Here Be Monsters

Audley fell silent and Peter Richardson drove furiously. And the orchards and almond-groves had fallen behind them: now there were vineyards, immaculately cultivated, with distant ruined castles on the low hills on either side of them. 'What we're doing, Elizabeth, is running out of time. Because this whole affair revolves around time, I suspect. Because Parker didn't need to call on Haddock Thomas the way he did - he could have taken his time to set up that meeting. And why did he go over that cliff at the Pointe du Hoc? They could have taken him out any time - just as they could have taken out Haddock Thomas.'

'And Major Turnbull?'

'Turnbull?' The car swerved slightly. 'What's with old Brian at the moment? I heard Jack Butler had acquired him after he'd lost his cover. Is he in on this?'

'Mmm… ?' Audley pretended not to have heard the question properly. 'What about him?

Brian alias Turnbull?'

'Nothing. Difficult old sod.' Richardson shook his head. 'Remember me to him, though.

And… just tell him it wasn't my fault, that business about his cover. But if he'd stayed where he was he'd have been on borrowed time - tell him that.'

Thoughts jostled Elizabeth's mind, relevant and irrelevant. She had the other half of his name now, which she had never known, or even needed to know: the unimportant (and quite inappropriate) half. Brian -

'I'll do that. If I see him.' What Richardson didn't need to know Audley wisely didn't tell him. 'You wanted to know, Elizabeth - why, was it?'

If someone, somewhere, had wanted Major Turnbull dead, for whatever reason, then it would have been no problem putting a contract out on him: that didn't prove anything more than Richardson had already done, with that message of his. The fact of Fordingwell

- the terminal event - was less important than its timing; which was what Audley had been saying.

'We have to go on, Elizabeth, because we don't have any choice in the matter. That's all.'

Audley leaned forward. 'Would that be Bomb Disposal logic, from your Royal Engineers days, Captain Richardson?'

'Uh-huh.' Richardson held the wheel tightly, letting the car drive itself along a Roman-straight road towards the hilltop ahead, which boasted a tricolore above its ruined tower.

'But there were such things as anti-handling devices even in our day, designed to blow us up. So we didn't just hit it with a hammer because it wasn't actually ticking.' He half-turned towards Audley. 'And you seem to think your bomb is still ticking, if I heard you dummy2

correctly?'

'My bomb?' Audley sniffed, and turned to Elizabeth. 'There speaks a peace-time bomb disposal officer, my dear. When my old chemistry master was a bomb disposal officer in London in 1941 he always had half-a-dozen bombs - and a couple of land-mines - on the go, in the Blitz. He always used to say that it wasn't a question of when he'd be blown up, so much as where. In fact, the last time he came back he got the Head to set the sixth-form scholarship class a variation on the old Would you save the baby or the Elgin Marbles?

question: Would you save a row of houses in the East End or the local sewage works? And, I tell you, that really stretched us. Because we'd never seen a sewage works, let alone an East End house.'

'So what was his answer?' Richardson fell into the trap.

'He never got round to telling us.' Having caught his man, Audley returned happily to Elizabeth. 'If I'm wrong about Haddock, it'll take you months to get any sort of lead, And if I'm not wrong it'll take you forever. But in the meanwhile I want to get back to a bomb of my own at Cheltenham, which could go up any minute. So let's hit this one with a bloody hammer… And if it goes off in our faces - if he laughs at us, and tells us that there isn't one damn thing we can do now… because there isn't one damn thing we can do - except maybe I can resign, and you can get a feather in your cap, if you want to wear a feather… if he laughs at us, that'll be something better than nothing.'

'I don't want that sort of feather, David. But what if he doesn't laugh?'

'Oh, he'll laugh - old Haddock'll see the joke, whether it's on him or us. He won't have changed. Aged, maybe… but not changed.' Audley nodded. 'He should be just about ready for drinking now: aged in the wood.' Another nod: he was excited, rather than pleased, at the prospect. 'Besides which… if I don't quit - and I'm damned if I'm going to quit for Oliver St John Latimer - what can they do to me? The way things are at Cheltenham, they need me more than I need them right now.' Another nod. But this time the excitement was smoothed by rather smug confidence. 'So what can they do to me?'

'Oh, great! Bravo!' murmured Richardson. 'Vintage patriotism, 1984: 'My country needs me - but it's paying less than the going rate'. But you're asking the wrong question, I suspect.'

'And what is the right question?'

'You may well ask!' But Richardson didn't seem disposed to answer.

Audley waited, and Elizabeth decided to wait too.

dummy2

The landscape was closing in on them again. There were more orchards now, as well as vineyards - peaches, or almonds maybe, or even olives, but something exotic, anyway; but, more strange than the flora (and there was no sign of any fauna, except Frenchmen in French vehicles, which made the road even more foreign), was the suddenly-jagged landscape.

'It's not worth looking, Miss Loftus.'

'I beg your pardon?'

'Just because you can't see them, it doesn't mean they aren't there. Or, anyway, that they haven't got us covered. They're at St Servan, anyway.'