The Conduct of Major Maxim

by Gavin Lyall

  "He missed with some," Maxim said, "but he said he stopped shooting because he knew he'd made a head shot. And we know Hochhauserwasshotmthe head."

  "She was still a lot closer and shooting as well. Perhaps he didn't shoot at all, got cold feet."

  "He says he fired. I believe him."

  "Harry," George said gently, "I am doing my humble best to make your little chum outnot to be a murderer. Why does this charitable task incur your displeasure'"

  "He believes he killed, at least helped kill, Hochhauser,"Maxim said doggedly. "If somebody else starts believing it, we could have a problem "

  For a time, George said nothing, just went on taking deliberate steps as if pacing out the length of Numberid's lawn. It was a morning of bright nursery colours, the blue-and-white sky, the vivid green grass, the simple reds and yellows of the flowerbeds. All rather childish, and childishly secret behind the high wall that shut out all but a faint buzz of noise from the city beyond. Although there were more than fifty windows in the back of Downing Street and the Cabinet Office, they were all shut, evenmthat weather, politely unseeing and unhearmg With the garden just to George and himself, Maxim felt both cosy and superior, a part of that higher world behind the windows that knew but never, never told. Then he wondered if that was just how George wanted him to feel, and began to feel wary instead.

  "Do you think the police are using this as a holdback?" George asked at last. It was normal to keep one piece of evidence, something only the murderer would know, secret from the newspapers. It helped weed out crank confessions, it could lull the real killer into thinking the police had missed it.

  "I don't know…" Maxim said slowly. "It seems a rather vital thing to sit on… Quite possibly they just haven't found all the spent bullets, or just haven't bothered with comparison tests. A.38 wouldn't normally staym abody unless it hits bone. And you can have the best pathologist in the world, but he isn't the one who gets down on his hands and knees among the sweetie papers and dogshit, that's done by the local copper. In the end, your lab reports are only as good as what he turns up."

  George was realising just how many Army officers must have become familiar with the dreary rituals of murder since the Northern Ireland troubles began.

  "Yes," he said, "and from their point of view, they have a pair of corpses who have indisputably been shooting eachother, giving them a murder – two murders – that happened and were solved in the same moment. It sounds like a detective's dream. If they had suspicions of a departed party of the third part, they'd be strongly tempted to keep quiet about him unless they looked like catching him. And as far as we know, there isn't anything to connect Blagg with Bad Schwarzendorn?"

  "I can't think of anything His battalion's at Soltau and that's a hundred miles away Even if they were looking for a British soldier there's thousands far closer."

  "Good." George beamed, bright as the morning again. They had reached a slatted bench placed so that you could sit and stare at the flowerbeds under the wire-topped wall. George rested a foot on the bench and used Maxim's report to swat dust off his shoe.

  Sothat's how it is, Maxim thought sadly. He tried one more time. "We might be forgetting something: Mrs Howard. She had a fake identity. The police are bound to follow that up -"

  "Some distance, only some. Forged papers aren't unheard of in Germany."

  "Perhaps. But she wasn't hiding her face: she was incafésand so on, she got that car from somewhere, and now her picture's in the papers. If she's passing as a German she most likelyis a German, and somebody could easily recognise her."

  George waved the report in a loose gesture. "She was obviously something of a professional. She must have known the risks involved. "

  "She wasn't counting on ending up on a shelf in the deep freeze."

  "How charmingly you put these things."

  "And shewas working for Six -"

  "She only said she was," George said quickly.

  "She was carrying 3,750Deutschmarksof somebody's money. And she knew where to find Blagg, where his battalion was."

  "You can read where battalions aremthe papers. Those things aren't secret. But Six uses a lot of part-timers, they have to. And what they do with the other part of their time… some of them are most certainly not the type one would want to take home for tea with mummy "

  Maxim walked stiffly around the bench at slow-march tempo. "I grant you she didn't have to get Blagg's address from Six. And she lied about dealing through Captain Fair-brother-"

  "Unless Blagg did. Invented that to justify himself "

  Maxim halted, staring at his feet "Is there any way, anybody, you can ask? Or I can? Find out if she really.?"

  George was all sympathy and understanding "Harry, you must bearinmind that – assuming for the moment that The Firm actually was involved – the whole thing represents a quite monumental cock-up. There would have been one mad rush to bury the file deeper than did ever plummet sound, and a general issue of blank stares and short memories. And as an organisation they are actually designed, in large part, to do just that sort of thing So then what could we offer?-that we heard the story from a deserter who claims also to be a murderer? We have quite enough trouble with the creepiest and crawliest of Her Majesty's servants already The Headmaster is vulnerable enough without me suggesting we go about believing comic-book stories – and that has nothing to do with whether or not the story happens to be true "

  He remembered the report and offered it. "A very sound piece of work. Thank you. Will you burn it or shall PAnd any notes, of course."

  "You do it. What do I tell Blagg'"

  "You get word to him – don't tell him, get word to him -that the only course is for him to turn himself in And if he doesn't mention Bad Schwarzendorn, nobody else will "Two weeks AWOL is going to hurt. He'll lose his stripes and won't get them back for a year Or more."

  "I'm honestly sorry about that, but the involvement of Number 10with a deserter is very much more a threat to our peace of mind than any happening in High Germany. If you recall, you came here because the Headmaster wanted somebody to help stave off security scandals. At present, the only connection with this one is through you "

  Maxim took a slow breath and nodded.

  "And tell-no, let Blagg know-that he can hang onto the rest of the money. No questions will be asked."

  "Are you sure it'll be enough7" Maxim asked in a blank tone.

  "To make up for the damage to his career' No, I'm sure it won't I'm also sure I'm putting the Headmaster's interests ahead of anybody else's That's why you and I are here.

  Suddenly brisk, he bounded away up the steps onto the terrace and in through the french windows of the Cabinet Room, away from the sunlight.

  Maxim went out early for lunch and called Jim Caswell from a box outside the Treasury building. Blagg wasn't there. Caswell had him doing odd jobs around the garage to keep him from brooding, and he'd gone out on his motorbike to try and fix a non-starting car.

  "His motorbike'" Maxim asked wanly "I didn't know he'd got that with him."

  "It isn't really his. He left his own with a mate in Rotherhithe when he went to Germany, he was going to take it over later When he came back, he borrowed the mate's bike. So the number wouldn't give him away."

  "Umm." That made a sort of sense. "When can I get hold of him?"

  "I wouldn't think he'll be back until after lunch. But I can tell him the bad news."

  There must have been something in Maxim's tone that had given it away. "I'd rather tell him myself. But it could be worse nobody seems to think he's connected with you-know-what. If we can dream up some girlfriend trouble for him and get him to turn himselfinover here. Does he have a real girlfriend, d'you know?"

  "Nobody he's mentioned Goes in for one-night stands, I should think He doesn't want to be involved with anything but the Army. Stupid sod." It was said gently. "So they wouldn't play?"

  "You know who we're dealing with -trying to deal with."

  "Bastards."


  "Yes I'll call this afternoon."

  Maxim putthe phone down and pushed out of the sweaty box. An American couple pounced at the phone. As the woman started dialling, the man said "Hey, excuse me, sir, but could you settle something for us? Big Ben's the bell, right? – not the tower?" The woman stopped dialling.

  "That's right. The bell."

  The woman stared evenly at Maxim. "Sure. Now let's ask a woman."

  He walked across the road and back up the other side, feeling itchy and irritated. He had never spent a summerincentral London before, now he saw how much it became Us and Them country. There wasn't much grandeur or elegance in Whitehall to start with, but the way these people drifted aimlessly aroundand just peered at it made the whole shebang seem like a second-hand clothes shop. And turned his own job into selling worn pairs of trousers that didn't fit. He could see why George, after all these years, went psychotic just at the mention of Tourists.

  My God, he thought no wonder the world hates the British. We've done four centuries ofpeering all over the world, fingering people's lives and hoping for a bargain. The sins of Drake, Raleigh and Thomas Cook had finally come home to roost on Major H RMaxim. In a mood of gloomy cowardice he went and lunched with his own kind at the Greasy Spoon in the basement of the Ministry of Defence.

  That afternoon George had to nurse Tired Tim through Question Time, so he sent Maxim to report back on a briefing being held at the American embassy. The speaker was a visiting CIA analyst who believed he had detected a shiftinfocus of Moscow's short-term goals as a result of the shake-out in East Germany. It was a good year for detecting goals shifting their short-term focus, certainly nobody was spotting revisions in interim stragetic themes any longer, at least not if they wanted to keep on flying the Atlantic first class. Maxim sat quietly through the briefing and an hour of questions afterwards, then stayed on for a drink with a new friend from the Army attache's office. He came out at five o'clock with a frost-bitten hand as evidence that he was]ust a non-transatlantic yokel who didn't know enough to use a paper napkin to hold a glass of deep-frozen bourbon. Then it took a quarter of an hour to find an empty phone box and call Caswell.

  George was still at the House; they met below the statue of Northcote in the crowded, echoing Central Lobby. Maxim said flatly: "Blagg's gone. Run away."

  "Do you know where?"

  "No, except probably Rotherhithe way. He borrowed a motorbikeoffa matethere, and the mate seems to have called him in the country just after lunch and left a message asking him to call back, and he must have done that and then packed his bag and gone. Just a note saying thank you for having me and leaving a few quid. "

  "Umm." George frowned down at the stone floor, letting Members and their constituents find their own ways round him. "Rotherhithe's the one place the police will be looking for him. You've no idea who this friend is?"

  "His name was Jack. He'd lent Blagg his motorbike, but I don't have the number." Jim Caswell had been furious with himself for not noting that. He could describe the bike, as any good garage man should, but the number…

  "Well, then…" George waved his usual handful of papers. "I suppose that endeth the last lesson. We just hope that when he gets picked up he's got enough sense to plead guilty and forget any names and details."

  "I'd still have liked…" But he wasn't quite sure what, by now.

  "Does you credit. But this is one time to imitate the action of the clam and hope that the chowder will pass us by."

  "I suppose so. "

  George put on his stern-but-kindly look. "Harry – don't do anything romantic. We'd miss you."

  Chapter 7

  The next morning, Maxim came into Number 10fizzing with the nauseating good humour of a breakfast cereal advertisement. He gave George a perfectly typed report of the CIA briefing, cross-referenced to recent papers and articles on the subject. He passed on some hot gossip about tactical nuclear command picked up from the Army attache's man, and then he started retelling what Chris had said on the phone about how well he'd done in the house cricket match.

  George was suspicious of enthusiasm, particularly in the mornings, but a second-hand description of a prep school cricket match broke his nerve completely. The Blagg affair seemed to have blown over, he had Tired Tim's performance at tomorrow's Cabinet and another Question Time to worry about, so he readily agreed to Maxim taking the afternoon off to attend a lecture at the Royal United Services Institute. After all, he told himself, Maxim wasn't fool enough to go wandering around Rotherhithe with no better lead than a man called 'Jack'. If he'd bent his distracted mind to it, he might have realised there were one or two other little clues, but the very idea of tramping the streets asking questions of strangers was so far outside George's experience that he couldn't imagine anybody he knew doing it anyway.

  Rotherhithe's whole history had been the Thames, but now the river was hidden behind clumps of derelict warehouses and shaky fences that sealed off the abandoned dock basins. Maxim had never realised just how complete the closure of theup-riverdocks had been, nor how total its effect on the neighbourhood. This wasn't the tough, rowdy waterfront, but a district left dazed, uncertain and incomplete. The buildings didn't seem to fit; a run-down Victorian terrace, a row ofneat little dolls' houses with varnished doors and gardens only big enough to park a motorbike, then a low block of modern flats, already cracked, with overgrown lawns and skeins of washing. There were gaps where houses had been torn down, several filled with second-hand cars plastered with garish Bargain Of The Week stickers.

  Only the pubs remembered the sea: the Lord Nelson, the Warrior, the Jolly Caulkers, the Albion. The rest was churning cement lorries that scattered a fine dust in the sunlight, making Maxim hawk and spit every few minutes.

  He tried the first motorcycle shop he came to He was looking for Ronnie Blagg, chap he'd known in the Army. He rode a Honda 4Oo N but a friend said he'd been around on a silver Yamaha XS5OO, two years old.

  "He talked about coming back to Rotherhithe on his leaves," Maxim went on, "but he doesn't have an address here. He was an orphan, the Council brought him up The proprietor looked both suspicious and blank. "What did you want him for?"

  "I thought if he was out of the Army now, he might be looking for a job."

  "You come down herejust to offer him ajob?"

  "I'd go a lot further to find a man I know's been properly trained and I can trust to work by himself. Some of the kids you get these days – well, you must know it yourself "

  The proprietor, who was about forty, nodded sympathetically. His suspicions were gone, but he still didn't know Ronnie Blagg. Maxim left his home phone number and the name Fairbrother Blagg would certainly want to speak tohim, no matter what he felt about Maxim.

  It was the same at the second shop Of course, Blagg didn't have to have bought his Honda in Rotherhithe; more likely he'd got it in Hereford during his three years with the SAS. And friend Jack might have got the Yamaha elsewhere, too. But he plodded on At the third shop he got a nibble.

  There were two of them, and they could have been father and son The younger one said' "I think I know those bikes. The Honda's blue, is that right?"

  Maxim didn't know.

  "I remember the bloke He's been riding those two the last month or so. He's one of those that comes around Saturdays, mst for a natter with the other bikers and buy something small. Tack something But that other bloke, Blagg, I don't know him."

  The father figure was leaning on one end of the counter patiently poking at a lump of electronics. He said quietly "The name rings a bell. Are you a friend of his?"

  Maxim went into his act. At the end, he remembered something else: "He was a bit of a boxer, at one time."

  "That's it," the father said, "That's where I heard it. I remember Billy talking about him. It was before your time," he said to the young man. "He must have gone in the Army nearly ten years ago. I remember Billy thought he could've been a contender "Billy?"

  "Billy Dann. He runs the gym
up at the Lord Howe. He manages Ranee Reynolds; he's a contender But you don't follow the fights'"

  "I've been abroad too much. Will Mr Dannbe there now?"

  "Should be " They gave him directions and he left his real name this time, just in case Jack whoever came by The Lord Howe stood on a wide street corner, a tall, confident square of red brick and ornate stonework from the great days of Victorian sin and gm. Now almost alonemthe afternoon sunlight among the boarded-up houses and second-hand car lots, it looked as wicked as a kitten stealing cream.

  The dim corridor at the top of the stairs smelt of embrocation and shook slightly with the distant rhythms of somebody skipping and the rattle of an overhead punchball Maxim hesitated, then walked towards the noise. He was almost there when a door opened behind him and a chunky man aged fifty-something bustled out and gave him a hard look.

  "Is Mr Dannabout?" Maxim asked politely " 'She expectm' you?"

  "No, it's about -"

  Why'nt you give'ima ring, then?" He pushed past, his belly bulging his thin tee-shirt. "He's busy."

  "It's about a boy he trained once. Ronnie Blagg."

  "Never 'eard've'im" He had his hand on the gymnasium doorknob "Next time," Maxim suggested, "pause a moment before you say that. It'll sound much more convincing."

  The man turned slowly around.

  Maxim said. "I'm not the Military Police." He already knew he couldn't be mistaken for the ordinary police, no plamclothes detective would be fool enough to be the only person wearing a dark suit in Rotherhithe that warm afternoon He held out his ID card.

  The man peered at it "Woddaya want, then?"

  "A word with Mr Dann. You've already told me I've come to the right place, but I don't necessarily have to tell anybody else – if I can get a word with Mr Dann. Would you ask him?"

  The man looked very suspicious, then hurried through the door, letting out a brief draught of light and noise. Maxim waited. A boy of around eighteen clattered up the stairs carrying a sports bag labelled LONSDALE, smiled uncertainly at Maxim, and went into a side room.