Free Other Paths to Glory by Anthony Price Page A

name, so he’s not likely to ignore it … But if you’ve finished the drill lesson I suggest we get down to business. I want to hear those reports.’
    ‘And then?’
    ‘We have an appointment down there with a Mr Hutchinson.’
    Butler looked at Mitchell. ‘The man Emerson visited?’
    Mitchell discovered that it was impossible to shrug while holding his shoulders back, the reflex instinct to do so producing only an awkward twitch. ‘He may be, but I’d guess he’s more likely to be the wrong generation.’
    ‘ Sir. ’
    Damn it!
    ‘Sir.’
    Audley shook his head with a sign of irritation.
    ‘Come on then. We haven’t got all day.’
    Butler returned the look of irritation with one of disdain.
    ‘The reports are in the car.’
    ‘What do they say - in brief? I’ll read them later.’
    Butler looked at him in silence for a moment, as though undecided as to whether to resist the demand. Then he sighed.
    ‘Ollivier’s officially on leave. There’s a deputy in his chair at the moment, by name Georges Duveau.’
    ‘SDP?’
    Butler flicked a glance at Mitchell.
    ‘We rather think so, yes. Ollivier’s not in his flat, nor in his cottage in the Dordogne. But his car’s gone.’
    ‘Have you tried the Somme area?’
    ‘That’s where the pay-off is. Our men say there’s a security readiness alert in four northern departments - Somme, Aisne, Pas-de-Calais and Nord. The Gendarmerie are thicker on the ground in the countryside than usual, there’s a rumour that there’s a Brigade Mobile squad in Amiens and one of our chaps spotted three old plainclothes friends of his from the Surveillance du Territoire killing time in Arras.’
    ‘But no Ted Ollivier?’
    Butler shook his head.
    ‘No. But they’re definitely watching the Channel traffic and the Belgian frontier more carefully too. Nothing too obvious, but they’re there right enough. Sir Frederick says you were correct: there’s something big happening, that’s what it adds up to.’
    ‘But he doesn’t know what?’
    ‘He doesn’t. And he’d like to know how you produced your early warning too.’
    ‘You can tell him my thumbs pricked. Has there been any untoward event in those four departments - say in the last week?’
    ‘Yes. There was a car blown up in Amiens on Tuesday. Officially it was an electrical fault leading to a fire and a petrol explosion, that’s what the local newspaper reported. But the unofficial word is that it was an explosion first, then a fire.’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘That’s all. The police were on the spot very quickly indeed -too quickly, you might say. So no one really knows for certain what happened.’
    ‘Hmm …’ Audley stared thoughtfully down at the village. ‘And on the home front?’
    Butler nodded at Mitchell.
    ‘Your mother’s cleaning woman, Mrs Johnson, she says an insurance salesman called yesterday while your mother was out. He asked some leading questions about you. I gather she gave him a number of useful answers, including the time of your train from London.’
    So that was how he had been pinpointed - all too easily. But it was an incongruous thought that the garrulous and ever-helpful Mrs Johnson had very nearly talked him into the next world.
    ‘The autopsy confirms the Emerson death cause,’ went on Butler. ‘One sharp blow, that’s all. And there’s nothing on that staircase which could have done it so neatly. It’s straight murder.’
    ‘A professional job, in fact - the killing? Unlike the fire, eh?’
    ‘That’s right.’ Butler looked hard at Audley. ‘The fire investigator says the papers were pulled from the files - like a bonfire, he says. Clumsy.’
    ‘That figures.’ Audley swung round, nodding to Mitchell. ‘Like I said, they’re accustomed to violence, these people, but not to covering things up. But none of this has been made public?’
    ‘No, it’s screwed down tight for the time being.’
    Mitchell examined the two faces with conflicting feelings. Just as they had