Here Be Monsters

'Only what's in the record.'

'Well, you'd do better to ask David.' He was himself again. 'I was… God! Was I at prep school then?' He scratched his head. 'I was in short grey trousers and long socks, anyway -

long socks with elastic garters under the turn-overs… No - you'd better ask David. He was right there - in the middle of it all!'

'But I'm asking you. Because you're on the 'Need to know' list.'

'That was pure accident. It was only because of something which came up last year, when Fatso was in America - you remember the flap there was then, last summer? When we were all on holiday relief as acting duty- officers? You were on the edge of it, I seem to recall. I put through a call to you one evening - which you handled with your customary efficiency.' He smiled. 'You remember?'

'Yes.' She nodded cautiously.

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'Well, that was Fatso. He'd got himself into all sorts of trouble over there, asking the wrong people the right questions.'

'But there was nothing about… about Mr Latimer in the file, Paul.'

He gave her a sly wink. 'Yes… well, there wouldn't be, would there? Old Fatso doesn't wash his dirty linen in private - he buries it deep, so no one can get wind of it.' He thought for a moment. 'But… let's see now… if you compare the date of entry of that item about the death of a man named Robinson, and the CIA maybe reactivating their Debrecen operation because of it, then I think you'll find that it coincides with the absence of one Oliver St John Latimer on a private and unofficial visit to foreign parts. Which I take to be cause and effect.'

Elizabeth stared at him, desperately trying to recall the tantalizing ingredients of the Debrecen material from her one quick - too quick - reading of it: from those very strangely hot-and-cold beginnings in 1958 which had been equally strangely terminated the following year, through the long, empty silence afterwards, over one whole quarter of a century.

'But that wasn't the start of it.' It didn't need any stretch-of-memory to produce the one other Debrecen entry, which had preceded Oliver St John Latimer's trouble by a year. 'Or the re-start?'

Paul stared back at her. The Irishman, you mean? The also-deceased Irishman?' The stare became blandly cynical. 'I had nothing to do with that - that was all David Audley's work. I wasn't even in England then.'

'But the Irishman was going to tell us about Debrecen.'

'Maybe.' He shrugged. 'Whatever he was going to tell us, he was killed before he could talk. And it wasn't David's fault. He seems to have behaved fairly heroically, reading between the unwritten lines.'

'Yes.' She had never thought of loyalty as being one of Paul's few virtues, so the temptation to press him was irresistible. 'But then David needs to be heroic where Debrecen is concerned, doesn't he?'

'What - ?' He covered up whatever it was - could it really be that virtue? - by leaning over the bar and staring at the curtain ' - what I need is another drink, Elizabeth Jane - Tom!'

'And what I need is for someone to tell me the true story of the whole Debrecen episode, dummy2

Dr Mitchell.'

'You don't want much, do you!' He still concentrated on the curtain. 'Drat the man! Tom!'

But the curtain still refused to open. 'But you've looked at the Beast, anyway.'

'The computer has been edited.'

'What d'you expect?' He gave up. 'Look, Elizabeth Jane - Miss Loftus - everyone has a skeleton in the closet somewhere. You have, I'll bet… I know I have… and so has Research and Development. And you never know who'll come poking in the closet some day. So what d'you expect?'

'Who edited the computer?' She somehow couldn't imagine Colonel Butler breaking the rules. And although rules meant nothing to David Audley, he lacked the seniority to doctor securely classified material. 'Was it Latimer?'

'No. It was already neutered when Fatso became Deputy-Director last year.' He shook his head quickly. 'It must have been old Fred Clinton. He made the original decision to abort the operation. So he had over twenty years to think about it.' He shook his head again, but slowly this time. 'You'd better ask David, my dear.'

'So you keep saying. So everyone keeps saying.'

'So maybe it's good advice.' He looked at her almost desperately. 'No one knows more about Debrecen than he does. At least… no one on our side - no one who's still alive, that is. All I know, beyond what's in the file, is hearsay from him, what he's let slip. And that's worth nothing.'

He was suddenly so miserable that she decided to chance a straight question. 'What d'you want to tell me, Paul?'

He swallowed. 'Can't you guess? I'd rather you did, if only to set my mind at rest a little.'

He attempted a Paul Mitchell smile, but achieved only a painful grimace. 'I think you have guessed, actually.'

She had to put him out of his misery, she owed him that. 'You mean, why Latimer put me in charge, and not David?'

The grimace improved slightly. 'That's my girl! And - ?'

'It's really David's skeleton - isn't it?' She didn't need to wait for confirmation. 'He was in charge of the original operation. And he always had a lot of influence with Sir Frederick dummy2

Clinton. So if there was a bad mistake it was his - right?'

'Right.' He looked at her expectantly.