A Delicate Truth

by John le Carré

  ‘So you didn’t refer to me at all? Is that right? Or are you just refusing to answer? No Toby Bell? Anywhere? Not in writing, not in your conversations with them?’

  ‘Conversations!’ Kit retorted with a rasping laugh.

  ‘Did you or didn’t you mention my involvement in this? Yes or no?’

  ‘No! I didn’t! What d’you think I am? A snitch, as well as a bloody fool?’

  ‘I saw Jeb’s widow yesterday. In Wales. I had a long talk with her. She gave me some promising leads.’

  Kit’s head rose at last, and Toby to his embarrassment saw tears lying in the rims of his reddened eyes.

  ‘You saw Brigid?’

  ‘Yes. That’s right. I saw Brigid.’

  ‘What’s she like, poor girl? Christ Almighty.’

  ‘As brave as her husband. The boy’s great too. She put me on to Shorty. I’ve arranged to meet him. Tell me again. You really didn’t mention me? If you did, I’ll understand. I just need to know for sure.’

  ‘No, repeat no. Holy God, how many times do I have to say it?’

  Kit signed the bill and, refusing Toby’s proffered arm, clambered uncertainly to his feet.

  ‘Hell are you doing with my daughter anyway?’ he demanded, as they came unexpectedly face to face.

  ‘We’re getting along fine.’

  ‘Well, don’t do what that shit Bernard did.’

  ‘She’s waiting for us now.’

  ‘Where?’

  Keeping a hand at the ready, Toby escorted Kit on the journey across the Long Library into the lobby, past the Secretary and down the steps to where Emily was waiting with the cab: not inside it, as instructed, but standing in the rain, stoically holding the door open for her father.

  ‘We’re going straight off to Paddington,’ she said, when she had settled Kit firmly into the cab. ‘Kit needs some solids before the night sleeper. What about you?’

  ‘There’s a lecture at Chatham House,’ he replied. ‘I’m expected to put in an appearance.’

  ‘Talk later in the evening then.’

  ‘Sure. See how the land lies. Good idea,’ he agreed, conscious of Kit’s befuddled gaze glowering at them from inside the cab.

  Had he lied to her? Not quite. There was a lecture at Chatham House and he was indeed expected, but he did not propose to attend. Lodged behind the silver burner in his jacket pocket – he could feel it pricking at his collarbone – was a letter on stiff paper from an illustrious-sounding banking house, hand-delivered and signed for at the main entrance of the Foreign Office at three that afternoon. In bold electronic type, it requested Toby’s presence at any time between now and midnight at the company’s headquarters in Canary Wharf.

  It was signed G. Oakley, Senior Vice-President.

  *

  A chill night air whipped off the Thames, almost clearing away the stink of stale cigarette smoke that lingered in every fake Roman arcade and Nazi-style doorway. By the sodium glare of Tudor lanterns, joggers in red shirts, secretaries in top-to-toe black livery, striding men with crew cuts and paper-thin black briefcases glided past each other like mummers in a macabre dance. Before every lighted tower and at every street corner, bulked-out security guards in anoraks looked him over. Selecting one at random, Toby showed him the letter heading.

  ‘Must be Canada Square, mate. Well, I think it is, I’ve only been here a year’ – to a loud peal of laughter that followed him down the street.

  He passed under a walkway and entered an all-night shopping mall offering gold watches, caviar and villas on Lake Como. At a cosmetics counter a beautiful girl with bare shoulders invited him to sniff her perfume.

  ‘You don’t by any chance know where I can find Atlantis House, do you?’

  ‘You wanna buy?’ she asked sweetly, with an uncomprehending Polish smile.

  A tower block rose before him, all its lights blazing. At its base a pillared cupola. On its floor a Masonic starburst of gold mosaic. And round its blue dome, the word Atlantis. And at the back of the cupola, a pair of glass doors with whales engraved on them that sighed and opened at his approach. From behind a counter of hewn rock, a burly white man handed him a chrome clip and plastic card with his name on it:

  ‘Centre lift and no need for you to press anything. Have a nice evening, Mr Bell.’

  ‘You too.’

  The lift rose, stopped, and opened into a starlit amphitheatre of white archways and celestial nymphs in white plaster. From the middle of the domed firmament hung a cluster of illuminated seashells. From beneath them – or as it seemed to Toby from among them – a man was striding vigorously towards him. Backlit, he was tall, even menacing, but then as he advanced he diminished, until Giles Oakley in his new-found executive glory stood before him: the achiever’s rugged smile, the honed body of perpetual youth, the fine new head of darkened hair and perfect teeth.

  ‘Toby, dear man, what a pleasure! And at such short notice. I’m touched and honoured.’

  ‘Nice to see you, Giles.’

  *

  An air-conditioned room that was all rosewood. No windows, no fresh air, no day or night. When we buried my grandmother, this is where we sat and talked to the undertaker. A rosewood desk and throne. Below it, for lesser mortals, a rosewood coffee table and two leather chairs with rosewood arms. On the table, a rosewood tray for the very old Calvados, the bottle not quite full. Until now, they had barely looked each other in the eye. In negotiation, Giles doesn’t do that.

  ‘So, Toby. How’s love?’ he asked brightly when Toby had declined the Calvados and watched Oakley pour himself a shot.

  ‘Fair, thank you. How’s Hermione?’

  ‘And the great novel? Done and dusted?’

  ‘Why am I here, Giles?’

  ‘For the same reason that you came, surely’ – Oakley, putting on a little pout of dissatisfaction at the unseemly pace of things.

  ‘And what reason is that?’

  ‘A certain covert operation, dreamed up three years ago but mercifully – as we both know – never executed. Might that be the reason?’ Oakley enquired with false jocularity.

  But the impish light had gone out. The once-lively wrinkles round the mouth and eyes were turned downward in permanent rejection.

  ‘You mean Wildlife,’ Toby suggested.

  ‘If you want to bandy state secrets about, yes. Wildlife.’

  ‘Wildlife was executed all right. So were a couple of innocent people. You know that as well as I do.’

  ‘Whether I know it or you know it is neither here nor there. What is at issue is whether the world knows it, and whether it should. And the answer to those two questions, dear man – as must be evident to a blind hedgehog, let alone a trained diplomat such as yourself – is very clearly: no, thank you, never. Time does not heal in such cases. It festers. For every year of official British denial, count hundreds of decibels of popular moral outrage.’

  Pleased with this rhetorical flourish, he smiled mirthlessly, sat back and waited for the applause. And when none came, treated himself to a nip of Calvados and airily resumed:

  ‘Think on it, Toby: a rabble of American mercenaries, aided by British Special Forces in disguise and funded by the Republican evangelical right. And for good measure, the whole thing masterminded by a shady defence contractor in cahoots with a leftover group of fire-breathing neocons from our fast-dissolving New Labour leadership. And the dividend? The mangled corpses of an innocent Muslim woman and her baby daughter. Watch that play out in the media marketplace! As to gallant little Gibraltar with her long-suffering multi-ethnic population: the cries to give her back to Spain would deafen us for decades to come. If they don’t already.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘What d’you want me to do?’

  Suddenly Oakley’s gaze, so often elusive, was fixed on Toby in fiery exhortation:

  ‘Not do, dear man! Cease to do. Desist forthwith and for ever! Before it’s too late.’

  ‘Too late
for what?’

  ‘For your career – what else? Give up this self-righteous pursuit of the unfindable. It will destroy you. Become again what you were before. All will be forgiven.’

  ‘Who says it will?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘And who else? Jay Crispin? Who?’

  ‘What does it matter who else? An informal consortium of wise men and women with their country’s interests at heart, will that do you? Don’t be a child, Toby.’

  ‘Who killed Jeb Owens?’

  ‘Killed him? Nobody. He did. He shot himself, the poor man. He was deranged for years. Has nobody told you that? Or is the truth too inconvenient for you?’

  ‘Jeb Owens was murdered.’

  ‘Nonsense. Sensational nonsense. Whatever makes you say that?’ – Oakley’s chin coming up in challenge, but his voice no longer quite so sure of itself.

  ‘Jeb Owens was shot through the head by a gun that wasn’t his own, with the wrong hand, just one day before he was due to join up with Probyn. He was bubbling over with hope. He was so full of hope he rang his estranged wife on the morning of the day he was killed to tell her just how full of hope he was and how they could start their lives all over again. Whoever had him murdered got some B-list actress to pretend she was a doctor – a male doctor, actually, but she didn’t know that, unfortunately – and make a cold call to Probyn’s house after Jeb’s death with the happy message that Jeb was alive and languishing in a mental hospital and didn’t want to talk to anyone.’

  ‘Whoever told you such drivel?’ – but Oakley’s face was a lot less certain than his tone.

  ‘The police investigation was led by diligent plain-clothes officers from Scotland Yard. Thanks to their diligence, not a single clue was followed up. There was no forensic examination, a whole raft of formalities were waived, and the cremation went through with unnatural speed. Case closed.’

  ‘Toby.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Assuming this is the truth, it’s all news to me. I had no idea of it, I swear. They told me –’

  ‘They? Who’s they? Who the fuck is they? They told you what? That Jeb’s murder had been covered up and everybody could go home?’

  ‘My understanding was and is that Owens shot himself in a fit of depression, or frustration, or whatever the poor man was suffering from – wait! What are you doing? Wait!’

  Toby was standing at the door.

  ‘Come back. I insist. Sit down’ – Oakley’s voice close to breaking. ‘Perhaps I’ve been misled. It’s possible. Assume it. Assume you’re right in everything you say. For argument’s sake. Tell me what you know. There are bound to be contrary arguments. There always are. Nothing is set in stone. Not in the real world. It can’t be. Sit down here. We haven’t finished.’

  Under Oakley’s imploring gaze, Toby came away from the door but ignored the invitation to sit.

  ‘Tell it to me again,’ Oakley ordered, for a moment recovering something of his old authority. ‘I need chapter and verse. What are your sources? All hearsay, I’ve no doubt. Never mind. They killed him. The they you are so exercised about. We assume it. And having assumed it, what do we then conclude from that assumption? Allow me to tell you’ – the words coming in breathless gasps – ‘we conclude decisively that the time has come for you to withdraw your cavalry from the charge – a temporary, tactical, orderly, dignified withdrawal while there’s time. A détente. A truce, enabling both sides to consider their positions and let tempers cool. You won’t be walking away from a fight – I know that isn’t your style. You’ll be saving your ammunition for another day – for when you’re stronger and you’ve got more power, more traction. Press your case now, you’ll be a pariah for the rest of your life. You, Toby! Of all people! That’s what you’ll be. An outcast who played his cards too early. It’s not what you were put on earth for – I know that, better than anyone. The whole country’s crying out for a new elite. Begging for one. For people like you – real men – the real men of England, unspoiled – all right, dreamers too – but with their feet on the ground. Bell’s the real thing, I told them. Uncluttered mind, and the heart and body to go with it. You don’t even know the meaning of real love. Not love like mine. You’re blind to it. Innocent. You always were. I knew that. I understood. I loved you for it. One day, I thought, he’ll come to me. But I knew you never would.’

  But by then, Giles Oakley was talking to an empty room.

  *

  Lying on his bed in the darkness, the silver burner at his right hand, Toby listens to the night shouts from the street. Wait till she’s home. The sleeper leaves Paddington at 11.45. I’ve checked and it left on time. She hates taking taxis. She hates doing anything the poor can’t afford. So wait.

  He presses green anyway.

  ‘How was Chatham House?’ she asked drowsily.

  ‘I didn’t go.’

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘Called on an old friend. Had a chat.’

  ‘About anything in particular?’

  ‘Just this and that. How was your father?’

  ‘I handed him over to the attendant. Mum will scrape him off the train at the other end.’

  A scuffle, quickly suppressed. A smothered murmur of ‘Get off!’

  ‘That bloody cat,’ she explained. ‘Every night she tries to get on my bed, and I shove her off. Who did you think it was?’

  ‘I didn’t dare wonder.’

  ‘Dad’s convinced you have designs on me. Is he right?’

  ‘Probably.’

  Long silence.

  ‘What’s tomorrow?’ she asked.

  ‘Thursday.’

  ‘You’re meeting your man. Yes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I have a clinic. It finishes around midday. Then a couple of house calls.’

  ‘Maybe the evening then,’ he said.

  ‘Maybe.’ Long silence. ‘Did something go wrong tonight?’

  ‘Just my friend. He thought I was gay.’

  ‘And you’re not?’

  ‘No. I don’t think so.’

  ‘And you didn’t succumb out of politeness?’

  ‘Not that I recall.’

  ‘Well, that’s all right then, isn’t it?’

  Keep talking, he wanted to tell her. It doesn’t have to be your hopes and dreams. Any old thing will do. Just keep talking till I’ve got Giles out of my head.

  7

  He had woken badly, with feelings he needed to disown and others he needed urgently to revive. Despite Emily’s consoling words to him it was Oakley’s anguished face and supplicating voice that stayed with him when he woke.

  I’m a whore.

  I didn’t know.

  I knew, and led him on.

  I didn’t know, and should have done.

  Everybody knew but me.

  And most frequently: after Hamburg, how could I be such a bloody fool – telling myself every man’s entitled to his appetites, and after all nobody got hurt but Giles?

  Concurrently, he had undertaken a damage assessment of the information Oakley had, or had not, revealed about the extent to which his extramural journeyings were compromised. If Charlie Wilkins, or his certain friend in the Met, was Oakley’s source, which he took pretty much for granted, then the trip to Wales and his meeting with Brigid were blown.

  But the photographs weren’t blown. The path to Shorty wasn’t blown. Was his visit to Cornwall blown? Possibly, since the police, or versions of them, had trampled all over Kit’s club and were by now presumably aware that Emily had come to rescue him in the company of a friend of the family.

  In which case, what?

  In which case, presenting himself to Shorty in the guise of a Welsh journalist and asking him to turn whistle-blower might not be the wisest course of action to pursue. It might in fact be an act of suicidal folly.

  So why not abandon the whole thing, and pull the sheets over our heads, follow Oakley’s advice and pretend none of it ever happened?

  Or in p
lain language, stop flailing yourself with unanswerable questions, and get down to Mill Hill for your date with Shorty, because one eyewitness who is prepared to stay alive and speak is all you’re ever going to need. Either Shorty will say yes, and we’ll do together what Kit and Jeb had planned to do, or Shorty will say no and scuttle off to tell Jay Crispin what a good boy he is, and the roof will fall in.

  But whichever of these things happens, Toby will finally be taking the battle to the enemy.

  *

  Ring Sally, his assistant. Get her voicemail. Good. Affect a tone of suffering bravely borne:

  ‘Sally. Toby here. Bloody wisdom tooth acting up, I’m afraid. I’m booked in at the tooth fairy in an hour. So listen. They’ll have to count me out of this morning’s meeting. And maybe Gregory can stand in for me at the NATO bash. Apologies all round, okay? I’ll keep you posted. Sorry again.’

  Next, the sartorial question: what does your enterprising provincial journalist wear on his visit to London? He settled for jeans, trainers and a light anorak, and – a neat touch in his opinion – a brace of ballpoints to go with the reporter’s notebook from his desk.

  But reaching for his BlackBerry, he checked himself, remembering that it contained Jeb’s photographs that were also Shorty’s.

  He decided he was better off without it.

  *

  The Golden Calf Café & Patisserie lay halfway along the high street, squeezed between a halal butcher and a kosher delicatessen. In its pink-lit windows, birthday cakes and wedding cakes jostled with meringues the size of ostrich eggs. A brass handrail divided the café from the shop. This much Toby saw from across the road before turning into a side street to complete his survey of parked cars, vans and the crowds of morning shoppers who packed the pavements.

  Approaching the café a second time, now on the same side, Toby confirmed what he had observed on his first pass: that the café section at this hour was empty of customers. Selecting what the instructors called the bodyguard’s table – in a corner, facing the entrance – he ordered a cappuccino and waited.