Smiley’s People by John le Carré

A waiter’s anger, Smiley thought, remembering the contact print. Remembering the tartan room again, at the airport, and Otto’s quiet German voice with its caressing edge; remembering his brown, unblinking eyes, that were like windows on his smouldering soul.

After the Vienna meeting, said Connie, the two men had agreed to meet again in Paris, and Otto wisely played a long hand. In Vienna, Otto had not asked a single question to which the Ginger Pig could take exception; Otto was a pro, said Connie. Was Kirov married? he had asked. Kirov had flung up his hands and roared with laughter at the question, indicating that he was prepared not to be at any time. Married but wife in Moscow, Otto had reported – which would make a honey-trap that much more effective. Kirov had asked Leipzig what his job was these days, and Leipzig had replied magnanimously ‘import-export’, proposing himself as a bit of a wheeler-dealer, Vienna one day, Hamburg the next. In the event, Otto waited a whole month after twenty-five years, said Connie, he could afford to take his time – and during that one month, Kirov was observed by the French to make three separate passes at elderly Paris-based Russian émigrés : one a taxi-driver, one a shopkeeper, one a restaurateur, all three with dependants in the Soviet Union. He offered to take letters, messages, addresses; he even offered to take money and, if they were not too bulky, gifts. And to operate a two-way service next time he returned. Nobody took him up. In the fifth week Otto rang Kirov at his flat, said he had just flown in from Hamburg, and suggested they had some fun. Over dinner, picking his moment, Otto said the night was on him; he had just made a big killing on a certain shipment to a certain country, and had money to burn.

‘This was the bait we had worked out for him, darling,’ Connie explained, addressing Smiley directly at last. ‘And the Ginger Pig rose to it, didn’t he, as they all do, don’t they, bless them, salmon to the fly every time?’

What sort of shipment? Kirov had asked Otto. What sort of country? For reply, Leipzig had drawn in the air a hooked nose on the end of his own, and broken out laughing. Kirov laughed too, but he was clearly very interested. To Israel? he said; then what sort of shipment? Leipzig pointed his same forefinger at Kirov and pretended to pull a trigger. Arms to Israel? Kirov asked in amazement, but Leipzig was a pro and would say no more. They drank, went to a strip club, and talked old times. Kirov even referred to their shared girl-friend, asking whether Leipzig knew what had become of her. Leipzig said he didn’t. In the early morning, Leipzig had proposed they pick up some company and take it to his flat, but Kirov, to his disappointment, refused : not in Paris, too dangerous. In Vienna or Hamburg, sure. But not in Paris. They parted, drunk, at breakfast time, and the Circus was a hundred pounds poorer.

‘Then the bloody infighting started,’ said Connie, suddenly changing track completely. ‘The Great Head Office Debate, my arse. You were away, Saul Enderby put one manicured hoof in and the rest of them promptly got the vapours – that’s what happened.’ Her baron’s voice again : ‘ “Otto Leipzig’s taking us for a ride… We haven’t cleared the operation with the Frogs… Foreign Office worried about implications… Kirov is a plant… the Riga Group a totally unsound base from which to make a ploy of this scale.” Where were you, anyway? Beastly Berlin, wasn’t it?’

‘Hong Kong.’

‘Oh, there,’ she said vaguely, and slumped in her chair while her eyelids drooped.

Smiley had sent Hilary to make tea, and she was clanking dishes at the other end of the room. He glanced at her, wondering whether he should call her, and saw her standing exactly as he had last seen her in the Circus the night they sent for him – her knuckles backed against her mouth, suppressing a silent scream. He had been working late – it was about that time; yes, he was preparing his departure to Hong Kong – when suddenly his internal phone rang and he heard a man’s voice, very strained, asking him to come immediately to the cipher room, Mr Smiley, sir, it’s urgent. Moments later he was hurrying down a bare corridor, flanked by two worried janitors. They pushed open the door for him, he stepped inside, they hung back. He saw the smashed machinery, the files and card indices and telegrams flung around the room like rubbish at a football ground, he saw the filthy graffiti daubed in lipstick on the wall. And at the centre of it all, he saw Hilary herself, the culprit – exactly as she was now – staring through the thick net curtains at the free white sky outside : Hilary our Vestal, so well bred; Hilary our Circus bride.

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