John Le Carré - The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

"And the other payments—when were they made?"

"I can't remember. Sorry."

"But one was definitely in Oslo?"

"Yes, in Oslo."

"How much time separated the first two payments, the payments made by the Residents?"

"I don't know. Not long, I think. Maybe a month. A bit more perhaps."

"Was it your impression that the agent had been operating for some time before the first payment was made? Did the file show that?"

"No idea. The file simply covered actual payments. First payment early fifty-nine. There was no other date on it. That is the principle that operates where you have a limited subscription. Different files handle different bits of a single case. Only someone with the master file would be able to put it all together."

Peters was writing all the time now. Leamas assumed there was a tape recorder hidden somewhere in the room but the subsequent transcription would take time. What Peters wrote down now would provide the background for this evening's telegram to Moscow, while at the Soviet Embassy in The Hague the girls would sit up all night telegraphing the verbatim transcript on hourly schedules.

"Tell me," said Peters; "these are large sums of money. The arrangements for paying them were elaborate and very expensive. What did you make of it yourself?"

Leamas shrugged. "What could I make of it? I thought Control must have a bloody good source, but I never saw the material so I don't know. I didn’t like the way it was done—it was too high-powered, too complicated, too clever. Why couldn't they just meet him and give him the money in cash? Did they really let him cross borders on his own passport with a forged one in his pocket? I doubt it," said Leamas. It was time he clouded the issue, let him chase a hare.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, that for all I know the money was never drawn from the bank. Supposing he was a highly placed agent behind the Curtain—the money would be on deposit for him when he could get at it. That was what I reckoned anyway. I didn't think about it all that much. Why should I? It's part of our work only to know pieces of the whole setup. You know that. If you're curious, God help you."

"If the money wasn't collected, as you suggest, why all the trouble with passports?"

"When I was in Berlin we made an arrangement for Karl Riemeck in case he ever needed to run and couldn't get hold of us. We kept a bogus West German passport for him at an address in Düsseldorf. He could collect it any time by following a prearranged procedure. It never expired—Special Travel renewed the passport and the visas as they expired. Control might have followed the same technique with this man. I don't know—it's only a guess."

"How do you know for certain that passports were issued?"

"There were minutes on the file between Banking Section and Special Travel. Special Travel is the section which arranges false identity papers and visas."

"I see." Peters thought for a moment and then he asked: "What names did you use in Copenhagen and Helsinki?"

"Robert Lang, electrical engineer from Derby. That was in Copenhagen."

"When exactly were you in Copenhagen?" Peters asked.

"I told you, June the fifteenth. I got there in the morning at about eleven-thirty."

"Which bank did you use?"

"Oh, for Christ's sake, Peters," said Leamas, suddenly angry, "the Royal Scandinavian. You've got it written down."

"I just wanted to be sure," the other replied evenly, and continued writing. "And for Helsinki, what name?"

"Stephen Bennett, marine engineer from Plymouth. I was there," he added sarcastically, "at the end of September."

"You visited the bank on the day you arrived?"

"Yes. It was the twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth, I can't be sure, as I told you."

"Did you take the money with you from England?"

"Of course not. We just transferred it to the Resident's account in each case. The Resident drew it, met me at the airport with the money in a suitcase and I took it to the bank."

"Who's the Resident in Copenhagen?"

"Peter Jensen, a bookseller in the University bookshop."

"And what were the names which would be used by the agent?"

"Horst Karlsdorf in Copenhagen. I think that was it, yes it was, I remember. Karlsdorf. I kept on wanting to say Karlshorst."

"Description?"

"Manager, from Klagenfurt in Austria."

"And the other? The Helsinki name?"

"Fechtmann, Adolf Fechtmann from St. Gallen, Switzerland. He had a title—yes, that's right: Doctor Fechtmann, archivist."

"I see; both German-speaking."

"Yes, I noticed that. But it can't be a German."

"Why not?"

"I was head of the Berlin setup, wasn't I? I'd have been in on it. A high-level agent in East Germany would have to be run from Berlin. I'd have known." Leamas got up, went to the sideboard and poured himself some whisky. He didn't bother about Peters.

"You said yourself there were special precautions, special procedures in this case. Perhaps they didn't think you needed to know."

"Don't be bloody silly," Leamas rejoined shortly; "of course I'd have known." This was the point he would stick to through thick and thin; it made them feel they knew better, gave credence to the rest of his information. "They will want to deduce in spite of you ," Control had said. "We must give them the material and remain skeptical to their conclusions. Rely on their intelligence and conceit, on their suspicion of one another—that's what we must do."

Peters nodded as if he were confirming a melancholy truth. "You are a very proud man, Leamas," he observed once more.

Peters left soon after that. He wished Leamas good day and walked down the road along the seafront. It was lunchtime.

Peters didn't appear that afternoon, nor the next morning. Leamas stayed in, waiting with growing irritation for some message, but none came. He asked the housekeeper but she just smiled and shrugged her heavy shoulders. At about eleven o'clock the next morning he decided to go out for a walk along the front, bought some cigarettes and stared dully at the sea.

There was a girl standing on the beach throwing bread to the sea gulls. Her back was turned to him. The sea wind played with her long black hair and pulled at her coat, making an arc of her body, like a bow strung toward the sea. He knew then what it was that Liz had given him; the thing that he would have to go back and find if ever he got home to England: it was the caring about little things—the faith in ordinary life; that simplicity that made you break up a bit of bread into a paper bag, walk down to the beach and throw it to the gulls. It was this respect for triviality which he had never been allowed to possess; whether it was bread for the sea gulls or love, whatever it was he would go back and find it; he would make Liz find it for him. A week, two weeks perhaps, and he would be home. Control had said he could keep whatever they paid—and that would be enough. With fifteen thousand pounds, a gratuity and a pension from the Circus, a man—as Control would say—can afford to come in from the cold.

He made a detour and returned to the bungalow at a quarter to twelve. The woman let him in without a word, but when he had gone into the back room he heard her lift the receiver and dial a telephone number. She spoke for only a few seconds. At half-past twelve she brought his lunch, and, to his pleasure, some English newspapers which he read contentedly until three o'clock. Leamas, who normally read nothing, read newspapers slowly and with concentration. He remembered details, like the names and addresses of people who were the subject of small news items. He did it almost unconsciously as a kind of private pelmanism, and it absorbed him entirely.

At three o'clock Peters arrived, and as soon as Leamas saw him he knew that something was up. They did not sit at the table; Peters did not take off his mackintosh.