Here Be Monsters

'What did you do?'

'What did I do?' He drew a breath. 'We were both career civil servants. Or… I was in the process of resigning, actually. Because… it was after Suez. Because it was different, after Suez - ' another breath, taken in slowly ' - or, that was my excuse anyway, at the time, to myself. But you could interpret it quite differently: you could say that I was a second-class honours man, with second-class prospects… But with the prospects in oil, after Suez -

that's in '56, that was - and with what I knew… I suppose you could say that I knew where the first-class prospects might be. What I was doing in the Civil Service suddenly seemed… unprofitable to me, in more sense than one, at any rate.'

'And Mr Thomas?' It didn't seem right to refer to the man by his nickname when she'd never met him. 'How did you - ?'

'Destroy his career?' He half-looked at Audley again, as though for confirmation. But the big man was still pretending to browse among the books. 'I did - didn't I, David?'

'If you think you did… tell her.' Audley didn't look up. 'After all this time it's a bit late to agonize. If that's what you're doing.'

'Yes.' Sir Peter gave Audley a Xenophon look. 'All right, Miss Loftus. He wants me to remember, so I will.' He stared at her, sorting his memories into separate columns, adding and subtracting to prepare his balance sheet. 'I wasn't in the process of resigning -I had already resigned. And I wasn't buying claret. By then I was clerking for this Greek, who had cornered a piece of the tanker tonnage, and was cashing in on it. And I was learning Arabic at evening classes… When he came out of the woodwork.' He nodded towards Audley.

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'1958?'

'Uh-huh.' Audley turned the page of his book.

'1958 - I was beginning to think I'd made a mistake, somewhere down the line: that I should have read Arabic at Cambridge, or stayed in the Foreign Office.' A trace of lingering bitterness still showed in his voice. 'And then he turned up, with what seemed like a fool question. Except he had a Special Branch man in tow - or a secret policeman of some heavier variety. So it didn't seem like a silly question at the time.' He gave Audley another look. 'You scared me, David.'

'I wasn't after you.' Audley turned another page. 'Not particularly.'

'It didn't seem like that.' Sir Peter came back to her. 'He wanted to know where I'd been on holiday, the summer before.'

'And you didn't appear too scared, actually,' murmured Audley.

'But I was.'

'It didn't stop you telling me - to go bowl my hoop elsewhere,' said Audley mildly. 'The first time, anyway.' He raised his eyes to Elizabeth. 'He wasn't helpful the first time.'

'But he came back a second time - in working hours, with the same policeman in attendance - right there in the middle of the Greek's office!' The recollection of the second time, even in this customized room on the pinnacle of the power and glory of Xenophon Oil, made Sir Peter wince. 'The Greek damn near sacked me on the spot… Which, with what he was doing - the way he was sailing his tankers close to the wind - you could hardly blame him… To have one of Sir Frederick Clinton's bright young men interrogating one of his clerks - ' For a fraction of a second the Master of Xenophon became the Greek's clerk again in his memory ' - which was what saved me, I suppose.'

'Huh!' Audley closed the book. 'Stavros didn't quite know how much you knew, eh?'

Sir Peter nodded. 'He told me he'd see me right if I kept my mouth shut about his business.'

'And you could continue to date his daughter?' Audley cocked a knowing eye.

'That too,' agreed Sir Peter evenly. 'But if it didn't concern his business I'd better tell you what you wanted to know, or go and register at the nearest Labour Exchange.'

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'And not continue to date his daughter?' Audley matched agreements. 'I was rather depending on that to open you up.'

It was exactly as David Audley's wife always said - had said from their very first meeting: When David plays, if you want to play with him, you had better learn to play dirty. Because that's the way he plays!

Sir Peter looked as though he was beginning to remember how much he had once disliked Audley: the two men studied each other in silence, each estimating and re-estimating what they observed, each aware that the other had put on weight and muscle since 1958, but neither quite sure now who had the edge on the other if it came to trouble-making.

'Your new boss is that military fellow - Butler, is it?' Sir Peter changed the subject casually.

'Looks a bit stupid, but isn't, by all accounts?'

'That's right.' Audley accepted the change mildly. 'Right both times. Do you know him?'

'Not really. I knew old Sir Frederick much better.' Sir Peter smiled. 'And your economics fellow better still -Neville Macready… Do you see much of him?'

'As little as possible.' Audley returned the smile.

Elizabeth had been half-way to thinking the tortoise and the armadillo, but those two smiles amended the image. It was more like the elderly shark and the middle-aged tiger - and each was showing its teeth.

'A slightly surprising appointment, wasn't it?' The tiger tested the depth of the water with a provocative paw. 'Butler, I mean - ?'

'Very surprising, more like.' Audley nodded, but then looked away towards the unfinished line of books as though the subject was beginning to bore him. 'It should have been Oliver St John Latimer, if some bastard hadn't queered his pitch. He was the obvious choice.'

'Is that a fact?' Fascination got the better of Sir Peter. 'Was that Macready?'

'No-oo…' Audley pounced on a tattered paperback. ' Europe and the Czechs! That's a very early Penguin!' He handled the antique paperback reverently. 'Macready hates Latimer, but it certainly wasn't Mac.'

'No?' Sir Peter echoed the rejection of his first candidate doubtfully.

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'No.' Audley replaced the fragile heirloom. 'That was one of your '58 library. I remember now. And as you never throw books out there should be a copy of If Hitler Comes somewhere along here - ' Audley moved further along' - ah!'

Elizabeth began to understand the nature of the exchange. If Sir Peter Barrie knew so much about the byzantine internal politics of the department then he was not just name-dropping to warn Audley of his influence in high places. For, if he knew that much, he must also know that Audley himself had been the other front runner - indeed, the odds-on favourite, if Paul's assessment had been correct. So that 'slightly surprising appointment'

guess had been cruelly barbed.

Audley looked up. 'Come on, Peter!'

Sir Peter frowned. 'It can't have been that RAF fellow - the one who married the Ryle woman, after Ryle divorced her - ?'

'Hugh? Good God, no!' Audley grunted contemptuously. 'But I didn't mean that, my dear chap… it was me, of course, if you must know - I was the bastard - I can't abide the egregious Oliver, so I put in the boot much the same way as you did with old Haddock. Or maybe not in exactly the same way. But I did queer his pitch sufficiently. And Jack Butler is my daughter's godfather, you know - ' He gave the tiger a huge shark-grin ' - or perhaps you didn't know? But it doesn't matter anyway, because that isn't what I mean.' The shark-grin vanished. 'What I meant was for you to stop pissing around, Peter, and start telling our Miss Loftus about your eternal triangle - you and old Haddock and the fair Philadelphia, eh?'

Elizabeth just caught the dying glow of the flash of hate, beyond that old unforgotten dislike, which momentarily illuminated Sir Peter's face, as she turned towards him. Or was it pain - it was gone so quickly that she couldn't be sure.