Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John le Carré

‘I sold a couple once,’ said Toby with a flashy, nervous smile, but no one laughed.

‘The more you pay for it, the less inclined you are to doubt it. Silly, but there we are. It’s also comforting for everyone to know that Merlin is venal. That’s a motive we all understand, right, Toby? Specially in the Treasury. Twenty thousand francs a month into a Swiss bank: well, there’s no knowing who wouldn’t bend a few egalitarian principles for money like that. So Whitehall pays him a fortune, and calls his intelligence priceless. And some of it is good,’ Smiley conceded. ‘Very good, I do think, and so it should be. Then one day, Gerald admits Percy to the greatest secret of all. The Merlin caucus has a London end. It’s the start, I should tell you now, of a very, very clever knot.’

Toby put down his cup and with his handkerchief primly dabbed the corners of his mouth.

‘According to Gerald, a member of the Soviet Embassy here in London is actually ready and able to act as Merlin’s London representative. He is even in the extraordinary position of being able to use, on rare occasions, the Embassy facilities to talk to Merlin in Moscow, to send and receive messages. And if every imaginable precaution is taken, it is even possible now and then for Gerald to arrange clandestine meetings with this wonderman, to brief and debrief him, to put follow-up questions and receive answers from Merlin almost by return of post. We’ll call this Soviet official Aleksey Aleksandrovich Polyakov, and we’ll pretend he’s a member of the cultural section of the Soviet Embassy. Are you with me?’

‘I didn’t hear anything,’ said Esterhase. ‘I gone deaf.’

‘The story is, he’s been a member of the London Embassy quite a while – nine years to be precise – but Merlin’s only recently added him to the flock. While Polyakov was on leave in Moscow, perhaps?’

‘I’m not hearing nothing.’

‘Very quickly Polyakov becomes important, because before long Gerald appoints him linchpin of the Witchcraft operation and a lot more besides. The dead drops in Amsterdam and Paris, the secret inks, the microdots: they all go on all right, but at less of a pitch. The convenience of having Polyakov right on the doorstep is too good to miss. Some of Merlin’s best material is smuggled to London by diplomatic bag: all Polyakov has to do is slit open the envelopes and pass them to his counterpart in the Circus: Gerald or whomever Gerald nominates. But we must never forget that this part of the Merlin operation is deathly, deathly secret. The Witchcraft committee itself is of course secret too, but large. That’s inevitable. The operation is large, the take is large, processing and distribution alone requires a mass of clerical supervision: transcribers, translators, codists, typists, evaluators and God knows what. None of that worries Gerald at all, of course: he likes it in fact, because the art of being Gerald is to be one of a crowd. Is the Witchcraft committee led from below? From the middle or from the top? I rather like Karla’s description of committees don’t you? Is it Chinese? A committee is an animal with four back legs.

‘But the London end – Polyakov’s leg – that part is confined to the original magic circle. Skordeno, de Silsky, all the pack: they can tear off abroad and devil like mad for Merlin away from home. But here in London, the operation involving brother Polyakov, the way that knot is tied, that’s a very special secret, for very special reasons. You, Percy, Bill Haydon and Roy Bland. You four are the magic circle. Right? Now let’s just speculate about how it works, in detail. There’s a house, we know that. All the same, meetings there are very elaborately arranged, we can be sure of that, can’t we? Who meets him, Toby? Who has the handling of Polyakov? You? Roy? Bill?’

Taking the fat end of his tie, Smiley turned the silk lining outwards and began polishing his glasses. ‘Everyone does,’ he said, answering his own question. ‘How’s that? Sometimes Percy meets him. I would guess Percy represents the authoritarian side with him: “Isn’t it time you took a holiday? Have you heard from your wife this week?” Percy would be good at that. But the Witchcraft committee uses Percy sparingly. Percy’s the big gun and he must have rarity value. Then there’s Bill Haydon; Bill meets him. That would happen more often, I think. Bill’s impressive on Russia and he has entertainment value. I have a feeling that he and Polyakov would hit it off pretty well. I would think Bill shone when it came to the briefing and the follow-up questions, wouldn’t you? Making certain that the right messages went to Moscow? Sometimes he takes Roy Bland with him, sometimes he sends Roy on his own. I expect that’s something they work out between themselves. And Roy of course is an economic expert, as well as top man on satellites, so there’ll be lots to talk about in that department also. And sometimes – I imagine birthdays, Toby, or a Christmas, or special presentations of thanks and money – there’s a small fortune written down to entertainment, I notice, let alone bounties – sometimes, to make the party go, you all four trot along, and raise your glasses to the king across the water: to Merlin, through his envoy, Polyakov. Finally I suppose Toby himself has things to talk to friend Polyakov about. There’s tradecraft to discuss, there are the useful snippets about goings-on inside the Embassy, which are so handy to the lamplighters in their bread-and-butter surveillance operations against the residency. So Toby also has his solo sessions. After all, we shouldn’t overlook Polyakov’s local potential, quite apart from his role as Merlin’s London representative. It’s not every day we have a tame Soviet diplomat in London eating out of our hands. A little training with a camera and Polyakov could be very useful just at the straight domestic level. Provided we all remember our priorities.’

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