Here Be Monsters Read online

  She could see that the taxi-driver agreed with her as she tipped him. He had been doubtful when she had named the place and specified its location; but now that they were here, surrounded by urban decay and the smell of the river (or of something worse), he was certain that it was not really the sort of destination for a well-dressed lady from Whitehall—or, at least, a lady whose face precluded any romantic or illicit intention.

  ‘Right, love?’ He watched her study the pub sign above the door of the saloon bar. ‘The Marshal Ney—right?’

  There was no name on the sign, only a representation of what might be the bravest of Napoleon’s marshals, although it looked more like a pirate brandishing a cutlass from astride a kangaroo.

  Elizabeth’s heart faltered. There wasn’t a soul in sight, only a lean black cat which paused in its unhurried crossing of the road to eye her. Then she remembered something Paul had once said. ‘Do they call it “The Frenchman”?’

  He nodded, and engaged the gears, and gave her up for lost. That’s right, love—“The Frenchman” it is.’

  She watched the taxi move slowly away—slowly, because the cat itself was in no hurry to give it right of way on its own territory—and then pushed at the door. It yielded unwillingly, with an unoiled screech.

  If anything, the smell inside was more insistent. But there, to her enormous relief, was Paul, elbow-on-bar, nursing his Guinness, with his ear inclined to a shrivelled little man on the other side.

  ‘Elizabeth!’ He straightened up—almost stood to attention. ‘What a delightful surprise!’

  Her relief, which had almost graduated to gratitude, instantly evaporated. But she could hardly say ‘What a dreadful place! Why did you bring me here?’ with the possible owner of the dreadful place staring open-mouthed at her.

  ‘Meet my friend Tom.’ Paul indicated the little man. ‘Tom—Elizabeth.’

  ‘Lizbuff.’ The little man climbed on something behind his bar, raising himself to her level, and offered her his monkey’s paw, the fingers of which were stained bright nicotine-brown.

  ‘Tom.’ She shook the paw.

  ‘You don’t wanta believe ‘im, though.’ The little man half-glanced at Paul, screwing up his face, which he was able to do the more expressively because he seemed to have no teeth.

  ‘In what way shouldn’t I believe him?’ Elizabeth questioned this sound advice innocently.

  ‘I ain’t’s friend, for starters.’ Tom emitted a curious sucking noise. ‘An’ ‘e ain’t surprised, neither. ‘E was expectin’ you.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ He had only confirmed her most recent conclusion, but it was still irritating to be computed so accurately. ‘And what made you so sure, Paul?’

  ‘I wasn’t sure—not quite.’ He was unabashed by Tom’s betrayal. ‘Tom—why don’t you just push off to your other bar, like a good chap, eh?’

  ‘Oh yus?’ The little man didn’t move. ‘Lady’s teetotal, is she? Ain’tcha got no manners, then?’

  ‘Will you have a drink, Elizabeth?’

  ‘It’s a little early for me.’ She smiled at Tom. ‘If you don’t mind.’

  ‘Suit yourself, Miss.’ Tom stepped down off his box and shuffled towards a faded curtain at the other end of the bar. But then he stopped and turned back, with his hand on the curtain. ‘Prob’ly jus’ as well. You wanta ‘ave yer wits about yer wiv ‘im, Miss. ‘Cause ‘e’s artful.’ He nodded. ‘Artful—like the other one.’ He watched her with sharp little eyes. ‘The big fella—okay?’

  ‘Okay.’ She wondered how much he knew—or guessed—about their business. ‘Thank you, Tom.’

  ‘And thank you too, Tom,’ Paul called after the little man as he disappeared through the curtain. ‘I’ll do the same for you some time.’

  Elizabeth studied him. ‘Why were you so sure I’d come?’

  He returned the scrutiny. ‘I wasn’t sure. It depended on … oh, several things.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Does it matter—now you’re here?’

  Artful. It was a curiously archaic word, but nonetheless accurate. ‘Let me guess. You thought maybe I wouldn’t get away from David Audley? “For starters”, as Tom would say?’

  ‘That was certainly a consideration.’ He drank again. ‘Let’s say, Elizabeth, that I did you the compliment of assuming that you would. And that you would then do what I would do, if I were in your dainty shoes.’

  She had to clear this matter first. ‘But you’re not, are you.’

  ‘No. More’s the pity.’

  ‘So what has all this got to do with you?’

  He thought for a moment. ‘If I was to say that what happens to you does concern me—‘ He held up his hand quickly to forestall her ‘—no, let me finish—that would not be good enough, I know! So I’ll give you a choice: either I’m insatiably inquisitive, and when something rather extremely interesting is happening I like to know about it—especially when I’ve been written out of it.’ He smiled. ‘Curiosity and sour grapes, maybe?’

  Some truth might be there, but nowhere near all of it. ‘Or?’

  ‘Or … ’ He took another moment. ‘You know, the way our revered department works, Elizabeth, is never in straight lines. We circle round problems, in different dimensions, looking for openings. We behave eccentrically, even amateurishly, and certainly unpredictably.’ He squinted at her suddenly. ‘How did you get away from David?’

  Whatever it was that he didn’t want to say, it must be closer to the truth. But she would come back to it from a different direction. ‘I’ll tell you how, Paul—if you’ll tell me why you tried to follow me this morning.’

  ‘To the Xenophon Building?’

  She stared at him. ‘What? I started from outside there. But—?’

  ‘You thought you’d lost me? You did. But I’ve seen David use that silly trick before. And the coincidence of Xenophon was worth a try, so I went back and lurked behind the Magdala obelisk. And back you came.’

  ‘What coincidence?’

  ‘Oh—come on, Elizabeth!’ He cocked his head at her knowingly, but also with a suggestion of anger. ‘Stop buggering around, for God’s sake!’

  ‘What do you mean?’ She hated to be sworn at like that, and he knew it.

  ‘What do I mean?’ The anger increased. ‘I mean … I mean that I stuck my neck out for you this morning, to the edge of blowing a secure classification, when I gave you Ed Parker. Because you weren’t cleared then for the material in which his name comes up—I know, because I punched it up on the computer not ten minutes before, and your name wasn’t on it. There were only four names there: Jack Butler’s, of course. And then Latimer, Oliver St John and Audley, David Longsdon, and finally poor bloody Mitchell, Paul Lefevre. And the computer duly registered that I’d made that particular inquiry, so any moment now I shall be in trouble, for sure.’

  ‘Paul -‘

  ‘No. I haven’t finished. So then you went in for your little session with Fatso, and did your Joan of Arc bit, letting yourself be summoned by your voices. Which I also know, because I waited for a bit, and then I punched the Beast again. And low and behold! There was a new name on the clearance! Which was—would you believe it—none other than Loftus, Elizabeth Jane. Recognize that name?’

  ‘Paul—‘

  ‘I haven’t finished, dear Elizabeth Jane.’ He bulldozed forwards. ‘Which inquiry the computer also duly registered. But you can only die once, so they say … So what did Elizabeth Jane do then, I ask you? Or, what did she eventually do? Why, she went and stood outside the London headquarters of Xenophon Oil Incorporated, did she not? Which are presided over by none other than Barrie, Sir Peter William, KBE, whose name also rang a bell, because it figured in a certain list, from long ago, to which Elizabeth Jane now has free access. Correct?’

  As a small boy, he must have been objectionable, she decided. Indeed, she had known girls at school like him, whose power lay in their precocious understanding of how systems worked, and who never scrupled to use their knowle
dge. But, on the other hand, he had stuck his neck out—for that last and as-yet-unrevealed reason.

  He nodded. ‘But that was all of two hours since.’ He looked at his watch. ‘What have you done with David, Elizabeth Jane?’

  He had never called her ‘Elizabeth Jane’ before. But there was an edge of bitterness in that additional ‘Jane’ which could mean that he was going off her at last, thank heavens!

  ‘I gave him a job to do. Or two jobs, actually.’ When she thought about it, she didn’t really want him to go off her in bitterness: she wanted so very much for him still to be a friend, but even more than that she needed him as a colleague, to pick his brains.

  ‘Two jobs?’ He grinned. ‘I’ll bet he didn’t like that!’ The grin vanished. ‘Was one of them—‘ The rattle of the curtain-runners stopped him. ‘What is it, Tom?’

  The strange sucking noise was repeated. ‘Thought you might like a refill, Doctor Mitchell. An’ maybe it’s not too early for the lady now?’

  ‘Go away, Tom,’ said Paul.

  ‘I only arsked—‘

  ‘And I only said “Go away”.’ Paul addressed the curtain, which had closed again, and then caught Elizabeth’s eye, which had just taken in the emptiness of the saloon bar of the Marshal Ney public house. ‘You don’t need to worry, Elizabeth Jane: he’s nipped out and put a “Closed” sign on the door, so we shan’t be disturbed. And his standard charge is pound a minute, or double-or-quits. But he won’t play with me, because he says I cheat when we cut the cards.’ He shrugged. ‘Which isn’t true, actually—I’m just lucky at cards. But half the burglaries in this part of London are probably planned here anyway at the same rate—a pound a minute, tax-free. Or double-or-quits.’

  It was all according to what you were used to, remembered Elizabeth. ‘”One of them”, you were saying?’

  ‘Yes. Was one of those jobs to talk to Neville Macready? About Sir Peter Barrie?’

  Neville Macready was their economic intelligence specialist, so that would have been a sensible move, thought Elizabeth. So she would not deny it. ‘And if it was?’

  ‘I’ve already asked him.’ He accepted her question as an admission all too easily because it suited him. ‘Xenophon’s money is Texas money, ultimately. So Barrie’s loyalties are American, in the final analysis. Macready says he’s buddy-buddy with the State Department at a high level when it comes to global decisions. He advises the Americans, and then they tell him what to do. And then he does it, more or less—sometimes more, and sometimes less, but always thereabouts.’

  ‘Indeed?’ She tried to sound more knowledgeable than she was. ‘But Xenophon’s big in the North Sea.’

  ‘Oh, sure. And Barrie was one of the driving forces there early on. That’s how he got his “K”. In fact, Mac rates him a pretty sound chap, all in all … I think he must have tipped us off now and then, about American intentions, for Mac to be so protective.’ He cocked an eyebrow. ‘I hope you haven’t been nasty to him—you or David? I don’t think Mac would like that very much.’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head hastily. Maybe she should have seen Neville Macready herself. But after that one look at the Haddock Thomas material on screen—and only on screen, because no print-out was allowed—it had seemed even more urgent to pick Paul’s brains further.

  ‘I should bloody-well hope so!’ He pulled a face. ‘Barrie can probably pull strings all the way to the Cabinet Office. You’re messing with the top brass now, Elizabeth Jane. And don’t say that I didn’t warn you, either!’

  He was patronizing her again, but this time she had to be nice to him, no matter what he said. ‘You did warn me.’ Why was it so hard to smile at him? ‘I’m grateful for that.’ The smile came at last, even though she was ashamed of it. ‘So now I really would like to know what the hell’s going on, Paul dear.’

  ‘Uh-huh?’ The smile weakened him, but insufficiently. ‘What d’you think is going on?’

  That was fair enough really. He had given her what he thought was good advice, and she hadn’t taken it. And he had also given her information, which she had used, and he could yet be in deep trouble for that. So now he wasn’t going to give her anything she didn’t deserve.

  ‘I think two quite separate things are going on, actually—related in one respect, but quite separate in another. Am I right?’

  ‘Could be.’ He waited shamelessly.

  ‘How did you know I’d have to get away from David Audley to keep this illicit rendezvous?’

  He shrugged. ‘Simple Sherlock Holmes deduction, from known facts and soundly-based assumptions.’ He grinned. ‘And I also asked him what he was doing.’

  ‘And he told you? Just like that?’

  Another shrug. ‘It was while you were playing Joan of Arc. And he was there, like Mount Everest waiting for Mallory. Or was it Irvine?’ He pretended to frown. ‘No matter. All you have to remember is what happened to both of them: they were never seen again.’ He nodded.

  The thought of Audley cooling his heels at the office a second time inhibited her from playing his game. And if that meant seeming prissy, then so be it! ‘You know that David has been told off to help me? And Major Turnbull too?’

  ‘The Major? Phew!’ He sketched surprise. ‘I didn’t know that … I did know about David … from David. Better you than me, Elizabeth Jane—that’s what I know. Better you than me.’

  It was time to play dirty. ‘Perhaps I’ll ask for you next—seeing as you know so much already, Paul. And you’re so keen to help.’

  Mock horror. ‘Oh no! Perish the thought!’ Then he was suddenly serious. ‘Someone’s got to mind the shop in Cheltenham. Though without David there isn’t much I can do except cross my fingers and hope for the best.’ He weakened even as he spoke. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘If you want to help me, then just tell me about the Debrecen List.’

  ‘The Debrecen List?’ His face closed up. ‘But you know all about that now—?’

  ‘Only what’s in the record.’

  ‘Well, you’d do better to ask David.’ He was himself again. ‘I was … God! Was I at prep school then?’ He scratched his head. ‘I was in short grey trousers and long socks, anyway—long socks with elastic garters under the turn-overs … No—you’d better ask David. He was right there—in the middle of it all!’

  ‘But I’m asking you. Because you’re on the “Need to know” list.’

  ‘That was pure accident. It was only because of something which came up last year, when Fatso was in America—you remember the flap there was then, last summer? When we were all on holiday relief as acting duty-officers? You were on the edge of it, I seem to recall. I put through a call to you one evening—which you handled with your customary efficiency.’ He smiled. ‘You remember?’

  ‘Yes.’ She nodded cautiously.

  ‘Well, that was Fatso. He’d got himself into all sorts of trouble over there, asking the wrong people the right questions.’

  ‘But there was nothing about … about Mr Latimer in the file, Paul.’

  He gave her a sly wink. ‘Yes … well, there wouldn’t be, would there? Old Fatso doesn’t wash his dirty linen in private—he buries it deep, so no one can get wind of it.’ He thought for a moment. ‘But … let’s see now … if you compare the date of entry of that item about the death of a man named Robinson, and the CIA maybe reactivating their Debrecen operation because of it, then I think you’ll find that it coincides with the absence of one Oliver St John Latimer on a private and unofficial visit to foreign parts. Which I take to be cause and effect.’

  Elizabeth stared at him, desperately trying to recall the tantalizing ingredients of the Debrecen material from her one quick—too quick—reading of it: from those very strangely hot-and-cold beginnings in 1958 which had been equally strangely terminated the following year, through the long, empty silence afterwards, over one whole quarter of a century.

  ‘But that wasn’t the start of it.’ It didn’t need any stretch-of-memory to produce the o
ne other Debrecen entry, which had preceded Oliver St John Latimer’s trouble by a year. ‘Or the re-start?’

  Paul stared back at her. The Irishman, you mean? The also-deceased Irishman?’ The stare became blandly cynical. ‘I had nothing to do with that—that was all David Audley’s work. I wasn’t even in England then.’

  ‘But the Irishman was going to tell us about Debrecen.’

  ‘Maybe.’ He shrugged. ‘Whatever he was going to tell us, he was killed before he could talk. And it wasn’t David’s fault. He seems to have behaved fairly heroically, reading between the unwritten lines.’

  ‘Yes.’ She had never thought of loyalty as being one of Paul’s few virtues, so the temptation to press him was irresistible. ‘But then David needs to be heroic where Debrecen is concerned, doesn’t he?’

  ‘What—?’ He covered up whatever it was—could it really be that virtue?—by leaning over the bar and staring at the curtain ‘—what I need is another drink, Elizabeth Jane—Tom!’

  ‘And what I need is for someone to tell me the true story of the whole Debrecen episode, Dr Mitchell.’

  ‘You don’t want much, do you!’ He still concentrated on the curtain. ‘Drat the man! Tom!’ But the curtain still refused to open. ‘But you’ve looked at the Beast, anyway.’

  ‘The computer has been edited.’

  ‘What d’you expect?’ He gave up. ‘Look, Elizabeth Jane—Miss Loftus—everyone has a skeleton in the closet somewhere. You have, I’ll bet … I know I have … and so has Research and Development. And you never know who’ll come poking in the closet some day. So what d’you expect?’

  ‘Who edited the computer?’ She somehow couldn’t imagine Colonel Butler breaking the rules. And although rules meant nothing to David Audley, he lacked the seniority to doctor securely classified material. ‘Was it Latimer?’