Why do I have to think like that? he wondered. I know dozens of officers with their own quirks of taste, dress and behaviour and they're just real people who'd be incomplete without such little fads. Why do I have to conform, to feel real only when I'm being normal? You conforming? he could hear George and Agnes shout in disbelief. But that's not what I mean, he would reply; why can't I just be myself?
But who am I? I used to be Harry Maxim, then I was me and Jenny, and now I just don't know and it'll take more than lemon tea and a pink silk handkerchief in my sleeve and reading Goethe over breakfast to tell me.
George rang. "Get your conscience clean, bright and slightly oiled: it's when-did-you-last-see-your-father time."
"Them?"
"Them. It had to happen."
They met in an undistinguished office blockjust off the Euston Road, two floors of which were used as secure neutral territory for committees and meetings between Government departments who would lose face by visiting the other fellow's wigwam. George didn't bother to explain the process by which he had deflected the first demand-that Maxim go round to Century House by himself- by a counter-offer of Number 10("As it's a Saturday, we could use the Cabinet Room; think how that would look in your memoirs") – or one of his clubs, naming the one that had been effectively the HQ of the Intelligence Service in the heady days of World War II, and finally agreeing on this no-man's-land. Somewhere in the hassle he had got what he really wanted: to go along himself.
"You took your time," he grumped at Maxim.
"I stopped to make a phone call, and I thought I'd better drop off some clothes at the dry-cleaner's." He was wearing his green blazer again.
George, usually a sloppy dresser at weekends – in an expensive sort of way – had on a weekday suit in his usual Prince-of-Wales check and a Dragoon Guards tie. That meant he was expecting trouble. "Any news of our patient?"
"Had a good night, barely any temperature, eating a drop of soup."
They began filling in forms for security passes at the little reception desk while a faded old man in a messenger's uniform rang number after number to find out where the meeting was being held. He couldn't.
"It's because it's Saturday, see," he said. "They could have fixed it while I was out at lunch and they never tell you, not if it's Saturday."
"Perhaps it's secret," Maxim suggested.
"Oh yes, sir, it's all secret, but the trouble is they don't tell you about it."
"Where does the Intelligence Service usually meet?" George demanded.
"The gentlemen attached to the Foreign Office," the old man corrected him, "usually use interview rooms 23Cor 23D. But they haven't got phones, see. "
They found them in 230.
It was a square plain room, painted pale green below the cream above, in gloss, which showed up every unevenness in the plaster. The lower half of the window was frosted glass, and the furniture could have been hauled out of store five minutes before. A small gravy-coloured carpet, a trestle table in front of the window and five folding chairs, three of them behind the table and occupied. It was all very deliberate, keeping the interrogators' faces dark against the bright window, and it made Maxim grin.
George kicked one of the spare chairs across against the wall and sat heavily on it. "I thought we were only playing two a side, but never mind. Do you all know Major Maxim?"
Maxim had met Guy Husband before, once. The younger man smoking a cigarette, and whose ashtray was already half full, turned out to be Dieter Sims. The woman with a wide face and carefully frizzed hair was Miss Milward from the Foreign Office. Nobody shook hands.
Husband shot his crisp pink cuffs and laid his forearms fastidiously on the scarred tabletop, bracketing a small heap of files. This time, all the home team had paperwork with them. "We are agreed that there shall be no minutes, that this is all off the record?" he asked, just for the record.
"Oh, I can't promise that, " George said. "If the Headmaster wants to know what's going on, it's my job to tell him. I don't necessarily have to get him over-excited, mind, but the decision has to be mine. "
Husband and Miss Milward swapped what might, in that light, have been surprised looks. The very idea of being 'off the record' was nonsense, since the room was almost certainly wired, but George should still have stuck to protocol and said something polite like Oh yes, of course.
Maxim stopped trying to peer at the shadowed faces in frontof him and put on a pair of sunglasses.
"Is the light troubling you, Major?" Husband asked. "Perhaps you had a late night?"
Maxim just kept on smiling deferentially.
"I believe, " Husband went on, "that Rotherhithe is particularly beautiful at this time of year. Especially when viewed in a midnight rainstorm. You wereseen down there, Major, has the cat got your tongue? – or was it the Private Office?"
"Yes, " Maxim said. "It was, but not now. "
"What?"
"The light. Troubling me."
Husband paused, then said in a silky tone: "Thank you, Major. I'm so glad we've got that point cleared up. "
"Mr Harbinger," Miss Milward cut in smoothly, "could you help us in this matter? I'm sure you know how vital The Office considers this whole business. Can you prevail on Major Maxim to give us some straight answers?" She had a musical voice, deep and patient.
"My prevailing power with Harry seems to be rather limited, but perhaps you could try him with some straight questions."
"All right," Husband said, "where's Corporal Blagg?"
Straight enough, Maxim thought ruefully. He kept his face polite. "Why should I know?"
"The man is adeserter. Last night he killed somebody; you might call it murder. More important toall of us, he has information of national importance. Now where is he?"
"If I knew where a deserter was it would be my duty, not as a military man but as a citizen, to report him if I couldn't persuade him to give himself up. Your duty's exactly the same. Did you report him when you spotted him at Rotherhithe?"
"This is just playing with bent paperclips. Are we going to get Blagg or do we go over your head? And yours, " Husband snapped a look at George.
"And explain why you sent armed men down to pick up Blagg yesterday?" Maxim asked.
"We? We didn't send them. Are you trying to make out that we started that shooting?"
"Why else? You were covering Rotherhithe last night. You knew Blagg could be armed. "
"We called off the surveillance after we knew Blagg had spotted us. " Husband glanced at Sims, who nodded. "We put men in there again last night when we heard about the ' shooting. It was obvious Blagg could have been involved. "
George asked pleasantly: "Did you clearthat through the Co-ordinator?"
"And have his decision delayed for weeks by Agnes Algar's mob screaming Rape because we're trespassing on their territory? Blagg would have been dead of old age before we got clearance."
"He might have preferred that to a bullet wound," Maxim said.
Miss Milward pounced. "So you do know where he is?"
Bugger it, Maxim thought. Oh well, they were certain I did anyway.
Sims asked: "Will he live?"
"Yes."
"How are you sure?"
"I've seen bullet wounds before."