Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John le Carré

‘What’s he doing? He’s not to do that. Stop him.’

If she was worried, said Smiley, she should ring Lacon on the basement phone. Millie McCraig didn’t stir, but two red bruises had appeared on her leathery cheeks and she was snapping her fingers in anger. With a small screwdriver Guillam had cautiously removed the screws from either side of the plastic panel, and was peering at the wiring behind. Now, very carefully, he turned the end switch upside down, twisting it on its wires, then screwed the plate back in position, leaving the remaining switches undisturbed.

‘We’ll just try it,’ said Guillam, and while Smiley went upstairs to check the tape deck, Guillam sang ‘Old Man River’ in a low Paul Robeson growl.

‘Thank you,’ said Smiley with a shudder, coming down again, ‘that’s more than enough.’

Millie had gone to the basement to ring Lacon. Quietly, Smiley set the stage. He put the telephone beside an armchair in the drawing room, then cleared his line of retreat to the scullery. He fetched two bottles of milk from the Coca-Cola ice-box in the kitchen and placed them on the doorstep to signify, in the eclectic language of Millie McCraig, that you may come in and all’s well. He removed his shoes and left them in the scullery, and having put out all the lights, took up his post in the armchair just as Mendel made his connecting call.

On the canal towpath, meanwhile, Guillam had resumed his vigil of the house. The footpath is closed to the public one hour before dark: after that it can be anything from a trysting place for lovers to a haven for down-and-outs; both, for different reasons, are attracted by the darkness of the bridges. That cold night Guillam saw neither. Occasionally an empty train raced past, leaving a still greater emptiness behind. His nerves were so taut, his expectations so varied, that for a moment he saw the whole architecture of that night in apocalyptic terms: the signals on the railway bridge turned to gallows, the Victorian warehouses to gigantic prisons, their windows barred and arched against the misty sky. Closer at hand, the ripple of rats and the stink of still water. Then the drawing room lights went out; the house stood in darkness except for the chinks of yellow to either side of Millie’s basement window. From the scullery a pin of light winked at him down the unkempt garden. Taking a pen torch from his pocket he slipped out the silver hood, sighted it with shaking fingers at the point from which the light had come, and signalled back. From now on they could only wait.

Tarr tossed the incoming telegram back to Ben, together with the one-time pad from the safe.

‘Come on,’ he said, ‘earn your pay. Unbutton it.’

‘It’s personal for you,’ Ben objected. ‘Look. “Personal from Alleline decypher yourself.” I’m not allowed to touch it. It’s the tops.’

‘Do as he asks, Ben,’ said Mackelvore, watching Tarr.

For ten minutes no word passed between the three men. Tarr was standing across the room from them, very nervous from the waiting. He had jammed the gun in his waistband, butt inward to the groin. His jacket lay over a chair. The sweat had stuck his shirt to his back all the way down. Ben was using a ruler to read off the number groups, then carefully writing his findings on the block of graph paper before him. To concentrate he put his tongue against his teeth, and now he made a small click as he withdrew it. Putting aside his pencil, he offered Tarr the tearsheet.

‘Read it aloud,’ Tarr said.

Ben’s voice was kindly, and a little fervent. ‘ “Personal for Tarr from Alleline decypher yourself. I positively require clarification and/or trade samples before meeting your request. Quote information vital to safeguarding of the Service unquote does not qualify. Let me remind you of your bad position here following your disgraceful disappearance stop urge you confide Mackelvore immediately repeat immediately stop Chief.”‘

Ben had not quite finished before Tarr began laughing in a strange, excited way.

‘That’s the way, Percy boy!’ he cried. ‘Yes repeat no! Know why he’s stalling, Ben, darling? He’s sizing up to shoot me in the bloody back! That’s how he got my Russki girl. He’s playing the same tune, the bastard.’ He was ruffling Ben’s hair, shouting at him, laughing. ‘I warn you Ben: there’s some damn lousy people in this outfit, so don’t you trust the one of them, I’m telling you, or you’ll never grow up strong!’

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