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Synopsis
By the CWA Gold Dagger award-winning author of Other Paths to Glory Two KGB rivals, General Zarubin and Professor Nikolai Andrievich Panin, confront each other on a point overlooking the British Channel. Meanwhile, Henry Jaggard of British Intelligence has two pressing problems. He knows the Soviets are mounting a defensive program against a Polish dissident group in Britain, but he cannot intervene without jeopardizing his best inside agents. And Dr David Audley, of the Intelligence R&D Department, has been playing clever politics again. Jaggard sees his opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. The Professor has requested a meeting with Audley, his old adversary. And, with one of Jaggard's own men to abet him, Audley can be safely relied upon to overstep the mark in his attempts to frustrate the KGB . . .
Release date: September 6, 2012
Publisher: Orion
Print pages: 324
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For the Good of the State
Anthony Price
IN THE EVENT, IT WAS NOT HENRY JAGGARD HIMSELF BUT Garrod Harvey who connected the fate of the Department of Intelligence Research and Development with the projected British Museum Exhibition
of the Treasures of Ancient Scythia. However, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office had in some sense already pointed the way in its latest signal on the subject of the exhibition, in which the
curious request of the visiting third deputy director of state in the Ministry of Culture had been passed to Jaggard for his attention, and it was Garrod Harvey’s private opinion ever
afterwards that Jaggard had already decided to do what he suggested should be done, and had merely been waiting for him to speak up. . . .
“So it was that fellow Audley who dropped the word to the prime minister?” Typically, although he was far more worried about the situation in the Soviet embassy,
Jaggard embarked on the less pressing matter first. “Are you sure, Garry?”
“Absolutely certain.” In his role as “creature to the duke,” Garrod was accustomed to his master’s oblique approaches. “But he didn’t do it personally,
of course. So we’ll never be able to prove it.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s no fool. He’s an interesting man, in fact—I’ve been studying his curriculum vitae for a couple of days, actually.” Garrod was well aware of
Jaggard’s view of the Research and Development Department, so this piece of anticipation had come all too easily. “He’s quite a distinguished scholar in his own right, did you
know? Apart from his money and his connections—”
“Damn his money and his connections! Are you saying that I can’t go and read the riot act about him to Jack Butler?”
“Yes, I am. Exactly that.” The good thing about Jaggard was that he expected straight answers to straight questions. “It’s his connections which add up in this case.
He’s got a great many of them, going back over nearly 30 years, Henry. Both sides of the channel, and the Atlantic—the Americans think the world of him.”
“And the Russians?”
“And the Israelis.” Harvey knew then that Jaggard had seen the FCO signal. “But in this case it was a woman named Deacon. Laura Deacon, Henry.”
“Laura—” Jaggard frowned at him. “Laurie Deacon’s daughter—?”
“MP for North Wessex.” He knew also that Jaggard would be making all the necessary connections now. “She inherited her father’s safe seat when he went to the Lords. And
Audley’s always been very thick with the family: it provides his local MP . . . and one of his routes into the Commons backbenches, when he wants to have questions asked.” He
couldn’t risk a smile with Jaggard in his present vengeful mood, so he shrugged instead. “Perhaps we should be grateful he didn’t do that in this instance.”
“Oh yes?” The mood hardened even more. “So it was Laura Deacon who spoke to the PM, you’re saying?”
“They met last Friday. Laura Deacon dropped a name, and she also said that Colonel Butler would know all about it. And the PM summoned Butler directly.”
“And he spilled the beans directly, too. Why the hell did he do that?”
Harvey rejected the temptation to agree with him. “It was his duty, Henry—be fair!”
“His duty?”
“His duty.” Harvey agreed wholeheartedly with his master about the Research and Development Department. But he also liked and respected Jack Butler as an honest and devoted officer.
“The PM has the right to go direct to the head of R & D, Henry. And the head of R & D has direct access the other way—that’s how old Fred Clinton constituted it, from way
back.”
“I know that.” Jaggard gestured dismissively. “But he also has a duty to me. And there was no reason why he shouldn’t have told me first—” He stopped
suddenly as he caught the expression on Garrod Harvey’s face. “Or was there?”
“He didn’t have time.” It was one strike to Jaggard that he also respected Jack Butler. “Audley deposited his report on Colonel Butler’s desk about five minutes
before the PM’s office rang. So my guess is that he’d planned everything to the minute, practically: that the PM would hit Butler at once, and then the minister himself immediately
after that. He knew what everyone would do—maybe he even knew that the PM would be so pleased—at being able to catch the minister on the hop, as well as being able to suppress
the leak—that there wouldn’t be anything we could do against him even if we could trace it all back.” He watched Jaggard look in vain for loopholes. “Because the PM
is pleased. So R & D is riding high at the moment, Henry. Because they came up with the information in time, just when it was needed.”
Henry Jaggard scowled at him. “But the minister isn’t pleased.”
“Ah . . . yes, I can well imagine that, Henry.” And so he could. (Another leak in the minister’s department—albeit plugged in time, but not plugged by the minister’s
own expertise, only by the PM’s superior intelligence.) And he could also see why Henry Jaggard was incandescent with rage, too. (The minister was a good friend and ally of his when cuts and
economy were the order of the day.) “It’s unfortunate.”
“It’s more than that, Garry. He’s been made to look a fool. And so have I.” Jaggard’s better side showed as he grinned at Harvey. “I can survive that, but
this makes him a two-time loser at No. 10. And now I’ve got to tell his special adviser in 15 minutes that I can’t give him the scalp he wants, so this sort of thing won’t happen
again.” The grin evaporated. “Is there no way I can give him a scalp, Garry?”
“Audley’s?” Harvey knew what his master wanted. But for what he planned to propose he needed more than that. “Colonel Butler will never give you Audley, he’d resign
first.” He shook his head. “Offering hostages isn’t his style. Besides which, R & D is too busy with Gorbachev at the moment. And Audley’s too valuable—he’s
right at the heart of the work.”
“Yes.” Jaggard well knew what R & D’s main present preoccupation was. “But . . . this wasn’t any of Audley’s damn business.”
“That’s not the way David Audley would see it.” He had to lead Jaggard on, evidently. “Clinton gave them carte blanche from the start—as well as direct access to
the PM—remember?” He knew that Jaggard remembered, even though R & D had been born—born by cesarian section—long before their time. “He gave them ‘Quis
custodiet ipsos custodes’ as their motto. And he always said they were his Tenth Legion, Henry—remember?”
“Huh! More like a fifth column now!” Jaggard’s nostrils expanded. “Audley isn’t even the real problem—R & D is the real problem, itself—no matter
how important the work.” He shook his head slowly. “It’s not ‘Quis custodiet’ now—it’s bloody Imperium in imperio! It’s become a state
within a state—and it’s got to be cut down to size, Garry. For the good of the state it was founded to protect, in fact.”
They were almost there. “I agree.” But he needed some reassurance, nevertheless. “But with reservations, Henry.”
“With reservations?” Jaggard gave him a fierce look. “What are you driving at?”
It wasn’t the moment to make some submissive animal-signal: Jaggard was almost as intolerant of yes-men as he was of R & D. “Their research is first rate—particularly their
analytical advice. And they’re coming up with first-rate stuff about the Gorbachev appointments right now, Henry—the Americans are trading us all manner of things in exchange for it. So
there’s no way we can abolish them—they’re far too useful.”
“Who said I want to abolish them?” The fierceness amended itself. “All we need is to control them, so that they don’t cause trouble on the side—”
Jaggard raised a slender hand “—and I don’t mean that they’re not damn good at covering up the trouble they make . . . and their mistakes, too . . . because they are—I
know that—you know that.” The hand clenched. “But they do cause trouble—and they do make mistakes—every time they go into the field on their own
account.” The fist unclenched, and Jaggard tapped the file on his desk. “Even, for example, God only knows what sort of mayhem might result from this FCO signal if I let it go any
further. Which, of course, I won’t—that, at least, I can stop, anyway.”
They were there at last. But Harvey craned his neck, as though attempting to read the superscription. “Which is that—?”
Jaggard covered it. “Audley’s too busy with the Gorbachev work. Apart from which he’ll only cause more trouble in this case, if he runs true to form.”
“Which was that?” Harvey stopped pretending to read through Jaggard’s hand. Because Jaggard was going to tell him anyway.
“Apart from which the KGB is undoubtedly up to mischief.” Jaggard gave him an unblinking stare. “And since the FCO processed the signal they’ll also want to know what the
outcome is. But I shall say no.”
“Ah!” Harvey let the light dawn. “That’ll be that odd communication about Professor Panin, I take it—?” After letting the light dawn he let himself relax.
“I was thinking . . . it’s a curious coincidence, isn’t it—eh?”
“Curious?” Jaggard stopped covering the file.
“Well, there’s obviously no connection between what Audley’s just done and whatever Professor Panin and the KGB may be contemplating.” He let that out as an arguable
statement, because they both knew who Panin was, beyond what the Soviet embassy and the FCO alleged he was. “So it is a pure coincidence, Henry. There can be no question about
that.”
The stare cracked, and Jaggard flipped open the file. “ ‘Professor Nikolai Andrievich Panin. Third Deputy Director in the Ministry of Culture: one of the foremost authorities on the
archaeology of the royal tombs (6th and 5th century BC) in the bend of the Dnieper, the districts of Poltava and Kiev, and the Crimea’?” He looked up at Garrod Harvey, then down into
the file again. “ ‘Dr. David Longsdon Audley. MBE. PhD MA (Cantab)’—” He looked at Harvey again “—‘distinguished medievalist’?”
This time he didn’t look down again. “Have you seen this SG?”
That wasn’t a trick question. “Yes. My name’s on the list, Henry.”
“Yes?” The nostrils blew out again. “But I’ve also got a clever-dick note from some wag in the FCO—did you get that, too?”
That wasn’t a trick question either. “No.”
“No?” Jaggard looked down quickly to refresh his memory. “I’ve got: ‘I. Isn’t Panin one of theirs and Audley one of yours?’ and ‘2. What has
6th–5th century BC Scythia got to do with medieval history?’ And ‘3. Are there any royal Scythian tombs on Exmoor?’ ” Jaggard considered Harvey dispassionately for a
moment. “And then they advise me that Professor Panin is to be given all reasonable help and consideration, because HM Government is concerned to improve Anglo-Soviet cultural relations,
pending projected diplomatic and cultural exchanges running up to possible East-West disarmament talks later in the year.” He gave Harvey another couple of seconds. “Are there any royal
Scythian tombs on Exmoor?”
“Not that I’ve heard of.” That was the moment, as the full awfulness of the FCO advice registered, when Garrod Harvey began to suspect that Henry Jaggard had been there ahead
of him, thinking the same wicked thoughts. “Prehistoric ones, maybe—or Neolithic. But that could be Dartmoor, not Exmoor. . . .” He let Jaggard see that he had something else in
his mind.
“Yes?” Jaggard paid his penny cautiously.
“I was just thinking.” On second thought it would be better to be honest—or fairly honest, anyway: that usually paid better with Jaggard. “Or . . . I have been
thinking.”
“About what?” Jaggard hadn’t got his pennyworth yet.
“About Audley. And Panin.” He gave Jaggard a seriously questioning glance. “I take it the FCO doesn’t really know why Panin is here? That he’s General
Zarubin’s number two, I mean?”
“They certainly do not.” There was a metallic curtness about Jaggard’s reply: it was the sound of the penny dropping. “Nobody knows except the Viking Group. You know
that.”
“Yes. So that’s just you and me, and de Gruchy.” Garrod Harvey deliberately thought aloud. “But the Americans also may have an inkling, we decided.”
“They may.” Jaggard accepted the thought. “They’ve almost certainly got someone of their own in the Soviet embassy. So it’s just possible they’ve also picked
up a hint of the Polish operation—agreed.”
“Yes. But their man is at a much lower level than our Viking.” Harvey could see that the very mention of Viking, the highest-placed contact they had ever had in the KGB’s
London station, made Jaggard cautious. Yet he still had to push matters further. “So the Polish operation is the one you want us to leave well alone.”
Jaggard stared at him. “The one we have to leave well alone, Garry.” The edge of his patience was beginning to fray. “We’ve been through all this.”
“Even though we know that Zarubin—Zarubin and now Panin . . . even though we know that they’re up to some bloody mischief.” Harvey nodded, noting the shift to
“we,” even though the emphasis had been on “have.”
“Yes.” Jaggard knew that it had been his rank-pulling decision over their indecision which had swayed the vote. But, to his credit, he had never been afraid of responsibility.
“Viking’s worth more to us than any bunch of miserable Polacks. And they must be damn close to him already—in fact, I’m not at all sure that this whole Polish thing
hasn’t been dreamed up just so that they can pin their leak down. Because we haven’t had a whisper about these so-called ‘Sons of the Eagle’ from our people in
Poland—they’ve never even heard of them. But whoever they are, and whatever the KGB’s doing, Viking is just too valuable to risk, that was the decision. So what are you after,
then?”
The moment to break cover had arrived. “Maybe we don’t have to risk Viking, Henry. Because, according to the FCO, it’s Panin who wants to meet Audley. And Audley doesn’t
know anything about Viking—it’s just that he and Panin are both ‘distinguished scholars’—” He remembered Audley’s file “—and old friends, too,
maybe?”
“ ‘Friends’?” Jaggard tossed the question aside contemptuously. “I thought you said you’d read Audley’s file? Back in
’70—remember?”
“Yes.” Panin had got exactly what he wanted in ’70. But Audley had totally humiliated him in giving him what he wanted, and that would rankle forever afterwards. But, much more
to the point, Jaggard had read that file, too. “So Panin hates Audley. But then Audley also hates Panin, Henry: he’s an old Clinton recruit. And old Fred Clinton always made a point of
recruiting on the KGB principle of good haters—‘cool head, hot heart,’ and all that.” He watched Henry Jaggard accept the statement. “True?”
“True.” Henry Jaggard nodded, out of his recent scrutiny of the Audley file: over the years, others before them had crossed swords with David Audley (and had come out of each clash
of steel with scars, and the wiser), but no one had ever even remotely hinted that his hot heart wasn’t in the right place, though he was a Cambridge man. “But Panin is a very dangerous
old man, Garry. And—”
“And so is Audley a dangerous old man, Henry.” Now they were only negotiating the fine print of the agreement. But they had to go through it line by line, for the record on the tape
under Jaggard’s desk. “It’s a toss-up which of them is the more dangerous. But I agree that there’ll be trouble when they meet.” The thought of the tape concentrated
Garrod Harvey’s mind. “Only my bet is on Audley—like last time.” There was one more important thing to put on the record. “Old Fred Clinton must have made the same bet
back in ’70.” Not that the tape mattered, really. Tapes could be edited, but editing tapes wasn’t Henry Jaggard’s style any more than throwing his subordinates to the wolves
was Jack Butler’s. “You’re quite sure that Audley doesn’t know about Viking, I take it?”
Jaggard shook his head slowly, without bothering to answer what wasn’t even a question.
“What I mean, Henry, is that he doesn’t know—and we can’t tell him, not even if we wanted to, can we?” Harvey paused deliberately. “Not even if he
asked us about Panin. Which he won’t in any case, because that isn’t his way of going about things, you see.”
Jaggard leaned forward. “Just what exactly are you proposing, Garry? To let Audley go in blind?”
“David Audley never went into anything blind in all his life.” All Jaggard wanted was a little reassurance. “One of our problems with him in the past has been that he knows too
damn much, not too little. So he’ll know Zarubin’s in London for sure—you can bet on that. And he’ll know who Zarubin is, too.”
“But Poland isn’t his field.”
“Everything is his field. He’s a Clinton-vintage R & D man born and bred, Henry.” Harvey briefly considered the possibility that he might have been wrong about
Jaggard’s intention, but rejected it. “He’s an interesting man.”
“ ‘A distinguished scholar’—so you said.” Jaggard knew there was more to come. “ ‘A medievalist.’ But I would have thought the 16th century was
more his period. The treachery was more three-dimensional then, if I remember correctly.”
“Yes.” That was Henry Jaggard’s period, of course. And, as a devout Catholic, Jaggard had equivocal views on it which were well known. “But did you know that he’s
also a recognized authority on Rudyard Kipling?”
Jaggard nodded cautiously. “Kipling is down as one of his hobbies, in his file.”
“It’s more than a hobby.” Harvey silently blessed the young Garrod Harvey junior’s stuffiest godfather, who had given his birthday presents with such old-fashioned
seriousness. “He’s just written a series of articles in the Literary Journal. Which are going to be turned into a book, I believe. He believes that Kipling is our most underrated
author—and our most misunderstood one.”
“Indeed?” Jaggard’s politeness was strained to the breaking point, like the window of the de Havilland Comet which Garrod Harvey’s own godfather had trawled up from the
sea bottom off Elba 30 years before. “So what?”
“The most recent one was on Kipling’s children’s stories.” Harvey gauged the moment when Jaggard would explode, as the Comet window had exploded. “You know, my wife
tells me that ‘We are what we eat.’ But it seems to me that, more accurately, ‘We are what we read,’ Or . . . in the present generation what we don’t
read—I suppose it’s what we see now, on the television. Which is a truly dreadful prospect—”
“Garry—” Jaggard controlled himself with difficulty. “I have to see the minister’s special adviser in about two minutes. And I don’t think I’m in
a position to stretch his patience—do you?”
It was time to lower the pressure. “I think we might have something to offer the minister. At least . . . if he’s prepared to cover our flanks, if anything truly unpleasant
occurs.” Garrod Harvey couldn’t bring himself to recall “the good of the state” as an ally, even though it had to be their only true good, for what he envisaged, because the
minister’s special adviser would only be concerned with the good of his minister. “Because Audley’s most recent article was on Kipling’s children’s stories, as I was
saying—”
It was to Jaggard’s credit that he merely opened his mouth and then closed it without exploding, like some of the Comets which had managed more flights than others.
“There’s this passage he quotes—” Harvey held Jaggard’s attention “—which just about sums up the way he operates, on the rare occasions when he goes out
into the field. Because when it’s all over he always says ‘I didn’t do anything—it just happened that way. It wasn’t my fault.’ It’s called
‘shibbuwichee,’ apparently.”
“It’s called what—?”
“ ‘Shibbuwichee.’ Which Kipling thought was a form of Japanese wrestling.” Nod. “My elder boy was given a complete set of Kipling by his godfather last year,
so I’ve been able to look it up: These wrestler-chaps have got some sort of trick that lets the other chap do all the work. Then they give a little wriggle, and he upsets himself. It’s
called “shibbuwichee,” or “tokonoma,” or something.’ ” He blessed old Hetherington again, and his own memory, too. “And that’s how Audley operates.
So what I thought was that we might do the same to him now, Henry.”
“How?” Jaggard was there, ahead of him.
“If we tell him Panin wants to see him, he won’t be able to resist that—”
“But if he does?”
“We’ll make it irresistible. Leave that to me.” Part of their usual accord was that there were some things which Jaggard didn’t need to know. “But I don’t
think he’ll want to miss Panin for a return game. And that could solve our Polish problem without the need to risk Viking. Because he’s never going to let Panin outsmart him. So you can
be sure that whatever Panin really wants, Audley will find out what it is. And he won’t let Panin get away with it.”
“But . . . if it goes the other way—?”
“Then there’ll be a scandal.” Garrod Harvey shrugged. “But if we leave Zarubin and Panin to their own devices there’ll be a scandal anyway, most likely,
Henry. But this way . . . this way it’ll be a Research and Development scandal. Because Audley will never come to us for help—it’s not in his nature to come to anyone, not
even Jack Butler if he can avoid it. And certainly not when someone like Panin is involved. He’ll want to shibbuwich the man, like last time, Henry: David Audley’s whole
psychology is dedicated to winning, not to Queensberry rules games-playing. But if he loses this time . . . then you can blow R & D wide open, Henry.”
“Yes.” That enticing possibility plainly captivated Jaggard—as it had from the start. “But if he loses, Garry—Panin’s a murderous swine . . . and
Zarubin—” He fixed Harvey coldly “—Zarubin’s worse than Panin, insofar as that’s possible, Garry.”
That was the good Catholic speaking, echoing generations of good Catholic Jaggards from the Reformation onwards, who had sweated and suffered for their faith then, and had been disadvantaged
even in liberal England for the next 300 years afterwards, down to the living memory of Henry Jaggard’s own great-grandfather. “So?”
“I can’t risk Audley.” The cold look became deep-frozen. “Bringing R & D to heel is important. But what they’re doing at the moment is important also. And
Audley’s done a lot of good work, over a lot of years, Garry. So risking him now just isn’t on.”
“I agree—I do agree, absolutely!” Harvey understood the complexity of his error and Henry Jaggard’s dilemma simultaneously: the professional and patriotic
ninety-nine-hundredths of Henry Jaggard wanted what they both wanted, but the hundredth part of Henry Jaggard was old Catholic and very different—what it wanted, that hundredth part, was
either Major General Gennadiy Zarubin on his raw knees in front of the high altar, praying for the forgiveness which the Holy Catholic Church never denied sinners . . . or Major General Gennadiy
Zarubin broken and bloody, and turned over to the civil power for appropriate final punishment, like in the old days.
“I do agree, Henry.” Garrod Harvey kept his face straight. Because what Henry Jaggard wanted was for Audley to win and lose at the same time, and that was exactly what he was now
about to offer to Henry Jaggard, and the minister’s special adviser, and the minister, and the prime minister, and Her Gracious Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II! “But my money’s on
David Audley—I think he’ll screw Panin into the ground, and General Zarubin with him. But I also think we have to give him a bodyguard, to watch over him—”
“A bodyguard—”
“That’s right: a bodyguard.” Nod. “I’ve taken that for granted.” Another nod, for good measure. “Not just to look after him, but also to keep us
informed as to how he’s breaking all the rules in the book. Because that’s what he always does—he doesn’t even pay lip service to the rules, Henry. So if he screws
Zarubin—Zarubin and Panin . . . then, even then with a bit of luck, we can still make a scandal of it—if we have someone on the inside beside him, watching him—?”
Jaggard frowned, as though some long-outdated moral scruples were attempting to skirmish with pragmatic experience, like bows and arrows against machine guns, which was no fair contest.
And yet (as though the longbowmen and crossbowmen were cheating, by capitalizing on the silence of their weapons), Jaggard was still frowning at him.
“We have to have someone alongside him, Henry.” He had to press home his technological advantage. “Otherwise he’ll weasel out of it somehow, like he always has
before.”
“He’ll never accept anyone.” Jaggard left his moral scruple behind. “Or he’ll want someone he can trust, like Mitchell or Andrew from R & D, Garry.”
Garrod Harvey shook his head. “They’re all too busy, with their own Gorbachev work. And they don’t fancy minding Audley, at the best of times.” He made a face at Jaggard.
“Minding David Audley is a thankless task. And in the past it’s also been rather dangerous. But, in any case, R & D hasn’t got the manpower for it. Or the
womanpower.”
This time Henry Jaggard knew better, and merely waited for enlightenment.
Garrod Harvey turned the shake into a nod. “I fed a few notional facts into the computer this morning—profile facts.”
Henry Jaggard looked at him, trying to pretend that he knew “notional facts” and “profile facts” from the double yellow lines on the road outside, far below them in
Whitehall. “And—?”
“I think we’ve got just the man for the job. At least . . . he’s a medievalist, of a sort. And he also speaks fluent Polish.” Garrod Harvey smiled invitingly.
Henry Jaggard was so relieved to have left the computer behind that he accepted the invitation. “And—?”
They had passed the point where Jaggard might have said “What you’re proposing is monstrous, Garry,” even though what he was now proposing was just that. “He isn’t
Audley’s son, Henry. But he could have been. Audley will never be able to resist showing off in front of him.”
TOM MOISTENED THE END OF HIS STUB OF INDELIBLE PENCIL and wrote “1025” beside the line of the bailey ditch on
his sketch map.
If Willy’s measurement of the motte ditch was about 500 feet in circumference, then the whole motte and bailey was a dead ringer for the Topcliffe castle in size, if not in
date—obviously not in date, because Topcliffe was an early post-Conquest castle, and this was as yet not anything at all except an anonymous “earthwork” on the ordnance survey
map. So it just could be Ranulf of Caen’s adulterine castle, which certainly should be somewhere hereabouts if his calculations were right.
On the other hand, it was certainly not much of a motte, he thought doubtfully, looking up into the impenetrable undergrowth above him and trying to estimate the height of the mound. It still
could be merely a fortified manor, a hundred years or more away from Ranulf’s brief medieval gangster flowering during the years of anarchy. So, allowing for the wear and tear and the wind
and rain of all the 800 years afterwards, it all depended on Willy’s measurement, which should establish the circumference and diameter of his hypothetical motte, with its stockade and tower,
which could perhaps be proved during his next leave—
The sound came from behind him—above and behind him, in the undergrowth which hemmed in the edge of the bailey ditch, at its junction with the motte ditch (if this really was a genuine
motte and bailey earthwork castle, he thought pedantically)—and he accepted that it had to be Willy, because the motte ditch was all thorn bushes and brambles, even worse than the tangle
above him.
But it wasn’t Willy: it was—he dropped his pencil as he stuffed the sketch map into the back pocket of his jeans, and automatically reached down to find it, but then stopped just as
automatically in mid-fumble, half in nothing more than surprise, but then half in momentarily irrational fear, at the glimpse of a uniform.
Then the fear was subsumed by self-contemptuous irritation with himself, for letting the sight of an ordinary British policeman frighten him—not a Mister-Plod-PC-49 fatherly copper in the
dear old high helmet admittedly, with red face and button nose and bicycle-clipped trousers, but a young copper in a flat cap, and no older than himself, who seemed just as surprised at the sight
of him, and who was even now more concerned with extricating himself from the trailing bramble sucker from last year’s blackberry g
of the Treasures of Ancient Scythia. However, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office had in some sense already pointed the way in its latest signal on the subject of the exhibition, in which the
curious request of the visiting third deputy director of state in the Ministry of Culture had been passed to Jaggard for his attention, and it was Garrod Harvey’s private opinion ever
afterwards that Jaggard had already decided to do what he suggested should be done, and had merely been waiting for him to speak up. . . .
“So it was that fellow Audley who dropped the word to the prime minister?” Typically, although he was far more worried about the situation in the Soviet embassy,
Jaggard embarked on the less pressing matter first. “Are you sure, Garry?”
“Absolutely certain.” In his role as “creature to the duke,” Garrod was accustomed to his master’s oblique approaches. “But he didn’t do it personally,
of course. So we’ll never be able to prove it.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s no fool. He’s an interesting man, in fact—I’ve been studying his curriculum vitae for a couple of days, actually.” Garrod was well aware of
Jaggard’s view of the Research and Development Department, so this piece of anticipation had come all too easily. “He’s quite a distinguished scholar in his own right, did you
know? Apart from his money and his connections—”
“Damn his money and his connections! Are you saying that I can’t go and read the riot act about him to Jack Butler?”
“Yes, I am. Exactly that.” The good thing about Jaggard was that he expected straight answers to straight questions. “It’s his connections which add up in this case.
He’s got a great many of them, going back over nearly 30 years, Henry. Both sides of the channel, and the Atlantic—the Americans think the world of him.”
“And the Russians?”
“And the Israelis.” Harvey knew then that Jaggard had seen the FCO signal. “But in this case it was a woman named Deacon. Laura Deacon, Henry.”
“Laura—” Jaggard frowned at him. “Laurie Deacon’s daughter—?”
“MP for North Wessex.” He knew also that Jaggard would be making all the necessary connections now. “She inherited her father’s safe seat when he went to the Lords. And
Audley’s always been very thick with the family: it provides his local MP . . . and one of his routes into the Commons backbenches, when he wants to have questions asked.” He
couldn’t risk a smile with Jaggard in his present vengeful mood, so he shrugged instead. “Perhaps we should be grateful he didn’t do that in this instance.”
“Oh yes?” The mood hardened even more. “So it was Laura Deacon who spoke to the PM, you’re saying?”
“They met last Friday. Laura Deacon dropped a name, and she also said that Colonel Butler would know all about it. And the PM summoned Butler directly.”
“And he spilled the beans directly, too. Why the hell did he do that?”
Harvey rejected the temptation to agree with him. “It was his duty, Henry—be fair!”
“His duty?”
“His duty.” Harvey agreed wholeheartedly with his master about the Research and Development Department. But he also liked and respected Jack Butler as an honest and devoted officer.
“The PM has the right to go direct to the head of R & D, Henry. And the head of R & D has direct access the other way—that’s how old Fred Clinton constituted it, from way
back.”
“I know that.” Jaggard gestured dismissively. “But he also has a duty to me. And there was no reason why he shouldn’t have told me first—” He stopped
suddenly as he caught the expression on Garrod Harvey’s face. “Or was there?”
“He didn’t have time.” It was one strike to Jaggard that he also respected Jack Butler. “Audley deposited his report on Colonel Butler’s desk about five minutes
before the PM’s office rang. So my guess is that he’d planned everything to the minute, practically: that the PM would hit Butler at once, and then the minister himself immediately
after that. He knew what everyone would do—maybe he even knew that the PM would be so pleased—at being able to catch the minister on the hop, as well as being able to suppress
the leak—that there wouldn’t be anything we could do against him even if we could trace it all back.” He watched Jaggard look in vain for loopholes. “Because the PM
is pleased. So R & D is riding high at the moment, Henry. Because they came up with the information in time, just when it was needed.”
Henry Jaggard scowled at him. “But the minister isn’t pleased.”
“Ah . . . yes, I can well imagine that, Henry.” And so he could. (Another leak in the minister’s department—albeit plugged in time, but not plugged by the minister’s
own expertise, only by the PM’s superior intelligence.) And he could also see why Henry Jaggard was incandescent with rage, too. (The minister was a good friend and ally of his when cuts and
economy were the order of the day.) “It’s unfortunate.”
“It’s more than that, Garry. He’s been made to look a fool. And so have I.” Jaggard’s better side showed as he grinned at Harvey. “I can survive that, but
this makes him a two-time loser at No. 10. And now I’ve got to tell his special adviser in 15 minutes that I can’t give him the scalp he wants, so this sort of thing won’t happen
again.” The grin evaporated. “Is there no way I can give him a scalp, Garry?”
“Audley’s?” Harvey knew what his master wanted. But for what he planned to propose he needed more than that. “Colonel Butler will never give you Audley, he’d resign
first.” He shook his head. “Offering hostages isn’t his style. Besides which, R & D is too busy with Gorbachev at the moment. And Audley’s too valuable—he’s
right at the heart of the work.”
“Yes.” Jaggard well knew what R & D’s main present preoccupation was. “But . . . this wasn’t any of Audley’s damn business.”
“That’s not the way David Audley would see it.” He had to lead Jaggard on, evidently. “Clinton gave them carte blanche from the start—as well as direct access to
the PM—remember?” He knew that Jaggard remembered, even though R & D had been born—born by cesarian section—long before their time. “He gave them ‘Quis
custodiet ipsos custodes’ as their motto. And he always said they were his Tenth Legion, Henry—remember?”
“Huh! More like a fifth column now!” Jaggard’s nostrils expanded. “Audley isn’t even the real problem—R & D is the real problem, itself—no matter
how important the work.” He shook his head slowly. “It’s not ‘Quis custodiet’ now—it’s bloody Imperium in imperio! It’s become a state
within a state—and it’s got to be cut down to size, Garry. For the good of the state it was founded to protect, in fact.”
They were almost there. “I agree.” But he needed some reassurance, nevertheless. “But with reservations, Henry.”
“With reservations?” Jaggard gave him a fierce look. “What are you driving at?”
It wasn’t the moment to make some submissive animal-signal: Jaggard was almost as intolerant of yes-men as he was of R & D. “Their research is first rate—particularly their
analytical advice. And they’re coming up with first-rate stuff about the Gorbachev appointments right now, Henry—the Americans are trading us all manner of things in exchange for it. So
there’s no way we can abolish them—they’re far too useful.”
“Who said I want to abolish them?” The fierceness amended itself. “All we need is to control them, so that they don’t cause trouble on the side—”
Jaggard raised a slender hand “—and I don’t mean that they’re not damn good at covering up the trouble they make . . . and their mistakes, too . . . because they are—I
know that—you know that.” The hand clenched. “But they do cause trouble—and they do make mistakes—every time they go into the field on their own
account.” The fist unclenched, and Jaggard tapped the file on his desk. “Even, for example, God only knows what sort of mayhem might result from this FCO signal if I let it go any
further. Which, of course, I won’t—that, at least, I can stop, anyway.”
They were there at last. But Harvey craned his neck, as though attempting to read the superscription. “Which is that—?”
Jaggard covered it. “Audley’s too busy with the Gorbachev work. Apart from which he’ll only cause more trouble in this case, if he runs true to form.”
“Which was that?” Harvey stopped pretending to read through Jaggard’s hand. Because Jaggard was going to tell him anyway.
“Apart from which the KGB is undoubtedly up to mischief.” Jaggard gave him an unblinking stare. “And since the FCO processed the signal they’ll also want to know what the
outcome is. But I shall say no.”
“Ah!” Harvey let the light dawn. “That’ll be that odd communication about Professor Panin, I take it—?” After letting the light dawn he let himself relax.
“I was thinking . . . it’s a curious coincidence, isn’t it—eh?”
“Curious?” Jaggard stopped covering the file.
“Well, there’s obviously no connection between what Audley’s just done and whatever Professor Panin and the KGB may be contemplating.” He let that out as an arguable
statement, because they both knew who Panin was, beyond what the Soviet embassy and the FCO alleged he was. “So it is a pure coincidence, Henry. There can be no question about
that.”
The stare cracked, and Jaggard flipped open the file. “ ‘Professor Nikolai Andrievich Panin. Third Deputy Director in the Ministry of Culture: one of the foremost authorities on the
archaeology of the royal tombs (6th and 5th century BC) in the bend of the Dnieper, the districts of Poltava and Kiev, and the Crimea’?” He looked up at Garrod Harvey, then down into
the file again. “ ‘Dr. David Longsdon Audley. MBE. PhD MA (Cantab)’—” He looked at Harvey again “—‘distinguished medievalist’?”
This time he didn’t look down again. “Have you seen this SG?”
That wasn’t a trick question. “Yes. My name’s on the list, Henry.”
“Yes?” The nostrils blew out again. “But I’ve also got a clever-dick note from some wag in the FCO—did you get that, too?”
That wasn’t a trick question either. “No.”
“No?” Jaggard looked down quickly to refresh his memory. “I’ve got: ‘I. Isn’t Panin one of theirs and Audley one of yours?’ and ‘2. What has
6th–5th century BC Scythia got to do with medieval history?’ And ‘3. Are there any royal Scythian tombs on Exmoor?’ ” Jaggard considered Harvey dispassionately for a
moment. “And then they advise me that Professor Panin is to be given all reasonable help and consideration, because HM Government is concerned to improve Anglo-Soviet cultural relations,
pending projected diplomatic and cultural exchanges running up to possible East-West disarmament talks later in the year.” He gave Harvey another couple of seconds. “Are there any royal
Scythian tombs on Exmoor?”
“Not that I’ve heard of.” That was the moment, as the full awfulness of the FCO advice registered, when Garrod Harvey began to suspect that Henry Jaggard had been there ahead
of him, thinking the same wicked thoughts. “Prehistoric ones, maybe—or Neolithic. But that could be Dartmoor, not Exmoor. . . .” He let Jaggard see that he had something else in
his mind.
“Yes?” Jaggard paid his penny cautiously.
“I was just thinking.” On second thought it would be better to be honest—or fairly honest, anyway: that usually paid better with Jaggard. “Or . . . I have been
thinking.”
“About what?” Jaggard hadn’t got his pennyworth yet.
“About Audley. And Panin.” He gave Jaggard a seriously questioning glance. “I take it the FCO doesn’t really know why Panin is here? That he’s General
Zarubin’s number two, I mean?”
“They certainly do not.” There was a metallic curtness about Jaggard’s reply: it was the sound of the penny dropping. “Nobody knows except the Viking Group. You know
that.”
“Yes. So that’s just you and me, and de Gruchy.” Garrod Harvey deliberately thought aloud. “But the Americans also may have an inkling, we decided.”
“They may.” Jaggard accepted the thought. “They’ve almost certainly got someone of their own in the Soviet embassy. So it’s just possible they’ve also picked
up a hint of the Polish operation—agreed.”
“Yes. But their man is at a much lower level than our Viking.” Harvey could see that the very mention of Viking, the highest-placed contact they had ever had in the KGB’s
London station, made Jaggard cautious. Yet he still had to push matters further. “So the Polish operation is the one you want us to leave well alone.”
Jaggard stared at him. “The one we have to leave well alone, Garry.” The edge of his patience was beginning to fray. “We’ve been through all this.”
“Even though we know that Zarubin—Zarubin and now Panin . . . even though we know that they’re up to some bloody mischief.” Harvey nodded, noting the shift to
“we,” even though the emphasis had been on “have.”
“Yes.” Jaggard knew that it had been his rank-pulling decision over their indecision which had swayed the vote. But, to his credit, he had never been afraid of responsibility.
“Viking’s worth more to us than any bunch of miserable Polacks. And they must be damn close to him already—in fact, I’m not at all sure that this whole Polish thing
hasn’t been dreamed up just so that they can pin their leak down. Because we haven’t had a whisper about these so-called ‘Sons of the Eagle’ from our people in
Poland—they’ve never even heard of them. But whoever they are, and whatever the KGB’s doing, Viking is just too valuable to risk, that was the decision. So what are you after,
then?”
The moment to break cover had arrived. “Maybe we don’t have to risk Viking, Henry. Because, according to the FCO, it’s Panin who wants to meet Audley. And Audley doesn’t
know anything about Viking—it’s just that he and Panin are both ‘distinguished scholars’—” He remembered Audley’s file “—and old friends, too,
maybe?”
“ ‘Friends’?” Jaggard tossed the question aside contemptuously. “I thought you said you’d read Audley’s file? Back in
’70—remember?”
“Yes.” Panin had got exactly what he wanted in ’70. But Audley had totally humiliated him in giving him what he wanted, and that would rankle forever afterwards. But, much more
to the point, Jaggard had read that file, too. “So Panin hates Audley. But then Audley also hates Panin, Henry: he’s an old Clinton recruit. And old Fred Clinton always made a point of
recruiting on the KGB principle of good haters—‘cool head, hot heart,’ and all that.” He watched Henry Jaggard accept the statement. “True?”
“True.” Henry Jaggard nodded, out of his recent scrutiny of the Audley file: over the years, others before them had crossed swords with David Audley (and had come out of each clash
of steel with scars, and the wiser), but no one had ever even remotely hinted that his hot heart wasn’t in the right place, though he was a Cambridge man. “But Panin is a very dangerous
old man, Garry. And—”
“And so is Audley a dangerous old man, Henry.” Now they were only negotiating the fine print of the agreement. But they had to go through it line by line, for the record on the tape
under Jaggard’s desk. “It’s a toss-up which of them is the more dangerous. But I agree that there’ll be trouble when they meet.” The thought of the tape concentrated
Garrod Harvey’s mind. “Only my bet is on Audley—like last time.” There was one more important thing to put on the record. “Old Fred Clinton must have made the same bet
back in ’70.” Not that the tape mattered, really. Tapes could be edited, but editing tapes wasn’t Henry Jaggard’s style any more than throwing his subordinates to the wolves
was Jack Butler’s. “You’re quite sure that Audley doesn’t know about Viking, I take it?”
Jaggard shook his head slowly, without bothering to answer what wasn’t even a question.
“What I mean, Henry, is that he doesn’t know—and we can’t tell him, not even if we wanted to, can we?” Harvey paused deliberately. “Not even if he
asked us about Panin. Which he won’t in any case, because that isn’t his way of going about things, you see.”
Jaggard leaned forward. “Just what exactly are you proposing, Garry? To let Audley go in blind?”
“David Audley never went into anything blind in all his life.” All Jaggard wanted was a little reassurance. “One of our problems with him in the past has been that he knows too
damn much, not too little. So he’ll know Zarubin’s in London for sure—you can bet on that. And he’ll know who Zarubin is, too.”
“But Poland isn’t his field.”
“Everything is his field. He’s a Clinton-vintage R & D man born and bred, Henry.” Harvey briefly considered the possibility that he might have been wrong about
Jaggard’s intention, but rejected it. “He’s an interesting man.”
“ ‘A distinguished scholar’—so you said.” Jaggard knew there was more to come. “ ‘A medievalist.’ But I would have thought the 16th century was
more his period. The treachery was more three-dimensional then, if I remember correctly.”
“Yes.” That was Henry Jaggard’s period, of course. And, as a devout Catholic, Jaggard had equivocal views on it which were well known. “But did you know that he’s
also a recognized authority on Rudyard Kipling?”
Jaggard nodded cautiously. “Kipling is down as one of his hobbies, in his file.”
“It’s more than a hobby.” Harvey silently blessed the young Garrod Harvey junior’s stuffiest godfather, who had given his birthday presents with such old-fashioned
seriousness. “He’s just written a series of articles in the Literary Journal. Which are going to be turned into a book, I believe. He believes that Kipling is our most underrated
author—and our most misunderstood one.”
“Indeed?” Jaggard’s politeness was strained to the breaking point, like the window of the de Havilland Comet which Garrod Harvey’s own godfather had trawled up from the
sea bottom off Elba 30 years before. “So what?”
“The most recent one was on Kipling’s children’s stories.” Harvey gauged the moment when Jaggard would explode, as the Comet window had exploded. “You know, my wife
tells me that ‘We are what we eat.’ But it seems to me that, more accurately, ‘We are what we read,’ Or . . . in the present generation what we don’t
read—I suppose it’s what we see now, on the television. Which is a truly dreadful prospect—”
“Garry—” Jaggard controlled himself with difficulty. “I have to see the minister’s special adviser in about two minutes. And I don’t think I’m in
a position to stretch his patience—do you?”
It was time to lower the pressure. “I think we might have something to offer the minister. At least . . . if he’s prepared to cover our flanks, if anything truly unpleasant
occurs.” Garrod Harvey couldn’t bring himself to recall “the good of the state” as an ally, even though it had to be their only true good, for what he envisaged, because the
minister’s special adviser would only be concerned with the good of his minister. “Because Audley’s most recent article was on Kipling’s children’s stories, as I was
saying—”
It was to Jaggard’s credit that he merely opened his mouth and then closed it without exploding, like some of the Comets which had managed more flights than others.
“There’s this passage he quotes—” Harvey held Jaggard’s attention “—which just about sums up the way he operates, on the rare occasions when he goes out
into the field. Because when it’s all over he always says ‘I didn’t do anything—it just happened that way. It wasn’t my fault.’ It’s called
‘shibbuwichee,’ apparently.”
“It’s called what—?”
“ ‘Shibbuwichee.’ Which Kipling thought was a form of Japanese wrestling.” Nod. “My elder boy was given a complete set of Kipling by his godfather last year,
so I’ve been able to look it up: These wrestler-chaps have got some sort of trick that lets the other chap do all the work. Then they give a little wriggle, and he upsets himself. It’s
called “shibbuwichee,” or “tokonoma,” or something.’ ” He blessed old Hetherington again, and his own memory, too. “And that’s how Audley operates.
So what I thought was that we might do the same to him now, Henry.”
“How?” Jaggard was there, ahead of him.
“If we tell him Panin wants to see him, he won’t be able to resist that—”
“But if he does?”
“We’ll make it irresistible. Leave that to me.” Part of their usual accord was that there were some things which Jaggard didn’t need to know. “But I don’t
think he’ll want to miss Panin for a return game. And that could solve our Polish problem without the need to risk Viking. Because he’s never going to let Panin outsmart him. So you can
be sure that whatever Panin really wants, Audley will find out what it is. And he won’t let Panin get away with it.”
“But . . . if it goes the other way—?”
“Then there’ll be a scandal.” Garrod Harvey shrugged. “But if we leave Zarubin and Panin to their own devices there’ll be a scandal anyway, most likely,
Henry. But this way . . . this way it’ll be a Research and Development scandal. Because Audley will never come to us for help—it’s not in his nature to come to anyone, not
even Jack Butler if he can avoid it. And certainly not when someone like Panin is involved. He’ll want to shibbuwich the man, like last time, Henry: David Audley’s whole
psychology is dedicated to winning, not to Queensberry rules games-playing. But if he loses this time . . . then you can blow R & D wide open, Henry.”
“Yes.” That enticing possibility plainly captivated Jaggard—as it had from the start. “But if he loses, Garry—Panin’s a murderous swine . . . and
Zarubin—” He fixed Harvey coldly “—Zarubin’s worse than Panin, insofar as that’s possible, Garry.”
That was the good Catholic speaking, echoing generations of good Catholic Jaggards from the Reformation onwards, who had sweated and suffered for their faith then, and had been disadvantaged
even in liberal England for the next 300 years afterwards, down to the living memory of Henry Jaggard’s own great-grandfather. “So?”
“I can’t risk Audley.” The cold look became deep-frozen. “Bringing R & D to heel is important. But what they’re doing at the moment is important also. And
Audley’s done a lot of good work, over a lot of years, Garry. So risking him now just isn’t on.”
“I agree—I do agree, absolutely!” Harvey understood the complexity of his error and Henry Jaggard’s dilemma simultaneously: the professional and patriotic
ninety-nine-hundredths of Henry Jaggard wanted what they both wanted, but the hundredth part of Henry Jaggard was old Catholic and very different—what it wanted, that hundredth part, was
either Major General Gennadiy Zarubin on his raw knees in front of the high altar, praying for the forgiveness which the Holy Catholic Church never denied sinners . . . or Major General Gennadiy
Zarubin broken and bloody, and turned over to the civil power for appropriate final punishment, like in the old days.
“I do agree, Henry.” Garrod Harvey kept his face straight. Because what Henry Jaggard wanted was for Audley to win and lose at the same time, and that was exactly what he was now
about to offer to Henry Jaggard, and the minister’s special adviser, and the minister, and the prime minister, and Her Gracious Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II! “But my money’s on
David Audley—I think he’ll screw Panin into the ground, and General Zarubin with him. But I also think we have to give him a bodyguard, to watch over him—”
“A bodyguard—”
“That’s right: a bodyguard.” Nod. “I’ve taken that for granted.” Another nod, for good measure. “Not just to look after him, but also to keep us
informed as to how he’s breaking all the rules in the book. Because that’s what he always does—he doesn’t even pay lip service to the rules, Henry. So if he screws
Zarubin—Zarubin and Panin . . . then, even then with a bit of luck, we can still make a scandal of it—if we have someone on the inside beside him, watching him—?”
Jaggard frowned, as though some long-outdated moral scruples were attempting to skirmish with pragmatic experience, like bows and arrows against machine guns, which was no fair contest.
And yet (as though the longbowmen and crossbowmen were cheating, by capitalizing on the silence of their weapons), Jaggard was still frowning at him.
“We have to have someone alongside him, Henry.” He had to press home his technological advantage. “Otherwise he’ll weasel out of it somehow, like he always has
before.”
“He’ll never accept anyone.” Jaggard left his moral scruple behind. “Or he’ll want someone he can trust, like Mitchell or Andrew from R & D, Garry.”
Garrod Harvey shook his head. “They’re all too busy, with their own Gorbachev work. And they don’t fancy minding Audley, at the best of times.” He made a face at Jaggard.
“Minding David Audley is a thankless task. And in the past it’s also been rather dangerous. But, in any case, R & D hasn’t got the manpower for it. Or the
womanpower.”
This time Henry Jaggard knew better, and merely waited for enlightenment.
Garrod Harvey turned the shake into a nod. “I fed a few notional facts into the computer this morning—profile facts.”
Henry Jaggard looked at him, trying to pretend that he knew “notional facts” and “profile facts” from the double yellow lines on the road outside, far below them in
Whitehall. “And—?”
“I think we’ve got just the man for the job. At least . . . he’s a medievalist, of a sort. And he also speaks fluent Polish.” Garrod Harvey smiled invitingly.
Henry Jaggard was so relieved to have left the computer behind that he accepted the invitation. “And—?”
They had passed the point where Jaggard might have said “What you’re proposing is monstrous, Garry,” even though what he was now proposing was just that. “He isn’t
Audley’s son, Henry. But he could have been. Audley will never be able to resist showing off in front of him.”
TOM MOISTENED THE END OF HIS STUB OF INDELIBLE PENCIL and wrote “1025” beside the line of the bailey ditch on
his sketch map.
If Willy’s measurement of the motte ditch was about 500 feet in circumference, then the whole motte and bailey was a dead ringer for the Topcliffe castle in size, if not in
date—obviously not in date, because Topcliffe was an early post-Conquest castle, and this was as yet not anything at all except an anonymous “earthwork” on the ordnance survey
map. So it just could be Ranulf of Caen’s adulterine castle, which certainly should be somewhere hereabouts if his calculations were right.
On the other hand, it was certainly not much of a motte, he thought doubtfully, looking up into the impenetrable undergrowth above him and trying to estimate the height of the mound. It still
could be merely a fortified manor, a hundred years or more away from Ranulf’s brief medieval gangster flowering during the years of anarchy. So, allowing for the wear and tear and the wind
and rain of all the 800 years afterwards, it all depended on Willy’s measurement, which should establish the circumference and diameter of his hypothetical motte, with its stockade and tower,
which could perhaps be proved during his next leave—
The sound came from behind him—above and behind him, in the undergrowth which hemmed in the edge of the bailey ditch, at its junction with the motte ditch (if this really was a genuine
motte and bailey earthwork castle, he thought pedantically)—and he accepted that it had to be Willy, because the motte ditch was all thorn bushes and brambles, even worse than the tangle
above him.
But it wasn’t Willy: it was—he dropped his pencil as he stuffed the sketch map into the back pocket of his jeans, and automatically reached down to find it, but then stopped just as
automatically in mid-fumble, half in nothing more than surprise, but then half in momentarily irrational fear, at the glimpse of a uniform.
Then the fear was subsumed by self-contemptuous irritation with himself, for letting the sight of an ordinary British policeman frighten him—not a Mister-Plod-PC-49 fatherly copper in the
dear old high helmet admittedly, with red face and button nose and bicycle-clipped trousers, but a young copper in a flat cap, and no older than himself, who seemed just as surprised at the sight
of him, and who was even now more concerned with extricating himself from the trailing bramble sucker from last year’s blackberry g
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For the Good of the State
Anthony Price
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