The Conduct of Major Maxim

Another slapped Maxim across the face, but not very hard. "We can keep doing that 'til you tell us. "

Maxim goggled at them. "Bloody hell! I came down here to try and find him. If I knew where he was I wouldn't have come. I thought you were hiding him. "

"Don't give us that shit."

"If I knew where he waswhy would I come here?"

He was slapped again, still without much conviction. "You just tell us where he is. "

"I don't know. You had him at the Lord Howe, that's the last I know. I'm an Army officer and all I want to do is persuade him to go back to the Army. "

"Well, if you don't know where he is, where is he?"

Maxim stared back wearily.

"We're going to torture you, " one of them decided. "I mean like stick cigarettes in your face until you talk. "

Maxim did his best to shrug inside the ropes wrapping him to the chair. "Go ahead. It's a police job already so why not give them some solid evidence like burn marks?"

"Stuff the police."

"They're involved, from the moment you get those two to hospital. Unless you just leave us all here to die. "

The black boy suddenly keeled over and his head hit the concrete with a startling crack.

"Oh Christ," the torturer wavered. "Is he going to be all right?"

A door banged, echoing across the empty bay, and footsteps clattered towards them. The boys stepped back, looked hastily around, then just resigned themselves. Maxim tried to turn hishead to see, but Billy Da

"Jesus," he said softly. "I have seen some fuck-ups in my time, butyou lot, andthis…"

Billy Da

By now it was dark, with just two small desk lamps throwing clear-cut areas of light: one at a typist's table halfway down the room where Maxim had finally met up with a pint of cold lager, one at the desk where Da

Da

"They've been there. I don't know what they asked, I didn't get to talk to the boys… maybe they'll think they filled each other in, I don't know. If nobody makes a complaint… What are you going to say?"

"Nothing if nobody else does. " Maxim had a sore forearm and. stomach, a slight headache and a torn seam in his lightweight jacket. "I'll send you the tailor's bill."

"You do that, Major,"Da

"And I still want to know where Ro

"So do I. I'm not arsing you around, I just don't know. When we got him out of here, a couple of the boys had a cuppa with him at a caff down the road. An hour later, he rings in, he says he thinks somebody's following him. That's all. Nobody's seen him. I said something to the lads, I don't knowwhat, like your people had caught up with him… They must've got the idea from that, called Dave Ta

"D'you have any idea where he might have gone?"

"He had a mate in the country. Kent, I think. "

"I know that one. He's not there."

"Was it your people? I mean the Military Police – what's the Army call them: the Redcaps?"

"Actually the Army calls them 'those fucking MPs'. No, they wouldn't have followed him, they'd have grabbed him. He belongs to them, now. I don't know who it was. " He took a drink. "You can't think of anybody else he might go to?"

"Ta

There was a silence. Da

Maxim asked carefully: "Did he see you before he went to the country, when he first came back from Germany?"

Da

"Did he say anything why he deserted?"

"He said… This is unofficial? – I really mean that."

"Yes."

"Well, he said he might've killed somebody. "

"He told me he had, quite sure. "

Da

"Not officially."

"I'm buggered if I understand that Army of yours."

"Me too. But you were never in the services yourself?"Da

He tapped his left ear. "I've got about twenty per cent hearing in this one, that's what they said last time. That happened in the ring, we didn't have head-guards in those days. When I was just seventeen. That's why I took up PE, training. Another punch and I could've lost the lot. " Could you have been a contender?"

Da

"I've read the German papers and there's nothing been said, so we don't think they've made the co

Da

Maxim gri

Da

"In its small way, the Army also contends. You've still got my number in case anything comes up? It could be important. And still unofficial. "

He walked slowly towards the hall, stretching at each step like a newly awakened cat. He had an early appointment the next day.

Chapter 9

Agnes Algar had dressed with particular care on Friday morning. She chose a slightly flared skirt of fawn fla

Agnes thought of her clothes and jewellery in such terms, just as she thought of her car as a two-year-old 3-door Chevette ES in Regatta Blue with wing mirrors and two radio aerials. She lived in a world of detail and precision, of getting the names right and the appearances correct, and had done ever since she joined the Security Service straight from Oxford fourteen years before. She would have described herself quite objectively as aged 35 and looking neither older nor younger, height 5 feet 4 and usually just under nine stone with a figure that was well kept rather than dramatic. Her hair was light ginger and she had long ago given up trying to curl it; she had a snub nose and blue eyes in an oval face that was cheerful but perhaps forgettable. But being forgettable was part of her job; a jigsaw piece that fitted invisibly into any puzzle.