‘Like bumping chaps off?’
‘That was more recent,’ Smiley said, in a tone of such casual exoneration that Enderby glanced at him quite sharply.
‘You’re bloody forgiving these days, aren’t you, George?’ said Enderby suspiciously.
‘Am I? ‘ Smiley sounded puzzled by the question. ‘If you say so, Saul.’
‘And bloody meek, too.’ He returned to the transcript. ‘Page twenty-one and we’re home free.’ He read slowly to give the passage extra point. ‘Page twenty-one,’ he repeated. ‘ “Following the successful recruitment of Ostrakova, and the formal issuing of a French permit to her daughter Alexandra, I was instructed to set aside immediately ten thousand American dollars a month from the Paris imprest for the purpose of servicing this new mole, who was henceforth awarded the workname KOMET. The agent KOMET also received the highest classification of secrecy within the Directorate, requiring all communications regarding her to be sent to the Director personally, using person-to-person ciphers, and without intermediaries. Preferably, however, such communications should go by courier, since Karla is an opponent of the excessive use of radio.” Any truth in that one, George?’ Enderby asked casually.
‘It was how we caught him in India,’ said Smiley without lifting his head from the script. ‘We broke his codes and he later swore that he would never use radio again. Like most promises, it was subject to review.’
Enderby bit off a bit of matchstick, and smeared it onto the back of his hand. ‘Don’t you want to take your coat off, George?’ he asked. ‘Sam, ask him what he wants to drink.’
Sam asked, but Smiley was too absorbed in the script to answer.
Enderby resumed his reading aloud : ‘ “I was also instructed to make sure that no reference to KOMET appeared on the annual accounts for Western Europe which, as auditor, I was obliged to sign and present to Karla for submission to the Collegium of Moscow Centre at the close of each financial year… No, I never met the agent KOMET, nor do I know what became of her, or in which country she is operating. I know only that she is living under the name of Alexandra Ostrakova, the daughter of naturalized French parents…” ‘ More turning of pages. ‘ “The monthly payment of ten thousand dollars was not expended by myself, but transferred to a bank in Thun in the Swiss canton of Berne. The transfer is made by standing orders to the credit of a Dr Adolf Glaser. Glaser is the nominal account holder, but I believe that Dr Glaser is only the workname for a Karla operative at the Soviet Embassy in Berne, whose real name is Grigoriev. I believe this because once when I sent money to Thun, the sending bank made an error, and it did not arrive; when this became known to Karla, he ordered me to send a second sum immediately to Grigoriev personally while bank enquiries were continuing. I did as I was ordered and later recovered the duplicated amount. This is all I know. Otto, my friend, I beg you to preserve these confidences, they could kill me.” He’s bloody right. They did.’ Enderby chucked the transcript on to a table, and it made a loud slap. ‘Kirov’s last will and testament, as you might say. That’s it. George?’
‘Yes, Saul.’
‘Really no drink?’
‘Thank you, I’m fine.’
‘I’m still going to spell it out because I’m thick. Watch my arithmetic. It’s nowhere near as good as yours. Watch my every move.’ Recalling Lacon, he held up a white hand and spread the fingers as a prelude to counting on them.
‘One, Ostrakova writes to Vladimir. Her message rings old bells. Probably Mikhel intercepted and read it, but we’ll never know. We could sweat him, but I doubt if it would help, and it would most certainly put the cat among Karla’s pigeons in a big way if we did.’ He grabbed a second finger. ‘Two, Vladimir sends a copy of Ostrakova’s letter to Otto Leipzig, urging him to rewarm the Kirov relationship double-quick. Three, Leipzig roars off to Paris, sees Ostrakova, gets himself alongside his dear old buddy Kirov, tempts him to Hamburg – where Kirov is free to go, after all, since Leipzig is still down in Karla’s books as Kirov’s agent. Now there’s a thing, George.’