John le Carre - Our kind of traitor

*

Last night, returning to the Quinze Anges from their supper party, Perry had caught Madame Mere's boot-button eyes peering at him from her den behind the reception desk.

'Why don't you have first run of the facilities and I'll follow you up?' he had suggested, and Gail with a grateful yawn complied.

'Two Arabs,' Madame Mere whispered.

'Arabs?'

'Arab police. They spoke Arabic together, and to me French. Arab French.'

'What did they want to know?'

'Everything. Where you were. What you do. Your passport. Your address in Oxford. Madame's address in London. Everything about you.'

'What did you tell them?'

'Nothing. That you are an old guest, you pay, you are polite, you are not drunk, you only have one woman at a time, you have been invited by an artist to the Ile, and you will be late but you have a key, you are trusted.'

'And our English addresses?'

Madame Mere was a small woman, and her Gallic shrug all the greater for it: 'Whatever you wrote on your fiche, they took. If you didn't want them to have your address, you should have written a false one.'

Extracting a promise that she would say nothing of this to Gail – my God, it would never cross her mind, she was a woman too! – Perry contemplated calling Hector at once but, being Perry, and the better for a significant amount of old calvados, he decided on pragmatic grounds that there was nothing anyone could do that wouldn't be better done in the morning, and went to bed. Waking to the aroma of fresh coffee and croissants, he was surprised to see Gail in her wrap sitting on the end of the bed, examining her mobile.

'Anything bad?' he asked.

'Just Chambers. Confirming.'

'Confirming what?'

'You had it in mind to send me home this evening, remember?'

'Of course I remember!'

'Well, I'm not going. I've texted Chambers and they're giving Samson v. Samson to Helga to fuck up.'

Helga her bete noire? Man-eating Helga of the fishnet stockings who played the Chambers' male silks like a lyre?

'What in Heaven's name prompted you to do that?'

'You, partly. For some reason I don't feel inclined to leave you hanging by your eyebrows on a dangerous ridge. And tomorrow I shall be accompanying you to Berne, which I assume is where you're going next, although you haven't told me.'

'Is that all of it?'

'Why shouldn't it be? If I'm in London, you'll still worry about me. So I might as well be where you can see me.'

'And it hasn't occurred to you I might worry more if you're with me.'

That was unkind of him and he knew it, and so did she. In mitigation he was tempted to tell her about his conversation with Madame Mere but feared it would strengthen her determination to remain at his side.

'You seem to have forgotten the children amid all these grown-up goings-on,' she said, moderating her tone to one of reproach.

'Gail, that's utter nonsense! I'm doing everything I can, and so are our friends, to bring about their -' Better not to finish the sentence. Better talk in allusions. After their two weeks of familiarization God alone knew who was listening, when. 'The children are my first concern and always have been,' he said, if not entirely truthfully, and felt himself blush. 'They are why we're here,' he persisted. 'Both of us. Not only you. Yes, I care about our friend and seeing the whole thing through. And yes, it fascinates me. All of it.' He faltered, embarrassed by himself. 'It's about being in touch with the real world. And the children are part of it. A huge part. They are now and they will be after you've gone back to London.'

But if Perry was expecting her to be subdued by this grandiose claim, he was misjudging his audience.

'But the children aren't here, are they? Or in London,' she replied implacably. 'They're in Berne. And according to Natasha, they're in deep mourning for Misha and Olga. The boys are down at the football stadium all day, Tamara communes with God, everyone knows something big's in the air, but they don't know what it is.'

'According to Natasha? What on earth are you talking about?'

'We're text pals.'

'You and Natasha?'

'Correct.'

'You didn't tell me that!'

'And you haven't told me about the arrangements for Berne. Have you?' – kissing him – 'Have you? For my protection. So from now on, we'll protect each other. One in, both in. Agreed?'

*

Agreed only insofar as she would get herself ready while he went off to Printemps to buy tennis gear in the rain. The rest of their discussion, as far as Perry was concerned, emphatically not agreed.

It wasn't only Madame Mere's nocturnal visitors who were nagging at him. It was the awareness of imminent and unpredictable risk that had replaced last night's euphoria. Drenched with rain in the foyer of Printemps, he called Hector and got engaged. Ten minutes later, with a brand-new tennis bag at his feet containing a T-shirt, shorts, socks, a pair of tennis shoes and – he must have been raving mad when he bought it – a sun visor, he tried again and this time got through.

'Any description of them?' Hector inquired, too languidly to Perry's ear, when he had heard him out.

'Arab.'

'Well perhaps they were Arab. Perhaps they were French police too. Did they show her their cards?'

'Didn't say.'

'And you didn't ask?'

'No I didn't. I was a bit pissed.'

'Mind if I send Harry round to have a chat with her?'

Harry? Ah yes, Ollie. 'I think there's been enough drama already, thanks all the same,' Perry said stiffly.

He wasn't sure how to go on. Perhaps Hector wasn't either:

'No wobble otherwise?' Hector asked.

'Wobble?'

'Doubts. Second thoughts. D-day nerves. The heebies, for Christ's sake,' Hector said impatiently.

'On my part, no wobble at all. Just waiting for my fucking credit card to be cleared.' He wasn't. It was a lie and he couldn't fathom why on earth he'd told it, unless he was asking for the sympathy he wasn't getting.

'Doolittle in good heart?'

'She thinks so. I don't. She's pressing to come on to Berne. I'm absolutely sure she shouldn't. She's played her part – wonderfully, as you said yourself last night. I want her to call it a day, go back to London this evening as planned, and stay there till I come back.'

'Well, she won't, will she?'

'Why won't she?'

'Because she rang me ten minutes ago and said you'd be calling me, and that wild horses weren't going to change her mind. So I rather take that as final and I suggest you do. If you can't beat it, go with it. Are you still there?'

'Not entirely. What did you tell her in reply?'

'I was delighted for her. Told her she was absolutely essential equipment. Given it's her choice and nothing on God's earth is going to change her mind, I suggest you take the same line. D'you want to hear the latest news from the front?'

'Go on.'

'We're on schedule. The gang of seven emerged from their big signing with our boy, everybody looking like thunder, but that may be their hangovers. He's currently on his way back to Neuilly under armed guard. Lunch for twenty booked at the Club des Rois. Masseurs standing by. So no change of plan except that, having returned to London ce soir, tomorrow the both of you fly City-Zurich, e-tickets at the airport. Luke will pick you up. Not just you alone, as previously planned. Both of you. With me?'

'I suppose so.'

'You sound grumpy. Are you reeling from the excesses of last night?'

'No.'

'Well, don't. Our boy needs you on top form. So do we.'

Perry had debated telling Hector about Gail's text friendship with Natasha, but wiser counsels, if that's what they were, prevailed.

*

The Mercedes stank of stale tobacco smoke. A bottle of leftover mineral water was jammed into the back of the passenger seat. The chauffeur was a bullet-headed giant. He had no neck, just a few lateral red scars in the stubble like slashes of a razor. Gail was wearing her silk trouser-suit outfit that looked as if it was going to fall off her any minute. Perry had never seen her looking more beautiful. Her long white raincoat – an earlier extravagance from Bergdorf Goodman in New York – lay at her side. The rain was rattling like hailstones on the car's roof. The windscreen wipers groaned and sobbed as they tried to keep up.