'Over there' was a sudden line of flags-of-all-nations, waving over an assortment of used cars on the edge of the road, and a trio of petrol pumps set back on a forecourt beyond them, all of which had appeared from behind a small wood suddenly.
Elizabeth slowed automatically, on command, and steered towards the pumps. There was dummy2
an ugly little kiosk behind them, and a ramshackle scatter of garage buildings beyond, with a combine harvester outside them as its main customer.
'Stop,' ordered Audley.
Elizabeth glanced at her petrol gauge, and hated him. The needle was on low, and she ought to have thought of that herself.
' Stop, I said,' snapped Audley, before they reached the pumps.
Elizabeth jammed her foot on the brake.
Audley sat there beside her silently, like an overpowering dummy, while a fat red-faced bald-headed man in greasy blue overalls stepped out of the garage door, wiping his hands on an oily rag, and stared at them questioningly for a moment. And then disappeared back inside the garage.
'Perhaps you're right,' said Audley finally. 'Perhaps I did miss something. Or anyway… if we have to make pictures, it's better to make bad pictures than good ones. I agree with that.'
A knot of anger twisted inside Elizabeth. 'Making pictures' was common departmental shorthand for footling hypotheses. But her picture of the Major on his back among strangers was no hypothesis. 'I wasn't aware that I was making any pictures.' She controlled her anger. 'I was simply asking a question.'
'Huh! This whole operation could be a picture.' Audley tossed his head. 'Just to show me making a whopping mistake back in '58. So now we're seeing the modern details drawn in, for good measure.' He turned towards her. 'A bit more colour here and there, and it'll be ready for the framer. And then Master Latimer can hang it behind his desk - and me with it.'
She stared back at him. 'Are you telling me that Major Turnbull could have been killed just to discredit you, David? And Major Parker before him? And Debrecen - ?'
'If it was disinformation once, it could be disinformation again?' he completed her question. 'That's certainly not beyond the bounds of ingenuity. There's a man on the other side, an old acquaintance of mine, who is undoubtedly capable of it. And if I was in his shoes I know exactly what I'd be doing next, Elizabeth.' He smiled his ugliest death's-head smile at her. 'But that can wait. Because the question is - what are you going to do next, love? After you've reported in?'
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Elizabeth glanced towards the garage buildings. There would be a phone there, so she could report in easily enough, and get all the protection in the world, and all the good advice too. But none of that really answered his question.
The fat man came out of his doors again to stare at her once more.
'Would you rather have someone else alongside you, Elizabeth?' asked Audley gently. 'You can send me packing quite easily, you know.'
She watched the fat man. In a moment or two he would come across and ask her what her trouble was. And she couldn't begin to tell him. 'Did you make a mistake, David - back in 1958?'
The fat man turned his head slightly, his eyes still on her, and spoke to someone inside the garage.
'Not so far as I know.' He paused as the fat man disappeared again into the garage. 'I suppose you could say Major Turnbull could be an end-product of someone's original error… whatever that was. But after so many years I think it would be a little unfair to suggest as much. It's still 1984 which has killed Major Turnbull; Elizabeth - not 1958. So…
even if I made a mistake in 1958, we must not compound it by making another one now.
That is what matters.'
'Even if it ruins you, David?'
'Ruins me?' His voice came closer to her. 'My dear Elizabeth - you've all got it quite wrong!
You - and your Paul, doubtless - and most of all our esteemed Master Latimer, if you think that. The only thing that can ruin me is if I play fast and loose with you now, Elizabeth.
What the hell do my antique follies matter? Now is what matters.'
'We have to know why he died, David.'
'Okay! But we already know what he was doing. So all we have to do is back-track along his route, for a start - eh? So we drop everything else, do we?'
The fat man had emerged again, but she turned to Audley as he did so, frowning. 'But, David - '
'Exactly right, love! If we back-track, to find out what it was about Mrs Thomas that I missed, all those years ago, then we stop doing what we were planning to do. Is that what you want to do?'
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That was it. Killing a field-man in his own country sounded all the alarms, but really solved nothing, because there were others to take his place. All it gained was time, if it drew maximum effort away from what mattered.
'Can I 'elp you, Miss -' The fat man leaned on the car, lowering himself with difficulty, his piggy-eyes travelling up leg and thigh and bosom until they reached her face, and registering inevitable disappointment then ' - Miss?' She watched the eyes shift to Audley, uncomprehending as they took in the whole unlikely mixture: the hard-faced elderly gentleman with the plain woman in the sports car, engaged in a heart-to-heart exchange on his forecourt, maybe father-and-daughter, not bird-and-boyfriend as he had expected from the car.
'I'd like some petrol,' she said.
'Right.' He stood back. 'You'll need the pumps for that.'
'And a telephone?' Audley leaned across her.
'No - ' The fat man caught sight of the note in Audley's hand ' - yes, there's one round the back, in the office.'
Audley looked at her as the fat man walked towards the pumps. 'Moment of truth, Miss Loftus.'
Moment of truth, thought Elizabeth.
In fact, he had more or less told her to do what she had intended to do this morning. And that, oddly enough, was pretty much what the book said too: plans should be adhered to unless compromised. And since no one except David and she herself knew the plan, it could hardly be compromised yet. But it could be the wrong plan, nevertheless.
But the fat man had reached the pumps now.
'Very well, David.'
'Very well?' His expression was made up of doubt and curiosity in equal parts.
'We'll go on as planned, to see your contact first. Then I want to meet the famous Haddock Thomas as soon as possible. And I'll ask James Cable to look after the Major until we get back.'
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He relaxed. 'We'll need transport. Let James look after that, too.' He thought for a moment.
'Tell him to lay on a plane at South Five, Elizabeth. Flight at six A.M. -Marseilles for Monaco. They'll fix the documentation and cover. You might suggest a little gambling party - the big spender can be me, and you can be my PA. And tell him to arrange a car and a driver - tell him to get Dale on to that.' He smiled at her suddenly. 'Decisions, decisions! But, for what it's worth, I agree with you, Elizabeth: going on is usually better than turning back.'
But who was really making the decisions? She wondered, as she rolled the car forward the last few yards to where the fat man was fretting by his pumps.
After a few miles of his instructions, after they had reached the Salisbury road, and used it for another five miles and then left it for another labyrinth of minor roads, she felt able to draw on her account again.
'You're sure we haven't been followed, David?' She looked into her empty wing-mirror.
He shrugged. 'We live in a technological age, my dear. So they may have bugged you somehow. And one day they'll probably have a satellite on your tail, I shouldn't wonder.'
He massaged his knees again. 'But, for the time being, there are reasonable limits we can assume, as to their omniscience.' He stretched his massaged legs in turn. 'Meaning…
anyone could have kept a tail on poor Turnbull, after he asked too many questions in Normandy. But they don't have the resources to follow everyone everywhere.'