Here Be Monsters

'What?' He squinted at her.

'Never mind.' She fumbled in her bag for her own dark glasses, more for self-defense than appearance: she had composed herself for this encounter, but she should have known better that there was no armour against reality so far from home. 'I'm coming.'

He swung away, back on his original course, without a second look at her. And she had composed herself inadequately for that too - Audley trailing her into the field, which he now plainly wasn't doing, so that her composure slipped, with no greater problem than to avoid the puddles.

But at least Audley knew the man, for he was shaking him warmly by the hand as she dummy2

reached them.

'Miss Loftus - ' The man swept the case (which Audley hadn't offered to carry; but she was getting used to that) out of her hand and into the open boot almost without looking at her '

- into the back, please.'

For a southern Frenchman, almost as swarthy as an Arab, the accent was startling Public School English, unsettling her further.

'You too, David.' He looked around the car park quickly. 'Let's get the hell out of here.'

A nasty humiliating suspicion enveloped her as she did as she was told. 'Captain Richardson?' The car slammed her back in her seat.

Richardson, Peter John, Captain (Royal Engineers), retired? She had decoded a dozen SGs from him in the last six months, each about the same unbreakably code-named subject, but all from Northern Italy.

'Richardson is me. But I left the captain behind twelve years ago, Miss Loftus.' He swung the wheel. 'I answer to 'Peter'.'

He might answer to 'Peter', but he drove like a rush-hour Italian, thought Elizabeth. 'What happened to Mr Dale - Peter?'

He continued to drive like a maniac, without bothering to answer.

'She said 'What happened to Mr Dale?', Peter,' said Audley.

'I heard the first time. You're going to have to be quick this time, David. Otherwise you're going to be in trouble.' Not captain Richardson studied each of his mirrors in turn. 'And I don't mind you being in trouble. But I do mind me being in trouble - in France. Because I've still got a clean slate here.'

Audley settled back. 'Just answer the lady, there's a good fellow. All they told us before take-off was that Dale wouldn't be meeting us and you would. But they didn't tell us why.'

He drew in a breath. 'And the lady is in charge, not me.'

'Is that so?' Richardson took a look at her in his mirror. 'I'm sorry, Miss Loftus.'

'Don't be.' She watched Audley's fingers drum on his knee. 'What about Mr Dale?'

dummy2

'I have a message for you, actually. I'm to tell you the Major wasn't a natural event -

whatever that means: the Major wasn't a natural event?'

Audley's fingers stopped drumming.

'Thank you.' The steadiness of her voice surprised her. 'And Mr Dale?'

'Probably safe, back in Paris by now.' He looked at the clock. 'Most likely asleep in his bed.'

Elizabeth closed her eyes for a second. 'Why did he leave?'

'He saw someone he knew, but not quite quickly enough. So he didn't reckon to his cover any more. And I just happened to draw the next-shortest straw, unfortunately.'

'The French, you mean?' asked Audley quickly. 'The DST?'

'Among others.' Richardson's voice was almost contemptuous. 'His face is all too well-known in certain official circles, anyway - like yours, David, if I may say so.'

'Ah! The French… Stupid of me, I agree, Peter.' Audley recovered quickly. 'I do rather have this damned blind spot about the French, Elizabeth. I've lived here twice - once when I was a mere boy, on exchange, before the war… and once for several very happy and frequently inebriated years later on, after Cambridge, as a tax exile. And, of course, I invaded them in

'44 - it is a really wonderful country to invade, with all the wine and women. So some of my very best friends are Frenchmen, and I do rather take them for granted… Which is stupid, Peter, I do agree.'

And she had been stupid too, thought Elizabeth: the French had been on to the Pointe du Hoc, and they would surely have traced Major Parker back to St Servan after the Americans and the British had demonstrated their interest in him. And, as she had cause to know from even her limited experience, the DST was jealous of foreign intelligence intrusions.

'Stupid?' Richardson snorted. 'Apart from your youthful indiscretions - about which I'm glad to say I know nothing… my God, David! You're a three-time loser anywhere. But here of all places!'

'Here?' Elizabeth glanced for a second at the dense holiday-traffic on the other side of the autoroute, heading south, and then at the sign pointing them northwards, past Avignon and Orange, to distant Lyons and faraway Paris. 'Why here?'

Richardson reached down and threw a map back into her lap. 'Don't you do any dummy2