Here Be Monsters

and - St Quentin, where Paul's 1914-18 heroes had gone over the top into the German barbed-wire… but - almost there -

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'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

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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 -

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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?'