‘It’s simply a precaution,’ Smiley insisted. No one was disposed to argue with him. Haydon climbed in, the inquisitors followed, locking the grille from inside. As the doors closed Haydon lifted one hand in an amiable if dismissive gesture directed at Alleline.
So it was only afterwards that separate things came back to Guillam and single people came forward for his recollection; the unqualified hatred, for instance, directed by Polyakov against everyone present from poor little Millie McCraig upwards, and which actually distorted him: his mouth curved in a savage, uncontrollable sneer, he turned white and trembled, but not from fear and not from anger. It was just plain hatred, of the sort that Guillam could not visit on Haydon, but then Haydon was of his own kind.
For Alleline, in the moment of his defeat, Guillam discovered a sneaking admiration: Alleline at least had shown a certain bearing. But later Guillam was not so sure whether Percy realised, on that first presentation of the facts, quite what the facts were: after all, he was still Chief, and Haydon was still his Iago.
But the strangest thing to Guillam, the insight that he took away with him and thought over much more deeply than was commonly his policy, was that despite his banked-up anger at the moment of breaking into the room, it required an act of will on his own part, and quite a violent one at that, to regard Bill Haydon with much other than affection. Perhaps, as Bill would say, he had finally grown up. Best of all, on the same evening, he climbed the steps to his flat and heard the familiar notes of Camilla’s flute echoing in the well. And if Camilla that night lost something of her mystery, at least by morning he had succeeded in freeing her from the toils of double-cross to which he had latterly consigned her.
In other ways also, over the next few days, his life took on a brighter look. Percy Alleline had been despatched on indefinite leave; Smiley had been asked to come back for a while and help sweep up what was left. For Guillam himself there was talk of being rescued from Brixton. It was not till much, much later that he learned that there had been a final act; and he put a name and a purpose to that familiar shadow which had followed Smiley through the night streets of Kensington.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
For the next two days George Smiley lived in limbo. To his neighbours, when they noticed him, he seemed to have lapsed into a wasting grief. He rose late and pottered round the house in his dressing gown, cleaning things, dusting, cooking himself meals and not eating them. In the afternoon, quite against the local bye-laws he lit a coal fire and sat before it reading among his German poets or writing letters to Ann which he seldom completed and never posted. When the telephone rang he went to it quickly, only to be disappointed. Outside the window the weather continued foul, and the few passers-by – Smiley studied them continuously – were huddled in Balkan misery. Once Lacon called with a request from the Minister that Smiley should ‘stand by to help clear up the mess at Cambridge Circus, were he called upon to do so’ – in effect to act as nightwatchman till a replacement for Percy Alleline could be found. Replying vaguely, Smiley again prevailed on Lacon to take extreme care of Haydon’s physical safety while he was at Sarratt.
‘Aren’t you being a little dramatic?’ Lacon retorted. ‘The only place he can go is Russia and we’re sending him there anyway.’
‘When? How soon?’
The details would take several more days to arrange.
Smiley disdained, in his state of anticlimactic reaction, to ask how the interrogation was progressing meanwhile, but Lacon’s manner suggested that the answer would have been ‘badly’. Mendel brought him more solid fare.
‘Immingham railway station’s shut,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to get out at Grimsby and hoof it or take a bus.’
More often Mendel simply sat and watched him, as one might an invalid.
‘Waiting won’t make her come, you know,’ he said once. ‘Time the mountain went to Mohammed. Faint heart never won fair lady, if I may say so.’