Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John le Carré

‘And that’s pretty much the standard story, is it, among the four initiated?’

‘Well, standard I wouldn’t know,’ said Esterhase, with a very Hungarian movement of the hand, a spreading of the palm and a tilting either way.

‘So who is Polyakov’s agent?’

The question, Guillam saw, mattered very much to Smiley: he had played the whole long hand in order to arrive at it. As Guillam waited, his eyes now on Esterhase, who was by no means so confident any more, now on Smiley’s mandarin face, he realised that he too was beginning to understand the shape of Karla’s clever knot, as Smiley had called it – and of his own gruelling interview with Alleline.

‘What I’m asking you is very simple,’ Smiley insisted. ‘Notionally, who is Polyakov’s agent inside the Circus? Good heavens, Toby, don’t be obtuse. If Polyakov’s cover for meeting you people is that he is spying on the Circus, then he must have a Circus spy, mustn’t he? So who is he? He can’t come back to the Embassy after a meeting with you people, loaded with reels of Circus chickenfeed, and say, “I got this from the boys.” There has to be a story, and a good one at that: a whole history of courtship, recruitment, clandestine meetings, money and motive. Doesn’t there? Heavens, this isn’t just Polyakov’s cover story: it’s his lifeline. It’s got to be thorough. It’s got to be convincing; I’d say it was a very big issue in the game. So who is he?’ Smiley enquired pleasantly. ‘You? Toby Esterhase masquerades as a Circus traitor in order to keep Polyakov in business? My hat, Toby, that’s worth a whole handful of medals.’

They waited while Toby thought.

‘You’re on a damn long road, George,’ Toby said at last. ‘What happens you don’t reach the other end?’

‘Even with Lacon behind me?’

‘You bring Lacon here. Percy, too; Bill. Why you come to the little guy? Go to the big ones, pick on them.’

‘I thought you were a big guy these days. You’d be a good choice for the part, Toby. Hungarian ancestry, resentment about promotion, reasonable access but not too much… quick-witted, likes money… with you as his agent, Polyakov would have a cover story that really sits up and works. The big three give you the chickenfeed, you hand it to Polyakov, Centre thinks Toby is all theirs, everyone’s served, everyone’s content. The only problem arises when it transpires that you’ve been handing Polyakov the crown jewels and getting Russian chickenfeed in return. If that should turn out to be the case, you’re going to need pretty good friends. Like us. That’s how my thesis runs – just to complete it. That Gerald is a Russian mole, run by Karla. And he’s pulled the Circus inside out.’

Esterhase looked slightly ill. ‘George, listen. If you’re wrong, I don’t want to be wrong too, get me?’

‘But if he’s right you want to be right,’ Guillam suggested, in a rare interruption. ‘And the sooner you’re right the happier you’ll be.’

‘Sure,’ said Toby, quite unaware of any irony. ‘Sure. I mean George you got a nice idea, but Jesus, there’s two sides to everyone, George, agents specially, and maybe it’s you who got the wrong one. Listen: who ever called Witchcraft chickenfeed? No one. Never. It’s the best. You get one guy with a big mouth starts shooting the dirt, and you dug up half London already. Get me? Look, I do what they tell me. Okay? They say act the stooge for Polyakov, I act him. Pass him this film, I pass it. I’m in a very dangerous situation,’ he explained. ‘For me, very dangerous indeed.’

‘I’m sorry about that,’ said Smiley at the window, where through a chink in the curtain he was once more studying the square. ‘Must be worrying for you.’

‘Extremely,’ Toby agreed, ‘I get ulcers, can’t eat. Very bad predicament.’

For a moment to Guillam’s fury they were all three joined in a sympathetic silence over Toby Esterhase’s bad predicament.

‘Toby, you wouldn’t be lying about those babysitters, would you?’ Smiley enquired, still from the window.

‘George, I cross my heart, I swear you.’

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