'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?