Here Be Monsters (29 page)

Audley stood up. ‘A Jaguar, Willy. Is this deer coming to your singing?’

‘Ah!’ The old man eased himself out of his deck-chair. ‘He took his time, but he is here at last.’ He peered over the hedge, but then looked down at Elizabeth suddenly, smiling his old-ferrety-smile. ‘A character-witness, I think you might call him. But then, if a man is innocent … A very tricky thing, innocence. Guilt is much more easily provable.’

She watched him round the side of the cottage, and then turned to Audley. ‘I’m sorry, David.’

‘Sorry?’ He wasn’t listening to her.

‘Haddock Thomas may be innocent. But he fits the Debrecen specification just as well at Waltham School as in the Civil Service. Maybe even better.’ She mistrusted them both—the godson and the godfather. ‘Much more ingeniously, anyway.’

‘Yes.’ He was listening to her now. ‘Yes, he does.’

It wasn’t the answer she was expecting—so much so that it shut her mouth.

‘Yes.’ When he smiled this dangerously sweet smile of his, he wasn’t ugly. ‘You’ve done well, Elizabeth. I certainly wouldn’t like to be caught between two such dreadful old men! But you did well.’

‘I did?’ She hated the way he seemed able to read her, too.

‘But you’re quite wrong.’ The smile vanished. ‘The monsters on the Other Side are smart. But they’re not that smart.’ He shook his head. ‘I made no mistake about Haddock Thomas and Peter Barrie. Not then and not now—may I swing for it if I’m wrong!’

Someone was coming. ‘So long as I don’t swing with you, David.’ She observed him look past her, his face rearranging itself into its more usual expression of brutal neutrality.

The newcomer was a tall bespectacled young man, with fair hair and a ruddy complexion ravaged by acne. He took in Audley with a single glance, then his eyes focused on her legs for an instant before travelling inexorably upwards towards disappointment. It was a progression she had encountered many times before, to which she knew she ought to be inured.

‘My dear Gavin—let me introduce you—‘ Mr Willis managed an extraordinary octogenarian skip round the young man ‘—Miss Elizabeth Loftus, daughter—
only
daugher, if my memory serves me right—of the late Captain-Loftus VC, the distinguished naval historian.’

‘Miss Loftus.’ The young man hastened too late, as they all did, to take her hand. To cover up that disappointment he would treat her sympathetically, if he ran to form.

‘Mr Gavin.’

‘Thatcher, actually, Miss Loftus—Gavin Thatcher.’ The ruined cheeks creased into a shy grin.

‘But no relation to our other Sovereign Lady,’ said the old man. ‘That splendid woman!’

‘Wimpy—you’re a trouble-maker.’ The young man looked at Audley. ‘And you’re the godson, sir? He’s told me about you.’

‘Oh, yes?’ Audley pretended to know an ally when he saw one as he extended his hand. ‘And you’re from the Cambridge Science Park?’

‘Watch yourself, Gavin!’ snapped Mr Willis. ‘He’s tricky.’

Elizabeth stirred herself to intervene while she was still in credit. ‘Mr Thatcher—‘

‘
Doctor
Thatcher,’ Mr Willis corrected her. ‘And she’s tricky too, Gavin. The female of the species, in fact.’

For a moment the young man didn’t know what to say, but could only blink at her. ‘Is that your car out there, Miss Loftus? The green Morgan?’ He touched Audley with another look, but rejected him on the grounds of age and size. ‘How long did you have to wait for it?’

‘I bought it second-hand.’ What was he after?

He frowned. ‘This year’s model—the registration?’

‘I bought it from an American serviceman, Dr Thatcher.’

‘With a right-hand drive?’

He was damnably observant, for a very young Jaguar driver. ‘He was posted unexpectedly to a place where there are no cars—left or right.’ She smiled at him. ‘I was lucky.’ She didn’t want to antagonize him, but the old man had left her little to lose. ‘Were you one of Dr Thomas’s pupils, Dr Gavin?’

Mr Willis sighed theatrically, and then circled round them to pick up the tray on which Audley had brought the drinks. ‘Hock or beer, Gavin?’

‘Nothing, thank you.’ Dr Thatcher stared at her. ‘Why do you want to know, Miss Loftus?’

Mr Willis straightened up. ‘Gavin was the top classical scholar of his year. And a double-first thereafter … Compared with him you are an historical
plumber
, David—a hewer-of-wood and drawer-of-water, intellectually speaking. His involvement with the so-called high technology of the computer age stems purely from the Haddock’s advice, allied to his latent skills. It seems that some classicists are quite surprisingly competent in computer skills—rather the same way some mathematicians are allegedly muscial, if you scratch them sufficiently. Is that not all common knowledge in high places?’ He looked questioningly at Audley.

Gavin Thatcher shook his head. That’s rubbish, of course, Dr Audley.’

‘Rubbish that the Haddock didn’t steer you to Business School after Cambridge?’ Mr Willis’s voice was almost old-maidish. ‘Rubbish that he didn’t then tell you about—who’s that young fellow you introduced me to, your partner-in-crime—? The ex-IBM Old Walthamite who had the idea for those esoteric devices you are presently selling to the Americans?’

Gavin Thatcher shook his head again. ‘Who exactly do you work for, Dr Audley? May one ask?’

‘Does it matter?’ Audley jerked his head towards the old man. ‘If we’re vouched for, does it matter?’

That wasn’t the way to handle the top classical scholar of his year, decided Elizabeth. ‘We work for the Government, Dr Thatcher. In an indirect sort of way, which we can’t explain. But we’re also working for you. And I hope we’re working for Dr Thomas most of all, as it happens.’ She risked a glance at Mr Willis. ‘True, Mr Willis?’

‘Good God, young woman—don’t ask me!’ Put on the spot, Mr Willis squirmed uncomfortably. ‘I’m just a silly old bugger!’

‘Oh?’ It wasn’t what she’d hoped for. But she still had something in the bank with this young man. ‘But you summoned Dr Thatcher to talk to us—about Dr Thomas, surely?’ She looked at the young man.

‘Somewhat equivocally, Miss Loftus. If not mysteriously.’ Because she was plain he didn’t want to be cruel to her. ‘I was planning to return to Cambridge this evening. But he insisted that I must delay my departure, because of an urgent matter involving Dr Thomas. What do you want to know?’

‘Dr Thomas was the Second Master?’ What did she want to know, that he could tell her?

‘Yes.’ Doubt began to overlay his surrender.

‘I’ve never met him, you see.’ She must not give him time to think. ‘What’s he like?’

‘Like?’ He seemed momentarily astonished at her ignorance, to the extent that he flicked a glance at Mr Willis. ‘Well … tall, thin, eloquent and short-sighted—you mean, what’s he
like
—
?
’

‘He played rugger rather well when he was young,’ murmured Mr Willis.

‘Not in my time. He just taught the theory of the game.’

‘And the classics,’ murmured Audley, in a tone matching Mr Willis’s.

‘Yes—‘ Gavin Thatcher could sell his esoteric devices to the Americans, but he couldn’t play Audley and Mr Willis and Miss Loftus simultaneously.

‘Yes?’ Elizabeth gave him the rest of her capital. ‘Greek and Latin? Tell me about that.’

‘Yes.’ He relaxed perceptibly: whatever doubts he still had, he couldn’t relate them to Virgil’s verse or Caesar’s prose. ‘ “
Gallia est omnis divisa in partes Ires
’
—
or “
Hell! said the duchess
”
—
that’s as near as damn-it what he said, in his first lesson, on my second day at Waltham. And he said all the best Latin was exact, and compact, and elegant, and Caesar’s was as good as any, so we’d begin with him. And all we had to remember was that the Gallic Wars were like Cowboys and Indians—“How the West was won”.’

He stopped, and Elizabeth hoped against hope that neither Audley nor Mr Willis, who both liked to hear the sound of their own voices, would say anything. They didn’t say anything.

Gavin Thatcher drew a deep breath. ‘I remember … “
Thus with the years seasons return, but not to me returns day or the sweet approach of ev
’
n or morn
”
—
with the emphasis on
day
… and “
Me only cruel immortality preserves
”
—
emphasis on
me only
because the order of words is one of the glories of Latin verse, of course. Although Latin isn’t in the same class as Greek.’

Elizabeth didn’t dare look at either of them: Gavin Thatcher was already out of her class, in that other world of gold, at which lesser mortals might just guess, but in which they could never travel.

‘I remember quoting Catullus at him—“
Multas per gentes et multa per aequora vectus advenio
”
—
which we hadn’t been told to read … And he gave me hell after that: he damn well concentrated on me!’

He wasn’t trying to be arrogant, Elizabeth cautioned herself: he was only treating them as equals, after Mr Willis had dismissed Audley as a mere
historical plumber
—
and David in his time had been a scholar!

This time there was no danger of them speaking. ‘In Greek we read Xenophon—“
The Sea! The Sea!
”
-
and the Gospel according to St Mark, and the
Odyssey
. Greek was the real thing, of course—the big thing. Not just the language, which is more fun than Latin—more intricate—but the ideas, do you see?’ He paused.

‘The Gospel according to Haddock,’ Audley whispered to himself.

‘The Gospel according to anyone worth his salt,’ murmured Mr Willis. ‘All the rest of history is a postscript, a mere postscript.’ He smiled at Audley. ‘You were wasting your time, dear boy. I told you so all those years ago, but you wouldn’t listen.’ Then he sighed. ‘But the greatest wonder of all, to me, was that they actually paid me for teaching this glorious stuff!’

She didn’t want them arguing again. ‘He taught you philosophy?’

‘Not as such.’ Gavin Thatcher shook his head. ‘But that was pretty much what it was all about, somehow. The languages were ends in themselves, but also means to greater ends. Or
an
end—
know thyself.
”
Make
what you can of that”, Haddock used to say. “Some people have learned a great deal from it.”’ He frowned at her, suddenly embarrassed again. ‘Is this really what you want? What else do you want me to tell you?’

‘What else did Haddock tell you?’

‘Well … ’ The frown cleared ‘ … he told me to join the school choir, for one thing.’

‘He’s a Christian then?’ Somehow it surprised her.

‘No. Not really, I don’t think—‘

‘He’s a Welshman. Or his parents were Welsh.’ Mr Willis gestured vaguely. ‘The Welsh are forever singing. They don’t seem able not to.’

‘They’re forever playing rugger too,’ said Audley. ‘He said the ways of God were far too strange for him, as a matter of fact.’ Gavin Thatcher ignored him. ‘He always said he would have expected the Messiah to have started from—and improved on —
The Nicomachean Ethics
. And then, why didn’t He ensure that His teaching was written down straight away in Greek—or Latin—so the whole civilized world could understand it, instead of in Aramaic, or Syriac, or whatever? Which was like trying to spread the Good News in Cornish.’ He grinned at her. ‘But he never said any of that in front of the Chaplain. He liked Old Tank—we all did.’ He looked at his watch quickly, and then at Mr Willis. ‘I really do have to be going, Wimpy. I’m supposed to be seeing a chap in Cambridge after dinner, about some more venture-money. And it’s a hell of a drive from here.’ He smiled apologetically at Elizabeth. ‘And I don’t think I’ve been much help, either.’

‘He steered you into business, did he?’ asked Audley. ‘He kept in touch, after you left the school?’

‘That’s par for the Waltham course, dear boy,’ said Mr Willis. ‘They have a good after-sales maintenance service for their products.’

‘The Master advised me, actually, Dr Audley. But Haddock opened a few doors for me.’ Gavin Thatcher bent down to put his glass on the tray. ‘And he did once give me one bit of priceless business advice.’

‘And what was that?’

The young man stared at Audley. ‘It was the last time I saw him while I was still at school, before I went up to Cambridge. He said that in my first term there would be the Freshers’ Match in which rugby-playing newcomers would have a chance to show their ability.’

Audley nodded. ‘I remember. Yes?’

‘He said I was to forget what he’d taught me. On that occasion only I was to play for myself, and not for the team.’ He looked at Elizabeth. ‘The purpose of the Freshers’ Match isn’t victory for one side, or even a good game, you see, Miss Loftus. It’s selection. And I was a wing-three-quarter then—do you know about games, Miss Loftus?’

‘Gavin, dear boy—‘ Old Mr Willis levered himself to his feet again ‘—she has a hockey Blue, from a year in which her dark blue trounced your light blue.’

‘I beg your pardon, Miss Loftus.’ Only his complexion saved him from blushing. ‘Then you’ll know that no one passes to the wing in such games, of course.’ He paused. ‘So Haddock said I must ask for my old position, as fullback. And then, when I got the ball in the open, I was to run with it. And if I had to kick it, I was to kick ahead, not into touch—and kick so high, and follow up so fast, that when the ball came down I would be there.’

‘And
that
, Miss Loftus, is the secret of making your first million before you attain your thirty-first year,’ said Mr Willis. ‘Right, Gavin?’

‘You are an old
bastard
, Wimpy!’ Gavin Thatcher’s eyes ranged from Elizabeth to Audley and back. ‘Dr Audley—Miss Loftus—‘

‘”Silly old bugger” is the majority view. But come on, then—‘ the old man shepherded the younger one ‘—you must not drive too fast in that big car of yours, and kill yourself. Why do you not have a car like Elizabeth’s? Or is it status? Will you have a Rolls-Royce next time?’