Everybody looked at Maxim. Probably his parents didn't get more than half a dozen calls a week, Agnes realised.
Maxim answered it, then said: "Speaking," and mouthed to Agnes: "It's the Fun Palace," and took the phone into the hallway, out of hearing. Nobody else said anything, and Agnes suddenly saw that Chris was pale and rigid with apprehension as he sensed his weekend turning lonely. But his face said nothing; a soldier's face. You poor little bugger, she thought.
Maximcame back and beckoned Agnes out. They stood just outside the front door.
"A gun battle in Rotherhithe. One badly wounded, police looking for two more, at least one of them thought to be wounded. As much as anything, I think George was just wanting to make sure I was still here."
"I'll give you an alibi. What do you think it is?"
"The same as George thinks it is. I don't know how often Rotherhithe goes in for gunfights, but this could be one of ours."
Agnes nodded gloomily. "It's a bit late for bank hold-ups and a bit early for night-club ructions. "
"I'd better get back."
"Can you give me a lift?"
She let him go in alone to break the news to Chris. Across the street a lace curtain twitched. The neighbours would be interested in whom that nice Major Maxim was talking to on the doorstep, too.
After driving in silence for ten minutes, Maxim said suddenly: "I was a bloody fool. Blagg told me he'd thrown away the revolver that woman gave him. Soldiersdon't throw away guns. They join the Army to^ef guns, and they're always in trouble for possessing one illegally or swiping a few rounds of ammunition. It's crooks who throw away guns. I've been thinking like a crook. "
"Six months at Number 10 would do that to anybody," Agnes sympathised. "Are you a gun nut as well?"
"You can't be a soldier – not an infantryman, anyway -without liking weapons. And liking some more than others. It's like a pilot having opinions about aeroplanes, nobody thinks that's odd. Don't you get any firearms training in your mob?"
"Oh, we're supposed to know something about handguns, and fireoffafew rounds every so often. I usually manage to dodge that. I've only had to carry a pistol once, just a few hours. And I've never used one. "
Maxim nodded. They had passed through Arundel and were coming over the ridge at Whiteways Lodge roundabout,heading for Petworth and then the A 3 at Milford. It was far the best route into London from the South. He was driving fast but safely and, Agnes noted, not as well as she could have done. Still, she had the training and he didn't. Being able to handle a car was for her far more important than playing Annie Get Your Gun.
"If it is your wandering corporal in hospital, what were you planning?" she asked.
"Oh, I wasn't thinking it would be him. "
"Really?" Without glancing at her, he knew she had her eyebrows at full stretch.
"I'd back Blagg at any fun and gamesofthatsort. He could be hurt, but he wouldn't be the one left behind. "
"I forgot, he's one of your Hereford Superstars. But even so -"
"I assume whoever-it-was wanted to capture him, not kill him. If they'd got him badly wounded, they'd have taken him away, wouldn't they?"
"Much in what you say," she agreed reluctantly. "So do you have any ideas where Blagg could be?"
"None. I'll just have to go looking."
"Of course. I suppose that would be the one way to make things worse. I should have had more faith in you. "
This time Maxim did glance at her; she was staring straight ahead, nodding gently to herself.
"What do you mean?"
"Harry, do you have any conception of the strife you have caused so far?"
"By thumping those two gits from Six?"
"Not just that. If that were all, I'd applaud it as a wise and public-spirited action and I hope it starts a trend. But it was very far from all, wasn't it? Until you came along, Century House was right out on a limb. One of their sections had gone hog barmy and set up an operation that turned into a shoot-out in a friendly country with an apparently innocent citizen getting killed. They'd followed that up by mounting a major surveillance job in London without clearing it with us or the Co-ordinator or anybody. Their private parts were firmly jammed in the wringer and all it needed was for somebody togive the handle a slight nudge… So then you came galloping to the rescue. You concealed knowledge of a deserter, you actually helped him stay deserted, and They can make out a case for saying you still are. You messed up their surveillance, you beat up their agents, you went in forexactly the same unauthorised adventurism as they had – and so let them off the hook. Now if they pull it off everybody'11 heave a sigh of relief and their methods will be forgiven, and if theydon't then it'll all be Numberid's fault and that would probably suit their book just as much as coming good on Plainsong itself."
Maxim took a deep breath and said reluctantly: "I suppose… I do see most of what you say. I just thought Blagg was getting a raw deal. And now it seems they're loading the whole blame for Germany on him, and he's only a corporal and the Army's his whole -"
"Forget Corporal Blagg!" Agnes shouted. "Forgetall the bloody corporals inall the bloody Army! Just get it through your tiny I9i4-pattern mind that you have started a constitutional crisis! Haveyou got that, or should I send it in cipher?"
There was nothing to cause an echo in the car, already full of engine and wind noise, so it was probably only in their minds that her voice seemed to fade in throbbing waves, as across a vast canyon. Both of them were rather shaken; Maxim slowed abruptly and sat up straighter in the seat.
"I haven't lost my temper with anybody in years." Agnes was speaking through teeth clenched against any further emotion, and fumbling in her handbag. "In my job you're not supposed to. Does that dashboard lighter work?"
"I think so. I didn't know you smoked."
"I don't often. I want to now. " She rammed the lighter knob viciously, and lit her cigarette with trembling fingers. "I understand you also told George that you had a rehearsal in Rotherhithe the night before you tried to reform the Intelligence Serviceby forcemajeure. What was the score there? – one busted arm, one ruptured spleen. Had you thought about howthat might look in the public prints? Thank God Husband doesn't know about that, not yet, anyway." Her voice was small and hurried. "Stop at the next phone box, would you?"
They drove in total silence for five minutes until they found one.
Agnes got back into the car shaking her head. "Nothing new, but I've asked our people to bend an ear that way." She lit another cigarette, but now her hands were steady; Maxim drove off, changing gears very precisely.
There was still perhaps three-quarters of an hour of daylight left, but the sun was just glimpses of coppery gold between vast castles of cloud stacking up on the horizon. It was only the breeze when the car was moving that made the warm air breathable. Agnes watched the clouds, the incredible impermanent detail of the cumulo-nimbus that had fascinated all the English landscape – and seascape – artists.
"I don't get out of London enough, " she said. "You have to get out to see what thejob's really about. London doesn't give you enough reasons."
"Were you country?"
"Worcestershire. My father kept a small flat in London and commuted for the week. It made it a weekend marriage, but it seemed to work. I remember loving Friday nights, when he came home… I suppose that's usually your set-up, too."
"Usually." But this Friday he was drivingback to London. "What would you be doing now if you hadn't come down?"
"Cooking."
"Sorry. Did I get your evening wrecked?"