A Delicate Truth

by John le Carré

  ‘What briefing was that then, Jeb?’ Kit interrupts, momentarily resentful that he wasn’t invited.

  ‘The briefing in Algeciras, Paul,’ Jeb replies patiently. ‘Pre-op. Just across the bay from Gibraltar. Just before we’re to get ourselves into position on the hillside. In a big room above a Spanish restaurant, it was, and us all pretending to be a business conference. And Elliot up there on the platform, telling us how it’s going to be, and his ragtag team of American freebooters sitting there in the front row, not talking to us because we’re regular and Brits. Source Sapphire says this, source Sapphire says that. Or Elliot says she does. It’s all according to Sapphire, and she’s right there with Aladdin on the fancy yacht. She’s Aladdin’s mistress and I don’t know what else she isn’t, all the pillow talk she’s hearing. Reading his emails over his shoulder, listening to his phone calls in bed, sneaking up on deck and telling it all to her real boyfriend back in Beirut, who passes it on to Mr Crispin at Ethical, and Bob’s your uncle, like.’

  He loses the thread, finds it, and resumes:

  ‘Except Bob isn’t anybody’s uncle, is he? Not Bob. Maybe as far as Ethical is concerned, he is. But not for our own British intelligence. Because British intelligence won’t buy into the operation, will it? Same as the regiment won’t – or nearly won’t. The regiment doesn’t like the smell of it – who would? But it doesn’t like missing out either. And it doesn’t like political pressure. So it’s a good old British compromise: a deniable toe in the water but not the whole foot. And me and the boys, we’re the toe, like. And Jeb here will be in charge because good old Jeb’s the steady one. Maybe a bit on the pernickety side, but with those daredevil mercs around, all the better for it. Granny Jeb, they used to call me. Not that I minded, if it meant not taking unnecessary risks.’

  Jeb takes a sip of his beer, closes his eyes, and plunges quickly on.

  ‘House number seven it’s supposed to be. Well, we thought: let’s take six and eight too while we’re about it, one house per man and me the back-up, it’s all a bit daft anyway, what with Elliot at the controls there. All a bit Mickey Mouse, frankly, half the equipment not working the way it ought, what’s the difference? There’s no way they’d teach you that in training, is there? But the targets weren’t going to be armed, were they? Not according to Elliot’s brilliant intelligence. Plus we only wanted one of them, and the other we can’t touch. So go into the three houses simultaneously for the surprise, we say, and do a room-by-room. Catch your man, make sure he’s the right man, bundle him over the balcony to the shore party, keeping your feet at all times planted firmly on the Rock. Simple really. We had the layout of the houses, each the same as the other. One nice living room with big balcony on the seaward side. One master bedroom with sea views and one cupboard-sized second bedroom for a child. Bathroom and kitchen-diner below, and the walls paper-thin, which we knew from the estate agent’s particulars. So if you don’t hear anything apart from the sea, assume they’re hiding or not there, employ extreme caution at all times, plus don’t use your weapon except in self-defence and get the hell out in double-quick time. It didn’t feel like an op, why should it? More a silly ghost walk. The boys go in, one house each. I’m outside keeping an eye on the open staircases down to the seashore. “Nothing there.” That’s Don in six. “Nothing there.” That’s Andy, house eight. “I’ve got something.” That’s Shorty, in seven. What have you got, Shorty? “Droppings.” What the hell d’you mean, boy, droppings? “Come and see for yourself, man.”

  ‘Well, you can fake an empty house, I know that, but house seven was truly empty. Not a skid-mark on the parquet floor. Not a hair in the bathtub. Kitchen the same. Except for this one plastic bowl on the floor, pink plastic, with bits of pitta bread and chicken meat in it, torn up small like you would for’ – he is searching for the right small creature – ‘for a cat, a young cat.’ But cat’s not right: ‘Or a puppy or something. And the bowl, the pink bowl, warm to touch. If it hadn’t been on the floor, I suppose I would have thought different. Not cats and dogs but something else. I wish I had now. If I’d thought different, maybe it wouldn’t have happened, would it? But I didn’t. I thought cat or dog. And the food in the bowl warm too. I pulled my glove off to put my knuckles on it. Like a warm body, it was. There’s a small frosted window overlooking the outside staircase. The latch is loose. You’d have to be a midget to squeeze through a space like that. But maybe it’s a midget we’re looking for. I call up to Don and Shorty: check the outside staircases, but no going down to the shore, mind, because if anyone’s going to tangle with the boat party it’ll be me.

  ‘I’m talking slow motion because that’s how I remember it,’ Jeb explains apologetically, while Kit watches the sweat running down his face like tears. ‘It’s one thing then the next thing for me. Everything single, like. That’s how I remember it. Don comes through. He’s heard this scuffle. Thinks there’s someone hiding down on the rocks underneath the outside staircase. “Don’t go down there, Don,” I tell him. “Stay right where you are, Don, I’m coming right up.” The intercom’s a proper madhouse, frankly. Everything’s going through Elliot. “We’ve had a tentative, Elliot,” I tell him. “Exterior staircase number seven. Underneath.” Message received and out. Don’s standing sentry at the top, pointing down with his thumb.’

  Kit’s own thumb, as if unknown to him, was making the same gesture as he told Jeb’s story into the flames.

  ‘So I’m going down the outside staircase. One step, pause. Another step, pause. It’s concrete all the way, no gaps. There’s a turn to the staircase, like a half-landing. And there’s six armed men on the rocks below me, four flat on their bellies and two kneeling, plus two more back in the inflatable behind them. And they’re all in their firing positions, every one of them, silenced semis at the ready. And underneath me – right under my feet here – there’s this scrabbling noise like a big rat. And then a little shriek to go with it, like. Not a loud shriek. More pressed in, like it was too scared to speak. And I don’t know – and never will, will I? – whether that shriek came from the mother or her child. Nor will they, I don’t suppose. I couldn’t count the bullets – who could? But I can hear them now, like the sound you get inside your head when they pull your teeth out. And there she is, dead. She’s a young Muslim woman, brown-skinned, wearing a hijab, an illegal from Morocco, I suppose, hiding in the empty houses and living off her friends, shot to ribbons while she’s holding her baby girl away from her to keep her out of the line of fire, the little girl she’s been making the food for. The same food I thought was for a cat because it was on the floor, see. If I’d used my head better, I’d have known it was a child, wouldn’t I? Then I could have saved her, I suppose. And her mother too. Curled up on the rocks like she’s flying forward on her knees from the bullets they put into her, the mother is. And the baby girl lying out of her grasp in front of her. A couple of the sea party look a bit puzzled. One man stands with his fingers spread across his face like he’s trying to tear it off. And there’s this quiet moment, like, when you’d have thought they were going to have a good quarrel about who’s responsible, until they decide there’s no time for any of that. They’re trained men – of a sort, anyway – they know what to do in an emergency, all right, even if they don’t know anything else. Those two bodies were on the inflatable and back to the mother ship faster than ever Punter would have been. And Elliot’s boys along with them, all eight, no stragglers.’

  The two men are staring at one another across the bedside table, just as Toby is staring at Kit now, Kit’s rigid face lit not by the glow of the London night but by the firelight in the stable.

  ‘Did Elliot lead the sea party?’ Kit asks Jeb.

  Jeb shakes his head. ‘Not American, see, Paul. Not immune. Not exceptional. Elliot stays home with the mother ship.’

  ‘So why did the men fire?’ Toby asked at last.

  ‘You think I didn’t bloody ask him?’ Kit flared.

  ‘I’m sure you did. What
did he say?’

  It took several deep breaths for Kit to come up with a version of Jeb’s answer.

  ‘Self-defence,’ he snapped.

  ‘You mean, she was armed?’

  ‘No I bloody don’t! Neither did Jeb. He’s thought of nothing else for three years, can’t you imagine? Telling himself he was to blame. Trying to work out why. She knew somebody was there, sussed them somehow – saw them or heard them – so she grabbed the child and wrapped it in her robe. I didn’t presume to ask him why she ran down the steps instead of heading inland. He’s been asking himself the same question day and night. Maybe inland scared her more than the sea. Her food bag had been picked up, but who by? Maybe she mistook the boat team for people smugglers, the same crowd that had brought her to the Rock in the first place – if they did – and they were bringing her man to her, and she was running down the steps to greet him. All Jeb knows is, she came down the steps. Bulked out by the child inside her robe. And what did the beach team think? Bloody suicide bomber, coming to blow them up. So they shot her. Shot her child while he watched. “I could have stopped them.” That’s all the poor bugger can say to himself when he can’t sleep.’

  *

  Summoned by the lights of a passing car, Kit strode to the arched window and, standing on tiptoe, peered keenly out until the lights disappeared.

  ‘Did Jeb tell you what happened to him and his men after the boat party had returned to the mother ship with the bodies?’ Toby asked, of his back.

  ‘Flown to Crete same night by charter. For a debriefing, so-called. The Americans have got a bloody great airbase there, apparently.’

  ‘Debriefing by?’

  ‘Men, plain-clothes chaps. Brainwashing, by the sound of it. Professionals, was all he could say. Two Americans, two Brits. No names, no introductions. Said one of the Americans was a little fat bastard with effeminate mannerisms. Pansy-boy, according to Jeb. The pansy-boy was the worst.’

  But better known to the staff of the Private Office as Brad the Music Man, thought Toby.

  ‘Soon as the British combat team touched down in Crete they were separated,’ Kit went on. ‘Jeb was leader so he got the heavy treatment. Said the pansy-boy ranted at him like Hitler. Tried to persuade him he hadn’t seen what he saw. When that didn’t work, he offered him a hundred thousand dollars not to bubble. Jeb told him to shove it up his arse. Thinks he was confined in a special compound for non-accountable prisoners in transit. Thinks it’s where they would’ve put Punter if the story hadn’t been a lot of bollocks from the start.’

  ‘How about Jeb’s comrades-in-arms?’ Toby persisted. ‘Shorty and the others. What became of them?’

  ‘Thin air. Jeb’s hunch is, Crispin made them an offer they couldn’t refuse. Jeb didn’t blame them. Not that sort of chap. Fair-minded to a fault.’

  Kit had lapsed into silence, so Toby did the same. More headlights drifted across the rafters and vanished.

  ‘And now?’ Toby asked.

  ‘Now? Now nothing! The big empty. Jeb was due here last Wednesday. Breakfast 9 a.m. sharp, and we’d go to work. Said he was a punctual chap. I didn’t doubt him. Said he’d do the journey at night, safer. Asked me if he could hide his van in the barn. I said of course he bloody could. What did he want for breakfast? Scrambled egg. Couldn’t get enough of scrambled egg. I’d get rid of the women, we’d scramble ourselves some eggs, then put the story down on paper: his part, my part. Chapter and verse all the way. I’d be amanuensis, editor, scribe, and we’d take as long as it took. He’d got this piece of evidence he was all excited about. Didn’t say what it was. Cagey to a fault, so I didn’t press. You don’t press a chap like that. He’d bring it or he wouldn’t. I accepted that. I’d make the written presentation for both of us, he’d vet it, sign off on it, and it would be my job to see it through the proper channels to the top. That was the deal. Shook hands on it. We were –’ he broke off, scowled into the flames. ‘Happy as fleas,’ he said jerkily, colouring. ‘Eager for the fray. Pumped up. Not just him. Both of us.’

  ‘Because?’ Toby ventured.

  ‘Because we were going to tell the bloody truth at last, why d’you think?’ Kit barked angrily, taking a pull of Scotch and subsiding into his chair. ‘Last time I saw him, all right?’

  ‘All right,’ Toby agreed softly, and a long silence followed, until Kit grudgingly resumed.

  ‘Gave me a cellphone number. Not his own. Hasn’t got one. A friend’s. Comrade’s. Only chap he still trusted. Well, partly, anyway. My guess is it was Shorty, because they seemed to have a rapport in the hide. I didn’t ask, wasn’t my business. If I left a message, somebody would get it to him. That was all that mattered. Then he left. Left the club. Down the stairs and away, don’t ask me how. I thought he’d leave by the fire escape, but he didn’t. He just left.’

  Another pull of Scotch.

  ‘And you?’ Toby enquired in the same quiet, respectful voice.

  ‘I came home. What d’you think? To this place. To Suzanna, my wife. I’d promised her everything was all right, now I had to tell her it wasn’t all right at all. You can’t fake it with Suzanna. I didn’t tell her the details. I told her Jeb was coming to stay, and between us we’d sort it out. Suzanna took it – the way she does. “Just as long as it means resolution, Kit.” I said it did, and that was good enough for her,’ he ended aggressively.

  Another wait while Kit wrestled with his memory.

  ‘Wednesday came. All right? Midday, Jeb still hadn’t shown up. Two o’clock, three, still hadn’t. I call the cellphone number he’s given me, get an automated answer, leave a message. Nightfall, I leave another message: hullo, it’s me, Paul, here again. Just wondered what happened to our date. Keeping Paul as my code name. For security. I’d given him our landline number here because we don’t get a signal. Thursday I leave another bloody message, get the same answering service. Friday morning, ten, we get a phone call. Jesus Christ!’

  He has clapped a bony hand over his lower jaw and is holding it there, muzzling the pain that refuses to be stilled, because the worst is evidently still to come.

  *

  Kit isn’t sitting in his club bedroom listening to Jeb any more. He isn’t shaking Jeb’s hand by the light of a London dawn, or watching him slip away down the club stairs. He’s not happy as a flea or pumped up, even if he’s still eager for the fray. He’s back home at the Manor and, having broken the bad news to Suzanna, he’s worried sick and eating his heart out, praying with every hour that slips by for a belated sign of life from Jeb. In an effort to keep himself busy, he’s sanding the floorboards next to the guest room and he can’t hear a bloody thing, so when the phone rings in the kitchen, it’s Suzanna who picks it up, and Suzanna who has to climb the stairs to the top floor and hammer on Kit’s shoulder to get his attention.

  ‘It’s somebody wanting Paul,’ she says, when he’s turned off the sander. ‘A woman.’

  ‘What sort of woman, for God’s sake?’ – Kit, already heading downstairs.

  ‘She won’t say. She needs to speak to Paul personally’ – Suzanna, hurrying down after him.

  In the kitchen, Mrs Marlow, all agog, is doing flowers at the sink.

  ‘Bit of privacy, if you don’t mind, Mrs M,’ Kit commands.

  And waits till she has left the room before picking up the phone from the sideboard. Suzanna closes the door after her and stands rigid beside him, arms across her chest. The telephone has a loudspeaker mode for when Emily calls. Suzanna knows how to work it, and switches it on.

  ‘Am I speaking to Paul, please?’ – educated, middle-aged female in professional mode.

  ‘Who’s this?’ Kit asks warily.

  ‘My name is Dr Costello and I’m calling from the mental-health wing of Ruislip General Hospital, at the request of an inpatient who wishes to be known only as Jeb. Am I speaking to Paul, or to someone else?’

  Fierce nod from Suzanna.

  ‘I’m Paul. What’s the matter with Jeb? Is he all right?’
<
br />   ‘Jeb is receiving excellent professional care and is in good physical health. I understand you were expecting a visit from him.’

  ‘Yes. I was. Still am. Why?’

  ‘Jeb has asked me to speak to you frankly, in confidence. May I do that? And this really is Paul?’

  Another nod from Suzanna.

  ‘Of course it is. It’s Paul. Absolutely. Go ahead.’

  ‘I assume you know that Jeb has been mentally unwell for some years.’

  ‘I was aware of that. So what?’

  ‘Last night, Jeb volunteered himself as an inpatient here. We diagnosed chronic schizophrenia and acute depression. He has been sedated and is on suicide watch. In his lucid moments his greatest concern is for you. For Paul.’

  ‘Why? Why should he be worried about me?’ – eyes on Suzanna – ‘I should be worrying about him, for Heaven’s sake.’

  ‘Jeb is suffering from severe guilt syndrome brought on in part by malicious stories that he fears he’s been spreading among his friends. He asked that you treat them for what they are: symptoms of his schizophrenic condition, with no basis in reality.’

  Suzanna thrusts a note at him: Visit?

  ‘Yes, well look here, Dr Costello, the point is, when can I come and see him? I could hop in the car now, if that would help. I mean, d’you have hours? What goes on?’

  ‘I’m very sorry, Paul. I’m afraid a visit by you at this time could cause serious damage to Jeb’s mental health. You are his fear object and he is not ready for a confrontation.’

  Fear object? Me? Kit would like to refute this outrageous allegation but tactic prevails.

  ‘Well, who else has he got?’ he demands, this time off his own bat, no prompting from Suzanna. ‘Has he got other friends who visit him? Relatives? I know he’s not exactly gregarious. How about his wife?’