by Gavin Lyall
"Who told him that?"
"He didn't say. Was there a suicide note?"
"The police didn't find one. Thank God. But why write to Jackaman, for heaven's sake? He wasn't involved in security."
"When am I going to be allowed to get up?" Maxim asked politely.
Agnes grinned. "Oh, you won't impress me, love." But she turned her back while Maxim put on pants and trousers – uniform, since he was going to have to say an official farewell to their host the development unit.
When she turned back she asked George: "Jealous, duckie?"
George made a grumping sound. "Do you know when Farthing came back to this country and sent the letter to Jackaman?"
"No. Sorry, I should have asked. I get the impression that it wasn't in the last year…"
"We can easily find out. So Jackaman sat on the letter until Tyler's appointment came up." It was the Right Thing To Do, of course. You didn't attack a man's career lightly, but when the fate of the nation came into the picture… That was certainly the Jackaman that George had known, briefly, at Mo D.
"Was Jackaman in the Army during the war?" Maxim asked.
"He was the right age, and I've a feeling there was something… but I'm pretty sure he was at the Foreign Office most of the war. He switched to Defence about twelve years ago, he wasn't going any higher in the Diplomatic."
"I could look him up," Maxim offered. "I'd better go over to Army Records to dig up Bob Bruckshaw anyway."
"Harry, I told you what the Headmaster ordered. Jackaman is dead."
"He doesn't seem very good at it."
George glowered into his fresh coffee, obviously suffering a clash of loyalties as well as an early dawn. Privately, Maxim had decided to look up Jackaman, no matter what George said.
Agnes came to life. "There woz this Greek bird Pandora, yer know? And she got this box and when she opened it, Lawd luv yer, wot kime out yer couldn't shoot wiv a Purdey 12-bore."
"I thought," George said tightly, "that the moral of that legend was not to open things that don't concern you."
"Or clean out your boxes before somebody else opens them."
George took a deep breath. "Very well. Harry can move on this. But step by step and never getting out of mummy's sight. All right? And Agnes, your mob can slow down on Farthing and switch to Bruckshaw. Did somebody of that name, right age, die in Montreal whenever – you know the sort of thing."
"We've heard of it."
Professor Tyler was sitting up in bed, alone, drinking a cup of tea, so Maxim left George to chat with him and went looking for Brock. He found him in the Seddon Arms camper truck parked behind the hotel. Overnight, somebody had cleaned up the remains of the evening party; the truck smelt faintly of polish and strongly of the coffee Brock was heating in a glass pot.
He was alone, wearing an open-necked shirt under a leather waistcoat, his face relaxed and untired. "Coffee, Harry?" He poured a breakfast-size cup without getting up. "Cream? Milk? Sugar? You did a good job with that nut last night."
"He wasn't dangerous." Maxim helped himself to sugar.
"When you fire a gun the shot's got to go somewhere. Something stronger?"
"I'm sorry?"
Silently, Brock opened the cupboard beside him to show bottles of Irish whiskey, a single malt and Remy Martin. "Some people like it. Maybe not at your age. So what can I do for you this morning?"
Maxim found it difficult to begin. "I haven't mentioned it to anyone else… There was a girl in Professor Tyler's room…"
"From what I hear tell, there's usually a girl in Professor Tyler's room. There certainly was at Princeton."
"You provided this one."
Brock narrowed his eyes. "Sure."
"And there was a newspaper reporter staying here."
"That's right. He got one of the other girls. Were you thinking I was setting up Professor Tyler for a nice dirty story?"
"I was just asking."
For a moment, Brock was about to get angry. Then he shook his head and said gently: "Harry, it's a long time since I told anybody about the birds and the bees, but I'll try… Fact one: we aren't going to get any British contract for the mortar. We never were; I could smell that the moment we got here. I assume there's a political reason, but I don't know why.
"But so what?" He took a gulp of coffee. "There's no winning in being a bad loser. Next year maybe we'll sell you the biodegradable anti-personnel mine, or something new in rifle grenades. I could talk your ass off about what we've got coming up there.
"I believe I will have something stronger." He filled up his coffee with Irish whiskey. "Fact two: if you think I was setting up your Professor for a little blackmail, you've blown your tiny Neanderthal mind. For one thing, I really do admire him as a military thinker. Sure, knowing him could be good for trade – or it could be no good at all, particularly if your prime minister loses the next election. Then the Professor would be back in the wilds of Cambridge, England, without any say in policy.
"But-" he stood up and made slow mark-time movements, stretching the stiffness out of his legs. He must have been sitting there a long time, Maxim realised; "-but let me tell you something that would be very bad for trade indeed: any whisper that we went in for blackmail. Giving big commissions, sweeteners, call it bribery if you like – yes, that happens all the time. In most of the countries we do it, there isn't even a word for it: it's just a way of life. And it hasn't hurt Lockheed or Dassault or all the others that there's a rumour they give away free money. They get it all back in the final purchase price anyhow.
"But blackmail… never. Last night I brought along those girls just the same as I made sure the hotel had the Professor's favourite brand of whisky, that they wouldn't serve us shellfish, that I had some good cigars to offer him. Harry, this is just routine. If it had been boys instead of girls, I could organise that, too. And when you send me somebody who just wants to talk business, I'll be very happy to talk business and get to bed early. Until then…"
He sat down again. "Major Harry Maxim, takes coffee black with plenty of sugar, doesn't drink much but is particular about beer, doesn't smoke – except maybe a cigar? How'm I doing?"
Maxim smiled quickly. "Pretty well."
"And it would be girls not boys, if anything. Sheet, you should hear some of what we have to organise in the Middle East or Latin America. Europe's supposed to be easy territory."
"All it does is make you look ten years older."
"I'm sorry."
"That's okay. Sometimes you have to ask. But I'll tell you: if you're going to be baby-sitting Professor John White Tyler, you'd best get used to some help from the girls."
"Thanks."
Maxim stepped down into the frosty car-park.
8
Maxim, Tyler, and George clattered back to London in a helicopter; the night's excitement had startled the Army into realising that while they couldn't guarantee Tyler's life, they could at least make sure he didn't get killed while technically their guest. Maxim's wasn't the only gun on that helicopter.
Agnes drove back; she and George had come down in her car.
An MoD car rushed them from Battersea to Liverpool Street station for Tyler to catch the next Cambridge train. "All very British," George said. "Up until now you've been chairman of the review committee and thus in imminent danger of your life. But when you step on that train, you revert to being a mere academic whom nobody would wish to harm. Have you ever thought about changing clothes in a telephone box, like Superman?"
He was feeling better.
"George, I'm sure you never read those terrible American comics. And there are far more old students of mine who'd like to put a bullet in me than anybody connected with national defence." Tyler chuckled. "Anyway, thank you for your very present help, Major. I hope we'll meet again soon."
They shook hands, Tyler giving Maxim a nice open smile with his big, wide-spaced teeth. Neither of them had mentioned the lipsticked lady. Tyler climbed into a first-class carriag
e and George and Maxim walked away before the train left.
"Where away now?" George asked.
"Unless you want me, I'll drive out to Hayes."
"Where?"
"Army Records."
"Ah yes. Hadn't you better change first? You can't go running around dressed like a soldier or people will think you're part of a film and ask for your autograph. Shall I drop you off at your place?"
"Unless you know a good telephone box."
Maxim got home from Hayes at half past five, with the short night beginning to catch up on him. He rang George and found he needn't go into Number 10, put on a kettle and collapsed – carefully – into an old armchair.
He rented a first-floor flat in a gloomy Victorian terrace that was either in Camden Town or Primrose Hill, depending on whether you were buying or selling. He could have found a place just as cheap and far closer to Downing Street by going south, across the river. The idea had barely occurred to him. Born a north Londoner, he headed instinctively for the tribal lands between the Northern and Bakerloo lines. The house belonged to a musty arthritic widow who had taken to Maxim – as much as she took to anyone – because he was neither black nor Irish, and as an Army officer daren't bounce cheques.
"Structurally, it's about as insecure as you can get," Maxim had told George. "Somebody's just sealed off the first floor with composition board and frosted glass and a home-made door. I'll change the lock, but anyone could blow the whole thing down with a strong sneeze.
"But in practice, it might not be too bad. It's a quiet road and whenever you walk down it, there's about five old biddies sitting in their bay windows watching who goes past. I'd hate to try and mount a surveillance there. I don't know if that matters."
"It might," George had said. "Greyfriars has certainly opened a file on you by now – asssuming," he added politely, "that they didn't have one already."
The kettle boiled. He got up, made a mug of coffee and went to rout in the tea-chests in the corner. Mrs Talbot hadn't reckoned on her tenants needing much in the way of book-cases, and Maxim had only just begun to look for second-hand ones in Camden Town. Meanwhile, his books lived stacked against the wall or still in the chests. The one he wanted was, of course, at the bottom of the last chest he searched. The pages were yellowed and fragile, and the fly-leaf had the immature signature of Harold R. Maxim, but it was still this copy of The Gates of the Grave that perhaps had changed his life.
He put Duke Ellington's Far East Suite' on the record player and went back to the armchair. Later, he'd go down the road for some cans of beer. If he drank coffee for the next three hours he'd end up dancing on the ceiling.
On most afternoons there is a small, almost ceremonial, tea-party in the Private Secretaries' room. Visitors from other offices drop in and a few quiet words can often bypass a lot of paperwork and save trouble – if bypassing paperwork and saving trouble is your objective. Two days later, Maxim, Agnes and Sir Anthony Sladen were informally invited.
"I hear strange tales about goings-on in wildest Wiltshire," Sladen said. "Are you going to find yourselves all over the front page of the Express? "
"I don't think so." George sounded confident. "All that happened was that somebody fired off a shotgun in front of a hotel at some Godawful hour of the night and has been charged with this and that. That's not exactly stop-the-presses, and they can't comment on a case that's sub judice anyway."
"But our Professor Tyler was inside at the time, was he not?"
George shrugged. "What's secret about that? We've asked all three services to publicise his visits wherever he goes. That way, we keep the spotlight on conventional warfare."
Sladen frowned warningly, and drew them away from the crowd with delicate gestures of his cup and saucer.
"And," Agnes chipped in, "we now know we've got the fastest gun in Whitehall." She and Maxim exchanged rather false smiles.
"Nobody got killed," George said. "And Harry can also look up records. Would you like to hear what he found, or would you prefer to go on criticising?"
Agnes made a little curtsy.
Maxim put his cup down on the edge of a desk and took out a notebook.
"Gerald Jackaman. He was at Oxford when the war started. He tried to join up then, but they had too many people trying to get in so they told him to go back and do his last year. Anyway, the whole thing was going to be over by Christmas."
"I'm quite sure," George said, "that Odysseus's last words to Penelope, as he went off to Troy were: 'Don't worry, old girl, I'll be home by Christmas'."
Sladen said: "Since it was to be approximately thirteen hundred years to the first Christmas, he was giving himself a fair margin of error. I do apologise, Major."
Maxim was wearing a small patient smile. "He joined up in June 1940. He was commissioned into the Rifle Brigade in October. In December he smashed up a knee playing rugger."
"A bit bloody silly," Agnes suggested.
George said: "Good for morale, to let the troops tear an officer to pieces occasionally."
"Reading between the lines," Maxim went on, "I gather he wasn't seen as any ball of fire, so when his knee didn't look like repairing properly, they gave him a medical discharge. He took the civil service exam and was accepted by the Foreign Office. He spoke French very well, so he was doing liaison work with the Free French. Then, in January 1943 he went to Algiers with Harold Macmillan. Churchill sent out a small Foreign Office mission to look after our political interests in North Africa, and Jackaman was part of it-"
"You didn't get that from Army records, did you?" Sladen said.
George said: "No, the FO. I squared it. Good practice, for Harry to find his way around."
"So where could he have met Tyler?" Sladen asked.
"They were both in North Africa at that time, but Tyler was with 8th Army, down in Libya and Tunisia. He was evacuated home a month or so after Jackaman got to Algiers. After that, they were both in Britain in early '44, but Jackaman went to Washington in May and stayed until after the war."
Sladen grunted.
"And what about Bob Bruckshaw?" Agnes asked.
"There was no Robert Bruckshaw in the Army at that time."
Isolated in a corner, the four of them were getting curious glances from the rest of what was, after all, supposed to be a General Exchange of Views. A couple of teacups were rattled, but George ignored them.
"And now let's hear the news summary from Liza Doolittle."
Agnes smiled and recited from memory. "Robert Bruckshaw died in Montreal General Hospital, cirrhosis all right, in December two years ago. He gave his age as fifty-eight and birthplace as Yorkshire, no next of kin. The only visitors anybody can remember were a couple of workmates – he'd been driving a truck on a building site. And yes, Charles Farthing was also a patient there at the time."
Maxim said: "There's no Bruckshaw mentioned in The Gates of the Grave, either. Nor a Jackaman."
There was a pause. Then George said: "Bruckshaw must have changed his name. God knows, so would I if I had to go to Canada."
Agnes nodded. "I've asked the Mounties to check it. They're good when they get their snow-shoes on. But it seems that name changes are registered province by province, not nationally, so they could have to try right across the country and going back thirty years. And that's assuming he changed it legally and in Canada. If not…"
"So where," Sladen asked, "does that leave us?"
"Just thankful that nobody's been killed," George said.
"Shall we re-join the Mad Hatters?"
9
The PM owned a cat, a fat multi-coloured ex-female, who had taken a liking to Maxim's office – perhaps, he thought ruefully, because it was one of the least busy in the house. She would scratch on the door until he opened it, and rush in staring around suspiciously, like a wife expecting to see Another Woman diving out of the window. Then she curled up on whatever papers Maxim was trying to read and went to sleep.
She was there that morning when Geor
ge rang through to say that if Maxim wasn't too busy – he was trying to read as much of the RUSI Journal as the cat allowed – he wanted to pop up and see him.
He arrived a minute later, shutting the door firmly behind himself. The cat looked at him balefully.
"Do you like cats?" George asked.
"This one doesn't give you a choice."
"She's giving me one. However… this just might be as important as the old air-dog thinks it is, or it may be sheer bull." He gave Maxim the Kensington address of Wing-Commander Neale, RAF (Retired) and now MP for a West Country constituency. "He's a bit of a pain except when he's talking about tourism or defence, but he's one of the few MPs who still think this country's worth defending, so we toss him a bottle of rum from time to time. He wants to see you, or at least 'that new Army chap I hear you've got at Number 10'. Try not to knock any of his tail feathers off and call me if it's anything vital."
Maxim was already putting on his coat. "Should I take the gun?" He nodded at the squat little safe the Housekeeper's Office had found for him.
George gave it a moment's thought and shook his head. "It shouldn't come to anything like that." He turned out to be wrong.
Neale lived in one of a row of what estate agents call 'bijou mews cottages'. It had a neat doll's-house look to it, everything slightly smaller than life and brightly painted. Apricot walls, white woodwork, a blue front door with bits of black ironwork. All rather wasted, since it looked across the humpy cobblestones to nothing more than a drab line of lock-up garages.
Neale himself opened the door and held it on the chain.
"I'm Major Maxim from Downing Street."
Sharp blue eyes looked him up and down. "Can I see your ID, please, Major?"
The Wing-Commander was in his late fifties, a solid but fit-looking man with a good head of very clean white hair. His face was square and covered with deep creases, as if made from expensive leather. He wore a polo-necked cashmere sweater and checked slacks.
He looked carefully at Maxim's identity card and let him into the little dark hallway, double-locked the door, then led the way through to a living-room made from two small rooms opened right through.