Mademoiselle MacMahon looked at each of them in turn again. “Captain Mitchell—“
“No. Not ‘captain’. That was strictly acting and temporary—and unpaid, as it happens. If you want to be formal, Nikki, it’s ‘Doctor Mitchell’ now—PhD, Cantab.” He shook his head suddenly, as though to dispel unreality. “Only I just don’t see why it has to be formal.”
She looked at him, almost sadly so it seemed to Elizabeth. “Very well—Paul.”
“That’s better!”
“It isn’t better. I had hoped you would not be tiresome, Paul. That is why they sent me—because we know each other, and you wouldn’t try to play the innocent.”
“I’m not going to be tiresome, Nikki. But this is one time when I can’t avoid being innocent. Because that’s what I am—what we all are.”
Nikki MacMahon sighed, and then indicated the table. “Sit down, please.”
They sat down facing her, examinees again.
“So you are innocent, Paul. Which means that you are not in France in a professional capacity, concerned with any matter of security?”
“No, I didn’t say that.” Paul’s face was expressionless. “I am in France professionally. And I am concerned with a security matter.”
“What?” The delicately-pencilled eyebrows rose.
“A matter of the greatest importance to my country, in fact… in 1812, that is.”
Nikki MacMahon’s lips compressed into a tight line.
“In 1812, Nikki … if what Professor Belperron back there says is even half right—“ Paul jerked his thumb over his shoulder “—your little Corsican Tyrant was planning to do our dear old Farmer George a terrible mischief. That’s the security matter we’re interested in— and I’m interested in it as a professional historian. And that’s the beginning and the end of it—ask anybody—ask Miss Loftus here … It’s her father’s book I’m commissioned to finish, you see.”
“I know about the book, Paul.” Nikki MacMahon had recovered from that brief moment of irritation when she’d been outmanoeuvred. “I know about your escaped sailors at Coucy—I know about Colonel Suchet—I know about all that.”
“Well, then—“ Paul spread his hands “—if you know about all that, then what the hell are you doing here?” Then he frowned again. “You must have talked to my friend Bertrand Bourienne? Yes … well, I hope you didn’t frighten the life out of him, that’s all! But if you talked to him … and I suppose you were listening in the back there to what was said in Professor Belperron’s study—of course you were!” He shook his head at her. “I thought there was something funny about that—it just never occurred to me what it was … But—okay—I hope you enjoyed what you heard! So ask poor old Bertrand, and ask Professpr Belperron anything you like too. But I’m afraid they’ll only be able to tell you the truth, plain and simple, Nikki.”
Whatever the truth was, it wasn’t plain and simple, thought Elizabeth. And yet it was also the truth, that was the twisted strand of irony in Paul’s display of injured innocence—the truth which he himself could make no sense of.
“I see.” Nikki MacMahon’s smile was halfway into a sneer. “So it is merely the year 1812 in which you are interested?”
“1812, yes. And maybe 1813 and 1811. And I could throw in 1805 and 1779 now, I suppose.” Paul shrugged, then turned to Elizabeth. “We shall have to replace that whole chapter, of course. But we’ve got something much better already. And if I can argue Nikki here into clapping us in jail for a few days I shouldn’t wonder but that we might have a best-seller, Elizabeth.” He came back to the Frenchwoman almost lazily. “The Press would like that—on both sides of the Channel, Nikki … how you caught your wicked English spies 170 years too late—they’d really enjoy that.” Then he shrugged again. “Of course, it won’t exactly polish up the image of the Direction de la Securité du Territoire … But you can’t win ‘em all.” He looked at his watch ostentatiously. “So shall we just be on our way, then? It’s lunch-time, and I’m more than ready for Humphrey’s favourite restaurant.”
The green eyes blazed for a fraction of a second, then became ice-cold again, and Elizabeth warmed herself in the chill of their coldness. Whatever had happened those seven years ago, there was more rivalry between them than affection, and no rivalry for her to fight.
“No,” said Nikki MacMahon.
No, thought Elizabeth: this formidable woman would never let any mere man walk away from her unbruised, not if she could help it, and least of all an English man.
The woman turned suddenly to Aske.
“Mr Aske—if Dr Mitchell is a professional historian … tell me what you do for a living?”
Paul stiffened. “Oh—come on, Nikki! You know who we both work for, one way or another—you said that’s why they gave you this job … So Humphrey works with me, you know that. But what you probably don’t know is that he’s an authority on early nineteenth-century naval history—is that the answer you want?”
“I want Mr Aske’s answer, Paul. Mr Aske—?”
Aske sat back. “I wouldn’t dream of being uncivil, Miss MacMahon … but if you were a man I’d say it really wasn’t any of your damn business—beyond what’s on my passport, anyway.” He smiled at her. “Which says ‘Civil Servant’, as it happens.”
Nikki MacMahon switched abruptly back to Paul. “Where did you go yesterday afternoon?”
“After we landed?” Paul packed insolence into his pause for innocent reflection. “Ah … did you lose us for an hour or two? Well … let’s see … we signed in at our hotel in Laon, and dropped off our bags … Then we went for a spin in the country before meeting Bertrand … Then we went back to Laon, and had a drink, and had our dinner—the profiterolés were delicious—and had another drink … and then we went to bed. Do you want more detail than that? Did you dream of anything subversive to the Republic, Humphrey?”
Another flash of green fire. “Where did you go before you met M’sieur Bourienne?”
“We took Elizabeth to see the Chemin des Dames, where the French Army mutinied in 1917. I wanted to show her the British War Cemetery at Vendresse, Nikki—you know my weakness for visiting British war cemeteries in France. I remember taking you to the Prussian Redoubt Cemetery on the edge of Hameau Ridge, back in ‘74—you remarked on the way the poppies grew there, as I recall… They don’t grow nearly so well in Champagne as on the Somme—do they, Elizabeth?”
He was cruel, thought Elizabeth. But then, he was fighting on another disadvantageous slope, against heavy odds, so there was no room for weakness in his tactics.
“Yes—that’s what we did.” She nodded at Nikki. “I signed the book there, Ma’mselle—“ she wanted to add It’s a lovely sad place, but that would have been an insult to those poor dead Tommies, to add the truth of what she had felt.
The green eyes pinned her momentarily. “Yes, I’m sure you did, Miss Loftus.”
Hating herself, Elizabeth frowned. “I beg your pardon?”
Nikki turned from her. “Your cover was always good, Paul. You haven’t changed.”
“Cover?” Something stopped him from denying the charge. “I seem to remember your cover back in ‘ 74 was pretty damn good, if you want to talk about covers, Nikki.”
Nobody was deceiving anybody, thought Elizabeth. Yet they were both bound by the rules of a game which she didn’t really understand, even though she was now one of the players.
“Mr Aske—“ Nikki came round to Humphrey Aske again, as though still searching for a weakness in their defences, but now with a hint of weariness in her voice “—why were you nosing around so long outside, after you’d parked your car? Why didn’t you come straight here?’
Aske shrugged unrepentantly. “Just habit, I suppose. I always take a professional interest in stake-outs, even when they’re as amateurish as yours, Miss MacMahon … I thought the local police must be up to something—I never imagined your people could be so gauche—we’d never set up anything so crude in London … I was looking to
see who it was for—it never occurred to me that it was for us, Miss MacMahon!”
When it came to insults, Aske had nothing to learn from Paul, Elizabeth was reminded. They were both professionals.
“No?” The Frenchwoman countered him with bored disbelief. “Just habit… and you are such a good driver, aren’t you?”
“A good driver?” Aske feigned bewilderment. “Yes. I’ve done a bit of rallying in my time, and I’ve been round the circuit at Brand’s Hatch… Let’s say I’m a good driver—possibly a very good one, if it’s of the slightest interest to you.”
“Not a great deal. But losing those cars which were following you—that was just habit too, Mr Aske?”
“Good lord! You even had a tail on us?” Aske’s tone was mocking. “That was a bit antediluvian, surely? I mean … doesn’t your budget run to directional devices?” He thought for a moment, and then shook his head as though mildly surprised. “It wasn’t even awfully bright, either … if you already knew where we were going … ?”
“You didn’t lose them, then? On the périphérique?”
“Was that where I lost them?” He indicated mild interest, edged with amusement. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but in Paris I do like to drive like a Frenchman—it’s a little conceit of mine … I’d say it looks rather as though your drivers are like your stake-out: just not up to the job.”
“Not my drivers, Mr Aske.” The perfectly painted lips again compressed momentarily—lips already a tiny bit too thin for perfection, Elizabeth noted: add a few years, and that would be an unforgiving mouth.
But then the face round the mouth turned towards her, and it was her turn for the next broadside.
For what we are about to receive—that was the way they waited for it in the old navy—
“Nikki…” Paul cut into the instant of silence before the crash of the coup-de-grace “… I’ve taken about as much of this nonsense as old acquaintance allows, for Hameau Ridge’s sake. But now I’m getting close to pulling rank on you.”
“Rank?” The challenge turned her back to him. “What rank, Paul?”
“Try me and find out.” Paul regarded her obstinately. “If you’re not going to tell us what’s happening then arrest us or let us go. But no more questions.”
But this wouldn’t do, decided Elizabeth: he had picked up her silent distress signal, but was hazarding his own safety in order to save her. And she wasn’t going to be humiliated like that by either of them.
“It’s all right, Paul.” Her confidence flooded back with the sound of her own voice: if Elizabeth Loftus could viva voce First Class Honours from the borderline against two hostile examiners, what could this French bitch do that could frighten her? “If Mademoiselle MacMahon wants to ask me anything, she’s welcome. I don’t have anything to hide.”
The green eyes came back to her, uncompromising but also at least no longer so dismissive. And that in itself pumped more adrenalin: it was better to be scared than to be nothing, she discovered to her surprise.
And get in first signalled the adrenalin—
“After all, it’s my fault that Dr Mitchell and Mr Aske are here, Mademoiselle.” It was no different from sighting the enemy’s quarter-deck in the v-notch of the carronade, and then pulling the lanyard.
“My father commanded Vengeful, and I asked Dr Mitchell to finish his book.”
It pleased her to drop the the from Vengeful, as Father always insisted, and she was the more rewarded by the very slightest suggestion of doubt in those green eyes.
“I wasn’t going to ask you any questions, Miss Loftus, as a matter of fact… I thought it just possible that you might not know what was happening to you.” The doubt faded. “But now I think I may have been wrong.”
Bluff. Or, if not bluff, what could they do to her?
“Wrong about what, Mademoiselle?”
Aske sat up suddenly, as though stung. “Not your drivers, Miss MacMahon? Not your drivers?” He looked quickly at Paul, then back at the Frenchwoman. “Whose drivers, then?”
“Good question, Humphrey!” said Paul. “Whose drivers, if not theirs? And the right question too, because it gives us our answer in one.”
“Answer to what?”
“All this. The VIP treatment!” Paul nodded. “Mademoiselle MacMahon’s newest masters don’t give a stuff for the British, but they don’t want any unscheduled trouble with their Russian friends at the moment, not with all the deals they’ve got going.”
“With the Russians?” Aske repeated the words incredulously. “What the devil have the Russians got to do with what we’ve been doing?”
“I can’t imagine. But if I had to guess … I’d say that we’re all the victims of … a misunderstanding, shall we say?” Paul looked at Nikki MacMahon hopefully. “How about that?”
“A misunderstanding?” She received his olive branch as though it had nettles entwined in it.
“That’s right. Because … contrary to what you have assumed … Humphrey and I are on leave, and we’re strictly devoted to 1812. And if you can prove anything else, you can lock us both up and throw away the key—and we’ll come quietly, too.”
“But I don’t have to prove anything—“
Paul lifted his hand. “I haven’t finished. You have a nasty suspicious mind, Nikki—or your bosses have … But if the roads behind us are crawling with KGB heavies I can’t honestly blame you altogether.”
“That’s very generous of you, Paul.” She seemed to relent slightly. “You’re about to blame them, are you—for also having nastier and more suspicious minds?”
“Ah … now you’re beginning to get my drift.” He smiled. “But I don’t altogether blame either of you, actually … Because, you see, Nikki, before I started my leave I was engaged in an activity which surely interested them … Nothing that had anything whatsoever to do with France, I assure you … but something they certainly could take exception to. Only, you appreciate that I can’t tell you what.” He shrugged disarmingly. “But I suppose it is just possible they thought I was still hard at work—quite incorrectly, as it happens.”
Elizabeth became aware that her mouth had dropped open, and closed it quickly. It wasn’t so much that he was craftily offering the French security service Peace With Honour, as that he had so quickly and ingeniously interwoven truth with lies, and fact with fiction.
The emerald-green shoulders drooped. “Paul… do you know how many cars they sent to Laon?”
It was in the balance now, as he shook his head.
“Five, Paul. And ten men. Ten men, Paul!”
It was still in the balance.
“We were afraid there was going to be a blood-bath.” Nikki stared at him. “And you’re lying—of course.”
It was going the wrong way.
Paul gave a tiny shrug. “Well, if I told you the truth you’d never believe it. Just let Elizabeth go, that’s all—she was led astray by bad company, you can say.”
“No.” Nikki shook her head again. “It’s all or none.”
“Better make it all then, because I promise we’ll go quietly. But if we have to stay we’ll make trouble, I promise you that, too.” He nodded. “Starting with a phone call to the British Embassy.”
“You can have one call, Paul.” This time Nikki nodded. “From the departure lounge. Your plane leaves in two hours. The seats are already booked.”
XIV
AS ELIZABETH REACHED for the bell-chain which hung beside the big iron-bound door a narrow window under the eaves above swung open.
“Oh—hullo there! I thought I heard a car.” Cathy Audley’s little bespectacled face peered out of the window. “You’re early … but come on in—it isn’t locked.”
Elizabeth set her hand on the latch, and then remembered Humphrey Aske and turned back towards the car.
“The daughter, is that?” He made a face. “You go on, Miss Loftus, and I’ll bring in your luggage … And then you’ll have to protect me. I’m not at my best with little girls.”<
br />
He wouldn’t be, thought Elizabeth waspishly, and then despised herself for becoming infected with Paul’s prejudices.
The trouble was, it was not an infection which could be shrugged off easily once it was in the blood, even though Aske of all men had treated her with his own brand of courtesy, diffident but unfailing; it wasn’t anything he said, or anything he did—it was what he was which made her irrationally uneasy, and there was nothing to be done about it.
She forced her mind away from him, and stepped into the house— and was uneasy there, too: it was like coming home, yet not coming home—home, because here, still guarded, she could feel safe, and she who outlives this day and comes safe home … and because the home from which she had been plucked on Saturday could never be home again for her after what had happened in it.
“Elizabeth!” Cathy pattered down the great polished staircase and skidded breathlessly to a halt in front of her. “You’re early—sorry, but Mummy’s gone to Guildford with Daddy—but the old gentleman’s here, and I’ve put him in the library with Mummy’s Guardian and a glass of sherry.”
What old gentleman? There was simultaneously too much and too little to grasp there at one go: they were expected, which was fair enough from Paul’s phone call, which had brought two cars to Gatwick … and Humphrey Aske had driven one of those with all his Brand’s Hatch skill … But what old gentleman?
“That’s fine, dear—“ Gently now, gently, to be taken for granted by a child as an equal was a high compliment, not to be trifled with “—how long has he been here?”
“Oh not long. Do you know, Elizabeth—he has hair coming out of his ears?” Cathy nodded. “But he’s terrifically polite—he calls me ‘Miss Audley’ and stands up when I come into the library, would you believe it?”
Elizabeth had hoped for better than that, but while she was searching for another approach the door clicked behind her and Cathy’s magnified eyes looked past her.
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