‘She just completely let go,’ Tarr explained, as if it were suddenly an accident, a thing he had had no part in. ‘She told me her whole life-story from birth to Colonel Thomas; that’s me. Mummy, Daddy, early loves, recruitment, training, her lousy half marriage, the lot. How her and Boris were teamed at training and had been together ever since: one of the great unbreakable relationships. She told me her real name, her workname and the covernames she’d travelled and transmitted by, then she hauled out her handbag and started showing me her conjuring set: recessed fountain pen, signal plan folded up inside; concealed camera, the works. “Wait till Percy sees that,” I tell her – playing her along, like. It was production-line stuff, mind, nothing coach-built, but grade one material all the same. To round it off she starts barking the dirt about the Soviet Hong Kong set up: legmen, safe houses, letter boxes, the lot. I was going crazy to remember it all.’
‘But you did,’ said Guillam shortly.
Yes, Tarr agreed; near on, he did. He knew she hadn’t told him the whole truth, but he knew truth came hard to a girl who’d been a hood since puberty and he reckoned that for a beginner she was doing pretty nice.
‘I kind of felt for her,’ he said with another flash of that false confessiveness. ‘I felt we were on the same wavelength, no messing.’
‘Quite so,’ said Lacon in a rare interjection. He was very pale, but whether that was anger or the effect of the grey light of early morning creeping through the shutters, there was no way to tell.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘Now I was in a queer situation. I saw her next day and the day after and I reckoned that if she wasn’t already schizoid she was going to be that way damn soon. One minute talking about Percy giving her a top job in the Circus working for Colonel Thomas, and arguing the hell with me about whether she should be a lieutenant or a major. Next minute saying she wouldn’t spy for anybody ever again and she was going to grow flowers and rut in the hay with Thomas. Then she had a convent kick: Baptist nuns were going to wash her soul. I nearly died. Who the hell ever heard of Baptist nuns, I ask her? Never mind, she says, Baptists are the greatest, her mother was a peasant and knew. That was the second biggest secret she would ever tell me. “What’s the biggest, then?” I ask. No dice. All she’s saying is, we’re in mortal danger, bigger than I could possibly know: there’s no hope for either of us unless she has that special chat with Brother Percy. “What danger, for Christ’s sake? What do you know that I don’t?” She was vain as a cat but when I pressed her she clammed up and I was frightened to death she’d belt home and sing the lot to Boris. I was running out of time too. Then it was Wednesday already and the delegation was due to fly home to Moscow Friday. Her tradecraft wasn’t all lousy but how could I trust a nut like that? You know how women are when they are in love, Mr Smiley. They can’t hardly-‘
Guillam had already cut him off. ‘You just keep your head down, right?’ he ordered, and Tarr sulked for a space.
‘All I knew was, Irina wanted to defect – talk to Percy as she called it. She had three days left and the sooner she jumped the better for everybody. If I waited much longer she was going to talk herself out of it. So I took the plunge and walked in on Thesinger, first thing while he was opening up the shop.’
‘Wednesday the eleventh,’ Smiley murmured. ‘In London the early hours of the morning.’
‘I guess Thesinger thought I was a ghost. “I’m talking to London, personal for head of London Station,” I said. He argued like hell but he let me do it. I sat at his desk and coded up the message myself from a one-time pad while Thesinger watched me like a sick dog. We had to top and tail it like trade code because Thesinger has export cover. That took me an extra half hour. I was nervy, I really was. Then I burnt the whole damn pad and typed the message on the ticker machine. At that point there wasn’t a soul on earth but me who knew what the numbers meant on that sheet of paper, not Thesinger, nobody but me. I applied for full defector treatment for Irina on emergency procedure. I held out for all the goodies she’d never even talked about: cash, nationality, a new identity, no limelight and a place to live. After all, I was her business representative in a manner of speaking, wasn’t I, Mr Smiley?’