Here Be Monsters

minutes.'

'Hmm…' The sound indicated that Elizabeth had gone down a snake in Mrs Harlin's estimation. 'Very well, Miss Loftus. But I shall inform the Deputy-Director that you are on your way.'

'Well, Paul?'

'I'm sorry I fluffed it out there, Elizabeth - with the fashion bit. But I always do, you know me… Just, I prefer you unadorned.'

Naked and unadorned? remembered Elizabeth. He was still fluffing it. 'Two professional minutes, you said.'

His face set, almost expressionless. 'We haven't seen each other for an age, Elizabeth. We've both been busy.'

She felt absurdly disappointed with his breach of trust. 'Paul - you promised - ' She broke off.

'I'm not breaking any promise. We've all been busy.'

'Then get to the point.'

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'That is the point. I know what you've been doing here: you've been co-ordinating the Cheltenham inquiry - Audley's big job.'

Elizabeth stared at him. There was no reason that he should know who was on the computer at this end. No reason, except that he was Paul Mitchell.

'I know because I've been not only supplying you with some of your information, but also answering some of your questions, Elizabeth.' He seemed to be able to read some of her mind. 'Has it ever occurred to you that everyone has an individual style of mind - mind, as distinct from literary style? And once you know the person, it's almost as good as a fingerprint. Like a mind-print… But, anyway, I know - okay?'

That was really quite interesting, and not least because it warned her how much she still had to learn. 'So what?'

'So it's quite important, in its way, what you've been doing. And you're asking the right questions. You're good, Elizabeth - I hate to have to admit it, but you are good. You sit here, in that little nunnery cell of yours, and you actually think. And you think to some purpose.'

'Now you're being patronizing - that's what I'm thinking at this moment.'

His eyes clouded. 'Of course. Don't you realize that that's my doom, Elizabeth - the one gift the Good Fairy denied me? If I love someone I always say the wrong thing to her, no matter what I mean to say. But we're talking business now.'

'I've yet to hear any.' She couldn't afford to weaken. 'Come to the point.'

'I'm still there, I haven't left it. I - ' He stopped suddenly, and shook his head, though more at himself than at her, Elizabeth thought. And, in spite of his redoubled promise, that suggested that he still wasn't talking business. 'Look, Elizabeth, I obviously haven't got a lot of time, so I can't explain in any detail how I know what I know, so what I think may not seem very convincing to you. But I want you to listen - and to bear with me, please.

Please?'

'For about thirty seconds.' She didn't look at her watch. 'You heard what Mrs Harlin said?'

'Oh - the hell with her!' He gestured. 'And bugger Oliver - Fatso! Blame me, if you like.'

'It's easy for you to say that. You're old establishment. I'm hardly fledged.'

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He stared at her. 'Not so easy, actually. I'm on a bloody knife-edge with our Deputy-Director. But… not that I care. Just trust me this once, enough to listen to me, Elizabeth -

Miss Loftus, if you like.' The stare became fixed. 'In fact, if you listen to me now, you can be Miss Loftus for ever after. And that's another promise - until the Sun stands still, and the Moon ceases to rise. Okay?'

The offer took her aback. He was offering her… he was offering her too much, in terms of what he had to offer. Or perhaps he was offering enough to frighten her, on those terms.

She had to devalue it, to make a jest of it. 'Okay, Paul. But only if you'll tell me what

'tripod masts' means, between you and James - ?'

Again that clouded, defenseless look. Then it vanished. 'That's easy - James was just warning me to lay off. To run for my life, before Mrs Harlin sank me without a trace.' He almost smiled. ' Tripod masts - you ought to have got that one, Miss Loftus, with all those naval histories of your father's that you copy-typed for him.'

The reminder of past drudgery hardened her heart finally: he knew altogether too much about that past of hers, and by recalling it he merely encouraged her to hold him to his latest promise. 'I know what tripod masts are, Dr Mitchell.'

He took the point: she could see him reading the full meaning of the smallest print of the agreement he had proposed. 'Not what they are, but what they meant.' The fixed emotionless stare was back. 'Perhaps not inappropriately on this occasion, more than Commander Cable meant himself.'

There was no percentage in trying to read his riddles. 'And what did they mean?'

'Death, Miss Loftus, just death.' He let the word sink in. The Battle of the Falklands - not the recent unpleasantness, but the original one in 1914. James and I both read it up when he got back from there, just for curiosity. Before he closed in on Port Stanley in 1914, von Spec sent in a light cruiser to have a look. And the poor devil in the crow's nest spotted tripod masts in the harbour. And he knew in that second that he was a dead man,