Originally they were going to lock you up, and throw away the key. And they’re not exactly well-disposed to you even now… naturally. But things have changed.” He made a Caliban-face. “You’ll have to resign your commission—and sign a lots of bits of paper … And you’ll have to come clean on everything— eh?”

For five seconds Roche was beyond astonishment, then for a moment he was in nowhere. And after that he recognised the familiar features of the wasteland, which were cratered like any battlefield, and full of slimy things which he’d already imagined.

Audley’s face was scrubbed of emotion now. “You
are
prepared to come clean?”

“To betray everyone, you mean?” Roche could smell himself, washed and re-bandaged that morning, in preparation for this.

The scrubbed face changed to one of unconcealed interest. “You really did mean it, did you—back in the Tower? Nobody’s side?”

That was something Roche was still working on, to be adjusted according to circumstances. But it had happened by degrees, and irregularly, and also irrationally; and he wasn’t at all sure that he could sustain it against the unexpected clemency which Audley appeared to be offering him.

But mercifully Audley didn’t wait for him to resolve his dilemma. “Yes … well, as it happens, you don’t have to worry too much about
them
…
because by now they’ll have run a mile in all directions—back to their Moscow
dachas
if they’re lucky, I shouldn’t wonder!”

Jean-Paul and Genghis Khan—

And Philippe?
God
! Philippe out of range of Paris didn’t bear thinking about—that was greater punishment than Burgess and Maclean had had to bear, in swopping London for Moscow.

Audley nodded. “Yes … You see, Mike Bradford and I were a bit naughty really—we decided to re-write a bit of the script on our own account, after things went … not quite according to plan, you understand …”

Things
? But there had been so many
things
. “Things?”

“Mike did the actual work. Because he had the best contacts—and also the CIA had seconded him to me, with a free hand, so it was no skin off his nose … But Fred Clinton agreed afterwards that it had its merits—putting it out that you’d worked for us all along, ever since Japan—sort of
double-double, toil-and-trouble
—and we had to do it quickly, to make it stick, for the maximum effect—do you see?”

Roche saw—or half-saw, with the fleeting image of every Comrade he had ever known, or ever half-known, running for cover as the disinformation about him spread—not just Jean-Paul and Genghis Khan and Philippe—
Christ
!

Again, Audley read his expression. “That’s right! Nothing like it since father drank the baby’s milk, and made the baby suck a large Scotch—blood and confusion everywhere!
And
, what’s more, your erstwhile employers will be having the most awful doubts about all their other doubles—from Cambridge and Oxford onwards…. If you were a ringer, then what about
them
, eh?”

Roche saw again, and saw more. Because if the Comrades had noticed that he had become increasingly twitchy, this would now only confirm their retrospective belief that he’d been setting them up for the final
coup
—which only Gaston’s last mortar-bomb had dislocated, as well as peppering him with bits of metal.

“Right?” Audley continued to misread him. “Besides which, we also told Fred Clinton that you were dying. Which, to be honest, we thought you were when we pulled you out from under that extraordinary machine.”

Roche lay back against his pillows, grateful for their support.

“And the virtue of that, from your point of view, is not only that
they
won’t pursue you—because although they’re rather down on traitors, they’re curiously old-fashioned about patriots—but also Clinton himself will have to let you go now … In fact, he’ll probably have to give you a medal and a pension, to make it all stick. But that’s cheap at the price, with what he’s got—you and the d’Auberon papers!”

Clinton?

You and the d’Auberon papers? Roche exercised the names weakly, trying to place them in the right order.

“The d’Auberon papers?”

“Them most of all. They were the whole point of the sodding operation— and you did a grand job of getting them! So it all came out right in the end, in spite of the unpleasantness at the Tower … which was all Clinton’s fault, anyway—he was so bloody busy planting his rumours, it never occurred to him that the Algerians and the Israelis would pick up the wrong signals, and get stuck into poor old Etienne! But all’s well that ends well, anyway.”

Roche recalled Larimer’s assessment of Audley. “But not for Miss Stephanides.”

“Ah …” Audley screwed up his expression “… now that was jolly strange, you know.”

“Jolly strange?”

“Yes. The eighth deadly sin—in that French film about the seven deadly sins—remember?”

Roche set his teeth. “No.”

“Suspicion—you must remember? To see sin where there is none? One of our occupational diseases too. We had the report a week ago—it really was a genuine accident. The poor girl always did drive too fast, and something important in that old car of hers broke.” Audley waved his hand vaguely. “Besides which, some wretched Algerian the French interrogated said he thought you’d done it, and that was why they’d zeroed in on you—seeing you collect the brief-case merely clinched what they’d suspected was going to happen after that. Only they were convinced it was the Morice Line blueprint, of course.”

“What did the French do?”

“They weren’t frightfully amused. But by the time it dawned on them that there was something not quite kosher going on. I’d swopped your
bastide
notes for the real stuff. And d’Auberon then insisted that he hadn’t broken his agreement with them… which was nothing less than the truth, after all. So all they were left with was a terrorist outrage against innocent tourists and a lot of nasty suspicions. The only real trouble we had was getting you out… they did rather want to take you to pieces to see what really made you tick. Or
who
made you tick. But your SHAPE status gave us the edge therein the end.”

A hideous suspicion had been spreading inside Roche, much nastier than anything French security could have imagined. “You knew… about me?”

“Oh yes—Clinton did. From way back.”

“From way back?” The steadiness of his voice surprised him.

“From Japan onwards—it was the company you kept, you see. That’s why you never got any decent jobs… only the ones where we were already compromised—or when we wanted something passed on … In fact, in a way, getting the d’Auberon stuff was the first really important job you were ever given. Clinton had to have it, but he knew Etienne would never give it up—not to us. But he also knew there had to be a copy snugged away in the KGB files in Paris. The trick was to get you to winkle it out—from them or d’Auberon, it didn’t really matter which. But he reckoned you could do it—he’s a lot like King Gaiseric of the Vandals, really… and in more ways than one, too.” Audley smiled. “Sitting there, waiting for the winds to carry his fleet to the country that God desired to ruin, I mean. Only, like King Gaiseric, Fred Clinton was pretty damn sure which way the wind ought to blow, that’s all.”

It wasn’t as bad as he’d expected, it was much worse. But he had to blank out the pain before it became unendurable in order to press his questions while Audley was willing to answer them. “I was set up—from the start?”

Audley nodded. “Very comprehensively. And he had all sorts of other things going to back you up—rumours dropped, bits of information available … people briefed to say the right things—“

The pain
was
unendurable. “People?”

“All sorts of people, yes—“

“Who?”

“Stocker … people you’ve never met … me, latterly.” Audley shrugged. “Lots of people.”

“Major Ballance?” The thought of Bill despising him was horrible, yet not the unkindest cut because it was Bill’s job to screw the enemy. But he couldn’t bring himself to the worst straight away.

“I think he had the general task of looking after you—yes.” Audley seemed unaware of the damage he was doing.

Roche’s chest itched under the bandages, with the wounds of every single mortar-bomb fragment registering individually.

He gritted his teeth. “Major … Mr Willis?”

Audley frowned. “I think … I think he was just ordered to answer your questions. But—“

“Jilly?” The itch was graduating to discomfort.

“No. She had her instructions, that’s all. Only, about old Wimpy—“

“Colonel Stein?” Roche didn’t much care about the Israeli, and Bradford must be career-CIA and didn’t matter. But he still couldn’t work himself to
her
. “Where was he?”

“At the Tower?” Audley shrugged again. “He was away somewhere taking his prehistoric pictures.” He shook his head. “Davey’s got nothing to do with intelligence—never has had, never will have. Davey takes pictures and flies planes. He’s just a very nice man, and a good friend of mine.”

The discomfort became physical pain, joining the agony inside his head as he came to her at last. “Lady Alexandra?”

“Lexy?” Audley looked at him incredulously. “Oh, come on, man! Lexy couldn’t keep a secret—or obey an instruction—if her life depended on it! And you were an
ultra
secret—Clinton couldn’t take chances on you, for God’s sake!”

The pain abated just when it was beginning to blur his vision.
Lexy didn
’
t know
—

“Besides which, Fred didn’t dare give you everything on a plate. The whole aim was to let you come to your own conclusions, to work things out for yourself—to get at the truth in your own way—“

The truth?”

“Ninety per cent of it, yes! All the best lies are made up of truth—that’s what makes them stick—nothing else will do … So almost everything you were given was
true
… as well as almost everything you were allowed to find out—“ Audley leaned forward, his face twisted into a curious expression, half sly and half shy “—the risk was that you’d see clear through to the other side. And that’s why you had to be hindered as well as helped— right?”

“Hindered?” Roche was sweating with relief about Lexy. “
Side-tracked
is better. That’s why they gave you
me
to get your teeth into, don’t you see?”

With an effort, Roche shook himself free of her. “You?”

Uh-huh. You see, Fred Clinton has these tame psychologists he sets great store by… and they said, after they’d had a bloody good look at you, that you had to be given something to divert your attention—like ‘give him an interesting tree to study, and he won’t see the wood itself, roughly. And I was the tree.” Audley’s eyes narrowed. “So was I really interesting?”

“Interesting?” Roche lay back, and played for time. Audley had never really accounted for his presence here, ahead of the professional de-briefers. Nor, for that matter, was there any professional reason why he should pile up indiscretion on indiscretion like this … But, with Audley, there always had to be a reason.