John le Carre: Our kind of traitor

'And it was while both sides were winning – actually quite late in the match – that you saw inside the parked people carrier? Have I got that right?'

'We were thinking of drawing stumps,' Perry agreed. 'And suddenly the side door of the carrier opened and there they were. Maybe they wanted a bit of fresh air. Or a clearer look. God knows. It was like a royal visit. An incognito one.'

'How long had the side door been open?'

Perry on guard over his celebrated memory. Perry the perfect witness, never trusting himself, never answering too fast, always holding himself to account. Another Perry that Gail loved.

'Don't know actually, Luke. Can't say exactly. We can't' – with a glance at Gail, who shook her head to say she couldn't either. 'I looked; Gail saw me looking, didn't you? So she looked. We both saw them. Dima and Tamara, side by side and bolt upright, the dark and the light, the thin and the fat, staring at us from the back of the carrier. Then wham, and the door slides shut.'

'Staring, not smiling, as it were,' Luke suggested lightly, while he made a note.

'There was something – well, I said it already – regal about him. Yes. About both of them. The royal Dimas. If one of them had reached out and pulled a silk tassel for the coachman to drive on, I wouldn't have been all that surprised.' He dwelled on this idea, then approved it with a nod. 'On an island, big people seem bigger. And the Dimas were – well, big people. Still are.'

Yvonne has yet another photograph for them to consider, this time a police mugshot in black and white: full face and side view, two black eyes, one black eye. And the smashed and swollen mouth of somebody who has just made a voluntary statement. At the sight of it, Gail wrinkles her nose in disapproval. She glances at Perry and they agree: nobody we know.

But Scottish Yvonne is not disheartened:

'So if I put a bit of curly wig on him, imagine for a moment, and if I cleaned his face up a wee bit for him, do the two of you not think this might just possibly be your fitness freak released from an Italian gaol last December at all?'

They think it might well be. Drawing closer to each other, they are sure.

*

Early notice of the invitation was delivered by the venerable Ambrose in the Captain's Deck restaurant the same evening, while he was pouring wine for Perry to sample. Perry the puritan son doesn't do voices. Gail the actors' daughter does them all. She awards herself the part of the venerable Ambrose:

'"And tomorrow night I'm going to have to forgo the pleasure of serving you young folks. You know why? Because you young folks will be the honoured surprise guests of Mr Dima and his lady wife on the occasion of the fourteenth birthday of their twin sons who, so I hear say, you have personally introduced to the noble art of cricket. And my Elspeth, she has made the biggest, finest walnut-whirl cake you ever saw. Any bigger, why, Miss Gail, by all accounts those kids would have you jump right out of it, they love you so deep."'

For his final flourish, Ambrose handed them an envelope inscribed: To Mr Perry and Miss Gail. Inside, were two of Dima's business cards, white and deckle-edged like wedding invitations, giving his full name: Dmitri Vladimirovich Krasnov, European Director, The Arena Multi Global Trading Conglomerate of Nicosia, Cyprus. And beneath it, the address of his company's website, and an address in Berne styled Residence and Company Offices.

If it occurred to either of them to decline Dima's invitation, they never admitted it to one another, said Gail:

'We were in it for the children. Two hulking teenaged twin boys were having a birthday: great. That was how the invitation was sold to us, and it's how we bought into it. But for me it was about the two girls' – again privately congratulating herself on not mentioning Natasha – 'whereas for Perry' – she shot a doubtful glance at him.

'For Perry what?' Luke asked, when Perry did not respond.

She was already pulling back, protecting her man. 'He was just so fascinated by it all. Weren't you, Perry? Dima, who he was, the life-force, the formed man. This outlaw band of Russians. The danger. The sheer differentness. You were – well – connecting. Is that unfair?'

'Sounds a bit like psycho-babble to me,' Perry said gruffly, retreating into himself.

Little Luke, ever the conciliator, darted in to intervene. 'So basically, mixed motives on both your sides,' he suggested, in the manner of a man familiar with mixed motives. 'Nothing wrong with that, surely? It's a pretty mixed scene. Vanya's gun. Tales of Russian cash in laundry baskets. Two small orphan girls desperately in need of you – maybe the adults too, for all you knew. And it was the twin boys' birthday. I mean, how, as two decent people, could you resist?'

'On an island,' Gail reminded him.

'Exactly. And on top of it all, dare one say, you were jolly curious. And why shouldn't you be? I mean, that's a pretty heady mix. I'm sure I'd have fallen for it.'

Gail was sure he would too. She had a feeling that, in his time, little Luke had fallen for most things, and was a bit worried about himself in consequence.

'And Dima,' she insisted. 'Dima was the big lure for you, Perry, admit it. You said so at the time. It was the children for me, but when push came to shove it was Dima for you. We discussed it only a few days ago, remember?'

She meant: while you were penning your bloody document, and I was a Christian slave.

Perry brooded for a while, much as he might have brooded over any other academic premise, then with a sporting smile acknowledged the rightness of the argument.

'It's true. I felt appointed by him. Over-promoted is more like it. Actually, I don't know what I felt any more. Maybe I didn't then.'

'But Dima knew. You were his professor of fair play.'

*

'So in the afternoon, instead of going to the beach, we walked into town to do the shopping,' Gail resumed, speaking past Perry's averted head to Yvonne while referring her story to Perry. 'For the birthday boys, the obvious thing was a cricket set. That was your department. You enjoyed looking for a cricket set. You loved the sports shop. You loved the old man. You loved the photographs of great West Indian players. Learie Constantine? Who else was there?'

'Martindale.'

'And Sobers. Gary Sobers was there. You pointed him out to me.'

He nodded. Yes, Sobers.

'And we loved the secrecy bit. Because of the children. Ambrose's notion of having me jump out of the cake wasn't so far off the mark, was it? And I did presents for the girls. With a bit of help from you. Scarves for the little ones, and a rather nice shell necklace for Natasha with alternating semi-precious stones.' Done it. She had let Natasha back in, and got away with it. 'You wanted to buy one for me too, but I wouldn't let you.'

'On what grounds, please Gail?' – Yvonne, with her self-effacing, intelligent smile, looking for light relief.

'Exclusivity. It was sweet of Perry, but I didn't want to be paired off with Natasha,' Gail replied, as much to Perry as to Yvonne. 'And I'm sure Natasha wouldn't have wanted to be paired off with me. Thanks, it's a lovely thought, but save it for another time, I told you. Right? And I mean honestly, try buying decent wrapping paper in St John's, Antigua!'

She plunged on:

'Then there was the business of smuggling us in, wasn't there? Because we were the big surprise. That was going to be a blast too. We thought of going as Caribbean pirates – you did – but we decided it might be a bit over the top, specially with people still in mourning, even if we didn't officially know they were. So we went as we were, plus a bit. Perry, you had your old blazer and the grey bags you'd travelled in. Your Brideshead look. Perry isn't exactly what you'd call a fashion freak, but you did your best. And your swimming trunks, of course. And I put a cotton dress over my swimsuit plus a cardigan in case it got nippy because we knew that Three Chimneys had a private beach and there was a chance we might be expected to swim.'