THE LOOKING GLASS WAR by John LeCarré

“How is everyone in Blackfriars Road? Do you know Haldane at all?” Smiley asked. He didn’t care about the reply.

“He’s Research now.”

“Of course. A good brain. Your Research people enjoy quite a reputation, you know. We have consulted them ourselves more than once. Haldane and I were contemporaries at Oxford. Then in the war we worked together for a while. A Greats man. We’d have taken him here after the war; I think the medical people were worried about his chest.”

“I hadn’t heard.”

“Hadn’t you?” The eyebrows rose comically. “There’s a hotel in Helsinki called the Prince of Denmark. Opposite the main station. Do you know it by any chance?”

“No. I’ve never been to Helsinki.”

“Haven’t you now?” Smiley peered at him anxiously. “It’s a very strange story. This Taylor: was he training too?”

“I don’t know. But I’ll find the hotel,” Avery said with a touch of impatience.

“They sell magazines and postcards just inside the door. There’s only the one entrance.” He might have been talking about the house next door. “And flowers. I think the best arrangement would be for you to go there once you have the film. Ask the people at the flower stall to send a dozen red roses to Mrs. Avery at the Imperial Hotel at Torquay. Or half a dozen would be enough, we don’t want to waste money, do we? Flowers are so expensive there. Are you traveling under your own name?”

“Yes.”

“Any particular reason? I don’t mean to be curious,” he added hastily, “but one has such a short life anyway … I mean before one’s blown.”

“I gather it takes a bit of time to get a fake passport. The Foreign Office . . .” He shouldn’t have answered. He should have told him to mind his own business.

“I’m sorry,” said Smiley, and frowned as if he had made an error of tact. “You can always come to us, you know. For passports, I mean.” It was meant as a kindness. “Just send the flowers. As you leave the hotel, check your watch by the hall clock. Half an hour later return to the main entrance. A taxi driver will recognize you and open the door of his car. Get in, drive around, give him the film. Oh, and pay him please. Just the ordinary fare. It’s so easy to forget the little things. What kind of training precisely?”

“What if I don’t get the film?”

“In that case do nothing. Don’t go near the hotel. Don’t go to Helsinki. Forget about it.” It occurred to Avery that his instructions had been remarkably clear.

“When you were reading German, did you touch on the seventeenth century by any chance?” Smiley inquired hopefully as Avery rose to go. “Gryphius, Lohenstein; those people?”

“It was a special subject. I’m afraid I didn’t.”

“Special,” muttered Smiley. “What a silly word. I suppose they mean extrinsic; it’s a very impertinent notion.”

As they reached the door he said, “Have you a briefcase or anything?”

“Yes.”

“When you have that film, put it in your pocket,” he suggested, “and carry the briefcase in your hand. If you are followed, they tend to watch the briefcase. It’s natural, really. If you just drop the briefcase somewhere, they may go looking for that instead. I don’t think the Finns are very sophisticated people. It’s only a training hint, of course. But don’t worry. It’s such a mistake, I always feel, to put one’s trust in technique.” He saw Avery to the door, then made his way ponderously along the corridor to Control’s room.

Avery walked upstairs to the flat, guessing how Sarah would react. He wished he had telephoned after all because he hated to find her in the kitchen, and Anthony’s toys all over the drawing room carpet. It never worked, turning up without warning. She took fright as if she expected him to have done something dreadful.

He did not carry a key; Sarah was always in. She had no friends of her own as far as he knew; she never went to coffee parties or took herself shopping. She seemed to have no talent for independent pleasure.

He pressed the bell, heard Anthony calling Mummy, Mummy, and waited to hear her step. The kitchen was at the end of the passage, but this time she came from the bedroom, softly as though she were barefooted.

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