Here Be Monsters

Haddock Thomas's jaw tightened. 'Now, you can leave Delphi out of this, David. Make all the pictures you like of me, and of Peter. But leave her out of them.'

'I'm afraid I can't. Because she comes in again, you see.'

'Again? What?' The old man's hands tightened into bony fists on his lap. 'How?'

'Our colleague who died yesterday was looking into Delphi's death, Haddock,' said Audley gently. 'He couldn't have found anything so quickly. But I think I know what he didn't have time to find, in any case.' He switched to Elizabeth suddenly. 'You see, Elizabeth, Mrs Delphi Thomas wasn't pregnant when she had her road accident. And that isn't a picture - that's a fact.' He turned back to the old man. 'Sorry, Haddock.'

The old man shook his head. 'No need to be sorry, man. We only invented that baby to make Peter angry, rather than sad. It was the least we could do for him, to make him hate us both.'

'Was that it?' Audley cocked his head. 'Well, indeed! And I always thought she trapped you with it! Now there's a turn-up for the book!'

'Not so clever, eh?' The old man wasn't smiling. 'And is that your picture, then?' He frowned suddenly. 'But then… if you believed that… then you can hardly believe your picture, David - ?'

'Not a word of it.' Audley sounded almost cheerful. 'I spent a lot of time on you - all three of you. And I was in my prime then, not the doddering fool I am now. And now I've all the wisdom of hindsight to add.'

'And what does hindsight add?'

'Well, for a start, if either you or Peter have been working for the Other Side these twenty-thirty years, you damn well haven't earned your keep. I had a devil's advocate run-down on you both, a couple of days back. And, in your very different ways you both qualify for the firing squad - but theirs, not ours, old comrade.'

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Elizabeth sat up. 'You never told me that, David.'

'You never asked, Elizabeth. And, besides, I wanted you to come to your own conclusion.'

He shrugged unapologetically.

'I see.' Haddock Thomas poured himself another drink. 'But then, again, I do not see at all.'

'What don't you see?'

'I don't see why you are here - here to rake up a past which I have no desire to recall in this fashion.'

'My dear Haddock, I do not want to be here.' Audley sniffed, and held out his glass to be refilled. 'As a matter of fact, I was busy with something much more important than raking up your fairly innocent past.'

'But two men are dead, nevertheless.' Haddock Thomas turned to Elizabeth. 'He talked about old times, Miss Loftus - Major Parker did. He said he had come back for the D-Day anniversary, and he thought he'd look me up. He had very little to say. But then we really didn't have anything in common.'

'Least of all treason,' murmured Audley.

'But now he is dead.' The old man stared across his valley again, shading his eyes with his hand. 'And your colleague is also dead. While investigating…'He trailed off. 'And for those two reasons - not wholly inadequate reasons, I must now admit - for those two reasons you are here, David. In fact… in view of our shared past, you could really hardly avoid coming to see me - no matter that you believed me to be innocent. Perhaps that might even supply a greater compulsion - ' He half-looked at Elizabeth ' - rather than leave me to other tender mercies…' He returned his gaze to the distant hillside. 'When the received wisdom (whatever that may entail… but 'received wisdom' is difficult to argue with, I agree!) - the received wisdom is that you made a mistake.' He continued to stare across the valley, but fell silent now.

Elizabeth found herself wishing that she hadn't poured her drink on the ground. She was thirsty, and she had ruined her shoes. And for a moment she had also shown herself an Elizabeth Loftus who rather frightened her.

'But I didn't make a mistake,' said Audley.

Elizabeth gave him a look of pure hatred, which she couldn't disguise.

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'He's getting drunk again, you see, Elizabeth.' Audley brushed aside her hatred. 'He must have a liver like an old boot. I remember getting him drunk back in '58 - very drunk… and it wasn't difficult even then.'

'You didn't make a mistake,' agreed Haddock Thomas. 'But, whereas that is what you believe, it is what I know, you see, David. Marxism, with all its egregious little heresies, socialism included, has never attracted me.'

'I know. You spent a whole night telling me, indirectly.' Audley smiled at Elizabeth. 'The uniting theme of all classical literature is the right and wrong uses of authority - Antigone telling Creon to go bowl his hoop, according to Sophocles, and also Augustus in Res Gestae… You made a great impression on me that night, Haddock. I just couldn't see you doing a Philby on us.'

'No?' Haddock seemed to be fascinated by something far below and far away. 'I'm flattered.'

'You should be.' Audley closed his eyes. ' 'This amazing mental dimension, where nothing is barred, and the extent to which you can think is only limited by the limits of your own comprehension and imagination: it's like being let into the Universe itself - the whole atmoshpere of the classics is of a boundless, expanding, gloriously fascinating, bloody marvellous universe - and let's throw our thoughts out there!''

'Did I say all that? Well, I must have been pissed, I agree!' The far-away horizon still engrossed the old man. 'And you must have a bloody-marvellous memory, David.'

'No. Just a tape-recorder under the table. We weren't so good with bugs then, but you didn't know the difference. And I played it again just the day before yesterday, to refresh my not-so-bloody-marvellous memory. We didn't have bugs, but we weren't wholly inefficient.'

'But you have made a mistake, nevertheless.' Haddock Thomas turned to Audley at last.

Audley opened his mouth, then closed it. 'What did I do wrong?'