Here Be Monsters Read online

  And she had been stupid too, thought Elizabeth: the French had been on to the Pointe du Hoc, and they would surely have traced Major Parker back to St Servan after the Americans and the British had demonstrated their interest in him. And, as she had cause to know from even her limited experience, the DST was jealous of foreign intelligence intrusions.

  ‘Stupid?’ Richardson snorted. ‘Apart from your youthful indiscretions—about which I’m glad to say I know nothing … my God, David! You’re a three-time loser anywhere. But here of all places!’

  ‘Here?’ Elizabeth glanced for a second at the dense holiday-traffic on the other side of the autoroute, heading south, and then at the sign pointing them northwards, past Avignon and Orange, to distant Lyons and faraway Paris. ‘Why here?’

  Richardson reached down and threw a map back into her lap. ‘Don’t you do any homework in London? Doesn’t the Plateau d’Albion mean anything to you?’

  She looked at him. ‘The Plateau—?’

  ‘Perfide Albion is us, Miss Loftus,’ said Richardson. ‘The Plateau d’Albion is where the French have got their ..IRMBs siloed—plus one or two longer-range missiles now, I shouldn’t wonder. Right, David?’

  Audley took the map from her. ‘St Servan’s in the sensitive radius?’

  ‘What the hell d’you think? It may not be in the red radius, but it’s for damn sure in the pink. And they may not be able to log every tourist who drives along the Nesque gorges, but they’ll have logged every foreigner resident in the pink zone. And there are enough large hoof-prints around your Dr Caradog Thomas by now to make them decidedly twitchy, I’d guess—‘ Richardson leaned back ‘—unless you know something that I don’t know, anyway—?’

  Audley looked at her at last. ‘I think we maybe are in trouble, Elizabeth. Or … like the man says … we’re going to have to be very quick, in and out.’

  ‘And gone,’ agreed Richardson. ‘If we can get away from St Servan in one piece, Dale’s got a man in Avignon who can split you up. And then you can head for Belgium, not the nearest frontiers, which will be covered. Or you can throw yourselves in the embassy in Paris and shout “Sanctuary! Sanctuary”, like the Hunchback, and make it a diplomatic incident. Just so long as I’m back home in Italy, I don’t give a damn!’

  ‘It’s that bad? Is it, Peter?’

  The shoulders lifted. ‘Search me—this is not my territory. But Dale ran like a frightened rabbit. And he doesn’t scare easily.’

  ‘Among others?’ Elizabeth had been trying in vain to get a word in edgeways. ‘What others?’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Richardson. ‘He thought the Other Side was maybe savouring the tourist attractions of the Vaucluse. So that also helped to concentrate his mind.’

  ‘The KGB?’ Audley notoriously hated departmental euphemisms.

  The shoulders lifted again. ‘He wasn’t sure. But he wasn’t happy.’ Richardson rocked in his seat. ‘But don’t get me wrong: he ran because he saw this DST heavyweight—not because of any damn Red.’

  It was all going wrong, thought Elizabeth. It had gone wrong in Fordingwell, before it had properly started. And now it was going wrong in France, before they had even reached St Servan-les-Ruines. And she couldn’t even say that she hadn’t been warned: Paul had seen his damn tripod masts looming out of the mist yesterday. Perhaps David Audley had seen them too—perhaps that was why he hadn’t demanded to run the show, even.

  ‘So you’re in charge, here on the ground, Peter,’ said Audley mildly.

  Richardson muttered something Italian. ‘In charge? Do me a favour, David! We’re consultants, not the cloak-and-dagger brigade. I’m supposed to be in Milan at this moment—where are you supposed to be? What’s Dale really supposed to be doing?’ He tossed his head. ‘I’m sorry, Miss Loftus, but it’s the truth: I’m not really in charge of anything—we don’t have the resources for that sort of game. So Dale’s got two watchers—a nice enough couple, husband-and-wife, and she’s pretty as a picture—and they’re such bloody amateurs that they might even get away with it, I don’t know … But amateurs, all the same—and if I was properly in charge of a surveillance which attracted a personal appearance of Dr David Audley—and, saving your presence, David, your presence attracts trouble like a pile of butcher’s offal attracts flies—then I’d need six people, at the very least. And they’d have to be good. And even if they were, I’d want them changed every three days.’ He began to accelerate past a line of lorries labouring northwards up a gradient. ‘In a high security zone, Miss Loftus, it’s like the old Arab proverb: guests start to smell on the third day.’ He pushed the Fiat past the last lorry. ‘But now you are in charge. And I await your orders.’

  They were all the same, though Elizabeth bitterly: the smell of trouble made them all take refuge in someone else’s responsibility if they couldn’t run for cover. ‘What did Dr Dale tell you about Dr Thomas? I assume he briefed you before he left?’

  ‘Oh, yes—‘ He took another look at her, and met her dark glasses again with his own ‘—yes, he did that. But he didn’t know quite what he was supposed to be doing, of course. Any more than I do.’

  ‘What did he say?’ There was no point in sharing her own doubts with him: one of the things she had to learn fast was not to sympathize with other people’s minor problems. She had given her youth to Father’s every whim, anyway: so if ex-Captain Richardson didn’t like his job he could complain to someone else later. If he should be so lucky.

  ‘Not a lot, really.’ He didn’t like not knowing, and he didn’t like her much either—just as he didn’t much go for Audley. In fact, he was probably adjusting ugly bastard Audley to ugly bitch Loftus at this moment.

  ‘Tell me not-a-lot, then.’ It was really no different from teaching recalcitrant third formers, who had to be driven before they could be led.

  ‘He’s an old man—an old dog retired to his kennel in the sun.’ He shrugged. ‘What is there to tell?’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Peter!’ exploded Audley. ‘Stop shitting us!’

  ‘An old dog—okay.’ Audley’s sudden anger calmed her even more. Because, if Haddock Thomas was an old dog, and Richardson was a dog in the prime of its life, then it must be hard on an old dog like Audley with a bitch like Elizabeth Loftus alongside him.

  ‘An old dog, Mr Richardson?’

  ‘Huh!’ Audley growled as he subsided into his own kennel. ‘An old Caradog, more like!’

  ‘What?’ Richardson made no sense of that.

  ‘Dr Thomas, Mr Richardson,’ said Elizabeth.

  ‘”Doc”—M’sieur Doc, to be exact—that’s what the locals call him—‘ He massaged the steering wheel’—but that’s funny, you know. Because Dale said it didn’t have anything to do with him being Doctor Thomas—“le est professeur”, is what they say, if you push them. Like, in Italy, we say professore, not dottore. So I don’t know why he’s “M’sieur Doc”.’

  Audley grinned at her, with sudden pure wicked pleasure. ‘Haddodt, son of Cymbeline, or Cunobelin, King of the Brigantes and Enemy of Rome, before Queen Cartimandua handed him over to the Romans, Elizabeth—remember?’

  Caractacus—Caradoc—Caradog—Craddock—Haddock … and finally M’sieur Doc, in his final metamorphosis, thought Elizabeth. ‘So what do the locals say about him, Mr Richardson?’

  ‘Nothing to his shame, Miss Loftus.’ Richardson leaped over all Audley’s nonsense to come to the point. ‘They think the world of the old devil, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘Old devil?’

  ‘I merely quote Andy Dale. The old boy first came there on his honeymoon, and he’s owned the cottage for donkey’s ages. It seems his wife died young, but he still used to come down every summer, and sometimes in the spring too. So he’s pretty much part of the scenery. Goes every morning to get his bread and his two-day-old Times, and every evening for his drink with the lads—he likes his drink … Chats up the women—likes them too … Waves at the girls, and they wave back.’ Richardson paused. ‘In his youn
ger days he did more than wave, apparently.’

  Audley gave her an ‘I-told-you-so’ look.

  They think the world of him, anyway: “the famous English professor”.’

  ‘Does he have visitors?’

  ‘He has lots of visitors. That is, apart from his local cronies who crack bottles with him regularly. It seems his old pupils call on him quite often. And there are parties of boys from his old school come in the summer. Usually half-a-dozen, plus a master. The boys camp out in his little garden. The word in the village is that they talk together in Latin and Greek, and he tells them tales of Jules Cesar and his great wars in these parts.’ He stared at her in his mirror. ‘Real subversive stuff, eh?’

  ‘Recent visitors?’

  ‘No boys at the moment. There was an elderly American a week or so ago—“ professeur Americain”, according to the locals, Dale says. Stayed one night at the Vieille Auberge. Name of Parker. Visited him in the evening. Left next morning.’

  ‘Name of Parker?’ Audley shook his head at her. ‘It just doesn’t make any sense, Elizabeth. Even if Parker was running scared—if he knew the CIA was on his heels—one side or the other—‘

  The CIA?’ Richardson gave a start. ‘Oh Christ, David! Not them too!’

  ‘Does he have a phone?’ snapped Audley.

  ‘Yes, he does—Christ! David—us and the Other Side … and the Yanks! You’ll never get away with it—‘

  ‘Parker could have phoned.’ Audley ignored Richardson. ‘They could have met somewhere safe perfectly easily. He didn’t need to leave tracks a mile wide, Elizabeth—right to Haddock’s door.’

  ‘Haddock?’ Richardson waited in vain for an explanation. ‘I was going to suggest that we might just pass you off as another visiting professor, David. And if you go in and out like greased lightning, and get what you want from the old devil and then run like hell … But if the entire intelligence population of Western Europe has been sniffing round St Servan—no wonder Andy Dale abandoned ship!’

  It was worse than that, thought Elizabeth. If they hadn’t been on to Parker when he’d visited Haddock Thomas, the French would surely have been on to him after the Pointe du Hoc. So they were damn well bound to be in St Servan—she should have expected that even without Dale’s confirmation. So they would be driving into a trap now.

  Audley was looking at her. ‘Well, Elizabeth?’

  ‘Our turn-off is about ten kilometers ahead,’ said Richardson. ‘But I can turn left, into Avignon, instead of right. And if there’s anyone on our tail, they won’t be expecting that. Or, even if they are, I can run them around and zip into the underground car park in the piazza by the papal palace—they’ll have to be bloody good to follow us there before we can ditch this car and run. And Dale’s man in Avignon will split us up and get us out from there.’ He shrugged. ‘I can come back to the car, if you like, and make like I’m waiting for you.’ He shrugged again. ‘If they made me at the airport then I haven’t got anything to lose. And I haven’t actually done anything … except chauffeur a three-time loser a few miles. So they’ll just hold me for a day or two, and maybe lean on me a bit, and ask me for my name and number.’ Another shrug. ‘Or with any luck they’ll just follow me back to the Italian frontier, and see me off the premises.’

  What should she do? wondered Elizabeth desperately.

  ‘It’s less than five kilometers now, actually,’ said Richardson. ‘And counting.’

  She wanted to ask Audley what to do. But if she did then she’d never be able to make a decision again without remembering that she hadn’t measured up, this first time.

  ‘They might not be following us, of course.’ Richardson thought aloud for her benefit. They could be so sure of us that they’re just waiting at St Servan. Or they may not be there at all—I don’t want to influence you, Miss Loftus. Because they could be as incompetent as we are, even. Unlikely as it may seem.’

  That was dirty play. Because they both knew that the French might make big mistakes, usually for political reasons, but they seldom failed at this level, and particularly not where the Americans and the British were involved, who were soft targets.

  ‘Harumph!’ Audley emitted a strangulated sound, after having tried almost pathetically to keep silent. ‘Remember what Colonel Butler always says: “Booger them! Thee do tha’ owern thing, lass!”’

  Colonel Butler had certainly never said anything like that in her hearing, if it was a Lancashire accent which Audley was attempting to reproduce.

  But the French motorway signs were coming up ahead—

  Pride or prudence? Or common sense? Father believed that women had been fabricated from Adam’s rib without any of those qualities—

  Major Birkenshawe had said once, when she had come to say ‘Goodnight’, although she had not been going to bed, because she had been typing one of Father’s manuscripts at the time: ‘Come on, Loftus — you knew Jerry was going to hit you with his E-boats, that last time—because you’d got the Ultra decode—Liza, my dear! Off to bed? Just trying to get a straight answer from your father—eh, Loftus?’

  And Father had said, without looking at her, as though she didn’t exist, ‘My dear Birkenshawe — the Navy, unlike the Army, isn’t hired to run away. It’s hired to fight -Goodnight, Elizabeth—‘

  ‘Turn right, Mr Richardson. I have absolutely no desire to visit the underground car park at Avignon. So let’s go to St Servan.’

  Richardson drove, as he was told: signalled, slowed, drove … slowed again, signalled again, and finally accelerated without another word, letting his silence pronounce his disapproval.

  Elizabeth stared out of the window, trying to see what she found herself looking at. She had always wanted to visit Provence: it was one of those places every schoolteacher ought to know, the land of van Gogh and Cezanne, and Madame de Sevigne, and Daudet and his mill, and Tartarin de Tarascon, and St Louis at Aigues-Mortes, and above all the monumental relics of the Romans. But in Father’s time she had never travelled anywhere, and now she couldn’t see anything at all—just a rich foreign countryside like a great busy market garden full of fiercely growing things glimpsed in gaps in cypress hedges and lattices of bamboo.

  Why was nothing ever as it ought to be, not even freedom and power and adventure?

  ‘Hah-hmm … ’ Audley cleared his throat, as though to attract her attention. ‘Quite right, Elizabeth. For the record.’

  She looked at him in surprise. ‘For the record?’

  He smiled. ‘You didn’t ask me for advice. You did your own thing. But, for the record, I am advising you nevertheless … to go on to St Servan.’ He tapped Richardson on the shoulder, somewhat urgently. ‘Got that, Peter Richardson? “Dr Audley insisted—“—got that?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ They burst out of a shadowy avenue of cypresses into open country at last, with hills ahead, and other hills behind misting into a heat haze. ‘”There is the enemy—there are the guns”: if Captain Nolan comes back from the Valley of Death he will dutifully recall what Lord Lucan said to Lord Cardigan. Just so he comes back all in one piece is all he cares about now. But he will dutifully and gratefully recall every last word and syllable afterwards. If there is an afterwards.’

  Elizabeth still looked at Audley, trying hard not to feel affection for him. Because sentiment was always dangerous in this game, and with someone as devious as David it might well be dangerously misplaced, too. ‘Why, David?’

  ‘I was going to ask you the same question, my dear.”

  Why?’

  ‘I asked first.’

  ‘But you’re in charge. I am but a soldier-of-the-line - … Or, in these parts, a time-expired legionary cheated in his discharge.’

  ‘Then, if I’m in charge, I can pull rank on you, David.’

  Another smile. ‘And I recruited you, didn’t I? So I have no one else to blame, except myself?’ He also chuckled. ‘Fair enough!’

  It wasn’t fair enough: if they had played dirty with her, they’d played even
dirtier with him. But it was a dirty game, and no one had forced him to play it. And she had other, dirtier doubts about him, anyway.

  ‘I’m too old for this sort of thing. But, more than that—much more than that—I’m too busy: I have much more urgent and important things to do, than worry about some allegedly horrendous mistake I made, years ago—That, when the brains were out, the man would die, And there an end; but now they rise again, With twenty mortal murders on their crowns, And push us from our stools—

  ‘So now I must stop what I ought to be doing, and manoeuvre to protect my back from my enemies on my own side. And I can’t blame them, that’s the trouble. Because, in their shoes I might be doing just the same thing. Because there is something bloody queer about all this—I know that, if I know nothing else.’

  Audley fell silent and Peter Richardson drove furiously. And the orchards and almond-groves had fallen behind them: now there were vineyards, immaculately cultivated, with distant ruined castles on the low hills on either side of them. ‘What we’re doing, Elizabeth, is running out of time. Because this whole affair revolves around time, I suspect. Because Parker didn’t need to call on Haddock Thomas the way he did—he could have taken his time to set up that meeting. And why did he go over that cliff at the Pointe du Hoc? They could have taken him out any time—just as they could have taken out Haddock Thomas.’

  ‘And Major Turnbull?’

  ‘Turnbull?’ The car swerved slightly. ‘What’s with old Brian at the moment? I heard Jack Butler had acquired him after he’d lost his cover. Is he in on this?’

  ‘Mmm … ?’ Audley pretended not to have heard the question properly. ‘What about him? Brian alias Turnbull?’

  ‘Nothing. Difficult old sod.’ Richardson shook his head. ‘Remember me to him, though. And … just tell him it wasn’t my fault, that business about his cover. But if he’d stayed where he was he’d have been on borrowed time—tell him that.’