Sir Peter continued to study her. 'General Razzak?'
'None other. And as he's here to see your Colonel Saunders he's probably rather miffed with you, as well. For upsetting his security arrangements in Cairo at the last moment -
would that be it?'
Sir Peter smiled at her suddenly. 'Probably.' The smile had an oddly conspiratorial quality, as though he wanted to share it with her. 'You know, he's not going to introduce us. But I believe you are… Miss Loitus? And I am Peter Barrie.'
His hand was gentle. 'Sir Peter.'
'And you are a colleague of David's?'
'A junior colleague, Sir Peter.' Just as suddenly as he had smiled, she knew why he had done so. 'His manners were always bad, were they? Even back in 1958?'
'Always bad.' He nodded agreement. 'But one must not be offended by them.' He glanced at Audley. 'I have some dealings with a man who thinks very highly of you, David. You have had dealings with him a few years ago. Eugenic Narva.'
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'Oh yes?' Audley ran his eye along the bookshelf idly. 'I seem to recall meeting him once, yes.'
They weren't just name dropping, decided Elizabeth. They were sending messages to each other in code.
'He certainly remembers you. He asked me if I knew you.'
'And what did you say?' Audley moved down the bookshelf.
'I recalled meeting you once, long ago.' Sir Peter paused. 'You'd vetted me, I told him.'
'Yes.' Audley nodded to the bookshelf. 'Since he probably knew that already… that would have been the right thing to say.' He came to the end of the shelf, and looked round the room again before finally coming back to Sir Peter. 'Nice place you've got here, Peter.'
'I think so.' Sir Peter nodded happily.
'Homely.' Audley gestured towards the books. 'I remember some of those, from when I searched your flat in Tavistock Road, back in '58.'
'Yes?' The man didn't seem in the least surprised, unlike Elizabeth herself. 'You have a good memory, then.'
Twenty-six years? She had been at primary school, among her picture-books and crayons, reading about Old Lob, and Mrs Cuddy the Cow, and Mr Crumps the Goat - or had Mr Crumps been a donkey?
'Uh-huh.' Audley observed her astonishment, and stretched out to tap one - two - of the larger books. 'Powicke - Henry III and the Lord Edward. Two school prizes, with embossed school crests on front, and P. W. Barrie, Upper Sixth, Bishop… Bishop Somebody - Bishop Somebody History Prize… See for yourself, Elizabeth.' He pulled one of the faded green volumes from the shelf, and handed it to her.
The crest was that of a once-famous direct grant school, now a successfully independent public school, which was presently and quite infamously poaching sixth formers from girls' public schools. And not at all to the girls' advantage, thought Elizabeth bitterly.
'Bishop Creighton, David.'
Creighton - of course! A boring Victorian historian - I should have remembered.' He sniffed dummy2
derisively, and then gestured towards the other books. 'And all the rest - the early Penguins with the advertisements in 'em - see that old yellow Penguin, Elizabeth - and those Bernard Shaws. The reason I remember 'em is because I bought the same books at the same time - 1940s, 1950s - and they're still in my shelves too.' He jerked his head in a different direction, towards a corner of the room. 'But that desk… we had one hell of a job getting into that, without damaging it… That was there, too.'
'Quite right. And I'm very glad you were so careful. Because that was my grandmother's desk - not very valuable, but valuable to me.' Sir Peter smiled at Elizabeth again. 'I used to have a flat in Tavistock Road, Miss Loftus.'
'We didn't damage it,' growled Audley defensively.
'I didn't say you did. I didn't even know you'd searched the place, David.' Sir Peter's mouth twisted. 'Or I guessed you must have done, eventually. But there never was any sign of it that I could see, anyway.' He came back to Elizabeth. 'I lived there until quite recently. But I was away so often, and particularly during the last few years…'He shrugged. 'And there were a couple of burglaries - ' He switched to Audley ' - ordinary burglaries, David: they just stole the silver and the hi-fi… At least I presume it wasn't you, after all these years, was it?'
Audley was still looking round. 'Not as far as I know.'
'No?' Sir Peter stared at him thoughtfully for a second or two. Then he turned to Elizabeth again. 'Well, so I thought… I had this dreadful ecological penthouse here, where I lived more than half the time, but I couldn't relax… So I thought - it was Mother's old flat, and I'd lived in it off and on since I was a child. But it was only things, really - and shapes.'
'Home from home,' snapped Audley. 'And RHIP - Rank Has Its Privileges - eh?'
'What?'
Audley nodded. 'I wondered why this place was bugging me so much - apart from its lack of plant life.'
Peter Barrie smiled. 'Yes, David - ?'
Audley nodded again. 'This is the same room I searched, back in '58 - just a couple of miles away, and a couple of hundred feet up - right?' He ran a quick glance round the room.
'Same furniture, same dimensions… same books, plus another twenty-six years' shopping -
only the windows are different: we came in through the door, but you had sash-windows in Tavistock Street, naturally - right?'
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'Right, David.' Peter Barrie beamed at him. 'The windows were really too expensive here.
But I've got a sash in my bedroom - would you like to see?' He included Elizabeth in his pleasure. 'Moving the walls was no problem - they were only partitions up here, nothing structural. And the builders loved it: they'd never had to do anything like it before - they just added ten per cent for a lunacy factor, I rather think.'
Elizabeth felt herself absorbed by them both - by what they were saying to each other, and what they were both saying about each other: two old men - or old-young men, old enough to be her father, each of them, but young enough still to take pleasure from deliberate irresponsibility, as Father had never been able to do, because he had never been reconciled with the unfair cards fate had dealt him.
'Elizabeth - I'm sorry.' All the time, Audley had kept half an eye on her, at intervals. 'I do apologize, for all this chat.'
'And so do I,' agreed Peter Barrie. 'But after twenty-six years this is something of an old boys' reunion, you might say.'
'I don't mind.' She could even forgive Audley now for leaving her high and dry. 'All this is very - ' What was it, apart from fascinating? ' - educational, Sir Peter.'
They looked at each other, each slightly off-put by her choice of adjectives.
'How - "educational", Elizabeth?' Audley got in first.
He was no longer an ally, she thought. When they'd entered this strange room, which was suspended in time as well as space, it had been two-against-an-absent-one. But now, with the way David remembered Peter Barrie after twenty-six years, it was two-against-one -
and she was in the minority.
'More than that.' Two-against-one, then! 'If this room is vintage 1958 - ' At least that was an improvement on 1944, which was before she'd been born! ' - then tell me about 1958, for a start, please.'
The allies consulted each other again.
'How much does she know, David?'
'Practically, sod-all, Peter. I'm just her minder - I'm not a bloody KBE-tycoon, like you.'
'Yes. But I received your message.'
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'And cancelled your trip to Egypt, Sir Peter?'
'Yes, Miss Loftus. But that's what comes of having a bad conscience - even after twenty-six years.' He cocked his eye at his ally. 'Who was it said no one could afford to buy back his past?'