"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.
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."