The Spy Who Came in From the Cold

by John le Carré

  ‘That’s just the point, that’s just it, you see. I think it was me he was waiting for, but of course he didn’t expect me to ring the bell. I put him off balance. I think he wanted to kill me. That’s why he asked me in: he recognized me but only just, probably from a photograph.’

  Mendel looked at him in silence for a while.

  ‘Christ,’ he said.

  ‘Suppose I’m right,’ Smiley continued, ‘all the way. Suppose Fennan was murdered last night and I did nearly follow him this morning. Well, unlike your trade, mine doesn’t normally run to a murder a day.’

  ‘Meaning what?’

  ‘I don’t know. I just don’t know. Perhaps before we go much further you’d check on these cars for me. They were parked in Bywater Street this morning.’

  ‘Why not do it yourself?’

  Smiley looked at him, puzzled, for a second. Then it dawned on him that he hadn’t mentioned his resignation.

  ‘Sorry. I didn’t tell you, did I? I resigned this morning. Just managed to get it in before I was sacked. So I’m free as air. And about as employable.’

  Mendel took the list of numbers from him and went into the hall to telephone. He returned a couple of minutes later.

  ‘They’ll ring back in an hour,’ he said. ‘Come on. I’ll show you round the estate. Know anything about bees, do you?’

  ‘Well, a very little, yes. I got bitten with the natural history bug at Oxford.’ He was going to tell Mendel how he had wrestled with Goethe’s metamorphoses of plants and animals in the hope of discovering, like Faust, ‘what sustains the world at its inmost point’. He wanted to explain why it was impossible to understand nineteenth-century Europe without a working knowledge of the naturalistic sciences, he felt earnest and full of important thoughts, and knew secretly that this was because his brain was wrestling with the day’s events, that he was in a state of nervous excitement. The palms of his hands were moist.

  Mendel led him out of the back door: three neat beehives stood against the low brick wall which ran along the end of the garden. Mendel spoke as they stood in the fine rain.

  ‘Always wanted to keep them, see what it’s all about. Been reading it all up – frightens me stiff, I can tell you. Odd little beggars.’ He nodded a couple of times in support of this statement, and Smiley looked at him again with interest. His face was thin but muscular, its expression entirely uncommunicative; his iron-grey hair was cut very short and spiky. He seemed quite indifferent to the weather, and the weather to him. Smiley knew exactly the life that lay behind Mendel, had seen in policemen all over the world the same leathern skin, the same reserves of patience, bitterness and anger. He could guess the long, fruitless hours of surveillance in every kind of weather, waiting for someone who might never come … or come and go too quickly. And he knew how much Mendel and the rest of them were at the mercy of personalities – capricious and bullying, nervous and changeful, occasionally wise and sympathetic. He knew how intelligent men could be broken by the stupidity of their superiors, how weeks of patient work night and day could be cast aside by such a man.

  Mendel led him up the precarious path laid with broken stone to the beehives and, still oblivious of the rain, began taking one to pieces, demonstrating and explaining. He spoke in jerks, with quite long pauses between phrases, indicating precisely and slowly with his slim fingers.

  At last they went indoors again, and Mendel showed him the two downstairs rooms. The drawing-room was all flowers: flowered curtains and carpet, flowered covers on the furniture. In a small cabinet in one corner were some Toby jugs and a pair of very handsome pistols beside a cup for target shooting.

  Smiley followed him upstairs. There was a smell of paraffin from the stove on the landing, and a surly bubbling from the cistern in the lavatory.

  Mendel showed him his own bedroom.

  ‘Bridal chamber. Bought the bed at a sale for a quid. Box spring mattress. Amazing what you can pick up. Carpets are ex-Queen Elizabeth. They change them every year. Bought them at a store in Watford.’

  Smiley stood in the doorway, somehow rather embarrassed. Mendel turned back and passed him to open the other bedroom door.

  ‘And that’s your room. If you want it.’ He turned to Smiley. ‘I wouldn’t stay at your place tonight if I were you. You never know, do you? Besides, you’ll sleep better here. Air’s better.’

  Smiley began to protest.

  ‘Up to you. You do what you like.’ Mendel grew surly and embarrassed. ‘Don’t understand your job, to be honest, any more than you know police work. You do what you like. From what I’ve seen of you, you can look after yourself.’

  They went downstairs again. Mendel had lit the gas fire in the drawing-room.

  ‘Well, at least you must let me give you dinner tonight,’ said Smiley.

  The telephone rang in the hall. It was Mendel’s secretary about the car numbers.

  Mendel came back. He handed Smiley a list of seven names and addresses. Four of the seven could be discounted; the registered addresses were in Bywater Street. Three remained: a hired car from the firm of Adam Scarr and Sons of Battersea, a trade van belonging to the Severn Tile Company, Eastbourne; and the third was listed specially as the property of the Panamanian Ambassador.

  ‘I’ve got a man on the Panamanian job now. There’ll be no difficulty there – they’ve only got three cars on the Embassy strength.

  ‘Battersea’s not far,’ Mendel continued. ‘We could pop over there together. In your car.’

  ‘By all means, by all means,’ Smiley said quickly; ‘and we can go into Kensington for dinner. I’ll book a table at the Entrechat.’

  It was four o’clock. They sat for a while talking in a rather desultory way about bees and house-keeping, Mendel quite at ease and Smiley still bothered and awkward, trying to find a way of talking, trying not to be clever. He could guess what Ann would have said about Mendel. She would have loved him, made a person of him, had a special voice and face for imitating him, would have made a story of him until he fitted into their lives and wasn’t a mystery any more: ‘Darling, who’d have thought he could be so cosy! The last man I’d ever thought would tell me where to buy cheap fish. And what a darling little house – no bother – he must know Toby jugs are hell and he just doesn’t care. I think he’s a pet. Toad, do ask him to dinner. You must. Not to giggle at but to like.’ He wouldn’t have asked him, of course, but Ann would be content – she’d found a way to like him. And having done so, forgotten him.

  That was what Smiley wanted, really – a way to like Mendel. He was not as quick as Ann at finding one. But Ann was Ann – she practically murdered an Etonian nephew once for drinking claret with fish, but if Mendel had lit a pipe over her crêpe Suzette, she probably would not have noticed.

  Mendel made more tea and they drank it. At about a quarter past five they set off for Battersea in Smiley’s car. On the way Mendel bought an evening paper. He read it with difficulty, catching the light from the street lamps. After a few minutes he spoke with sudden venom:

  ‘Krauts. Bloody Krauts. God, I hate them!’

  ‘Krauts?’

  ‘Krauts. Huns. Jerries. Bloody Germans. Wouldn’t give you sixpence for the lot of them. Carnivorous ruddy sheep. Kicking Jews about again. Us all over. Knock ’em down, set ’em up. Forgive and forget. Why bloody well forget, I’d like to know? Why forget theft, murder and rape just because millions committed it? Christ, one poor little sod of a bank clerk pinches ten bob and the whole of the Metropolitan’s on to him. But Krupp and all that mob – oh no. Christ, if I was a Jew in Germany I’d …’

  Smiley was suddenly wide awake: ‘What would you do? What would you do, Mendel?’

  ‘Oh, I suppose I’d sit down under it. It’s statistics now, politics. It isn’t sense to give them H-bombs so it’s politics. And there’s the Yanks – millions of ruddy Jews in America. What do they do? Damn all: give the Krauts more bombs. All chums together – blow each other up.’

  Mendel was tremblin
g with rage, and Smiley was silent for a while, thinking of Elsa Fennan.

  ‘What’s the answer?’ he asked, just for something to say.

  ‘Christ knows,’ said Mendel savagely.

  They turned into Battersea Bridge Road and drew up beside a constable standing on the pavement. Mendel showed his police card.

  ‘Scarr’s garage? Well, it isn’t hardly a garage, sir, just a yard. Scrap metal he handles mostly, and secondhand cars. If they won’t do for one they’ll do for the other, that’s what Adam says. You want to go down Prince of Wales Drive till you come to the hospital. It’s tucked in there between a couple of pre-fabs. Bomb site it is really. Old Adam straightened it out with some cinders and no one’s ever moved him.’

  ‘You seem to know a lot about him,’ said Mendel.

  ‘I should do, I’ve run him in a few times. There’s not much in the book that Adam hasn’t been up to. He’s one of our hardy perennials, Scarr is.’

  ‘Well, well. Anything on him at present?’

  ‘Couldn’t say, sir. But you can have him any time for illegal betting. And Adam’s practically under the Act already.’

  They drove towards Battersea Hospital. The park on their right looked black and hostile behind the street lamps.

  ‘What’s under the Act?’ asked Smiley.

  ‘Oh, he’s only joking. It means your record’s so long you’re eligible for Preventive Detention – years of it. He sounds like my type,’ Mendel continued. ‘Leave him to me.’

  They found the yard as the constable had described, between two dilapidated pre-fabs in an uncertain row of hutments erected on the bomb site. Rubble, clinker and refuse lay everywhere. Bits of asbestos, timber and old iron, presumably acquired by Mr Scarr for resale or adaptation, were piled in a corner, dimly lit by the pale glow which came from the further pre-fab. The two men looked round them in silence for a moment. Then Mendel shrugged, put two fingers in his mouth and whistled shrilly.

  ‘Scarr!’ he called. Silence. The outside light on the far pre-fab went on, and three or four pre-war cars in various stages of dilapidation became dimly discernible.

  The door opened slowly and a girl of about twelve stood on the threshold.

  ‘Your dad in, dear?’ asked Mendel.

  ‘Nope. Gone to the Prod, I ’spect.’

  ‘Righto, dear. Thanks.’

  They walked back to the road.

  ‘What on earth’s the Prod, or daren’t I ask?’ said Smiley.

  ‘Prodigal’s Calf. Pub round the corner. We can walk it – only a hundred yards. Leave the car here.’

  It was only just after opening time. The public bar was empty, and as they waited for the landlord to appear the door swung open and a very fat man in a black suit came in. He walked straight to the bar and hammered on it with a half-crown.

  ‘Wilf,’ he shouted. ‘Take your finger out, you got customers, you lucky boy.’ He turned to Smiley; ‘Good evening, friend.’

  From the rear of the pub a voice replied: ‘Tell ’em to leave their money on the counter and come back later.’

  The fat man looked at Mendel and Smiley blankly for a moment, then suddenly let out a peal of laughter: ‘Not them, Wilf – they’re busies!’ The joke appealed to him so much that he was finally compelled to sit on the bench that ran along the side of the room, with his hands on his knees, his huge shoulders heaving with laughter, the tears running down his cheeks. Occasionally he said, ‘Oh dear, Oh dear,’ as he caught his breath before another outburst.

  Smiley looked at him with interest. He wore a very dirty stiff white collar with rounded edges, a flowered red tie carefully pinned outside the black waistcoat, army boots and a shiny black suit, very threadbare and without a vestige of a crease in the trousers. His shirt cuffs were black with sweat, grime, and motor oil and held in place by paper-clips twisted into a knot.

  The landlord appeared and took their orders. The stranger bought a large whisky and ginger wine and took it at once to the saloon bar, where there was a coal fire. The landlord watched with disapproval.

  ‘That’s him all over, mean sod. Won’t pay saloon prices, but likes the fire.’

  ‘Who is he?’ asked Mendel.

  ‘Him? Scarr his name is. Adam Scarr. Christ knows why Adam. See him in the Garden of Eden: bloody grotesque, that’s what it is. They say round here that if Eve gave him an apple he’d eat the ruddy core.’ The landlord sucked his teeth and shook his head. Then he shouted to Scarr: ‘Still, you’re good for business, aren’t you, Adam? They come bloody miles to see you, don’t they? Teenage monster from outer space, that’s what you are. Come and see. Adam Scarr: one look and you’ll sign the pledge.’

  More hilarious laughter. Mendel leant over to Smiley. ‘You go and wait in the car – you’re better out of this. Got a fiver?’

  Smiley gave him five pounds from his wallet, nodded his agreement and walked out. He could imagine nothing more frightful than dealing with Scarr.

  ‘You Scarr?’ said Mendel.

  ‘Friend, you are correct.’

  ‘TRX 0891. That your car?’

  Mr Scarr frowned at his whisky and ginger. The question seemed to sadden him.

  ‘Well?’ said Mendel.

  ‘She was, squire, she was.’

  ‘What the hell do you mean?’

  Scarr raised his right hand a few inches then let it gently fall. ‘Dark waters, squire, murky waters.’

  ‘Listen, I’ve got bigger fish to fry than ever you dreamt of. I’m not made of glass, see? I couldn’t care bloody less about your racket. Where’s that car?’

  Scarr appeared to consider this speech on its merits. ‘I see the light, friend. You wish for information.’

  ‘Of course I bloody well do.’

  ‘These are hard times, squire. The cost of living, dear boy, is a rising star. Information is an item, a saleable item, is it not?’

  ‘You tell me who hired that car and you won’t starve.’

  ‘I don’t starve now, friend. I want to eat better.’

  ‘A fiver.’

  Scarr finished his drink and replaced his glass noisily on the table. Mendel got up and bought him another.

  ‘It was pinched,’ said Scarr. ‘I had it a few years for self-drive, see. For the deepo.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘The deepo – the deposit. Bloke wants a car for a day. You take twenty quid deposit in notes, right? When he comes back he owes you forty bob, see? You give him a cheque for thirty-eight quid, show it on your books as a loss and the job’s worth a tenner. Got it?’

  Mendel nodded.

  ‘Well, three weeks ago a bloke come in. Tall Scotsman. Well-to-do, he was. Carried a stick. He paid the deepo, took the car and I never see him nor the car again. Robbery.’

  ‘Why not report it to the police?’

  Scarr paused and drank from his glass. He looked at Mendel sadly.

  ‘Many factors would argue against, squire.’

  ‘Meaning you’d pinched it yourself?’

  Scarr looked shocked. ‘I have since heard distressing rumours about the party from which I obtained the vehicle. I will say no more,’ he added piously.

  ‘When you rented him the car he filled in forms, didn’t he? Insurance, receipt and so on? Where are they?’

  ‘False, all false. He gave me an address in Ealing. I went there and it didn’t exist. I have no doubt the name was also fictitious.’

  Mendel screwed the money into a roll in his pocket, and handed it across the table to Scarr. Scarr unfolded it and, quite unselfconscious, counted it in full view of anyone who cared to look.

  ‘I know where to find you,’ said Mendel; ‘and I know a few things about you. If that’s a load of cock you’ve sold me I’ll break your bloody neck.’

  It was raining again and Smiley wished he had brought a hat. He crossed the road, entered the side street which accommodated Mr Scarr’s establishment and walked towards the car. There was no one in the street, and it was oddly quiet. Two hundre
d yards down the road Battersea General Hospital, small and neat, shed multiple beams of light from its uncurtained windows. The pavement was very wet and the echo of his own footsteps was crisp and startling.

  He drew level with the first of the two pre-fabs which bordered Scarr’s yard. A car was parked in the yard with its sidelights on. Curious, Smiley turned off the street and walked towards it. It was an old MG saloon, green probably, or that brown they went in for before the war. The number-plate was barely lit, and caked in mud. He stooped to read it, tracing the letters with his forefinger: TRX 0891. Of course – that was one of the numbers he had written down this morning. He heard a footstep behind him and stood up, half turning. He had begun to raise his arm as the blow fell.

  It was a terrible blow – it seemed to split his skull in two. As he fell he could feel the warm blood running freely over his left ear. Not again, oh Christ, not again, thought Smiley. But he hardly felt the rest – just a vision of his own body, far away, being slowly broken like rock; cracked and split into fragments, then nothing. Nothing but the warmth of his own blood as it ran over his face into the cinders, and far away the beating of the stonebreakers. But not here. Far away.

  7

  Mr Scarr’s Story

  Mendel looked at him and wondered whether he was dead. He emptied the pockets of his own overcoat and laid it gently over Smiley’s shoulders, then he ran, ran like a madman towards the hospital, crashed through the swing-doors of the out-patients’ department into the bright, twenty-four-hour interior of the hospital. A young coloured doctor was on duty. Mendel showed him his card, shouted something to him, took him by the arm, tried to lead him down the road. The doctor smiled patiently, shook his head and telephoned for an ambulance.

  Mendel ran back down the road and waited. A few minutes later the ambulance arrived and skilful men gathered Smiley up and took him away.

  Bury him, thought Mendel; I’ll make the bastard pay.

  He stood there for a moment, staring down at the wet patch of mud and cinders where Smiley had fallen; the red glow of the car’s rear lights showed him nothing. The ground had been hopelessly churned by the feet of the ambulance men and a few inhabitants from the pre-fabs who had come and gone like shadowy vultures. Trouble was about. They didn’t like trouble.