“You said yourself there were special precautions, special procedures in this case. Perhaps they didn’t think you needed to know.”
“Don’t be bloody silly,” Leamas rejoined shortly; “of course I’d have known.” This was the point he would stick to through thick and thin; it made them feel they knew better, gave credence to the rest of his information. “They will want to deduce _in spite of you_,” Control had said. “We must give them the material and remain skeptical to their conclusions. Rely on their intelligence and conceit, on their suspicion of one another–that’s what we must do.”
Peters nodded as if he were confirming a melancholy truth. “You are a very proud man, Leamas,” he observed once more.
Peters left soon after that. He wished Leamas good day and walked down the road along the seafront. It was lunchtime.
* * 10 * The Third Day
Peters didn’t appear that afternoon, nor the next morning. Leamas stayed in, waiting with growing irritation for some message, but none -came. He asked the housekeeper but she just smiled and shrugged her heavy shoulders. At about eleven o’clock the next morning he decided to go out for a walk along the front, bought some cigarettes and stared dully at the sea.
There was a girl standing on the beach throwing bread to the sea gulls. Her back was turned to him. The sea wind played with her long black hair and pulled at her coat, making an arc of her body, like a bow strung toward the sea. He knew then what it was that Liz had given him; the thing that he would have to go back and find if ever he got home to England: it was the caring about little things–the faith in ordinary life; that simplicity that made you break up a bit of bread into a paper bag, walk down to the beach and throw it to the gulls. It was this respect for triviality which he had never been allowed to possess; whether it was bread for the sea gulls or love, whatever it was he would go back and find it; he would make Liz find it for him. A week, two weeks perhaps, and he would be home. Control had said he could keep whatever they paid–and that would be enough. With fifteen thousand pounds, a gratuity and a pension from the Circus, a man–as Control would say–can afford to come in from the cold.
He made a detour and returned to the bungalow at a quarter to twelve. The woman let him in without a word, but when he had gone into the back room he heard her lift the receiver and dial a telephone number. She spoke for only a few seconds. At half-past twelve she brought his lunch, and, to his pleasure, some English newspapers which he read contentedly until three o’clock. Leamas, who normally read nothing, read newspapers slowly and with concentration. He remembered details, like the names and addresses of people who were the subject of small news items. He did it almost unconsciously as a kind of private Pelmanism, and it absorbed him entirely.
At three o’clock Peters arrived, and as soon as Leamas saw him he knew that something was up. They did not sit at the table; Peters did not take off his mackintosh.
“I’ve got bad news for you,” he said. “They’re looking for you in England. I heard this morning. They’re watching the ports.”
Leamas replied impassively, “On what charge?”
“Nominally for failing to report to a police station within the statutory period after release from prison.”
“And in fact?”
“The word is going around that you’re wanted for an offense under the Official Secrets Act. Your photograph’s in all the London evening papers. The captions are very vague.”
Leamas was standing very still.
Control had done it. Control had started the hue and cry. There was no other explanation. If Ashe or Kiever had been pulled in, if they had talked–even then, the responsibility for the hue and cry was still Control’s. “A couple of weeks,” he’d said; “I expect they’ll take you off somewhere for the interrogation–it may even be abroad. A couple of weeks should see you through, though. After that, the thing should run itself. You’ll have to lie low over here while the chemistry works itself out; but you won’t mind that, I’m sure. I’ve agreed to keep you on operational subsistence until Mundt is eliminated: that seemed the fairest way.” –