The Looking Glass War (17 page)

‘Leiser is not one of us. Never make that mistake. We touched him long ago, that’s all.’

‘What’s he like? What sort of man is he?’

‘He’s an agent. He’s a man to be handled, not known.’

He returned to his crossword.

‘He must be loyal,’ Avery said. ‘Why else would he accept?’

‘You heard what the Director said: the two vows. The first is often quite frivolously taken.’

‘And the second?’

‘Ah, that is different. We shall be there to help him take it.’

‘But why did he accept the first time?’

‘I mistrust reasons. I mistrust words like loyalty. And above all,’ Haldane declared, ‘I mistrust
motive
. We’re running an agent; the arithmetic is over. You read German, didn’t you? In the beginning was the deed.’

Shortly before they arrived Avery ventured one more question.

‘Why
was
that passport out of date?’

Haldane had a way of inclining his head when addressed.

‘The Foreign Office used to allocate a series of passport numbers to the Department for operational purposes. The arrangement ran from year to year. Six months ago the Office said they wouldn’t issue any more without reference to the Circus. It seems Leclerc had been making insufficient claims on the facility and Control cut him out of the market. Taylor’s passport was one of the old series. They revoked the whole lot three days before he left. There was no time to do anything about it. It might never have been noticed. The Circus has been very devious.’ A pause. ‘Indeed I find it hard to understand what Control
is
up to.’

They took a taxi to North Oxford and got out at the corner of their road. As they walked along the pavement Avery looked at the houses in the half-darkness, glimpsed grey-haired figures moving across the lighted windows, velvet-covered chairs trimmed with lace, Chinese screens, music stands and a bridge four sitting like bewitched courtiers in a castle. It was a world he had known about once; for a time he had almost fancied he was part of it; but that was long ago.

They spent the evening preparing the house. Haldane said Leiser should have the rear bedroom overlooking the garden, they themselves would take the rooms on the street side. He had sent some academic books in advance, a typewriter and some imposing files. These he unpacked and arranged on the dining-room table for the benefit of the landlord’s housekeeper who would come each day. ‘We shall call this room the study,’ he said. In the drawing-room he installed a tape recorder.

He had some tapes which he locked in a cupboard, meticulously adding the key to his key ring. Other luggage was still waiting in the hall: a projector, Air Force issue, a screen, and a suitcase of green canvas, securely fastened, with leather corners.

The house was spacious and well kept; the furniture was of mahogany, with brass inlay. The walls were filled with pictures of some unknown family: sketches in sepia, miniatures, photographs faded with age. There was a bowl of potpourri on the sideboard and a palm cross pinned to the mirror; chandeliers hung from the ceiling, clumsy, but inoffensive; in one corner, a bible table; in another a small cupid, very ugly, its face turned to the dark. The whole house gently asserted an air of old age; it had a quality, like incense, of courteous but inconsolable sadness.

By midnight they had finished unpacking. They sat down in the drawing-room. The marble fireplace was supported by blackamoors of ebony; the light of the gas fire played over the gilded rose-chains which linked their thick ankles. The fireplace came from an age, it might have been the seventeenth century, it might have been the nineteenth, when blackamoors had briefly replaced borzois as the decorative beasts of society; they were quite naked, as a dog might be, and chained with golden roses. Avery gave himself a whisky, then went to bed, leaving Haldane sunk in his own thoughts.

His room was large and dark; above the bed hung a light shade of blue china; there were embroidered covers on the tables and a small enamelled notice saying, ‘God’s blessing on this house’; beside the window was a picture of a child saying its prayers while his sister ate breakfast in bed.

He lay awake, wondering about Leiser; it was like waiting for a girl. From across the passage he could hear Haldane’s solitary cough, on and on. It had not ended when he fell asleep.

Leclerc thought Smiley’s club a very strange place; not at all the kind of thing he had expected. Two half-basement rooms and a dozen people dining at separate tables before a large fire. Some of them were vaguely familiar. He suspected they were connected with the Circus.

‘This is rather a good spot. How do you join?’

‘Oh, you don’t,’ said Smiley apologetically, then blushed and continued, ‘I mean, they don’t have new members. Just one generation … several went in the war, you know, some have died or gone abroad. What was it you had in mind, I wonder?’

‘You were good enough to help young Avery out.’

‘Yes … yes of course. How did that go, by the way? I never heard.’

‘It was just a training run. There was no film in the end.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Smiley spoke hastily, covering up, as if someone were dead and he had not known.

‘We didn’t really expect there would be. It was just a precaution. How much did Avery tell you, I wonder? We’re training up one or two of the old hands … and some of the new boys too. It’s something to do,’ Leclerc explained, ‘during the slack season … Christmas, you know. People on leave.’

‘I know.’

Leclerc noticed that the claret was very good. He wished he had joined a smaller club; his own had gone off terribly. They had such difficulty with staff.

‘You have probably heard,’ Leclerc added, officially, as it were, ‘that Control has offered me full assistance for training purposes.’

‘Yes, yes, of course.’

‘My Minister was the moving spirit. He likes the idea of a pool of trained agents. When the plan was first mooted I went and spoke to Control myself. Later, Control called on me. You knew that, perhaps?’

‘Yes. Control wondered …’

‘He has been most helpful. Don’t think I am unappreciative. It has been agreed – I think I should give you the background, your own office will confirm it – that if the training is to be effective, we must create as nearly as possible an operational atmosphere. What we used to call battle conditions.’ An indulgent smile. ‘We’ve chosen an area in Western Germany. It’s bleak and unfamiliar ground, ideal for frontier-crossing exercises and that kind of thing. We can ask for the Army’s cooperation if we need it.’

‘Yes, indeed. What a good idea.’

‘For elementary reasons of security, we all accept that your office should only be briefed in the aspects of this exercise in which you are good enough to help.’

‘Control told me,’ said Smiley. ‘He wants to do whatever he can. He didn’t know you touched this kind of thing any more. He was pleased.’

‘Good,’ Leclerc said shortly. He moved his elbows forward a little across the polished table. ‘I thought I might pick your brains … quite informally. Rather as you people from time to time have made use of Adrian Haldane.’

‘Of course.’

‘The first thing is false documents. I looked up our old forgers in the index. I see Hyde and Fellowby went over to the Circus some years ago.’

‘Yes. It was the change in emphasis.’

‘I’ve written down a personal description of a man in our employment; he is supposedly resident at Magdeburg for the purposes of the scheme. One of the men under training. Do you think they could prepare documents, Identity Card, Party Membership and that kind of thing? Whatever is necessary.’

‘The man would have to sign them,’ Smiley said. ‘We would then stamp on top of his signature. We’d need photographs too. He’d have to be briefed on how the documents worked; perhaps Hyde could do that on the spot with your agent?’

A slight hesitation. ‘No doubt. I have selected a cover name. It closely approximates his own; we find that a useful technique.’

‘I might just make the point,’ Smiley said, with a rather comic frown, ‘since this is such an
elaborate
exercise, that forged papers are of very
limited
value. I mean, one telephone call to the Magdeburg Town Administration and the best forgery in the world is blown sky high …’

‘I think we know about that. We want to teach them cover, submit them to interrogation … you know the kind of thing.’

Smiley sipped his claret. ‘I just thought I’d make the point. It’s so easy to get hypnotised by
technique
. I didn’t mean to imply … How is Haldane, by the way? He read Greats, you know. We were up together.’

‘Adrian is well.’

‘I liked your Avery,’ Smiley said politely. His heavy small face contracted in pain. ‘Do you realise,’ he asked impressively, ‘they
still
don’t include the Baroque period in the German syllabus? They call it a special subject.’

‘Then there is the question of clandestine wireless. We haven’t used that kind of thing much since the war. I understand it has all become a great deal more sophisticated. High-speed transmission and so on. We want to keep up with the times.’

‘Yes. Yes, I believe the message is taped on a miniature recorder and sent over the air in a matter of seconds.’ He sighed. ‘But no one really tells us much. The technical people hold their cards very close to their chests.’

‘Is that a method in which our people could profitably be trained … in a month, say?’

‘And use under operational conditions?’ Smiley asked in astonishment. ‘Straight away, after a month’s training?’

‘Some are technically minded, you understand. People with wireless experience.’

Smiley was watching Leclerc incredulously. ‘Forgive me. Would he, would they,’ he inquired, ‘have
other
things to learn in that month as well?’

‘For some it’s more a refresher course.’

‘Ah.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Nothing, nothing,’ Smiley said vaguely and added, ‘I don’t
think
our technical people would be very keen to part with this kind of equipment unless …’

‘Unless it were their own training operation?’

‘Yes,’ Smiley blushed. ‘Yes, that’s what I mean. They’re very particular, you know; jealous.’

Leclerc lapsed into silence, lightly tapping the base of his wine glass on the polished surface of the table. Suddenly he smiled and said, as if he had shaken off depression, ‘Oh well. We shall just have to use a conventional set. Have direction-finding methods also improved since the war? Interception, location of an illegal transmitter?’

‘Oh yes. Yes, indeed.’

‘We would have to incorporate that. How long can a man remain on the air before they spot him?’

‘Two or three minutes, perhaps. It depends. Often it’s a matter of luck how soon they hear him. They can only pin him down while he’s transmitting. Much depends on the frequency. Or so they tell me.’

‘In the war,’ said Leclerc reflectively, ‘we gave an agent several crystals. Each vibrated at a fixed frequency. Every so often he changed the crystal; that was usually a safe enough method. We could do that again.’

‘Yes. Yes, I remember that. But there was the headache of retuning the transmitter … possibly changing the coil … matching the aerial.’

‘Suppose a man is used to a conventional set. You tell me the chances of interception are greater now than they were in the war? You say allow two or three minutes?’

‘Or less,’ said Smiley, watching him. ‘It depends on a lot of things … luck, reception, amount of signal traffic, density of population …’

‘Supposing he changed his frequency after every two and a half minutes on the air. Surely that would meet the case?’

‘It could be a slow business.’ His sad, unhealthy face was wrinkled in concern. ‘You’re quite sure this is only training?’

‘As far as I remember,’ Leclerc persisted, courting his own idea, ‘these crystals are the size of a small matchbox. We could give them several. We’re only aiming at a few transmissions; perhaps only three or four. Would you consider my suggestion impractical?’

‘It’s hardly my province.’

‘What is the alternative? I asked Control; he said speak to you. He said you’d help, find me the equipment. What else can I do? Can I
talk
to your technical people?’

‘I’m sorry. Control rather agreed with the technical side, that we should give all the help we can, but not compromise new equipment.
Risk
compromising it, I mean. After all, it is only training. I think he felt that if you hadn’t full technical resources you should …’

‘Hand over the commitment?’

‘No, no,’ Smiley protested, but Leclerc interrupted him. ‘These people would eventually be used against military targets,’ he said angrily. ‘Purely military. Control accepts that.’

‘Oh quite.’ He seemed to have given up. ‘And if you want a conventional set, no doubt we can dig one up.’

The waiter brought a decanter of port. Leclerc watched Smiley pour a little into his glass, then slide the decanter carefully across the polished table.

‘It’s quite good, but I’m afraid it’s nearly finished. When this is gone we shall have to break into the younger ones. I’m seeing Control first thing tomorrow. I’m sure he’ll have no objection. About the documents, I mean. And crystals. We could advise you on frequencies, I’m sure. Control made a point of that.’

‘Control’s been very good,’ Leclerc confessed. He was slightly drunk. ‘It puzzles me sometimes.’

Two days later, Leiser arrived at Oxford. They waited anxiously for him on the platform, Haldane peering among the hurrying faces in the crowd. It was Avery, curiously, who saw him first: a motionless figure in a camel-hair coat at the window of an empty compartment.

‘Is that him?’ Avery asked.

‘He’s travelling first class. He must have paid the difference.’ Haldane spoke as if it were an affront.

Leiser lowered the window and handed out two pigskin cases shaped for the boot of a car, a little too orange for nature. They greeted one another briskly, shaking hands for everyone to see. Avery wanted to carry the luggage to the taxi, but Leiser preferred to take it himself, a piece in each hand, as if it were his duty. He walked a little away from them, shoulders back, staring at the people as they went by, startled by the crowd. His long hair bounced with each step.