The Conduct of Major Maxim

by Gavin Lyall

  "Nothing."

  "That's always a good start. "

  "I thought you might approve. Anything I could think of would just show I knew something that I shouldn't: call his battalion in Soltau, ask about a murder at Bad Schwarzendorn, snoop around his regimental depot, check with the Military Police that they're really looking for him… Even look up his records."

  George nodded. "The amount youhaven't done in a mere thirty-six hours must stir green depths of envy even in Whitehall. Nonetheless, I'm not sure you mightn't have managed a little less. When you agreed to meet comrade Blagg you didn't know anything about the business in Bad Schwarzendorn or the involvement of Six – if that's true. You only knew he was AWOL but must be a good chap really because he'donce been with your Hereford Hell's Angels. You could have asked me first."

  "You'd have said No."

  George made a throaty rumbling noise. "Well, spilt milk… For the moment we'll assume it's all true; the worst usually is -"

  "I can check with the German papers…"

  "You've got the time?"

  Maxim smiled sardonically and gestured at the meaningless clutter on his desk. For the past three weeks he had been doing little but attend lectures and short conferences – dogsbody jobs, he suspected, invented by George to keep him looking busy.

  "Yes, " George said, "our lords and mastersdo seem to have been behaving themselves of late; there must besome scandal lurking just around the corner… Right, you read German, don't you? Their embassy keeps Die Welt and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitungand the Suddeutsche-no, they wouldn't bother with it."

  The extraordinary details George kept in his head. One phone call Maxim had allowed himself that morning had been to establish which, if any, newspapers the Germany embassy did file.

  "Of course, " George went on, "if they've had ten days and not found any link with a British soldier – and we'd certainly know if they had – then it may never happen. Just blow over."

  "Blagg would still be a deserter," Maxim pointed out.

  "He'd given himself a rather limited choice of futures. I imagine he wouldn't rather be a murderer."

  "I got the idea," Maxim persisted gently, "that he feels much worse about the desertion than the shooting. "

  George went frog-eyed. "Harry, hekilled somebody. "

  Maxim nodded. "Yes. Soldiers do."

  George opened his mouth to say something, then remembered he was talking to a soldier who had most certainly killed people, one of them since he had come to work at Number 10. Quite likely Blagg had killed before, too.

  Maxim went on: "Blagg was chaperoning somebody heknew worked for The Firm. Working for his country. When that German started shooting, he became The Enemy. Now Blagg expects his country to back him up."

  "Was there any hint of blackmail?" George asked, suddenly sharp.

  "No, I don't think so. He's not a bloody fool, of course -well yes, he is, in a way – but he knows it could be a big scandal that could hurt Britain, and particularly the Army. In a way, that's why he went over the hill: to protect the Army. "

  "That is romantic twaddle."

  "Soldiersare romantic," Maxim said evenly. "They watch war movies and like dressing up in funny clothes and calling themselves funny names like Dragoon Guards."

  A quarter of a century before, George had done his two years' National Service in a Dragoon Guards regiment. They had been the happiest years of his life – or at least they increasingly seemed so, in retrospect – butromantic? He looked at Maxim suspiciously. "Well… what did he expect you to do?"

  "Wash him clean and send him back to square one."

  "Does he know what he's asking?"

  "I doubt it. He doesn't know how an atom bomb works, either. He just knows that it does and assumes we do, too."

  "Where do such mad ideas originate? All right: you pop round to the embassy and see what you can turn up. Do nothing else. We'll have to play this hand ourselves – I can't tell the Headmaster and I'm certainly not bringing Tired Tim into this." He paused with his hand on the doorknob."Romantic?"

  When George had gone, Maxim rang the German embassy and made an appointment to visit the press office files. Then he filled in time by filing his cuttings and tidying the desk generally. It was a new desk: the Housekeeper's Office hadjust got around to replacing the old rolltop that had been there when he first joined Number 10nearly six months ago. He had spent most of those months complaining about it, with its drawers that were the wrong size for standard files and usually jammed anyway, but now he missed it. Now he had anindestructible grey metal box, just like a quarter of a million civil servants, and it was trying to digest him, to turn him into a civil soldier.

  That was a childish (or romantic?) thought, but he was feeling the itch of a problem he wasn't supposed to scratch. Abruptly, he picked up the phone and asked for the Bradbury Lines at Hereford, and then for the adjutant of 22SAS.They knew each other well, and the talk was cheerful, rambling, casual. But when he rang off, Maxim had learned that Captain Fairbrother had finished his SAS tourand rejoined the Brigade five months ago. For the last six weeks he had been in Alberta liaising with the Canadian Army about the live-ammunition exercises to be held there later in the summer.

  "Bugger it," Maxim said aloud. Somebody had been lying. Probably everybody had been lying to some extent – that was only to be expected – but bugger it nonetheless. He sat frowning down at the desk and it crouched there, square and smug, knowing there were already more desks than soldiers and that all it had to do was wait.

  Chapter 5

  Bush House was both different and the same in unsettling ways; always they changed the things you didn't expect and kept the things that should have changed long ago. Security was much stricter: now everybody walked about with security passes clipped to their lapels showing a coloured photograph of themselves. Visitors got a sticky label like a large coin. All ridiculous, of course – but then she remembered the Bulgarian and the Libyan who had worked for the BBC's External Service, both murdered. They never caught the killer of the Bulgarian; 'The arm of justice is longer than the legs of a traitor'. She shivered and asked for the lavatory and there finished the last of the brandy, then tried to wash the smell out of her mouth. She should never have come, and anyway, Leni couldn't still be here.

  But incredibly, she was. After a lot of reluctant telephoning around, the man at the reception desk grunted that Leni was corning down and wrote out her own sticky label.

  Dear sweet Leni, always small and frail, now smaller and frailer, but the blue eyes still bright behind the big glasses and the thin white hair carefully set in tight curls. And of course the long drooping cardigan that was almost a BBC uniform.

  They hugged each other, close like men, not standing right back so that their breasts wouldn't touch, and tears were already trickling from under Leni 's glasses. "Darling Mina, you should have called me… why didn't you let me know? I thought you must be dead… Oh, Mina, Mina, it's so good to see you, but you should have called, you were lucky to catch me, I only come in on Mondays as a relief, just to give the young ones a full two days off… Oh, to see you again, why didn't you call?…"

  The corridors were different ones but comfortingly still the same: roofed with all sorts of meaningless pipes and cables, walled with flimsy wood-and-frosted-glass partitions covered with junction boxes and noticeboards. How the BBC loved noticeboards! – she had forgotten that. All the dreadful warnings about fire and flooding and abandoned parcels, the cheery invitations to disco evenings, hockey clubs and hiking holidays…

  At the door to theoffice Mina suddenly stopped and seized Leni 's thin arm with her twisted hand. She saw Leni lookdown at the hand, then quickly up again. "No -Leni, I don't want to meet anybody. Just you. I came to see just you. "

  "Nobody will know you. They're all gone, they change so often… Only old Hunke. They won't know your name. Tell me – do I know your name?"

  Mina ignored the question. "Somewhere we can talk together, jus
t you and I. "

  "Of course. "Leni led the way along the corridor, trying doors until she found a small empty room. She shut the door and started rummaging in a cupboard while Mina stared uncomprehending at the data system screen and the purring teletype. Leni came up with a half full bottle of vodka and two dusty glasses. She poured two tots."Prosit."

  They sipped, and Mina asked: "The machines – do they do all the work now?"

  "They can't translate. Not yet, anyway. "Leni smiled, still moist-eyed. "Do you hear us?"

  "Oh yes, I hear it when I can. But where I live-" she stopped abruptly, shaking her head. "And now I don't know any of the voices…"Leni herself didn't broadcast. "Do they still jam you?"

  "The Russian service. And they tried to jam the German, since the strike, but now we have this big Army transmitter in Berlin, on 90.2. It isn't so easy to jam that."

  "The strike…"Mina took a quick drink. "What do they say about Gustav?"

  "He's a big man, now. One of the new members of the Secretariat."

  "Oh. That is important?"

  Mina had always been totally vague about political structures, even one she had lived with for years. Leni said patiently: "It is the most important, the Secretariat of the Polit-bureau. There are now only eight members, including Manger who will not last more than a year, and your Gustavis one of the youngest. He has moved up fast: he came onto the Politbureau only five years ago. In a few years, who can tell?"

  "Oh." Mina looked terribly serious, perhaps haunted. "And Manfred?"

  "We don't hear so much about him. But we believe he's a full colonel – he's young, for that. So he pushes, Gustavpulls – you know how it goes. "

  "Oh yes." Clearly Mina didn't. "So Gustavcould be very important."

  "Yes, yes." Then Leni suddenly saw Mina 's fear. "You haven't been in touch with them?"

  "No. "Mina shook her head and got a spasm of dizziness. She clutched at Leni. "It's all right… I have to take pills… They make me… No, they don't know about me. Leni, please don't tell anybody. Not anybody."

  "Of course, of course." Keeping one arm around Mina 's shoulders, she poured them both more vodka. "I won't tell. But now they wouldn't make any trouble. Your coming was too long ago. For Gustavto be where he is, it shows they've forgotten it, theywant to forget it. "

  "I don't know… there was another man… Walter… Walter somebody… He got very important and they ruined him."

  "Walter Dürr. That was years ago. He had an affair with the daughter of another member and Frau Ulbrichtbroke him. But that was morality, Mina; youwere political – darling Mina who is the least political thing I have ever met!" She laughed, found they had both finished their drinks, and poured more.

  But Mina would not be appeased. "When I first came over, they did things… voices on the telephone, saying I was a traitor and they would break my hands… messages that were wrong, that sent my luggage to somewhere else or madepeople believe I had cancelled a recital… they followed me, I know, they let me see…"

  "You never told us. Did you tell the police?"

  "No. No, I was afraid they would think I was a crazy woman and send me back. "

  Leni had been broadcasting from London since wartime days and had listened to literally thousands of stories from refugees and defectors. She knew all about the techniques of the secret police and secret services, the little touches to keep you walking in fear, isolated and suspecting your own sanity. Cruelty doesn't change, only the politics behind it.

  "Oh my poor Mina…"

  "So you won't tell anybody you've seen me?"

  "Of course not. But do you feel safe now? Do you have a new name?"

  "Yes,"Mina said slowly. "I think I feel safe now, seeing you. I have a new name.

  "Don't tell me if you don't want to. But Mina – write to me sometimes, please? I will give you my address…"

  Gradually the gloom and the vodka seeped away, and the memories began. They giggled like schoolgirls at incidents of more than twenty years ago, at characters now dead, retired or gone home to the richer pickings of West German radio stations. Leni was a great mimic, bringing back every voice in every accent until, when the bottle was finished, they were both light-hearted and weeping with laughter.

  Then Leni had the idea."Mina -play something for me!"

  "Oh no. No, I can't."

  "You must. Just for me, only for me…"

  "But – you've seen my hand." Everybody saw her hand, but she would have mentioned it to nobody but Leni.

  "Just one thing, one little Kinderszene…"

  They rushed along the basement corridors, searching for a studio with a piano, persuading a reluctant engineer to take a recording without worrying too much about his beloved 'balance'.

  In fact, at that time of day and after that amount of alcohol, her hands were probably at the best they could be. And though the piano was tuned too hard, with Leni watching enrapturedit was easy to turn back the years and forgive herself the little errors and awkwardnesses she knew would come. She took a deep breath and laid her tired old hands on the keyboard.

  Chapter 6

  Maxim lived in a gloomy first-floor flat in a late Victorian terrace on the edge of Camden Town. His landlady was a musty old widow who constantly threatened that if They didn't Do Something About It, she was going to sell up and go and live with her son in New Zealand. But it was too late, whatever New Zealand might think, and on her worst days she must have known it. The house had been let go too far: just too many years of patching instead of repairing, so that anybody coming in would have had to borrow the value of the house over again to pay for new woodwork, plumbing, wiring and the ripping out of the flimsy partitions and extra gas meters that marked out each of the flats. And anybody who could borrow that sort of money wouldn't have spent it on that sort of house anyway.

  He took a can of lager from the refrigerator and sat down at the typewriter that lived on the window end of the table. It was a light and slightly flimsy portable that had belonged to Jenny. Almost all the things around him had once been hers or presents from her. In ten years of marriage, and eight different homes, they had bought only small, movable things. One day they would begin to wear out and need replacing. Would he mind that? – or by then wouldn't he care?

  He wound in a piece of paper and began typing.

  GEORGE HARBINGER

  FOR YOUR EYES ONLY

  NO COPY

  From Major H. R. Maxim.

  1 The first mention appeared in both Die Welt and Frankfurter Allgemeineon the Monday, in a manner which suggests that the Sunday papers carried a full story. The embassy files no Sunday papers. There werefollow-up stories on the Tuesday, and Wednesday, but nothing from then to the end of the month, which is as far as I checked.

  2 Two people died of gunshot wounds on the Friday night in Bad Schwar/endorn.

  3 The man was Alfons Hochhauser,aged 59, the town Standesbeamte(registrar). A widower for thirteen years. One son, one daughter, both married.

  4 The woman ('Mrs Howard') carried a driving licence identifying her as Frau Gertrude Sailer, aged 46, with an address in Oldenburg. The licence was a forgery done with a stolen blank. No other identity has been suggested.

  5 The only mention of a third person was that the police were still investigating a report that a 'young man' had been seen running across the park soon after the shooting. The impression given is that the police are not taking this very seriously (but see 8 below).

  6 Wounds:Hochhauserhad four (Die Welt) or five(FAZ)bullet wounds, including one in the head which must have been immediately fatal. The woman had three bullet wounds, all in her body.

  7 Guns: he had a Mauser 1910 self-loader in 7.65 mm calibre. She had a 'Spanish revolver' in.38 Special calibre, which is the same as the gun Blagg had. No mention was made of how many shots each gun had fired.

  8 This could be important, as could the number of wounds Hochhauseractually received. If it turned out that Mrs Howard had fired fewer shots than Hoch
hauserhad wounds, it obviously proves there was a third pistol, and person, involved.

  9 The same would be true if the forensic laboratory could prove that one or more of the.38 Special bullets was not fired from Mrs Howard's gun.

  Maxim took out the page and read it over while he drank the last of the lager. George would snort and mutter at all that stuff about bullets, but it could be crucial. He wound in a fresh sheet and typed on.

  10 It was reported that the bodies had not been robbed.

  11 The forged driving licence aroused suspicions of a terrorist link, but by the time the story was dropped this appeared to have been discounted and the investigation was in the hands of a public prosecutor from Paderborn.

  12 It seemed that a Sunday newspaper had speculated that the shootings could have been a duel, arising out of a love affair the two must have been having. Alternatively, it was suggested that as keeper of the town records he could have known her true identity and something about her past and have been blackmailing her. There was no speculation about a third party or any international aspect.

  13 Hochhauser'spast: he was born locally and worked for the town since 1951. During the war he was a non-commissioned clerk in the Luftwaffe He then worked for the Control Commission for three years. Neighbours say he was diligent and rather aloof, especially since his wife's death.

  14 Both papers printed the driving licence photograph of Mrs Howard/Sailer, so there must be a possibility that somebody will come forward with a new identification.

  15 There was no mention of the car.

  And that was about it. He signed the second page Harry, folded them up and put them in his hip pocket. Then he went through to the tiny kitchen and took out another lager and tried to get interested in the idea of making dinner.

  The matter of the bullets still worried him.

  "Quite likely Blagg missed, " George said. "With a pistol – an unfamiliar one – from about thirty yardsand at night… he'd be lucky to hit the Gradierwerk. The thorn wall. " Trust George to know the right name for it.