Gavin Lyall - The Conduct of Major Maxim

"Is the baby the right age?" Sims demanded, shuffling a small pack of head-and-shoulders photographs.

It was a long time since Chris had been of a size to hold in your arms… until three months you had to support the head, didn't you? This one was older than that but didn't look of crawling age.

"About five months, yes, it could be."

Sims put down one of his photographs. "I am sure it is him, see?'

The stern, confident young man could easily be the one in the village picture, but the clothes seemed too neat and recent.

"Is that Eismark?"

Sims chuckled. "Yes – but the baby, Manfred. You can see he is his father's son, no? The most early one we have of Gustavis this." The bones of the face were the same, but this was a forty-year-old shipping manager, balding in front and wearing a moustache and glasses.

Maxim put the photographs and magazine down on the low table. They were sitting in Sims's motel room, part of a low modern block behind an all-nightcaféjust off the Autobahn. It was quiet, comfortable and cool – and instantly forgettable because it didn't belong to a place, but in between places. Sims hadn't even bothered to make it more his own by scattering things around: only the litre bottle of Scotch on the table and a portable sun-tan lamp on the dressing table, with a reflecting aluminium collar that fitted around your neck. His under-chin tan was explained now.

"Did you know the Eismarks – either of them?" It was the first time he had given any hint that he knew of Sims's origins, but no bad thing after Sims had shown what he knew about Maxim.

"Gustav, I did not know him. He was still mainly in Rostock, he came to Berlin only for meetings. But Manfred, yes, I knew him. He was crazy. Then he was only a captain, but crazy already. There was a story – I believe it – that once he beat a man in his office so much that he died. It was called something else, he hanged himself in his cell or jumped from the windows… probably he jumped from the windows, it would fit better. But do you know what that man had done?

Nothing – only his brother had escaped to the West. Manfred believed he should have known it would happen, that the man should have stopped his brother. Do you understand that?" He cocked his head with a sly smile.

"Did Mina Eismark'sdefection hurt Manfred?"

"He was only a schoolchild, and she was just his aunt. But it leaves a smell. I think he believed he must try harder, in the SSD, because of it. And perhaps a psychiatrist would say it was beating his father in that office."

"Perhaps a psychiatrist would say anything that would get his name in the papers, or am I being cynical?"

Sims laughed cheerfully. "I think you have psychiatrists in your Army, too. Would you like a proper drink now?" He waved the whisky bottle.

"Not just yet. But how would Manfred take the idea that his father had deserted his mother, then committed bigamy?"

"I think he would like it-if it was only he who knew it. Then he would have control of hisfather, his fatherwho is on the Secretariat. One day, Colonel Manfredthinksalso he would like to be on the Secretariat."

"Everybody a contender." Sims looked at him, puzzled "Sorry, go on."

"It would not be strange for a father to help his son. And who will knowwhy he is helping him? Also, Uncle Bear likes Manfred. They want strong men, since the strike. The Democratic Republic will have many years of paying for that, now…" His smile blurred for a moment and he poured himself another Scotch.

Maxim said slowly: "Somehow… compared with the strike and defection and getting beaten to death… I don't know, but somebody just walking out on his wife a long time ago – doesn't it sound a bit thin to you?"

Sims smiled". "Ring your friend Bruno. He won't let you go there right away, he will want time to be ready. We can have time for dinner, then."

Reluctantly, Maxim reached for his notebook and Fraulein Winkelmann's phone number.

Guy Husbandcarneinto Number 10through the connecting door with the Cabinet Office, the usual route for anybody from Intelligence or Security since it bypassed the tourist-haunted front door in Downing Street. He was wearing a midnight blue dinner jacket and ruffled shirt since he was supposed, at that moment, to be boarding a helicopter at the City Helistop to fly down to Don Giovanni at Glyndebourne. He didn't look in a very good mood.

"Very kind of you to drop in at such short notice, " George told him. "You do know Agnes, of course? Do you feel like a spot of something? – it's about that time, I think."

Husband refused the drink and glanced suspiciously at Agnes. She took a postcard-sized picture out of her handbag and offered it. "Do you recognise this man?"

Husband put on his tinted glasses and studied it. "Yes. Yes, it's one of Dieter's team. I can't recall his name right now."

George gave a long contented rumble and sat back in his desk chair. Husband switched his suspicion to him, then back to the photograph. "He looks a bit odd, mind you, but -"

"Oh, he's odd, all right, " Agnes said. "He's in the mortuary at Guy's Hospital waiting for somebody to identify him, on account of a couple of gunshot wounds he received in Rotherhithe last Friday night." She let that sink in, smiling cheerfully, then added: "He was also identified by Leni Pfaffinger, more or less of the BBC World Service, as one of two men who came around posing asour agents and trying to get Mina Linnarz'snew address. "

Husband cleared his throat. "Well, I'm not absolutely certain it's the same chap…"

"But you canbe certain just by stepping round to the hospital and having a look-see. "

"I suppose it does make more sense," George said, "it being one of your people on the Rotherhithe business. If ithad been the SSD it would imply that Gustav Eismarkhad called them in, and since it's evidence about his own bigamy that we're chasing, that really isn't too likely."

"I assure you," Husband said stiffly, "that I had absolutely no knowledge of this. Dieter Sims was acting entirely off his own bat. "

"Whatever you say," George agreed. "But somebody's going to have to step across the road and tell Scottie. Would you prefer the honour?"

At first, Maxim was surprised that they didn't go to the all-nightcaféitself, but then he realised it would be the very opposite of the anonymous motel room. It was open, public, almost part of the Autobahn itself with travellers flowing through, and the people who would remember Sims would be busy, travelling people. So they ate in a small, candle-lit Italian restaurant and Maxim chose escalopeal marsala.

"Now what were you saying?" Sims prompted. He was on whisky again, that andfegato Veneziana.

"I've only been involved in this, in Plainsong, sort of step by step," Maxim said carefully. "I didn't get any real briefing on it until a couple of days ago, and you heard how much that was. I assumed your people had got a lot more data… I hadn't started thinking about what Brigitte Schickertwas doing. And I'm damn sure she wasn't just sitting there while Gustavhauled her baby off to the Russian Zone. She'd go completely spare. And apart from anything else she'd go back to Dornhausen to see what they knew. "

Sims shrugged. "When he took the baby from Dornhausen he could give it to her, while she got better from the wound, then leave her later."

"She'd still go back to Dornhausen. She'd go everywhere she could think of. Somebody had stolen herbaby. Are you taking this seriously?"

"Perhaps not so much."

Maxim put down his knife and fork with a clang. "All right, Mister bloody Mystery, find yourself a new errand boy for the next -"

"Yes, we believe Gustavleft her. But not alive."

Maxim peered at him through the flickering gloom. "And you don't mean The Bomber now?"