Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John le Carré

‘Had Control checked any of this?’

‘What he could. Stevcek was well enough documented. Hungry desk general with a long list of staff appointments. Technocrat. When he wasn’t on courses he was sharpening his teeth abroad: Warsaw, Moscow, Peking for a year, spell of military attaché in Africa, Moscow again. Young for his rank.’

‘Did Control tell you what you were to expect in the way of information?’

‘Defence material. Rocketry. Ballistics.’

‘Anything else?’ said Smiley, passing the bottle.

‘Bit of politics.’

‘Anything else?’

Not for the first time, Smiley had the distinct sense of stumbling not on Jim’s ignorance, but on the relic of a willed determination not to remember. In the dark, Jim Prideaux’s breathing became suddenly deep and greedy. He had lifted his hands to the top of the wheel and was resting his chin on them, peering blankly at the frosted windscreen.

‘How long were they in the bag before being shot?’ Jim demanded to know.

‘I’m afraid a lot longer than you were,’ Smiley confessed.

‘Holy God,’ said Jim. With a handkerchief taken from his sleeve, he wiped away the sweat and whatever else was glistening on his face.

‘The intelligence Control was hoping to get out of Stevcek,’ Smiley prompted, ever so softly.

‘That’s what they asked me at the interrogation.’

‘At Sarratt?’

Jim shook his head. ‘Over there.’ He nodded his shaggy head towards the hills. ‘They knew it was Control’s operation from the start. There was nothing I could say to persuade them it was mine. They laughed.’

Once again Smiley waited patiently till Jim was ready to go on.

‘Stevcek,’ said Jim. ‘Control had this bee in his bonnet: Stevcek would provide the answer, Stevcek would provide the key. “What key?” I asked. “What key?” Had his bag, that old brown music case. Pulled out charts, annotated all in his own handwriting. Charts in coloured inks, crayons. “Your visual aid,” he says. “This is the fellow you’ll be meeting.” Stevcek’s career plotted year by year: took me right through it. Military academies, medals, wives. “He’s fond of horses,” he says. “You used to ride yourself, Jim. Something else in common, remember it.” I thought: That’ll be fun, sitting in Czecho with the dogs after me, talking about breaking thoroughbred mares.’ He laughed a little strangely so Smiley laughed too.

‘The appointments in red were for Stevcek’s Soviet liaison work. Green were his intelligence work. Stevcek had had a finger in everything. Fourth man in Czech army intelligence, chief boffin on weaponry, secretary to the national internal security committee, military counsellor of some sort to the Praesidium, Anglo-American desk in the Czech military intelligence set-up. Then Control comes to this patch in the mid-Sixties, Stevcek’s second spell in Moscow, and it’s marked green and red fifty-fifty. Ostensibly Stevcek was attached to the Warsaw Pact Liaison staff as a colonel general, says Control, but that was just cover. “He’d nothing to do with the Warsaw Pact Liaison staff. His real job was in Moscow Centre’s England section. He operated under the workname of Minin,” he says. “His job was dovetailing Czech efforts with Centre’s. This is the treasure,” Control says. “What Stevcek really wants to sell us is the name of Moscow Centre’s mole inside the Circus.”‘

It might be only one word, Smiley thought, remembering Max, and felt again that sudden wave of apprehension. In the end, he knew, that was all it would be: a name for the mole Gerald, a scream in the dark.

‘”There’s a rotten apple, Jim,” Control said, “and he’s infecting all the others.”‘ Jim was going straight on. His voice had stiffened, his manner also. ‘Kept talking about elimination, how he’d backtracked and researched and was nearly there. There were five possibilities, he said. Don’t ask me how he dug them up. “It’s one of the top five,” he says. “Five fingers to a hand.” He gave me a drink and we sat there like a pair of schoolboys making up a code, me and Control. We used Tinker, Tailor. We sat there in the flat putting it together, drinking that cheap Cyprus sherry he always gave. If I couldn’t get out, if there was any fumble after I’d met Stevcek, if I had to go underground, I must get the one word to him even if I had to go to Prague and chalk it on the Embassy door or ring the Prague resident and yell at him down the phone. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor. Alleline was Tinker, Haydon was Tailor, Bland was Soldier and Toby Esterhase was Poorman. We dropped Sailor because it rhymed with Tailor. You were Beggarman,’ Jim said.