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.'