Here Be Monsters

'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?'