Here Be Monsters (24 page)

‘And that was where Dr Thomas came in?’

‘More or less.’

‘And Sir Peter Barrie?’

‘Him too.’ Audley nodded. ‘I gave him a damn good going-over.’

‘But you told him you weren’t really after him.’ Elizabeth frowned.

True.’ Audley rubbed his knee. ‘But sometimes I tell lies.’

Sometimes? ‘Even though he’d already resigned from the service?’

‘Uh-huh.’ He pointed ahead. ‘Your turning—‘

‘I can see it. Why did you give Sir Peter the treatment, David?’

Audley said nothing for a moment. ‘He wasn’t “Sir Peter” then.’

Elizabeth looked for the pond. ‘Of course not. He was—a clerk in a shipping office, was it?’

‘Yes … just a clerk in a shipping office. And I’m afraid that’s the point, Elizabeth: he was just a clerk.’

‘But he was on your list all the same.’

‘Oh yes! He had been an assistant principal. Only he didn’t really fancy the life—the Civil Service life. And it was a funny sort of period, the first half of the fifties, that life.’

Pond—okay! She scanned the woods for their turning. ‘How—funny?’ There it was: a track between two holly bushes.

‘Oh … hard to say, exactly—I was never a civil servant. But I’d guess the war had interrupted the pattern. A lot of odd types went in during the war. Some of ‘em left at the end of it, but a lot stayed on—maybe over-promoted, too. Different tradition, as well. Like, your old-fashioned civil servant, he’d say “Here’s this piece of paper on my desk. But have we any legal powers to act in this matter? If not—why the devil is it on my desk?” But your war people—they felt that
everything
was the business of government. Different traditions made for a curious atmosphere. Tensions, too … And then there was Suez, of course. Stop here, Elizabeth.’

The track had curved, so that the metalled road was lost in the trees behind them. Just ahead there were a couple of tiny cottages, hull-down behind their private hedges, over-shadowed by several giant beech trees. It was a very private place.

‘I talked to his old boss—Peter Barrie’s boss. He reckoned Barrie had let the side down by quitting, when he was lucky to be in the Service: ‘I’ve seen bright young types like him before—the shine wears off ‘em’ … That was the typical over-promoted brigade talking. No wonder Barrie didn’t hit it off with him!’ Audley showed no sign of moving. Instead he turned towards her. ‘The truth is, my dear, at that moment Peter Barrie didn’t have a friend in the world. And I already had a shrewd idea that it wasn’t going to be so easy to dig up dirt on young men who hadn’t actually
done
anything wicked. Except take their holidays at the wrong time. But he wasn’t in any position to make waves, so I made him a test case, to see just how good I was at tracking—and bullying.’ He wrinkled his nose with distaste. ‘I found I was quite good. But I also found I didn’t enjoy it much.’

‘But you cleared him.’

‘Oh sure! He had a perfect alibi. I mean … well, you remember what he said? He impressed half the waiters in Italy—they remembered his girl
and
his generosity, in that order. In fact, it was such a damn good alibi it was suspicious—who ever heard of an innocent man with a perfect alibi? So even though he wasn’t really on the list any more—he’d quit the Service and he was just a clerk to an egregious Greek—in spite of that I did my damnedest to break that alibi, just for the hell of it. And I checked him back to the cradle, too.’ The distasteful memory showed again. ‘But the rest you know: I couldn’t break it, but I got on to the Haddock from it.’

‘And you cleared him, too. Was that another perfect alibi?’

Audley gave her a jaundiced look. ‘Not quite so perfect, maybe. He’d given out that he was visiting Romanesque churches in Burgundy. But actually he was shacking up with Barrie’s girl, first in a hotel in Cannes, and then in a little cottage on the edge of the Vaucluse, at a place named St Servan—‘ He caught her expression ‘—St Servan? You know it?’

‘How wasn’t it perfect?’

‘The alibi? St Servan
is
perfect … The alibi—‘ He shrugged slightly ‘—was an honest philanderer’s one … or a lover’s, let’s say.’

Elizabeth blinked questioningly at him.

‘Ham-hmm … ’ He blinked back at her. ‘She was an uncommonly attractive young woman, was Delphi Marsh—Delphi
Thomas
. And it was … and still is … an idyllic spot, St Servan.’ Another shrug. The sun, and the wine, and the smell of the wild herbs—lavender, and thyme, and rosemary—hah-hmmm—‘ He cleared his throat. ‘Lovers, Elizabeth—
lovers
… are not always in the habit of walking abroad, establishing perfect alibis for others to unravel. They often keep themselves to themselves. They—let’s say they have other things to do, shall we?’ He didn’t shrug this time. But the effort of
not
shrugging was somehow mutually embarrassing. ‘Or … or, as I remember them from long ago … shall we say instead that Haddock Thomas didn’t need to impress the fair Delphi by over-tipping the waiters? He was quite a man.’

Elizabeth matched his not-shrugging effort with her not-letting-her-mouth-gape effort. Because what he was saying was itself impressive, and for a wildly different collection of reasons—reasons beyond his simple embarrassment at her pathetic inability to understand how
lovers
behaved among the wild herbs of Provence.

She forced herself to nod wisely. Because David Audley’s famous memory of things long-past was nonetheless impressive (even though he’d had time, and reason enough, to refresh it recently).

‘Uh-huh.’ He was glad to be able to press on. ‘So he couldn’t account for his St Servan fortnight as exactly as Barrie could, for his Italian progress—which was more like a royal jaunt in Tudor times, with memories and largesse scattered behind it like confetti—do you see?’

What she saw was that Haddock Thomas—
Dr Caradog Thomas
more recently, and
Squadron Leader Thomas
formerly—must indeed have been impressive, to have been so much more certain of himself than Peter Barrie (or, anyway, more attractive, all those years ago). Because Sir Peter Barrie had been pretty goddamn impressive, and certain, and attractive just this morning.

‘Yes, David—‘ But this time, as she tried to nod wisely again, she saw something else grimacing at her which took all the conviction from her voice.

‘You do?’ He caught her doubt, and threw it back at her angrily. ‘Do you? Do you, Elizabeth?’

That only made her more certain: he had already conceded the impossible, that he might have made a mistake—or even mistakes—all those years ago. But he had not yet admitted the slightest possibility that those mistakes had related to Haddock Thomas. Or, for that matter, to Sir Peter Barrie. He had cleared them both once, and innocent they both remained, notwithstanding the Pointe du Hoc and the King’s Arms, Fordingwell.

‘I see well enough.’ Her instinct was to hit back. But that would only betray her insight into his obstinate faith in himself. Thomas’s alibi stood up well enough, one way or another. ‘And you found nothing else to suggest he was a Debrecen man—obviously.’

‘That is … correct, Elizabeth.’ He looked as disappointed as a boxer poised to parry a weak punch, with his own knock-out counter-punch ready, only to have the towel prematurely thrown into the ring.

‘Yes.’ She mustn’t smile—she must appear innocently serious. And she had to get away from Haddock Thomas. ‘But you investigated other people—other names on the list—?’

‘Oh yes. Yes … ’ He studied her speculatively for a long moment. ‘I worked over maybe two-thirds of the short-list before we consigned Debrecen to oblivion.’ He watched her narrowly.

‘And—?’

He shrugged. ‘Cleared a couple. More or less.’

‘Including Sir Peter Barrie?’

‘Three, then.’

‘More or less?’

‘Didn’t do them any good.’ He sniffed. ‘You put a question mark beside a name, and then rub it out. But the erasure still shows.’

She began to see why he hadn’t liked the job. ‘And—?’

‘Ruined a couple more. More or less.’

He had probably ruined Haddock Thomas. Or at least driven him out of the Civil Service, whatever he said to the contrary. But she didn’t want to return to Thomas. ‘How?’

He thought for a moment. ‘They had two question marks.’ He looked at her. ‘Another one I killed. More or less.’

Again, she remembered Paul’s assessment of Audley plus Debrecen. ‘Killed, David?’

‘Not personally.’ Audley showed her his hands. ‘Clean—see?’

There was, as always, a slight ink-stain on one of his fingers; the result (so Paul said) of his religious use of a leaky gold fountain-pen given to him by his wife as her first birthday present to him, years ago.

Audley considered his hands critically for another moment, then bunched them into fists on his lap. ‘He was the closest thing I had to success, actually. If that’s what you’d call success.’ The fists tightened. ‘He probably was a traitor. Though whether he ever visited Debrecen is another matter.’ He looked at her. ‘I
leaned
on him … and he conveniently shot himself.’ He raised his shoulders slowly and eloquently. ‘Or maybe the KGB shot him—I was never quite sure. But if they did, it was very expertly done, anyway.
And
I didn’t expect it.’ He gave her a dreadful smile. ‘Mistake Number One, possibly?’

One untimely death, plus Haddock Thomas’s resignation: was that an emerging pattern? ‘Was that why the operation was aborted?’

‘Partly that.’ He was studying the cottages ahead of them now:
cottages, idyllic, English
, as opposed to
cottage, idyllic, French
, near St Servan-les-Ruines, thought Elizabeth. ‘Not everyone I was bullying was as friendless as Peter Barrie. Haddock, for example—
he
had friends in several high places, rather surprisingly … You see, it wasn’t popular, what I was doing—there were accusations of “witch-hunting” … or, in the American vernacular, “McCarthyism”—the Senator wasn’t just history in those days, either.’

She had clean forgotten about that. “This was happening in America, too … Of course!’

‘Of course?’ He came back to her quickly. ‘My dear Elizabeth, that was really the
chief
reason why we aborted … That is, apart from the fact that I was fed up—and Fred was worried about Research and Development getting a bad name … which was a lot more important than my being thoroughly pissed-off, in the final reckoning.’

‘It went wrong in America?’

‘Wrong? Huh!’ he emitted a growling noise. ‘It depends what you mean by “wrong”—“Define your terms”, I should say: maybe “wrong” in ‘58 might mean “right” in ‘84—eh?’

Irritation tightened her hands on the steering wheel, so that she suddenly became aware of them. They were no longer sweaty, merely disgustingly sticky. And she herself felt cold now, in the shadow of the trees, and tired and thirsty with it. Whereas he seemed altogether to have forgotten that he had been dying for a cup of tea an hour ago.

The Yanks had three things going for them that we didn’t have.’ He was lost in his own memory now. ‘They had the resources. And the man who was running their show was a real professional, much more experienced than I was … ’ He trailed off, memory engulfing him altogether.

Elizabeth dredged her memory. ‘And he enjoyed his work?’

‘That’s right.’ He focused on her. ‘I told you, didn’t I?’

‘You also said you didn’t get on with him.’

‘An understatment. He disliked and mistrusted the English in general, and me in particular. He only worked with me because he hated traitors even more—he was a good hater. Old Scottish Presbyterian stock, out of Virginia from way back. They were always good haters.’

Audley had done his homework on his hostile colleague, typically. ‘And you returned the compliment?’

‘I didn’t fancy him as a drinking crony. He didn’t drink, anyway.’ He retreated behind more English understatement. ‘But more than that, I was a little scared of him, to be truthful.’

The thought of Audley scared was itself a little frightening. And the more so because he was also quite notoriously a lover of America and all things American. ‘Why, David?’

‘Huh! I was afraid I might turn up on his private Debrecen hit-list one day, for one thing. But I also didn’t like his methods, they were a bit rough for my effete tastes—I suspect he regarded Senator McCarthy as a much misunderstood man. But he was damn smart, all the same.’

‘So what went wrong?’

‘Hmmm … ’ He thought for a moment. ‘What we thought at the time was that he’d trodden too hard on too many toes—as I was doing—only much worse. And that was part of the truth: that he forced good men and true to gang up against him, because of the damage he was doing.’

‘And the other part?’

‘Other
parts
, my dear … The other part we knew about was that when the good men got the dirt on him and he needed friends, we—if I may mix metaphors—we put the boot in. Because I convinced Fred that if he prospered in the CIA we could kiss goodbye to the Special Relationship, what there was left of it.’ He compressed his lips. ‘Mistake Number Two, in retrospect?’

Elizabeth waited for the third part of the truth.

Audley drew a slow breath. ‘What we think
now -
which we came to long afterwards, and much too late—is that
maybe
—
just
maybe
—
it was the KGB which fabricated the dirt on him … which was that he was taking bribes to discredit innocent liberals.’ Another breath. ‘Oh, it was all done neatly and painlessly, the way good men do bad deeds: he wasn’t able to make a martyr of himself, or anything like that.’ He cocked a defensive eyebrow at her. ‘You understand?’

‘Mmm … ’ What she understood was that he was ashamed, but he wasn’t actually going to admit it. ‘But David -‘

‘Yes?’

There was no way of putting it except baldly. And she was too tired to put it any other way. ‘If the KGB framed him … that means Debrecen was genuine. Surely?’

‘Oh no—it means no such thing.’ He had been ready for the question. ‘When you fish with a net, you don’t just get what you’re fishing for—you get all sorts of things. Just because we were fishing for one sort of traitor—a very rare and special sort, which maybe didn’t even exist—it doesn’t mean that we didn’t catch anything else edible, which just happened to be swimming in the wrong place, at the wrong time.’