Our man in Camelot

course.'

'—and his interest in Arthurian Britain. I pressed him on the subject of the battle's location, but he was reticent about it. Also, while promising to keep in touch with me he insisted that I should never contact him at the base. Before he left I supplied him with one of my blank physical relief maps of the district, having first ringed all potential Badon sites for him. He stated his intention of viewing these from the air. He visited me on three subsequent occasions. It was on the first of these that he asked me about the Novgorod manuscript of Bede's 'Historia Ecclesiastica' and I was able to show him my grandfather's copy of Bishop Harper's 'Russian Missionary Letters', from which he made notes. Shortly after the third visit he phoned me in a state of great excitement. He said he had found Badon, but that he would not be able to see me until he had completed his exchange duty with the RAF in Germany. I awaited his return also in a state of excitement. On the 5th of this month he phoned me again. This time he was in a state of extreme agitation and rage. He informed me that promises made to him by a certain USAF general officer, by name Ellsworth, had been broken, as a result of which the site of Badon, or at least its cenotaph and grave pits, had been totally desecrated. He explained to me in detail the circumstances leading to his identification of Mons Badonicus as Windmill Knob at Wodden. He further informed me that he had been 'grilled' and cautioned by a CIA officer, and that he was now confined to base pending transfer to South-East Asia. He had told this officer that he intended nevertheless to 'blow this thing wide open'. Although he had not revealed my involvement he said he relied on me to support him in this, and that his navigator, Captain Collier, who Anthony Price - Our man in camelot

was a witness to many of these events, would be bringing me evidence of his discovery after the next day's training mission had been completed. In the event Captain Collier did not visit me, and I learnt from Press reports of the loss of a Phantom aircraft on a routine training flight. I made further inquiries in connection with the information Major Davies had given me, and these confirmed certain suspicions of mine that a monstrous crime, or series of crimes, had been committed by, or with the connivance of, the American CIA. Full details of this are now with the editor of a certain newspaper. Two further copies are in places of safety with my instructions as to their publication in the event of my death or unexplained disappearance.'

The final lines swam before Mosby's eyes. A certain newspaper.

Their deadline is midday Friday for Sunday. Two further copies in places of safety.

'And what does the CIA say to this?' Shirley's voice was absolutely steady. 'And our State Department?'

'We haven't approached them.'

'You haven't approached them?' Incredulity now. 'Don't they have a say?'

'What can they say?'

'Well, they can deny it for a start.'

'Of course they'll deny it. They'll say there's not one single word of truth in it. Major Davies never found Badon Hill and Badon Hill isn't Windmill Knob. So General Ellsworth never promised him the bulldozers wouldn't move in until the archaeologists had excavated it thoroughly. And Davies wasn't being posted to South-East Asia. He just crashed by accident—and took Captain Collier with him. Why would the CIA want to grill him? No reason at all-just a pack of lies made up by Group Captain William Lancelot Bullitt, DSO, DFC.'

Audley paused. 'And James Barkham died in his sleep, like an old man should—or if he didn't, then it was some wicked relative who wanted to inherit his bookshop. And our two men who followed Feiner haven't come to any harm —they've just lost their way and they haven't got tuppence between them for a phone call, that's all. And Airman Pennebaker was just playing with this pistol of his, and it just went off by accident—'

Where the hell did Airman Pennebaker fit in? thought Mosby desperately. Where the hell did any of them fit in? 'And Asher Klaverinsky never went for a swim. He just dropped out of circulation. Or maybe he didn't like it in Tel Aviv as much as Gorky. He was homesick, perhaps.' 'Who on earth is—

Asher Klaverinsky?' said Mosby. 'He's the man who stole the Novgorod Bede, Captain—Mosby. But then he never met Major Davies anyway, did he? There's not one single piece of evidence that he did—

except in Billy Bullitt's fevered imagination. He just imagined the deal they made. Or perhaps it was Major Davies's fevered imagination. Or they cooked it up between them, just to cause trouble.'

'What d'you mean—he stole the Novgorod Bede?' 'Just exactly that. He was working on its restoration when he finally got his emigration permit, and he reckoned the Russians owed him something for taking all his possessions and his money in exchange for letting him go. So he pretended he'd sent it on to Moscow for further specialist work, but in fact he smuggled it out with him. They probably don't even know they've lost it yet, the way they do things.'

'But—' Mosby stopped, realising that he wasn't supposed to know that there was nothing of interest Anthony Price - Our man in camelot

about Badon in the Novgorod Bede. And that nobody had stolen it.

'But what is there in it? In the Bede text—absolutely nothing. Just a straightforward early eighth century Bede, just like the Leningrad one. Only when Asher Klaverinsky got down to looking at it carefully he noticed that the Preface started about four inches down the page—that's four inches of wasted sheepskin before the dedication to 'the Most Glorious King Ceolwulf. And he then noticed that those four inches were rougher than the rest of the page, which meant that they'd probably been scraped clean and re-chalked. Which in turn meant that the page had been written on before, and then cleaned and re-used, because parchment was enormously expensive—it was a common practice in those days. So he popped the page under ultra-violet light, and you'll never guess what he got instead.' Audley nodded to Roskill.

'Give him the first sheet, Hugh.'

Roskill handed Mosby a typed sheet of paper —

… usque ad a??um obse?.?io?s Bad????? mentis qui p??pe Sord'n?? host?um ex D?r??v??

a ?r?ur? habetur novi???ma????? ????? de furci???ris…