It had certainly been an imperial war. For, in addition to names from the 4th, 33rd and 45th Regiments (judging by the Donovans and the Kellys, the 33rd must have been an Irish regiment), there were officers ' attached' to the Punjabi Pioneers, the Bengal Lancers and the 27th Baluchis… plus (which would have gladdened Father's heart) a little midshipman from the Naval Rocket Brigade, poor child!
But it was not simply a memorial to the Abyssinian War: the bronze tablet on which the names were inscribed was supported by two elephants, carved in a high relief, facing each other across a trophy of cannon, drums, spears and battle-flags; but one elephant had half its backside chipped away and one face of the obelisk was scarred and gouged, in memory of the German bomb which must have fallen nearby, maybe forty years before -
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Forty years? That took her back to the Pointe du Hoc again -
'Miss!'
The taxi seemed to come from nowhere. Or, since it hadn't cruised gently along the kerb into the edge of her vision, it must have executed a quick U-turn across the traffic, from the opposite direction.
Elizabeth peered into the cab. But the cabbie, who must have leaned across to his nearside to shout at her, had already straightened up and sat waiting for her to get in. And the meter flag was already down.
She almost got in, but then she didn't. Instead, she took a step back, to the safety of the Abyssinian War memorial.
The cabbie turned towards her again. 'Well, Miss -you comin' or en'tcha?'
'Coming where?' She had the elephant at her back now.
He gave her a questioning look, as though she'd just changed her mind. 'Dr Audley's fare, en'tcha?'
If this was the field, thought Elizabeth, it was not at all how she had imagined it - going blindly into it. But then nothing in R & D had ever been as she imagined it, all these months. But then no doubt the little midshipman had never imagined himself on an Abyssinian mountainside, with his rockets.
She hadn't time to arrange herself comfortably before he lurched her sideways with another fierce U-turn, to get himself back en route - whatever the route might be.
'Can y'sit yerself one side or the other, Miss… so I can see?'
Elizabeth slid obediently into one corner of the cab. 'May I ask where we are going?'
'Yus - you may.' He twisted the cab up a narrow street behind the Xenophon tower, cutting ahead of a CD-registered Mercedes full of Arabs which had just pulled away from the oil company's entrance. 'Dont'cha know, then?'
'No. I do not know.'
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The taxi raced up the narrow street, then turned into an even narrower one, which looked like a cul-de-sac.
Elizabeth waited, unwilling to weaken his concentration while their lives were at stake.
Then, when there was only a blank wall ahead, he swung into what appeared to be a loading bay, turned narrowly past a line of vans, and came into daylight again, in another street.
'Where are we going?' Wherever they were going, it would cost the British tax-payer. 'Is it far?'
'No.' He jumped the lights at a crossing, ahead of a terrified old lady in a Metro. 'Nothin'
followin' us now -'e's backin' out of Napier Lane by now, fr all the good it'll do Mm. Silver MG Maestro, EUD 909Y?'
Paul drove a silver MG Maestro, of which he was inordinately proud; but she'd never thought to look at its number-plate. 'No.'
'No?' He cocked his head. 'Well, 'e was the one - an' not bad, neither, 'cause he remembered me when I went round the second time, past 'im, an' went like the clappers after us, into Pict Street… not that it did 'im any good, like I said - but we're comin' up now, Miss - '
Elizabeth looked around. They were back beside the river now - on the Embankment, somewhere - ?
*Only 'e was good - so just in case, it might be as well for you to get out quick-like - right?
An' that'll be two-fifteen, wiv any small token of your esteem, Miss, for my time an' trouble
- like, silver MG Maestro EUD 909Y?'
Elizabeth stared at the Abyssinian War memorial, just across the road from where they were drawing into the kerb, under the canopy of Xenophon Oil's entrance.
'Quick now, Miss!' He held out his hand. 'Say a tenner?'
'A tenner?' Just in time she remembered whose fare she was. 'I'll tell Dr Audley that.'
Up three - four - five marble steps - after the fifth, as she stepped on the huge Xenophon mat, the dark-green glass doors bearing the same oil-rich-gold colophon hissed open automatically, drawing her inside and then cutting off the sound of London behind her as they hissed shut again.
Too much information jostled momentarily in her brain, coming from too many directions.
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There was visual information all around - the overwhelming green-and-gold assault of the entrance hall of Xenophon's Aladdin's cave: not only the green-and-gold of marble and mosaic, but a jungle hothouse profusion of growing things which would have made Mrs Harlin's mouth water.
Then memory sorted out the driving theme of Xenophon's public relations, on television and in the colour supplements and across innumerable billboards: ' Xenophon grows' was a slogan carefully divorced from the growth of Xenophon's profits, and there were green leaves entwined round the Green X symbolizing the company's well-publicized concern for the environment of its operations - There is no acid rain in our rain forest! But where did Squadron Leader Thomas - Haddock Thomas - peep through those leaves?
And if EUD 909Y was Paul, why was Paul sticking his neck out beyond common sense -
'Elizabeth!' Audley brushed aside a trailing piece of jungle. 'Where on earth have you been?'
'David.' She stifled the temptation to say 'Dr Audley, I presume?' The field was already too much like a jungle for such flippancy.
'You're late.' Audley tugged at the sweaty striped knot of his rugby club tie. 'Come on!' He gestured towards the lift doors.
She stood her ground. David Audley was much younger than Father was - than Father would have been: it still required an effort to think of Father in the past tense -but he was quite old enough to be her father, nevertheless. But if she weakened now, she would be lost.
He abandoned the dreadful tie. 'Come on, Elizabeth - please!'
'You owe some taxi-driver two-pounds-and-fifteen-pence, plus tip. And he makes that ten pounds exactly.'
'What?' He blinked at her. 'Why didn't you pay him?'
'I thought ten pounds was too much for just crossing the road. Which was where I was. As you well know.' In spite of herself, she weakened. 'The Abyssinian War memorial, David -
remember?'
'Yes… Yes, I'm sorry about that, Elizabeth. Just a little old-fashioned precaution. But in this case just to annoy Paul Mitchell.'
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'Paul?'
'I said I was sorry. And I know I should have chosen somewhere farther away, for form's sake.' He raised one massive shoulder apologetically, and then grinned at her. 'It's an interesting memorial, though - don't you think?'
'Quite riveting.' That was one pitfall which she knew how to avoid: the study of war memorials was Colonel Butler's only known hobby, and the rest of the department indulged this macabre taste almost out of habit now. But that didn't mean she had to reward his grin. 'If you think it was necessary to encourage Paul to make a fool of himself, then it achieved your objective, anyway.'
'It was Paul?' He smiled at his own question, as though amused by it.
'It was EUD 909Y, according to your taxi-driver. But why, David?'
'Why indeed!' He shrugged diplomatically. 'He should be back in Cheltenham. But he's still foolishly protective where you're concerned - is that not true, Elizabeth?'