Call for the Dead (7 page)

XIII

THE INEFFICIENCY OF SAMUEL FENNAN

They arrived at Mitcham at lunch time. Peter Guillam was waiting for them patiently in his car. "Well, children; what's the news?" Smiley handed him the piece of paper from his wallet. "There was an emergency number, too--Primrose 9747. You'd better check it but I'm not hopeful of that either." Peter disappeared into the hall and began telephoning. Mendel busied himself in the kitchen and returned ten minutes later with beer, bread and cheese on a tray. Guillam came back and sat down without saying anything. He looked worried. "Well," he said at last; "what did she say, George?" Mendel cleared away as Smiley finished the account of his interview that morning. "I see," said Guillam. "How very worrying. Well, that's it, George, I shall have to put this on paper today, and I'll have to go to Maston at once. Catching dead spies is a poor game really--and causes a lot of unhap-piness." "What access did he have at the F. O.?" asked Smiley. "Recently a lot. That's why they felt he should be interviewed, as you know." "What kind of stuff, mainly?" "I don't know yet. He was on an Asian desk until a few months ago but his new job was different." "American, I seem to remember," said Smiley. "Peter?" "Yes." "Peter, have you thought at all why they wanted to kill Fennan so much. I mean, supposing he had betrayed them, as they thought, why kill him? They had nothing to gain." "No; no, I suppose they hadn't. That does need some explaining, come to think of it... or does it? Sup--pose Fuchs or Maclean had betrayed them, I wonder what would have happened. Suppose they had reason to fear a chain reaction--not just here but in America--all over the world? Wouldn't they kill him to prevent that? There's so much we shall just never know." "Like the 8.30 call?" said Smiley. "Cheerio. Hang on here till I ring you, will you? Maston's bound to want to see you. They'll be running down the corridors when I tell them the glad news. I shall have to wear that special grin I reserve for bearing really disastrous tidings." Mendel saw him out and then returned to the drawing-room. "Best thing you can do is put your feet up," he said. "You look a ruddy mess, you do." "Either Mundt's here or he's not," thought Smiley as he lay on the bed in his waistcoat, his hands linked under his head. "If he's not, we're finished. It will be for Maston to decide what to do with Eisa Fennan, and my guess is he'll do nothing. "If Mundt is here, it's for one of three reasons: A, because Dieter told him to stay and watch the dust settle; B, because he's in bad odour and afraid to go back; C, because he has unfinished business. "A is improbable because it's not like Dieter to take needless risks. Anyway, it's a woolly idea. "B is unlikely because, while Mundt may be afraid of Dieter he must also, presumably, be frightened of a murder charge here. His wisest plan would be to go to another country. "C is more likely. If I was in Dieter's shoes I'd be worried sick about Eisa Fennan. The Pidgeon girl is immaterial--without Eisa to fill in the gaps she presents no serious danger. She was not a conspirator and there is no reason why she should particularly remember El-sa's friend at the theatre. No, Eisa constitutes the real danger." There was, of course, a final possibility, which Smiley was quite unable to judge: the possibility that Dieter had other agents to control here through Mundt. On the whole he was inclined to discount this, but the thought had no doubt crossed Peter's mind. No... it still didn't make sense--it wasn't tidy. He decided to begin again. What do we know? He sat up to look for pencil and paper and at once his head began throbbing. Obstinately he got off the bed and took a pencil from the inside pocket of his jacket. There was a writing pad in his suitcase. He returned to the bed, shaped the pillows to his satisfaction, took four aspirin from the bottle on the table and propped himself against the pillows, his short legs stretched before him. He began writing. First he wrote the heading in a neat, scholarly hand, and underlined it. "What do we know?" Then he began, stage by stage, to recount as dispassionately as possible the sequence of events hitherto: "On Monday 2nd January Dieter Frey saw me in the park talking to his agent and concluded..." Yes, what did Dieter conclude? That Fennan had confessed, was going to confess? That Fennan was my agent? "... "Smiley visits Walliston early on the morning of Wednesday 4th January and during the first interview takes an 8.30 call from the exchange which (beyond reasonable doubt) Fennan requested at 7.55 the previous evening. Why? "Later that morning S. returns to Eisa Fennan to ask about the 8.30 call--which she knew (on her own admission) would 'worry me' (no doubt Mundt's flattering description of my powers had had its effect). Having told S. a futile story about her bad memory she panics and rings Mundt. "Mundt, presumably equipped with a photograph or a description from Dieter, decides to liquidate S. (on Dieter's authority?) and later that day nearly succeeds. (Note: Mundt did not return the car to Scarr's garage till the night of the 4th. This does not necessarily prove that Mundt had no plans for flying earlier in the day. If he had originally meant to fly in the morning he might well have left the car at Scarr's earlier and gone to the airport by bus.) "It does seem pretty likely that Mundt changed his plans after Elsa's telephone call. It is not clear that he changed them because of her call." Would Mundt really be panicked by Eisa? Panicked into staying, panicked into murdering Adam Scarr, he wondered. ' The telephone was ringing in the hall... "George, it's Peter. No joy with the address or the telephone number. Dead end." "What do you mean?" "The telephone number and the address both led to the same place--furnished apartment in Highgate village." "Well?" "Rented by a pilot in Lufteuropa. He paid his two months' rent on 5th January and hasn't come back since." "Damn." "The landlady remembers Mundt quite well. The pilot's friend. A nice polite gentleman he was, for a German, very open handed. He used to sleep on the sofa quite often." "Oh God." "I went through the room with a toothcomb. There was a desk in the corner. All the drawers were empty except one, which contained a cloakroom ticket. I wonder where that came from... Well, if you want a laugh, come round to the Circus. The whole of Olympus is seething with activity. Oh, incidentally--" "Yes?" "I dug around at Dieter's flat. Another lemon. He left on 4th January. Didn't tell the milkman." "What about his mail?" "He never received any, apart from bills. I also had a look at Comrade Mundt's little nest: couple of rooms over the Steel Mission. The furniture went out with the rest of the stuff. Sorry." "I see." "I'll tell you an odd thing though, George. You remember I thought I might get on to Fennan's personal possessions--wallet, note-book and so on? From the police." "Yes." "Well, I did. His diary's got Dieter's full name entered in the address section with the Mission telephone number against it. Bloody cheek." "If s more than that. It's lunacy. Good Lord." "Then for the fourth of January the entry is 'Smiley C.A. Ring 8.30.' That was corroborated by an entry for the third, which ran 'request call for Wed. morning.' There's your mysterious call." "Still unexplained." A pause. "George, I sent Felix Taverner round to the F. O. to do some ferreting. It's worse than we feared in one way, but better in another." "Why?" "I'm listening." "Felix found that three or four files were usually marked in to Fennan on a Friday afternoon and marked out again on Monday morning; the inference is that he took the stuff home at week-ends." "Oh my Lord!" "But the odd thing is, George, that during the last six months, since his posting in fact, he tended to take home unclassified stuff which wouldn't have been of interest to anyone." "But it was during the last months that he began dealing mainly with secret files," said Smiley. "He could take home anything he wanted." "I know, but he didn't. In fact you'd almost say it was deliberate. He took home very low-grade stuff barely related to his daily work. His colleagues can't understand it now they think about it--he even took back some files handling subjects outside the scope of his section." "And unclassified." "Yes--of no conceivable intelligence value." "How about earlier, before he came into his new job? What kind of stuff went home then?" "Much more what you'd expect--files he'd used during the day, policy and so on." "Secret?" "Some were, some weren't. As they came." "But nothing unexpected--no particularly delicate stuff that didn't concern him?" "No. Nothing. He had opportunity galore quite frankly and didn't use it. Windy, I suppose." "So he ought to be if he puts his controller's name in his diary." "What's Maston doing about all this?" asked Smiley, after a pause. "Going through the files at the moment and rushing in to see me with bloody fool questions every two minutes. I think he gets lonely in there with hard facts." "Oh, he'll beat them down, Peter, don't worry." "He's already saying that the whole case against Fennan rests on the evidence of a neurotic woman." "Thanks for ringing, Peter." "Be seeing you, dear boy. Keep your head down." Smiley replaced the receiver and wondered where Mendel was. There was an evening paper on th'all table, and he glanced vaguely at the headline "Lynching: World Jewry Protests" and beneath it the account of the lynching of a Jewish shopkeeper in Dusseldorf. He opened the drawing-room door--Mendel was not there. Then he caught sight of him through the window wearing his gardening hat, hacking savagely with a pick-axe at a tree stump in the front garden. Smiley watched him for a moment, then went upstairs again to rest. As he reached the top of the stairs the telephone began ringing again. "George--sorry to bother you again. It's about Mundt." "Yes?" "Flew to Berlin last night by B. E. A. Travelled under another name but was easily identified by the air hostess. That seems to be that. Hard luck, chum." Smiley pressed down the cradle with his hand for a moment, then dialled Walliston 2944. He heard the number ringing the other end. Suddenly the dialling tone stopped and instead he heard Eisa Fennan's voice: "Hullo... Hullo... Hullo?" Slowly he replaced the receiver. She was alive. And Fennan--what spy was this who selected innocuous information for his masters when he had such gems at his fingertips? A change of heart, perhaps? A weakening of purpose? Then why did he not tell his wife, for whom his crime was a constant nightmare, who would have rejoiced at his conversion? It seemed now that Fennan had never shown any preference for secret papers--he had simply taken home whatever files currently might occupy him. But certainly a weakening of purpose would explain the strange summons to Marlow and Dieter's conviction that Fennan was betraying him. And who wrote the anonymous letter? Smiley went upstairs to pack the few possessions which Mendel had collected for him from Bywater | Street. It was all over.

XIV

THE DRESDEN GROUP

He stood on the doorstep and put down his suitcase, fumbling for his latchkey. As he opened the door he recalled how Mundt had stood there looking at him, those very pale blue eyes calculating and steady. It was odd to think of Mundt as Dieter's pupil. Mundt had proceeded with the inflexibility of a trained mercenary--efficient, purposeful, narrow. There had been nothing original in his technique: in everything he had been a shadow of his master. It was as if Dieter's brilliant and imaginative tricks had been compressed into a manual which Mundt had learnt by heart, adding only the salt of his own brutality. Smiley had deliberately left no forwarding address and a heap of mail lay on the door mat. He picked it up, put it on the hall table and began opening doors and peering about him, a puzzled, lost expression on his face. The house was strange to him, cold and musty. As he moved slowly from one room to another he began for the first time to realise how empty his life had become. He got up from his chair and went over to the corner cupboard where the group stood. He loved to admire the beauty of those figures, the tiny rococo courtesan in shepherd's costume, her hands outstretched to one adoring lover, her little face bestowing glances on another. He felt inadequate before that fragile perfection, as he had felt before Ann when he first began the conquest which had amazed society. Somehow those little figures comforted him: it was as useless to expect fidelity of Ann as of this tiny shepherdess in her glass case. Steed-Asprey had bought the group in Dresden before the war, it had been the prize of his collection and he had given it to them. Perhaps he had guessed that one day Smiley might have need of the simple philosophy it propounded. He could picture her on the terrible night when she found her husband's murderer standing by his body: hear her breathless, sobbing explanation of why Fennan had been in the park with Smiley: and Mundt unmoved, explaining and reasoning, compelling her finally to conspire once more against her will in this most dreadful and needless of crimes, dragging her to the telephone and forcing her to ring the theatre, leaving her finally tortured and exhausted to cope with the enquiries that were bound to follow, even to type that futile suicide letter over Fennan's signature. It was inhuman beyond belief and, he added to himself, for Mundt a fantastic risk. She had, of course, proved herself a reliable enough accomplice in the past, cool-headed and, ironically, more skilful than Fennan in the techniques of espionage. And, heaven knows, for a woman who had been through such a night as that, her performance at their first meeting had been a marvel. His heart beat faster, as with growing astonishment Smiley retold to himself the whole story, reconstructed scenes and incidents in the light of his discovery. Now he knew why Mundt had left England that day, why Fennan chose so little that was of value to Dieter, had asked for the 8.30 call, and why his wife had escaped the systematic savagery of Mundt. Now at last he knew who had written the anonymous letter. He saw how he had been the fool of his own sentiment, had played false with the power of his mind. He went to the telephone and dialled Mendel's number. As soon as he had finished speaking to him he rang Peter Guillam. Then he put on his hat and coat and walked round the corner to Sloane Square. At a small newsagent's beside Peter Jones he bought a picture postcard of Westminster Abbey. He made his way to the underground station and travelled north to High-gate, where he got out. At the main post office he bought a stamp and addressed the postcard in stiff, continental capitals to Eisa Fennan. In the panel for correspondence he wrote in spiky longhand: "Wish you were here." He posted the card and noted the time, after which he returned to Sloane Square. There was nothing more he could do. He slept soundly that night, rose early the following morning, a Saturday, and walked round the corner to buy croissants and coffee beans. He made a lot of coffee and sat in the kitchen reading The Times and eating his breakfast. He felt curiously calm and when the telephone rang at last he folded his paper carefully together before going upstairs to answer it. "George, it's Peter"--the voice was urgent, almost triumphant: "George, she's bitten, I swear she has!" "What happened?" "How will you make contact with Mendel again?" "I gave him the number of the Grosvenor Hotel and I'm there now. He's going to ring me as soon as he gets a chance and I'll join him wherever he is." "Peter, you're taking this gently, aren't you?" "Gentle as the wind, dear boy. I think she's losing her head. Moving like a greyhound." Smiley rang off. He picked up his Times and began studying the theatre column. He must be right... he must be. After that the morning passed with agonising slowness. Sometimes he would stand at the window, his hands in his pockets, watching leggy Kensington girls going shopping with beautiful young men in pale blue pullovers, or the car-cleaning brigade toiling happily in front of their houses, then drifting away to talk motoring shop and finally setting off purposefully down the road for the first pint of the week-end. At last, after what seemed an interminable delay, the front-door bell rang and Mendel and Guillam came in, grinning cheerfully, ravenously hungry. "Hook, line and sinker," said Guillam. "But let Mendel tell you--he did most of the dirty work. I just got in for the kill." Mendel recounted his story precisely and accurately, looking at the ground a few feet in front of him, his thin head slightly on one side. "She caught the 9.52 to Victoria. I kept well clear of her on the train and picked her up as she went through the barrier. Then she took a taxi to Hammersmith." "A taxi?" Smiley interjected. "She must be out of her mind." Smiley sat very still. "I wonder," he said; "I wonder if he'll come." "I caught up with Mendel at the Sheridan," said Guillam. "He saw her into the caf'nd then rang me. After that he went in after her." "Felt like a coffee myself," Mendel went on. "Mr. Guillam joined me. I left him there when I joined the ticket queue, and he drifted out of the caf' bit later. It was a decent job and no worries. She's rattled, I'm sure. But not suspicious." "What did she do after that?" asked Smiley. "Went straight back to Victoria. We left her to it." They were silent for a moment, then Mendel said: "What do we do now?" Smiley blinked and gazed earnestly into Mendel's grey face. "Book tickets for Thursday's performance at the Sheridan." They were gone and he was alone again. He still had not begun to cope with the quantity of mail which had accumulated in his absence. Circulars, catalogues from Blackwells, bills and the usual collection of soap vouchers, frozen pea coupons, football pool forms and a few private letters still lay unopened on the hall table. He took them into the drawing-room, settled in an armchair and began opening the personal letters first. There was one from Maston, and he read it with something approaching embarrassment. "My dear George, I was so sorry to hear from Guillam about your accident, and I do hope that by now you have made a full recovery. You may recall that in the heat of the moment you wrote me a letter of resignation before your misfortune, and I just wanted to let you know that I am not, of course, taking this seriously. Sometimes when events crowd in upon us our sense of perspective suffers. But old campaigners like ourselves, George, are not so easily put off the scent. I look forward to seeing you with us again as soon as you are strong enough, and in the meantime we continue to regard you as an old and loyal member of the staff." Smiley put this on one side and turned to the next letter. Just for a moment he did not recognise the handwriting; just for a moment he iooked bleakly at the Swiss stamp and the expensive hotel writing paper. Suddenly he felt slightly sick, his vision blurred and there was scarcely strength enough in his fingers to tear open the envelope. What did she want? If money, she could have all he possessed. The money was his own, to spend as he wished; if it gave him pleasure to squander it on Ann, he would do so. There was nothing else he had to give her--she had taken it long ago. Taken his courage, his love, his compassion, carried them jauntily away in her little jewel case to fondle occasionally on odd afternoons when the time hung heavy in the Cuban sun, to dangle them perhaps before the eyes of her newest lover, to compare them even with similar trinkets which others before or since had brought her. "My darling George, I want to make you an offer which no gentleman could accept. I want to come back to you. I'm staying at the Baur-au-Lac at Zurich till the end of the month. Let me know. Ann." Smiley picked up the envelope and looked at the back of it: "Madame Juan Alvida." No, no gentleman could accept that offer. No dream could survive the daylight of Ann's departure with her saccharine Latin and his orange-peel grin. Smiley had once seen a news film of Alvida winning some race in Monte Carlo. The most repellent thing about him, he remembered, had been the hair on his arms. With his goggles and the motor oil and that ludicrous laurel-wreath he had looked exactly like an anthropoid ape fallen from a tree. He was wearing a white tennis shirt with short sleeves, which had somehow remained spotlessly clean throughout the race, setting off those black monkey arms with repulsive clarity. That was Ann: Let me know. Redeem your life, see whether it can be lived again and let me know. I have wearied my lover, my lover has wearied me, let me shatter your world again: my own bores me. I want to come back to you... I want, I want... Smiley got up, the letter still in his hand and stood again before the porcelain group. He remained there several minutes, gazing at the little shepherdess. She was so beautiful.