Call For The Dead s-1

by John le Carré

  He picked up the telephone and gave his number. It was Mendel.

  "Where are you?"

  "Near Chelsea Embankment. Pub called the Balloon, in Lots Road. Landlord's a chum of mine. I knocked him up .... Listen, Elsa's boy friend is lying up in a houseboat by Chelsea flour mill. Bloody miracle in the fog, he is. Must have found his way by Braille?"

  "Who?"

  "Her boy friend, her escort at the theatre. Wake up, Mr. Smiley; what's eating you?"

  "You followed Dieter?"

  "Of course I did. That was what you told Mr. Guillam, wasn't it? He was to stick to the woman and me the man. . .. How did Mr. Guillam get on by the way? Where did Elsa get to?"

  "She didn't get anywhere. She was dead when Dieter left. Mendel, are you there? Look, for God's sake, how do I find you? Where is this place, will the police know it?"

  "They'll know. Tell them he's in a converted landing craft called 'Sunset Haven: She's lying against the eastern side of Sennen Wharf, between the flour mills and Fulham Power Station. They'll know . . . but the fog's thick, mind, very thick:"

  "Where can I meet you?"

  "Cut straight down to the river. I'll meet you where Battersea Bridge joins the north bank:"

  "I'll come at once, as soon as I've rung Guillam:"

  He had a gun somewhere, and for a moment he thought of looking for it. Then, somehow, it seemed pointless. Besides, he reflected grimly, there'd be the most frightful row if he used it. He rang Guillam at his flat and gave him Mendel's message: "And Peter, they must cover all ports and airfields; order a special watch on river traffic and seabound craft. They'll know the form."

  He put on an old mackintosh and a pair of thick leather gloves and slipped quickly out into the fog.

  Mendel was waiting for him by the bridge. They nodded to one another and Mendel led him quickly along the embankment, keeping close to the river wall to avoid the trees that grew along the road. Suddenly Mendel stopped, seizing Smiley by the arm in warning. They stood motionless, listening. Then Smiley heard it too, the hollow ring of footsteps on a wooden floor, irregular like the footsteps of a limping man. They heard the creak of an iron gate, the clang as it was closed, then the footsteps again, firm now upon the pavement, growing louder, coming towards them. Neither moved. Louder, nearer, then they faltered, stopped. Smiley held his breath, trying desperately at the same time to see an extra yard into the fog, to glimpse at the waiting figure he knew was there.

  Then suddenly he came, rushing like a massive wild beast, bursting through them, knocking them apart like children and running on, lost again, the uneven echo fading in the distance. They turned and chased after him, Mendel in front and Smiley following as best he could, the image vivid in his mind of Dieter, gun in hand, bursting on them out of the night fog. Ahead, the shadow of Mendel turned abruptly to the right, and Smiley followed blindly. Then suddenly the rhythm had changed to the scuffie offighting. Smiley ran forward, heard the unmistakable sound of a heavy weapon striking a human skull and then he was upon them: saw Mendel on the ground, and Dieter stooping over him, raising his arm to hit him again with the heavy butt of an automatic pistol.

  Smiley was out of breath. His chest was burning from the bitter, rank fog, his mouth hot and dry, filled with a taste like blood. Somehow he summoned breath, and he shouted desperately:

  "Dieter!"

  Frey looked at him, nodded and said: 'Servus, George," and hit Mendel a hard, brutal blow with the pistol. He got up slowly, holding the pistol downwards and using both hands to cock it.

  Smiley ran at him blindly, forgetting what little skill he had ever possessed, swinging with his short arms, striking with his open hands. His head was against Dieter's chest and he pushed forward, punching Dieter's back and sides. He was mad and, discovering in himself the energy of madness, pressed Dieter back still further towards the railing of the bridge while Dieter, off balance and hindered by his weak leg, gave way. Smiley knew Dieter was hitting him, but the decisive blow never came. He was shouting at Dieter; "Swine, swine!" and as Dieter receded still further Smiley found his arms free and once more struck at his face with clumsy, childish blows. Dieter was leaning back and Smiley saw the clean curve of his throat and chin, as with all his strength he thrust his open hand upwards. His fingers closed over Dieter's jaw and mouth and he pushed further and further. Dieter's hands were at Smiley's throat, then suddenly they were clutching at his collar to save himself as he sank slowly backwards. Smiley beat frantically at his arms, and then he was held no more and Dieter was falling, falling into the swirling fog beneath the bridge, and there was silence. No shout, no splash. He was gone; offered like a human sacrifice to the London fog and the foul black river lying beneath it.

  Smiley leant over the bridge, his head throbbing wildly, blood pouring from his nose, the fingers of his right hand feeling broken and useless. His gloves were gone. He looked down into the fog and could see nothing.

  "Dieter!" he cried in anguish; "Dieter!"

  He shouted again, but his voice choked and tears sprang to his eyes. "Oh dear God what have I done, Oh Christ, Dieter, why didn't you stop me, why didn't you hit me with the gun, why didn't you shoot?" He pressed his clenched hands to his face, tasting the salt blood in the palms mixed with the salt of his tears. He leant against the parapet and cried like a child. Somewhere beneath him a cripple dragged himself through the filthy water, lost and exhausted, yielding at last to the stenching blackness till it held him and drew him down.

  He woke to find Peter Guillam sitting on the end of his bed pouring out tea.

  "Ah, George. Welcome home. It's two in the afternoon:"

  "And this morning — ?"

  "This morning, dear boy, you were carolling on Battersea Bridge with Comrade Mendel:"

  "How is he . . . Mendel, I mean?"

  "Suitably ashamed of himself. Recovering fast:"

  "And Dieter —"

  "Dead:"

  Guillam handed him a cup of tea and some ratafia biscuits from Fortnums.

  "How long have you been here, Peter?"

  "Well, we came here in a series of tactical bounds, as it were. The first was to Chelsea Hospital where they licked your wounds and gave you a fairly substantial tranquilliser. Then we came back here and I put you to bed. That was disgusting. Then I did a spot of telephoning and, so to speak, went round with a pointed stick tidying up the mess. I looked in on you now and again. Cupid and Psyche. You were either snoring like a saddle- back or reciting Webster."

  "God."

  "Duchess of Malfi, I think it was. 'I bad thee, when I was distracted of my wits, go kill my dearest friend, and thou hast done it!' Dreadful nonsense, George, I'm afraid:"

  "How did the police find us — Mendel and me?"

  "George, you may not know it but you were bellowing pejoratives at Dieter as if —"

  "Yes, of course. You heard:"

  "We heard."

  "What about Maston? What does Maston say about all this?"

  "I think he wants to see you. I have a message from him asking you to drop in as soon as you feel well enough. I don't know what he thinks about it. Nothing at all I should imagine:"

  "What do you mean?"

  Guillam poured out more tea.

  "Use your loaf, George. All three principals in this little fairy tale have now been eaten by bears. No secret information has been compromised for the last six months. Do you really think Maston wants to dwell on the details? Do you really think he is bursting to tell the Foreign Office the good tidings — and admit that we only catch spies when we trip over their dead bodies?"

  The front-door bell rang and Guillam went downstairs to answer it. In some alarm Smiley heard him admit the visitor to the hall, then the subdued sound of voices, footsteps coming up the stairs. There was a knock on the door and Maston came in. He was carrying an absurdly large bunch of flowers and looked as though he had just been to a garden party. Smiley remembered it was Friday: no doubt he was going to Henley this week-end. He was grinni
ng. He must have been grinning all the way up the stairs.

  "Well, George, in the wars again!"

  "Yes, I'm afraid so. Another accident?"

  He sat on the edge of the bed, leaning across it, one arm supporting him the other side of Smiley's legs.

  There was a pause and then he said:

  "You got my note, George?"

  "Yes?"

  Another pause.

  "There has been talk of a new section in the Department, George. We (your Department, that is) feel we should devote more energy to technique research, with particular application to satellite espionage. That is also the Home Office view, I'm pleased to say. Guillam has agreed to advise on terms of reference. I wondered if you'd take it on for us. Running it I mean, with the necessary promotion of course and the option of extending your service after the statutory retirement age. Our personnel people are right behind me on this."

  "Thank you ... perhaps I could think about it, may I?"

  "Of course ... of course," Maston looked slightly put out. "When will you let me know? It may be necessary to take on some new men and the question of space arises .... Have the week-end to think about it will you and let me know on Monday. The Secretary was quite willing for you to —"

  "Yes, I'll let you know. It's very good of you."

  "Not at all. Besides I am only the Adviser you know, George. This is really an internal decision. I'm just the bringer of good news, George; my usual function of errand boy?"

  Maston looked at Smiley hard for a moment, hesitated and then said: "I've put the Ministers in the picture . . . as far as is necessary. We discussed what action should be taken. The Home Secretary was also present."

  "When was this?"

  "This morning. Some very grave issues were raised. We considered a protest to the East Germans and an extradition order for this man Mundt?"

  "But we don't recognise East Germany?"

  "Precisely. That was the difficulty. It is however possible to lodge a protest with an intermediary?"

  "Such as Russia?"

  "Such as Russia. In the event, however, certain factors militated against this. It was felt that publicity, whatever form it took, would ultimately rebound against the nation's interests. There is already considerable popular hostility in this country to the rearmament of Western Germany. It was felt that any evidence of German intrigue in Britain — whether inspired by the Russians or not — might encourage this hostility. There is, you see, no positive evidence that Frey was operating for the Russians. It might well be represented to the public that he was operating on his own account or on behalf of a united Germany?"

  "I see."

  "So far very few people indeed are aware of the facts at all. That is most fortunate. On behalf of the police the Home Secretary has tentatively agreed that they will do their part in playing the affair down as far as possible .... Now this man Mendel, what's he like. Is he trustworthy?"

  Smiley hated Maston for that.

  "Yes," he said.

  Maston got up. "Good," he said, "good. Well, I must get along. Anything you want at all, anything I can do?"

  "No, thank you. Guillam is looking after me admirably."

  Maston reached the door. "Well good luck, George. Take the job if you can." He said this quickly in a subdued voice with a pretty, sidelong smile as if it meant rather a lot to him.

  "Thank you for the flowers." said Smiley.

  Dieter was dead, and he had killed him. The broken fingers of his right hand, the stiffness of his body and the sickening headache, the nausea of guilt, all testified to this. And Dieter had let him do it, had not fired the gun, had remembered their friendship when Smiley had not. They had fought in a cloud, in the rising stream of the river, in a clearing in a timeless forest: they had met, two friends rejoined, and fought like beasts. Dieter had remembered and Smiley had not. They had come from different hemispheres of the night, from different worlds of thought and conduct. Dieter, mercurial, absolute, had fought to build a civilisation. Smiley, rationalistic, protective, had fought to prevent him. "Oh God," said Smiley aloud, "who was then the gentIeman ... "

  Laboriously he got out of bed and began to dress. He felt better standing up.

  XVII

  Dear Adviser

  "Dear Adviser,

  I am at last able to reply to Personnel's offer of a higher appointment in the Department. I am sorry that I have taken so long to do this, but as you know, I have not been well recently, and have also had to contend with a number of personal problems outside the scope of the Department. As I am not entirely free of my indisposition, I feel it would be unwise for me to accept their offer. Kindly convey this decision to Personnel. I am sure you will understand. Yours, George Smiley?"

  "Dear Peter, I enclose a note on the Fennan case. This is the only copy. Please pass it to Maston when you have read it. I thought it would be valuable to record the events—even if they did not take place. Ever, George!rdquo;

  "The Fennan Case&rdquot

  "On Monday, 2nd January, I interviewed Samuel Arthur Fennan, a senior member of the Foreign Office, in order to clarify certain allegations made against him in an anonymous letter. The interview was arranged in accordance with the customary procedure, that is to say with the consent of the F.O. We knew of nothing adverse to Fennan beyond communist sympathy while at Oxford in the thirties, to which little significance was attached. The interview was therefore in a sense a strictly routine affair.

  "Ferman's room at the Foreign Office was found to be unsuitable and we agreed to continue our discussion in St. James's Park, availing ourselves of the good weather.

  "It has subsequently transpired that we were recognized and observed in this by an agent of the East German Intelligence Service, who had co-operated with me during the war. It is not certain whether he had placed Fennan under some kind of surveillance, or whether his presence in the park was coincidental.

  "On the night of 3rd January it was reported by Surrey police that Fennan had committed suicide. A typewritten suicide note signed by Fennan claimed that he had been victimised by the security authorities.

  "The following facts, however, emerged during investigation, and suggested foul play: "1. At 7.55 P.M. on the night of his death Fennan had asked the Walliston exchange to call him at 8.30 the following morning. "2. Fennan had made himself a cup of cocoa shortly before his death, and had not drunk it. "3. He had supposedly shot himself in the hall, at the bottom of the stairs. The note was beside the body. "4. It seemed inconsistent that he should type his last letter, as he seldom used a typewriter, and even more remarkable that he should come downstairs to the hall to shoot himself. "5. On the day of his death he posted a letter inviting me in urgent terms to lunch with him at Marlow the following day. "6. Later it also transpired that Fennan had requested a day's leave for Wednesday, 4th January. He did not apparently mention this to his wife. "7. It was also noted that the suicide letter had been typed on Fennan's own machine — and that it contained certain peculiarities in the typescript similar to those in the anonymous letter. The laboratory report concluded, however, that the two letters had not been typed by the same hand, though originating from the same machine. "Mrs. Fennan, who had been to the theatre on the night her husband died, was invited to explain the 8.30 call from the exchange and falsely claimed to have requested it herself. The exchange was positive that this was not the case. Mrs. Fennan claimed that her husband had been nervous and depressed since his security interview, which corroborated the evidence of his final letter. "On the afternoon of 4th January, having left Mrs. Fennan earlier in the day, I returned to my house in Kensington. Briefly observing somebody at the window, I rang the front-door bell. A man opened the door who has since been identified as a member of the East German Intelligence Service. He invited me into the house but I declined his offer and returned to my car, noting at the same time the numbers of cars parked nearby.

  "That evening I visited a small garage in Battersea to enquire into the origin of on
e of these cars which was registered in the name of the proprietor of the garage. I was attacked by an unknown assailant and beaten senseless. Three weeks later the proprietor himself; Adam Scarr, was found dead in the Thames near Battersea Bridge. He had been drunk at the time of drowning. There were no signs of violence and he was known as a heavy drinker.

  "It is relevant that Scarr had for the last four years provided an anonymous foreigner with the use of a car, and had received generous rewards for doing so. Their arrangements were designed to conceal the identity of the borrower even from Scarr himself, who only knew his client by the nickname 'Blondie' and could only reach him through a telephone number. The telephone number is of importance: it was that of the East German Steel Mission.

  "Meanwhile, Mrs. Ferman's alibi for the evening of the murder had been investigated and significant information came to light: "1. Mrs. Fennan attended the Weybridge Repertory Theatre twice a month, on the first and third Tuesdays. (N.B. Adam Scarr's client had collected his car on the first and third Tuesdays of each month.) "2. She always brought a music case and left it in the cloakroom. "3. When visiting the theatre she was always joined by a man whose description corresponded with that of my assailant and Scarr's client. It was even mistakenly assumed by a member of the theatre staff that this man was Mrs. Ferman's husband. He too brought a music case and left it in the cloakroom. "4. On the evening of the murder Mrs. Fennan had left the theatre early after her friend had failed to arrive and had forgotten to reclaim her music case. Late that night she telephoned the theatre to ask if the case could be called for at once. She had lost her cloakroom ticket. The case was collected — by Mrs. Ferman's usual friend.

  "At this point the stranger was identified as an employee of the East German Steel Mission named Mundt. The principal of the Mission was Herr Dieter Frey, a war-time collaborator of our Service, with extensive operational experience. After the war he had entered Government service in the Soviet zone of Germany. I should mention that Frey had operated with me during the war in enemy territory and had shown himself to be a brilliant and resourceful agent.