Next he moved to his desk and photographed, also on Smiley’s instruction, a handful of routine circulars which might be useful as background reading. These included a belly-ache from Admin on the state of safe houses in the London area (‘Kindly treat them as if they were your own) and another about the misuse of unlisted Circus telephones for private calls. Lastly a very rude personal letter from documents warning him ‘for the last time of asking’ that his workname driving licence was out of date, and that unless he took the trouble to renew it ‘his name would be forwarded to housekeepers for appropriate disciplinary action’.
He put away the camera and returned to his safe. On the bottom shelf lay a stack of lamplighter reports issued over Toby Esterhase’s signature and stamped with the codeword ‘Hatchet’. These supplied the names and cover jobs of the two or three hundred identified Soviet intelligence officers operating in London under legal or semi-legal cover; trade, Tass, Aeroflot, Radio Moscow, consular and diplomatic. Where appropriate they also gave the dates of lamplighter investigations and names of branch lines, which is jargon for contacts thrown up in the course of surveillance and not necessarily run to earth. The reports came in a main annual volume and monthly supplements. He consulted the main volume first, then the supplements. At eleven twenty he locked his safe, rang London Station on the direct line and asked for Lauder Strickland of Banking Section.
‘Lauder, this is Peter from Brixton, how’s trade?’
‘Yes, Peter, what can we do for you?’
Brisk and blank. We of London Station have more important friends, said the tone.
It was a question of washing some dirty money, Guillam explained, to finance a ploy against a French diplomatic courier who seemed to be for sale. In his meekest voice he wondered whether Lauder could possibly find the time for them to meet and discuss it. Was the project London Station cleared? Lauder demanded. No, but Guillam had already sent the papers to Bill by shuttle. Lauder Strickland came down a peg; Guillam pressed his cause: ‘There are one or two tricky aspects, Lauder, I think we need your sort of brain.’
Lauder said he could spare him half an hour.
On his way to the West End he dropped his films at the meagre premises of a chemist’s called Lark, in the Charing Cross Road. Lark, if it was he, was a very fat man with tremendous fists. The shop was empty.
‘Mr Lampton’s films, to be developed,’ said Guillam. Lark took the package to the back room and when he returned he said ‘All done’ in a gravel voice, then blew out a lot of breath at once, as if he were smoking, which he wasn’t. He saw Guillam to the door and closed it behind him with a clatter. Where on God’s earth does George find them? Guillam wondered. He had bought some throat pastilles. Every move must be accountable, Smiley had warned him: assume that the Circus has the dogs on you twenty-four hours a day. So what’s new about that? Guillam thought; Toby Esterhase would put the dogs on his own mother if it brought him a pat on the back from Alleline.
From Charing Cross he walked up to Chez Victor for lunch with his head man Cy Vanhofer and a thug calling himself Lorimer who claimed to be sharing his mistress with the East German ambassador in Stockholm. Lorimer said the girl was ready to play ball but she needed British citizenship and a lot of money on delivery of the first take. She would do anything, he said: spike the ambassador’s mail, bug his rooms ‘or put broken glass in his bath’, which was supposed to be a joke. Guillam reckoned Lorimer was lying and he was inclined to wonder whether Vanhofer was too, but he was wise enough to realise that he was in no state to say which way anyone was leaning just then. He liked Chez Victor but had no recollection of what he ate and now as he entered the lobby of the Circus he knew the reason was excitement.
‘Hullo, Bryant.’
‘Nice to see you, sir. Take a seat, sir, please, just for a moment, sir, thank you,’ said Bryant, all in one breath, and Guillam perched on the wooden settle thinking of dentists and Camilla. She was a recent and somewhat mercurial acquisition; it was a while since things had moved quite so fast for him. They met at a party and she talked about truth, alone in a corner over a carrot juice. Guillam, taking a long chance, said he wasn’t too good at ethics so why didn’t they just go to bed together? She considered for a while, gravely; then fetched her coat. She’d been hanging around ever since, cooking nut rissoles and playing the flute.