Gavin Lyall - The Conduct of Major Maxim

But you can never be sure it's really worked.

Maxim settled down for a gloomy evening. He daren't yet tell George – or anybody – that he was being followed. It was an Unmentionable Disease, and he'd caught it because he'd been to an Unmentionable Place and so it served him right, but that didn't make it any less sore. If they were still with him at the end of tomorrow, he could complain, but not until then.

There was nothing he wanted to see at any of the nearby cinemas, he'd be irritable company in the local pub where he was a contender in a small bar-billiards school, so there was nothing for it but to spend the time watching television with the other sinners.

The phone rang at just after seven. A youngish, roughish voice asked: "Is that Mr Maxim?"

"It is."

"Me name's Dave. Dave Tanner. Er- I heard you was looking for Ron. You know – Ron. Er- am I right?" He sounded nervous, but it could just have been his telephone manner.

"Yes. Are you the chap that has his bike?"

"Er, yes, that's right. He had me Yam."

"Thanks for calling. Can you get him to call me?-or meet me?"

"Er. Yeah. No, I mean – could you come up here? I mean we could have a talk. "

"Of course. You mean to Rotherhithe?"

"Yeah. Er- you know a pub, the Golden Hind?"

"I can find it. It shouldn't take me much more than half an hour. How will I know you?"

A pause…"Er- I'll be in the Public. I got on mejeans and DMs and me leather."

Blackleather jacket, fat Doc Marten boots and jeans. As distinctive as ninety per cent of Rotherhithe's young men, and a fair number of its girls, most likely.

"I'll ask for you at the bar," Maxim said. "Half an hour -okay?"

In practice, it was a bit more. He took the car and the warm evening seemed to have brought out hordes of motorists who Were just strolling, and he chose a zigzag route to throw off any fan club.

The Golden Hind was smaller and a lot more cheerful than the Lord Howe, a busy little place with an obvious hard core of regulars wedged into their favourite corners. Maxim stopped just inside the door to the public bar and looked around. As he'd expected, there were four young men dressed as Dave Tanner, but only one of them was interested in who might be coming in. Maxim stared at him, in a friendly way, until he slid off the bar stool and came over.

"Dave Tanner?"

"Yes. Er- it's Major Maxim, innit?"

"Harry. Can I get you a refill?"

"Er, yes."

They moved to the bar. Tanner was drinking lager, and Maxim wanted one as well, after the warm sticky cross-town journey, but he didn't want a long, bulky drink in his stomach. Dave Tanner was a bit too nervous for a man on his own territory. Well, all right, technically he was concealing information about a deserter – although nothing like the scale on which Major Maxim was doing it – but civilians don't take desertion seriously. If you can afford to walk out of your job, walk out, why not?

He ordered a single vodka with ice, no tonic.

"Were you at school with Ronnie Blagg?"

"Er, yes, that's right."

"Did you box as well?"

"Me? – never. " Tanner seemed amused. He had a long pale face, fashionably spiky fair hair and a pleasant smile. He was probably Blagg's own age – twenty-five – and he had a gold signet ring on a hand that was already worn and scarred bywork at some machinery. "I was never into boxing, but Ron, he always wanted to be fighting something. No, we just sort of hung about together. He stayed with us, sometimes, when he come on leave. He was having it off with me sister at one time. You know – just when they hadn't got nothing better going."

"Can you put me in touch with him now?"

"Er… I mean look, what I can do…" Tanner seemed even more nervous, taking a sudden gulp at his lager. Maxim took a casual look around. They werejammed in a pack at the bar, having to talk loudly at eight inches' range. They certainly couldn't be overheard, but in that crowd anybody could be watching them. "What I'll do," Tanner said again, then asked: "You haven't got no idea of where he is yourself?"

"Of course I haven't. I thought you knew."

"Yes… look, there's somebody wants to talk to you, right?"

"Somebody who knows where he is?"

"Er, could be. He just wants to talk. "

"All right. " Maxim finished his vodka and sat waiting. He was fairly certain now that he was walking into a trap, and wished he'd come armed. That way, nobody need get hurt. Now there's confidence for you, assuming that if anybody gets hurt it won't be you. No, it wasn't really that: it was being trained to get hurt, knowing he could stand it.

Tanner quickly swallowed the last of his lager and led the way. Outside, the sky was still a brilliant clear blue, but the side streets were full of long shadows. Maybe there was half an hour of daylight left.

They turned away from the main street, towards the river and the closed docks. The road was a narrow canyon turning between high walls that protected the now-derelict warehouses, and by its nature must be a dead end. Tanner walked at a hurried, unnatural pace.

"I thought you didn't go to the bike shop except on Saturday?" Maxim asked pleasantly.

"The bike shop? No, I don't. What d'you mean, the bike shop?"

"Where you got my name and phone number."

"The bike shop? Oh yeah, thebike shop. " Tanner pretended to remember. So wherehad he got the number? Maxim took off his silk scarf, wiped his brow and put the scarf in his pocket. In a fight, it could become a noose.

They passed an elderly Cortina II parked half on the pavement. There were people in it. He was several paces past when he heard the car doors open and realised just how outnumbered he was.

He hit Tanner in the stomach, a short punch to wind him, then snapped him around in a half-nelson and throat-hold. There were five others, four whites and a black, and he thought he recognised a face from the Lord Howe gym. They were the right age, anyway, and they moved like athletes.

"The first thing I do is break his arm," he announced.

"Break both," one of the fighters suggested. They came steadily on.

Tanner gasped: "You bastards," and Maxim chopped him under the ear and dropped him. He got his back to the wall as they swept over him.

Maxim tried a roundhouse kick that missed, turning with it to launch a back kick that dropped one of them. But the others were too close. He grabbed one forearm and broke it, then a blow on the forehead knocked his eyesight out of kilter, another thumped his ribs and he gave up, sliding hunched down the wall trying to keep his groin and kidneys safe. There was no point in getting hurt any more.

They tied Maxim to a wooden chair-just like the scene they'd watched a dozen times at the cinema-in the loading bay of a deserted warehouse. There was no light except hard bars of sunlight shafting almost horizontally through the broken windows, and the concrete floor gave the place a gloomy chill even on that evening.

The boy with the broken arm had fainted once; now he was sitting against a wall, crying. The black, who had stopped the back-kick, sat beside him with grey lips, holding his stomach and only semi-conscious. The other three seemed uncertain what to do next; Dave Tanner hadn't come with him, though he had been on his feet again when Maxim last saw him.

"Christ," said one of the others. "You really buggered themup-"

"Did you break his arm?" another asked.

"What do you fuckingthink?" moaned the boy most likely to know.

"It's broken," Maxim said. "Hospital job. And him, too." He nodded at the black boy, who wasn't listening.

"Now," one of them said, "we're going to talk to you. I mean you're going to talk to us. We want to know where Ron Blagg is, see?"