Call for the Dead - 1

by John le Carré

  Smiley was grateful it was Peter Guillam’s duty that night. A polished and thoughtful man who had specialized in satellite espionage, the kind of friendly spirit who always has a timetable and a penknife.

  ‘Special Branch rang at twelve five. Fennan’s wife went to the theatre and didn’t find him till she got back alone at quarter to eleven. She eventually rang the police.’

  ‘He lived down in Surrey somewhere.’

  ‘Walliston, off the Kingston by-pass. Only just outside the Metropolitan area. When the police arrived they found a letter to the Foreign Secretary on the floor beside the body. The Superintendent rang the Chief Constable, who rang the Duty Officer at the Home Office, who rang the Resident Clerk at the Foreign Office, and eventually they got permission to open the letter. Then the fun started.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘The Director of Personnel at the Foreign Office rang us. He wanted the Adviser’s home number. Said this was the last time Security tampered with his staff, that Fennan had been a loyal and talented officer, blah … blah … blah …’

  ‘So he was. So he was.’

  ‘Said the whole affair demonstrated conclusively that Security had got out of hand – Gestapo methods which were not even mitigated by a genuine threat … blah …

  ‘I gave him the Adviser’s number and dialled it on the other phone while he went on raving. By a stroke of genius I got the FO off one line and Maston on the other and gave him the news. That was at twelve twenty. Maston was here by one o’clock in a state of advanced pregnancy – he’ll have to report to the Minister tomorrow morning.’

  They were silent for a moment, while Guillam poured coffee essence into the cups and added boiling water from the electric kettle.

  ‘What was he like?’ he asked.

  ‘Who? Fennan? Well, until tonight I could have told you. Now he doesn’t make sense. To look at, obviously a Jew. Orthodox family, but dropped all that at Oxford and turned Marxist. Perceptive, cultured … a reasonable man. Soft spoken, good listener. Still educated; you know, facts galore. Whoever denounced him was right of course: he was in the Party.’

  ‘How old?’

  ‘Forty-four. Looks older really.’ Smiley went on talking as his eyes wandered round the room. ‘… sensitive face – mop of straight dark hair undergraduate fashion, profile of a twenty-year-old, fine dry skin, rather chalky. Very lined too – lines going all ways, cutting the skin into squares. Very thin fingers … compact sort of chap; self-contained unit. Takes his pleasures alone. Suffered alone too, I suppose.’

  They got up as Maston came in.

  ‘Ah, Smiley. Come in.’ He opened the door and put out his left arm to guide Smiley through first. Maston’s room contained not a single piece of Government property. He had once bought a collection of nineteenth-century watercolours, and some of these were hanging on the walls. The rest was off the peg, Smiley decided. Maston was off the peg too, for that matter. His suit was just too light for respectability; the string of his monocle cut across the invariable cream shirt. He wore a light grey woollen tie. A German would call him flott, thought Smiley; chic, that’s what he is – a barmaid’s dream of a real gentleman.

  ‘I’ve seen Sparrow. It’s a clear case of suicide. The body has been removed and beyond the usual formalities the Chief Constable is taking no action. There’ll be an inquest within a day or two. It has been agreed – I can’t emphasize this too strongly, Smiley – that no word of our former interest in Fennan is to be passed to the Press.’

  ‘I see.’ (You’re dangerous, Maston. You’re weak and frightened. Anyone’s neck before yours, I know. You’re looking at me that way – measuring me for the rope.)

  ‘Don’t think I’m criticizing, Smiley; after all if the Director of Security authorized the interview you have nothing to worry about.’

  ‘Except Fennan.’

  ‘Quite so. Unfortunately the Director of Security omitted to sign off your minute suggesting an interview. He authorized it verbally, no doubt?’

  ‘Yes. I’m sure he’ll confirm that.’

  Maston looked at Smiley again, sharp, calculating; something was beginning to stick in Smiley’s throat. He knew he was being uncompromising, that Maston wanted him nearer, wanted him to conspire.

  ‘You know Fennan’s office has been in touch with me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘There will have to be an inquiry. It may not even be possible to keep the Press out. I shall certainly have to see the Home Secretary first thing tomorrow.’ (Frighten me and try again … I’m getting on … pension to consider … unemployable, too … but I won’t share your lie, Maston.) ‘I must have all the facts, Smiley. I must do my duty. If there’s anything you feel you should tell me about that interview, anything you haven’t recorded, perhaps, tell me now and let me be the judge of its significance.’

  ‘There’s nothing to add, really, to what’s already on the file, and what I told you earlier tonight. It might help you to know (the “you” was a trifle strong, perhaps) – it might help you to know that I conducted the interview in an atmosphere of exceptional informality. The allegation against Fennan was pretty thin – university membership in the thirties and vague talk of current sympathy. Half the Cabinet were in the Party in the thirties.’ Maston frowned. ‘When I got to his room in the Foreign Office it turned out to be rather public – people trotting in and out the whole time, so I suggested we should go out for a walk in the park.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well, we did. It was a sunny, cold day and rather pleasant. We watched the ducks.’ Maston made a gesture of impatience. ‘We spent about half an hour in the park – he did all the talking. He was an intelligent man, fluent and interesting. But nervous, too, not unnaturally. These people love talking about themselves, and I think he was pleased to get it off his chest. He told me the whole story – seemed quite happy to mention names – and then we went to an espresso café he knew near Millbank.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘An espresso bar. They sell a special kind of coffee for a shilling a cup. We had some.’

  ‘I see. It was under these … convivial circumstances that you told him the Department would recommend no action.’

  ‘Yes. We often do that, but we don’t normally record it.’ Maston nodded. That was the kind of thing he understood, thought Smiley; goodness me, he really is rather contemptible. It was exciting to find Maston being as unpleasant as he expected.

  ‘And I may take it therefore that his suicide – and his letter,

  of course – come as a complete surprise to you? You find no explanation?’

  ‘It would be remarkable if I did.’

  ‘You have no idea who denounced him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He was married, you know.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I wonder … it seems conceivable that his wife might be able to fill in some of the gaps. I hesitate to suggest it, but perhaps someone from the Department ought to see her and, so far as good feeling allows, question her on all this.’

  ‘Now?’ Smiley looked at him, expressionless.

  Maston was standing at his big flat desk, toying with the businessman’s cutlery – paper knife, cigarette box, lighter – the whole chemistry set of official hospitality. He’s showing a full inch of cream cuff, thought Smiley, and admiring his white hands.

  Maston looked up, his face composed in an expression of sympathy.

  ‘Smiley, I know how you feel, but despite this tragedy you must try to understand the position. The Minister and the Home Secretary will want the fullest possible account of this affair and it is my specific task to provide one. Particularly any information which points to Fennan’s state of mind immediately after his interview with … with us. Perhaps he spoke to his wife about it. He’s not supposed to have done but we must be realistic.’

  ‘You want me to go down there?’

  ‘Someone must. There’s a question of the inquest. The Home Secretary will have to decide ab
out that of course, but at present we just haven’t the facts. Time is short and you know the case, you made the background inquiries. There’s no time for anyone else to brief himself. If anyone goes it will have to be you, Smiley.’

  ‘When do you want me to go?’

  ‘Apparently Mrs Fennan is a somewhat unusual woman. Foreign. Jewish, too, I gather, suffered badly in the war, which adds to the embarrassment. She is a strong-minded woman and relatively unmoved by her husband’s death. Only superficially, no doubt. But sensible and communicative. I gather from Sparrow that she is proving cooperative and would probably see you as soon as you can get there. Surrey police can warn her you’re coming and you can see her first thing in the morning. I shall telephone you there later in the day.’

  Smiley turned to go.

  ‘Oh – and Smiley …’ He felt Maston’s hand on his arm and turned to look at him. Maston wore the smile normally reserved for the older ladies of the Service. ‘Smiley, you can count on me, you know; you can count on my support.’

  My God, thought Smiley; you really do work round the clock. A twenty-four-hour cabaret, you are – ‘We Never Closed’. He walked out into the street.

  3

  Elsa Fennan

  Merridale Lane is one of those corners of Surrey where the inhabitants wage a relentless battle against the stigma of suburbia. Trees, fertilized and cajoled into being in every front garden, half obscure the poky ‘Character dwellings’ which crouch behind them. The rusticity of the environment is enhanced by the wooden owls that keep guard over the names of houses, and by crumbling dwarfs indefatigably poised over goldfish ponds. The inhabitants of Merridale Lane do not paint their dwarfs, suspecting this to be a suburban vice, nor, for the same reason, do they varnish the owls; but wait patiently for the years to endow these treasures with an appearance of weathered antiquity, until one day even the beams on the garage may boast of beetle and woodworm.

  The lane is not exactly a cul-de-sac although estate agents insist that it is; the further end from the Kingston by-pass dwindles nervously into a gravel path, which in turn degenerates into a sad little mud track across Merries Field – leading to another lane indistinguishable from Merridale. Until about 1920 this path had led to the parish church, but the church now stands on what is virtually a traffic island adjoining the London road, and the path which once led the faithful to worship provides a superfluous link between the inhabitants of Merridale Lane and Cadogan Road. The strip of open land called Merries Field has already achieved an eminence far beyond its own aspirations; it has driven a wedge deep into the District Council, between the developers and the preservers, and so effectively that on one occasion the entire machinery of local government in Walliston was brought to a standstill. A kind of natural compromise has now established itself: Merries Field is neither developed nor preserved by the three steel pylons, placed at regular intervals across it. At the centre is a cannibal hut with a thatched roof called ‘The War Memorial Shelter’, erected in 1951 in grateful memory to the fallen of two wars, as a haven for the weary and old. No one seems to have asked what business the weary and old would have in Merries Field, but the spiders have at least found a haven in the roof, and as a sitting-out place for pylon-builders the hut was unusually comfortable.

  Smiley arrived there on foot just after eight o’clock that morning, having parked his car at the police station, which was ten minutes’ walk away.

  It was raining heavily, driving cold rain, so cold it felt hard upon the face.

  Surrey police had no further interest in the case, but Sparrow had sent down independently a Special Branch officer to remain at the police station and act if necessary as liaison between Security and the police. There was no doubt about the manner of Fennan’s death. He had been shot through the temple at point blank range by a small French pistol manufactured in Lille in 1957. The pistol was found beneath the body. All the circumstances were consistent with suicide.

  Number fifteen Merridale Lane was a low, Tudor-style house with the bedrooms built into the gables, and a half-timbered garage. It had an air of neglect, even disuse. It might have been occupied by artists, thought Smiley. Fennan didn’t seem to fit here. Fennan was Hampstead and au-pair foreign girls.

  He unlatched the gate and walked slowly up the drive to the front door, trying vainly to discern some sign of life through the leaded windows. It was very cold. He rang the bell.

  Elsa Fennan opened the door.

  ‘They rang and asked me if I minded. I didn’t know what to say. Please come in.’ A trace of a German accent.

  She must have been older than Fennan. A slight, fierce woman in her fifties with hair cut very short and dyed to the colour of nicotine. Although frail, she conveyed an impression of endurance and courage, and the brown eyes that shone from her crooked little face were of an astonishing intensity. It was a worn face, racked and ravaged long ago, the face of a child grown old on starving and exhaustion, the eternal refugee face, the prison-camp face, thought Smiley.

  She was holding out her hand to him – it was scrubbed and pink, bony to touch. He told her his name.

  ‘You’re the man who interviewed my husband,’ she said; ‘about loyalty.’ She led him into the low, dark drawing-room. There was no fire. Smiley felt suddenly sick and cheap. Loyalty to whom, to what. She didn’t sound resentful. He was an oppressor, but she accepted oppression.

  ‘I liked your husband very much. He would have been cleared.’

  ‘Cleared? Cleared of what?’

  ‘There was a prima facie case for investigation – an anonymous letter – I was given the job.’ He paused and looked at her with real concern. ‘You have had a terrible loss, Mrs Fennan … you must be exhausted. You can’t have slept all night …’

  She did not respond to his sympathy: ‘Thank you, but I can scarcely hope to sleep today. Sleep is not a luxury I enjoy.’ She looked down wryly at her own tiny body; ‘My body and I must put up with one another twenty hours a day. We have lived longer than most people already.

  ‘As for the terrible loss. Yes, I suppose so. But you know, Mr Smiley, for so long I owned nothing but a toothbrush, so I’m not really used to possession, even after eight years of marriage. Besides, I have the experience to suffer with discretion.’

  She bobbed her head at him, indicating that he might sit, and with an oddly old-fashioned gesture she swept her skirt beneath her and sat opposite him. It was very cold in that room. Smiley wondered whether he ought to speak; he dared not look at her, but peered vaguely before him, trying desperately in his mind to penetrate the worn, travelled face of Elsa Fennan. It seemed a long time before she spoke again.

  ‘You said you liked him. You didn’t give him that impression, apparently.’

  ‘I haven’t seen your husband’s letter, but I have heard of its contents.’ Smiley’s earnest, pouchy face was turned towards her now: ‘It simply doesn’t make sense. I as good as told him he was … that we would recommend that the matter be taken no further.’

  She was motionless, waiting to hear. What could he say: ‘I’m sorry I killed your husband, Mrs Fennan, but I was only doing my duty. (Duty to whom for God’s sake?) He was in the Communist Party at Oxford twenty-four years ago; his recent promotion gave him access to highly secret information. Some busybody wrote us an anonymous letter and we had no option but to follow it up. The investigation induced a state of melancholia in your husband, and drove him to suicide.’ He said nothing.

  ‘It was a game,’ she said suddenly, ‘a silly balancing trick of ideas; it had nothing to do with him or any real person. Why do you bother yourself with us? Go back to Whitehall and look for more spies on your drawing boards.’ She paused, showing no sign of emotion beyond the burning of her dark eyes. ‘It’s an old illness you suffer from, Mr Smiley,’ she continued, taking a cigarette from the box; ‘and I have seen many victims of it. The mind becomes separated from the body; it thinks without reality, rules a paper kingdom and devises without emotion the ruin of its
paper victims. But sometimes the division between your world and ours is incomplete; the files grow heads and arms and legs, and that’s a terrible moment, isn’t it? The names have families as well as records, and human motives to explain the sad little dossiers and their make-believe sins. When that happens I am sorry for you.’ She paused for a moment, then continued:

  ‘It’s like the State and the People. The State is a dream too, a symbol of nothing at all, an emptiness, a mind without a body, a game played with clouds in the sky. But States make war, don’t they, and imprison people? To dream in doctrines – how tidy! My husband and I have both been tidied now, haven’t we?’ She was looking at him steadily. Her accent was more noticeable now.

  ‘You call yourself the State, Mr Smiley; you have no place among real people. You dropped a bomb from the sky: don’t come down here and look at the blood, or hear the scream.’

  She had not raised her voice, she looked above him now, and beyond.

  ‘You seem shocked. I should be weeping, I suppose, but I’ve no more tears, Mr Smiley – I’m barren; the children of my grief are dead. Thank you for coming, Mr Smiley; you can go back, now – there’s nothing you can do here.’

  He sat forward in his chair, his podgy hands nursing one another on his knees. He looked worried and sanctimonious, like a grocer reading the lesson. The skin of his face was white and glistened at the temples and on the upper lip. Only under his eyes was there any colour: mauve half-moons bisected by the heavy frame of his spectacles.

  ‘Look, Mrs Fennan; that interview was almost a formality. I think your husband enjoyed it, I think it even made him happy to get it over.’

  ‘How can you say that, how can you, now this …’

  ‘But I tell you it’s true: why, we didn’t even hold the thing in a Government office – when I got there I found Fennan’s office was a sort of right of way between two other rooms, so we walked out into the park and finished up at a café – scarcely an inquisition, you see. I even told him not to worry – I told him that. I just don’t understand the letter – it doesn’t …’