'Most of the serious soldiering I've done has been outside the UK.'
'If you do any serious soldiering in the Irish Republic, you needn't bother coming home again. You haven't got that pistol with you, I hope and trust but don't really believe?'
'No.' All he had was a totally illegal flick-knife in among his shaving gear. He wasn't sure how illegal it was in Ireland, but assumed it must be.
He walked the damp drabness of O'Connell street until he found a telephone box, and rang a London number Agnes had given him. All he said was: 'H at hotel number one.'
A man's voice said: 'Right,' and rang off. George would be told that he'd got in at the first hotel on their list.
Then he rang a number up in the Silvermine Mountains, twenty miles north, and made an appointment for nine-thirty the next morning. The man at the other end was very willing but played his part like the first read- through at a church hall dramatic society. Maxim hurried back through the drizzle grinning wryly to himself. The poor put-upon bastard. Being an old chum of George's and owning a retreat in the right part of Ireland could suddenly become a nervous hazard, particularly since they couldn't tell him what it was all about.
Maxim had vaguely expected a run-down castle. What he got was a run-down cottage. It sat in a field ringed with walls that were just lines of dark stones piled together, and at some time it must have burned down. But long ago, because now the remaining roof timbers were almost smothered by some climbing evergreen, making a green thatch above the empty window-frames. In good weather it would be the perfect meeting-place for lovers from a bad historical novel. Now it seemed like a mistake in map-reading.
But there was a nearly new silver-grey BMW saloon parked in the yard behind, and an unseen wing of the cottage had been restored, slate roof, double glazed windows and all. Jonathan St. John Rafford hurried out and snatched open the door of the Escort.
'My God, isn't the weather awful? Get yourself inside.' He scampered away again. Maxim picked up his briefcase and followed. The restored rooms were warm, bright, cosy, with books jammed into every space.
Rafford was pouring coffee. 'Black? Do you take sugar?' He was a few years older than Maxim but still trying to be twenty-six. He wore very tight faded jeans with his tummy bulging over them, and a rough-knit fisherman's sweater. His face was slightly puffy, with a sharp aristocratic nose and long dark hair that he had to keep sweeping out of his eyes with an elaborate gesture.
He wrote, so George had said, very sensitive biographies of minor but well-born European politicans.
'Aren't you having any?' Maxim asked. There was only one cup poured.
'No, no, I'll be away. There's the phone, and I've put out the directory. You did want the Yellow Pages as well?'
'Thank you. If you ever have to explain why I was here, and we don't think you will, it was to look over this property in case you'd let George and me buy into it, as a shared holiday home.'
'Actually,' Rafford said thoughtfully, 'that might not be a bad idea.'
'Oh Lord.'
'I'm terribly sorry.' He really looked it. 'No, what I meant was: I spurn your offer, after due consideration, as being far below the market value. Is that better?'
'Much.'
Rafford picked up a worn duffle coat, turned to the door, then turned back. 'This is absolutely nothing to do with North and South, is it?'
'It's nothing to do with Ireland at all,' Maxim said firmly.
'Oh, that's fine. Help yourself to anything you can find in the kitchen or the drinks and…' he smiled boyishly; '… just look the property over.'
Maxim sipped coffee until the BMW had growled away, then sat down at a telephone which wasn't in a call box and didn't go through a hotel switchboard, and started on the first of a long list of numbers.
He began with what were, or might be, Mrs Jackaman's relatives; Brennans were very thick on the ground in south-western Ireland. Maxim was a London estate agent who only wanted to know who was handling the sale of the English house because he might have a client; did they know where he could contact Mrs Jackaman, nйe Mary Brennan? No fish bit on that one, though once he thought he sensed a nibble. He underlined the name.
Then he became a furrier and tried the bigger shops of Limerick, Ennis, Nenagh and Killaloe: did Mrs Jackaman have an account with them? – she'd left Britain after ordering this fur jacket and said she'd send her Irish address when she had one, but… Nothing.
After nearly two hours, he got up and walked around the room, shaking the creases out of himself and rubbing his dialling hand. For the first time in his life he felt some sympathy for journalists who must spend whole days doing this sort of thing, carefully sifting through pan after pan of gold to discover one speck of dirt.
He made another pot of coffee and sat down to try the long shots. They'd wondered about the doctors and lawyers, but decided not – not yet, anyway. Those would be professionally secretive and suspicious; you weren't speaking to some dumb blonde in Accounts.
'You're a Citroen agent, I think?'
'We are that. Can I help you?'
'I hope so. I was talking to a Mrs Mary Jackaman some time ago and she asked me to get her a couple of fog- lamps for her Citroen GS when I was next over in France, so I did that-'
'Why should she ask that? I could have got them for her meself, easy.'
'No idea. But she does come to your garage?'
'We've had her car in here, sure.'
Crunch. The fish had bitten. Now slowly, Harry, slowly.
'Oh good. I just don't know how to get them to her. She hadn't got a proper address there when I last saw her. Should I drop them off on you? I'll be down that way early next week.'
'Surely you can.' Maxim held his breath. 'She's living in a houseboat on the Lough, up beyond Ballina. But you leave them with me any time, we're a deal easier to find. Did I have your name?'
'John Rhodes, from Bristol. Thanks for your trouble. I'll be seeing you.'
Maxim put the phone down very carefully and unclenched his hand from around it. The fingers were white. Funny: he'd never have gripped a weapon that fiercely.
20
On the way, he stopped at a tiny village grocer's and bought himself a rough picnic: cheese triangles, potted meat, biscuits and a couple of tins of beer. He didn't want to show his face in any restaurant or bar around there. Then, once he had passed Ballina, he worked carefully up the east side of the Lough, snooping down every side road or track that could possibly lead to a boat. It took time and the drizzle turned to rain. He wished he'd thought of going up the far side of the Lough, where the road ran right along the shore, and using his field glasses. There couldn't be many houseboats around at this time of the year. Then he saw the Citroen, parked beside a gate in a field that stretched down to the water.
It might have been converted from one of the vast range of small landing craft sold off after the war. There had been dozens of different types, but all of them looking like half-sunken shoeboxes, and a lot had ended up as houseboats or small ferries. This one had a tall, split-level cabin built atop it, with wide windows and their inevitable net curtains, and even a window-box under each one. It was old and needed painting, but it still had a certain spartan strength. High as the cabin was, the wind might blow it over but wouldn't blow it to pieces, He walked over a creaking gangplank that was as good a warning as any barking dog, and stepped down into a tiny cockpit. There was a small steering-wheel on the cabin wall and a slot for an outboard motor at the back. Or did you say 'stern' for houseboats?
After a moment, he tapped lightly on the cabin door, where the varnish was peeling off in long thin scabs. Nothing happened for a minute, then there was a scuffle and a clang, and more silence.
Then a woman asked: 'Who is it, then?'
Maxim took the chance. 'I'm Major Harry Maxim, British Army, and I work in Number 10 Downing Street.'
A pause. 'Why don't you bugger off back there, then?'
