"Not specifically. But he did agree with your father's conclusion about them—that they weren't included in the Decrés propaganda letter to Napoleon in the Moniteur Universel with the allegedly full list of successful British escapers down to September, but they were in the Lautenbourg Fortress in early August—and they didn't turn up anywhere else thereafter, and weren't listed anywhere else as having been recaptured or died of natural causes . . . He reckoned the French killed them right enough—he said that, apart from the conflicting stories the French told, sending them to Lautenbourg was suspicious in itself. Because no one had ever been sent there before, and no one ever was again.
'Something fishy, but I don't know what' was his conclusion—
and here's our hotel—" he swung the car under a narrow archway, through a passage, and into a tiny courtyard "—
then we can have a proper session, once we've installed you—
it's all quite fascinating, Miss Loftus—I haven't been involved in anything so absolutely fascinating in ages!" He turned to Elizabeth with an expression of disarmingly innocent enthusiasm. "There's a sweet little café in the square—"
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"We're not going to sit in any cafe." There was anything but an expression of innocent enthusiasm on Paul Mitchell's face. "For any 'proper session'."
"No?" Aske took his disappointment philosophically. "Then what are we going to do?"
"I've got phone calls to make. You deal with the bags. And I want to be on the road in twenty minutes." Paul sounded a bit like Father on one of his off days.
"And then where?" Aske's obedience didn't include total abasement.
"Wait and see," said Paul rudely.
Twenty minutes later he seemed happier; or maybe he was beginning to regret being such a bear, decided Elizabeth.
"I'm sorry to push you like this, Elizabeth." He tried to smile, and then looked past her and gave up the attempt. "Where's that obnoxious fellow, for God's sake?"
"Mr Aske is trying to get me a better room. He thinks the one I've got will be too noisy." Enough was enough. "Why must you be so beastly to him? Has he ever done you any harm?"
"Not so far as I know—and he's not going to get the chance, either." He shrugged. "I hardly know him, actually."
"You just dislike him on principle?"
"On several principles. I don't fancy queers, for a start."
"Queers?'
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"God, Elizabeth! You're not that innocent, surely?"
She flushed—she could feel the blood in her cheeks, pumping at treble pressure because she was that innocent, but also because that explained her own unformulated doubts, and finally because such naked prejudice embarrassed her.
"It isn't a crime any more," she said stiffly.
"No." More's the pity was implicit there. "I can see you've never been propositioned! But then you wouldn't be, would you . . ." He sniffed derisively. "You're safe."
That was more hurtful than he intended. "No. I have never been propositioned."
"I didn't mean that, and you know it." The hardness in his face broke up. "Damn it—if you want to be propositioned, just keep your door on the latch tonight—"
"No, thank you!" snapped Elizabeth.
He ran his hand through his hair, suddenly not at all the Paul Mitchell she knew and didn't understand. "Shit! I always get this wrong, don't I! Frances, you are avenged!"
"Frances?"
"Doesn't matter." His face came together again. "I also dislike him because I don't know him . . . and in this game, if you have someone there to cover your back, that's not a comforting feeling. And I also dislike him because I associate him with someone I don't trust— someone I do know. And birds of a feather—" He stopped abruptly.
"Hullo there—sorry I'm late," said Humphrey Aske. "I've got dummy3
you an absolutely super room, Miss Loftus—quiet and comfortable—and a wonderful view across the old city."
"Thank you, Mr Aske," said Elizabeth, split disconcertingly down the middle between them. "I hope it wasn't too difficult?"
He smiled at her. "Not at all, actually. I just got them to swop Dr Mitchell's bag for yours. Nothing could be easier!" He turned to Paul. "Now, Dr Mitchell—which way?"
"South, across the N2 as best you can, on to the D967, Aske."
Paul embraced Aske's enmity like a lover.
"You've been there before, then?"
Paul looked through him. "To the Chemin des Dames? Yes, I've been there before, Aske."
Getting out and down from the old city of Laon, through the narrow streets, and down the winding hairpin road to the plain beneath, wasn't so easy in the rush-hour; and crossing the N2 ring road was hair-raising, even though Humphrey Aske drove with relaxed excellence and courtesy; so the question on the tip of her tongue delayed itself until Aske repeated the first name on the road signs.
"Bruyeres-et-Montberault?"
"About twelve miles, straight on," said Paul. "Then we cross the Chemin des Dames, and go down half a mile, to the British War Cemetery at Vendresse."
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"Why, Paul?" asked Elizabeth.
"Why what?" He was staring straight ahead. "Why the Chemin? Or why Vendresse?"
"Why. . .all of this?"
He stared ahead for a moment, without replying. "I like the cemetery at Vendresse. It's only a little one, but it's one of my favourites."
"What a perfectly macabre thought—to have a favourite cemetery!" exclaimed Humphrey Aske. "You normally prefer the bigger ones?"
"And an interesting one, too." Paul seemed not to have heard him. "Late summer 1914—and then late summer 1918—the two turning points. I'll show you, Elizabeth."
"But that simply can't be the reason, Mitchell—just to show us something . . . of interest?" said Aske.
Elizabeth found herself wishing that he wouldn't ask the questions which were uppermost in her own mind, instead of leaving the answers to the due process of Paul's own reasoning.
"You ought to know the reason, damn it!" snapped Paul. "The only good cover is what's true. I don't usually fly to France—
that was a mistake. We should have taken the hovercraft and the autoroute. But when I do come to the Aisne, this is what I do—and this is what I'm doing."
"And what makes you think we need a cover?"
"That's right, Paul," Elizabeth agreed with Aske uneasily.
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"David Audley said we'd be safe over here."
"And we are safe, Miss Loftus," Aske reassured her. "Nobody can possibly know where we are, except those who need to know. So unless Dr Mitchell left your flight plan lying around
—"
"The flight plan was doctored," said Mitchell testily.
"Then no one knows. Because no one followed me, I assure you." Aske giggled. "No one follows me when I don't want to be followed, I promise you—not without my knowing, anyway . . . And, for the record, no one's following me now."
"The French know," said Paul.
"Two or three dim fonctionnaires on a tin-pot air-strip half the size of my pocket-handkerchief? Oh, come on!"
"Don't underestimate the French."
"I don't. I know they've got a smart computerised system for checking up on mauvais sujets who intrude into their privacy. But the great and good Dr Mitchell surely isn't lumped in with visiting Libyan assassins, is he?" Aske paused. "Or is he?"
Paul said nothing.
"You don't mean to say you've got a record here?" Aske appeared more amused than frightened. "In the line of duty, naturally—?"