'And he also knows Billy Bullitt, huh?'
'That's right. In fact Billy came to see him just recently, when there was all the trouble.'
'Is he an expert on Badon Hill, then?'
'No, he's an English literature professor—eighteenth century or something. But that was what Billy studied all those years ago, just for a year. Then he quit and joined the RAF to fight the Germans… and he just never came back… Not to study, anyway, but he did come back to see Dr Morton whenever he was in England, which wasn't often… Did you know he was an orphan?'
'He was brought up by his grandfather, Harry says.'
'That's right. Professor William Walter Bullitt—and get this, Mose—who was professor of Mediaeval History at Wessex University in the 1930s and a leading authority on Dark Age Britain.'
'Meaning King Arthur.'
'Right. He even wrote a book on him. And the 'L' in Billy's Christian names actually stands for
'Lancelot'. He inherited a whole library of Arthurian books from the old guy, so it really runs in the family.'
'So?'
'Don't be dim, honey. If anybody's got that book on the Novgorod Bede by Bishop What's-'is-name it'll be BiUy Bullitt. The old professor's library was the best of its kind in the country, Dr Morton said.'
He had been afraid for the preceding half-minute that she would be drawing that intelligent conclusion, because there was no humane way of softening the blow he must then deliver. Better to get it over quickly—
'No good, Shirl. There's nothing in it.'
'What d'you mean?'
'Howard Morris's people traced a copy already.'
'Where?'
Anthony Price - Our man in camelot
'The obvious place. In the library of the present Bishop of Walthamstow, where you'd expect it to be.
The Novgorod Bede is just an inferior copy of the Leningrad Bede, made about the same time—at least, according to Bishop Harper, and he saw them both. Sorry, honey… But did the old man have anything to say about Billy Bullitt—what he was like?'
Her shoulders drooped in disappointment. She shrugged. 'He said he was a nice boy.'
'Boy? At fifty-something?'
'Maybe he's young for his age.' She turned back to the dressing table mirror. 'If you're a hundred I suppose fifty-something seems boyish, I don't know… What other good news did Harry Finsterwald bring with him?'
Mosby looked up to the ceiling again. 'He had one qufte interesting story about the nice boy—'
Picture.
'What was that?'
It was an airfield. Not the immense Americanised strip at Wodden, with its ever-increasing new runway extensions disappearing into the far distance, but Wodden as it must have been after the war: empty hangars and derelict huts with broken windows, and weeds spreading along the runway joints.
'What was that?' Shirley repeated.
Movement now: men wandering across the tarmac, scratching their heads over the patches of new oil and the bruise-marks in the grass…
'Bullitt had this long furlough coming to him in '48, after he came back from Greece and before he was posted to Malaya… Said he was going for a walking holiday in the Scottish Highlands. Only he didn't.'
'Didn't what?'
'Go walking… There was this film company planned to make a movie about the Battle of Britain. Got plenty of cash on hand, dollars and pounds and Swiss francs. Hired themselves an old RAF field up in the north somewhere… bought themselves some war surplus planes, Mosquitoes and Beau-fighters mostly. Which should have worried someone, but it didn't…'
She turned. 'Mose, you're losing me.'
'Wrong planes. Battle of Britain was strictly Spitfires and Hurricanes. These were twin-engined jobs—
long-range fighter-bombers, low-level strike, that sort of thing— Be like Hollywood making a picture about Pearl Harbour with P-38s and P-51s.'
'So they got the details wrong.'
'They had the details absolutely the way they wanted. Because when the film crew arrived on location to start shooting—no planes… They'd gone shooting somewhere else. Like, for instance, the Sinai Desert.'
'The Sinai?'
Mosby nodded. '1948, Shirl. Lots of Jewish money in motion pictures, always has been. But in 1948
they had other things to spend their money on—things money couldn't buy so easily, though. Not with a world embargo on Middle East arms.'
She stared at him. 'You don't mean Bullitt flew for the Israelis?'
'Uh-huh. Beats walking in the Highlands by a mile, ferrying hot planes across Europe. Plus maybe a bit of combat at the other end.'
