Here Be Monsters

'They stopped his mouth with gold, was what he's alleged to have said afterwards.' Audley was happier too. 'They gave him a grant to entertain his sixth formers in his house in the South of France. And they increased his salary.'

Sir Peter cocked his head. 'I didn't think the Classics had so much clout these days?'

'They don't, my dear chap,' agreed Audley. 'But your old friend had a lot of influence - not just on account of his university results… or even because he was an ex-president of the Imperial Classical Association… which has a few rather well-placed fellows and members in the higher reaches of power, even now.' He shook his head suddenly. 'Come on, Peter - I can tell Miss Loftus about Haddock any time. It's that twenty-six-year-old bad conscience of yours she's interested in. Or would you prefer my version of events?'

'Isn't that in your record - your version of them, David?' Sir Peter switched to Elizabeth without waiting for an answer. 'Very well, Miss Loftus. I suppose I should be glad of the opportunity of speaking for myself, even though I'm not particularly proud of what I did.'

He paused. 'Is that what you wanted to hear, David?'

But Audley didn't seem to have heard him: he seemed to be concentrating on the books he had last seen in 1958, to the exclusion of everything else now.

'What did you do, Sir Peter?' Since the Master of Xenophon Oil was waiting for comfort which Audley was clearly not about to give him, she had no choice but to push him dummy2

forwards.

'I destroyed his career.' He accepted Audley's refusal, coming back to her, to meet her eyes without blinking.

'Squadron Leader Thomas's career?'

'Squadron Leader?' In spite of all their talk about aeroplanes - planes British and German, crashed or shot down or 'ditched' - the rank was meaningless to him. 'Yes, if you like, Miss Loftus - Squadron Leader Thomas - Caradog Thomas - Haddock Thomas - ' He shrugged '

- whoever you like, it's the same man. And it's the same thing: I shot him down, Miss Loftus.

And he didn't bale out, or walk away… or swim ashore… not after I'd got him in my sights.' He almost looked at Audley again, but held himself steady in the end, on her. 'Or maybe he did -I don't know now, Miss Loftus.'

'What did you do?'

'What did I do?' He drew a breath. 'We were both career civil servants. Or… I was in the process of resigning, actually. Because… it was after Suez. Because it was different, after Suez - ' another breath, taken in slowly ' - or, that was my excuse anyway, at the time, to myself. But you could interpret it quite differently: you could say that I was a second-class honours man, with second-class prospects… But with the prospects in oil, after Suez -

that's in '56, that was - and with what I knew… I suppose you could say that I knew where the first-class prospects might be. What I was doing in the Civil Service suddenly seemed… unprofitable to me, in more sense than one, at any rate.'

'And Mr Thomas?' It didn't seem right to refer to the man by his nickname when she'd never met him. 'How did you - ?'

'Destroy his career?' He half-looked at Audley again, as though for confirmation. But the big man was still pretending to browse among the books. 'I did - didn't I, David?'

'If you think you did… tell her.' Audley didn't look up. 'After all this time it's a bit late to agonize. If that's what you're doing.'

'Yes.' Sir Peter gave Audley a Xenophon look. 'All right, Miss Loftus. He wants me to remember, so I will.' He stared at her, sorting his memories into separate columns, adding and subtracting to prepare his balance sheet. 'I wasn't in the process of resigning -I had already resigned. And I wasn't buying claret. By then I was clerking for this Greek, who had cornered a piece of the tanker tonnage, and was cashing in on it. And I was learning Arabic at evening classes… When he came out of the woodwork.' He nodded towards Audley.

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'1958?'

'Uh-huh.' Audley turned the page of his book.

'1958 - I was beginning to think I'd made a mistake, somewhere down the line: that I should have read Arabic at Cambridge, or stayed in the Foreign Office.' A trace of lingering bitterness still showed in his voice. 'And then he turned up, with what seemed like a fool question. Except he had a Special Branch man in tow - or a secret policeman of some heavier variety. So it didn't seem like a silly question at the time.' He gave Audley another look. 'You scared me, David.'

'I wasn't after you.' Audley turned another page. 'Not particularly.'

'It didn't seem like that.' Sir Peter came back to her. 'He wanted to know where I'd been on holiday, the summer before.'

'And you didn't appear too scared, actually,' murmured Audley.

'But I was.'

'It didn't stop you telling me - to go bowl my hoop elsewhere,' said Audley mildly. 'The first time, anyway.' He raised his eyes to Elizabeth. 'He wasn't helpful the first time.'

'But he came back a second time - in working hours, with the same policeman in attendance - right there in the middle of the Greek's office!' The recollection of the second time, even in this customized room on the pinnacle of the power and glory of Xenophon Oil, made Sir Peter wince. 'The Greek damn near sacked me on the spot… Which, with what he was doing - the way he was sailing his tankers close to the wind - you could hardly blame him… To have one of Sir Frederick Clinton's bright young men interrogating one of his clerks - ' For a fraction of a second the Master of Xenophon became the Greek's clerk again in his memory ' - which was what saved me, I suppose.'

'Huh!' Audley closed the book. 'Stavros didn't quite know how much you knew, eh?'