Here Be Monsters

'No!' The old man silenced Audley with a gesture, without taking his eyes off Elizabeth. 'I will tell you a story, Miss Loftus. A little story?'

'So long as it is little,' snapped Audley.

'Many years ago, Miss Loftus - more years than I care to number… but it was the year our 1st XV swept the board in the schools' rugger, that I do recall - many years ago, a ferret dummy2

came to see me.' He cocked his head at her. 'A ferret - yes?'

Elizabeth nodded.

Mr Willis nodded back. 'A frightened ferret, actually. But perhaps that was because he had a powerful letter of introduction with him, from a foxy type I'd known in the war - a foxy type which had metamorphosed into a hound - a wolfhound. Or a wolf - the leader of the pack, no less!'

'Willy - '

'The ferret wanted to know about a young man of my acquaintance. But at first he didn't show me his letter. Are you with me? So because I didn't trust him I demanded to know why I should give him more than the time of day, and that shortly - '

'It was 1957, Elizabeth,' said Audley from above. 'Sir Frederick Clinton was sniffing out my private life. Get on with it, Willy, for God's sake!'

'What?' The old man's voice cracked with irritation. 'Well - now that you've altogether spoilt my story - have you got a letter, Doctor David Longsdon Audley?'

'Do I need a letter?' For the first time in Elizabeth's experience there was a note of something less than confidence in Audley's voice. 'Don't you trust me?'

'No, I certainly do not, dear boy! I haven't trusted you since you were sixteen years old. I didn't trust you then, and I certainly do not trust you now.'

'Why not?' Audley shook his head, almost as though bewildered.

'Why not? Well, if you don't know - ?' Mr Willis stared up at him. 'I hold you in my affection, and I have the highest regard for your abilities and intelligence, you know that - '

'Why not, Willy?'

'Because your ways are not my ways, and your gods are not my gods. Because we live on different planets. Because I will not make the same mistake as Marcus Aurelius did, David.'

'Bugger Marcus Aurelius!' Audley's voice was harsh. 'You spilt the beans about me to Fred Clinton's man. And Fred and I come from the same planet.'

'But you have not got a letter, David,' the old man spoke gently, almost regretfully. 'Have dummy2

you?'

'Who am I supposed to get a letter from? The Queen? Or the Prime Minister - '

'Certainly not her.' Mr Willis shook his head. 'I'm afraid there's no letter you could produce which would induce me to tell you anything I know about a good man… except that he is a good man… in case you are able somehow to twist it to your own purposes.' He shook his head again. 'You gave me time to think - you shouldn't have done that. But you did.

And I have.'

Elizabeth stared from one to the other, from the old man, gently regretful but utterly determined, to the big man, utterly nonplussed.

'I think there's something you should know, Mr Willis,' she heard herself say.

'My dear young lady, I'm sure there's a lot I should know. But at my age one becomes resigned to the knowledge of one's ignorance.'

'Dr Thomas was investigated many years ago,' began Elizabeth.

He raised his eyebrows at her. 'If that's what you want me to know, my dear, I'm afraid it is old intelligence. I heard that story many years ago. Not from Dr Thomas himself, but from another colleague. But perhaps you have a different version of the story?'

She must discount his gentle manner and his years, which were equally deceptive: he had had time to think, and he had deceived them both - not least probably at the start, by pretending to mistake her status, in order to gain more time in which to study her. But that was a game he could only play once with her. 'I have the true story, if that's what you mean. Because Dr Thomas was cleared, Mr Willis. Is your story different from that?'

'I'll bet it is.' Audley gazed around casually, at the cottage thatch, at the roses, at the daisy-lawn, and finally at Elizabeth. 'He indulges himself with his liberal conscience. His is the generation of Our Gallant Russian Ally and smiling Uncle Joe Stalin, the great anti-fascist.

And the heroic International Brigade in Spain before that.'

'Dear boy, they were heroic - while you were hardly more than a snivelling child.' The old man's voice was mild. 'And we would both be dead most likely - maybe a year or two later, in some bloodbath somewhere other than Normandy, and less victorious - if our Gallant Allies hadn't fought Jerry all the way to Moscow and back.'

'Very true, Willy. But they did not fight for us, you silly old bugger.' Audley's voice had become equally mild, and weary with what must be an endless division of opinions dummy2

between them, thought Elizabeth. 'Nor even did they fight beside us, like my Gallant American Allies, whom you affect to despise with such hypocritical doublethink.' He toured the scenery again, and came back to Elizabeth once more. 'You see, Elizabeth - as I was saying? He indulges his liberal conscience, and his tortured 1930s guilt complexes…