The Crocus List

Maxim scouted the cottage to make sure it was empty, then helped George over the corner of the dry-stone wall, where it seemed strongest, and guided him under a face-high clothes-line strung across the little lawn. The kitchen door was much younger than the cottage, with two frosted glass panels in the top half.
He tried two of the pilchard keys in the lock and put one away immediately. He kept on with the other, probing and turning gently, feeling the movement. The Intelligence Corps instructor who had taught him the trade would have had such a lock open with one twist, but Maxim was out of practice and the lock. was old and arthritic.
"Torch."
George fumbled out the littlepinholetorch and watched as Maxim delicately smeared a film of shoe polish on theend of his key, then probed again and immediately withdrew it to study the marks on the polish. He did that several times until he had established the depth to reach the lock and bolt and, he now knew, a single spring-loaded tumbler holding it in place. Depth is half the game in lock-picking; the other half is getting enough leverage for the turn, since even a proper pick has no shaft going right through to rest on the end ward like a real key. He took out the pliers, settled the pilchard key firmly in their jaws, pushed it to a precise distance into the keyhole, and turned. For a moment he wasn't sure if the sudden give and click was the lock opening or the key breaking, but then the door almost unbalanced him by swinging open. He froze.
But no sound came from inside the house and the lights, as he'd already checked, were all off. He eased the door right open so it wouldn't swing and slam.
"She didn't use the bolt," he whispered. "I needn't have bothered. Take off your shoes and socks: we don't want to leave wet prints all over."
"I'll freeze."
"Tough. Off."
"I remember now why I left the Army," George muttered through clenched teeth. "It was pigs of majors like you."
They left their shoes and socks outside. Maxim shut the door behind them, then fixed the loosened bolt saddle firmly with Superglue.
There was an unguarded wood fire flickering in the room where they had sat with Miss Tuckey, throwing deceptive shadows that stretched and shrank quickly on the walls. All the curtains were already drawn. George had wisely slipped into a pattern of complete obedience, and moved silently around the room to establish aiming points with the torch on the pictures Maxim indicated. Snooting at a slight angle to avoid the flash reflecting from the picture glass, and cheating on the film speed setting because he was so close to the wall, Maxim took three pictures of the man he had seen at the Abbey, and one of every other recent-looking group or portrait. It all went very quickly and smoothly, and he still had half the film left.
He ran the torch over the shelves, cabinets, table drawers, but there were no more photographs and no obvious photo albums. Upstairs? It didn't seem likely: the first floor was in the roof itself, with sloping outside walls and few places to hang pictures. The tiny beam of light flickered over the telephone-and back. It was in its cradle, but the mouthpiece end looked crooked. He lifted it carefully and got no dial tone, then saw the plungers were taped down. He unscrewed the mouthpiece, which had been hastily jammed on and caught by the thread. By then he wasn't surprised at what he found.
"What is it?" George breathed in his ear.
Maxim said nothing. He laid the telephone and torch back on the table, then probed delicately with the end of a penknife. Inside a minute, he had the substitute microphone and its extra wires in his hand.
"Okay," he said softly.
"Was it being put in or taken out?"
"Don't know. But they hadn't finished." He looked around the flickering shadows from the firelight. "I'm going upstairs."
"Harry, let's just get out of here." He had to say it; he knew it wouldn't make any difference. Maxim put the camera down, picked up a poker from the hearth and started for the stairway.
The stairs creaked, even where he placed his feet carefully at the wall side, and the ludicrous self-portrait of himself as a householder, properly armed with a poker, goingupstairs to hunt burglars made him stop to tauten his thoughts. He reached the top charged with a cold, dangerous instinct, as he needed.
Street lighting seeped into the tiny landing from an open door, so at least some curtains were undrawn and he daren't use the torch. The open door might be an invitation, but he didn't want to turn his back to it. He planted one foot carefully to stop the door being swung in his face, and took a breath of air that was wrongly warm and sour. Then the door moved.
It jerked his foot, banged his knee and was yanked back open. He jabbed the poker at chest height of a moving figure and then his eyes were stung closed with pain.
He threw himself forward, touched and held an arm, was hit in the stomach but clung on, dropping the poker and hauling the man to him. The man clasped him, foolishly, because in Maxim's blindness contact was safest. He jerked his arms loose and reached for the head, trying to blink the searing pain from his eyes. He couldn't; in his double darkness, he had no choice. He killed the man.
In the gasping aftermath, he had no idea of where he was, nor how much noise he had made. It must have been a lot. His blind hands found the still-open door and then there was George, very close, whispering: "Harry, what happened, are you all. right?"
"I'm blinded. Where's a wash-basin?"
"Christ…"
Maxim swamped his eyes with water, time and again, dulling the pain except when he tried to see. It was better to keep his eyes closed.
George was back at his shoulder. "How is it? What was it?"
"Chilli powder, I think." Some of the water had stung Maxim's lips and tongue.
"You know he's dead?"
"Sorry. I didn't know if he was armed or… Who was he?"
"God, I don't know. Come on, I'll help-"
"Get his wallet. Something."
"Harry, d'you know what they've done toher?"
"What?"
"She-she's dead anyway. Come on."
"Get his wallet.".
George had himself once been a soldier. He didn't tell himself that, since he was no longer on speaking terms with himself, he just obeyed an order and rummaged through the man's pockets as if he were checking a suit going to the cleaners'. Then swabbed the wash-basin clean, guided Maxim downstairs and found their shoes and socks, moving with a numb efficiency that abstracted him from the terrors of his imagination. The last minute had left him naked in a desert of infinite horror. He would live for ever with the torchlight glimpse of a wide-eyed corpse dribbling blood from a broken neck, and see Miss Turkey's eyes above the gag that smelled of vomit and was stained with more blood from, he had to realise, a deliberately bitten tongue…
From the ramparts of Whitehall he had got no glimpse of such realities of the secret world, no hint from the sanitised prose of intelligence reports. And if that showed how high the ramparts were, they seemed immeasurably higher from the outside. They would never accept him back. Career, family, home-all had been ruined in a few seconds. He found himself making imploring promises to God, then retreated into hating himself, and Maxim of course.
"Take the picture," Maxim ordered, still blind.
"What?"
"The photograph on the wall, the one. Take it. It won't matter now."
What could anything matter now? And then they were in the sanctuary-however temporary-of the wide cool night.