Read Online Other Paths to Glory by Anthony Price - Free Book Online

he was answering questions which hadn’t even been asked, supplying information which he ought to have withheld.
    Which made no sense unless -
    ‘What is it that you want me to do?’ asked Mitchell.
    Audley laughed.
    ‘Let’s say I may have work for an expert on the battle of the Somme - how’s that?’
    ‘There are others who know far more than I do, I’ve told you that already.’
    ‘Then let’s say I also need an expert on Professor Charles Emerson, and there aren’t a lot of those around.’
    Audley paused, then continued in a much harder tone.
    ‘In fact there’s only one.’
    Mitchell frowned at the dark road ahead. He seemed to be travelling on a pre-determined journey in more senses than one.
    ‘You said “work” - you don’t mean just information.’
    ‘I said “work”, yes.’
    ‘What sort of work?’
    ‘Nothing too difficult, you’re well qualified for it by temperament I should say.’
    ‘But - supposing I refuse to do it?’
    ‘Don’t you want to see Emerson’s murderers dealt with - and the gentlemen who sent you for a late swim?’
    ‘Of course I do.’
    ‘Of course you do. I never doubted it.’ Audley paused. ‘And I think you’re being very sensible, because if I don’t look after you, no one else will … and that would be - sad.’
    Mitchell looked at him unbelievingly in the darkness.
    ‘Whereas along with me - ‘ Audley paused again.
    It was true: he was being given the choice of hunting with the hunters or being thrown to the wolves.
    ‘The fact is, Paul, your country needs you - and the safest place for you happens to be the front line.’
    The door of the bedroom opened wide. A large cardboard box - several large cardboard boxes - appeared in the opening, canted dangerously as the door was kicked shut, and were lowered to reveal Audley’s beaming face.
    ‘Your uniform, Captain Lefevre,’ he said.
    God! He hadn’t dreamed it all.

6
    MITCHELL LOOKED AT his new watch again.
    ‘It’s almost 11.15,’ he said.
    Audley nodded.
    ‘Don’t worry, he’ll be here on time. Jack’s nothing if not punctual, and in fact he’s a great deal more than that. You mustn’t be deceived by appearances with Jack -people tend to be, and then he has them on the hip. I rather think he trades on it, not being at all what he looks like. He’s a very shrewd fellow, our Jack.’
    It was a very expensive watch, the sort they advertised as not missing a second whether at the bottom of the sea or whirling about in space, he had recognised that at once when it had tumbled out of the manila envelope with the other things, the wallet and the identification card and banker’s card and the half-used cheque-book … and the letters from people he didn’t know, who probably didn’t even exist. There had even been a letter from a girl.
    He had remarked on it -
    ‘ This is a very fine watch, David. ’
    ‘ I ’ m glad you like it. A small token of our esteem. ’
    ‘ My own works perfectly well. ’
    ‘ But this is your own. The new you mustn ’ t have anything belonging to the old - it ’ s a standard precaution. ’
    That was more like it: a precaution rather than a token of esteem. And also a reminder.
    Involuntarily he felt his upper lip, gingerly at first, and then with more confidence. It felt firm and it looked real - and now he was brushing the thing just as he had seen others do. He had always taken the action as a piece of affectation designed to call attention to what was there, but now he wondered if they weren’t simply reassuring themselves about its existence, as he was doing.
    ‘But he really is a soldier?’
    ‘Jack Butler?’
    Audley looked up from his paperback.
    ‘Oh yes, and a good one too - we’re not all frauds. He won a very good Military Cross in Korea, and I believe he was a first-rate regimental officer. It says a lot for the army that they let us have him.’
    He sounded more like a collector of rare objets d’art than a - but then Mitchell still