Smiley waited.
‘In Hamburg, Leipzig burns Kirov rotten. Right? Proof right here in our sweaty hands. But I mean – how?’
Did Smiley really not follow, or was he merely intent upon making Enderby work a little harder? In either case, he preferred to take Enderby’s question as rhetorical.
‘How does Leipzig burn him precisely?’ Enderby insisted. ‘What’s the pressure? Dirty pix – well, okay. Karla’s a puritan, so’s Kirov. But I mean, Christ, this isn’t the fifties, is it? Everyone’s allowed a bit of leg-sliding these days, what?’
Smiley offered no comment on Russian mores; but on the subject of pressure he was as precise as Karla might have been : ‘It’s a different ethic to ours. It suffers no fools. We think of ourselves as more susceptible to pressure than the Russians. It’s not true. It’s simply not true.’ He seemed very sure of this. He seemed to have given the matter a lot of recent thought :
‘Kirov had been incompetent and indiscreet. For his indiscretion alone, Karla would have destroyed him. Leipzig had the proof of that. You may remember that when we were running the original operation against Kirov, Kirov got drunk and talked out of turn about Karla. He told Leipzig that it was Karla personally who had ordered him to compose the legend for a female agent. You discounted the story at the time, but it was true.’
Enderby was not a man to blush, but he did have the grace to pull a wry grin before fishing in his pocket for another matchstick.
‘And he that rolleth a stone, it will return upon him,’ he remarked contentedly, though whether he was referring to his own dereliction or to Kirov’s was unclear.’ “Tell us the rest, buddy, or I’ll tell Karla what you’ve told me already,” says little Otto to the fly. Jesus, you’re right, he really did have Kirov by the balls!’
Sam Collins ventured a soothing interjection. ‘I think George’s point meshes pretty neatly with the reference on page two, Chief,’ he said. ‘There’s a passage where Leipzig actually refers to “our discussions in Paris”. Otto’s twisting the Karla knife there, no question. Right, George?’
But Sam Collins might have been speaking in another room for all the attention either of them paid him.
‘Leipzig also had Ostrakova’s letter,’ Smiley added. ‘Its contents did not speak well for Kirov.’
‘Another thing,’ said Enderby.
‘Yes, Saul?’
‘Four years, right? It’s fully four years since Kirov made his original pass at Leipzig. Suddenly he’s all over Ostrakova, wanting the same thing. Four years later. You suggesting he’s been swanning around with the same brief all this time, and got no forrader?’
Smiley’s answer was curiously bureaucratic. ‘One can only suppose that Karla’s requirement ceased and was then revived,’ he replied primly, and Enderby had the sense not to press him.
‘Point is, Leipzig burns Kirov rotten and gets word to Vladimir that he’s done so,’ Enderby resumed as the spread fingers came up again for counting. ‘Vladimir despatches Villem to play courier. Meanwhile back at the Moscow ranch, Karla is either smelling a rat or Mikhel has peached, probably the latter. In either case, Karla calls Kirov home under the pretext of promotion and swings him by his ears. Kirov sings, as I would, fast. Karla tries to put the toothpaste back in the tube. Kills Vladimir while he’s on the way to our rendezvous armed with Ostrakova’s letter. Kills Leipzig. Takes a pot at the old lady, and fluffs it. What’s his mood now?’
‘He’s sitting in Moscow waiting for Holmes or Captain Ahab to catch up with him,’ Sam Collins suggested, in his velvet voice, and lit yet another of his brown cigarettes.
Enderby was unamused. ‘So why doesn’t Karla dig up his treasure, George? Put it somewhere else? If Kirov has confessed to Karla what he’s confessed to Leipzig, Karla’s first move should be to brush over the traces!’
‘Perhaps the treasure is not movable,’ Smiley replied. ‘Perhaps Karla’s options have run out.’
‘But it would be daylight madness to leave that bank account intact!’
‘It was daylight madness to use a fool like Kirov,’ Smiley said, with unusual harshness. ‘It was madness to let him recruit Leipzig and madness to approach Ostrakova, and madness to believe that by killing three people he could stop the leak. Presumptions of sanity are therefore not given. Why should they be?’ He paused. ‘And Karla does believe it, apparently, or Grigoriev would not still be in Berne. Which you say he is, I gather?’ The smallest glance at Collins.