Gavin Lyall - The Secret Servant

The face smiled. "There was a fire in a car and then there was a fire in a boat. You should have heard it on the radio."

"Did anybody get hurt?"

"In the car, somebody was killed."

"Did anybody get hurt?" Maxim repeated.

The face smiled again. The hair above it was dark and neat, brushed straight back from a high forehead with a slight widow's peak. There were heavy bags under the dark eyes, permanent ones, not just from a late night.

"Nobody got hurt very badly," the face said.

"I'm glad to hear that."

"So you had no trouble with the search? There was no mud on your shoes, and no smell of paraffin on your clothes? And your coat is so very clean. You are very careful. I think-I think you are Major Maxim of Downing Street."

"I didn't catch your name."

"Suppose I told the searchers who you are."

"Then I would tell them to look at your left leg."

The loudspeaker announced a flight to Paris, and the face turned away, still smiling, and saying: "Perhaps we'll meet again…"

Now Maxim could see the square body, wearing a dark brown suit that was well cut but not by anybody in Britain. The walk was absolutely upright, with no hint of a limp. If he was working alone, he must have bandaged the leg himself: nobody would dare take such an obvious stab wound to a doctor. He might be full of pain-killers, of course, or well trained to pain. Or most likely, both.

Maxim picked up a candle moulded as a pineapple. He was rather afraid his mother would like that. But first he had to ring Rafford.

The room was neon lit and deliberately featureless, without any decoration or pictures to remind you of anything. Just the shelves of big leather-bound albums and an oak lectern like the ones where you spread out a newspaper in the public library.

Maxim sat on a hard chair and turned the album's pages quickly. Each right-hand one had a dozen or so photographs, about the size of a patience card, slotted into it. He wouldn't easily have believed there were that many ugly people in the world. 145 He went right through the book, then turned back to a page in the middle. "That's him, if anybody is."

It wasn't a normal mug shot, not the usual full-face of a convicted man, but a snatched picture that the victim wasn't supposed to know about. Maxim wondered if this one really hadn't known.

The Branch man leaned over his shoulder and lifted the photograph out to see what was written on the back. Without a word, he handed it to Agnes.

"I admire your taste," she said. "He goes around as Lajos Komocsin, Hungarian businessman. He must be at least part Hungarian or he wouldn't get away with it, but the current theory is that he's a Major Azarov from the KGB. Not known to be assigned anywhere."

"Whoever he is, he's a professional. As well trained as I am, and younger."

"But just as modest with it, I've no doubt." She passed the photograph back to the Branch inspector. "And now he's got a distinguishing scar on the outside front of his left thigh, is that right?"

"Around there."

"So if he ever comes at us with his trousers down, we can shoot without asking questions."

"Yes, Miss." The inspector made a note and went on looking at Maxim with a wary smile.

"It wasn't on your patch," Agnes reassured him. "Not even in this country. Come on, Harry, the pumpkin may be back from the ball."

The ball was really, in George's phrase, a 'Common Market rave-up'. To celebrate the end of a conference on energy conservation, the two big drawing rooms on the first floor were flooded with light and heat and jammed with guests in evening dress. Maxim and Agnes sneaked up the staircase feeling like very poor relatives.

The butler recognised Maxim, looked apprehensively at his suit, and asked: "Should I announce you, sir?"

"No thanks. But could you get word to Mr Harbinger that I'm in my room?"

"Very good, Major." He sounded relieved. Beyond him, Maxim glimpsed the Prime Minister, weaving politely through the roar of cocktail chatter, stalked a few feet behind by a tall hawk-faced woman who ran the Press Office but was now busy brushing aside anybody she thought wasn't worth the PM's time. Most of the world fell into that category. Maxim wasn't even in the world.

The working parts of the house were discreetly closed off with elegant ropes attached to little wooden pillars. A uniformed messenger lifted aside the rope to the next staircase, winked, and said: "Nice to see somebody's minding the shop, sir."

In his cubbyhole, Maxim turned on the light and drew the curtains. Agnes looked around.

"Gawd, how you ruling classes do live. Swung any good cats recently?"

Maxim had forgotten she'd never been there before. "I can do you tea or instant soup. Nothing stronger."

"Never mind, I'll wait." He didn't realise just what she'd meant until George came in a few minutes later, wearing a very old-fashioned dinner jacket and carrying a nearly full bottle of champagne. He flopped in the desk chair, leaving Maxim leaning against the desk itself.

"Oh God, but good causes do make bad parties. Have you got any glasses?" He pulled open his collar and unwound his tie, then poured champagne into Maxim's collection of tea/soup mugs. "So – how far have we got?"

"We've established that the Other Side was represented there," Agnes said. "Harry's identified one."

"How did they find her?"

Maxim shook his head slowly. "A dozen ways. She'd read a couple of thrillers and thought she knew it all, then hid out a few miles from where she was born. She'd left a track like a tank going through a wheat field."

George grunted.

"Probably a Major Azarov," Agnes said. "We had him down as just a support agent, but Harry says he's a trained tearaway as well. Luckily we had our trusty flick-knife with us…"

"A flick-knife?" George said heavily. He was slightly drunk, but knew it. "A flick-knife. You didn't tell me you were taking that.

"You didn't ask."

"I didn't ask if you were taking one of the new FH-70 howitzers, either, but next time I'll have a complete list. And you really burned down that houseboat?"

"The letter might have been on board; it wasn't in the papers I'd pinched. I was just trying to stop as many rabbit-holes as I could."

"If she was going off with you," Agnes said, "it was most likely in her handbag."

"If she read thrillers," George said, "she probably left it in a sealed envelope with her solicitors and orders to send it to number 2 Dzerzhinsky Street in the event of her untimely demise. Do we know who her solicitors are?"

"I can find out tomorrow," Agnes said. "And then…" she delicately took a book of matches from her handbag and laid it on the desk beside Maxim.

"Thank you," he said politely. "But I prefer my own."

"Dear Heaven, are you two trying to give me a stroke?" George asked.›From the floor below, there came a gentle rumble of applause; somebody had just finished a speech. "And now where are we?"

"If Professor Tyler was bidding for it, we know the letter's real," Maxim said. "At best it could have been burned. At worst we know who wrote it."

"Who?"

"Robert Reginald 'Etheridge." Maxim took a notebook from his pocket. "Born 1923 in a place called Bishop Wilton near York. He was a farm boy brought up on tractors. He enlisted in 1940 and the Yorkshire Dragoons took him as a driver…"

"Whatever happened to them?" George asked instinctively, pouring more champagne all round. The room was small enough that nobody had to get up, just reach.

"The Yorkshire Dragoons were amalgamated with two other regiments to form the Queen's Own Yorkshire Yeomanry in 1956. Since then, they've been reduced to just a squadron in the Queen's Own Yeomanry."

After a while, George asked: "Did you just happen to know that?"