She looked at him dubiously.
'All right,' George said. 'So now what's this about a letter?'
Maxim told them. Agnes buttered and marmaladed toast and passed slices around. There weren't enough plates, and George had to make sudden pecking movements to stop crumbs and drips of marmalade falling on his tie.
He listened quietly and then looked at Agnes. 'Do you believe in this letter?'
She thought, then nodded rather tentatively. 'I think so. It's an odd thing to make up – and it does account for something in Jackaman. Also I tend to believe a man who's trying so hard to go to jail.'
'He could be just spreading alarm and despondency for Greyfriars.'
'I'm hired to see reds under beds and I can't see any under his. But I could get one of our mob to chat him up. We could be a lawyer from Civil Liberties or something like that.'
'You will do nothing of that sort whatsobloodyever. Oh blast. So now there is, or may be, a letter saying that over thirty years ago Tyler and a party of the second part did something Unspeakably Un British together. Or Unspeakably British, even. In wartime, in the Army… Who is, or was, brother Bruckshaw?'
Neither of them knew. Maxim asked: 'Who was Jackaman?'
There was a sudden stillness. Then Agnes said: 'Come on, duckie. If you expect Harry to act like he's twenty- one, you'll have to give him the key to the door.'
Slowly and reluctantly, George said: 'In a way, Jackaman's why you're at Number 10. Yes, he killed himself. The inquest heard a lot about the problems of overwork at Defence. It was in the papers but you were probably still out in the Gulf. Last November. He was a deputy under secretary and he wasn't going any higher. A good committee man, just rather stiff and old-fashioned. Then when it got around that Tyler was going to chair the policy review, he came rushing out of his hutch spitting fire and lettuce and saying Tyler was Unsound.'
'And you can't say worse than that in Whitehall,' Agnes put in.
'None of this in public, of course. But it was embarrassing enough all the same. So Box 500 decided to help out, without directives from anyone, and put the dogs on him, sniffing around trying to find some dirt to roll in. And they came back with the idea of him having an illegal bank account in France. They put this to him, with what degree of tact we can only imagine, and he went home and shot himself. With a Purdey 12-bore.'
'Full-length barrel?' Maxim asked before he could stop himself.
'Yes. Itcan be done, particularly if you've got the dogs yapping close behind you.'
'Not this bitch,' Agnes said. 'I knew nothing about it.'
'You would not be here if you had. Anyway, that's why the Headmaster wanted a… a new opening batsman against any more fast balls. Is there any coffee left?'
'What about the French bank account?' Maxim asked.
'We don't know if there was one. The Headmaster was so angry that a good man had been hounded to death – without anybody even finding out if he knew anything useful – that he ordered the whole operation closed, dead and buried.'
'In Pandora's box,' Agnes said softly.
Maxim said: 'Farthing believed the whole thing was a frame-up, to keep Jackaman quiet, one way or another.'
'Who told him that?'
'He didn't say. Was there a suicide note?'
'The police didn't find one. Thank God. But why write to Jackaman, for heaven's sake? He wasn't involved in security.'
'When am I going to be allowed to get up?' Maxim asked politely.
Agnes grinned. 'Oh, you won't impress me, love.' But she turned her back while Maxim put on pants and trousers – uniform, since he was going to have to say an official farewell to their host the development unit.
When she turned back she asked George: 'Jealous, duckie?'
George made a grumping sound. 'Do you know when Farthing came back to this country and sent the letter to Jackaman?'
'No. Sorry, I should have asked. I get the impression that it wasn't in the last year…'
'We can easily find out. So Jackaman sat on the letter until Tyler's appointment came up.' It was the Right Thing To Do, of course. You didn't attack a man's career lightly, but when the fate of the nation came into the picture… That was certainly the Jackaman that George had known, briefly, at Mo D.
'Was Jackaman in the Army during the war?' Maxim asked.
'He was the right age, and I've a feeling there was something… but I'm pretty sure he was at the Foreign Office most of the war. He switched to Defence about twelve years ago, he wasn't going any higher in the Diplomatic.'
'I could look him up,' Maxim offered. 'I'd better go over to Army Records to dig up Bob Bruckshaw anyway.'
'Harry, I told you what the Headmaster ordered. Jackaman is dead.'
'He doesn't seem very good at it.'
George glowered into his fresh coffee, obviously suffering a clash of loyalties as well as an early dawn. Privately, Maxim had decided to look up Jackaman, no matter what George said.
Agnes came to life. 'There woz this Greek bird Pandora, yer know? And she got this box and when she opened it, Lawd luv yer, wot kime out yer couldn't shoot wiv a Purdey 12-bore.'
'I thought,' George said tightly, 'that the moral of that legend was not to open things that don't concern you.'
'Or clean out your boxes before somebody else opens them.'
George took a deep breath. 'Very well. Harry can move on this. But step by step and never getting out of mummy's sight. All right? And Agnes, your mob can slow down on Farthing and switch to Bruckshaw. Did somebody of that name, right age, die in Montreal whenever – you know the sort of thing.'
'We've heard of it.'
Professor Tyler was sitting up in bed, alone, drinking a cup of tea, so Maxim left George to chat with him and went looking for Brock. He found him in the Seddon Arms camper truck parked behind the hotel. Overnight, somebody had cleaned up the remains of the evening party; the truck smelt faintly of polish and strongly of the coffee Brock was heating in a glass pot.
He was alone, wearing an open-necked shirt under a leather waistcoat, his face relaxed and untired. 'Coffee, Harry?' He poured a breakfast-size cup without getting up. 'Cream? Milk? Sugar? You did a good job with that nut last night.'
'He wasn't dangerous.' Maxim helped himself to sugar.
'When you fire a gun the shot's got to go somewhere. Something stronger?'
'I'm sorry?'
Silently, Brock opened the cupboard beside him to show bottles of Irish whiskey, a single malt and Remy Martin. 'Some people like it. Maybe not at your age. So what can I do for you this morning?'
Maxim found it difficult to begin. 'I haven't mentioned it to anyone else… There was a girl in Professor Tyler's room…'
'From what I hear tell, there's usually a girl in Professor Tyler's room. There certainly was at Princeton.'
'You provided this one.'
Brock narrowed his eyes. 'Sure.'
'And there was a newspaper reporter staying here.'
'That's right. He got one of the other girls. Were you thinking I was setting up Professor Tyler for a nice dirty story?'
'I was just asking.'
For a moment, Brock was about to get angry. Then he shook his head and said gently: 'Harry, it's a long time since I told anybody about the birds and the bees, but I'll try… Fact one: we aren't going to get any British contract for the mortar. We never were; I could smell that the moment we got here. I assume there's a political reason, but I don't know why.
'But so what?' He took a gulp of coffee. 'There's no winning in being a bad loser. Next year maybe we'll sell you the biodegradable anti-personnel mine, or something new in rifle grenades. I could talk your ass off about what
