The Secret Servant (hm-1) by Gavin Lyall

Author:Gavin Lyall [Lyall, Gavin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: adventure

18

"And that", Agnes said after Husband had gone, "is all that stands between us and the Red Peril."

"There's me and my pistol as well," Maxim volunteered.

George said: "He obviously isn't a field man."

"He isn't even a field mouse."

"They've got some good men over there. I tell you, you're just being old-fashioned." George poured them all another round of drinks and looked impatiently at his watch. "Why the hell don't they broadcast debates? At least they could do it on a land-line to here and the Cabinet Office and the Departments. All right, where are we now?"

Maxim had been picking through the photographs – which Husband had made a feeble attempt to take with him, since they were his service's documents – and found that they spent half a page on Mrs Jackaman's background. Until then he'd known nothing about her except that Who's Who gave her family name as Brennan. He read it carefully.

"We assume," Agnes said, "that Greyfriars' interest in Jackaman is because of their interest in Tyler. And that centres on the famous Tyler letter."

"If it still exists," George said quickly.

Maxim lifted his head. "It sounded from what Zuzana Kindl said that the KGB had only just heard about it. And they weren't working directly on Tyler at that time. So they either tripped over it or somebody…" he let the idea hang in the air like an unmentionable smell.

"Could it have been your little chum Charles Farthing?" George asked hopefully.

"No. He's a bit of a nutter, but a patriotic nutter. He didn't think Tyler was pure enough in heart for us."

"You don't think Greyfriars actually have this letter?"

Agnes said: "I doubt they'd be going through all this hoop-de-ha if they had it already." She looked at Maxim, who shrugged and went back to the blurred typescript in the photograph.

"It all comes back to Mrs Jackaman," Agnes said remorselessly. "If anybody's got that letter, it's most likely her."

"Why did Jackaman commit suicide in the first place?" Maxim asked.

"Or, of course," Agnes added, "the last place."

"Because," George began with the reined-in patience of a kindergarten teacher, "Box 500 confronted him with rumours of his illegal French bank account."

Maxim shook his head slowly. "I don't follow that. Most suicides are despair, hopelessness, things are only going to get worse… I'm assuming Jackaman wasn't a complete moron, so he must have known that account could wreck his whole career. So – did he simply say to himself. Okay, if I'm found out, I'll shoot myself? And if he hadn't decided that, why did he do it? I just can't get hold of it."

George started a slow circuit of the Cabinet table. Since it seated about thirty, that took time. He stopped at the far end and called back: "You aren't, God help us all, trying to turn this into a country house murder mystery?"

"I'm just asking."

"And," Agnes persisted, "why wasn't there a suicide note?"

"Oh blast it, there aren't any rules for committing suicide."

"Yes there are. Look at Japan. And Jackaman was a senior civil servant; paperwork was his daily bread.

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