The Crocus List

"Sounds a likely place to sell cameras, then. Turn right when you reach the A424."
"Just to get things clear, you're proposing to break and enter the aforesaid cottage?"
"Proving that fake copper exists is rather important to me."
"Yes, yes, I do see… and I suppose you want me to hold your torch and spare jemmy?"
"Up to you, but now you mention it, I'll need some tools. What sort of kit d'you have in this car?"
"How should I know? Whatever you get with a Rover, unless somebody's pinched them."
Maxim knew that George, essentially a countryman, was more familiar with tools and machinery than he cared to remember in his London orbit. But he could also believe that George hadn't bothered to examine the tool kit of his new car. "Well, I should be able to pick up a pair of pliers in this Bourton place you speak so highly of."
"God Almighty."
Maxim smiled comfortingly. "Don't worry. I'm sure Annette'll wait for you."
"After jail, or Bourton-on-the-Water?"
 
14
They drove back out of Bourton in the gloomy, still gusty dusk, but even in that light the village, sprawled around a shallow stream criss-crossed with toy bridges, had an undeniable if rather practised charm. And even in that season it was bustling with foreign tourists in foreign-tourist hats. "They ought to be buying jars of Cotswold mud and water," George grumbled. "Shake 'em up like those snowstorm globes to remind them of their holiday in Merry England… Does it have to be tonight? I mean, we could go back in a few days and I could distract her while you…"
It was cold feet, but probably only on behalf of the ministry, the government, the whole structure that George derided and had committed his life to. Senior civil servants just could not be caught burgling cottages; Army officers had, perhaps, a more flexible public image.
"The picture might not still be there in a few days," Maxim said patiently. "If she's involved herself, we've tipped her off. If she guesses somebody she knows is involved-and she must know the fake cop in the picture-she could tip them off. And start covering up for them. And this evening, at least we know she's out. But I can do this by myself."
"No, if you're in, I'm in. I started all this." That at least was an attitude that owed almost nothing to the Civil Service. Then, afraid he might have sounded gallant, George added: "Somebody's got to make sure your military instinct for loot doesn't take over."
Working on George's local knowledge-his father's home was less than an hour's drive away-they planned to reach Miss Tuckey's cottage at half past eight, when the other committee members would have had time to digest and drive in from the countryside. "These committeesdon't have the local roadsweeper on them. Did you get all the kit for your nefarious trade?"
"I think so. And a better camera than I'd expected." It was a 35mm affair, even if a rather simplified one, with a built-in flash. There had even been a cassette of fairly slow black-and-white film.
They had one drink-Maxim had never seen anyone order a triple Scotch before-and went on to eat at a roadsidecafe. It had a bright plastic deep-fried atmosphere and menu but the alternative, as Maxim had pointed out, was a long slow dinner at some hotel where they would have made themselves conspicuous by not, repeat not, ordering a couple of bottles of wine.
"The Reznichenko Memorandum," he asked cautiously. "Is there anything I could be told about it?"
George thought, shrugged, and said: "Sprague told me in deepest confidence, but…, It's a fake, all right. Five was tailing Ettington that night and he never met Reznichenko."
"Well, if Security's in on that, couldn't they be finding the same pattern that you have?"
"The Old Guard there, they might-but their new D-G's told them to lay off organisations like the Peace Crusade, so how can they admit they've found a pattern? That's why the only person they dared talk to was Sprague. So I wouldn't hold your breath for them to move."
"Well, there's still us."
"So it would seem. You're eating that stuff as if it werefood." He was staring at Maxim's plate with real puzzlement; his own was still half-full. Roadside diners were not George's environment.
Back in the car, Maxim said: "I don't think I've ever heard you make anything but complaints about food. The Whitehall canteens, your clubs, any restaurants we've been in…"
"You've never heard me complain about Annette's cooking."
"I've never heard you say anything nice about it."
"Well, she knows it's good. How are you-we-going to do this?"
"The front door's a Banham lock, I don't fancy my chances with that, but the kitchen door's just an ordinary job and a couple of bolts. She doesn't use the top one, it's jammed with paint, and I loosened the saddle on the other when I was pretending to have a piss. You know," he added thoughtfully, "if she's keeping any secrets in that place, she's not trying very hard, with a back-door lock like that. It should be easy."
"I'm glad more people don't take that view."
"Have you ever been burgled?"
"Not in Albany, but in Hertfordshire, yes."
"Did they pick their way in neatly?"
"The devil they did, they broke about every-"
"Exactly. If you're going to strip a house anyway, why do a neat job on the lock first? Lock-picking's almost entirely an intelligence trade by now. Can you pull in at the next lay-by?"
They stopped on a straight stretch of upland road, blatantly obvious, and since there was a can of oil in the boot Maxim opened the bonnet to give them a cover story of the oil warning light having come on. The car itself, a new Rover 3500, was far from memorable in Gloucestershire; it was probably the only British saloon a local landowner would think of owning.
He had bought three large tins of pilchards. He took off their opener keys and, with gloved thumb and a pair of heavy pliers, bent the ends with the tin-opening slot to right angles. With a small hacksaw he cut the bent ends to fractionally different lengths.
"I could have used nails," he explained, "but if you get one thick enough it's a bugger to bend without a vice. And then you probably have to file a flat side on it: a real picklock's square-sectioned. This should give a bit more grip on the bolt. "
"I hope this is an inborn talent and not something you learnt at the taxpayers' expense. You don't think she'll suspect something? Just by the coincidence of time: we visit her, the same evening, she's burgled."
"The whole idea is shewon't know she's been done. I could get in far easier by just busting a window."
"Sorry," George said humbly. "In Whitehall one getstoo reliant on the old school tie to open doors for one."
Although it must have been over a hundred years old, the cottage was still on the edge of the village simply because there was no building land beyond it. The back garden ended at a short steep scarp falling away to a small stream crossed only by a footbridge. On the other side of the stream there was a collection of farm buildings, but they linked to a different road further down. Maxim bypassed the village completely, map-reading George up a third road above the farm and they left the car there, with perhaps a quarter-mile walk down into the valley and up again to the cottage.
The night sky was still clouded, picking up just a hint of the glow from the street lights that silhouetted the church, trees and houses on the opposite crest. They climbed one wall, to get away from the car, and waited for their eyes and ears to tune themselves to the darkness. They heard, and then stopped hearing, the wind breathing in the trees overhead and the stream rustling in the valley. The silence grew very quiet and the occasional noises very loud, and they began to belong. Maxim touched George's arm and they moved carefully down the slope and, well upstream from the farm, stepped into the stinging cold water.