Here Be Monsters (10 page)

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 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 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, 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 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
—

‘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.’

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.