Here Be Monsters

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By the same author

The Labyrinth Makers

The Alamut Ambush

Colonel Butler's Wolf

October Men

Other Paths to Glory

Our Man in Camelot

War Game

The '44 Vintage

Tomorrow's Ghost

The Hour of the Donkey Soldier

No More The Old Vengeful

Gunner Kelly Sion Crossing

ANTHONY PRICE

Here Be Monsters

GRAFTON BOOKS

For Shirley and John Kasik

Grafton Books

A Division of the Collins Publishing Group

Grafton Street, London W1X 3LA

Published by Grafton Books

First published in Great Britain by Victor Gollancz Ltd 1985 "

Copyright © Anthony Price 1985 ISBN 0-586-06961-

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Collins, Glasgow

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Set in Times

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

PROLOGUE:

The Pointe du Hoc, 1944-

He had been there before, but that other time he had arrived under the protection of darkness, and had departed fearfully in the half-light, with the dawn at his heels. So he had never seen the place before in his life.

What surprised him most was the grass. Somehow he hadn't expected the grass, although it must have been there then - some of it at least must have survived the Texas and the Satterlee and the bombers. But all he could remember from the darkness was a dreadful confusion of shell-holes and bomb-craters, occasionally and inadequately illuminated by dim torchlight and the distant flash of battle flickering from Omaha and Utah.

So the grass had surprised him, not the silence - not the silence, even though the sounds of that other time were what he chiefly remembered, far more than the fear and the excitement: the natural sound of the sea on the beach below, the crunch of boots on the pebbles… and the human sounds, of whole men whispering and cursing, and wounded men crying and cursing; and the inhuman noises, of the guns far away on the beaches, and far too close from the undefined Ranger perimeter just up ahead.

But those sounds, although he could still remember them rationally, no longer echoed in his head. They were part of a fading past, unlike the surprising grass.

And it was treacherous grass , too: it had been scuffed and trampled by yesterday's crowds, so that when he had been tempted away from the path to take an unwise look into one of the larger craters - a foolish, irrational temptation to see just what sort of hole one of those 14-inch shells from the Texas had made - he had slipped on the edge, and had sat down painfully on his bottom and slid half-way into the crater, scrabbling with heels and fingers.

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Then the boy had appeared from nowhere - of all people, a nice solicitous American boy, just like Ronnie at the same age - just like Ronnie, coming to him down by the lake in front of the cabin, when he had hooked himself carelessly, and cried out, angry with his carelessness - just like Ronnie, just as helpful and vulnerable.

The boy had insisted on helping him out of the crater. And then he had shrugged him off angrily, just as he had pushed Ronnie away, all those years ago by the lake, with the hook still embedded in his flesh.

Ronnie! he thought. And with that thought all the doubts and the realities - and the unrealities - of the past fell away from him, leaving only his raw determination of the last forty-eight hours.

Ronnie had a good life, with Mary and the children - children who were almost indistinguishable from Ronnie himself now, already dating their High School sweethearts, and not at all awed by Grandpa!

And -

And he had done everything that they - They - had asked of him, so very carefully, over the years -

The path (there had been no path then, never mind the grass!) - the path was taking him close to the cliff-edge now, even offering him some sort of wooden stairway to the beach below (By God! That would have been damn useful, back in '44!).

But he had to leave the path here, to make their rendezvous.

He looked back. The boy was still there, watching him doubtfully, but he couldn't bring himself to acknowledge that concern, which would surely increase when he set off along the cliff-edge, instead of descending to the beach -

(He could remember the beach in the dark well enough, anyway: all the wreckage of the assault, and the wounded still waiting for evacuation, before his hair-raising rope-ladder climb up the cliff: he had no desire to see that beach again!)

And there was a man picking up litter around the nearest pill-box, too. And he wasn't at all sure that he hadn't been followed; although such matters were outside his remit; besides which, it might be they themselves who were watching over him; and, in any case, it was their business now; and, in the last case of all, it didn't matter now, anyway -

He had done everything they had asked of him, so carefully, so very carefully, over all the years -

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and, until now, so successfully… First, out of conviction; then in doubt, then out of necessity (even then to protect Ronnie, maybe?); and finally almost out of habit - ? But he had done it, anyway!

But now, when it mattered most or least (he honestly didn't know which now), he had given himself this last instruction of all, which would save everyone a great deal of trouble - Them, him, the Central Intelligence Agency, and Ronnie - and Ronnie and the grandchildren most of all!

He just had to find the right place, that was all.

And it had to be out of the boy's sight - and the pillbox-poking Frenchman's… and there was someone else, further away, also scavenging among the debris of yesterday's anniversary celebration…

It had to be the right place: the beach below, memory reminded him, was of pebbles and fallen rocks. But he must get the maximum height, to do it right -

It wasn't as simple as he'd thought it would be, from the recollection of that original climb, and the dark descent, when he'd had a young Ranger to shepherd him, making light of the hazards which had left him in a hot-and-cold sweat. And the grass was still treacherous and slippery.

But now he was almost out of sight of the boy. And the slipperiness of the grass was in a way a bonus: they would say ' Silly old fool! He ought to have known better than to have gone so close to the edge!' And the boy could testify that he had slipped once, already - another bonus!

Here, then? He advanced cautiously towards the edge. Beyond it, the empty sea crawled towards the invisible beach far below, from an equally invisible horizon where it joined the grey evening sky. But there wasn't a sheer drop: the edge had been gouged and smashed by the bombardment of long ago, presenting him with an unsatisfactory descent.

Further along, then. At this rate he would soon reach the place where the actual meeting was scheduled. But that was not for another quarter of an hour (and of course they would be on time; although that was a purely academic virtue now).

It had been a cutting of some kind up which he had originally scrambled finally, and down which he had descended later, so far as he could remember; it might even be the same cutting. There had been a dead German in it, half-way up, on whom he had nearly trodden, and a row of dead Rangers at the top. He could have joined them that night, quite easily: it had happened to a good many of them that day, and probably more than half those who had survived had died in a thousand other ways in the thousands of days since then; he was really doing no more now than joining that majority, bowing to their vote.

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And here was that cutting, surely. But, most annoyingly, there was a young French couple tightly embracing each other at the head of it, the girl's long legs pale in the grass, the man's hand on her breast. That wouldn't suit his contact at all! But, then, that hardly mattered.

Rather than disturb the couple, even though the climb-down taxed his strength considerably, he negotiated the steep side of the cutting, until he came breathlessly to the bottom of it, close to the edge of the cliff again. Only when he reached it, he felt a stab of pain under his ribs as he saw the steepness of the other side, which he now had to ascend; and as he tried to catch his breath the thought came to him: Why not here, then?

Once again he explored the cliff-edge. There was, at last, a perfectly clean drop: the pebbles and boulders were perhaps fifty feet below him.

But was that enough?

He stared down, suddenly fascinated by what he had never seen in daylight, remembering the torchlight glimpses of wrecked equipment and dead men's boots protruding from under blankets on that same margin between the cliff and the sea.

Did he really want to die? It had seemed so easy and so logical, these past few days - why did it seem so difficult now?

He looked out towards the darkening horizon. He had done everything that they had asked of him, even down to that meeting with the Englishman. They would keep their promise now - of that he was sure. So why not -

He heard a shout behind him, and turned towards it in surprise.

The young Frenchman was running down the cutting towards him -

'M'sieur! M'sieur!'

The old man glimpsed the girl higher up, smoothing down her rumpled skirt as she looked around her. The skirt had a floral pattern, and she was wearing a white sleeveless blouse.

And she was dark-haired, and although he couldn't see her face clearly he was sure that she was pretty. And he was suddenly overwhelmingly glad that the young man was coming to rescue him.

He opened his mouth to say something, without quite knowing what he was going to say.

But the young man caught his arm fiercely before he could speak, and swung him round dummy2

so that he was facing the grey blankness of the sky. Then he had no more time at all as the young man broke his back expertly and propelled him outwards over the cliff.

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Elizabeth examined herself dispassionately, first close-up in the large mirror over the washbasin, and then cap-a-pied in the full-length mirror on the wall to her left, beside the window.

As usual, the splendid view from the window diverted her attention away from herself. It was so much better than the forbiddingly administrative outlook from her own office, which was on what Paul referred to as 'the Lubianka side'. In fact, the ladies' room as a whole was better than her office, in view and size and furniture, as well as in the fragrant cleanliness which Mrs Harlin required. The very existence of such a palatial ladies' room, catering for the needs of only two ladies, had to have originated in some architectural accident or plumbing exigency. But it nevertheless also inhibited her from complaining about her own broom-cupboard office: no one could accuse a department with a ladies'

room like this of sexism.

She returned to the consideration of herself. No one, either, could quarrel with that hair or that figure, or the clothes. It was the face which was the problem.

The door opened behind her, and she caught a glimpse of Mrs Harlin's head and shoulders in the mirror before she turned.

'Oh - there you are, Miss Loftus!' Mrs Harlin always addressed her formally, even in the sanctuary of the ladies' room, as though they were on camera there too.

Elizabeth smiled gratefully, almost honestly, as to an important ally in the game of life.

'Oh, Mrs Harlin - ' she touched her hips lightly ' - is this really right for me? What do you think?'

The question sucked Mrs Harlin fully into the ladies' room, her duty momentarily forgotten. Instead, her official face became sisterly-motherly, as it always did on appeal. 'Is it washable?'

'So they say. But it was a tremendous bargain,' lied Elizabeth, sorting her real questions into the right order, but holding back from them.

'It's a beautiful dress - quite beautiful.' With her widow's pension as well as her salary, Mrs Harlin wasn't short of a buck (as Paul was wont to observe so coarsely), but she also had a dummy2

natural dress-sense almost as infallible as Madame Irene's. So what gave this ploy substance was that her advice was always genuinely worth having.

'But the colour, Mrs Harlin - this shade of green?' Elizabeth held steady. 'For me?'

'Oh… yes, Miss Loftus - ' Mrs Harlin's eye swept upwards inexorably ' - with your hair.

And that sculptured style is so becoming.'

She had almost managed to miss the face, thought Elizabeth, turning back to the mirror.

That face - that damned hereditary face, which had somehow contrived to jump back more than two centuries on the maternal side, skipping women who had usually been handsome and recently even beautiful, to reproduce exactly the features of the eighteenth-century Varney who had been an Admiral of the Blue in the West Indies and whose oil-painted features - brutal chin, buck-teeth and arrogant nose - no doubt off-put visitors to the National Portrait Gallery now as much as they had once done his crew, and probably his Franco-Spanish enemies too.

'Do you really think so?' Well, all that money and art could do - her money and the combined art and advice of Madame Irene and Monsieur Pierre - had been done, and would have to do.

She leaned forward, pretending to check her eye makeup ('The Eyes - they are Mademoiselle's best feature'). 'Is the Deputy-Director in yet, Mrs Harlin?' she inquired casually.

'Yes, Miss Loftus.' The nuance of disapproval was because of the eye make-up: Mrs Harlin was old-fashioned there. 'I was about to say - to remind you -that your appointment with him is due now, and that he's already asking for you.'

'Oh yes?' Elizabeth transferred her attention to her cheek-bones. The object of Madame Irene's strategy, so far as she could decipher from the euphemisms, was to draw attention away from Admiral Varney's salient features. Some hope! 'Is he?' She knew Latimer was in the building, having observed his well-scraped Vauxhall in the underground car park and squeezed her beloved Morgan in as far away as possible from the area in which he might manoeuvre it subsequently. But that hadn't been the car which really worried her, nevertheless. 'Is anyone else in?'

'Anyone else?' It wasn't quite an improper question, yet Mrs Harlin knew that Elizabeth's present assignment did not involve direct liaison with anyone else in Research and Development other than Chief Superintendent Andrew, who (as they both knew) was up on some embattled miners' picket line in Yorkshire until Saturday, pretending to throw rocks at his fascist colleagues. But when it came to business Mrs Harlin was properly close-mouthed.

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So she had better improve on that, thought Elizabeth. 'I take it Dr Mitchell isn't in?'

'Ah!' Mrs Harlin sighed sympathetically. 'As a matter of fact he is in this morning, Miss Loftus.'

Elizabeth stopped looking into her own eyes ('They are Mademoiselle's best feature' was at least partially true, because she had missed Admiral Varney's little piggy eyes, if the National Portrait Gallery picture was to be trusted), and turned to Mrs Harlin in surprise.

For Paul's car hadn't been there when she arrived, and Paul should have been safe in Cheltenham at the moment. 'He is?'

'He arrived just after you.' Mrs Harlin could hardly know the full extent of the problem.

But she knew that there was one.

'I thought he was at GCHQ.' Hopelessness engulfed Elizabeth. Paul was so clever in every other way; not simply - unsimply - intellectually clever, but shrewd in such a Byzantine, Machiavellian, self-interested way that it would have been embarrassing to watch him bare an Achilles heel of stupidity at the best of times; but actually to be his blind spot, his weakness, herself - to be his Achilles heel, when she admired him so much - was almost more than she could bear.

'He was.' Sympathetic understanding warred with departmental protocol, if not with security, in Mrs Harlin. 'But the Deputy-Director sent him an SG yesterday, Miss Loftus, to be here this morning without fail.'

'Oh,' said Elizabeth. 'Where is he at the moment?'

'Dr Mitchell is… well, he's hovering in my office at the moment, Miss Loftus,' admitted Mrs Harlin, Elizabeth's tortured silence weakening her normal circumspection. 'He's talking with Commander Cable. Or… he was when I left, after Commander Cable had been with the Deputy-Director and with Major Turnbull. And Dr Audley is also here.'

'Oh!' She repeated the oh knowing that Mrs Harlin would relate it only to Paul, and not to this suspicious gathering of the clans. 'Well, let's get it over with, Mrs Harlin, then.'

'Don't you worry, Miss Loftus.' Whatever it was which accompanied the words, it wasn't a smile, and it boded no good for Paul, even though Mrs Harlin had a motherly soft spot for him. 'You have an appointment with the Deputy-Director - remember?'

'Elizabeth!' James Cable saw her second, but welcomed her first, with his own special dummy2

mixture of gentleness and good manners, which together always put him ill at ease in the presence of an ugly woman. 'It is good to see you again - and you look like a million dollars, too - don't you agree, Mitchell?'

'I don't know about a million dollars.' An edge of unrequited love sharpened Paul's answer quite unnecessarily, in spite of his lack of embarrassment. 'But she certainly looks expensive, I grant you that, Commander.'

'Expensive?' Dear, very dear James - how father would have loved James, with all his naval ancestors striding back across their quarter-decks, from Trafalgar to San Carlos Bay! It was a bitter thought that in a year or two some wretched, mindless, suitable girl, who knew the Princess of Wales and was approved by his bone-headed mother, would get Commander James Cable for sure. 'Expensive?' In his own way, James was just as smart as Paul, or he wouldn't be here. Indeed, he might not be pretending stupidity now, for he was not burdened with Paul's weakness where she was concerned. 'What d'you mean -

"expensive"?'

Mrs Harlin loomed from behind Elizabeth. 'The Deputy-Director will see you now, Miss Loftus,' she said blandly.

'I mean, just look at her, Jim-boy,' said Paul. 'Apart from coiffure and the paintwork - and God only knows what that cost - look at the dress, which is probably a little French something from Welbeck Street, or that new place round the corner there, where she gets her trousers and those other things - is it culottes or sans-culottes? Or maybe it's German, because Faith Audley's also on a German jag of some sort at the moment, so I'm told.'

'He has been asking for you, Miss Loftus.' Mrs Harlin cut through Paul's unlikely fashion intelligence, ' If you'll excuse me, Dr Mitchell?'

'Of course, Mrs Harlin.' Paul shriveled slightly, well aware that he was over-matched. 'I'm sorry - '

'Thank you, Dr Mitchell.' Because she had a soft spot for him, Mrs Harlin accepted his surrender gracefully, with one of her thin smiles.

'But - ' Paul drew a breath ' - but I must talk to Miss Loftus nevertheless.'

'Tripod masts,' murmured James Cable, swaying slightly towards Paul. 'Tripod masts -

remember?'

'What's that, Commander?' said Mrs Harlin dangerously.

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It wasn't in the least surprising that they both knew what a tripod mast was, the naval officer and the military historian - the sometime-sailor and othertime-scholar. But what the devil did those masts signify here and now?

'Tripod masts - yes.' Paul nodded to his friend, then braced himself in Mrs Harlin's direction. 'Nonetheless… and in spite of the Deputy-Director… I will speak with Miss Loftus now, Mrs Harlin. On a purely professional matter. And an urgent one.' He turned towards Elizabeth, and pointed at the entrance door behind her. 'Just two minutes, Elizabeth - outside.'

'Dr Mitchell!' snapped Mrs Harlin.

'Professional business, Elizabeth. Flag of truce on other matters - that's a promise. Scouts'

honour.'

'Dr Mitchell!'

'It's all right, Mrs Harlin.' Elizabeth could see that Paul was genuinely worried, and that he didn't care about hiding his real feelings. So that was perhaps the right moment for her to start worrying too. 'Very well, Paul. Two minutes.'

'Hmm…' The sound indicated that Elizabeth had gone down a snake in Mrs Harlin's estimation. 'Very well, Miss Loftus. But I shall inform the Deputy-Director that you are on your way.'

'Well, Paul?'

'I'm sorry I fluffed it out there, Elizabeth - with the fashion bit. But I always do, you know me… Just, I prefer you unadorned.'

Naked and unadorned? remembered Elizabeth. He was still fluffing it. 'Two professional minutes, you said.'

His face set, almost expressionless. 'We haven't seen each other for an age, Elizabeth. We've both been busy.'

She felt absurdly disappointed with his breach of trust. 'Paul - you promised - ' She broke off.

'I'm not breaking any promise. We've all been busy.'

'Then get to the point.'

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'That is the point. I know what you've been doing here: you've been co-ordinating the Cheltenham inquiry - Audley's big job.'

Elizabeth stared at him. There was no reason that he should know who was on the computer at this end. No reason, except that he was Paul Mitchell.

'I know because I've been not only supplying you with some of your information, but also answering some of your questions, Elizabeth.' He seemed to be able to read some of her mind. 'Has it ever occurred to you that everyone has an individual style of mind - mind, as distinct from literary style? And once you know the person, it's almost as good as a fingerprint. Like a mind-print… But, anyway, I know - okay?'

That was really quite interesting, and not least because it warned her how much she still had to learn. 'So what?'

'So it's quite important, in its way, what you've been doing. And you're asking the right questions. You're good, Elizabeth - I hate to have to admit it, but you are good. You sit here, in that little nunnery cell of yours, and you actually think. And you think to some purpose.'

'Now you're being patronizing - that's what I'm thinking at this moment.'

His eyes clouded. 'Of course. Don't you realize that that's my doom, Elizabeth - the one gift the Good Fairy denied me? If I love someone I always say the wrong thing to her, no matter what I mean to say. But we're talking business now.'

'I've yet to hear any.' She couldn't afford to weaken. 'Come to the point.'

'I'm still there, I haven't left it. I - ' He stopped suddenly, and shook his head, though more at himself than at her, Elizabeth thought. And, in spite of his redoubled promise, that suggested that he still wasn't talking business. 'Look, Elizabeth, I obviously haven't got a lot of time, so I can't explain in any detail how I know what I know, so what I think may not seem very convincing to you. But I want you to listen - and to bear with me, please.

Please?'

'For about thirty seconds.' She didn't look at her watch. 'You heard what Mrs Harlin said?'

'Oh - the hell with her!' He gestured. 'And bugger Oliver - Fatso! Blame me, if you like.'

'It's easy for you to say that. You're old establishment. I'm hardly fledged.'

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He stared at her. 'Not so easy, actually. I'm on a bloody knife-edge with our Deputy-Director. But… not that I care. Just trust me this once, enough to listen to me, Elizabeth -

Miss Loftus, if you like.' The stare became fixed. 'In fact, if you listen to me now, you can be Miss Loftus for ever after. And that's another promise - until the Sun stands still, and the Moon ceases to rise. Okay?'

The offer took her aback. He was offering her… he was offering her too much, in terms of what he had to offer. Or perhaps he was offering enough to frighten her, on those terms.

She had to devalue it, to make a jest of it. 'Okay, Paul. But only if you'll tell me what

"tripod masts" means, between you and James - ?'

Again that clouded, defenseless look. Then it vanished. 'That's easy - James was just warning me to lay off. To run for my life, before Mrs Harlin sank me without a trace.' He almost smiled. ' Tripod masts - you ought to have got that one, Miss Loftus, with all those naval histories of your father's that you copy-typed for him.'

The reminder of past drudgery hardened her heart finally: he knew altogether too much about that past of hers, and by recalling it he merely encouraged her to hold him to his latest promise. 'I know what tripod masts are, Dr Mitchell.'

He took the point: she could see him reading the full meaning of the smallest print of the agreement he had proposed. 'Not what they are, but what they meant.' The fixed emotionless stare was back. 'Perhaps not inappropriately on this occasion, more than Commander Cable meant himself.'

There was no percentage in trying to read his riddles. 'And what did they mean?'

'Death, Miss Loftus, just death.' He let the word sink in. The Battle of the Falklands - not the recent unpleasantness, but the original one in 1914. James and I both read it up when he got back from there, just for curiosity. Before he closed in on Port Stanley in 1914, von Spec sent in a light cruiser to have a look. And the poor devil in the crow's nest spotted tripod masts in the harbour. And he knew in that second that he was a dead man, because they meant battle-cruisers - too big to fight, and too fast to out-run - I'm sure you remember that, Miss Loftus.'

Elizabeth did remember that, from Father's cold comparison of the customs of naval warfare in the good old days of wooden ships, when a man could surrender to superior force without losing his honour, and the rules of the supposedly more civilized twentieth century, in which no quarter was asked or granted - 'the logical requirement of democratic warfare, which was of course conducted not for vulgar profit, but for noble causes.'

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'I see.' And on a quite juvenile level she could see that James had warned Paul not to tangle with Mrs Harlin, who certainly had tripod masts. But, on a more serious level, Paul had seen the masts, yet had stayed to fight. 'So what is it that you have to tell me, that's so important it can't wait?'

'Okay.' While she had been thinking, so had he been. 'I think we have all the ingredients of a panic. And, as we don't have them very often here, they always scare the pants off me.'

'What sort of panic?' The why could come later.

'I don't know, exactly. But all the signs are there.'

Better to let him have his way. She must be late already, but she could handle the Deputy-Director, at a pinch. 'What signs?'

'We've all been taken off what we were doing. And I know what I was doing - and what you were doing, close enough. And I know what Major Turnbull was doing, for other reasons, which I don't intend to bore you with . . . And I've a pretty damn good idea what old James was up to, come to that.'

As usual, he knew too much for his own good.

'All right.' He misread her silence and her expression, nevertheless: with people, and perhaps with her in particular, he was fallible. 'They took me off. And they took David Audley off. And they took you off. Which I know because I have this access to the computer, to pick its brains, and they haven't cancelled it. So I tried to pick yours a couple of days ago. And you just weren't available. See?'

Even with her limited experience, Elizabeth saw. Anyone armed with those rights of access and his knowledge of how the department worked (never mind his insatiable curiosity) could probably elicit a great deal of information. For a start it might be mostly negative, but he would surely have more sophisticated methods than counting the cars in the car park to find out more.

The very thought made her cautious. 'And what did you conclude from that, Dr Mitchell?'

'It didn't start with you.' He shook his head. 'I was engaged in something quite interesting, not to say important.' The shake became almost an apologetic shrug. 'I thought maybe I could find a substitute.'

Again, Elizabeth saw - and saw also how he had reached this pass: he had cast around for someone else to do the job he'd been given - someone engaged on less important matters -

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before making a fuss. And, naturally enough, he'd tried to hang the albatross on her neck first - the most junior, if not the newest, recruit.

Oh, typical Paul! 'And came up with a dusty answer?'

The corridor door behind them swished and she saw his eyes flick past her, and then come back to her almost pleadingly.

'Miss Loftus - ' She just caught the last of Mrs Harlin's frown at Paul as she turned ' - the Deputy-Director has asked for you again. I cannot reasonably invent another excuse, unless you actually wish to be indisposed. At the moment he insists that either you are here, or you aren't.' She gave Elizabeth the benefit of the doubt, just. 'I do think you ought to come now.'

Tripod masts! thought Elizabeth. Or, to get away from their ridiculous naval code, from a past which she preferred to forget, here was a snake or a ladder, and she could choose whether to go up or down.

Thank you, Mrs Harlin. Please tell the Deputy-Director that I'll be with him as soon as I'm free.'

Mrs Harlin very nearly replied. But then she didn't, and Elizabeth watched the door swish, and lock.

'This had better be good, Paul - Dr Mitchell.' That he was regarding her with that ridiculous expression only irritated her more, sharpening her voice: on his face it was a positively unnatural look, quite alien to his character. 'And it had better be quick, too.'

'Oh - it's good.' Far too late, he erased the expression. 'That is, it's good intelligence. But it's bad news for you. Because I think Fatso is going to send you into the field.'

'Why - ' She just caught the wrong question in time -the Why do you think that's bad news?

question. ' How d'you know I'm going into the field?' Besides, damn it, it wasn't bad news at all - it was good news!

'Because Jim Cable is taking your job, as of now. And you've got an appointment with Fatso in minus five minutes. And because I can read the signs when they're in big flashing neon lights.'

He knew more than he was saying. All that stuff about using his SG rights might be true, but that also was window-dressing, concealing some other source of information which he was not about to reveal. So she must push him.

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'You haven't really told me anything I couldn't deduce from the cars down below.' She gave him Admiral Varney's down-the-nose look.

'Is that so?' She got a Mitchell-ancestor look in return - maybe from his 1918 grandfather, of whom he was so inordinately proud, who had died on the far side of the Hindenburg Line.

'And you counted David Audley's car too, did you? And that didn't worry you, then?'

'Why should that worry me?' But it did now, all the same.

'Oh - come on, Elizabeth! Jack Butler's on leave, because he has to take some leave, some time… So he made bloody sure that David wasn't around, when Fatso Latimer was running the shop. And Fatso wouldn't have summoned David back if there wasn't an emergency - he may be a basket-hanger, but he isn't an idiot.' He glowered at her. 'And I'm being sent back to Cheltenham. Though there's precious little I can do there in David's absence.'

When he delivered the final emphasis she knew that he wasn't going to tell her any more.

But, because of his weakness (and however badly that made her feel, for pressing that unfair advantage), it was worth one more push - even if she had to lead in with that wrong question, which she had managed to avoid.

'All right. So maybe there is some sort of emergency. And maybe the Deputy-Director is going to give it to me.'

'No "maybe" - '

'All right - no "maybe".' She concealed her pleasure, but thought that he was a fool not to allow for it. But then, where she was concerned he was quite often foolish, they were agreed on that. 'And I'll even grant you the field-work hypothesis - though you haven't supported it with a single hard fact.' That was the first element of the push. Now for the second. 'But why should that be bad for me?'

He pursed his lips. But, of course, he wasn't that foolish: he knew when he was being pushed.

'For heaven's sake!' She acted out a pretense of irritation by settling her handbag under her arm and swaying towards the door. 'I've had practically two years here - even allowing for the instruction courses, and the information seminars, and all the rest of it… I know we are

"Research and Development", and not an active department. But we do undertake field-work on occasion -I do know that too.'

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What she also knew was that she didn't need to elaborate on that. He had been engaged in field-work when they had first met. And she had been the field in which he had been working.

'Yes.' He couldn't escape from his own memories. 'We do field-work.'

'So what are you complaining about?' The truth about Paul was that although he was reputedly very good in the field, he had several very bad experiences among those memories, which were probably warping his judgment now. Nevertheless, the more he agonized, the more certain she was that he had something more than hypothesis to go on.

A tiny muscle twitched in his cheek, betraying the clenched teeth beneath.

Field-work, thought Elizabeth happily. 'You're just wasting my time.' She settled her handbag under her arm, and started to make the beginning of her turn towards the door.

'Elizabeth - !'

So much "for the running of the Sun and the rising of the Moon! thought Elizabeth. But this wasn't the moment to remind him of their already-forgotten treaty - not when he was cracking.

'Well?'

'I can't tell you what I think you're going to do. But you mustn't do it.' For a moment he was lost for words. 'Field-work is always a matter of choice - we're not contracted to do it.'

Those were the wrong words, even though accurate. Because they both knew that she couldn't refuse, even if she had wanted to. Which she didn't.

'Why can't you tell me?'

'Because… if I'm right - ' He damn well knew he was right! ' - it's a secure classification.

And I can't buck that. Not even for you.' He shook his head.

God! No wonder he'd been treading like a cat on hot bricks! And - if he was on a knife-edge with the Deputy-Director, as he well might be, being Paul - those bricks would have been more like red-hot if he'd accidentally stumbled on a secure classification! Because -

because, if he even mentioned it to her (having once been cleared for it himself), and then she let it slip, she would have to account exactly where and how she'd got it. And that would be all nine lives at one go for the cat.

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Poor old Paul! she thought, with all the tolerance of pleasure: to be admitted to such a classification was a mark of professional confidence - not a snake, but a ladder. So he couldn't have told her in advance anything better calculated to encourage her to accept whatever was offered - he'd got it all dead-wrong again!

'Ah!' Now she could afford to be merciful. 'Yes - of course.' Nod to him - she owed him that, at least: he'd come in far too close for safety already, knowing already that those tripod masts were there in harbour, waiting for him.

But now he was fumbling in one pocket after another, to find something. 'But I suppose there's no reason why you shouldn't have read the newspapers.' He was fiddling with a tiny fragment of newsprint, to prise it out from his wallet. 'David always says that half our work starts in print somewhere, long before we get a tip-off. So you could have read this, from last week's Telegraph.' He looked at her as he offered it. 'And that will establish whether I'm right, anyway.'

Elizabeth took the fragment. It must have filled a hole somewhere, at the bottom of a column: just one small paragraph, with a little two-line heading. It was, she remembered from the Newspaper Course, what they called a 'filler'. And the Telegraph liked fillers -

those tiny bits of news which might, or might not, see the light of day, according to the space left by more important stories above.

Just a matter of chance, in fact - Pointe du Hoc -

And chance, and Paul (who had been trained by David Audley, and who was cleared for this particular secure classification), had rescued this fragment from oblivion.

'I'd like it back, please.' After the half-minute he generously allowed, he reached for the evidence of his indiscretion. 'Have you ever heard of the Pointe du Hoc, Miss Loftus?'

He had remembered the Sun and the Moon. Perhaps the indiscretion had sharpened up his memory.

'No,' she lied, with false innocence. 'It's in Normandy, somewhere - ?'

'Or Thaddeus Parker?'

'Who?' She had maybe been a shade too innocent with that 'Normandy, somewhere?', when it was obvious from the text where the Pointe du Hoc was. But she didn't have to pretend this reaction: that wasn't the name in the text. 'Who?'

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'They got it wrong - "Edward Parker".' He held up the cutting for an instant, before slotting it back among his credit cards. 'He ought to have been "Tad", but for some reason he was always "Ed". So they made him "Edward" somewhere along the line.' As he replaced the plastic folder in his pocket, 'You've never heard of Thaddeus Parker - Major "Ed" Parker?'

'No.'

D-DAY VETERAN

IN DEATH FALL

A 70-year-old American veteran of the D-Day landings, Edward Parker, fell to his death from the 100-foot cliffs of Pointe du Hoc yesterday -

' - never.'

The door clicked again behind her, and then swished, as they stared at each other.

'Miss Loftus,' said Mrs Harlin.

'Well, if I'm right, you will in about two minutes, Miss Loftus,' said Paul.

Elizabeth hardly had time to think, as Mrs Harlin swept her on, tripod masts erect and guns trained, doors clicking and swishing at her touch.

'I don't think he's very pleased with you - ' Click-swish ' - Miss Loftus, Deputy-Director.'

'Ah!' At least he didn't look too displeased. 'Thank you, Mrs Harlin.'

Swish-click.

'Please do sit down, Miss Loftus - Elizabeth.' At the moment he wasn't looking at her at all

- he was studying the display on his screen, which she couldn't see. But that was her first time as 'Elizabeth' with him. So did that make him 'Oliver' with her?

On balance no, she decided. Because… he might be 'Fatso' to Paul, and something more polite, but even ruder, to David Audley… But he was God's viceroy to her at this moment, and if he ordered her to jump over the cliff at Pointe du Hoc she would at least think about doing so.

Also, if Paul was right, she was about ten seconds away from Thaddeus Parker, alias Major dummy2

Ed. And close to a secure classification thereafter.

'You've been rather elusive this morning. Have a chocolate?'

The only object on the desk itself was a large box of Thornton's chocolates, which had already been extensively plundered. What they said about Oliver St John Latimer was that when he was unhappy he went on a diet to make himself even more miserable. So he must be very happy now.

"Thank you, Mr Latimer.' The truth or a lie?

'Yes?' He looked at her, and waited.

Mrs Harlin had been angry, so Mrs Harlin might have sneaked, Elizabeth decided. 'I was delayed by Dr Mitchell. I'm sorry.'

'Oh yes?' He still didn't look displeased - and he certainly didn't seem surprised. In fact, he looked almost sympathetic. 'Is Dr Mitchell being difficult, Elizabeth?'

So he knew about Dr Mitchell and Miss Loftus, and their little difficulty. But then, it was his business to know about such things, because he was the Deputy-Director - indeed, at this moment, the Acting Director, wearing Colonel Butler's metaphorical red coat, even if it was a size too large for him.

'No, Mr Latimer.' It occurred to Elizabeth almost simultaneously that he might actually be trying to be sympathetic, but also - and for sure - that he was enjoying the feel of that metaphorical coat across his shoulders. So now a lie with icing on it was indicated. 'I appreciate your - concern.' Look grateful but embarrassed, Elizabeth! 'But that problem is…

contained now.' It wasn't difficult to look embarrassed, particularly with a chocolate in her mouth.

He nodded, and reached across to the box himself. 'So what did he want, then?' He gave the box a little push. 'Have another one?'

Did a weakness for chocolates suggest truthfulness in other matters? She wondered. 'I shouldn't - but I will.' But she also had to remember that he was an extremely clever man.

'It seems that he sent me an SG after I was detached from the daily movements analysis.

And he wasn't happy with the answer he received.' She would have to brief Paul about this.

He munched for a moment. 'How did he know you were on analysis?'

She wasn't there ahead of him, but at least she was ready for anything. 'Oh - ' This had better dummy2

be good, Elizabeth!' - I asked him about that…'

'And what did he say?'

Only the truth would do. 'He seems to know my style. He calls it a "mind-print".' She shrugged, a little disbelieving, a little irritated.

'He does?' Another nod, and another reach towards the box. But there were so few left now that he had to lean forward to search among the empty paper containers. 'Like the radio-operators… But to do it with SGs is really quite ingenious… He's no fool, is your Dr Mitchell, Elizabeth.'

That was one crack too many. 'Not my Dr Mitchell, Mr Latimer.'

'No. Forgive me.' He found his chocolate, and then turned towards the screen as he fed it to himself. 'You know, the results of your Civil Service interview a couple of years ago, and all that… they were quite good, you know.' He had got a chewy one this time, and it was giving him problems. 'And your other fitness tests.'

Patronizing chauvinist pig! thought Elizabeth. But then she checked her own prejudice, and reassessed her judgment. What he was doing was prudently clearing her for what Paul plainly believed was beyond her capability.

Prudent level-headed Deputy-Director! 'Colonel Butler said my results were satisfactory.'

'More than satisfactory. They said you were a late developer, and they'd probably have failed you if you'd come to them straight from Oxford, in spite of your first-class degree and your hockey Blue… It seems that they are presently indulging - or trying to indulge -

some sort of positive discrimination in that regard.' He shook his head at the screen. 'It won't do, you know - it won't do at all! Though I suppose they might have passed you…

because you were female…'

Patronizing chauvinist pig! 'I'm still female, Mr Latimer.' Not even a secure classification was worth this! 'I may have developed, but I haven't changed in that respect.'

'Oh - ' He left the screen instantly, to blink at her in surprise, almost as though he was seeing her for the first time ' - yes - ?'

'You sent for me, Mr Latimer. I'm sorry I was late.' She often - too often! - saw Admiral Varney's face, but it was only very rarely that she heard his voice.

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'Yes… Miss Loftus.' Suddenly he really did see her. And suddenly he wasn't a little fat man with an almost empty box of chocolates in front of him on an empty desk.

Tripod masts!

Then he relaxed, and the masts faded into her imagination, and he was a little fat man again.

'How's your latin, Miss Loftus - Elizabeth?'

'My - what?' She couldn't have heard correctly.

'Your Latin. Veni, vidi, via?' He stared at her, and she had heard correctly. 'Hie, haec, hoc -

and Gallia est omnis divisa in panes tres?'

She had heard correctly - but she didn't know how to answer.

Elizabeth could only think Paul had been wrong!

'No matter!' He didn't seem to expect an answer. He seemed to know all the answers to his own questions. 'No matter, Elizabeth. You just tell me now about the Pointe du Hoc in 1944

instead.'

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Ten years as a school-teacher had taught Elizabeth how to deal with the clever-awkward girls, who had simultaneously known too much for their own good, yet not half enough.

But what she had somehow forgotten was how such girls resisted The Enemy.

'The Pointe du Hoc is a headland on the coast of Normandy, between Grandcamp and Vierville - '

'Spare me the geography, Elizabeth.' Oliver St John Latimer munched his chocolate.

'Waterloo is a village near Brussels, and Gettysburg is a small town in Pennsylvania, and neither of them has moved an inch on the map since 1815, or 1863. So the Pointe du Hoc is still where it was in 1944 - shall we take that as read?' He munched contentedly. 'Just tell me something I don't know - eh?'

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Dawn, 6th June, 1944, Companies D, E and F, 5th Battalion, US Rangers -

' Rangers, the Americans called them, Liza - like our Commandos.' Major Birkenshawe locked a bushy white eyebrow at her. 'You know what they are? Real cutthroats is what they are, Liza!'

Elizabeth tried not to wince. Long, long ago, when she had been in pig-tails and short skirts - when Father had first brought Major Birkenshawe to the house - the Major had told her that 'Elizabeth' was far too big a name for such a very little girl, and that he proposed to abbreviate it.

('You see, you're a lucky little girl, to have such a name. Liz, Lizzie, Elisa - and Betty, and Bet, and Beth… Bessie, too. And when our Queen was a little girl like you, she was called "Lilibet" - shall I call you that, eh?')

'Yes, Major. Like the Paras and the SAS?' What really bugged her was that, in the kindest and most helpful way, he always took her ignorance for granted still, just as he had done over twenty years ago.

'Funny thing, that,' said Colonel Sharpe.

'Funny, Colonel?'

'"Rangers", Miss Loftus.'

Now, Colonel Sharpe was different, and she was genuinely grateful to the dear old Major for producing him on demand, once she had given him the specification. But then the thing about the Major was that he knew how to obey orders. His wife had taught him that, if not the army.

('If you want a clever fella, that knows his stuff, I've just the man for you, Liza. Served on Monty's staff, saw it all - probably planned half of it himself, I shouldn't wonder - house full of books, head full of knowledge - resigned to run the family business - would have run the Army otherwise.

Retired now - Sharpe by name, and sharp by nature - never got on with your father - funny thing, that - ')

That last wasn't really 'funny', because Father had never got on with masterful equals who had made successes of their lives. But everything else was undoubtedly 'funny' (but not very funny), about the Deputy-Director's very specific orders. And that not only because any one of the men in the department could have done this job more quickly, if not better, but also (and more) because he had instructed her neither to use any of the department's dummy2

immense facilities, human or otherwise, nor to go straight round to the Americans in Grosvenor Square and use any of her professional contacts. And although he must have his reason for this, none was as yet readily apparent to her.

Sharpe was looking at her, and she had the uncomfortable feeling that he had already smelt a rat, while she could only smell the Major's fierce tobacco.

('Hugh's girl - Hugh Loftus - remember him, Sharpe? Used to teach the wife's nieces at the High -

works for the Government now - Civil Servant - waste of a good teacher - better paid though, eh Liza?')

Elizabeth waited. Colonel Sharpe didn't know what to make of her. But that was no reason why she should feed his suspicions.

'Though perhaps not more so than our choice of "Commando" as a name for our special forces,' he said at length. 'You know its origin?'

It was a small innocent challenge to an ex-history teacher. 'We took that from the Boers, who fought us in South Africa, didn't we?' He would appreciate a counter-challenge. 'And we gave them "Concentration Camp" in return?'

'What's that?' Major Birkenshawe bristled slightly. 'I think you've got that wrong, Liza.

"Concentration Camp" was a Hun invention.'

'I'm sure you're right, Major.' Elizabeth smiled at him. 'But "Rangers", Colonel?'

He studied her for a few more seconds. 'The original of the name is obscure. But it seems most likely that they derived from Rogers' Rangers in the eighteenth century. And they were a corps of frontiersmen who were recruited to assist the regulars. There was a film about them - I rather think it starred Spencer Tracy.'

Major Birkenshawe grunted approvingly. 'Damn good actor - and the delightful woman he used to appear with - cheek-bones and hair - your hair looks particularly nice today, Liza -

suits you, like that - Sorry, Sharpe -Rangers, you were saying?'

Colonel Sharpe gave the Major a nod, more affectionate than condescending, and Elizabeth wondered how such an acquaintance had become more than nodding, they were such an unlikely pair. But then Father and the dear old Major had been equally unlikely friends.

Then the Colonel came back to her. 'A curious fact, which they must have overlooked, is that the Rangers fought for the British during the American War of Independence. And that would make them not just enemies -"Loyalists" to us, of course - but actually traitors.

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And "traitor" is always a pejorative word.'

The Major nodded, even though he looked as though he wasn't at all sure what 'pejorative'

meant. 'But they were good, though - those fellas… Saw 'em training once, in '43, before I had my little misfortune.' He had raised the stump of his right arm quite unselfconsciously.

' Training, they called it - ' Major Birkenshawe pushed his stump back into place ' - looked damn dangerous to me - if you'll pardon my language, Liza. They were shooting at each other, and blowing each other up, and climbing up cliffs - I remember thinking that the real thing couldn't be a lot more dangerous than what they were doing.'

'That was the Isle of Wight manoeuvres, was it?' Sharpe turned towards him, away from Elizabeth. 'On the cliffs?'

The stump moved, as though it had a life of its own, and was remembering. 'Must have been '44. Isle of Wight - you're right there. Shot grapnels up, with lines attached

'He stopped suddenly, massaging the stump and staring midway between them. 'That's right! Remember thinking "Sheer madness! Not a hope, if Jerry's on the top - glad it's not me!"' He grinned ancient nicotine-stained fangs at Elizabeth. 'Amazing how it comes back!

Killed a lot of men training, did the Americans. Had a lot of men to kill, of course - big country… But these were good men - very keen - could see that.' 'And that must have been when you were involved on the Merville planning, Maurice?' Colonel Sharpe interrupted him gently.

'Probably was. Another piece of lunacy! "Never drop half the men within twenty miles", I told 'em. They wanted to land gliders right on the battery! "Not a chance", I said. "Only chance you've got - Jerry won't believe what's happening - probably give him heart-failure".'

'But you said "Go" all the same.' The Colonel paused. 'And weren't you scheming to go with them?'

'Of course.' The Major retired for a moment behind a foul-smelling smoke-screen. 'Just curiosity - wanted to see what sort of b———mess-up they made of it.' He applied another match to his pipe one-handed. 'And they did.' He stabbed the pipe-stem towards Elizabeth.

'Took the battery, though - got to give them that - bloody massacre all round - sorry to have missed it. But that's the luck of the game, Liza.'

Elizabeth stared at Major Birkenshawe. When he had talked with Father there had of course been no place for her, even if she'd wanted to stay. So, in all these years, she'd regarded him as an old buffer - to a pig-tailed child he'd seemed an old buffer from the beginning, and as they'd both aged he'd become one. But once upon a time there'd been a dummy2

young Major Birkenshawe, happily and bloodthirstily engaged in planning daring deeds.

And (what was perhaps more eloquent) he could still dismiss the ruin of his military hopes and his mutilation as 'the luck of the game', as Father had never been able to do.

'Boring you - or shocking you?' He might not be the same to her now, but she was evidently the same helpless female to him. 'Besides - Americans, what you want -Rangers, too - Omaha, for them. And the right of the line - always the place of honour, eh Sharpe?'

'Yes.' Colonel Sharpe zeroed in on Elizabeth again, with that too-knowing eye of his. 'But it's all in the books and the records, Miss Loftus.'

'So it is, Colonel. But is it all correct?' She didn't really know what she wanted.

'What d'you mean - correct?'

'Well - ' How could she explain that whatever she wanted, whatever it was, could hardly be in the public library, if Oliver St John Latimer wanted it? 'For example, the Rangers landed at a place called "Pointe du Hoc".'

'That's right. That was the place Maurice saw them practising cliff-climbing for. There was supposed to be a German battery there, which had to be taken out somehow - like the Major's battery at Merville, which was beyond the eastern flank of the British landing beaches. They both flanked the landing areas. In fact, I think the Pointe du Hoc guns could have taken in the Utah beaches as well, actually. They couldn't be left to get on with the job, Miss Loftus.'

'But there weren't any guns on Pointe du Hoc, Colonel.'

He nodded cautiously. 'No… as it happened, there weren't. The Germans had prudently pulled them back to a new position.'

'Which wasn't manned?' But if there was a mystery here, why should it interest the Deputy-Director?

'True. But things always go wrong in battle.' He shrugged. 'That whole area was heavily bombed - and bombarded. But, in any case, a Ranger patrol still found the guns and disabled them. And that was even before they'd finished with the garrison at Pointe du Hoc, if I remember correctly.'

Major Birkenshawe nodded agreement. 'They were good men - I told you, eh? Proper desperadoes - gangsters, I shouldn't wonder - probably all enlisted in Chicago!'

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The Colonel cast a sardonic glance at his friend. 'I rather think the Rangers were more like the old frontiersmen, with their fieldcraft and initiative - ' He caught himself, as though he suspected that he had been sidetracked. ' - what exactly is it that you want, Miss Loftus?'

They were back to that, thought Elizabeth. 'You know that in Chester Wilmot's book - and in another one I've looked at - the name isn't spelt correctly: it says "Pointe du Hoe" , not Pointe du Hoc"?'

'Is it the Pointe du Hoc you're interested in?' The Colonel's voice was too casual.

'Isn't that where they've just been junketing?' the Major intervened. 'One of the places, anyway - read about it recently - Her Majesty the Queen and the President - that actor chappie - and the Frogs. Kept the Germans out, for some reason - ?' He frowned. 'Read something else, too. Just yesterday - in the Telegraph - ' He became aware that the Colonel was quelling him with a look. 'Sorry! Pointe du Hoc, you were saying - ?'

If the Colonel was close to anything, he was too close, decided Elizabeth. 'The Rangers landed elsewhere, did they?'

'Yes.' The Colonel was only slightly diverted from his suspicions. 'There were two battalions of them.'

'Yes?' Elizabeth could see professional memories weakening him.

'They took heavy casualties. Fifty per cent or more in some companies.' He drew a breath.

'Lack of specialized armour, that was largely due to… and a predilection for frontal attacks on strong points - not the way to use elite troops. They should have been infiltrated through the weak points.' He caught himself again. 'The main force was supposed to swing west, and link up with their comrades on the Pointe du Hoc, you see, Miss Loftus.'

'Hah!' exclaimed Major Birkenshawe. 'Now that was a strong-point, guns or no guns!' Then he shook his head. 'She doesn't understand, y'know!'

'That was the correct use of Rangers, actually.' Colonel Sharpe watched Elizabeth, and ignored the Major. 'Only the best troops could have got up there - and then caused all the trouble they did. I was attached to that American division, and we were expecting a strong counter-attack that first evening - or the next morning. The Germans had a good division in that sector - better than the one our chaps had to deal with on the British beaches, actually. Though of course their tanks were closer to us. If there'd been armour close to Omaha on D-Day as well, God only knows what would have happened… Anyway, we'd been arguing about the position of that good division before D-Day, but we didn't get confirmation until far too late. And there were several battalions in reserve - so, with the dummy2

way things were on the beaches, we were expecting to get hit any moment. But there weren't any tanks. And the Americans had made a pretty amazing recovery, actually.'

The Major started to cough politely, but inadvertently took in too much of his own bonfire, and choked frighteningly for the best part of a minute, to everyone's embarrassment.

'Sorry about that, Liza.' He wiped his face with what appeared to be a square of torn sheet.

'But do you understand a word of all that?' He cocked a huge eyebrow at her. 'Divisions and battalions - all that stuff?'

'Yes, Major.' For one fraction of a second Elizabeth began to hit back, irritated alike by his pipe and his assumptions, and sickened by the torn sheeting; but then she remembered that she actually loved the Major, who had always treated her with courtesy and who had now unearthed Colonel Sharpe for her, when everyone else had failed her. 'Yes, I think I do, that is.' She smiled at him, then at the Colonel, as though she was stretching her knowledge to its limits. 'So what did these Rangers do on the Pointe du Hoc - or whatever it's called?'

'Hah! I rather suspect they did what they were originally recruited and formed to do, Miss Loftus. Which happened far too rarely with the American Rangers - and with other elite formations I could mention.'

Elizabeth waited. When a man wanted to give distilled wisdom to the world, it was better to let him have his way without side-tracking him with too many intelligent unwomanly questions.

'Half the time they were squandered on conventional warfare. They threw away a whole Ranger battalion after the Anzio landing.' The Colonel drew a reminiscent breath, and gave the Major a nod. In another moment he'd be fairly launched.

'Huh!' This could have been the right moment for the Major to cough usefully. But instead he nodded back wisely. 'Half the time they should never have been formed in the first place.' He blinked at Elizabeth, as though surprised that he had formulated a complete sentence. 'Stripped the rest of the army of good men - ours as well as the Yanks. Never enough good line NCOs - off swanning around on hair-brained schemes in private armies.

Could tell you a tale or two about that!'

'Yes.' The Major's threat concentrated the Colonel's mind wonderfully, so that he refocused on Elizabeth. 'Pointe du Hoc - as I was saying… When they'd finished their business there, there weren't many of them left. But then, being Rangers, I rather suspect they got up to all sorts of mischief, which probably pulled the Germans away from the right flank of Omaha.

God knows what they did - we certainly didn't know exactly, in the Command Post, even dummy2

though they sent a staff officer off, to try and find out. But I never saw him again - they probably shot him, because the Rangers hated staff officers.' He smiled at Elizabeth. 'But then I had to go back to report to Monty -I was his spy, you see.'

The Deputy-Director sat up, one podgy hand still fumbling in the wreckage of his chocolate box. 'How's that again, Miss Loftus - Elizabeth?'

'How's… what?' He waved the hand vaguely - insultingly - as though he hadn't really been listening, but then she had said something of unexpected interest, against the odds. 'This fellow you talked to - ?'

She had to reel back. What she had just said had come just before Colonel Sharpe had discoursed at length on Field Marshal Montgomery, and then on the use (and misuse) of elite soldiers, which had ranged all the way from the Rangers on the Pointe du Hoc, forward to the Green Berets in Vietnam (and the Paras in the Falklands), and back to the Spartans at Thermopylae, almost two-and-a-half thousand years earlier.

'Well… I think he was attached to the Americans so that he could report back to the British

- '

'Who?' He was concentrating on her.

'Colonel Sharpe. The man I told you about - who told me about the Pointe du Hoc.'

'Yes, yes - ' He waved away the obvious fact that he hadn't been listening, quite unembarrassed ' - but how was it that you got on to him - tell me again - ?'

Cool it, Elizabeth! 'You told me not to consult the records, or anyone in the department.'

Paul would have given her all this in ten seconds flat, even though he was a 1914 -18 man.

'Or the Americans.' The nice young CIA man at Grosvenor Square, who was ex-US Navy and knew all about Father's war record, would have done the same, only better, over an agreeable lunch. 'So… there's this friend of my father's, who had this friend who was on the planning staff before D-Day, and was seconded to the American army as an observer.

But he wasn't really an observer. Or… I mean, he was… but his real job - '

'What's his name?' snapped Latimer. ' Name, Elizabeth - name - ?'

'Sharpe.' Elizabeth floundered. 'Colonel Sharpe - with an "e". I don't know his Christian name. But his family had an electrical firm in Hampshire, near Portsmouth. And they went into electronics - computers, I think.'

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Latimer punched the keys of his machine, while Elizabeth tried to conscript any other morsel Major Birkenshawe had let slip. 'I think they had a new factory just near Havant.'

Latimer fed Havant into the Beast. 'Next time, Elizabeth, if you talk to anyone, get his full name and address. What is the name of the firm at Havant?'

And his Credit Rating? And his next-of-kin? And the Beast wasn't helping her, she could see that reflected on the Deputy-Director's face. 'I don't know, Mr Latimer.' Damn them both - the Beast and the Deputy-Director! 'He's - he must be nearly seventy years old.'

'Yes.' He prodded the Beast again, but only received another dusty answer, probably Search continuing, if not Insufficient data; to track down the Colonel, it would have to talk to other beasts, and such linkages took time. 'Yes.' He looked up at last. 'If he was on D-Day planning then he would be, wouldn't he?'

He was saying Don't be silly, Miss Loftus. And, most annoyingly, with some justification.

'But never mind him, for the moment. Continue, Elizabeth.'

Continue? But after two slaps she was not about to invite a third. It hadn't been Colonel Sharpe he had been after, when he'd suddenly stopped pigging his chocolates. So she hadn't reeled back quite far enough.

'The Americans sent a staff officer to find out what was happening - ?' She repeated the words tentatively.

'Yes?' He found the last of his chocolates. 'Name?'

She had half-feared as much. 'I don't know, sir.' It was no good pretending. 'Colonel Sharpe didn't say. And I didn't think to ask.' All the same, it wasn't quite fair. 'I didn't think it was important. But then, I didn't know what was - or is - important.' The truth was that Paul, or any of the others, might well have done better on this job. But she couldn't bring herself to suggest that. 'I'm sorry.'

'No need to be.' He popped the last chocolate into his mouth and examined his finger-ends.

'Not bad at all.'

He looked positively smug. But he must be referring to the chocolates.

'Colonel Sharpe didn't know what came of that, because he had to report back to General - '

Elizabeth frowned. Had it been 'General' or 'Field Marshal' then? ' - to Montgomery. But in fact they broke through from Omaha to the Pointe du Hoc within the next thirty-six hours.'

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'Parker.' He finished chomping and swallowed. 'Major Thaddeus E. Parker.'

Elizabeth stared at him in genuine and unfeigned astonishment.

'The name of the American staff officer.' He attended to the last remnants of the chocolate in his mouth. 'His name was Major Thaddeus E. Parker.'

Elizabeth thought, first, that she had been quite incredibly lucky - thanks to Paul. Indeed, doubly and even trebly lucky: because, thanks to Paul and dear old Major Birkenshawe and Colonel Sharpe, she had actually touched upon the man in whom the Deputy-Director was interested, and was now aware of him, however belatedly and inadequately. Or even quadruply lucky - because she had accidentally left the Deputy-Director scope to demonstrate his superior knowledge, the exercise of which pleased him as much as his chocolates.

But then, when she thought about the possible uses of her luck, she remembered that he had quite justifiably slapped her down twice, and she had been close to admitting that inadequacy. So, if she wanted to hold on to a possible chance of field-work, she had better assert herself quickly now.

'"E" for "Edward", of course.' she nodded. It was a guess, but it was a fair extrapolation from what Paul had said. All she had to be careful of was not to admit the special knowledge of 'Ed' which Paul had given her.

'What?' His frown cancelled out the first slap. ' Edward-?

Now for the second slip - with acknowledgement to Dr Paul Mitchell, that she owed him a favour. The late Major Thaddeus E-for-Edward Parker, sir.' But she had better cover the guess, just in case. 'Presumably.'

' Presumably?' All his earlier patronizing smugness ,was instantly consumed by the anger of the Deputy-Director, red in tooth and claw. 'Just what the hell have you been playing at, Miss Loftus?'

The anger frightened her. 'Nothing, sir - '

'You were specifically limited to 1944.' The anger became cold, and all the more frightening. 'You were specifically instructed not to question the computer.' He flashed the frown at the Beast's blank screen, and then shook his head, half at the Beast, and then half at her, in incomprehension; and she knew exactly what that meant - that he had already debarred her from anything the Beast knew about Parker, Thaddeus E., Major, United States dummy2

Army, if not also Hoc, Pointe du, and American Rangers, and even D-Day itself; and then, if she'd even tried to get any of them thereafter, the treacherous Beast would have signalled her attempt to him. 'Nor talk to anyone in the department.' The frown became accusing.

'But you've talked to Audley, Miss Loftus, haven't you?'

So that was why she'd been kept out of the building! 'No, Mr Latimer. I have not talked to Dr Audley. I haven't even set eyes on him for - for at least a month.' The truth of that lent outrage to it, even while she was preparing herself for what might be the next accusation -

because Paul would be his next victim.

'No?' The Deputy-Director was just not quite so confident with recalcitrant women as he might have been with men, and that gave her the extra half-second she needed, to protect herself and Paul, by defending them both with a counter-attack.

'I was only guessing.' She had to get the mix exactly right, to make this cake rise. 'I don't think… I don't seem to recall… that I was specifically forbidden to read the newspapers, was I?'

'What newspapers?'

He hadn't seen Paul's cutting. So someone had blundered, somewhere. But her half-truth -

and total lie -was alive, and unquestionable.

'It was an item in the Daily Telegraph that I saw.' That, at least, was the absolute truth - even if the item had been culled from among Paul's credit cards. But she mustn't give him time to ask when. An Edward Parker fell to his death from the cliffs of the Pointe du Hoc just recently.'

He stabbed the Beast's keys angrily. 'Damn!' And then, almost as though it was David Audley addressing the Beast, 'Bloody thing!'

Brothers under the skin! thought Elizabeth. Because, in the end, they both mistrusted it.

Oliver St John Latimer abandoned the computer, and snatched up the telephone, which lay hidden behind it, and punched numbers into it.

'Records?' He looked at Elizabeth quickly. 'Which day was it in?'

She had had enough time. I'm not quite sure.' He would be a Times and Guardian reader. So neither of them had found space for this unimportant filler. 'The past few days - I've been away from my flat, so I bought the Times… there was a pile of Telegraphs on the mat, when I got back - '

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' Telegraph cuttings - the last week - Parker and Pointe du Hoc.' Latimer addressed the receiver. 'What d'you mean, you're short-handed?'

The receiver squawked back at him, less inhibited than the inhuman Beast: the Librarian was a genuine librarian, of independent character and impeccable provenance, as well as vast experience and devoted loyalty.

Oliver St John Latimer deflated visibly, overawed by Miss Russell's reply. 'Yes - yes, I quite understand - yes, I do appreciate that, Miss Russell - with the holidays… I do see that…

But if you can - Parker - yes - Major Thaddeus E. Parker - Pointe du Hoc - ?'

He looked at Elizabeth, and through her, as he waited. And, on her own account, she ran back everything she knew, to extract anything of importance from it.

They had all been there, in Normandy, for the remembrance D-Day: the Queen, the President of the United States, and the President of France (had he been there? She couldn't remember! Major Birkenshawe had said 'the Frogs', anyway!).

But Major Thaddeus E-for-Edward Parker hadn't 'fallen to his death' then, when they were there -

otherwise it would have been a bigger story, not a filler (that was what they had emphasized on the newspaper course: that circumstances and timing were an integral part of newspaper

'tasting'; David Audley, himself an inveterate and compulsive scanner of newspapers, and their Fleet Street expert, had said as much; and David in his time had reputedly managed to suppress - or at least to emasculate - certain highly inconvenient items, usually in exchange for leaking more conveniently attractive ones).

'Yes, Miss Russell?' The Deputy-Director continued to look through her. ' Edward Parker -

Edward! He focused momentarily on Elizabeth. 'Yes, do that, please.' Now he was looking at his screen, and she could guess what was on it.

Anyway… the 'death fall' could not have happened during what Major Birkenshawe had dismissed as the 'junketings' of June 6th. And, by the same token, it must have been a genuine accident: if there had been any suspicion of foul play it would also have made bigger headlines in more papers -

'Yes, Miss Russell - the same classification. Thank you.' Latimer replaced the receiver.

That was the contradiction to all her conclusions: an aged American had accidentally fallen over a French cliff forty years after he had once presumably climbed it, to rate six lines in a British newspaper. But now he rated a Secure classification.

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Elizabeth readied herself for the first service in the second net. And, knowing Latimer even a little, it would be hard and fast - and most likely ' Why didn't you mention this before, Miss Loftus?'

'Well, now…' His hand moved towards the chocolate box, but then gestured vaguely at her instead '… what was it you discussed with Dr Mitchell, Elizabeth?'

Ouch! But she was sufficiently on her toes not only to get behind the question, but also to decide how she was going to return it.

'Dr Mitchell?' She would demonstrate her innocence by misconstruing his drift. 'Dr Mitchell is no problem, Mr Latimer.' That would suggest to him that Dr Mitchell was a problem, and that she had not been entirely honest for the first time. But it would also suggest that the problem was purely personal, and that she had nothing professional to hide. 'I thought we'd dealt with that. So far as I'm concerned… we have.' She gave him an Admiral Varney look. 'And I really don't see what Dr Mitchell has to do with Edward Parker - or Major Parker - ?'

'No - ' The chocolate-seeking hand retreated ' - of course… But I didn't really mean that, Elizabeth, I do assure you -'

But she didn't want him to explain what he had meant. 'I presume Major Parker and Edward Parker are one and the same?' She didn't want to go too far, either. But the further she got away from Paul, the better. 'But obviously they are.' She was on the edge of prudence now, but she couldn't stop herself. 'In which case… I would like to know what I've really been doing. Because it hasn't made very much sense to me so far.'

'What you've been doing?' He drew in a breath. 'You have been doing what you were instructed to do, Elizabeth. You have been obeying orders.'

She had gone too far. Because Oliver St John Latimer didn't lose his temper, he simply became silkier. And he was very silky now.

'Yes, sir.' She must sound contrite, but not craven. Now that they were far enough away from Paul she must think of her own interests exclusively. 'I wasn't questioning that.'

'Of course not!' He smiled at her suddenly, and scooped up the Thornton's box, and cast it into his waste-paper basket. And then reached into one of the drawers of his desk, and produced another one. 'I quite understand how you feel - I've felt the same way myself, on occasion.' He tore off the wrapping of the box like a child with a Christmas present. 'And it isn't as though you're an expert on military history - '

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God! That was turning back towards Paul! 'I found that quite interesting, actually!' How could she have found it interesting? 'Colonel Sharpe's theories on the role of special forces - military elites…' She could just about sustain a few minutes' interrogation on that now.

'Hah!' Latimer appeared to be giving all his attention to the contents of the box. 'Now that, I do agree, is interesting… though more sociologically and politically than in the "bang-bang-you're-dead" sense… And, of course, we are an elite too, Elizabeth - ' He looked up suddenly at her ' - you realize that.' He thrust the box at her. 'Have one?'

She had better have one. 'I don't feel particularly elite at the moment.'

'Because you didn't get some elderly ex-soldier's Christian name?' He made his own choice, and wolfed it. 'No matter… Although he does seem… not uninteresting, in his way, I agree.' He selected another of his favourites. 'No… the trick, with elites, is that they should be used precisely - almost surgically - for whatever is required, and for nothing else.'

Chocolates notwithstanding, he went up a ladder on Elizabeth's board. For that was almost exactly what Colonel Sharpe had said.

'So I am going to use you precisely - and even perhaps surgically - now, Elizabeth.' He looked at her, and she could see that he was happy in his work, as well as with what he was chomping. 'You did teach Latin in that girls' school of yours, didn't you?'

It didn't quite shatter her confidence, because it wasn't the first time he'd hit her with Latin.

But, of course, he had her curriculum vitae at his finger-tips, so she couldn't deny the truth.

'Yes.'

'Up to O-level? For two years?'

'Yes.' Mrs Hartford had become pregnant; and then she had decided that her new baby was more rewarding than a teacher's derisory salary. 'With difficulty.'

'You obtained good results, nevertheless?'

That was also true - although it was not what she had entered into the record: she had certainly not revealed that she had typed the manuscript of Father's Dover Patrol from nine to half-past eleven, and then prepared next day's lesson from half-past eleven to one o'clock, five nights a week. 'I kept one jump ahead of the class. On Mondays I was sometimes three jumps ahead. But there was one particularly clever girl in the class, with slave-driving parents, so it was usually touch-and-go by Friday.' The memory still made her squirm inwardly - and frown outwardly. 'I trust you are not about to order me to teach dummy2

anyone Latin, Mr Latimer.'

'Eh?' For a moment he seemed slightly abstracted.

'I said - ' It had sounded ridiculous the first time. But then so had the Pointe du Hoc ' - it doesn't matter.'

'Good gracious, no!' His answer exploded as though by delayed action. 'I was about to tell you what happened to Major Parker. The late Major Parker - as you quite rightly pointed out, Elizabeth.'

On balance, that was an improvement, decided Elizabeth.

'And he was late back in 1944 - that is, he was late extricating himself from the Pointe du Hoc, to report back to his commander. There was a motor-boat, or some such craft, waiting for him under the cliff there. But it was almost getting light, so they headed directly out to sea, because there were still Germans on the cliffs on either side of the headland, they thought. And that was extremely fortunate for the RAF pilot they found as a result, about four miles out. He'd been shot down the previous evening - a certain Squadron Leader T.

E. C. Thomas. Aged twenty-eight.' Latimer waved a hand at his screen. 'All the details we have about him will be available to you, Elizabeth. And David Audley will also be available to you.'

It was Elizabeth's turn to think Good Gracious!, even if she didn't say it. 'What do you mean

- "available"?'

'Exactly that. He knows all about Squadron Leader Thomas, and he should by now be able to advise you on your best course of action.' He made a cathedral spire with his fingers and gazed at her across it. 'Be advised by him - I'm sure he will be extremely useful to you. He's waiting for you now, and he's entirely at your disposal.'

'At… my disposal?' It was the wrong way round - was this what Paul had guessed at when he'd tied himself in knots. 'David Audley?'

'Yes… Have you any objections, Elizabeth?'

Objections, rising up like tripod masts, presented themselves to her. David Audley was so vastly senior to her that what he was blandly proposing was not so much like one of Father's little beardless midshipmen commanding a grizzled petty officer - it was more like a barely-qualified able seaman having his captain at his disposal.

Indeed, it had been David who had been chiefly responsible for her recruitment. Apart dummy2

from all of which, David was notoriously difficult to control and very much a law unto himself: giving him to her as subordinate adviser was like being asked to take a rhinoceros for a walk. And - perhaps above all - he was about to bring his Cheltenham investigation to its climax.

'Objections, Mr Latimer?' Of course, he knew all that as well as she did; yet, against all those objections - and the ones which had not yet occurred to her - there was Father's old adage about the unwisdom of rejecting opportunity when it knocked, no matter how risky; but she still needed to know one thing, nevertheless. 'Has Dr Audley agreed to this?'

'Agreed? Of course he has! He's quite enthusiastic, even.' The cathedral fingers intertwined, to become a double fist. 'He is a brilliant man, with an unrivalled experience of events going back… many years. So it's your good fortune that I can let you have him for a day or two, Elizabeth.'

More tripod masts - a whole forest of them! Because Latimer had to be lying when he claimed that David was leaving Cheltenham 'enthusiastically', never mind that he was

'happy' to advise a raw recruit on her first field assignment. And, even supposing that he had a soft spot for his own recruit, he was notoriously at odds with Oliver St John Latimer, and would never willingly dance to Latimer's tune. Never, never, never!

'He will help you.' Latimer raised a finger. 'But the final decision in this matter will be yours, Elizabeth.'

So, in spite of all that, Audley was dancing. And the world was turned upside-down, though Elizabeth, as all her half-connected and inadequate pieces of information arranged themselves on the board, to make little sense.

Forty years ago the American Rangers had stormed the Pointe du Hoc, and Major Thaddeus 'Ed'

Parker had subsequently picked up an RAF pilot from the sea, as an accidental result. And now, forty years later, 'Edward Parker' had fallen to his death from that same Pointe du Hoc, and all the alarm bells in Research and Development were ringing to mark his passing!

Also, she remembered suddenly, David Audjey had unrivalled experience of events going back… many years' ? Even, remembering what Paul had once said about David, there had once been a tank commander by the name of Audley (although it was hard to imagine the man she knew as a fresh-faced boy with one pip on his shoulder!), who had actually been there in Normandy when 'Ed' Parker was fishing his RAF pilot out of the drink. But that was stretching coincidence too far, surely - surely?

'I understand.' She didn't understand. But she damn well wasn't going to beg him to tell her what he actually wanted her to do. 'But - you were saying - ?'

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'Yes.' He frowned at her, and obviously couldn't remember what he had been saying before David Audley had intruded, to divert them both. Instead, he reached for another chocolate. 'What was I saying?'

'Major Parker rescued this RAF pilot.' But she mustn't underestimate him. 'On June 7th, 1944. Four miles off the Pointe du Hoc.'

'Yes.' He munched again. 'About Parker - talk to Major Turnbull first, Elizabeth. Let Dr Audley cool his heels for a few minutes. Just listen to what Turnbull has to say. Then you'll know we're not wasting our time.'

Elizabeth's heart sank even more at the mention of Major Turnbull, remembering her one and only meeting with him. 'Major Turnbull?'

Latimer nodded, manipulating his chocolate. 'He's waiting for you, too. And you may need him for extra leg-work.' He nodded again. 'He's got a job on, but we can hire some extra help for that - ' He swallowed ' - so if you want him, just tell him what you want him to do.

But he's been looking into the Parker accident - he'll tell you all about that, anyway.'

David Audley and Major Turnbull? If he had given her Paul… well, she could handle Paul.

And dear James would have been easy, and maybe a labour of love. And Del Andrew would always have told her the truth, the straight unvarnished truth: the bonus of Del's preference for pretty Page Three girls was that he treated Plain Janes (and even plainer Elizabeth) as mates, and not playmates, with no bourgeois sexual hang-ups. But giving her David and Major Turnbull, who were each inscrutably old-fashioned, suggested that this was either a cruel test of her ability or a high mark of confidence.

Meanwhile… meanwhile, Dr Audley could cool his heels, and Major Turnbull could wait, because they were both waiting her pleasure. And her pleasure awaited that of the Deputy-Director - that was her pleasure now, anyway.

He reached out towards the box again. But this time he thought better of his greed, closing the lid on it and pushing the box to one side.

She waited. Because, although he might know from records that she had 140-words-a-minute shorthand, which was a skill Father had required of her for his voluminous correspondence, she knew how to wait. Compared with Father, who had thought that he had all the time in the world and didn't have to be polite, the rest of the world was a push-over.

He played with the box, wanting to open it again. 'I must say… you're demonstrating a dummy2

remarkable lack of curiosity, Elizabeth.'

'Am I?' There was a difference between the Deputy-Director and Father, of course: with David Audley and Major Turnbull waiting, he had time at his back, if not politeness. But it would be foolish to go down a snake merely to revenge herself on Father. 'I'm sorry. I was only waiting for you to bring Major Parker up-to-date. With… with Squadron Leader Thomas, was it?' She swallowed her pride. 'Has he fallen off a cliff too?'

'No.' Her obeisance mollified him. 'Not as far as I know - not yet. But I'm sure Audley will tell you all about that.'

'Indeed?' After that crack about 'lack of curiosity' she must assert herself. 'So Dr Audley will tell me all about Squadron Leader Thomas. And Major Turnbull will tell me all about Major Parker.' She smiled. 'And they are both at my disposal - Dr Audley and Major Turnbull.'

'That's right, Elizabeth.' He smiled back, and nodded. And then waited for her to protest.

'But you don't want me to teach them Latin grammar?'

'What?' He stopped smiling.

'Or lecture them on the use of Special Forces?' She gave him a Varney face. 'But if Major Turnbull knows all about Major Parker he probably knows more about the Pointe du Hoc than I do. So it can't be that… and Dr Audley's Latin is certainly better than mine.' She pretended to think. 'Although his Latin would be more the medieval variety, wouldn't it?

Not the classical sort - arma virumque cano, and all that - ?'

He stared at her for a moment. Then, somewhat to her surprise, a slow and very different smile spread across his face, crinkling its lines with what might be genuine pleasure - she had never seen him smile like that, with face and eyes as well as mouth betraying satisfaction. It was almost a conspiratorial smile, admitting her to a club for which she had not put herself up as a member.

'They don't worry you, then?' He tested her gently, as though he couldn't quite believe his luck.

'Worry me?' If she'd ever been of a mind to protest, she couldn't do so now.' Dr Audley and Major Turnbull? Why should they worry me?'

'No reason - no reason at all, Miss Loftus.' He raised one hand defensively. 'It was merely a thought.'

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And an insulting one. 'They have their orders, presumably.'

'They have indeed.' The smile had vanished, but the glint-in-the-eye remained. 'They have indeed.'

'Yes? So if the worst comes to the worst I can always order them to tell me what I am supposed to be doing. Which at this moment I still don't know.'

'Ah…' But he was quite unabashed, of course. 'Now… where were we - ?'

It didn't really matter what she said, because nothing would deflate his self-esteem. 'I think we were in the sea, four miles off the Pointe du Hoc. And was that the start of a beautiful friendship?'

'What? Between Parker and Thomas? Good heavens, no!' He sat back. 'Does that surprise you?'

It did surprise her. Because there had to be a relationship between these two men, if David Audley and Major Turnbull had not been wasting their time. And it had to start with that heroic rescue.

'It does, a bit.' But then suddenly it didn't. Because it hadn't really been an heroic rescue at all, merely an accident of war, albeit a happy one: simply, among the thousands of random chances which had decreed life or death that morning, the vagaries of wind and tide had drifted one half-drowned British pilot into the arms of a handful of weary Americans who were themselves beating a delayed retreat from a hostile shore. In the midst of greater events and more pressing business the pilot would have been just a lucky survivor.

'Yes?' He waited for her to finish thinking.

'Maybe not.' She frowned. 'But they did meet.'

'They did. June 7th, 1944 - that was the first time. And the second time was last week.'

'Last week?' Well, it certainly hadn't been a friendship, beautiful or otherwise, Elizabeth agreed silently; the forty years' interval precluded that.

Latimer nodded. 'So far as we have been able to establish. Just the two meetings. Although they did exchange Christmas cards for a few years, apparently. But even that stopped after a time. So… just those two meetings, Miss Loftus. 1944, 1984. The first, pure chance - the dummy2

second, quite deliberate.'

Elizabeth remembered the Parker cutting. 'On the cliffs at the Pointe du Hoc, would that be?'

'No.' He gazed at her almost blankly. 'Major Turnbull will tell you about the Pointe du Hoc. But… no, Miss Loftus - Elizabeth… Thomas was nowhere near there at the material time, as our constabulary would say.'

It had hardly been likely, for they must both be old men now. Yet he must be giving her the coordinate of the latitude of truth, if not its longitude.

'So why are we interested in them?' Parker and Thomas! She wondered. Or was it Parker or Thomas? Or, since Parker was dead - Thomas?

'Thomas, Elizabeth.' He forestalled her. 'Squadron Leader Thomas, pilot that once was - Dr Thomas, retired schoolmaster, that is. A most distinguished teacher of the classics - Officer of the Order of the British Empire, no less. Plus a couple of honorary fellowships and the Gold Medal of the British Classical Association, awarded for leading many a likely young lad into the realms of gold.'

He gave her a hopeful look. 'You haven't heard of him by any happy chance? From your teaching days?'

Elizabeth shook her head mutely.

'No? Well, you're not really a classicist - I appreciate that.' He smiled his non-smile at her again. 'But, anyway, our Dr Thomas wasn't always a classical teacher. He was a civil servant in the Foreign Office for ten years, after he came down from Oxford the second time, with his doctorate, after the war. A little eccentric for the embassy lot - he might have done better in the Treasury… Anyway, he was there, and one day his name turned up on this list of ours, you see, Elizabeth.'

She nearly said 'What list?'. But it was a redundant question, because there was really only one sort of list that ever got as far as R and D. 'He was a security risk, you mean?'

'No.' His hand strayed towards the Thornton's box. 'No. Not exactly.'

'Not exactly?' It occurred to her that all this had to be a long time ago, 'this list of ours', if since then Dr Thomas had not only changed horses in mid-stream, but had had time to ride his new mount to a very different winning post. 'When was this?'

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'1958.'

Twenty-six years ago. He had called it 'our list', but it must almost have been before his time. And, indeed, almost before Audley's time too, since both he and Latimer had also changed horses themselves to come into this thankless service - just as she herself had done, come to that!

'He was forty-two then.' Latimer supplied the answer to a question she had not yet reached; she had been about to think and I was in pigtails then, learning about Old Lob the Farmer and Mrs Cuddy the Cow in kindergarten. 'Came down in '37 - First in Greats - from Jesus, of course.'

Of course?

'Two years' teaching. Then the war. Then Oxford again.'

Elizabeth kicked herself. Thomas' was a Welsh name, and Jesus College, Oxford, had still been full of Welshmen in the years before and after the war.

'They offered him a fellowship. But he'd had enough of that, apparently.'

She wrenched herself away from Oxford - away from Turl Street, full of Welshmen from Jesus, and West Countrymen from rival Exeter, and the Taj Mahal restaurant, and the sun slanting down towards All Saints' and the High, so long ago, so long ago… and, but for Father, a fellowship for Elizabeth Loftus?

But - damn that! 'Tell me about this list.' That was one past she didn't have to think about: that was the might-have-been past which existed only in her imagination. 'It wasn't an SR

list - ?'

'No.' He stirred, as though Colonel Butler's chair was becoming uncomfortable. 'It was a rather odd business altogether. It might be better for you to read about it for yourself - ' He gestured towards the empty screen beside him ' - you're cleared for it. All you have to do is punch "Debrecen" into the computer - D-E-B-R-E-C-E-N. It's all there - what there is of it.'

The name meant nothing to her. But then codenames never did mean anything - Overlord, Cobra, Horserace, Ajax, Warsaw, Peeler - they were all nonsense unless -or until - you were cleared. And even then, now that the Beast-computer ruled, every punched-in inquiry was recorded for posterity. It was easy to understand why they all hated the machine which used them while they used it.

'In fact, there were two lists, Elizabeth.' Latimer squirmed again, and she realized that dummy2

she'd been staring him out of conscience. 'We had one, and the Americans had one. And the Americans eventually shared theirs with the West Germans, against our advice. And we only tipped them off - the Americans - because we needed to curry favour with them, after Suez… If they'd got it first they'd never have trusted us… Not that it did us any good, in the end. More like the opposite, in fact.'

The two 'in facts' bracketed far more information than she'd expected, even though she still didn't know what it meant. But as there was a chance that he might actually be giving her more than was in the official record in those asides of his, it was worth pushing her luck.

(There were times to push, and times to hold back, and the trick was judging the right time, was what David Audley always preached. And one right time was when your contact was pleased with himself.)

'Two lists?' But how to push? 'Major Parker was on the American list, presumably?'

'He was.' He rewarded her initiative with a tiny flash of approval. 'But we didn't know that at first - ' He waved his hand in a jerky disclaimer ' - when I say "we", Elizabeth, I don't mean me, of course - I had no part in the affair… It wasn't known, let us say, until we compared lists in detail, the Americans and ourselves. And by that time both Thomas and Parker had been completely cleared, you see. Among others.'

'Cleared of what?'

'Ah… well, let's just say cleared of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, for the present? Audley will tell you.' His hand hovered over the Thornton's box, as though it had a life of its own and was trying to assert itself. 'Suffice it to say that until that comparison, nothing even remotely suspicious had been established against either of them.'

'How good was the vetting?'

Latimer bridled slightly. 'It was… it was good enough, as far as it went.' He frowned. 'No -

it was good - let's be fair.' He nodded. 'If it had been me, I might have cleared them, too -

shall we say that?' The effort of 'being fair' taxed him sorely, she could see: he didn't want to be fair.

But that was not what she wanted right now. 'So they compared the two lists?' She had to keep him moving. 'And came up with the Pointe du Hoc?'

'Not immediately, no. That came later. What they came up with first was Parker's name in Thomas's address book and vice-versa. So then they started to double-check.' He stared at her. 'And, you know, that really is the one absolutely curious thing about this whole wretched business, when you think about it.'

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'What is?'

He shifted in his chair. 'The Pointe du Hoc - or that particular point in the sea midway between the two American landing beaches anyway, where Parker picked Thomas up.

Because that really was the only connecting link between them which anyone could come up with. They were each on their own respective list in '58, and they'd met just that once in

'44 - and they gave exactly the same account of it, near enough. Apart from those few cards… which they'd stopped exchanging long since… there was nothing else. They both worked for their governments - they were both civil servants. But Thomas had no American connections of any significance, his work was strictly European. And Parker's was strictly South American… or maybe Central American.' He blinked irritably.

'"Hemispherical", the State Department called it. But it doesn't matter. What matters is that they checked Parker again too, and pronounced him pristine. He remembered Thomas from '44, but that was all. Their paths hadn't crossed again.'

'And we cleared Thomas?'

'He was cleared also.' Traces of irritation remained in Latimer's expression. 'And we were duly reminded that he was a D-Day hero who deserved better of his country than to be hounded by inquisitive little men in dirty raincoats.'

'So he was cleared.' The point had to be pressed. 'So what happened then?'

'He resigned… not long afterwards.' Latimer waved his Thornton's hand vaguely.

'Why?' The point still had to be pressed. 'If he'd been cleared - ?'

'He had been cleared. And by that time the whole Debrecen investigation had been aborted.' Another vague gesture. 'He said he wanted to go back to teaching. The Foreign Office blamed us. You must ask Dr Audley - he blamed the Foreign Office.'

That at least sounded like David Audley, whose instinct in adversity was never defensive.

But, as Latimer kept saying, she could ask David about everything in due course. What mattered now was that Latimer expected her to ask him, judging by his expectant expression.

In fact she had a Wimbledon Centre Court queue of questions, all pushing and shoving.

But now a new one had just jostled its way to the very front.

'Yes, Elizabeth?' He played not so idly with the lid of his box.

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'One thing, you said - two things, actually - I don't understand.'

He rubbed the tip of his nose. 'Only two things?'

Supercilious pig! 'You cleared Squadron Leader Thomas. Back in 1958.'

He worked on his nose for a moment. 'He was cleared, certainly. Twice, actually. But not by me.'

That re-emphasized minor matter, in passing: that whatever had gone wrong in 'this wretched business', Oliver St John Latimer was not going to take any past blame.

'And Major Parker was cleared.'

'So he was.' He agreed cautiously. 'By the Americans.'

'Yes.' That was another straw in the wind. Or a bale of straw. 'So how do we know they never met again, before last week?' She sought wisdom as politely as a fourth former catching out her teacher in a spelling mistake. "They were both cleared - but we've been watching them for twenty-six years? Or have I missed something?'

'Ah…' He opened the box. 'Will you have a chocolate?'

Thank you.' As she selected one he watched her so intently that she wished she knew which was his favourite.

'And I'll have one too.' His smile mortified her as he pounced on his preference gratefully, greedily. 'No… no… No, there, I must admit, I am relying on the Americans, Elizabeth.'

'The Americans didn't abort their original investigation?'

'Uh-uh.' He shook his head, unwilling to swallow his chocolate prematurely. 'It was… it was a joint decision, back in '58. The whole affair had become very messy politically.

Indeed, counter-productive.' He disposed of the chocolate at last. "There have been faint echoes of Debrecen down the years since then, but never loud enough to justify a reactivation. Until last year, when a rather unpleasant episode occurred in America, involving one of the names on the American list.' The pudgy hand, which had been toying with a brightly-coloured sweet-paper, clenched it. 'A very nasty affair.'

Elizabeth pretended innocent interest. When Latimer had been in America last year there had been a minor panic one evening while she had been duty officer. But she had never dummy2

been privy to the details, which had been swiftly taken out of her half-trained hands by Paul Mitchell.

'Involving Major Parker?' She reinforced her pretence with the question.

'No.' Latimer relaxed. 'No. But his name was at the top of the list when they decided on reactivation.'

'Although he'd been cleared?'

'Cleared in 1958.' He reached for another chocolate. 'What they did, Elizabeth, was to programme his whole career into that computer of theirs in Fort Dobson. Every decision he'd had a hand in, every advisory committee he'd served on - what it achieved, or didn't achieve. And they came up with some altogether damning conclusions.'

'He's a traitor, you mean?'

'No. That is exactly what he isn't - or wasn't rather, seeing that he retired five years ago. All the evidence points to him having been a one-hundred-per-cent red-blooded American.

And also a one-hundred-per-cent loser, you see.' Latimer smiled evilly at her. 'The New Model Traitor, Elizabeth, is the one you can't call a traitor to his face without risking an action for slander.'

Elizabeth shook her head. 'Now you've lost me.'

'It's quite simple. He backed losing causes - the Bay of Pigs, Batista, Somaza - all the equivocal fire-fighting decisions which ended up with the whole house going up in flames.

Even with Allende - he helped to overthrow Allende in a way which made him a martyr, not an exile.' Latimer nodded. 'So far as they can establish, no secret he had was ever betrayed to anyone, least of all the Russians. He just helped to make all the wrong decisions. Which, when you think about it, is a much more efficient treason than the conventional variety.'

But there was a flaw in this argument, thought Elizabeth. 'So there's no evidence that he was a traitor?'

'None at all.' Latimer nodded. 'No evidence.'

'So… he could just have been stupid, Mr Latimer -surely?'

He nodded again. 'Or unlucky - quite so! And we could make traitors of half our governments since the war - and before it - on the same basis. I agree, Miss Loftus -

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Elizabeth. But they thought of that too, you see.' Another beastly smile. 'So they leaned on him - they asked him questions, and they let him know he was being followed. And they bugged his phone, and burgled his house - they did all the things which are considered to be the unacceptable face of security, to suggest to him that they knew more than they actually did.' He looked at her sidelong.

'Why?'

She knew that answer, anyway. 'To make him run?'

'To make him run. And, of course, he did run.'

But that wasn't strictly accurate. 'But he was a D-Day veteran, Mr Latimer. How was that

"running"?'

'He didn't attend the D-Day celebrations, Elizabeth.'

'But - '

'He came back to Europe - for the first time since 1945.' Latimer cut her off. 'He wasn't interested in D-Day.'

'But he did go to the Pointe du Hoc, Mr Latimer.'

'Yes. But you'd better talk to Major Turnbull about that.' Latimer toyed with his box of chocolates. 'It's what he did before that which matters to us now. And why, even more than what.'

It wasn't difficult to read between those lines: if the CIA had been leaning on the poor devil, then they would have leaned all the way to France, with their usual enthusiasm.

'Before he went to the Pointe du Hoc, Elizabeth, he visited Squadron Leader Thomas, at a place called St Servan, where Thomas lives now, in France. It is his retirement home.' He pushed the Thornton's box to one side. 'So far as we are aware, that was the first time they'd met again since Parker deposited Thomas on the beach - Omaha Beach - on June 7th, 1944. And two days later he was dead. And I do not particularly like being told all that by their Head of Station in London, as a friendly piece of information. Because it rather suggests to me that they know their business better than we know ours.'

Well, that at least accounted for the urgency, thought Elizabeth: they could hardly allow such 'friendly' intelligence to lie in the pending tray - not even David Audley could argue with that; and Latimer himself would be doubly sensitive about their efficiency in Colonel Butler's absence, of course.

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But all that, and not least the American interest, made her own leading role even more odd. 'So the CIA is helping us, then?'

'No.' He made another cathedral spire with his fingers. 'They regard Squadron Leader Thomas as our affair now. Though we shall have to tell them the outcome, in the circumstances, naturally.'

A knot of anxiety twisted inside her suddenly. The outcome was what was expected of her.

'But if Squadron Leader Thomas is a traitor, Mr Latimer - '

' Was, Miss Loftus,' he interrupted her. 'He's retired now. He's an old man sitting happily in the sun - happily and blamelessly.'

That made it nastier. 'But if he was a traitor, like Major Parker…'

"There won't be any concrete evidence?' He adjusted the angle of the spire slightly. 'No, I don't expect there will be. Or nothing we could ever hope to proceed with, anyway. But we shall be able to re-assess everything he's done in a new light. If he was a traitor, that is.' He closed his eyes for an instant. "The initial assessment must be largely subjective in the first place. And perhaps even in the last place.'

'Unless he runs - like Major Parker.' No wonder Audley hadn't complained about her preferment! thought Elizabeth grimly. 'Or falls over a convenient cliff.'

'He hasn't done either of those things yet.' He seemed to catch a glimpse of her disenchantment. 'We do have him under surveillance now, Elizabeth - however belatedly.

Dale, from Paris, is superintending it. And Dr Audley has the details for you. And Major Turnbull has other information for you, as I said.'

'Oh yes?' He had been going about things in a curiously back-handed way, she thought irritably: while she had been researching an obscure episode of the Second World War, other people had been doing real work. 'So… why have I been doing what I've been doing?'

'My dear Miss Loftus - Elizabeth!' He opened the cathedral roof. 'All that was mere spade-work, what others have been doing. There was no need for you to be burdened with it.

And I wanted you here, to hear what I have told you, without any pre-conditions.'

He hadn't wanted her to talk to anyone. But why? 'So I'm an expert on the American Rangers, Mr Latimer?' Big deal!

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'So perhaps you will have something to tell Squadron Leader Thomas that he doesn't know about?' He inclined his head almost apologetically. 'When you talk to him?'

'Talk to him?' But at least that was a clue as to what he expected of her.

'Why not?' He spread his hands again.

Why not? thought Elizabeth.

'What I am asking you to do is… not easy, Elizabeth -I know that.' He squirmed in Colonel Butler's big chair. 'But that is the particular nature of this section's work. And you were chosen for it because you had particular aptitudes - not simply policeman's aptitudes, for pursuing facts without emotions, but something more than that, and much more rare…

Which I do not propose to define, because there are some things which cannot be put together again after they have been taken to pieces.' He smiled suddenly. 'And because we do not have the time now for such esoteric discussion.'

Was he complimenting her with his trust? wondered Elizabeth. Or was he bull-shitting her - as Paul would say?

'You've got to get to know this man Thomas.' Latimer leaned towards her. 'You've got to know about him first - and Audley will help you there. But I don't think you'll get the answer I need without meeting him face-to face, in the end.'

That was telling her. 'And if he runs then - ?'

'Then our problem's solved.' He sat back. 'But if he was going to run, I think he would have done so by now, for what it's worth.'

So Thomas was a harder nut to crack than Parker, was what he thought. Perhaps even an uncrackable nut.

'Did we make a mistake in '58?' The cathedral reformed momentarily, then collapsed as he reached for the chocolates. 'Because if we did, then we reactivate our whole Debrecen list.

And it's up to you to tell me, Miss Loftus.'

3

'Unsatisfactory, Miss Loftus.' Major Turnbull answered the question without hesitation.

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'My investigation was unsatisfactory.'

Elizabeth felt the word envelop her, as though he intended that it should apply to her also.

It was only the second time that she had spoken face-to-face to the department's newest recruit, but her recollection of the first encounter was all too vivid.

'Unsatisfactory, Major?' The repetition of his rank (if it really was his rank) recalled Major Birkenshawe to mind, but only for an instant, since her own dear old major resembled this one in nothing except that. 'In what way unsatisfactory?'

'It is evident that you have not read my report, Miss Loftus.' His unnerving immobility, not only of body and features but also of eye, began to work on her again.

'No, Major.' She fought the urge to explain her failure, and finally settled on saying nothing at all, remembering the last time -

' What a dreadful-sounding place!' (Superintendent Andrew, secure in his impeccable and genuine working-class accent, had been lodged in the tiny village of Grimeby, the better to find out why one of their Known Agents was presently fishing in the troubled waters of the Great Miners' Strike.) ' Grimeby!'

But Major Turnbull had waited for her to elaborate on her stupidity.

'You can see how people living in a place like that might want to throw stones at the police -

"Grimeby"!'

Only then had Major Turnbull pounced.

'Had you visited it, Miss Loftus, you would know that Grimeby is a not unattractive hamlet on the edge of Baldersby Dale. And had you cared to research it further, you would know that "grime" has nothing whatsoever to do with coal-mining. It refers, in fact, to a standing stone of great antiquity nearby, dating from Viking times and sacred to the Norse god Odin, "Grim", or "Grimar", being a colloquial rendering of his fierce expression. The god of war and battle, Miss Loftus, as well as the patron of wise men and heroes. And also the god of hanged men riding the gallows as his steed.'

But not this time, by God! He could look at her as grim-faced as Odin himself riding his gallows. But whatever his objection to her might be - whether it was professional, against women in this line of work, or Father's simple old-fashioned misogynism - whatever it was, it would cut no ice with her this time. This time he was going to do the talking.

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Finally he looked at his watch. But then his hand returned to his lap, the fingers loosely clenched, alongside the other hand, which hadn't moved. If he had a train to catch he was evidently prepared to miss it rather than forgo the satisfaction of making her speak.

Elizabeth weakened. 'Go on, Major.' She forced herself to smile. 'Yes?'

'Very well, Miss Loftus.' He didn't bat an eyelid, but she could feel his satisfied prejudice like an aura, now that he had asserted his superiority. 'What is it that you want to know?'

That was a superficially reasonable question, thought Elizabeth. But, as David Audley always maintained, questions usually give you answers about the questioner. So in this instance, since he knew she hadn't read his report, he was also fishing - and probably for anything the Deputy-Director had told her, for a start.

Well, that other time she'd been easy meat. But this time she must simply remember that his brief had been Major Parker's death.

'Everything, Major.' Another smile. 'Why was your investigation unsatisfactory?' He'd know a false smile when he saw one. 'A tragic accident, the newspapers said?'

'Yes.' The eyelids still didn't bat as he realized that she had learned her lesson. 'The French were waiting for me, Miss Loftus.'

'Waiting for you?' Innocent and genuine surprise. 'On the Pointe du Hoc?'

'Nearby.' There was perhaps the faintest suggestion of Lowland Scottish, perhaps from the hard land of the Border, in his voice. 'The local paper suggested that he had come to Normandy for the D-Day gathering, on June 6th. But that was not so. He did not arrive until the afternoon of June 7th. The day of his tragic accident.' He repeated her words without commitment to them.

'Yes, Major?' She must not jump to conclusions. But tragic accidents in this line of country were generally neither tragic nor accidental; and it was only on the very cliff-edge of possibility that this elderly American had come half-way across the world to do alternatively what he could have done much more easily at home, on his own account.

"The newspaper reported him as staying at Bayeux. I traced him to a hotel there. I gave the clerk twenty francs, and he was on the phone before my back was properly turned. I went directly to the Pointe du Hoc. They took me as I was on my way back to Bayeux.'

'Took you?'

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'With the utmost courtesy, Miss Loftus. But without argument.'

She mustn't waste time trying to imagine that scene. 'What did they want?'

'They wanted to know what I was doing.'

Another silly question then. 'And what were you doing?' A hard man like Major Turnbull would have had a cover-story. 'You were stringing for PA? Or Agence-News Angleterre?'

'No, Miss Loftus. There was a DST man in attendance, so they already knew exactly who I was. A simple lie would only have invited trouble.'

That was interesting, though logical - that the Major had a European reputation before Colonel Butler had recruited him, and long before Mr Latimer had sent him back to France.

'So what was your complicated lie?'

He gave her Odin's stone face again, looking down on Grimeby from Baldersby Dale. 'In any period before or after Her Majesty the Queen has been invited to a foreign celebration, if there is a suspicious death we investigate it as a matter of routine, Miss Loftus.'

Phew! 'And what did they say to that?'

'There was nothing they could say. They could not deny that Her Majesty was there on June 6th, in Normandy. And they knew they couldn't question such a story without making an issue of it. Especially not after I'd reminded them of the Vive le IRA slogans they had failed to erase.'

Not bad at all, thought Elizabeth. 'When the safety of the Royal Family was involved, all foreigners expected John Bull to be at his most truculent. 'And they believed that?'

'No, Miss Loftus. If they had believed that I would have said so.' He paused, and as the pause lengthened she felt herself sucked into it.

'So what did - '

'If you will let me finish, Miss Loftus.' He cut her off smoothly. 'They pretended to believe me. And then they were uncommonly helpful and cooperative. They allowed me to interview three witnesses - two Frenchmen and an American youth. The Frenchman had been engaged in clearing up the area, after the previous day's ceremonies. The American youth was the grandson of an officer in one of their destroyers, which gave close support to the American troops who stormed the positon in 1944.' He paused again. 'I take it that dummy2

you are aware of what happened on the Pointe du Hoc, Miss Loftus?'

'Yes, Major.' It might be smarter to feign female ignorance, but there was a limit to what female flesh-and-blood could endure. "That would be D, E and F Companies of the 5th Rangers. And the destroyer was presumably the Satterlee.'

'Yes.' Not a nod, much less a smile - not even a bloody blink! Even Father had more grace on the rare occasions when she produced the right answer! 'The boy had been delayed by an accident involving the truck in which he'd been hitch-hiking. But he was an excellent witness, observant and intelligent. I have no reservations about him.'

Elizabeth frowned, and plunged over her own cliff before she could stop herself. 'He saw Parker fall?'

'No, Miss Loftus. I did not say that. I neither said it, nor implied it. I said the boy was an excellent witness. If he had seen the man fall then my investigation would not have been unsatisfactory. None of these witnesses saw the man fall. Neither did two adult Americans who were also on the headland at the time. I was shown transcripts of their evidence. All five of them arrived on the scene after he had allegedly fallen - the boy, one of the Americans and one of the Frenchmen almost immediately, within sight of each other, the other two shortly after.' He paused. 'Altogether there were seven people in the vicinity.'

Seven?

'Indeed?' She was not going to be caught so easily again: the as-yet-unaccounted two must wait until the Major chose to summon them. 'Why were you not able to interview the Americans - the adult ones?'

He stared at her in silence for a moment. 'I was told that they had returned to America.

Their evidence was certainly of no significance in transcript. They merely confirmed what the boy and the Frenchman said, but in less detail.'

'Who were they? Why were they there?'

'I was told that they were tourists.'

It was like playing a game - a game of snakes-without-ladders, from which he evidently derived some secret ego-inflating pleasure. But she was at least beginning to get the hang of his rules. 'And is their transcript to be relied on?'

'No, Miss Loftus. I did not say that. But so far as it went it was factually accurate, I believe.'

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Whatever he stated as a fact was a fact, and 'I believe' prefixed a genuine opinion. But 'I was told' indicated an untruth. Those were his rules. But since she was boss it was about time she started making the rules. 'Why were the French so helpful?'

'The fact that I was there at all meant that I'd been tracking him. They didn't know how much I knew already. Perhaps they thought I might give them something.'

Some hope! thought Elizabeth. 'And the missing eye-witnesses?'

'Eye-witnesses?' He produced no reaction, of course.

'Seven people, you said, Major.' Now for her rules. 'You may have all the time in the world, but I've got Dr Audley cooling his heels down the passage. So I don't have time to play games.'

'Hmm…' His lips compressed. 'I did not say all their evidence was useless. It was not. The boy's evidence was in reality of greater significance than the French police suggested - or pretended to suggest. He was able to testify that Parker was unsteady on his feet - how he lost his balance and fell while crossing the rough ground near the edge of the cliff.'

That suggested a genuine accident, thought Elizabeth. But she was done with questions now. 'Seven people, Major. Tell me about the other two.'

'The two other persons present were a man and a woman. Both young… both French. They had been observed earlier by the American boy, and also by one of the French refuse-collectors. The boy said that they were "necking", and the Frenchman described what they were doing more colourfully. But from where they were lying in the grass they would certainly have had a clear view of the point at which Parker went over the edge.'

Eye-witnesses. But then why was he playing so hard to get?

'All the witnesses agreed that there was at least one shout, or cry. The boy thought that there were two. When they came within sight of the place… which is in a gully, or possibly a stretch of heavily bombed or bombarded cliff-edge… they also agreed that the young Frenchman was kneeling on the grass, with his female companion close by. The boy says that they were both very emotional - "all het-up, and crying" - but his grasp of the French language is limited. The refuse-collector's recollection is that the man said "he fell - he jumped - I do not know". And then perhaps "I ran -I was too late - he is gone". But he is uncertain about either the exact words, or their exact sequence.'

Eye-witnesses, Elizabeth thought again. If they had been making love just above him, maybe their eye-witnessing had not been exact. But it was now reduced to one thing or the other, dummy2

whatever the sequence.

'The first of the other two Americans arrived then, followed by the other one shortly afterwards. They both then proceeded to the bottom of the cliff by the wooden staircase, together with one of the Frenchmen - you are , conversant with the geography of the Pointe du Hoc, Miss Loftus?'

Not in 1984, Major Turnbull - only in 1944; and there was certainly no easy way down then, never mind up! 'Of course.'

He gave her one of his blank looks. 'The evidence is unsatisfactory after that. The American boy says that the young man spoke to his girl-friend. He doesn't know what he said - only that the girl burst into tears, and ; became hysterical. The refuse-man thinks he said some thing like "What shall we do?" But then the young man turned to him and said that he must take his fiancee from the scene of the tragedy - that he would take her back to the car, so that she could recover there.'

That was par for the course, thought Elizabeth: men expected women to become hysterical on such occasions. And, in her educational experience, men were often inadequate on such occasions, and unwilling to deliver the necessary slap, which she had always found easy.

And, in this case, the Frenchman and the American boy would no doubt have been relieved to have an hysterical fiancee led away out of their sight by a protective fiance.

But Major Turnbulls lack of expression as he waited for her to react to this reasonable sequence of events, combined with what he had already said and left unsaid, suggested that there was more and better - or more and worse - to come. And, for choice, worse.

'I see.' So the two adult Americans (let's say the two CIA men, for a guess, Major) had gone rushing off, in the faint hope that their subject had survived the fall; and that had been a mistake. 'And that was the last anyone saw or heard of the fiance and the fiancee, Major?'

'No, Miss Loftus.' He managed to look pleased without moving a muscle.

Now she was stumped. Either she had missed something, or she was reduced to a tragic but boring accident again. And that made no sense.

'Yes, Major?' Instead of attempting nonsense, she simulated intelligent expectation of whatever he had in store for her.

'The young man phoned the Gendarmerie at Bayeux next day. He told them that he had seen it all. But the lady with whom he had been at the time was not his fiancee. So he was not about to come forward to testify what he had seen, in person.'

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Not his fiancee, thought Elizabeth. Therefore someone else's fiancee - or someone else's wife, more like: that went without saying in France, or anywhere else, but in France particularly, for such matters were bien entendu there, even in the Gendarmerie at Bayeux.

But they were evidently not bien entendu by Major Turnbull. 'What else did he say?'

'After he had indicated the delicacy of his situation he became disappointingly inexact, I was told. He saw an elderly gentleman, whom he took to be a foreigner by his dress, and who appeared to have strayed from the path. But he neither saw anyone fall nor jump. The old man was there - he heard a cry, which made him look up - and the old man was no longer there. Then he reacted as anyone might have done, rushing to the spot, on the edge of the cliff. And then other persons ran to join him. But it was useless - there was nothing he could do, or could have done, to avert the tragedy. He deeply regretted his inability to come forward in person, but the reputation of the young lady was at stake. And nothing would bring the elderly gentleman back to life.'

'And you believe - ' No, that was the start of a foolish and unnecessary question ' - I mean, did they pretend to believe that, Major?'

'For my benefit they did. It is on the face of it a plausible enough story. And I could hardly question it without raising difficulties for myself.'

That wasn't the complete story, decided Elizabeth. 'Did they explain why they picked you up?'

'They did not. I had given them a sufficient reason for being there, asking questions. But their reason for keeping an eye on the place was if anything rather better than mine for being there.'

She was getting closer. "They didn't believe the man's story?'

'Please let me finish, Miss Loftus. I detected a certain embarrassment. Because they were a little late in picking me up. Consequently I was able to examine the ground at leisure.' He paused deliberately, and continued only when he was sure of her. 'In my considered opinion, the two adult Americans were watchers, not bodyguards. And they did not anticipate any danger, since they allowed him out of their actual vision in a potentially hazardous area.' This time the pause was longer. 'But I do not know anything about the dead man. I presume you know more about him, Miss Loftus?'

Elizabeth held her tongue. It would have been satisfying to have teased him, but it would have served no useful purpose. All she had to do was to season her impatience and let him dummy2

speak without interruption.

If he was disappointed, he didn't show it. 'I do not know whether you have had occasion to visit the place, Miss Loftus - ?'

He was actually fishing! But then, perhaps it was her special knowledge of the Ranger units of 1944 which had tickled his curiosity. 'Please do go on, Major.'

'The site is cordoned off, and marked. And it is certainly the same site which the American boy described to me. And I had an opportunity to examine it, as I have said.'

Curiously, he was about to echo something Paul had once said to her about his battlefields: he was talking about the actual place now, which he had seen; and Paul had said: ' People can lie, Elizabeth, or they can be wrong. But the ground never lies, and it's never wrong?

'People fall over cliffs, Miss Loftus, for three reasons. They go over by accident, because they venture too close and they slip. Or they choose to jump, and they do jump. Or someone pushes them. And, for any reasonable assumption to be made, each possibility requires different criteria.'

Apart from expertise on Anglo-Danish place-names and Norse gods, Major Turnbull evidently had a coroner's experience of death, thought Elizabeth.

'He was an old man, and he was none too steady on his feet. We know that because he slipped on the grass earlier. And if he had wanted to jump, then there are several stretches of cliff which make jumping easy, where the drop is quick and inviting.'

So jumping was eliminated.

The whole of that area was heavily bombed and bombarded, but there is a perfectly adequate path across the site. In spite of his physical infirmity he left that path, and negotiated a most difficult terrain in order to reach a gully. It is not only a much less promising place from which to jump - it is not simply lower, but the actual cliff there is something less than sheer for a further distance - there is something of an overhang, which makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to ascertain whether the drop is either clean or sufficient.'

Elizabeth nodded. 'So he didn't jump.'

'It is a reasonable assumption that he did not. But, by the same token, it seems unlikely that he fell from such a place, Miss Loftus. It is exactly the sort of place from which an adventurous child might have fallen, while peering over the edge of the overhang. But the dummy2

man whom the American boy described would have found that far too difficult. Such a descent would require a quite unreasonable degree of imprudence.'

'But he could have slipped. He had already done that once.'

'Then he would still not have fallen over the actual cliff-edge, in my estimation. To fall there he would have required outward velocity - a downwards slither would have been insufficient.'

Elizabeth thought for a moment. It was really no wonder that he had described his investigation as 'unsatisfactory': he had been ordered to verify a tragic accident, only to find conflicting evidence, and then French Security waiting for him. All of which would not have endeared the assignment to anyone, least of all someone like Major Turnbull.

She stared at him, and wondered what she meant by 'someone like Major Turnbull', when she really knew absolutely nothing about him except that he had passed Colonel Butler's scrutiny six months ago.

'Yes, Miss Loftus.' He stared back at her. 'I am well aware that I am offering you a card-house of unsupported hypotheses. The man may have fallen. The French may have traced the young man and his woman. It is even remotely possible that the American boy had been rehearsed, and that he is a natural-born liar. You might even be entitled to assume that the man Parker did not fall - or jump - or was pushed… from the place I observed. All that is possible. And I warned you of my dissatisfaction - had you read my report you would have saved yourself time which you may well have wasted.'

Yes. But the Deputy-Director had rated this meeting as more valuable than reading words on the screen, and what did that count for?

'Yes, Major,' she heard herself say meekly. Simply, if the card-house was good enough for the Deputy-Director, it had better be good enough for her - at least until she had talked to David Audley. 'But please continue, nevertheless.'

'You wish for more of my theories, Miss Loftus?'

That, of course, was what was really so painful to him, although he showed no sign of pain (or anything else, for that matter!): the nearer he was to facts, the happier he was, the further away, the unhappier. So the odds were that his report had been much more severely factual than this, and much less a card-house. 'Yes, Major.'

'Very well. If we assume that he did go over the cliff from that gully, we need a reason for him making the descent into it. And if the American boy was telling the truth about him, dummy2

then there is at least one good reason. Which would also account for the presence of the two adult Americans, who were covering him at a discreet distance.'

If he was making this painful effort, then it was only fair to meet him half-way this time -

especially as he had already committed himself on the likely identity of the Americans. 'He was making a contact.'

"That is correct.' He looked at her. 'You may know better, Miss Loftus… but the manner of my assignment to him suggests that to me.'

'Yes.' Elizabeth hid behind a sympathetic nod of agreement. 'Yes, Major?'

"The gully is not an ideal place for a contact, Miss Loftus. It has the advantage of being dead ground unless you actually overlook it - and the man and the woman were well-placed both to do that, and to observe the approaches from all directions. But all those approaches are wide open to observation - it has no covered approach, or exit. If I am right, he went there because that was where he was told to go. But also, if I am right, it was never a contact point. It was a killing ground - that is the sum of my opinion, Miss Loftus.'

The card-house was complete. But she couldn't leave it quite there. 'What was the actual cause of death?'

'Multiple injuries, consistent with old bones falling a vertical distance of nineteen metres.

The beach at that point is composed of fallen chalk and large pebbles. You could find a similar beach westward from Eastbourne, past Beachy Head, Miss Loftus. Somewhere towards Birling Gap, where I used to go shrimping when I was a boy.' He showed no sign of being stirred by that far-off memory. 'They made free with the medical report. He had a fractured skull and a number of broken bones, and serious injuries to internal organs -

quite enough to kill him without the broken neck which I believe was the actual cause of death before he hit the beach -'

There were plenty of reference books and atlases and maps in the library, but Mrs Harlin had her own private shelf closer to hand.

'May I have a look at your French Michelin, Mrs Harlin?'

'Of course, Miss Loftus.' From the expression on Mrs Harlin's face, Elizabeth judged that she was still in the doghouse for keeping the Deputy-Director waiting while supposedly transacting her sex-life with Paul Mitchell. Even, when she had taken the Michelin from its slot between the Good Hotel Guide and Success With House Plants, she seemed momentarily unwilling to surrender it. 'I'm afraid that you have missed Dr Audley, Miss Loftus. He had dummy2

an appointment which he was unable to delay any further.'

'Oh?' So that was the way the wind blew. But then Mrs Harlin notoriously had a soft spot for David Audley, who cultivated her as lovingly as she did the line of exotic pot-plants on the window-sill behind her, with which he suborned her at regular intervals. Keeping David cooling his heels unnecessarily probably rated almost as badly in Mrs Harlin's book as ignoring the Deputy-Director.

'Oh?' But as she reached for the delayed Michelin, smiling sweetly, she thought Huh! to herself grimly. It was easy enough for the Deputy-Director to say - and to repeat finally and blandly - Dr Audley will be at your disposal, as I have said, Elizabeth. He knows what I want, and he will brief you and assist you accordingly. He has been relieved of all his other urgent duties.

But the reality of dealing with David Audley was going to be very different - and here was the first proof of that. Because, on a scale of difficulty from one to ten, Major Turnbull was suddenly reduced to one, with Audley at nine-point-five, for all his superficial charm - and that was Paul's experienced opinion equally with her limited experience.

'Indeed?' Her hand closed on the Michelin. Well, maybe Paul was no push-over when it came to the crunch. But she was not about to go running back to the Deputy-Director at the first check. If she could handle a recalcitrant fifth form whose parents had paid in advance for exam results, and type Father's illegible manuscripts while running his house for him with the smoothness of a Royal Navy First-Lieutenant, then David Audley maybe didn't rate nine-point-five after all. Compared with Father (never mind the fifth form) he bloody-well didn't move the needle!

She pulled the Michelin out of Mrs Harlin's hand. 'Then I presume he left a number where he can be contacted, Mrs Harlin?'

St Servan - and it would be well to the back -

'No, Miss Loftus.'

She would not look up. Compared with the British Michelin, with St Albans, and St David's, and… St David's, and St Helen's and St Ives, and whatever else, there were pages and pages of saints in France, recording the ancient triumph of Christianity over paganism -

Ste-Affrique, and Ste-Agreve, and St Beat and St Brieuc - St Etienne, St Dizier - tiny places, remembering outlandish, forgotten saints - who had been St Fulgent? Or St Lo, where so many Americans had died in 1944 (but not Major Ed Parker!) - and St Nazaire (where so many of Father's friends had distinguished themselves, and died too) - and, and, and - St Quentin, where Paul's 1914-18 heroes had gone over the top into the German barbed-wire… but - almost there -

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'Miss Loftus - '

St Servan - that looked like it - lie et Vilaine, not far from St Malo - therefore not too far from the Normandy battlefields, and the Pointe du Hoc -

'Miss Loftus!' A white envelope was thrust into the outside edge of her vision.

Elizabeth revenged herself by ignoring the envelope, with an effort. For there were other St Servans - or Saint-Servans: there was one far to the east, in Haute-Marne, and another, far to the south-east, in the Vaucluse - St Servan-les-Ruines -

'Miss Loftus - ' The envelope intruded even further ' - Dr Audley has marked this message

"Urgent". So if you could perhaps spare the time to look at its contents -?' Mrs Harlin's voice was tight as a eunuch's bow-string in old Constantinople.

Elizabeth accepted the envelope, which was addressed and privatized to her in Audley's own untidy hand.

Those examiners had been good, thought Elizabeth critically. Those Cambridge examiners - they had been good at deciphering calligraphy, as well as taking up his historical scholarship, who had once awarded David Audley his double-first at Cambridge! For not even dear James Cable's illegible scrawl was worse than this -

Elizabeth - If you want to know more about Haddock Thomas, put your skates on, and get on down double-quick to the Abyssinian War memorial, on the Embankment, where I shall meet you -

Abyssinian War? Which Abyssinian War was that - ?

'And Dr Mitchell, Miss Loftus,' said Mrs Harlin, as though both names were now equally distasteful to her.

'Dr Mitchell, Mrs Harlin?'

'He'd like you to lunch with him in the Marshal Ney public house, Miss Loftus. If you can spare the time from other duties.' Mrs Harlin pursed her lips. 'Strictly a business lunch, he said.'

4

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After five minutes Elizabeth realized that she ought to have known better, and after ten she knew better: it should have been obvious from the start that David Audley would never cool his heels for her, and even more obvious that he would try to run the show. In his place she would have done the same.

She looked up and down the road again in vain, and then across it, towards the gleaming green-glass Xenophon Oil tower on the far corner; and then turned back to her continued half-contemplation of the Roll of Honour of the Abyssinian War of 1867-8, which listed the officers, NCOs and other ranks who had 'perished in battle, or died of wounds or disease'

for Queen and Empire -

Particularly, she ought to have known better than to have come running at Audley's first command, when she could have let him wait while she punched Debrecen into the Beast.

She had only herself to blame.

And what sort of name was Haddock Thomas for God's sake!

Whatever long-forgotten imperial requirements had launched the power and the glory of the British Empire in Abyssinia - Marxist Ethiopia now, but Christian Abyssinia then presumably - the brevity of the casualty list identified it as one of Queen Victoria's smallest and healthiest wars -

The big complication was the presence of the Americans - of the CIA - on the Pointe du Hoc. But then, if Parker was an undoubted traitor, he was their traitor, so they had a right to be there, watching him. And, by the same token, Haddock Thomas was hers - was he?

It had certainly been an imperial war. For, in addition to names from the 4th, 33rd and 45th Regiments (judging by the Donovans and the Kellys, the 33rd must have been an Irish regiment), there were officers ' attached' to the Punjabi Pioneers, the Bengal Lancers and the 27th Baluchis… plus (which would have gladdened Father's heart) a little midshipman from the Naval Rocket Brigade, poor child!

But it was not simply a memorial to the Abyssinian War: the bronze tablet on which the names were inscribed was supported by two elephants, carved in a high relief, facing each other across a trophy of cannon, drums, spears and battle-flags; but one elephant had half its backside chipped away and one face of the obelisk was scarred and gouged, in memory of the German bomb which must have fallen nearby, maybe forty years before -

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Forty years? That took her back to the Pointe du Hoc again -

'Miss!'

The taxi seemed to come from nowhere. Or, since it hadn't cruised gently along the kerb into the edge of her vision, it must have executed a quick U-turn across the traffic, from the opposite direction.

Elizabeth peered into the cab. But the cabbie, who must have leaned across to his nearside to shout at her, had already straightened up and sat waiting for her to get in. And the meter flag was already down.

She almost got in, but then she didn't. Instead, she took a step back, to the safety of the Abyssinian War memorial.

The cabbie turned towards her again. 'Well, Miss -you comin' or en'tcha?'

'Coming where?' She had the elephant at her back now.

He gave her a questioning look, as though she'd just changed her mind. 'Dr Audley's fare, en'tcha?'

If this was the field, thought Elizabeth, it was not at all how she had imagined it - going blindly into it. But then nothing in R & D had ever been as she imagined it, all these months. But then no doubt the little midshipman had never imagined himself on an Abyssinian mountainside, with his rockets.

She hadn't time to arrange herself comfortably before he lurched her sideways with another fierce U-turn, to get himself back en route - whatever the route might be.

'Can y'sit yerself one side or the other, Miss… so I can see?'

Elizabeth slid obediently into one corner of the cab. 'May I ask where we are going?'

'Yus - you may.' He twisted the cab up a narrow street behind the Xenophon tower, cutting ahead of a CD-registered Mercedes full of Arabs which had just pulled away from the oil company's entrance. 'Dont'cha know, then?'

'No. I do not know.'

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The taxi raced up the narrow street, then turned into an even narrower one, which looked like a cul-de-sac.

Elizabeth waited, unwilling to weaken his concentration while their lives were at stake.

Then, when there was only a blank wall ahead, he swung into what appeared to be a loading bay, turned narrowly past a line of vans, and came into daylight again, in another street.

'Where are we going?' Wherever they were going, it would cost the British tax-payer. 'Is it far?'

'No.' He jumped the lights at a crossing, ahead of a terrified old lady in a Metro. 'Nothin'

followin' us now -'e's backin' out of Napier Lane by now, fr all the good it'll do Mm. Silver MG Maestro, EUD 909Y?'

Paul drove a silver MG Maestro, of which he was inordinately proud; but she'd never thought to look at its number-plate. 'No.'

'No?' He cocked his head. 'Well, 'e was the one - an' not bad, neither, 'cause he remembered me when I went round the second time, past 'im, an' went like the clappers after us, into Pict Street… not that it did 'im any good, like I said - but we're comin' up now, Miss - '

Elizabeth looked around. They were back beside the river now - on the Embankment, somewhere - ?

*Only 'e was good - so just in case, it might be as well for you to get out quick-like - right?

An' that'll be two-fifteen, wiv any small token of your esteem, Miss, for my time an' trouble

- like, silver MG Maestro EUD 909Y?'

Elizabeth stared at the Abyssinian War memorial, just across the road from where they were drawing into the kerb, under the canopy of Xenophon Oil's entrance.

'Quick now, Miss!' He held out his hand. 'Say a tenner?'

'A tenner?' Just in time she remembered whose fare she was. 'I'll tell Dr Audley that.'

Up three - four - five marble steps - after the fifth, as she stepped on the huge Xenophon mat, the dark-green glass doors bearing the same oil-rich-gold colophon hissed open automatically, drawing her inside and then cutting off the sound of London behind her as they hissed shut again.

Too much information jostled momentarily in her brain, coming from too many directions.

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There was visual information all around - the overwhelming green-and-gold assault of the entrance hall of Xenophon's Aladdin's cave: not only the green-and-gold of marble and mosaic, but a jungle hothouse profusion of growing things which would have made Mrs Harlin's mouth water.

Then memory sorted out the driving theme of Xenophon's public relations, on television and in the colour supplements and across innumerable billboards: ' Xenophon grows' was a slogan carefully divorced from the growth of Xenophon's profits, and there were green leaves entwined round the Green X symbolizing the company's well-publicized concern for the environment of its operations - There is no acid rain in our rain forest! But where did Squadron Leader Thomas - Haddock Thomas - peep through those leaves?

And if EUD 909Y was Paul, why was Paul sticking his neck out beyond common sense -

'Elizabeth!' Audley brushed aside a trailing piece of jungle. 'Where on earth have you been?'

'David.' She stifled the temptation to say 'Dr Audley, I presume?' The field was already too much like a jungle for such flippancy.

'You're late.' Audley tugged at the sweaty striped knot of his rugby club tie. 'Come on!' He gestured towards the lift doors.

She stood her ground. David Audley was much younger than Father was - than Father would have been: it still required an effort to think of Father in the past tense -but he was quite old enough to be her father, nevertheless. But if she weakened now, she would be lost.

He abandoned the dreadful tie. 'Come on, Elizabeth - please!'

'You owe some taxi-driver two-pounds-and-fifteen-pence, plus tip. And he makes that ten pounds exactly.'

'What?' He blinked at her. 'Why didn't you pay him?'

'I thought ten pounds was too much for just crossing the road. Which was where I was. As you well know.' In spite of herself, she weakened. 'The Abyssinian War memorial, David -

remember?'

'Yes… Yes, I'm sorry about that, Elizabeth. Just a little old-fashioned precaution. But in this case just to annoy Paul Mitchell.'

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'Paul?'

'I said I was sorry. And I know I should have chosen somewhere farther away, for form's sake.' He raised one massive shoulder apologetically, and then grinned at her. 'It's an interesting memorial, though - don't you think?'

'Quite riveting.' That was one pitfall which she knew how to avoid: the study of war memorials was Colonel Butler's only known hobby, and the rest of the department indulged this macabre taste almost out of habit now. But that didn't mean she had to reward his grin. 'If you think it was necessary to encourage Paul to make a fool of himself, then it achieved your objective, anyway.'

'It was Paul?' He smiled at his own question, as though amused by it.

'It was EUD 909Y, according to your taxi-driver. But why, David?'

'Why indeed!' He shrugged diplomatically. 'He should be back in Cheltenham. But he's still foolishly protective where you're concerned - is that not true, Elizabeth?'

'He thinks I'm not up to… whatever this is.' If he was fishing, then she could fish also. 'He showed me a cutting from the Daily Telegraph.'

'God bless my soul!' But his surprise wasn't quite genuine. 'Well… I must admit that I taught him to read his newspapers thoroughly…'

On second thoughts, she had no need to fish. He was supposed to be helping her, not vice-versa. 'Why are we here, David?'

He raised an eyebrow. 'Didn't you read my note? What have you been doing, Elizabeth?'

'I was told to speak to Major Turnbull first. About the man Parker - the man in the Daily Telegraph.'

' Ah! The eyebrow dropped. 'And getting information out of the equivocal Major was like squeezing blood out of that proverbial stone?' He nodded sympathetically. 'So what did he have to say, then?'

'He said - ' Elizabeth stopped suddenly, first because she realized that she couldn't afford to let vice-versa work like this, with her answering all the questions, and then because someone was heading directly towards them across the foyer.

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'Dr Audley?' It was one of the two beautifully-tailored and coiffured receptionists from the marble desk. 'Dr Audley, Sir Peter will see you now.' The woman smiled her practised reception-smile at him, simultaneously taking in Elizabeth, pricing her from head to toe, and adding a nuance of apology to her smile on the basis of her combined estimation of their importance.

'Eh?' Audley frowned into her politeness. 'What?'

'Sir Peter, Dr Audley - ' She faltered under his frown ' - Sir Peter will see you now.'

'Ah - hmm…' Audley's face became a mask of vague intransigence, for which his somewhat battered features were well-suited. 'Right. Then you just tell Sir Peter that we'll see him in five minutes - right?'

The woman's own face, at least above the pasted smile, registered something like consternation. It was as though, as a junior archangel at the Gates of Heaven, she had said Saint Peter will see you now, only to discover that she had been addressing some Old Testament prophet who rated her master as just another newcomer.

But then she rallied. 'Sir Peter is a very busy man, Dr Audley.'

'And so am I.' The intransigence was not so much vague as blandly and brutally confident.

'Five minutes, tell him - right?'

The hate above the woman's smile was almost tangible. 'Yes, Dr Audley. If - if you would take the left-hand lift… when you are ready?'

"Thank you.' Audley turned back to Elizabeth. 'Now, Miss Loftus - as you were saying - ?'

Elizabeth watched the receptionist's retreating back, outwardly stiffened, but inwardly slumped. He would never have dared to treat Mrs Harlin like that.

'I was going to say… I was going to say that you are a nig sometimes, David - to quote your wife.'

'Only when it is necessary - to quote Tsar Alexander, Elizabeth.'

'But I was late, you said. So it wasn't her fault.'

'You were late - and she's paid to handle awkward bastards like me. And we're paid to do what I'm doing now, actually.'

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'Which is not telling me a damn thing?'

'We haven't time for that now - which is tactics, Elizabeth.' He glanced towards the lifts, and so did she. There were three of them, and there were people waiting outside two of them, on the right. But no one was waiting outside the left-hand one, which was open and empty.

'What tactics?'

'What tactics?' He came back to her. 'Getting an interview with Sir Peter Barrie was a slice of luck to start with, because he probably spends half his life jetting somewhere, first-class.

Like this morning, for instance, Elizabeth.'

'This morning?'

'He was booked to Cairo this morning, top security. Because Xenophon's got a deal going with the Egyptians, so my Israeli friends tell me. But when his old friend -his very old friend - who, quite surprisingly, is me… when his old friend phones him up this morning, first his secretary says he's a busy man, and hard luck… But then she phones me back and says he has got maybe a few spare minutes, between one pressing matter and another. And that begins to interest his old friend, Elizabeth. And then you're quite unconscionably late.

But he's still got time to spare. And that might also be luck. But I think I've had all the luck I can reasonably expect already. So that interests me even more. So I'm just pushing my luck for another five minutes, do you see?' He smiled hideously at her. 'Besides which I really would like to know what Major Turnbull said about Mr Edward Parker, Elizabeth.'

'And I'd like to know what Squadron Leader Thomas has to do with Xenophon Oil, David.'

He nodded. 'Fair enough. And the answer is - absolutely nothing, so far as I know.' He looked at her. 'So now I get my answer - fair?'

It wasn't in the least fair. But, unfair or not, she needed Audley more than he needed her.

'He thinks Parker was murdered.'

This time the look was elongated. 'Yes…' Then he nodded again. 'Yes… although he didn't say quite as much in his report. But then he has this thing - this psychological block, would it be? - about unveiling his opinions in print.' He cocked an eye at her. 'But if he says that was the way of it, then we had both better believe it… And that justified dear Oliver St John Latimer taking me away from more important matter, I suppose.'

More important matters? There was a display of time spanning Xenophon's international, dummy2

intercontinental, world-wide operations, electronically illustrated over a huge spinning globe in the middle of the foyer, continuously red for this minute of British Summertime, and green for Xenophon's own communications satellite, as it fulfilled its function from the North Slope of Alaska to the China Sea. But Elizabeth felt only the pressure of the red numbers adjusting their verticals and horizontals as her own lifespan was counted.

'Good God!' exclaimed Audley, looking past her. ' Razzak!'

The emphasis twisted her towards the direction of his attention. 'What?'

'Razzak!' This time he only murmured the name, but took a half-step sideways as he did so. 'Well, well! Hullo there?

There had been people there, in the doorway, where the doors had been hissing them in and out all the time as they had been talking. But now there was a large Arab there, transfixed by Audley's glance.

'Hah!' The man's hesitation was lost in his slight change of direction. 'David - of all people!

What black mischief are you up to here?'

'My dear fellow - not the same as yours, I hope!' Audley completed the step. 'I didn't even know you were in London - ' He broke off as the same receptionist whom he had bullied came out of nowhere to intercept the Arab.

'General?' The same welcoming smile was there, but it was a desperate smile, bereft of both hope and confidence. 'General Razzak?'

The Arab turned towards the woman. 'Madame… I have an appointment with Colonel Saunders. But it was made very recently, by telephone, so I quite appreciate any delay. So I will wait here - ' He flicked a glance towards the entrance, which was now partially obscured by two large men who were patrolling the steps at different levels, admiring the view ' - until the Colonel is free?'

'Ah - ' began Audley.

'A moment, David - ' The Arab held up a mutilated hand. ' -I am at your service, Madame.'

'Oh - yes, General.' The effort of not looking at Audley embarrassed the woman, 'Colonel Saunders will see you now. If you will go to the right-hand lift, General. Level Six.'

'Thank you, Madame.' The Arab bowed. 'That is most kind of you. After I have transacted the common courtesies with this gentleman I will go directly to Level Six. And meanwhile, dummy2

if you could report my arrival to my embassy? Would that be possible?'

'Of course, General. Immediately.'

'Thank you.' The Arab smiled sweetly at her, and then cased the foyer for a second time as she returned to the desk. "The Libyans have put a price on my head, so I have to take these boring precautions, David - please forgive me.'

'And the Iranians too, presumably?' Audley was quite matter-of-fact.

'And them too!' The Arab completed his scrutiny, and grinned at Audley. 'You have your cross to bear - and I have my crescent. The irony of which is that I shall go to Paradise, while you will find yourself rubbing shoulders with them in Hell.'

'But you'll put in a good word for me? For old time's sake?'

'I will not.' The Arab had already observed Elizabeth surreptitiously, but now he studied her with frank curiosity. 'Until you remember your manners, David.'

General who? Elizabeth racked her brains. Audley had once been a Middle Eastern expert, as well as the author of a scholarly work on the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, until he had blotted his copybook. And he was still very thick with the Israelis. But that somehow made this friendship more unlikely.

'I beg your pardon, Miss Loftus.' Audley sounded slightly distant. 'May I present my old and dear friend, General Muhammed Razzak, late of the Egyptian army?'

Razzak, of course! She had once heard David say, a propos the Sadat assassination, it wouldn't have happend if old Razzak hadn't been in Washington at the time.

' Enchante, Miss Loftus,' The General carried her hand to his lips with what was left of his hand - there was no index finger at all, and the palm was dreadfully scarred. 'But of course!

You are the daughter of the gallant naval captain who once sank all those German torpedo-boats when his own ship was itself sinking -I remember reading of his death in The Times.

You have my sympathy, Mademoiselle, for your loss.'

Thank you, General.' In spite of the hand, and the fact that he was just beginning to run to fat and was also old enough to be her father, he was an attractive man still, Elizabeth decided. But why should he remember a three-year-old Times obituary?

'Belated sympathy,' murmured Audley dryly. But then David also knew the real score, dummy2

which lay between herself and Father.

'Belated only because I have not had the pleasure of meeting Miss Loftus until now.' The General held her hand just a second too long, as though he derived information from it.

'And he was an historian also - a most distinguished naval historian.'

'That's what good intelligence is all about, Elizabeth,' said Audley. 'He didn't really need an introduction - any more than he's a real Egyptian. He's really an Albanian-Turk - one of Mehemet Ali's imports, by descent… And definitely not to be trusted with the week's housekeeping money.'

General Razzak cocked an eye at Audley. 'Just as Audley is… what is it? Anglo-Norman?

And would that be Norseman?" And are the Norsemen not the sea-raiders who burned all the Christian churches and monasteries - and nunneries, and made free with the holy ladies therein?' He smiled at Elizabeth. 'You would not have to trust the housekeeping money to such terrorists, Miss Loftus - they would also take it from you.' He nodded. 'And as for your gallant and distinguished father, as it happens I have read his account of Admiral Lord Nelson's campaign, which ended with the Battle of the Nile. General Bonaparte's Egyptian expedition is my hobby, and I hope to publish my researches one day… Did you assist your father with his researches, Mademoiselle?'

'What he means, Elizabeth,' said Audley quickly, 'is, are you helping me with my researches now? And what I meant, when I said he was an "old and dear" friend, was that we've known each other for a few years, and we've both cost each other dear. And I've paid more than he has.'

Elizabeth blanked out her memories of transcribing Father's anti-Nelson prose, word for word, not daring to object to it while suspecting that Father's severity with Nelson's human frailities were due either to his knowledge of his own defects or to his blindness to them - even now she could not decide which.

'I did, General.' She wasn't attractive enough to coquette with General Muhammed Razzak, so it had to be an intellectual, blue-stocking, response. 'If you'd like to see Father's notes…

will you be in London long?'

He shook his head. 'Alas no, Mademoiselle.' He didn't look at Audley. 'As I'm sure you both know, I have business with Xenophon. Although I am not a businessman.'

'You're here because Barrie didn't fly out this morning?' Audley looked quickly towards the red time-fingers over the revolving Xenophon globe. 'And so he's screwed up all your security precautions? So you're here to sort things out with his Head of Security?'

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General Razzak spread his amusement between them, with a wicked glint for Audley and pretended regret for Elizabeth, as though he knew quite well what they were about. 'And if I said "yes" to that - ' He zeroed in on Audley ' - would you answer me truthfully in return?' He shifted his glance to Elizabeth, but then swung away from them both, towards the reappearing receptionist who had brushed past the cascade of foliage to hover on the edge of their game. 'Madame?'

'General… please forgive me for interrupting you.' This time the reception-smile illustrated a confusion of unreconciled priorities with which Elizabeth could readily sympathize: did the Egyptian general, who was booked in with Xenophon's security chief, rate above the horrible Dr Audley, who behaved as though he out-ranked Saint Peter himself, whose special lift still gaped open?

'Dr Audley - ' Faced with an absolute decision, the woman came to it bravely ' - Sir Peter is asking for you. And I really cannot put him off any longer, Dr Audley.'

'No?' Anglo-Normans, secure in the Battle of Hastings, lacked the grace of Mehemet Ali's Albanian-Turks. 'Oh, very well, then - tell him we're just coming.' Audley cold-shouldered her, coming back to General Muhammed Razzak. 'And if I assured you on my honour that this has got nothing to do with you, as far as I know - that it's purely domestic? Would you believe that?'

'On your honour - I would.' Razzak nodded. 'And it would make me happier, too.'

'Then we can both be happier.' Audley returned the nod, and then transferred it to the receptionist, and finally gave it to Elizabeth. 'Let's try the left-hand lift then, Miss Loftus - '

He spread an arm and a hand for her, to shepherd her towards the open lift-doors. ' -

Razzak, I'll phone you tomorrow evening maybe - okay?'

'You can phone me. But you won't get me.'

'Okay.' Audley shrugged. 'I'll just give Jake Shapiro your kind regards.' The hand urged her irritably.

'Of course!' Razzak bowed to her. 'Another time, Miss Loftus? I am particularly interested in the landing of the British army in 1799 - relatively speaking, as an opposed landing, it was remarkably efficient - I would be very grateful for anything you have on that, from contemporary records and diaries - ' He bowed again ' - Miss Loftus-'

'For Christ's sake! Come on, Elizabeth!' Audley grimaced at her as he started to move. 'The only really smart thing we ever did in Egypt was when Disraeli borrowed the money from Rothschild's to buy those Suez Canal shares. But then we should have handed the bloody dummy2

place over to the Australians in 1918 - they were the only Anglo-Saxons the Egyptians ever respected - Come on, Elizabeth!'

Elizabeth came on, towards the left-hand lift, with its welcoming open doors, not daring to look farewell at General Razzak after that.

'David - who is Sir Peter? Sir Peter Barrie?' She entered the lift, and swivelled towards him.

'What has he got to do with Squadron Leader Thomas?'

He made a face. 'Don't keep calling him "Squadron Leader", for God's sake, woman!'

'Why not?'

'How much do you know about him?' Audley searched the lift for controls. 'You know… I wonder which floor we want - ?'

'Hold on, David! I know practically nothing about him - and absolutely nothing about Sir Peter Barrie. So don't press the button yet.'

'You don't? Well, the presence of General Razzak should tell you something.' He scratched his head. "There don't seem to be any buttons - just this one marked "Emergency". It must be controlled from the desk, by that woman.' He took a step back towards the doors, but they started to close and he was forced to retreat.

The lift began to move, and Elizabeth began to panic.

Audley grinned at her. 'She nearly got me. She was just waiting for that, I'll bet! Not that I blame her… You were saying - ?'

Mustn't panic. 'Where is that emergency button, David?'

'Just here - the red button - Christ, Elizabeth - !' , The lift stopped.

'For God's sake woman! What did you do that for?' exclaimed Audley.

'Because I have an emergency, David. I know practically nothing about Squadron Leader Thomas - whom I must not call "Squadron Leader" - except that he was shot down on June 6th, 1944, and rescued by the late Major Thaddeus E. Parker on June 7th.' Elizabeth decided that she would hold on to the Deputy-Director's other revelations for the time being.

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Somewhere in the distance there was a bell ringing. Presumably it was an emergency bell.

'And I know nothing at all about Sir Peter Barrie, whom I am about to meet.' She faced him. 'And that is my emergency.'

He stared at her for a moment. Then his mouth opened.

" Executive floor lift?' The voice came out of a small speaker alongside the red button. ' You have a problem? Please speak into this receiver, alongside the emergency stop.'

Elizabeth pressed her bag tightly over the speaker. 'Solve my problem, David.'

He stared at her for another, much longer moment. 'I don't think you have any problem at all, young woman.' He shook his head. 'The problem is all mine.'

The speaker mumbled again, muffled by her bag.

'All right, Elizabeth - I give you best.' The shake became a nod. 'We vetted both of them, back in 1958. And cleared them both - Peter Barrie was a wronged man, and a victim… old Haddock was also a wronged man. But also a philanderer. It was a cross between a Feydeau comedy - or a Whitehall farce, or maybe a "Carry On" film - and a James Bond novel. Everyone got egg on their faces.'

'What about Major Parker?'

Audley shook his head. 'What about him?'

'He was on the list too.'

His face hardened. 'You know what list you're talking about?'

Audley was usually so friendly that when he wasn't he was at once rather frightening. 'Mr Latimer has cleared me for it, David.'

'Oh, he has, has he?' She could almost feel the heat under his look. 'Well, we haven't the time - and this isn't the place - for Mr Oliver St John Latimer's list. And you can lean on your red button until hell freezes over, Miss Loftus.'

Elizabeth summoned her last reserves. 'So what is Sir Peter Barrie's connection with - with Thomas - '

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That's easy. He was Thomas's best friend, or near enough, back in '58. Until Barrie shopped him.' He relaxed slightly. 'So I thought you should begin with him. But I wouldn't advise you to delay him any longer. He's a busy man, as that woman said.'

She lowered her bag. 'Hullo? Hullo? Who is that?'

' Executive floor lift?' The voice seemed relieved. ' Please speak into the receiver, alongside the emergency stop - the red buttonr

'The red button?' She made herself sound flustered. And when she thought about David Audley and Sir Peter Barrie that wasn't too difficult. 'I think I pressed the button by mistake - the lift just stopped.'

Audley leaned forward. 'She pressed the red button by mistake,' he repeated grimly. 'So what do we do now?'

'You have a problem, caller?'

Audley gave Elizabeth an old-fashioned look. 'Our only problem is that the lift has stopped.'

'Please press the red button again, caller. The lift will proceed.'

Audley continued to look at her as he pressed the button. 'Don't bother to apologize. I'd hate that.'

Thirty years with Father, who had been a fully paid-up life member of the Never Apologize Society, had at least inured her to that weakness. 'I wasn't going to.'

He relaxed, and became almost his old self again. I'm glad to hear it. I am seldom wrong, but it's always good to have one's judgment vindicated by events.'

To the extent that he had recommended her recruitment, she was his invention. But if he was reminding her of that he still had a lot to learn, in spite of his seniority and experience, she decided as the lift-doors opened.

'Dr Audley - Madam.' A Mrs Harlin-class battle-cruiser was waiting for them in what must be Xenophon's Holy of Holies. 'I'm so sorry about the lift, Dr Audley.' She gave Elizabeth a tripod-masted look. 'Sir Peter will see you now.' She indicated their route, through another of Xenophon's exotic jungles. Except that those couldn't be real flowers surely, could they?

'Shall I lead the way?

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'By all means.' Audley bowed slightly to Elizabeth as the woman moved ahead. 'After you, Miss Loftus,' he murmured.

'Thank you, Dr Audley.'

'And God help us - ' As she passed him she heard the rest of his murmur ' - Peter Barrie and David Audley, both.'

5

Elizabeth looked about her in surprise.

'Home from home, maybe?' Audley had been looking round too. And he was also surprised.

That was just about exactly right, thought Elizabeth. Or, anyway, it didn't look like a Xenophon room: no company symbol, no green-and-gold colour scheme, no expensive furniture - and, above all, no vegetation, apart from a spindly Busy Lizzy plant on the window-sill. The books in the shelves were mostly paperbacks, and many of them looked as though they had been well-read. In fact, the whole place looked lived-in, as nowhere else in the great tower had been, or ever could be. It was like a suburban flat - almost tatty, even.

Audley picked up the paperback which lay on the coffee-table, with a slip of paper in it marking the reader's place.

'Henry Williamson - A Fox Under My Cloak.' He made a thoughtful face. 'Paul would approve of that. Ypres 1915, is it, this one?'

'Among other places.'

Elizabeth turned towards the voice.

'I've only just discovered him properly. I thought he was merely the author of Tarka the Otter, who ruined himself by backing the fascists in the thirties. It makes me ashamed, how ill-read and ill-informed I am. Hullo again, David Audley.'

He was as tall as David, but thin, almost gaunt, where David was proportionately big. He dummy2

reminded her slightly of pictures she had seen of George Orwell.

'And hullo again, Peter Barrie.' Audley replaced the book where he had found it, taking care to keep the marker in position. 'Though, in the circumstances, that hardly seems adequate, after all these years - don't you think?' He bent down and adjusted the book.

'1958 - was that a good year for claret?'

Sir Peter shook his head. 'I don't think I bought much wine that year. I was in somewhat straitened circumstances - remember?'

There was something between them which was too big to be communicated except in small talk. So that was why Audley had been… the way he had been, perhaps? 'So you were. Although you wouldn't have bought any '58 in '58, anyway. I bought some '49 in that year. It cost me a fortune - I should have bought it before and kept it longer. One so often does things too late. My wife's into early English water-colours at the moment.' He shook his head sadly. 'Far too late.'

Sir Peter was looking at her. 'Introduce me, David.' Audley gave her a vaguely apologetic look. 'There! I've done it again - or not done it.' He turned the look back to Sir Peter. 'I got bawled out by General Razzak in your front office not five minutes ago for just the same thing - would you believe it?'

Sir Peter continued to study her. 'General Razzak?'

'None other. And as he's here to see your Colonel Saunders he's probably rather miffed with you, as well. For upsetting his security arrangements in Cairo at the last moment -

would that be it?'

Sir Peter smiled at her suddenly. 'Probably.' The smile had an oddly conspiratorial quality, as though he wanted to share it with her. 'You know, he's not going to introduce us. But I believe you are… Miss Loitus? And I am Peter Barrie.'

His hand was gentle. 'Sir Peter.'

'And you are a colleague of David's?'

'A junior colleague, Sir Peter.' Just as suddenly as he had smiled, she knew why he had done so. 'His manners were always bad, were they? Even back in 1958?'

'Always bad.' He nodded agreement. 'But one must not be offended by them.' He glanced at Audley. 'I have some dealings with a man who thinks very highly of you, David. You have had dealings with him a few years ago. Eugenic Narva.'

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'Oh yes?' Audley ran his eye along the bookshelf idly. 'I seem to recall meeting him once, yes.'

They weren't just name dropping, decided Elizabeth. They were sending messages to each other in code.

'He certainly remembers you. He asked me if I knew you.'

'And what did you say?' Audley moved down the bookshelf.

'I recalled meeting you once, long ago.' Sir Peter paused. 'You'd vetted me, I told him.'

'Yes.' Audley nodded to the bookshelf. 'Since he probably knew that already… that would have been the right thing to say.' He came to the end of the shelf, and looked round the room again before finally coming back to Sir Peter. 'Nice place you've got here, Peter.'

'I think so.' Sir Peter nodded happily.

'Homely.' Audley gestured towards the books. 'I remember some of those, from when I searched your flat in Tavistock Road, back in '58.'

'Yes?' The man didn't seem in the least surprised, unlike Elizabeth herself. 'You have a good memory, then.'

Twenty-six years? She had been at primary school, among her picture-books and crayons, reading about Old Lob, and Mrs Cuddy the Cow, and Mr Crumps the Goat - or had Mr Crumps been a donkey?

'Uh-huh.' Audley observed her astonishment, and stretched out to tap one - two - of the larger books. 'Powicke - Henry III and the Lord Edward. Two school prizes, with embossed school crests on front, and P. W. Barrie, Upper Sixth, Bishop… Bishop Somebody - Bishop Somebody History Prize… See for yourself, Elizabeth.' He pulled one of the faded green volumes from the shelf, and handed it to her.

The crest was that of a once-famous direct grant school, now a successfully independent public school, which was presently and quite infamously poaching sixth formers from girls' public schools. And not at all to the girls' advantage, thought Elizabeth bitterly.

'Bishop Creighton, David.'

Creighton - of course! A boring Victorian historian - I should have remembered.' He sniffed dummy2

derisively, and then gestured towards the other books. 'And all the rest - the early Penguins with the advertisements in 'em - see that old yellow Penguin, Elizabeth - and those Bernard Shaws. The reason I remember 'em is because I bought the same books at the same time - 1940s, 1950s - and they're still in my shelves too.' He jerked his head in a different direction, towards a corner of the room. 'But that desk… we had one hell of a job getting into that, without damaging it… That was there, too.'

'Quite right. And I'm very glad you were so careful. Because that was my grandmother's desk - not very valuable, but valuable to me.' Sir Peter smiled at Elizabeth again. 'I used to have a flat in Tavistock Road, Miss Loftus.'

'We didn't damage it,' growled Audley defensively.

'I didn't say you did. I didn't even know you'd searched the place, David.' Sir Peter's mouth twisted. 'Or I guessed you must have done, eventually. But there never was any sign of it that I could see, anyway.' He came back to Elizabeth. 'I lived there until quite recently. But I was away so often, and particularly during the last few years…'He shrugged. 'And there were a couple of burglaries - ' He switched to Audley ' - ordinary burglaries, David: they just stole the silver and the hi-fi… At least I presume it wasn't you, after all these years, was it?'

Audley was still looking round. 'Not as far as I know.'

'No?' Sir Peter stared at him thoughtfully for a second or two. Then he turned to Elizabeth again. 'Well, so I thought… I had this dreadful ecological penthouse here, where I lived more than half the time, but I couldn't relax… So I thought - it was Mother's old flat, and I'd lived in it off and on since I was a child. But it was only things, really - and shapes.'

'Home from home,' snapped Audley. 'And RHIP - Rank Has Its Privileges - eh?'

'What?'

Audley nodded. 'I wondered why this place was bugging me so much - apart from its lack of plant life.'

Peter Barrie smiled. 'Yes, David - ?'

Audley nodded again. 'This is the same room I searched, back in '58 - just a couple of miles away, and a couple of hundred feet up - right?' He ran a quick glance round the room.

'Same furniture, same dimensions… same books, plus another twenty-six years' shopping -

only the windows are different: we came in through the door, but you had sash-windows in Tavistock Street, naturally - right?'

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'Right, David.' Peter Barrie beamed at him. 'The windows were really too expensive here.

But I've got a sash in my bedroom - would you like to see?' He included Elizabeth in his pleasure. 'Moving the walls was no problem - they were only partitions up here, nothing structural. And the builders loved it: they'd never had to do anything like it before - they just added ten per cent for a lunacy factor, I rather think.'

Elizabeth felt herself absorbed by them both - by what they were saying to each other, and what they were both saying about each other: two old men - or old-young men, old enough to be her father, each of them, but young enough still to take pleasure from deliberate irresponsibility, as Father had never been able to do, because he had never been reconciled with the unfair cards fate had dealt him.

'Elizabeth - I'm sorry.' All the time, Audley had kept half an eye on her, at intervals. 'I do apologize, for all this chat.'

'And so do I,' agreed Peter Barrie. 'But after twenty-six years this is something of an old boys' reunion, you might say.'

'I don't mind.' She could even forgive Audley now for leaving her high and dry. 'All this is very - ' What was it, apart from fascinating? ' - educational, Sir Peter.'

They looked at each other, each slightly off-put by her choice of adjectives.

'How - "educational", Elizabeth?' Audley got in first.

He was no longer an ally, she thought. When they'd entered this strange room, which was suspended in time as well as space, it had been two-against-an-absent-one. But now, with the way David remembered Peter Barrie after twenty-six years, it was two-against-one -

and she was in the minority.

'More than that.' Two-against-one, then! 'If this room is vintage 1958 - ' At least that was an improvement on 1944, which was before she'd been born! ' - then tell me about 1958, for a start, please.'

The allies consulted each other again.

'How much does she know, David?'

'Practically, sod-all, Peter. I'm just her minder - I'm not a bloody KBE-tycoon, like you.'

'Yes. But I received your message.'

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'And cancelled your trip to Egypt, Sir Peter?'

'Yes, Miss Loftus. But that's what comes of having a bad conscience - even after twenty-six years.' He cocked his eye at his ally. 'Who was it said no one could afford to buy back his past?'

Audley grimaced at him. 'God knows. It's certainly not Kipling.'

What had Audley put in his message, to stop Sir Peter Barrie's Egyptian trip, and bring General Muhammed Razzak hot-foot to the Xenophon Tower? It was obvious that neither of them was going to tell her - they were waiting for her to tell them.

So she had to hit them with what she had. 'Squadron Leader Thomas, Sir Peter?'

'"Squadron Leader"?' He reproduced Audley's 'reaction.

This time, she would wait for an explanation.

He was looking at David. 'How many planes did Haddock destroy?'

'Six.' Audley raised his huge shoulders interrogatively. 'Or ten if you include the Luftwaffe.'

'Eleven - if you include the Tiger Moth during training.' Sir Peter held up one hand, with its fingers spread wide. 'He lost seven British and hit four Germans. But they were only probables, weren't they?'

Audley shook his head. 'I think you've got to count them. Allowing for the number of missions he flew - to be fair.'

'Very well. Four of them.'

'He may have hit others.'

'Possibly.' The five fingers bunched into a fist, and then sprang open again. 'Shot down twice - once over France, and walked home - once by the Americans - right?' He grasped two fingers with his other hand.

'That was bad luck - the second time, Peter.'

'Bad luck - good luck - ' The three remaining fingers remained standing ' - if you ask me, he dummy2

was born lucky, was Haddock.'

'You could say that,' agreed Audley. 'Compared with some.'

'With most.' Two fingers and a thumb, actually. 'Came down hard twice - once, battle damage… once, engine failure - four - right? Plus the Tiger Moth.'

Audley rocked uncertainly. 'By the same token, I lost four tanks - if you count two which broke down in England, during exercises on Salisbury Plain, Peter.'

'Four.' There was only one finger left. 'Ditched twice - once off Eastbourne Pier - or Brighton Pier, or somewhere - ' The thumb disappeared, but a new finger came up instead

'… and once on D-Day, when the British shot him down - and the Americans picked him up, which cancelled out the previous offence, he used to maintain… which makes seven all told, agreed?'

'Sir Peter - ' For Elizabeth, that was enough of Haddock Thomas's wartime career for the time being ' - I was referring to… to later on, after the war.'

'You never told me about those four tanks of yours, David.' Sir Peter addressed Audley, ignoring her.

'Losing tanks is boring.' Audley took the first volume of Powicke's Henry III and the Lord Edward from her, and replaced it beside its comrade. 'Tell her about 1958, Peter.'

'But you know more about that.'

Audley adjusted the books in the shelf. 'I can tell her my version any time. But mine is the official record. And who believes the official record?' He trued-up the line of books, until they were like guardsmen on the Horse Guards, waiting for the Queen to inspect them.

'Yours is how it really was.'

Sir Peter Barrie presented a suddenly-different face to her - not his remembered Tavistock Street face, but his Xenophon Oil one. 'Why d'you want to know, Miss Loftus?' He blinked, and the friendly Tavistock Street face was back again. 'After all these years - ?'

'Because it's her job, Peter.' said Audley.

'Let her answer for herself then. Always assuming that I can recall such far-off events -

why, Miss Loftus?'

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'You can remember,' said Audley.

'Not if I don't choose to.' Sir Peter Barrie pronounced the threat mildly, but he knew that he had let her see through the gap in this curtain. 'You know, I do seem to recollect some of the questions he - ' Without taking his eyes off her he indicated Audley ' - he once asked me. Do you want the same answers - if I can remember them?'

She had to get away from their old games. 'I'd much rather you told me why you've got a bad conscience about Squadron Leader Thomas than David did. Then I can draw my own conclusion.'

'I see. So I must believe him, when he said you knew "sod-all" about old Haddock, must I?'

She was in there with a chance. 'Not quite "sod-all". But I would rather like to know why you both keep calling him "Haddock", for a start. Is that really his name?'

'Indeed?' It was a hit - a palpable hit, she could see that from the way he suddenly shifted to Audley at last. 'Why was he called "Haddock", David? It wasn't because he kept being shot down into the sea, and then swam ashore - was it? Because I don't think it was -

because he was "Haddock" long before that, wasn't he?'

Audley was back among the books. 'You know why. And you want to talk to her, not me -

so you answer her then.'

Sir Peter Barrie frowned. 'I know about "Caradog" - or "Caradoc", or whatever it was…

And even Caractacus - is that it? But how did it - metamorphose - "metamorphose" - ? Was it at school?'

'God Almighty!' Audley slammed back the book he'd half-removed from the shelf. 'He was your friend - ex- friend - not mine! And you ask me?'

'Oh yes… he was my friend.' It was niether the Tavistock Street face nor the Xenophon Oil one now, but a painfully-assumed mask which was perhaps midway between the two. 'Or ex-friend, as you are so pleased to remind me -'

'Not "pleased".' Audley chose another book. 'Pleasure doesn't come into it. Just fact.'

'But you investigated him. I never did that.'

'I investigated you too.' Audley looked up from his book. 'Did you have a nickname? I never established that!'

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'Where is he now?' Sir Peter Barrie brushed the question aside. 'What's he doing now?'

Audley switched to Elizabeth. ' Thomas - Squadron Leader, - T. E. C. - RAFVR - QBE, DFC, MA - "Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, Order of the British Empire, Distinguished Flying Cross, Master of Arts, Jesus College, Oxford" - Thomas, T. E. C. - "Thomas, Tegid Edeyrn Caradog" - and you can't get more bloody Welsh than that, short of scoring a try at Cardiff Arms Park, against England. And the funny thing about that, Elizabeth, is that he never did score a try, and he hasn't really got a Welsh accent. And he accounted for more British planes than German… and for a lot more women in his time than either British or German planes, if he ever bothered to log his score.' He appraised her momentarily.

'Though you should be safe there, because he must be rising seventy now, nearly. But I wouldn't bet on it, all the same, because he had a weakness for brains as well as blondes -

and brunettes, and red-heads, and whatever came to hand.' He nodded. 'Like the man says

- I investigated him.'

Whether it was deliberate 'tactics', or whether it was because he was fed up with proceedings which he wasn't supposed to be running, Elizabeth didn't know. But what she did remember now, which was much more comforting, was why the Deputy-Director had summoned Audley of all people to help her unravel Tegid Edeyrn Caradog Thomas. Who better than Audley?

'Then answer the question,' Sir Peter pressed him. 'Why "Haddock"?'

Except - who better than Audley? thought Elizabeth. So why Elizabeth Loftus? That wasn't nearly so comforting.

Audley misread her expression. 'I can only give you a partial answer to that, Elizabeth.

Because nicknames are often only partly amenable to logical explanation.'

'That's true.' Sir Peter nodded. 'When I was in the RAF - ' he half-turned to Elizabeth ' -

which was after the war, and I was a wingless wonder in the engineering branch, so I didn't destroy any aircraft, British or German… But I remember this very distinguished Group Captain who was always known as "Padre", not because he'd once had to say grace in the mess at dinner, but because the only grace he knew was his school grace, and that was in Latin, Elizabeth.'

Latin! remembered Elizabeth. Ugh!

And - why hadn't the Deputy-Director chosen Audley?

But she would think about that later. 'Why "Haddock", David?'

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'It was when he was at Oxford, before the war. He was at Jesus from 1936 to 1939 -

scholarship from Waltham School, then First in Greats.' He continued to misread her. 'It's all to do with the way "Caradog" is pronounced, more or less, in Welsh, and then anglicized - it comes out as "Craddock". So he was "Crad" at school. But at Oxford, which has always been more flippant than Cambridge and the rest of the civilized world, it somehow became "Haddock". And that followed him ever after - to the RAF, and back to Oxford after the war, and then into the Civil Service. And finally back to Waltham, where it displaced the original "Crad" immediately.'

That was more of an answer than she'd expected. And, cutting away the irrelevant fat of the nickname, it left her with a curious circular odyssey, beginning and ending with Waltham - and with one strong prejudice she shared with her late headmistress.

'Of course!' exclaimed Sir Peter. 'He went back to teach at the old school, didn't he!' He caught Elizabeth's expression. 'You've heard of Waltham?'

'I have.' This, at least, was something she didn't have to think twice about, to pretend ignorance or any bland non-committal knowledge.

'You don't approve of it?' He read her face accurately. 'I thought it was a very good school.

In fact - in fact, I believe we took two Old Walthamites in our last graduate-trainee intake.

A bio-chemist from Cambridge, and an economist from Bristol University - both high-flyers.'

That figured, thought Elizabeth grimly. 'It's a very good school.'

And that was the unarguable truth: Waltham had always been a first-class public school, disgustingly well endowed with money.

'And the present headmaster is a brilliant man. We've had him to lunch here - and we bought him an IBM computer, for his computer studies centre, Miss Loftus."

That also figured. Not the least of Waltham's unfair advantages was that it was blessed with a Board of Governors who knew their business, and had both the prestige and the money to tempt and buy the best - the best staff, from the headmaster downwards, and the best pupils, with their generous scholarships, picking and choosing their elites.

Sir Peter was beginning to look a little lost. 'And one of our trainees was a girl - I beg your pardon, if that sounds male-chauvinist… but we have had difficulty, recruiting high-flying women into Xenophon. And we're rather pleased with this one.'

She didn't doubt it - that was the final insult, added to the injury: it was not so much that dummy2

Waltham was among the boys' public schools which had jumped on the band-waggon of poaching sixth formers from girls' schools; it was that, where most of them did the girls very little good, but merely stole their fees and decimated their old sixth forms, Waltham probably did actually sharpen them up, with its celebrated university-entrance expertise.

Because Waltham did everything well - all too bloody well!

But that had nothing to do with this, she admonished herself. 'Tell me about Haddock Thomas, Sir Peter.'

'I will - in a moment, in just a moment.' He saw that he wasn't going to get anywhere with her. 'Where did Haddock go, after Waltham, David?'

'He didn't go anywhere. He stayed on there until he retired. That was two or three years ago.'

'Oh.' Sir Peter drew a long, slow breath. 'I see.'

'You didn't know he went to Waltham?'

'I knew he went there. I didn't know he stayed.' Sir Peter stared at Audley. 'He wrote to me from there. Twice.'

'But you didn't reply.' It was a question.

'I did, actually.' For a moment he stood on the edge of continuing, then he drew back from it.

'Yes?' Audley pushed him with uncharacteristic gentleness. 'The second time being… ?'

'Yes.' Sir Peter nodded, but left the second time equally unelaborated. 'Was he… happy?

Eventually?'

This time Audley was slow to reply. 'It would seem so, by all accounts.' Still the same gentle voice.