Here Be Monsters

homework in London? Doesn't the Plateau d'Albion mean anything to you?'

She looked at him. 'The Plateau - ?'

' Perfide Albion is us, Miss Loftus,' said Richardson. 'The Plateau d'Albion is where the French have got their ..IRMBs siloed - plus one or two longer-range missiles now, I shouldn't wonder. Right, David?'

Audley took the map from her. 'St Servan's in the sensitive radius?'

'What the hell d'you think? It may not be in the red radius, but it's for damn sure in the pink. And they may not be able to log every tourist who drives along the Nesque gorges, but they'll have logged every foreigner resident in the pink zone. And there are enough large hoof-prints around your Dr Caradog Thomas by now to make them decidedly twitchy, I'd guess - ' Richardson leaned back ' - unless you know something that I don't know, anyway - ?'

Audley looked at her at last. 'I think we maybe are in trouble, Elizabeth. Or… like the man says… we're going to have to be very quick, in and out.'

'And gone,' agreed Richardson. 'If we can get away from St Servan in one piece, Dale's got a man in Avignon who can split you up. And then you can head for Belgium, not the nearest frontiers, which will be covered. Or you can throw yourselves in the embassy in Paris and shout 'Sanctuary! Sanctuary', like the Hunchback, and make it a diplomatic incident. Just so long as I'm back home in Italy, I don't give a damn!'

'It's that bad? Is it, Peter?'

The shoulders lifted. 'Search me - this is not my territory. But Dale ran like a frightened rabbit. And he doesn't scare easily.'

'Among others?' Elizabeth had been trying in vain to get a word in edgeways. 'What others?'

'Yes,' agreed Richardson. 'He thought the Other Side was maybe savouring the tourist attractions of the Vaucluse. So that also helped to concentrate his mind.'

'The KGB?' Audley notoriously hated departmental euphemisms.

The shoulders lifted again. 'He wasn't sure. But he wasn't happy.' Richardson rocked in his seat. 'But don't get me wrong: he ran because he saw this DST heavyweight - not because dummy2

of any damn Red.'

It was all going wrong, thought Elizabeth. It had gone wrong in Fordingwell, before it had properly started. And now it was going wrong in France, before they had even reached St Servan-les-Ruines. And she couldn't even say that she hadn't been warned: Paul had seen his damn tripod masts looming out of the mist yesterday. Perhaps David Audley had seen them too - perhaps that was why he hadn't demanded to run the show, even.

'So you're in charge, here on the ground, Peter,' said Audley mildly.

Richardson muttered something Italian. 'In charge? Do me a favour, David! We're consultants, not the cloak- and-dagger brigade. I'm supposed to be in Milan at this moment -

where are you supposed to be? What's Dale really supposed to be doing?' He tossed his head. 'I'm sorry, Miss Loftus, but it's the truth: I'm not really in charge of anything - we don't have the resources for that sort of game. So Dale's got two watchers - a nice enough couple, husband-and-wife, and she's pretty as a picture - and they're such bloody amateurs that they might even get away with it, I don't know… But amateurs, all the same - and if I was properly in charge of a surveillance which attracted a personal appearance of Dr David Audley - and, saving your presence, David, your presence attracts trouble like a pile of butcher's offal attracts flies - then I'd need six people, at the very least. And they'd have to be good. And even if they were, I'd want them changed every three days.' He began to accelerate past a line of lorries labouring northwards up a gradient. 'In a high security zone, Miss Loftus, it's like the old Arab proverb: guests start to smell on the third day.' He pushed the Fiat past the last lorry. 'But now you are in charge. And I await your orders.'

They were all the same, though Elizabeth bitterly: the smell of trouble made them all take refuge in someone else's responsibility if they couldn't run for cover. 'What did Dr Dale tell you about Dr Thomas? I assume he briefed you before he left?'

'Oh, yes - ' He took another look at her, and met her dark glasses again with his own ' - yes, he did that. But he didn't know quite what he was supposed to be doing, of course. Any more than I do.'

'What did he say?' There was no point in sharing her own doubts with him: one of the things she had to learn fast was not to sympathize with other people's minor problems. She had given her youth to Father's every whim, anyway: so if ex-Captain Richardson didn't like his job he could complain to someone else later. If he should be so lucky.

'Not a lot, really.' He didn't like not knowing, and he didn't like her much either - just as he didn't much go for Audley. In fact, he was probably adjusting ugly bastard Audley to ugly bitch Loftus at this moment.

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'Tell me not-a-lot, then.' It was really no different from teaching recalcitrant third formers, who had to be driven before they could be led.

'He's an old man - an old dog retired to his kennel in the sun.' He shrugged. 'What is there to tell?'

'For Christ's sake, Peter!' exploded Audley. 'Stop shitting us!'

'An old dog - okay.' Audley's sudden anger calmed her even more. Because, if Haddock Thomas was an old dog, and Richardson was a dog in the prime of its life, then it must be hard on an old dog like Audley with a bitch like Elizabeth Loftus alongside him.

'An old dog, Mr Richardson?'

'Huh!' Audley growled as he subsided into his own kennel. 'An old Caradog, more like!'

'What?' Richardson made no sense of that.

'Dr Thomas, Mr Richardson,' said Elizabeth.