The Looking Glass War (8 page)

‘Once or twice.’ Again Smiley said nothing and did not seem to notice the gap.

‘How
is
everyone in Blackfriars Road? Do you know Haldane at all?’ Smiley asked. He didn’t care about the reply.

‘He’s Research now.’

‘Of course. A good brain. Your Research people enjoy quite a reputation, you know. We have consulted them ourselves more than once. Haldane and I were contemporaries at Oxford. Then in the war we worked together for a while. A Greats man. We’d have taken him here after the war; I think the medical people were worried about his chest.’

‘I hadn’t heard.’

‘Hadn’t you?’ The eyebrows rose comically. ‘There’s a hotel in Helsinki called the Prince of Denmark. Opposite the main station. Do you know it by any chance?’

‘No. I’ve never been to Helsinki.’

‘Haven’t you, now?’ Smiley peered at him anxiously. ‘It’s a very
strange
story. This Taylor: was he training too?’

‘I don’t know. But I’ll find the hotel,’ Avery said with a touch of impatience.

‘They sell magazines and postcards just inside the door. There’s only the one entrance.’ He might have been talking about the house next door. ‘And flowers. I think the best arrangement would be for you to go there once you have the film. Ask the people at the flower stall to send a dozen red roses to Mrs Avery at the Imperial Hotel at Torquay. Or half a dozen would be enough, we don’t want to waste money, do we? Flowers are so expensive up there. Are you travelling under your own name?’

‘Yes.’

‘Any particular reason? I don’t mean to be curious,’ he added hastily, ‘but one has such a short life anyway … I mean before one’s blown.’

‘I gather it takes a bit of time to get a fake passport. The Foreign Office …’ He shouldn’t have answered. He should have told him to mind his own business.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Smiley, and frowned as if he had made an error of tact. ‘You can always come to us, you know. For passports, I mean.’ It was meant as a kindness. ‘Just send the flowers. As you leave the hotel, check your watch by the hall clock. Half an hour later return to the main entrance. A taxi driver will recognize you and open the door of his car. Get in, drive around, give him the film. Oh, and pay him, please. Just the ordinary fare. It’s so easy to forget the
little
things. What
kind
of training precisely?’

‘What if I don’t get the film?’

‘In that case do nothing. Don’t go near the hotel. Don’t go to Helsinki. Forget about it.’ It occurred to Avery that his instructions had been remarkably clear.

‘When you were reading German, did you touch on the seventeenth century by any chance?’ Smiley inquired hopefully as Avery rose to go. ‘Gryphius, Lohenstein; those people?’

‘It was a special subject. I’m afraid I didn’t.’

‘
Special
,’ muttered Smiley. ‘What a
silly
word. I suppose they mean extrinsic; it’s a very impertinent notion.’

As they reached the door he said, ‘Have you a briefcase or anything?’

‘Yes.’

‘When you have that film, put it in your pocket,’ he suggested, ‘and carry the briefcase in your hand. If you
are
followed, they tend to watch the briefcase. It’s natural, really. If you just drop the briefcase somewhere, they may go looking for that instead. I don’t think the Finns are very
sophisticated
people. It’s only a training hint, of course. But don’t
worry.
It’s such a mistake, I always feel, to put one’s trust in
technique.
’ He saw Avery to the door, then made his way ponderously along the corridor to Control’s room.

Avery walked upstairs to the flat, guessing how Sarah would react. He wished he had telephoned after all because he hated to find her in the kitchen, and Anthony’s toys all over the drawing-room carpet. It never worked, turning up without warning. She took fright as if she expected him to have done something dreadful.

He did not carry a key; Sarah was always in. She had no friends of her own as far as he knew; she never went to coffee parties or took herself shopping. She seemed to have no talent for independent pleasure.

He pressed the bell, heard Anthony calling Mummy, Mummy, and waited to hear her step. The kitchen was at the end of the passage, but this time she came from the bedroom, softly as though she were barefooted.

She opened the door without looking at him. She was wearing a cotton nightdress and a cardigan.

‘God, you took your time,’ she said, turned and walked uncertainly back to the bedroom. ‘Something wrong?’ she asked over her shoulder. ‘Someone else been murdered?’

‘What’s the matter, Sarah? Aren’t you well?’

Anthony was running about shouting because his father had come home. Sarah climbed back into bed. ‘I rang the doctor.
I
don’t know what it is,’ she said, as if illness were not her subject.

‘Have you a temperature?’

She had put a bowl of cold water and the bathroom flannel beside her. He wrung out the flannel and laid it on her head. ‘You’ll have to cope,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid it’s not as exciting as spies. Aren’t you going to ask me what’s wrong?’

‘When’s the doctor arriving?’

‘He has surgery till twelve. He’ll turn up after that, I suppose.’

He went to the kitchen, Anthony following. The breakfast things were still on the table. He telephoned her mother in Reigate and asked her to come straight away.

It was just before one when the doctor arrived. A fever, he said; some germ that was going the rounds.

He thought she would weep when he told her he was going abroad; she took it in, reflected for a while and then suggested he went and packed.

‘Is it important?’ she said suddenly.

‘Of course. Terribly.’

‘Who for?’

‘You, me. All of us, I suppose.’

‘And for Leclerc?’

‘I told you. For all of us.’

He promised Anthony he would bring him something.

‘Where are you going?’ Anthony asked.

‘In an aeroplane.’

‘Where?’

He was going to tell him it was a great secret when he remembered Taylor’s little girl.

He kissed her goodbye, took his suitcase to the hall and put it on the mat. There were two locks on the door for Sarah’s sake and they had to be turned simultaneously. He heard her say:

‘Is it dangerous too?’

‘I don’t know. I only know it’s very big.’

‘You’re really sure of that, are you?’

He called almost in despair, ‘Look, how far am I supposed to think? It isn’t a question of politics, don’t you see? It’s a question of fact. Can’t you believe? Can’t you tell me for once in my life that I’m doing something good?’ He went into the bedroom, reasoning. She held a paperback in front of her and was pretending to read. ‘We all have to, you know, we all have to draw a line round our lives. It’s no good asking me the whole time, “Are you sure?” It’s like asking whether we should have children, whether we should have married. There’s just no point.’

‘Poor John,’ she observed, putting down the book and analysing him. ‘Loyalty without faith. It’s very hard for you.’ She said this with total dispassion as if she had identified a social evil. The kiss was like a betrayal of her standards.

Haldane watched the last of them leave the room: he had arrived late, he would leave late, never with the crowd.

Leclerc said, ‘Why do you do that to me?’ He spoke like an actor tired from the play. The maps and photographs were strewn on the table with the empty cups and ashtrays.

Haldane didn’t answer.

‘What are you trying to prove, Adrian?’

‘What was that you said about putting a man in?’

Leclerc went to the basin and poured himself a glass of water from the tap. ‘You don’t care for Avery, do you?’ he asked.

‘He’s young. I’m tired of that cult.’

‘I get a sore throat, talking all the time. Have some yourself. Do your cough good.’

‘How old is Gorton?’ Haldane accepted the glass, drank, and handed it back.

‘Fifty.’

‘He’s more. He’s our age. He was our age in the war.’

‘One forgets. Yes, he must be fifty-five or six.’

‘Established?’ Haldane persisted.

Leclerc shook his head. ‘He’s not qualified. Broken service. He went to the Control Commission after the war. When that packed up he wanted to stay in Germany. German wife, I think. He came to us and we gave him a contract. We could never afford to keep him there if he were established.’ He took a sip of water, delicately, like a girl. ‘Ten years ago we’d thirty men in the field. Now we’ve nine. We haven’t even got our own couriers, not clandestine ones. They all knew it this morning; why didn’t they say so?’

‘How often does he put in a refugee report?’

Leclerc shrugged. ‘I don’t see all his stuff,’ he said. ‘Your people should know. The market’s dwindling, I suppose, now they’ve closed the Berlin border.’

‘They only put the better reports up to me. This must be the first I’ve seen from Hamburg for a year. I always imagined he had some other function.’

Leclerc shook his head. Haldane asked, ‘When does his contract come up for renewal?’

‘I don’t know. I just don’t know.’

‘I suppose he must be fairly worried. Does he get a gratuity on retirement?’

‘It’s just a three-year contract. There’s no gratuity. No frills. He has the chance of going on after sixty, of course, if we want him. That’s the advantage of being a temporary.’

‘When was his contract last renewed?’

‘You’d better ask Carol. It must be two years ago. Maybe longer.’

Haldane said again, ‘You talked about putting a man in.’

‘I’m seeing the Minister again this afternoon.’

‘You’ve sent Avery already. You shouldn’t have done that, you know.’

‘Somebody had to go. Did you want me to ask the Circus?’

‘Avery was very impertinent,’ Haldane observed.

The rain was running in the gutters, tracing grey tracks on the dingy panes. Leclerc seemed to want Haldane to speak, but Haldane had nothing to say. ‘I don’t know yet what the Minister thinks about Taylor’s death. He’ll ask me this afternoon and I shall give him my opinion. We’re all in the dark, of course.’ His voice recovered its strength. ‘But he may instruct me – it’s on the cards, Adrian – he may
instruct
me to get a man in.’

‘Well?’

‘Suppose I asked you to form an operations section, make the research, prepare papers and equipment; suppose I asked you to find, train and field the agent. Would you do it?’

‘Without telling the Circus?’

‘Not in detail. We may need their facilities from time to time. That doesn’t mean we need tell them the whole story. There’s the question of security:
need to know.
’

‘Then without the Circus?’

‘Why not?’

Haldane shook his head. ‘Because it isn’t our work. We’re just not equipped. Give it to the Circus and help them out with the military stuff. Give it to an old hand, someone like Smiley or Leamas …’

‘Leamas is dead.’

‘All right then, Smiley.’

‘Smiley is blown.’

Haldane coloured. ‘Then Guillam or one of the others. One of the pros. They’ve got a big enough stable these days. Go and see Control, let him have the case.’

‘No,’ Leclerc said firmly, putting the glass on the table. ‘No, Adrian. You’ve been in the Department as long as I have, you know our brief.
Take all necessary steps
– that’s what it says –
all necessary steps for the procurement, analysis and verification of military intelligence in those areas where the requirement cannot be met from conventional military resources.
’ He beat out the words with his little fist as he spoke. ‘How else do you think I got authority for the overflight?’

‘All right,’ Haldane conceded. ‘We have our brief. But things have changed. It’s a different game now. In those days we were top of the tree – rubber boats on a moonless night; a captured enemy plane; wireless and all that. You and I know; we did it together. But it’s changed. It’s a different war; a different kind of fighting. They know that at the Ministry perfectly well.’ He added, ‘And don’t place too much trust in the Circus; you’ll get no charity from those people.’

They looked at one another in surprise, a moment of recognition. Leclerc said, his voice scarcely above a whisper: ‘It began with the networks, didn’t it? Do you remember how the Circus swallowed them up one by one? The Ministry would say: “We’re in danger of duplication on the Polish desks, Leclerc. I’ve decided Control should look after Poland.” When was that? July ’forty-eight. Year after year it’s gone on. Why do you think they patronize your Research Section? Not just for your beautiful files; they’ve got us where they want us, don’t you see? Satellites! Non-operational! It’s a way of putting us to sleep! You know what they call us in Whitehall these days? The Grace and Favour boys.’

There was a long silence.

Haldane said, ‘I’m a collator, not an operational man.’

‘You
used
to be operational, Adrian.’

‘So did we all.’

‘You know the target. You know the whole background. There’s no one else. Take whom you want – Avery, Woodford, whoever you want.’

‘We’re not used to people any more. Handling them, I mean.’ Haldane had become unusually diffident. ‘I’m a Research man. I work with files.’

‘We’ve had nothing else to give you until now. How long is it? Twenty years.’

‘Do you know what it means, a rocket site?’ Haldane demanded. ‘Do you know how much mess it makes? They need launch pads, blast shields, cable troughs, control buildings; they need bunkers for storing the warheads, trailers for fuel and oxidizers. All those things come first. Rockets don’t creep about in the night; they move like a travelling fair; we’d have other indicators before now; or the Circus would. As for Taylor’s death—’

‘For Heaven’s sake, Adrian, do you think Intelligence consists of unassailable philosophical truths? Does every priest have to
prove
that Christ was born on Christmas Day?’

His little face was thrust forward as he tried to draw from Haldane something he seemed to know was there. ‘You can’t do it all by sums, Adrian. We’re not academics, we’re Civil Servants. We have to deal with things as they are. We have to deal with people, with events!’