The Crocus List

by Gavin Lyall

  "Sir Roderick"-he looked up at the chairman-"we had three inspectors covering that area, by which I mean the Deanery, the Revestry and the door at the west end of the North Cloister. Two are in their thirties, one just forty: we prefer to have the younger men on these security jobs. None of them reports having seen or spoken to Major Maxim between the shooting in the Abbey and the explosion. I spoke to them all myself. Oh, none of them has a moustache, either."

  Emotions swept through Maxim as quick as heartbeats: disbelief, annoyance, apprehension and then, to his ownsurprise, relief. He said: "You've got a fake copper, then. And a conspiracy. Just put on a uniform and walk in carrying a clip-board."

  "Was he carrying a clip-board?" That was the dry, disinterested voice of the D-G from five, at the far end of the table.

  "Yes, sir, he was. I remember now."

  "You remember now. Good." The D-G took up the questioning. "And what did this man, thisfake copper, actually do?"

  "Well, he… didn't really do anything."

  "Did he call a warning to the Person X?"

  "No, sir."

  "Or try to misdirect you away from him?"

  "Well, there wasn't much point… No."

  "Or try to impede you in any way?"

  "No."

  "You wouldn't say that this/afeecopper, whom you saw for one second-approximately-was of much constructive help to any conspiracy, then?" The D-G was speaking to a distant corner of the ceiling and sounded very bored.

  "No, sir."

  I blew it, Maxim thought.

  11

  "Yes, on the whole, it would appear that you did," George said equably. "A phoney copperis a new dimension… the trouble is, it rather forces an issue that we'd all been hoping to avoid. It proves either that there was a conspiracy, or that you're a fantasist. Not much middle ground for us to do any deals over, now."

  "If we could find the copper…"

  "Quite. But don't expect any help from the police if they don't believe he exists-and they'd rather hedidn't exist, seeing what he proves about their security."

  "How's the Army going to come out of it now?"

  "I shall need to think about that… They may see the easiest way as taking some responsibility for the security aspect…"

  "Would it help if I resigned my commission right now?"

  "Dear me, no. It would be the height of presumption for the sacrificial lamb to ruin the ceremony by committing suicide first, and you would probably, and rightly, find yourself reincarnated in the Royal Air Force. Anyway, why choose self-pity when there's still the option of alcoholic beverages? Have another?"

  "Thanks. I think I will."

  "You will? You must be in a bad way." George collected the glasses and got up. "Don't get carried away by the atmosphere in here and do the Decent Thing. You know how I hate drinking alone."

  Maxim smiled wanly. Boodle's was just one of he didn't know how many clubs, institutions and associations George belonged to-probably George didn't know himself-and that early in the evening they had the big drawing-room to themselves. With its tall ceiling, sombercolours and the undergrowth of dark leather Chesterfields, armchairs and small tables, it could well have been the anteroom of a well-born regiment at the turn of the century. Or perhaps a film producer's idea of one, and in such films somebody always placed a loaded revolver in the table drawer and left the disgraced officer alone…

  There was a final edition of the Standard in the rack: the President had flown direct to Paris from Lakenheath air base, but the front page picture was the drawing of Person X that Maxim had helped a police artist construct. Releasing that showed that other lines of inquiry had failed, and Maxim wasn't too sure even he would recognise the man from the drawing. It was just a squarish, middle-aged face with thinning hair and no pronounced features. Moreover, it looked somehow coarser than his brief memory, and he hadn't been able to explain just how. He suspected the artist put a hint of criminality into all his faces; it would be difficult not to, after so many years at it.

  George who usually managed to be a few hours ahead of the public-although never as far ahead as Sprague-had seen the picture already. "Aged between forty-five and sixty (extraordinary they can't do better than that), probably sedentary life, appendicitis scar, non-smoker… The trouble is, that anybody who thinks 'That looks like old Fred' isn't going to think of old Fred as shooting people in the Abbey. We're not dealing with the criminal class. Maybe in a month or two they'll connect it up with some Missing Persons report, but… By the way, I saw the report on the rifle. It hadn't jammed, just got a dud round up the spout. So he could've cleared it just by working the action: instead, he dropped it and ran. Any comment?"

  Maxim considered. "He'd fired three aimed shots already, and it would take him a couple of seconds to work the action and get his aim back… We saw on television how people were ducking. No, I should think he'd lost his chance by then."

  "So he behaved quite reasonably in running?"

  "Probably." Maxim squinted at George, wary about being invited into yet more speculation.

  "The primer in the cartridge had fired, the main charge hadn't. Does that tell us anything?"

  "It happens. If it was old ammunition and hadn't been stored properly…"

  "Itwas old ammunition, like the gun, like the grenade. Now let me ask you something: could you fix a cartridge so that that happened?"

  "Are you suggesting somebody sabotaged the ammunition?"

  "I'm asking you a straight question: how would you do it?"

  Maxim considered, cautiously. "The simplest way would be to pull the cartridge apart, take out the propellant, and fire the primer, then tap it with a hammer and nail. Then put it all together again."

  "Excellent! And the nail mark wouldn't show under the firing pin mark later. I hadn't thoughtofthat."Grinning with excitement, George took a large swallow of his drink. "So what you're telling me is that the gun could have been rigged to fire only three shots, then stop, by putting a dud cartridge fourth. And it would be near impossible to prove afterwards."

  "I'mtelling you?" Maxim gaped. "I'm not telling you a blind thing. All this is your bright idea."

  "But a good wheeze nonetheless."

  "Hold on. If I wanted to sabotage that shooting, I could have doctored the first three rounds. The first shot's the most important, it's going to be the best aimed, I mean notthe fourth…"

  "But suppose Person X had doctored it himself?-and the first shot had done all he'd really wanted to do?-kill Paul Barling? Then a couple to give himself a margin, in case the first missed, which he fired off against a pillar near the President, then the gun jams on cue and he runs. How about that?"

  The thought snapped into perfect focus in Maxim's mind. "With the President and everybody around, nobody would think of Barling as the target. They assume it's a mistake and there's no political blowback. Yes, I like that."

  Now George was looking astonished. "You do, do you? It's nice to be agreed with, but wasn't that a little fast for a simple soldier?"

  Maximsmiled. "It was something an instructor up at the Fort was talking about: arranging assassinations to look accidental. No reprisals."

  "You'd say it was a widely accepted practice, then?"

  "In a not-very-wide circle, yes. But why Barling? He wasn't very important, was he?"

  "That could be why; if it were somebody more important there'd be bound to be suspicions it was intended. But somebody had to be killed to prove how callous the Bravoes are-if the whole thing was planned to smear the KGB. Sprague told me about something last night, another thing that could be a smear on the Bravoes. He assumed Charlie's Indians were behind it, but… I stayed up thinking, then did a little paperwork today."

  "Are you saying the Abbey was just part of a pattern?"

  "It might be, just might-and that does make your fake copper more real. Less likely to be a one-man affair… but I'm not really an expert on these things, and I don't think you are, either. And we'll have to move can
ny on this, with the Steering Committee resolutely steering in the opposite direction… This instructor at the Fort: was he military or civilian?"

  "Civilian, and a she. Miss Tuckey, Dorothy Tuckey."

  "Ah yes." George had, of course, heard of her.

  12

  The reception at the American Ambassador's residence had been planned as a cheery thank-you for making the President's visit so smooth and uneventful. It was now doomed to be as cheery as watching a chess match in the rain. Probably like George himself, most of the guests had first decided to stay away, then decided that would look bad, and finally that perhaps things would seem brighter after the fifth drink. Certainly this theory was being given every chance.

  George grabbed the one full glass off a tray and looked round for cover. In one corner there was a television personality wearing a television personality shirt, just in case you couldn't place the face; another corner was full of political lords, faded or bloated according to their own tastes. Then, thankfully, he saw Scott-Scobie of the Foreign Office wedged on a sofa between an American songwriter and a woman in gold Lurexscales that turned her into a gilded lizard. Scott-Scobie caught George's eye and smiled desperately.

  "I told him," the songwriter was saying, "'Why are you putting the accents in the wrong places in my lyrics?' So he said, 'Okay, I'll change them.'Just like that."

  "He never did breathe right," the woman said.

  Scott-Scobie muttered an apology and heaved himself upright; he was mid-forties, plump and pink with curly dark hair and usually known as 'Swinging S-S', but there was no swing in him tonight. He drained his glass. "Welcome to the funeral of the Special Relationship."

  George looked around for a tray. "What're you drinking?"

  "Everything. And it doesn't seem to make a whit of difference. Have you ever noticed that?-colds and miseryseem to sop up alcohol, leaving you stone cold sober. Scientific fact. Why didn't I run away to Australia as a lad?"

  "You wouldn't have liked it: it's got Australians in it."

  "Into each life some Australians must fall. Anyway, they'll probably be the only allies we've got by the end of the year, being too far away to have heard of Berlin."

  The reminder settled on George like a wet overcoat. "Did they go ahead with the ODCommittee then?"

  "They did," Scott-Scobie said grimly. "We're going to talk to the Russians. Unilaterally."

  "Lord." George made a iwo-handed grab at a scurrying tray. "I thought they might have postponed it, with Barling not yet in his grave…"

  "He wasn't part of the ODCommittee." Scott-Scobie gulped and then peered into his glass to see what he was gulping. "And do please remember I've said nothing."

  "What's the next move?"

  "My lips are sealed. If they weren't, I might tell you that a Russian delegation will arrive here disguised as caviare salesmen to work out the preliminaries, then there'll be some sort of crash conference in Helsinki or Vienna. My side's been pleading to go slow, bury it in the Geneva talks-damn it, the Russians will play along. They've got half of what they want just by an agreement to talk. Splits us off from"-he flapped a loose hand at the room, the Americans, the French, the West German Minister-Counsellor explaining British education to a Dutch Admiral-"all of them. But the PM wants some signed paper to wave at the House and prove he's got a diplomatic breakthrough even if it only says Peace In Our Time in Russkie. Oh well, maybe somebody'll assassinate the delegation when it gets here."

  "Scottie, don'tsay such things."

  "No, I suppose it wouldn't be for the best. So you'd better see to it that nothing happens."

  "Security details are not my province," George protested, recalling just how much, together with Culliman, he had made it his province. But my God, he thought, if Barling really had been the target, could the visiting Russians be next? He shuddered.

  There was a sudden hush in the big, crowded room. The Ambassador and his wife had come in from receiving guests in the hall and the crowd was parting in front of them as for Royalty-although mainly because nobody wanted to talk to him. However resolutely one chattered of the weather and education, the sole topic of the evening was written in haggard lines down the Ambassador's pale face.

  Then two elderly women stepped bravely forward -American, from the determination to look their best at any age which set them so far apart from the comfortable dowdiness of the British wives. The crowd relaxed into babble again, but the reshuffle had revealed their corner to James Ferrebee, who was broad-shouldering his way towards them. George didn't much want to meet Ferrebee again so soon.

  But Scott-Scobie had decided that the only way to be rid of his misery was to pass it on. "Evening, James. We were just discussing whether or not to let Persons Unknown bump off your visiting Russkies. Got them all flight-planned and booked into the best haunts of capitalism?"

  Ferrebee glowered down at them. "We were rather hoping that the visit could be handled without help from the cocktail party circuit. And that Mo D won't be taking precautions against an American strike on London whilst they're here."

  George hunched his shoulders and mumbled into his glass. '

  "And the Primate's trip?" Scott-Scobie went on cheerily. "That's all lined up?"

  "The what?" George asked.

  "Don't you read your Church Times'?"

  "Of course I don't."

  "You should, George, you should. Your spiritual life must be sadly empty if you don't know who's just been appointed vicar of Sodbury-in-the-Wold. Nor, apparently, that the Archbishop of Canterbury has a long-standing commitment to preach in Berlin on All Saints' Day. He speaks good German, doesn't he, Jim?"

  Ferrebee nodded. "He'll be addressing the Berlin Senate, too."

  "Splendid. And knowing the old boy's views, I wouldn't be surprised if he slipped in a few words about sticking together on their fair city. A ray of hope yet."

  "It'll doubtless be widely reported in the Church Times," George grumped.

  "It'll get splashed in the Berlin papers," Ferrebee said tartly. "Ours will have to carry something."

  "And in Pravda," Scott-Scobie added. "They take our church leaders seriously. They spread that nasty story about the Arch B and choirboys."

  George looked from one to other of them. "Does your Minister approve of this?"

  "Good Lord, no," Scott-Scobie grinned. "Our Master thinks it's a quite frightful idea. But we're doing what we can: James here is going over with him. Unofficially, of course-he's taking a few days' leave-but we can still hope that our Jim's well-known diplomatic talents will persuade the Arch B to tone down his remarks a little."

  If Ferrebee had any outstanding talent for diplomacy, he had kept it hidden from George-and, to judge by his career, from the Foreign Office itself. But now even he was wearing a bleak smile to match Scott-Scobie's grin.

  George shrugged. "Well, if your Minister really thinks that…"

  "Who knows what our Minister thinks? More to the point, he hasn't been in the job long enough to know who half of us are, let alone whatwe might think. He's just happy that one of his loyal servants will be on hand. "

  Ferrebee said: "I was going anyway. I have an old friend who's chief pilot for Brentwood Systems; they run a Jetstream and think it would be good public relations to fly the Archbishop over in something like comfort. With his arthritis he can't really take ordinary airline seating."

  "Who can?" Scott-Scobie asked. "Those European flights have become positively conjugal. I must say I wouldn't mind you laying on a private plane for me one of these days, James."

  "I think I might be well into retirement before you develop arthritis, let alone any religious convictions." Ferrebee's voice had become austere.

  "Well, there you have it, George. Arch B denounces Berlinbetrayal, Foreign Sec Sees The Light, reconvenes the ODCommittee for prayer meeting and reversal of its decision. Hallelujah, brothers, hallelu/a/i."

  Ferrebee was looking down at Scott-Scobie as if he were a blocked lavatory. "There was a time when
a statement by the Primate of All England on the morality of a given foreign policy was, had to be, taken seriously."

  "There was a time," Scott-Scobie said, suddenly morose, "when the word of an Englishman meant something. It meant that, no matter what he'd said, he'd act in his own best interests. It doesn't even mean that, now. Berlin today, Sodbury-in-the-Wold tomorrow. I think I'll become a drunk like George."

  George couldn't even summon up the spirit to feel offended.

  13

  Old pilots, ones who first trained on slow propeller-engined aircraft, cannot watch the countryside flowing past a train or car window without subconsciously evaluating fields for an emergency landing: length, slope, obstructions on approach, surface… It is much the same for career soldiers: to Maxim, the low steep Cotswold hills with their clumps of woodland were close-combat country, difficult for tanks and air reconnaissance, needing tight control to attack. It reminded him of the north bank of the Marne, around Château Thierry and Belleau Wood where the German advance of 1918 had been fought to a halt and the American Marines had left one of the most impressive cemeteries of the war. Battles in such countryside would always leave impressive cemeteries; you got too close to take prisoners.

  Miss Dorothy Tuckey's 'cottage'-an honorary title in the Cotswolds just as 'Colonel' is in Texas-sat in a web of low walls like roots of the building spreading above ground. Just across one wall were the trimmed yews and squat tower of a church, so perhaps it had originally been built for the verger. Like the village beyond and everything they had passed for the last ten miles, it was made of local limestone, grey-yellow as if the bleak sky had seeped into the stone the moment it had been cut from the earth. Indeed, given the mossy sway-backed roof and baize-green lawns, the sky was the only thing that saved the cottage from looking as charming as a kitten in a basket; George had pronounced the gusty showers as "typical Cotswold weather" before they had cleared London.