by Gavin Lyall
They all shook their heads, No Thanks, and the man from the Foreign Office said to Maxim: "Anybody would think the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg had never heard of coffee for itself. Anyway, at four in the afternoon…"
He was about Maxim's own age, and his name was Stephen Quinton. He had a round, freshly-washed face, very fine blond hair, and was along, Maxim guessed, to see that an amateur like Tyler didn't make a fool of himself in what were indisputedly Foreign Parts, never mind any Lйgion d'honneur or nonsense like that.
"Have you ever been in Luxembourg?" Quinton asked.
"No, never."
"It's an odd place, really…"
"Does it give you vertigo?"
"No. No, I wouldn't say that;" Quinton had a permanently puzzled expression, as if he were always about to ask somebody to say that again but more slowly. "Why do you ask?"
"Just something a friend said."
"Oh. I don't think you'll find that…" He chattered on, perhaps nervously, as the Dominie slanted downwards.
The little aeroplane stopped less than halfway down the vast runway that was itself a far greater contribution to NATO than Luxembourg's 630-man army. If Der Tag ever dawned, this was one of the 'mobilisation bases', built to take the biggest American transport aircraft that would flock in with reinforcements – unless a Russian missile or air strike had got here first, of course. Meanwhile, it was the tidiest airport Maxim had ever seen: the grass was cropped to the bone and the runway edges trimmed as neatly as any royal garden.
There was a brief unceremonial ceremony behind the cargo sheds, out of sight of the main terminal, then they were hustled into two hired Mercedes and skimmed off towards the city.
Maxim shared a car with the British ambassador, Tyler and a stolid middle-aged captain with careful eyes who came from the Sыretй Publique.
"Has there been any reaction here, yet?" Maxim asked.
"There was a small demonstration outside the embassy a couple of days ago," the ambassador said. "And I believe today…" he nodded at the captain.
A shrug. "A few protestors with notices were at the main gate of the airport. Nothing of importance." Speaking English, he had a dull flat voice like a government document.
"Do they know where the talks will be?"
"They will guess. Senningen is the only place. It is not the Luxembourgeoise to worry about, it is the terrorists from the outside. We have changed the hotels, but…" Another shrug.
"Thank you," Tyler said firmly, staring at Maxim.
For real secrecy they should all have arrived in darkness, to hide the national markings on their aircraft; they should have stayed at some easily defended, unexpected, country house; they should have travelled – if at all – using all sorts of decoy cars and helicopters. But as George had said, to try and paint back on all the secrecy that had been stripped off would make the talks seem even more sinister. Whatever Moscow really felt, Washington was showing alarm and despondency. Now they could only hope for security and forget secrecy.
The hotel was elderly and comfortable without trying to be grand. But on the short ride in from the airport, Maxim had guessed that Luxembourg liked things tidy rather than magnificent.
The men shared a suite of three rooms – Mrs West was just down the corridor – a drawing-room bracketed by two bedrooms so that any visitor had to come into the drawing-room first. Tyler took one bedroom, Maxim and Quinton the other, not very enthusiastically. For the moment, the Sыretй captain kept watch.
Quinton got even less enthusiastic when Maxim took off his jacket.
"Great Heavens, man, have you been wearing that thing… I mean on the plane and with the ambassador!"
"Yes." Maxim wriggled his shoulders inside the wide straps of the shoulder holster. "And I shall be wearing it all the time I'm with Professor Tyler."
"Who told you that you could?"
"Number 10."
That was the Word of Power. "Well, I just hope you know what you're doing. I didn't know you'd got the beastly thing at all."
"You're not supposed to notice. D'you want the bathroom first?"
"No, go ahead…" Quinton sat on the edge of the bed, shaking his head in little shivery movements. And he didn't even know he'd missed Maxim shifting the gun to his raincoat pocket so that he could get off the aeroplane with a sensibly buttoned-up coat. Or changing it back in the hotel lift.
It wasn't his fault. You see what you expect to see, and ninety-nine per cent of the world doesn't expect to meet people carrying concealed weapons. The one per cent constitute the problem.
31
That evening there was a buffet supper, an informal first meeting of the delegations, at another hotel across in the old town, near the station.
Given time to look around, Maxim saw, as they ran out on a long bridge over one of the city's sheer-sided ravines, just what George meant about vertigo. Down there, far down, was a gentle river in formal gardens and flanked by-a sprawling village, its lights winking mistily in the blue dusk. But above, the stolid palaces and offices stared at each other across the quarter-mile canyon as if it simply wasn't there, something they would rather not see and certainly not talk about, like a nasty birthmark.
The supper was quiet, restrained. Tyler and the French delegate knew each other, but from what Maxim could hear, they stayed away from the topic of the talks. He spent most of the time talking jigsaw German and English to a Luftwaffe colonel who was dogsbodying the German main delegate. At ten o'clock, the party began to melt away.
They had come in one car – Mrs West had either not been invited or ducked out – and as they reached it, Tyler said: "You go ahead. I'm going to walk for a bit."
"For God's sake," Maxim said.
"I'll be all right."
"I have to make sure of that."
"What's happening?" Quinton demanded. "You can't wander off around here, Professor."
"Just getting a little night air," Tyler said soothingly. He headed off deliberately in the opposite direction to the parked car.
The Sыretй captain and Maxim swapped looks, then Maxim hurried after Tyler.
"You don't have to wet-nurse me day and night, you know, Harry."
"I'm hired to be around."
"Fine. I'll show you some of the sights."
Five minutes later, Maxim saw his first 'sight'. It was a basement in a side road, near the station, and if it wasn't a small room it was too small for the quadrophonic barrage of music battering them from the speakers. Most of the room was dim and vague, lit with candles in wax-dribbled bottles on the small tables. A disc jockey sat at a turntable booth at one side of a tiny stage, lit by a single spot. A few couples danced jerkily in front of him.
They sat down at a table near the back wall, and Maxim stared at Tyler through the gloom. Was this what professors dreamt of behind the Tudor brick walls? It might have seemed exotically wicked to somebody who'd just sailed a yacht single-handed around the world, but to anybody else it was a simple trap for tourists, fleas and fire.
A waiter with LA BOOGIE printed on his T-shirt weaved across, lit their candle and spotted their nationality immediately.
"Good evening, gentlemen," he shouted against the music. "What may I bring you?"
"Harry?" Tyler asked.
"A beer."
"No beer. Sorry." The waiter's voice hardened.
"Scotch, then."
"I don't think so," Tyler said. "Not in here." He smiled at the waiter and then let go a fluent, nicely cadenced speech in French. The waiter stiffened and his eyes glinted wider in the candle-light. After a few seconds he was nodding, then suggesting, finally agreeing happily. He wiggled away again.
"They do quite a nice local wine," Tyler said. "And even in places like this, they're proud enough to serve it properly. I hope all this-" he waved his hand "-doesn't shock you?"
"Only the price. I've been seventeen years in the Army. Places like this follow you around like flies."
Tyler winced slightly in the dim light.
"Of course, but whenever you've had enough, you can always head on home and I'll follow…"
"Professor, that's one thing-"
"John."
"Professor. I'm supposed to be your security. I can't walk out on you. We shouldn't even be here. If you were recognised-"
"I've kept my glasses on," Tyler said mildly. "I've never been photographed in them."
Maxim just stared. The waiter clanged the bucket with the wine in front of them and laid out three glasses.
A girl pulled a chair into the space between them and sat down, looking quickly from one to the other. "Vous кtes Anglais, n'est-ce pas? Merveilleux…" She wore a dark low-cut sweater, that was the first thing anybody would, or was supposed to, notice about her. She also had a narrow, curved face like a puffin, with big wings of blonde hair dragged back over her ears.
The waiter poured them three glasses of wine and hurried away. The music stopped, and the girl clapped loudly. "Et donc, c'est Pauline."
A tubby girl danced onto the stage, did a perfunctory striptease to a new record, then stood there managing to make her loose breasts rotate in opposite directions. A handful of customers who had never seen this before squealed with admiration.
In a far corner a single shadowy figure sat down, and stopped the waiter lighting his candle for him. "Professor," Maxim said.
"Harry, we're paying for it, we may as well watch it." Tyler lit a small fat cigar he had collected at the buffet. The girl beside him gave Maxim a cool look.
Another record, another stripper, this one thin and worn-looking. Halfway through her act she stopped and said something in German that got a laugh, then translated it quickly. "After her, I must look like a couple of aspirins on an ironing board."
The British and American customers howled. Maxim watched the figure in the corner, then Tyler, as he reached for and gripped the girl's hand.
He sipped his wine cautiously, but it was a pleasant cool Moselle type. The evening was heading for disaster. He could hear George's incredulous voice: 'You let him do what?'
The stripper finished, the disc jockey shouted: "Encore de boogie!" and started another record. One couple started dancing.
Maxim leaned across the table and said: "Professor, you have got to get out of here. I really mean that."
"Harry, I'm not taking orders from you. I'm sorry, but Fm no longer subject to Queen's Regulations and DCTs, and I'm not breaking any contract or the Official Secrets Acts. I'm a private citizen. You don't have to share my bed."
"Would there be room?"
"I certainly hope not."
They glared at each other through the wavering candlelight. Maxim tried for the last – the next-to-last – time. "Professor, just for the sake of the talks, of Number 10, everything – can't you sleep alone tonight?"
Tyler gazed vaguely upwards, breathing smoke. "I don't think so, thank you, Harry."
The girl was watching Tyler but spitting occasional glances at Maxim. She might not understand English, but she understood a threat to her night's income.
"What are you trying to prove?" Maxim demanded.
"I'm not trying to prove anything."
"Then probably it was just something you ate."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Something you ate. A long time ago."
There was a timeless silence, full only of quadrophonic boogie, the babble of the customers, the clattering-of the waiters.
Tyler let go of the girl's hand and started stroking his tie between two long fingers. His glasses were two pale flickering pools of expressionless light.
He is wondering if he can kill me, Maxim thought. And in this town, with its bridges and cliffs, there could be a chance. But perhaps he is also wondering if I am a burning fuse, to be nipped out, or the first crack of light through a door that will never be closed again.
Or maybe he is just realising that even if he lay with every woman in the world he would still wake with only one memory.
Tyler stood up and started dealing thousand-franc notes onto the table in front of the puzzled girl. The waiter came wiggling across…
In the corner, a figure lifted his hand to call his own waiter.
The Avenue de la Gare was wide, bright and empty. An occasional taxi zoomed past, but the rest of the time it was quiet enough for Tyler's footsteps to echo. Maxim wore soft-soled shoes.
"This doesn't seem to be a mugger's city," Tyler said, "and in any case – I do keep forgetting – you are, as our American friends say, 'carrying'. That always has connotations of pregnancy for me. What is it that you carry?"
"A lightweight Charter Arms revolver, five-shot 38." It was in his hand, in his coat pocket. Neither Tyler nor the cloakroom girl had seen that happen.
"May I ask, Major-" the 'Harry' was gone, now, "who else shares your knowledge?"
"George Harbinger, the PM, at least one man from the Cabinet Office and I wouldn't know who else, by now."
Tyler nodded and let put what might have been a sigh of relief. At least he needn't any longer be thinking of pushing Maxim off the bridge ahead.
"Yet they still let me come here?"
"As George said, Moscow rather forced their hands."
It must be a strange feeling when the emperor realises that he actually has no clothes on at all.
Tyler was silent until they reached the long curling bridge at the top of the road. As they paused at the cross-road, Maxim looked back to what might have been a figure stepping into a doorway, and a distant car with only its side lights on, crawling by the kerb.
"I have a feeling that it was you who somehow discovered this… happening, Major. Can you tell me…?"
Carefully and slowly, ready to be interrupted, Maxim said: "Bob Etheridge wrote a letter when he realised he was dying, that was in Canada, two years or more ago. He got the letter sent to Gerald Jackaman…"
"So Bob's dead? What happened to the letter?" Maxim speeded up. "We don't know. Etheridge died under a new name, but when we found out who he was, I went to see Colonel de Carette."
Tyler stopped dead. "You saw Henri? You can't tell me that Henri told you anything."
"He tried not to. But he didn't know I'd been in the desert as well. He's dying, by the way. Lung cancer."
Tyler gazed down the ravine. A diesel freight clanked and hooted mournfully across the railway arches, black against the stars a quarter of a mile down stream.
"I must go and see him. Major… would you say one other name, just for my peace of mind?"
"Soldat de la premiиre classe Gaston Lecat"
"Thank you, Major." Maxim might have been telling him the time. They began walking again.
After a time, Tyler said: "I made a balls of that patrol. But I still can't see what else… It went wrong step by step, you never knew where… What would you have done, Major?"
"Relied on my seventeen years of soldiering instead of your – what was it? – three, by then?" Tyler chuckled. "Yes. What else can you say?"
"I might have left Lecat at the village, to be captured."
"Yes, that of course. But I was afraid Henri might walk out on me. I don't now think he would have, but at the time I'd only known him for about a week. And perhaps I just wanted the poor boy along as evidence that we'd actually contacted the French. To salvage something… But when we were there in the sand – then what would you have done, Major?"
"I don't know. I'd have stayed out of the sand."
"I suppose so. Shall we try and get a taxi?"
As they climbed in, Maxim thought he saw a figure separate from the darkness of the bridge and move back towards a slow-moving car.
They got out across the square from the hotel, with a wide space of cafй chairs and tables and a concrete bandstand in between. A few spiky leafless trees stuck up into the cold lamplight. Tyler hesitated, restless and unassuaged, and sat down abruptly on one of the cafй chairs. His long legs sprawled spiderlike from his short thick coat.
"I suppose I ought to thank you for saving me fr
om that… woman tonight. She wasn't really Cleopatra, was she? But Major – how are you going to save me tomorrow? Really the situation hasn't changed. Number 10 isn't going to broadcast my wartime past, no matter what I do." He began to laugh quietly.
"Don't you want these talks to go well?" Maxim hadn't sat down.
"I do, yes, But-"
Maxim swung around, placed his hands on the table, and very nearly lost his temper. "Then stop worrying about Number 10 and start worrying about me, because I know you killed Mrs Jackaman and they don't. Not yet."
"I… now really, Major, I'd like to see you prove I was in Ireland when-" He stopped suddenly.
Maxim straightened up. "It's all right, that doesn't give you away, her death was in the papers. But you pretended you didn't know about Bob Etheridge dying, and his letter. She'd been trying to sell it to you, she told me that. And I saw her car blow: it wasn't explosive, just petrol. In a funny way, de Carette told me how you did it: the way you booby-trapped the Volkswagen before the village, with the spark-plug in a petrol tin."
Suddenly tired, he sat down across the little table from Tyler, just two men in the whole empty square, where in daytime, in better weather, perhaps men argued about the fate of nations, about life and death.
"You were the only person with a motive for killing her," he said wearily. "Moscow had no reason, whether or not they'd got the letter. They probably think it was me, and I'm not sure George doesn't, either, since I burnt down her houseboat afterwards. Yes, that was me. But she told me she'd turned you down; probably she just wanted you to suffer for her husband's death. So you killed her. "
"I would have had to be in Ireland."
"I was in Ireland, the KGB was in Ireland, you can walk in and out of Ireland as free as the wind. The Army wishes you couldn't, but you can. And she'd been in touch with you, so she'd most likely managed to give away where she lived. She was just clever enough to be really stupid. The whole idea of playing footsie with the KGB was stupid."
At the corner of the square a car crept in and stopped, without lights. It was a long way off, too far for a revolver with a five-inch sight radius. Maxim felt awkwardly exposed; the entire situation was one of those dreams of being on the street in your pyjamas.