‘It was a party,’ the old man said carelessly while he made the dinghy fast against the jetty. ‘Lots of music, singing. They warned us it would be loud.’ He tugged at a knot. ‘Maybe they quarrelled. So what? Many people quarrel. They made some noise, played some jazz. So what? We are musical people here.’
‘They were police,’ a woman called from the group on the shore. ‘When police go about their business it is the duty of the citizen to keep his trap shut.’
‘Show me his car,’ Smiley asked.
They moved in a rabble, no one leading. The old man strode at Smiley’s side, half custodian, half bodyguard, making a way for him with facetious ceremony. The children ran everywhere but they kept well clear of the old man. The Volkswagen stood in a coppice and it was ripped apart like the cabin of the Isadora. The roof lining hung in shreds, the seats had been pulled out and split open. The wheels were missing but Smiley guessed that had happened since. The camp people stood round it reverently as if it were their show-piece. Someone had tried to burn it but the fire had not caught.
‘He was scum,’ the old man explained. ‘They all are. Look at them. Polacks, criminals, subhumans.’
Smiley’s Opel stood where he had parked it, at the edge of the track, close to the dustbins, and the two blond boys who were dressed alike were standing over the boot beating the lid with hammers. As he walked towards them he could see their forelocks bouncing with each blow. They wore jeans and black boots studded with love-daisies.
‘Tell them to stop hitting my car,’ Smiley said to the old man.
The camp people were following at a distance. He could hear again the furtive shuffle of their feet, like a refugee army. He reached his car and had the keys in his hand, and the two boys were still bent over the back hitting with all their might. But when he walked round to take a look, all they had done was beat the lid of the boot right off its hinges, then fold it and beat it flat again till it lay like a crude parcel on the floor. He looked at the wheels but nothing seemed amiss. He didn’t know what else to look for. Then he saw that they had tied a dustbin to the rear bumper with string. Keeping clear, he tugged at the string to break it, but it refused to yield. He tried it with his teeth, without success. The old man lent him a penknife and he cut it, keeping clear of the boys with their hammers. The camp people had made a half ring and they were holding up their children for the farewell. Smiley got into the car and the old man slammed the door after him with a tremendous heave. Smiley had the key in the ignition but by the time he turned it, one of the boys had draped himself over the bonnet as languidly as a model at a motorshow and the other was tapping politely at the window.
Smiley lowered the window.
‘What do you want?’ Smiley asked.
The boy held out his palm. ‘Repairs,’ he explained. ‘Your boot didn’t shut properly. Time and materials. Overheads. Parking.’ He indicated his thumb-nail. ‘My colleague here hurt his hand. It could have been serious.’
Smiley looked at the boy’s face and saw no human instinct that he understood.
‘You have repaired nothing. You have done damage. Ask your friend to get off the car.’
The boys conferred, seeming to disagree. They did this under the full gaze of the crowd, in a reasoned manner, slowly pushing each other’s shoulders and making rhetorical gestures which did not coincide with their words. They talked about nature and about politics, and their platonic dialogue might have gone on indefinitely if the boy who was on the car had not stood up in order to make the best of a debating point. As he did so, he broke off a windscreen wiper as if it were a flower and handed it to the old man. Driving away, Smiley looked in his mirror and saw a ring of faces staring after him with the old man at their centre. Nobody waved goodbye.