Here Be Monsters

'Yes, Major,' she heard herself say meekly. Simply, if the card-house was good enough for the Deputy-Director, it had better be good enough for her - at least until she had talked to David Audley. 'But please continue, nevertheless.'

'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, dummy2

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 dummy2

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,