Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John le Carré

In a briefcase, Mendel had also brought Guillam’s photographs, the result of his foray at Brixton, developed and blown up to full plate size. Close to Paddington Station, Smiley got out and Mendel handed the case to him through the doorway.

‘Sure you don’t want me to come with you?’ Mendel asked.

‘Thank you. It’s only a hundred yards.’

‘Lucky for you there’s twenty-four hours in the day, then.’

‘Yes, it is.’

‘Some people sleep.’

‘Good night.’

Mendel was still holding on to the briefcase. ‘I may have found the school,’ he said. ‘Place called Thursgood’s near Taunton. He did half a term’s supply work in Berkshire first, then seems to have hoofed it to Somerset. Got a caravan, I hear. Want me to check?’

‘How will you do that?’

‘Bang on his door. Sell him a Hoover, get to know him socially.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Smiley, suddenly worried. ‘I’m afraid I’m jumping at shadows. I’m sorry, that was rude of me.’

‘Young Guillam’s jumping at shadows too,’ said Mendel firmly. ‘Says he’s getting funny looks around the place. Says there’s something up and they’re all in it. I told him to have a stiff drink.’

‘Yes,’ said Smiley after further thought. ‘Yes, that’s the thing to do. Jim’s a pro,’ he explained. ‘A fieldman of the old school. He’s good, whatever they did to him.’

Camilla had come back late. Guillam had understood her flute lesson with Sand ended at nine, yet it was eleven by the time she let herself in, and he was accordingly short with her, he couldn’t help it. Now she lay in bed with her grey-black hair spread over the pillow watching him as he stood at the unlit window staring into the square.

‘Have you eaten?’ he said.

‘Doctor Sand fed me.’

‘What on?’

Sand was a Persian, she had told him.

No answer. Dreams, perhaps? Nut steak? Love? In bed she never stirred except to embrace him. When she slept she barely breathed; sometimes he would wake and watch her, wondering how he would feel if she were dead.

‘Are you fond of Sand?’ he asked.

‘Sometimes.’

‘Is he your lover?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘Maybe you should move in with him instead of me.’

‘It’s not like that,’ said Camilla. ‘You don’t understand.’

No. He didn’t. First there had been a loving couple necking in the back of a Rover, then a lonely queer in a trilby exercising his Sealyham, then a pair of girls made an hour-long call from a phone box outside his front door. There need be nothing to any of it, except that the events were consecutive, like a changing of the guard. Now a van had parked and no one got out. More lovers, or a lamplighters’ night team? The van had been there ten minutes when the Rover drove away.

Camilla was asleep. He lay awake beside her, waiting for tomorrow when, at Smiley’s request, he intended to steal the file on the Prideaux affair, otherwise known as the Ellis scandal or – more locally – Operation Testify.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

It had been, till that moment, the second happiest day of Bill Roach’s short life. The happiest was shortly before the dissolution of his household, when his father discovered a wasps’ nest in the roof and recruited Bill to help him smoke them out. His father was not an outdoor man, not even handy, but after Bill had looked up wasps in his encyclopaedia they drove to the chemist together and bought sulphur, which they burned on a charger under the eaves, and did the wasps to death.

Whereas today had seen the formal opening of Jim Prideaux’s car club rally. Till now they had only stripped the Alvis down, refurbished her and put her together again but today as the reward they had laid out, with the help of Latzy the DP, a slalom of straw bales on the stony side of the drive, then each in turn had taken the wheel and with Jim as timekeeper puffed and shunted through the gates to the tumult of their supporters. ‘Best car England ever made,’ was how Jim had introduced his car. ‘Out of production, thanks to socialism.’ She was now repainted, she had a racing Union Jack on the bonnet, and she was undoubtedly the finest, fastest car on earth. In the first round Roach had come third out of fourteen, and now in the second he had reached the chestnut trees without once stalling, and was all set for the home lap and a record time. He had never imagined that anything could give him so much pleasure. He loved the car, he loved Jim and he even loved the school, and for the first time in his life he loved trying to win. He could hear Jim yelling ‘Easy, Jumbo’ and he could see Latzy leaping up and down with the improvised chequered flag, but as he clattered past the post he knew already that Jim wasn’t watching him any more but glaring down the course towards the beech trees.

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