Gavin Lyall - The Crocus List

Giles smiled resignedly. "Yes, dear, I suppose I'd better have."

"The more the merrier. " She went out.

"And, indeed, the safer," Giles added.

"Do you two usually swap reports?" Lomax asked.

"We represent the same national interest, the spirit of inter-service co-operation… The answer is No, we don't, it's most unusual, but so is this situation. Let me advise you, Major, that should you ever come into possession of exclusive information, always share it before reporting back, in the hope that others will report it at the same time. Otherwise, the Top Floor will say: 'If we're only getting this from Major Maxim, it means he's been on the booze and invented it to cover his expenses.' Don't you agree, Jerry?"

"The Army doesn't work quite like that," Lomax said tightly.

"All Top Floors work like that. Innumeroveritas: in numbers, no matter how contrived, there is truth. In a solo report there is onlyvino. Which is why dear Agnes wanted me to have a copy."

"Are you going to send a report yourself?"

"You know, I don't think I have a choice. Not now."

"Are you going to say you believe in this Crocus List thing?"

"That I find it… possible. And am making my own discreet inquiries, and so on and so forth. My Service isn't directly concerned with activities within the UK, but one doesn't want to find the bandwagon's done gone. "

Maxim asked: "Will the Ambassador waive Agnes's immunity?"

"Normally, he might well-spirit of Anglo-American harmony and all that. But a little discreet circulation of her report in the White House and Langley could have them imploring usnot to let her make statements to the Illinois police, let alone stand up in court. Jerry, if you're going to get the Major on a plane tonight…"

Lomax threw a fierce glance at Maxim and stood up. "London"-he glanced at his watch-"London's fast asleep by now." He strode out.

In the silence, Giles watched Maxim covertly, then coughed and said: "You wouldn't have a cigar on you, Major? I'd been counting on a French colleague with good Cuban connections… Never mind." He walked to the window and stared out through the black shapes ofthe trees, stirring in the wind against the lights of Massachusetts Avenue. "And, of course, I did know Arnold Tatham."

Maxim looked up. "How well?"

"I wonder if anybody knew Arnold well. You could spend an evening chatting to him, having a splendid time, and at the end he wouldn't have told a thing about himself."

"Did you think he might still be alive?"

"Oh, yes, the lack of a body-we're a suspicious lot. But we can't spend our limited budget investigating Charlie's Indians; they're supposed to tell us what they're doing, anyway. And if a man of Arnold's experience wanted to vanish, it would be quite a job…"

"Could he have set up and still be running the Crocus List?" Maxim asked bluntly.

Giles winced. "Anybody with Arnold's experience could have set it up, given the backing. But what sort of man would have kept it going after he'd been told to shut it down?-and after he'd left the Reservation?"

"The List wouldn't know it was shut down unless it was told: there wouldn't be a headline in The Times. All he'd need to do would be not tell them. Though," Maxim frowned thoughtfully, "sitting there for ten years waiting for nothing… it would be nice to get a Christmas card at least."

Giles was nodding and smiling. "You're getting the hang of it, Major. And it could be just that: a Christmas card signed Fred, easily explained away to your wife as that American buyer I met on the Frankfurt trip years back… It must always have been a long-term, deep-cover operation. Their job was to get themselves into positions of access and influence. And from Agnes's report, they seem to have succeeded. "

He caught Maxim's look and sighed. "Yes, I do seem to be believing it, don't I? Must watch that, when it comes to my own telegram… But if such a List existed, this Berlin business would be the time to send it something more than a Christmas card, and Arnold Tatham… I said I didn't really know him, but I got to know of some of the things he'd done-most impressive-and perhaps some idea ofthe man. I'd say he was a very devout man. It is, in purely practical terms, a very useful thing to be. Loneliness is the curse of our trade. If you confide in God, you can be reasonably sure He won't whizz round to the nearest KGB informer the moment you've fallen asleep in a puddle of beer. Have you ever been on a mission in plain clothes -before today?"

"In Ulster, a couple of times."

"Then you know about these things, putting on a new identity and so forth-but more important, taking off your old one. I expect they stripped you naked, they certainly should have done, then searched your clothes for give-aways. A nasty feeling, but very necessary to your own survival. Arnold did far more of that than either of us; in the war they fed them French food and wine for the last twenty-four hours, in case they were captured quickly and made to vomit-a very small cruelty, by Gestapo standards. I have the feeling that Arnold could give up his real self more easily than you or I just because he didn't have to leave God behind with the London bus tickets and coins and tailor's labels."

Maxim waited, and when Giles said nothing more, asked: "So perhaps God told him to keep the Crocus List going when Langley told him to stop it?"

Giles said slowly: "It's always difficult to remember that you aren't working for anything more than the interests of your own country. One would like to be on a crusade, but… if God doesn't turn up to head the parade, He's a tricky part to replace."

George Harbinger was no fool; he knew he could be walking into trouble at Eastbourne, and had no intention of just vanishing. On the other hand, he was doing something totally unauthorised, bits of which might turn out to be illegal as well. So he could hardly leave a note on the DDCR's desk-or anybody else's-saying Send in the SASif I don't come out by noon. Difficult.

But having thought along those lines, he realised he could leave a sealed envelope with Annette saying much the same thing. It was a nasty thing to do, because he had to pretend it would be good news. He was used to keeping secrets from her, not deceiving her. But anyway, he'd find the place deserted, and after a bit of snooping around, would ring back and tell her not to open the envelope at noon after all.

Mind, he'd better have some good news to tell her as well, not just that he'd got his head out of the lion's mouth with no more than saliva stains. Well, he'd think about that later.

Oxendown House stood alone, a few miles outside Eastbourne where the coast road swung a mile or more inland clear of the high cliff edge. George overshot it the first time past: it was invisible from the road behind a slight crest-presumably the Oxen Down-at the end of a long track studded with cattle grids and surrounded by pasture land. Quite good land, George's country eye noted, and certainly well drained by the limestone beneath.

The house itself was built on a terrace cut into the Down, facing the sea and bracketed by mature trees. It probably -dated from the golden age just before the First World War, but whether it had been the belle of the ball or the ugly duckling nobody could tell now. So much had been added by way of extensions, dormer windows, garage and outhouses that it had become a dowager slumped over the green sofa of the Down, any thought of good looks forgotten in uncorseted comfort.

The track turned into a curling gravel drive that brought the Rover on to a courtyard of York stone at the back of the house. He stepped out boldly, trying to look as if he were there to buy the house, but nobody came to sell it to him. He wasn't too sure that he would want it anyway: the courtyard, shadowed by tall cedars, had a mossy dampness that might have been charming in summer, but on that day gave George twinges of rheumatism just looking at it.