Free For the Good of the State by Anthony Price Page B

terrace, and the bullet had struck high up, at the exact junction of four small lead-lights, driving the lead inwards and cracking others below them. So—
    ‘A long shot,’ said Audley. ‘It was a long shot.’
    ‘How do you know?’ But he was almost certainly right, thought Tom. ‘Or are you trying to reassure me?’
    ‘I’m trying to reassure myself, more like! I don’t know— ’ Audley checked himself again, but only for a fraction of a second. ‘ Stop there! Not another step, Cathy! ’
    Tom shifted his gaze from the smashed window, and saw half of what Audley had seen from where he lay, which was framed in the arch.
    ‘But, Father—’
    ‘Not another step—understand?’ Audley’s voice steadied. ‘Do you hear me?’
    ‘I hear you, Father.’ The visible part of the tea-tray quivered. ‘But I don’t understand you. Is there something— ’ The tray lurched slightly ‘—Father … what on earth are you doing?’
    ‘Where’s your mother?’ The man’s voice was almost conversational now. ‘Not another step—remember? And I mean that. Where’s Mummy?’
    ‘She’s shutting the windows,’ Cathy snapped back irritably. ‘To keep out your smoke, Father … And I think she’s just broken the one that sticks, in the little bedroom— I heard the glass go … So she’s not going to be very pleased with you, because she’s been asking you for ages to make it easier to close.’ She paused only for an instant. ‘Is there something I can’t see, that I’m about to step on? Because this tray weighs a ton!’
    ‘Go—’ Audley choked slightly on the word, and Tom sympathized with him as he cleared his throat ‘—go back to the kitchen. Don’t … ’ He trailed off, as though he was thinking again, and drew a deep breath. ‘Someone’s just taken a shot at us, love—from somewhere up on the hillside. What you heard was the bullet hitting the window— okay?’
    For a moment of disbelief the tray was steady as a rock. ‘Yes, Father?’ Then it trembled. ‘Now?’
    ‘Wait!’
    Tom stared at Audley, aware irrelevantly that he could now smell the bonfire against which Faith Audley was closing her windows.
    ‘There’s my good girl!’ said Audley softly. ‘Go back and find your mother. Keep away from the windows. Find her … and say to her “Limejuice”—“ Limejuice”— got that?’
    ‘Yes, Father.’
    ‘Repeat it—’ Audley held his voice so unnaturally steady that the steadiness somehow emphasized his urgency ‘—repeat it, love, please.’
    ‘ “Limejuice”.’ Cathy sounded slightly offended. ‘ “Limejuice”, Father.’
    ‘Jolly good!’ The false encouragement sounded equally unnatural. ‘Off you go then, love.’
    But that wouldn’t do for Cathy Audley—Tom wanted to shake his head at the man, but he was staring too fixedly at the archway.
    The edge of the tray stayed in view. ‘But … but … ’
    ‘Off you go!’ Then Audley looked at Tom, and understood the limits of obedience belatedly. ‘I’ve got Tom Arkenshaw here to protect me, Cathy love—that’s what he’s here for.’ He grinned hideously at Tom. ‘Isn’t that so, Sir Thomas—?’
    Tom smelt the bonfire again, and thought that he would never smell a bonfire in the future—if there was a future—without smelling his own inadequacy. ‘That’s right, Miss Audley,’ he agreed.
    ‘ What’s this ?’ Another voice from somewhere behind the child startled him just as the tray, and that part of her which he could see, disappeared. ‘Have you broken something, Cathy—?’
    ‘ “Limejuice”, Mummy—’ The child cut through her mother’s angry question ‘—Father says “ Limejuice ” !’
    Tom strained his ears to catch the woman’s reaction, but there was only a moment’s silence hemmed in between the wall and the house, against the distant drone of a faraway aircraft. Then there came a clink of teacups on the tray followed by the sound of the back door closing. So …