Here Be Monsters Page 8

  ‘You wish for more of my theories, Miss Loftus?’

  That, of course, was what was really so painful to him, although he showed no sign of pain (or anything else, for that matter!): the nearer he was to facts, the happier he was, the further away, the unhappier. So the odds were that his report had been much more severely factual than this, and much less a card-house. ‘Yes, Major.’

  ‘Very well. If we assume that he did go over the cliff from that gully, we need a reason for him making the descent into it. And if the American boy was telling the truth about him, then there is at least one good reason. Which would also account for the presence of the two adult Americans, who were covering him at a discreet distance.’

  If he was making this painful effort, then it was only fair to meet him half-way this time—especially as he had already committed himself on the likely identity of the Americans. ‘He was making a contact.’

  ‘That is correct.’ He looked at her. ‘You may know better, Miss Loftus … but the manner of my assignment to him suggests that to me.’

  ‘Yes.’ Elizabeth hid behind a sympathetic nod of agreement. ‘Yes, Major?’

  ‘The gully is not an ideal place for a contact, Miss Loftus. It has the advantage of being dead ground unless you actually overlook it—and the man and the woman were well-placed both to do that, and to observe the approaches from all directions. But all those approaches are wide open to observation—it has no covered approach, or exit. If I am right, he went there because that was where he was told to go. But also, if I am right, it was never a contact point. It was a killing ground—that is the sum of my opinion, Miss Loftus.’

  The card-house was complete. But she couldn’t leave it quite there. ‘What was the actual cause of death?’

  ‘Multiple injuries, consistent with old bones falling a vertical distance of nineteen metres. The beach at that point is composed of fallen chalk and large pebbles. You could find a similar beach westward from Eastbourne, past Beachy Head, Miss Loftus. Somewhere towards Birling Gap, where I used to go shrimping when I was a boy.’ He showed no sign of being stirred by that far-off memory. ‘They made free with the medical report. He had a fractured skull and a number of broken bones, and serious injuries to internal organs—quite enough to kill him without the broken neck which I believe was the actual cause of death before he hit the beach -‘

  There were plenty of reference books and atlases and maps in the library, but Mrs Harlin had her own private shelf closer to hand.

  ‘May I have a look at your French Michelin, Mrs Harlin?’

  ‘Of course, Miss Loftus.’ From the expression on Mrs Harlin’s face, Elizabeth judged that she was still in the doghouse for keeping the Deputy-Director waiting while supposedly transacting her sex-life with Paul Mitchell. Even, when she had taken the Michelin from its slot between the Good Hotel Guide and Success With House Plants, she seemed momentarily unwilling to surrender it. ‘I’m afraid that you have missed Dr Audley, Miss Loftus. He had an appointment which he was unable to delay any further.’

  ‘Oh?’ So that was the way the wind blew. But then Mrs Harlin notoriously had a soft spot for David Audley, who cultivated her as lovingly as she did the line of exotic pot-plants on the window-sill behind her, with which he suborned her at regular intervals. Keeping David cooling his heels unnecessarily probably rated almost as badly in Mrs Harlin’s book as ignoring the Deputy-Director.

  ‘Oh?’ But as she reached for the delayed Michelin, smiling sweetly, she thought Huh! to herself grimly. It was easy enough for the Deputy-Director to say—and to repeat finally and blandly—Dr Audley will be at your disposal, as I have said, Elizabeth. He knows what I want, and he will brief you and assist you accordingly. He has been relieved of all his other urgent duties. But the reality of dealing with David Audley was going to be very different—and here was the first proof of that. Because, on a scale of difficulty from one to ten, Major Turnbull was suddenly reduced to one, with Audley at nine-point-five, for all his superficial charm—and that was Paul’s experienced opinion equally with her limited experience.

  ‘Indeed?’ Her hand closed on the Michelin. Well, maybe Paul was no push-over when it came to the crunch. But she was not about to go running back to the Deputy-Director at the first check. If she could handle a recalcitrant fifth form whose parents had paid in advance for exam results, and type Father’s illegible manuscripts while running his house for him with the smoothness of a Royal Navy First-Lieutenant, then David Audley maybe didn’t rate nine-point-five after all. Compared with Father (never mind the fifth form) he bloody-well didn’t move the needle!

  She pulled the Michelin out of Mrs Harlin’s hand. ‘Then I presume he left a number where he can be contacted, Mrs Harlin?’

  St Servan—and it would be well to the back—

  ‘No, Miss Loftus.’

  She would not look up. Compared with the British Michelin, with St Albans, and St David’s, and … St David’s, and St Helen’s and St Ives, and whatever else, there were pages and pages of saints in France, recording the ancient triumph of Christianity over paganism—Ste-Affrique, and Ste-Agreve, and St Beat and St Brieuc—St Etienne, St Dizier—tiny places, remembering outlandish, forgotten saints—who had been St Fulgent? Or St Lo, where so many Americans had died in 1944 (but not Major Ed Parker!)—and St Nazaire (where so many of Father’s friends had distinguished themselves, and died too)—and, and, and—St Quentin, where Paul’s 1914-18 heroes had gone over the top into the German barbed-wire … but—almost there—

  ‘Miss Loftus—‘

  St Servan—that looked like it—lie et Vilaine, not far from St Malo—therefore not too far from the Normandy battlefields, and the Pointe du Hoc—

  ‘Miss Loftus!’ A white envelope was thrust into the outside edge of her vision.

  Elizabeth revenged herself by ignoring the envelope, with an effort. For there were other St Servans—or Saint-Servans: there was one far to the east, in Haute-Marne, and another, far to the south-east, in the Vaucluse—St Servan-les-Ruines—

  ‘Miss Loftus—‘ The envelope intruded even further ‘—Dr Audley has marked this message “Urgent”. So if you could perhaps spare the time to look at its contents -?’ Mrs Harlin’s voice was tight as a eunuch’s bow-string in old Constantinople.

  Elizabeth accepted the envelope, which was addressed and privatized to her in Audley’s own untidy hand.

  Those examiners had been good, thought Elizabeth critically. Those Cambridge examiners—they had been good at deciphering calligraphy, as well as taking up his historical scholarship, who had once awarded David Audley his double-first at Cambridge! For not even dear James Cable’s illegible scrawl was worse than this—

  Elizabeth—If you want to know more about Haddock Thomas, put your skates on, and get on down double-quick to the Abyssinian War memorial, on the Embankment, where I shall meet you—

  Abyssinian War? Which Abyssinian War was that—?

  ‘And Dr Mitchell, Miss Loftus,’ said Mrs Harlin, as though both names were now equally distasteful to her.

  ‘Dr Mitchell, Mrs Harlin?’

  ‘He’d like you to lunch with him in the Marshal Ney public house, Miss Loftus. If you can spare the time from other duties.’ Mrs Harlin pursed her lips. ‘Strictly a business lunch, he said.’

  4

  AFTER FIVE minutes Elizabeth realized that she ought to have known better, and after ten she knew better: it should have been obvious from the start that David Audley would never cool his heels for her, and even more obvious that he would try to run the show. In his place she would have done the same.

  She looked up and down the road again in vain, and then across it, towards the gleaming green-glass Xenophon Oil tower on the far corner; and then turned back to her continued half-contemplation of the Roll of Honour of the Abyssinian War of 1867-8, which listed the officers, NCOs and other ranks who had ‘perished in battle, or died of wounds or disease’ for Queen and Empire—

  Particularly, she ought
to have known better than to have come running at Audley’s first command, when she could have let him wait while she punched Debrecen into the Beast. She had only herself to blame.

  And what sort of name was Haddock Thomas for God’s sake!

  Whatever long-forgotten imperial requirements had launched the power and the glory of the British Empire in Abyssinia—Marxist Ethiopia now, but Christian Abyssinia then presumably—the brevity of the casualty list identified it as one of Queen Victoria’s smallest and healthiest wars—

  The big complication was the presence of the Americans—of the CIA—on the Pointe du Hoc. But then, if Parker was an undoubted traitor, he was their traitor, so they had a right to be there, watching him. And, by the same token, Haddock Thomas was hers—was he?

  It had certainly been an imperial war. For, in addition to names from the 4th, 33rd and 45th Regiments (judging by the Donovans and the Kellys, the 33rd must have been an Irish regiment), there were officers ‘attached’ to the Punjabi Pioneers, the Bengal Lancers and the 27th Baluchis … plus (which would have gladdened Father’s heart) a little midshipman from the Naval Rocket Brigade, poor child!

  But it was not simply a memorial to the Abyssinian War: the bronze tablet on which the names were inscribed was supported by two elephants, carved in a high relief, facing each other across a trophy of cannon, drums, spears and battle-flags; but one elephant had half its backside chipped away and one face of the obelisk was scarred and gouged, in memory of the German bomb which must have fallen nearby, maybe forty years before—

  Forty years? That took her back to the Pointe du Hoc again—

  ‘Miss!’

  The taxi seemed to come from nowhere. Or, since it hadn’t cruised gently along the kerb into the edge of her vision, it must have executed a quick U-turn across the traffic, from the opposite direction.

  Elizabeth peered into the cab. But the cabbie, who must have leaned across to his nearside to shout at her, had already straightened up and sat waiting for her to get in. And the meter flag was already down.

  She almost got in, but then she didn’t. Instead, she took a step back, to the safety of the Abyssinian War memorial.

  The cabbie turned towards her again. ‘Well, Miss -you comin’ or en’tcha?’

  ‘Coming where?’ She had the elephant at her back now.

  He gave her a questioning look, as though she’d just changed her mind. ‘Dr Audley’s fare, en’tcha?’

  If this was the field, thought Elizabeth, it was not at all how she had imagined it—going blindly into it. But then nothing in R & D had ever been as she imagined it, all these months. But then no doubt the little midshipman had never imagined himself on an Abyssinian mountainside, with his rockets.

  She hadn’t time to arrange herself comfortably before he lurched her sideways with another fierce U-turn, to get himself back en route—whatever the route might be.

  ‘Can y’sit yerself one side or the other, Miss … so I can see?’

  Elizabeth slid obediently into one corner of the cab. ‘May I ask where we are going?’

  ‘Yus—you may.’ He twisted the cab up a narrow street behind the Xenophon tower, cutting ahead of a CD-registered Mercedes full of Arabs which had just pulled away from the oil company’s entrance. ‘Dont’cha know, then?’

  ‘No. I do not know.’

  The taxi raced up the narrow street, then turned into an even narrower one, which looked like a cul-de-sac.

  Elizabeth waited, unwilling to weaken his concentration while their lives were at stake. Then, when there was only a blank wall ahead, he swung into what appeared to be a loading bay, turned narrowly past a line of vans, and came into daylight again, in another street.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Wherever they were going, it would cost the British tax-payer. ‘Is it far?’

  ‘No.’ He jumped the lights at a crossing, ahead of a terrified old lady in a Metro. ‘Nothin’ followin’ us now -‘e’s backin’ out of Napier Lane by now, fr all the good it’ll do Mm. Silver MG Maestro, EUD 909Y?’

  Paul drove a silver MG Maestro, of which he was inordinately proud; but she’d never thought to look at its number-plate. ‘No.’

  ‘No?’ He cocked his head. ‘Well, ‘e was the one—an’ not bad, neither, ‘cause he remembered me when I went round the second time, past ‘im, an’ went like the clappers after us, into Pict Street … not that it did ‘im any good, like I said—but we’re comin’ up now, Miss—‘

  Elizabeth looked around. They were back beside the river now—on the Embankment, somewhere—?

  ‘Only ‘e was good—so just in case, it might be as well for you to get out quick-like—right? An’ that’ll be two-fifteen, wiv any small token of your esteem, Miss, for my time an’ trouble—like, silver MG Maestro EUD 909Y?’

  Elizabeth stared at the Abyssinian War memorial, just across the road from where they were drawing into the kerb, under the canopy of Xenophon Oil’s entrance.

  ‘Quick now, Miss!’ He held out his hand. ‘Say a tenner?’

  ‘A tenner?’ Just in time she remembered whose fare she was. ‘I’ll tell Dr Audley that.’

  Up three—four—five marble steps—after the fifth, as she stepped on the huge Xenophon mat, the dark-green glass doors bearing the same oil-rich-gold colophon hissed open automatically, drawing her inside and then cutting off the sound of London behind her as they hissed shut again.

  Too much information jostled momentarily in her brain, coming from too many directions. There was visual information all around—the overwhelming green-and-gold assault of the entrance hall of Xenophon’s Aladdin’s cave: not only the green-and-gold of marble and mosaic, but a jungle hothouse profusion of growing things which would have made Mrs Harlin’s mouth water.

  Then memory sorted out the driving theme of Xenophon’s public relations, on television and in the colour supplements and across innumerable billboards: ‘Xenophon grows’ was a slogan carefully divorced from the growth of Xenophon’s profits, and there were green leaves entwined round the Green X symbolizing the company’s well-publicized concern for the environment of its operations—There is no acid rain in our rain forest! But where did Squadron Leader Thomas—Haddock Thomas—peep through those leaves?

  And if EUD 909Y was Paul, why was Paul sticking his neck out beyond common sense—

  ‘Elizabeth!’ Audley brushed aside a trailing piece of jungle. ‘Where on earth have you been?’

  ‘David.’ She stifled the temptation to say ‘Dr Audley, I presume?’ The field was already too much like a jungle for such flippancy.

  ‘You’re late.’ Audley tugged at the sweaty striped knot of his rugby club tie. ‘Come on!’ He gestured towards the lift doors.

  She stood her ground. David Audley was much younger than Father was—than Father would have been: it still required an effort to think of Father in the past tense -but he was quite old enough to be her father, nevertheless. But if she weakened now, she would be lost.

  He abandoned the dreadful tie. ‘Come on, Elizabeth -please!’

  ‘You owe some taxi-driver two-pounds-and-fifteen-pence, plus tip. And he makes that ten pounds exactly.’

  ‘What?’ He blinked at her. ‘Why didn’t you pay him?’

  ‘I thought ten pounds was too much for just crossing the road. Which was where I was. As you well know.’ In spite of herself, she weakened. ‘The Abyssinian War memorial, David—remember?’

  ‘Yes … Yes, I’m sorry about that, Elizabeth. Just a little old-fashioned precaution. But in this case just to annoy Paul Mitchell.’

  ‘Paul?’

  ‘I said I was sorry. And I know I should have chosen somewhere farther away, for form’s sake.’ He raised one massive shoulder apologetically, and then grinned at her. ‘It’s an interesting memorial, though—don’t you think?’

  ‘Quite riveting.’ That was one pitfall which she knew how to avoid: the study of war memorials was Colonel Butler’s only known hobby, and the rest of the department indulged this macabre
taste almost out of habit now. But that didn’t mean she had to reward his grin. ‘If you think it was necessary to encourage Paul to make a fool of himself, then it achieved your objective, anyway.’

  ‘It was Paul?’ He smiled at his own question, as though amused by it.

  ‘It was EUD 909Y, according to your taxi-driver. But why, David?’

  ‘Why indeed!’ He shrugged diplomatically. ‘He should be back in Cheltenham. But he’s still foolishly protective where you’re concerned—is that not true, Elizabeth?’

  ‘He thinks I’m not up to … whatever this is.’ If he was fishing, then she could fish also. ‘He showed me a cutting from the Daily Telegraph.’

  ‘God bless my soul!’ But his surprise wasn’t quite genuine. ‘Well … I must admit that I taught him to read his newspapers thoroughly … ’

  On second thoughts, she had no need to fish. He was supposed to be helping her, not vice-versa. ‘Why are we here, David?’

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘Didn’t you read my note? What have you been doing, Elizabeth?’

  ‘I was told to speak to Major Turnbull first. About the man Parker—the man in the Daily Telegraph.’

  ‘Ah! The eyebrow dropped. ‘And getting information out of the equivocal Major was like squeezing blood out of that proverbial stone?’ He nodded sympathetically. ‘So what did he have to say, then?’

  ‘He said—‘ Elizabeth stopped suddenly, first because she realized that she couldn’t afford to let vice-versa work like this, with her answering all the questions, and then because someone was heading directly towards them across the foyer.

  ‘Dr Audley?’ It was one of the two beautifully-tailored and coiffured receptionists from the marble desk. ‘Dr Audley, Sir Peter will see you now.’ The woman smiled her practised reception-smile at him, simultaneously taking in Elizabeth, pricing her from head to toe, and adding a nuance of apology to her smile on the basis of her combined estimation of their importance.