‘One gone,’ said Mendel suddenly. ‘Hullo?’
‘I’m here.’
Somebody had just come out of the Circus, said Mendel. Front door but he couldn’t be certain of the identification. Mackintosh and hat. Bulky and moving fast. Must have ordered a cab to the door and stepped straight into it.
‘Heading north, your way.’
Smiley looked at his watch. Give him ten minutes, he thought. Give him twelve, he’ll have to stop and phone Polyakov on the way. Then he thought: don’t be silly, he’s done that already from the Circus.
‘I’m ringing off,’ said Smiley.
‘Cheers,’ said Mendel.
On the footpath, Guillam read three long flashes. The mole is on his way.
In the scullery Smiley had once more checked his thoroughfare, shoved some deck chairs aside and pinned a string to the mangle to guide him because he saw badly in the dark. The string led to the open kitchen door, the kitchen led to the drawing room and dining room both, it had the two doors side by side. The kitchen was a long room, actually an annexe to the house before the glass scullery was added. He had thought of using the dining room but it was too risky and besides from the dining room he couldn’t signal to Guillam. So he waited in the scullery, feeling absurd in his stockinged feet, polishing his spectacles because the heat of his face kept misting them. It was much colder in the scullery. The drawing room was close and overheated but the scullery had these outside walls, and this glass and this concrete floor beneath the matting, which made his feet feel wet. The mole arrives first, he thought, the mole plays host: that is protocol, part of the pretence that Polyakov is Gerald’s agent.
A London taxi is a flying bomb.
The comparison rose in him slowly, from deep in his unconscious memory. The clatter as it barges into the crescent, the metric tick-tick as the bass notes die. The cut-off: where has it stopped, which house, when all of us in the street are waiting in the dark, crouching under tables or clutching pieces of string, which house? Then the slam of the door, the explosive anti-climax: if you can hear it, it’s not for you.
But Smiley heard it, and it was for him.
He heard the tread of one pair of feet on the gravel, brisk and vigorous. They stopped. It’s the wrong door, Smiley thought absurdly, go away. He had the gun in his hand, he had dropped the catch. Still he listened, heard nothing. You’re suspicious, Gerald, he thought. You’re an old mole, you can sniff there’s something wrong. Millie, he thought: Millie has taken away the milk bottles, put up a warning, headed him off. Millie’s spoilt the kill. Then he heard the latch turn, one turn, two, it’s a Banham lock, he remembered, my God we must keep Banham’s in business. Of course: the mole had been patting his pockets; looking for his key. A nervous man would have had it in his hand already, would have been clutching it, cosseting it in his pocket all the way in the taxi; but not the mole. The mole might be worried but he was not nervous. At the same moment as the latch turned, the bell chimed: housekeeper’s taste again, high tone, low tone, high tone. That will mean it’s one of us, Millie had said; one of the boys, her boys, Connie’s boys, Karla’s boys. The front door opened, someone stepped into the house, he heard the shuffle of the mat, he heard the door close, he heard the light switches snap and saw a pale line appear under the kitchen door. He put the gun in his pocket and wiped the palm of his hand on his jacket, then took it out again and in the same moment he heard a second flying bomb, a second taxi pulling up, and footsteps fast: Polyakov didn’t just have the key ready, he had his taxi money ready too: do Russians tip, he wondered, or is tipping undemocratic? Again the bell rang, the front door opened and closed, and Smiley heard the double chink as two milk bottles were put on the hall table in the interest of good order and sound tradecraft.