Call for the Dead (3 page)

V

MASTON AND CANDLELIGHT

As he drove slowly back towards London Smiley ceased to be conscious of Mendel's presence. There had been a time when the mere business of driving a car was a relief to him; when he had found in the unreality of a long, solitary journey a palliative to his troubled brain, when the fatigue of several hours' driving had allowed him to forget more sombre cares. It was one of the subtler landmarks of middle age, perhaps, that he could no longer thus subdue his mind. It needed sterner measures now: he even tried on occasion to plan in his head a walk through a European city--to record the shops and buildings he would pass, for instance, in Bern on a walk from the Munster to the University. But despite such energetic mental exercise, the ghosts of time present would intrude and drive his dreams away. It was Ann who had robbed him of his peace, Ann who had once made the present so important and taught him the habit of reality, and when she went there was nothing. But who could tell? What did Hesse write? "Strange to wander in the mist, each is alone. No tree knows his neighbour. Each is alone." We know nothing of one another, nothing, Smiley mused. However closely we live together, at whatever time of day or night we sound the deepest thoughts in one another, we know nothing. How am I judging Eisa Fennan? I think I understand her suffering and her frightened lies, but what do I know of her? Nothing. Mendel was pointing at a sign-post. "... That's where I live. Mitcham. Not a bad spot really. Got sick of bachelor quarters. Bought a decent ''" little semi-detached down here. For my retirement." "Retirement? That's a long way off." "Yes. Three days. That's why I got this job. Nothing to it; no complications. Give it to old Mendel, he'll muck it up." "Well, well. I expect we shall both be out of a job by Monday." He drove Mendel to Scotland Yard and went on to Cambridge Circus. He realised as he walked into the building that everyone knew. It was the way they looked; some shade of difference in their glance, their attitude. He made straight for Maston's room. Maston's secretary was at her desk and she looked up quickly as he entered. "Adviser in?" "Yes. He's expecting you. He's alone. I should knock and go in." But Maston had opened the door and was already calling him. He was wearing a black coat and pinstripe trousers. Here goes the cabaret, thought Smiley. "I've been trying to get in touch with you. Did you not receive my message?" said Maston. "I did, but I couldn't possibly have spoken to you." "I don't quite follow?" "Well, I don't believe Fennan committed suicide--I think he was murdered. I couldn't say that on the telephone." Maston took off his spectacles and looked at Smiley in blank astonishment. "Murdered? Why?" "Well, Fennan wrote his letter at 10.30 last night, if we are to accept the time on his letter as correct." "Well?" "Well, at 7.55 he rang up the exchange and asked to be called at 8.30 the next morning." "How on earth do you know that?" "I was there this morning when the exchange rang. I took the call thinking it might be from the Department." "How can you possibly say that it Was Fennan who ordered the call?" "I had enquiries made. The girl at the exchange knew Fennan's voice well; she was sure it was he, and that he rang at five to eight last night." "Fennan and the girl knew each other, did they?" "Good heavens no. They just exchanged pleasantries occasionally." "And how do you conclude from this that he was murdered?" "Well, I asked his wife about this call..." "And?" "She lied. Said she ordered it herself. She claimed to be frightfully absent-minded--she gets the exchange to ring her occasionally, like tying a knot in a handkerchief, when she has an important appointment. And another thing--just before shooting himself he made some cocoa. He never drank it." Maston listened in silence. At last he smiled and got up. "We seem to be at cross purposes," he said. "I send you down to discover why Fennan shot himself. You come back and say he didn't. We're not policemen, Smiley." "No. I sometimes wonder what we are." "Did you hear of anything that affects our position here--anything that explains his action at all? Anything to substantiate the suicide letter?" Smiley hesitated before replying. He had seen it coming. "Yes. I understood from Mrs. Fennan that her husband was very upset after the interview." He might as well hear the whole story. "It obsessed him, he couldn't sleep after it. She had to give him a sedative. Her account of Fennan's reaction to my interview entirely substantiates the letter." He was silent for a minute, blinking rather stupidly before him. "What I am trying to say is that I don't believe her. I don't believe Fennan wrote that letter, or that he had any intention of dying." He turned to Maston. "We simply cannot dismiss the inconsistencies. Another thing," he plunged on, "I haven't had an expert comparison made but there's a similarity between the anonymous letter and Fennan's suicide note. The type looks identical. It's ridiculous I know but there it is. We must bring the police in--give them the facts." "Facts?" said Maston. "What facts? Suppose she did lie--she's an odd woman by all accounts, foreign, Jewish. Heaven knows the tributaries of her mind. I'm told she suffered in the war, persecuted and so forth. She may see in you the oppressor, the inquisitor. She spots you're on to something, panics and tells you the first lie that comes into her head. Does that make her a murderess?" "Then why did Fennan make the call? Why make himself a nightcap?" Smiley had to give him credit--it was a good performance and he was no match for Maston when it came to this. Abruptly he felt inside himself the rising panic of frustration beyond endurance. With panic came an uncontrollable fury with this posturing sycophant, this obscene sissy with his greying hair and his reasonable smile. Panic and fury welled up in a sudden tide, flooding his breast, suffusing his whole body. His face felt hot and red, his spectacles blurred and tears sprang to his eyes, adding to his humiliation. Maston went on, mercifully unaware: "You cannot expect me to suggest to the Home Secretary on this evidence that the police have reached a false conclusion; you know how tenuous our police liaison is. On the one hand we have your suspicions: that in short Fennan's behaviour last night was not consistent with the intent to die. His wife has apparently lied to you. Against that we have the opinion of trained detectives, who found nothing disturbing in the circumstances of death, and we have Mrs. Fennan's statement that her husband was upset by his interview. I'm sorry, Smiley, but there it is." There was complete silence. Smiley was slowly recovering himself, and the process left him dull and inarticulate. He peered myopically before him, his pouchy, lined face still pink, his mouth slack and stupid. Maston was waiting for him to speak, but he was tired and suddenly utterly disinterested. Without a glance at Maston he got up and walked out. He reached his own room and sat down at the desk. Mechanically he looked through his work. His in-tray contained little--some office circulars and a personal letter addressed to G. Smiley Esq., Ministry of Defence. The handwriting was unfamiliar; he opened the envelope and read the letter. "Dear Smiley, It is essential that I should lunch with you tomorrow at the Compleat Angler at Marlow. Please do your best to meet me there at one o'clock. There is something I have to tell you. Yours, Samuel Fennan." The letter was handwritten and dated the previous day, Tuesday, 3rd January. It had been postmarked in Whitehall at 6.00 p.m. He looked at it stodgily for several minutes, holding it stiffly before him and inclining his head to the left. Then he put the letter down, opened a drawer of the desk and took out a single clean sheet of paper. He wrote a brief letter of resignation to Maston, and attached Fennan's invitation with a pin. He pressed the bell for a secretary, left the letter in his out-tray and made for the lift. As usual it was stuck in the basement with the registry's tea trolley, and after a short wait he began walking downstairs. Halfway down he remembered that he had left his mackintosh and a few bits and pieces in his room. Never mind, he thought, they'll send them on. He sat in his car in the car park, staring through the drenched windscreen. He didn't care, he just damn well didn't care. He was surprised certainly. Surprised that he had so nearly lost control. Interviews had played a great part in Smiley's life, and he had long ago come to consider himself proof against them all: disciplinary, scholastic, medical and religious. His secretive nature detested the purpose of all interviews, their oppressive intimacy, their inescapable reality. He remembered one deliriously happy dinner with Ann at Quaglinos when he had described to her the Chameleon-Armadillo system for beating the interviewer. "... and so I learned first to be a chameleon." "You mean you sat there burping, you rude toad?" "No, it's a matter of colour. Chameleons change colour." "Of course they change colour. They sit on green leaves and go green. Did you go green, toad?" His fingers ran lightly over the tips of hers. "Listen, minx, while I explain the Smiley Chameleon-Armadillo technique for the impertinent interviewer." Her face was very close to his and she adored him with her eyes. "The technique is based on the theory that the interviewer, loving no one so well as himself, will be attracted by his own image. You therefore assume the exact social, temperamental, political and intellectual colour of your inquisitor." "Pompous toad. But intelligent lover." "Silence. Sometimes this method founders against the idiocy or ill-disposition of the inquisitor. If so, become an armadillo." k "And wear linear belts, toad?" "No, place him in a position so incongruous that you are superior to him. I was prepared for confirmation by a retired bishop. I was his whole flock, and received on one half holiday sufficient guidance for a diocese. But by contemplating the bishop's face, and imagining that under my gaze it became covered in thick fur, I maintained the ascendancy. From then on the skill grew. I could turn him into an ape, get him stuck in sash windows, send him naked to Masonic banquets, condemn him, like the serpent, to go about on his belly..." "Wicked lover-toad." Smiley was tired, deeply, heavily tired. He drove slowly homewards. Dinner out tonight. Something rather special. It was only lunch-time now--he would spend the afternoon pursuing Olearius across the Russian continent on his Hansa voyage. Then dinner at Quaglinos, and a solitary toast to the successful murderer, to Eisa perhaps, in gratitude for ending the career of George Smiley with the life of Sam Fennan. He remembered to collect his laundry in Sloane Street, and finally turned into Bywater Street, finding a parking space about three houses down from his own. He got out carrying the brown paper parcel of laundry, locked the car laboriously and walked all round it from habit, testing the handles. A thin rain was still falling. It annoyed him that someone had parked outside his house again. Thank goodness Mrs. Chapel had closed his bedroom window, otherwise the rain would have... He was suddenly alert. Something had moved in the drawing-room. A light, a shadow, a human form; something, he was certain. Was it sight or instinct? Was it the latent skill of his own tradecraft which informed him? Some fine sense or nerve, some remote faculty of perception warned him now and he heeded the warning. Without a moment's thought he dropped his keys back into his overcoat pocket, walked up the steps to his own front door and rang the bell. It echoed shrilly through the house. There was a moment's silence, then came to Smiley's ears the distinct sound of footsteps approaching the door, firm and confident. A scratch of the chain, a click of the Ingersoll latch and the door was opened, swiftly, cleanly. "Yes. Won't you come in?" For a fraction of a second he hesitated. "No thanks. Would you please give him this?" He handed him the parcel of laundry, walked down the steps again, to his car. He knew he was still being watched. He started the car, turned and drove into Sloane Square without a glance in the direction of his house. He found a parking space in Sloane Street, pulled in and rapidly wrote in his diary seven sets of numbers. They belonged to the seven cars parked along Bywater Street. What should he do? Stop a policeman? Whoever he was, he was probably gone by now. Besides there were other considerations. He locked the car again and crossed the road to a telephone kiosk. He rang Scotland Yard, got through to Special Branch and asked for Inspector Mendel. But it appeared that the Inspector, having reported back to the Superintendent, had discreetly anticipated the pleasures of retirement and left for Mitch-am. Smiley got his address after a good deal of prevarication, and set off once more in his car, covering three sides of a square and emerging at Albert Bridge. He had a sandwich and a large whisky at a new pub overlooking the river and a quarter of an hour later was crossing the bridge on the way to Mitcham, the rain still beating down on his inconspicuous little car. He was worried, very worried indeed.

VI

TEA AND SYMPATHY

It was still raining as he arrived. Mendel was in his garden wearing the most extraordinary hat Smiley had ever seen. It had begun life as an Anzac hat but its enormous brim hung low all the way round, so that he resembled nothing so much as a very tall mushroom. He was brooding over a tree stump, a wicked looking pick-axe poised obediently in his sinewy right hand. He looked at Smiley sharply for a moment, then a grin slowly crossed his thin face as he extended his hand. "Trouble," said Mendel. "Trouble." Smiley followed him up the path and into the house. Suburban and comfortable. "There's no fire in the living-room--only just got back. How about a cup of tea in the kitchen?" "But why did he ask you in?" Smiley blinked and coloured a little. "That's what I wondered. It put me off my balance for a moment. It was lucky-I had the parcel." He took a drink of tea. "Though I don't believe he was taken in by the parcel. He may have been, but I doubt it. I doubt it very much." "Not taken in?" "Well, I wouldn't have been. Little man in a Ford delivering parcels of linen. Who could I have been? Besides, I asked for Smiley and then didn't want to see him--he must have thought that was pretty queer." "But what was he after? What would he have done with you? Who did he think you were?" "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 recognised 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 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 in to 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. 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 trembling with rage, and Smiley was silent for a while, thinking of Eisa 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. "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 farther 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. 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 dreamed 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." 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