He had been doing that for five minutes when Bruno screamed again.
This time he was huddled in an overstuffed chair and Sims was still beating at his head as if he really meant to destroy him. This was no act; the other man was staring horrified over his bloodstained towel.
"For Christ's sake -" Maxim grabbed Sims's arm and then with both hands as Sims turned, wild-eyed, trying to ram the pistol against Maxim's stomach. They stood for a moment in a weird pose that might have looked good in a self-defence manual, then the anger clouded over in Sims's eyes.
Maxim pushed the pistol hand carefully away. "He's not much alive but he could be a problem dead. We haven't got a certificate for him, remember?"
Sims's smile flashed on. "I don't like being cheated."
"Sure. Go and have a snoop. His room's the one with the light on."
Sims stepped into the hallway and Maxim took another look at Bruno. His head was bleeding from another cut, but Sims had been lucky or careful enough to stay clear of the thin pterion are of the temples; most of the new damage was to Bruno's hands.
"I'm sorry about him, "he said. "He gets these crazy rages. I can't do much about them. Give me something, anything, before he comes back. "
The tough, stocky Bruno of yesterday had shrunk and melted so that he was part of the flabby lines of the chair.
"Just anything," Maxim said earnestly. "Any old thing, to keep him happy. Then I can get him away from here. "
Bruno's mouth opened and shut stickily. "I told him… I didn't do it… it was done already. I just noticed it by chance…"
"What are you talking about?"
"The certificate, one of the certificates… it must have been that Corporal Blagg…"
There was a muffled crash as Sims 'searched' something heavy.
"Never mind the certificates: the photographs. Tell me something about the photographs. He didn't like the ones you gave me."
"They are in the bank. "
"Oh dear life, dear life. He won't like that. I'm sure it's true, but he so much wants somethingnow. Let's say you keep thenegatives in the bank. That would be sensible." There was another clatter from some other room. "But the prints -you'd take the trouble to print them up. Can you think of any prints, any prints that would look right?
"Of course, " he added, "they'd have to be off infra-red film. He'd know the difference…"
"In the door of my refrigerator," Bruno croaked. "Inside it."
Outside the door, Sims said: "I heard that. You were good. I really could work with you. "
"You really are working with me, if you hadn't noticed." Even with only Sims, he kept speaking German. To change to English would have broken the flow of the action. "Get on with it."
He watched as Sims unscrewed the moulded plastic lining from inside the door and took out a plain envelope. Inside was a second strip of Minox film – so Bruno had been lying about the bank, as usual – and four black-and-white prints of about half-plate size. It was easy to see why Bruno hadn't taken them in for colour-printing at a shop.
"Well, what do you think?" Sims asked.
Maxim's cheeks felt a little warm. "She looks a little young for what he's doing to her. "
'Yes, but she doesn't seem to mind. And I'm sure she was well paid for it."
"By your Mrs Howard. I'm assuming he's the Standesbeamte, Hochhauser."
"It must be. I'd say he wasn't doing badly for a man close to his pension."
"If those got about, he'd've been a long long way from his pension."
"That would be the point. " Sims slid the prints back into the envelope.
"You'd been expecting something like that."
"Something." Sims was looking at him with tolerant amusement. "Are you shocked, Major?"
"No… but I see why she wanted Blagg and the gun and all, going to show Hochhauserthese. Why didn't she stick to bribery?"
"It is usual to combine bribery and blackmail. Sugar-bread and the whip. With bribery alone, he could have reported her to the police."
"Why don't you dig her up and ask her if she wouldn't have preferred that?"
"She was a good agent. And a good friend." Sims was no longer amused.
"All right, all right. Can we go now? I hope it was all worth the trouble."
"Major: it could have been Mrs Howard in the pictures; I did not know what Hochhauser's taste was. And either way, they were skilled pictures taken on specialised film. It shrieks of the trade. A dangerous loose end to leave about – particularly with a man like Bruno. "
Maxim nodded. "You're right. Perhaps I was a bit shocked."
The front door suddenly opened and Fraulein Winkelmannwas surging down the hallway and coming to a quivering stop as she saw Bruno and the man with the nose-bleed. Between them there was quite a lot of blood on display.
"Wasshat sie…?" She hit a soaring operatic note until both Sims and Maxim instinctively held up their pistols. She recognised Maxim. "Oh yes, the English Herr Major. I think we might talk to the police aboutthis."
Maxim shrugged. "Happy to. You were right about himsniffing cocaine, by the way. If the police come… well, it isn't where he hid it. It's where I hid it. "
There was a long pause and her carefully preserved expression collapsed into rouged meat. Maxim said soothingly: "He only got a bit knocked about. He's got money for the doctor. I do know that. "
"Thatmoney, that was yesterday." She looked around the room. "You animals. You rotten animals."
Sims had edged past her to the hallway, smiling hard. "We're on our way, gracious lady. "
She followed them to the door. Maxim said: "I've taken his gun."
"Oh yes. First you take his balls, why not take his cock? You know who he'll beat up for all this, after a sniff and a few drinks."
He didn't know what to say to that.
"Leave the gun with me," she suggested. "Show me how it works. Just for protection. He won't know I've got it. "
Maxim hesitated. "You don't want to shoot him."
"How do you know what I want to do? You beat him, he beats me, who do I beat?"
Sims said: "Try poisoning him. You could get away with it."
She looked at him, gathered her face into a gracious smile and spat in the middle of his chest. "Animals." She slammed the door.
As they clattered down the stairs, Sims asked: "Was it true, about the cocaine?"
"No. But I think she believed it. "
"I think she did. It was a good idea. But for a moment there, I thought you were going to stand out on the landing and teach her to fire that Luger! Bang! You know what she would have done then? Shot you in the back – bang! They hate their men and they protect them like she-bears. And she called us animals. My God, why did your Corporal Blagg go to her? Does he have fantasies about fornicating with his own mother?"
God alone knew what fantasies Blagg's childhood had left him with, and Fraulein Winkelmannhad fulfilled; Maximwasn't going to play psychiatrist, least of all in front of Sims. Anyway, whatever Blagg did in that perfumed garden of an apartment was less risk to world peace than when Sims's mob persuaded him to 'help out'.
"I don't know. Drive me across the river, would you? I want to lose this thing permanently." The old Lugerwith its weak return spring and chancy sear was one gun even a soldier was happy to throw away.
The air conditioning in Sims's room worked at nothing less than full power, and there was no turning it off until Sims had stopped chain-smoking so Maxim was deliberately drinking whisky and luke-warm water against the chill.
Sims was slumped in a chair, turning the pages of the old Focus on Germany, "Will you go back to Dornhausen tomorrow?" They spoke English again; Maxim's German was out of practice and blurred easily late in the evening.