The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (14 page)

“I see.”

“Does anyone else know you were friendly with
him?”

“No.”

“Did you go to the trial?”

“No.”

“No press men called, creditors, no one at
all?”

“No, I’ve told you. No one else knew. Not
even my parents, no one. We worked together in the library, of course—the
Psychical Research Library—but only Miss Crail, the librarian, would know that.
I don’t think it occurred to her that there was anything between us. She’s
queer,” Liz added simply.

The little man peered very seriously at her for a moment,
then
he asked: “Did it surprise you when Leamas beat up
Mr. Ford?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Why do you think he did it?”

“I don’t know. Because Ford wouldn’t give him credit, I
suppose. But I think he always meant to.” She wondered if she was saying
too much, but she longed to talk to somebody about it, she was so alone and
there didn’t seem any harm.

“But that night, the night before it
happened, we talked together. We had supper, a sort of special one; Alec said
we should and I knew that it was our last
night. He’d got a bottle of red wine from somewhere; I didn’t like it
much, Alec drank
most of it. And
then I asked him, ‘Is this good-bye’—whether it was all over.”

“What did he say?”

“He said there was a job he’d got to do.
Someone to pay off for something they’d done to a friend of his. I didn’t
really understand it all, not really.”

There was a very long silence and the little man
looked more worried than ever. Finally he asked her: “Do you believe
that?”

“I don’t know.” She was suddenly
terrified for Alec, and she didn’t know why.

The man asked: “Leamas has got two children
by his marriage, did he tell you?” Liz said nothing. “In spite of
that he gave your name as next of kin. Why do you think he did that?” The
little man seemed embarrassed by his own question. He was looking at his hands,
which were pudgy and clasped together on his lap. Liz blushed.

“I was in love with him,” she replied.

“Was he in love with you?”

“Perhaps.
I don’t
know.”

“Are you still in love with him?”

“Yes.”

“Did he ever say he would come back?”
asked the younger man.

“No.”

“But he did say good-bye to you?” the
other asked quickly.

“Did he say good-bye to you?” The little
man repeated his question slowly, kindly. “Nothing more can happen to him,
I promise you. But we want to help him, and
if you have any idea of why he hit Ford, if you have the
slightest notion from
something
he said, perhaps casually or something he did, then tell us for Alec’s
sake.”

Liz shook her head.

“Please go,” she said, “please
don’t ask any more questions. Please go now.”

As he got to the door, the elder man hesitated,
then took a card from his wallet and put it on the table gingerly, as if it
might make a noise. Liz thought he
was
a very shy little man.

“If you ever want any help—if anything
happens about Leamas or—ring me up,” he said. “Do you
understand?”

“Who are you?”

“I’m a friend of Alec Leamas.” He
hesitated. “Another thing,” he added, “one last question. Did
Alec know you were…Did Alec know about the Party?”

“Yes,” she replied hopelessly. “I
told him.”

“Does the Party know about you and Alec?”

“I’ve told you. No one knew.” Then,
white-faced, she cried out suddenly, “Where is he? Tell me where he is.
Why won’t you tell me where he is? I can help him, don’t you see; I’ll look
after him…even if he’s gone mad, I don’t care, I swear I don’t…I wrote to
him in prison; I shouldn’t have done that, I know. I just said
he could come back any time, I’d wait
for him always…” She couldn’t speak any more, just sobbed and sobbed,
standing there in the middle of the room, her broken face buried in her hands;
the little man watching her.

“He’s gone abroad,” he said gently.
“We don’t quite know where he is. He isn’t mad, but he shouldn’t have said
all that to you. It was a pity.”

The younger man said, “We’ll see you’re
looked after.
For money and that kind of thing.”

“Who are you?” Liz asked again.

“Friends of Alec,” the young man
repeated; “good friends.”

She heard them go quietly down the stairs and into
the street. From her window she watched them get into a small black car and
drive away in the- direction of the park.

Then she remembered the card. Going to the table
she picked it up and held it to the light. It was expensively done, more than a
policeman could afford, she thought.
Engraved.
No rank
in front of the name, no police station or anything.
Just the
name with “Mister”—and whoever heard of a policeman living in
Chelsea
?

MR. GEORGE SMILEY.
9 BYWATER STREET
,
CHELSEA
.
Then the telephone
number
underneath. It was very strange.

Leamas unfastened his seat belt.

It is said that men condemned to death are subject
to sudden moments of elation; as if, like moths in the fire, their destruction
were coincidental with attainment. Following directly upon his decision, Leamas
was aware of a comparable
sensation;
relief, short-lived but consoling, sustained him for a time. It was followed by
fear and hunger.

He was slowing down. Control was right.

He’d noticed it first during the Riemeck Case
early last year. Karl had sent a
message:
he’d got something special for him and was making one of his rare - visits to
West Germany
;
some legal conference at
Karlsruhe
.
Leamas had managed to get an
air
passage to
Cologne
,
and picked up a car at the airport. It was still quite early in the morning and
he’d hoped to miss most of the autobahn traffic to
Karlsruhe
but the heavy
lorries
were already on the move. He drove seventy kilometers in half an hour,
weaving between the traffic, taking
risks to beat the clock, when a small car, a Flat probably, nosed its way out
into the fast lane forty yards ahead of him. Leamas
stamped on the brake, turning his headlights full on and sounding
his horn, and by the
grace of
God he missed it; missed it by a fraction of a second. As he passed the car he
saw out of the corner of his eye four children in the back, waving and
laughing, and the stupid, frightened face of their father at the wheel. He
drove on, cursing, and
suddenly
it happened; suddenly his hands were shaking feverishly, his face was burning
hot, his heart palpitating wildly. He
managed to pull off the road into a lay-by,
scrambled out of the car and stood, breathing heavily, staring
at the hurtling stream of
giant
lorries
. He had a vision of the little car caught among
them, pounded and
smashed, until
there was nothing
left,
nothing but the frenetic whine
of klaxons and the blue lights flashing; and the bodies of the children, torn,
like the murdered
refugees on
the road across the dunes.

He drove very slowly the rest of the way and
missed his meeting with Karl.

He never drove again without some corner of his
memory recalling the tousled
children
waving to him from the back of that car, and their father grasping the wheel
like a farmer at the shafts of a hand plow.

Control would call it fever.

He sat dully in his seat over the wing. There was
an American woman next to him wearing high-heeled shoes in polythene wrappers.
He had a momentary notion of passing her some note for the people in
Berlin
, but he discarded
it at once. She’d think he was making a pass at her; Peters would see it.
Besides, what was the point?
Control
knew what had happened; Control had made it happen. There was nothing to
say.

He wondered what would become of him. Control
hadn’t talked about that—only about the technique:

“Don’t give it to them all at once, make them
work for it. Confuse them with detail, leave things out,
go
back on your tracks. Be testy, be cussed,
be
difficult. Drink like a fish; don’t give way on the ideology, they won’t trust
that. They want to deal with a man they’ve bought; they want the clash of
opposites, Alec, not some
half-cock
convert. Above all, they want to
deduce
. The
ground’s
prepared; we did it long ago, little things, difficult clues. You’re the last
stage in the treasure hunt.”

He’d had to agree to do it: you can’t back out of
the big fight when all the preliminary ones have been fought for you.

“One thing I can promise you: it’s worth it.
It’s worth it for our special interest, Alec. Keep him alive and we’ve won a
great victory.”

He didn’t think he could stand torture. He
remembered a book by Koestler where -the old revolutionary had conditioned
himself for torture by holding lighted matches to his fingers. He hadn’t read
much but he’d read that and he remembered it.

It was nearly dark when they landed at Tempelhof.
Leamas watched the lights
of
Berlin
rise to meet
them, felt the thud as the plane touched down,
saw
the
customs and immigration officials move forward out of the half-light.

For a moment Leamas was anxious lest some former
acquaintance should chance to recognize him at the airport. As they walked side
by side, Peters and he, along the interminable corridors, through the cursory
customs and immigration check, and still no familiar face turned to greet him,
he realized that his anxiety had in
reality
been hope; hope that somehow his tacit decision to go on would be revoked by
circumstance.

It interested him that Peters no longer bothered
to disown him. It was as if Peters regarded
West Berlin
as safe ground, where vigilance and security could be relaxed; a mere technical
staging post to the East.

They were walking through the big reception hail
to the main entrance when
Peters
suddenly seemed to alter his mind, abruptly changed direction and led Leamas to
a - smaller side entrance which gave on to a parking lot and taxi stand. There
Peters hesitated a second, standing beneath the light over the door, then put
his suitcase on the ground beside him, deliberately removed his newspaper from
beneath his arm, folded it, pushed it into the left pocket of his raincoat and
picked up his suitcase again. Immediately from the direction of the parking lot
a pair of headlights sprang to life, were dipped and then extinguished.

“Come on,” said Peters and started to
walk briskly across the tarmac, Leamas
following
more slowly. As they reached the first row of cars the rear door of a black
Mercedes was opened from the inside,
and the courtesy light went on. Peters, ten yards ahead of Leamas, went quickly
to the car, spoke softly to the driver,
then
called
to Leamas.

“Here’s the car. Be quick.”

It was an old Mercedes 180 and he got in without a
word. Peters sat beside him in the back. As they pulled out they overtook a
small DKW with two men sitting in the front. Twenty yards down the road there
was a telephone booth. A man was talking into the telephone, and he watched
them go by, talking all the
time,
Leamas looked out of
the back window and saw the DKW following them. Quite a reception, he thought.

They drove very slowly. Leamas sat with his hands
on his knees, looking straight in front of him. He didn’t want to see
Berlin
that night. This
was his last chance, he knew that. The way he was sitting now he could drive
the side of his right
hand into
Peters’ throat, smashing the promontory of the thorax. He could get out and
run, weaving to avoid the bullets
from the car behind. He would be free—there were people in
Berlin
who would take care of him—he could
get away.

He did nothing.

It was so easy crossing the sector border. Leamas
had never expected it to be quite that easy. For about ten minutes they
dawdled, and Leamas guessed that they
had
to cross at a prearranged time. As they approached the West German checkpoint,
the DKW pulled out and overtook them
with the ostentatious roar of a labored engine,
and stopped at the police hut. The Mercedes waited thirty yards
behind. Two minutes
later the
red and white pole lifted to let through the DKW and as it did so both cars
drove over together, the Mercedes engine screaming in second gear, the driver
pressing himself back against his seat, holding the wheel at arm’s length.

As they crossed the fifty yards which separated
the two checkpoints, Leamas
was
dimly aware of the new fortification on the eastern side of the wall—dragons’
teeth, observation towers and double aprons of barbed wire. Things had
tightened up.

The Mercedes didn’t stop at the second checkpoint;
the booms were already lifted and they drove straight through, the
Vopos
just watching them through binoculars. The DKW had disappeared, and when Leamas
sighted it ten minutes later it
was
behind them again. They were driving fast now—Leamas had thought they would
stop in
East Berlin
, change cars perhaps, and
congratulate one another on a successful operation, but they drove on eastward
through the city.

“Where are we going?” he asked Peters.

“We are there.
The German
Democratic Republic.
They have arranged accommodation for you.”