‘I’m afraid we’re no longer worth the candle, Saul,’ Smiley said, with an apologetic smile.
Enderby did not care to be reminded of the limitations of British grandeur, and for a moment his mouth set into a sour grimace.
‘All right, Maud,’ he said finally. ‘Let’s go into the garden.’
They walked side by side. Collins, on Enderby’s nod, had stayed indoors. Slow rain puckered the surface of the pool and made the marble angel glisten in the dusk. Sometimes a breeze passed and a chain of water slopped from the hanging branches onto the lawn, soaking one or the other of them. But Enderby was an English gentleman, and while God’s rain might be falling on the rest of mankind, he was damned if it was going to fall on him. The light came at them in bits. From Ben’s French windows, yellow rectangles fell across the pond. From over the brick wall, they had the sickly green glow of a modem street lamp. They completed a round in silence before Enderby spoke.
‘Led us a proper dance, you did, George, I’ll tell you that for nothing. Villem, Mikhel, Toby, Connie. Poor old Ferguson hardly had time to fill in his expense claims before you were off again. “Doesn’t he ever sleep?” he asked me. “Doesn’t he ever drink?” ‘
‘I’m sorry,’ said Smiley, for something to say.
‘Oh, no, you’re not,’ said Enderby, and came to a sudden halt. ‘Bloody laces,’ he muttered, stooping over his boot, ‘they always do this with suede. Too few eyeholes, that’s the problem. You wouldn’t think even the bloody Brits would manage to be mean with holes, would you?’
Enderby replaced one foot and lifted the other.
‘I want his body, George, hear me? Hand me a live, talking Karla and I’ll accept him and make my excuses later. Karla asks for asylum? Well, um, yes, most reluctantly he can have it. By the time the Wise Men are loading their shot-guns for me I’ll have enough out of him to shut them up for good. His body or nothing, you got me?’
They were strolling again, Smiley trailing behind, but Enderby, though he was speaking, did not turn his head.
‘Don’t you ever go thinking they’ll go away, either,’ he warned. ‘When you and Karla are stuck on your ledge on the Reichebach Falls and you’ve got your hands round Karla’s throat, Brother Lacon will be right there behind you holding your coattails and telling you not to be beastly to the Russians. Did you get that?’
Smily said yes, he had got it.
‘What have you got on him so far? Misuse of the facilities of his office, I suppose. Fraud. Peculation of public funds, the very thing he topped that Lisbon fellow for. Unlawful operations abroad, including a couple of assassination jobs. I suppose there’s a whole bloody boxful when you work it out. Plus all those jealous beavers at Centre longing for an excuse to knife him. He’s right : blackmail’s a bloody sight better than bribery.’
Smiley said, yes, it seemed so.
‘You’ll need people. Baby-sitters, lamplighters, all the forbidden toys. Don’t talk to me about it, find your own. Money’s another matter. I can lose you in the accounts for years the way these clowns in Treasury work. Just tell me when and how much and where, and I’ll do a Karla for you and fiddle the accounts. How about passports and stuff? Need some addresses?’
‘I think I can manage, thank you.’
‘I’ll watch you day and night. If the ploy aborts and there’s a scandal, I’m not going to have people telling me I should have staked you out. I’ll say I suspected you might be slipping the leash on the Vladimir thing and I decided to have you checked in case. I’ll say the whole catastrophe was a ludicrous piece of private enterprise by a senile spy who’s lost his marbles.’
Smiley said he thought that was a good idea.
‘I may not have much to put on the street, but I can still tap your phone, steam open your mail, and if I want to, I’ll bug your bedroom too. We’ve been listening in since Saturday as it is. Nothing of course, but what do you expect?’