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?"
"We traced you, Mrs Jackaman, because a Czech defector told me where to look. They won't be long, if they aren't here already."
"Just suppose I went down and told the boys in the bar that the British Army's invading Lough Derg?"
"I don't know, Mrs Jackaman. I don't know what'll happen when the other side gets here, either."
Another pause. "I might be more interested in seeing them than you buggers." Her voice, if not her language, was very pure and precise, as if she'd once taken elocution lessons.
"Then why are you hiding out here?"
"Bugger off."
"I'll be in my car in the lane."
He walked back across the gangplank, feeling her stare piercing his back, and up the soaking field to the lane. In the car, he turned on his pocket radio and started to eat the cheese and potted meat. At some time, the Escort's steering-wheel had been taken off and put back ninety degrees wrong, so that the plaque in the centre read F O R D He daren't tell George that; he'd say it was Very Irish, when it wasn't, it was Very Garage. He cut and spread the food with the illegal flick-knife, then wiped it carefully clean and put it back in his trouser pocket.
After twenty minutes she trudged up the field. He got out politely and waited.
She was smaller and dumpier than he'd expected – though he wasn't sure what he had expected – in a green tweed skirt, a short black leather coat cut like a double-breasted mac, and a headscarf knotted at the back of her neck.
"What if I asked you to drive me into town to see the Gardai?"
"I'd say it wasn't a bad idea."
"Let's see your ID, Major Whosit." She'd been a Ministry of Defence wife for a dozen years. Maxim took out his card; she studied it, grunted, then slumped into the passenger seat. He walked round and got in the other side.
"Do you want to go anywhere?"
"Just drive around. I get cooped up in there.'"
Maxim backed fast up the narrow lane. "Would you like some rather nasty processed cheese?"
"Sure." She fumbled the box, spilled the cheeses, rescued one from between the seats and started picking it open. She was lightly and inoffensively drunk, and Maxim wondered how much of that had happened after he knocked on the door. A round, plump and rather flushed face, a piggy nose and at least a double chin. Put kindly, she was a bit short on royal blood. Perhaps the elocution lessons had been a touching attempt to become a proper Diplomatic Wife.
"What's an infantry Major doing at Number Ten?"
"I hope I'm the first to find out. I was attached there after your husband died. The Prime Minister was rather annoyed with the security service."
"Oh, that's nice. Our masters are good at being right – after the event. Very well, Major, what's all this about?"
"Why is the KGB looking for you?"
"I put in a question and all I get back is a question. You're like one of those fruit-machines in pubs where all you get is tokens, never real money. And you said it was the Czechs, not the Russians."
"They usually use the Czechs or Poles for their leg-work outside London. Their own people can't go more than thirty miles without giving notice and saying where and when – it's retaliation for the rules they slap on us in Moscow. The same thing works for Dublin. I thought you'd have known that."
"I expect Jerry told me at some time. You can't remember everything."
"And did you approach them, first?"
"Who told you that?"
"I did say there'd been a defector."
She was quiet for a while. The rain kept coming down, and the tracks feeding into the road from the Arra Mountains on their right spread fans of mud and twigs across it.
"This is a bloody cold car," she said at last.