John le Carre - Our kind of traitor

'How d'you know she didn't go to the riding demo?' Gail asked, when she had weighed their testimony this far.

'Viktor, please,' Perry said quickly, before Alexei could butt in again.

'First the riding school calls us, where's Natasha?' Viktor said. 'It's a hundred and twenty-five an hour, she hasn't cancelled. She's supposed to do this dressage shit. They got the horse all saddled and waiting. So we call Igor on his cell. Where's Natasha? At the train station, he says, Dad's orders.'

'What was she wearing?' – Gail, turning to the distraught Alexei out of kindness.

'Loose jeans. And like a Russian smock. Like a kulak. She's into totally shapeless. Says she don't like boys looking at her ass.'

'Has she any money?' – still to Alexei.

'Dad gives her whatever. He spoils her totally! We get like a hundred a month, she gets like five hundred. For books, clothes, shoes she's nuts about; last month Dad bought her a violin. Violins cost like millions.'

'And you've all tried calling her?' – Gail to Viktor now.

'Repeatedly,' says Viktor, who by now has cast himself as the calm, mature man. 'Everyone has. Alexei's cell, my cell, Katya's, Irina's. No answer.'

Gail to Tamara, remembering her presence: 'Have you tried to call her?'

No answer from Tamara either.

Gail to the four children: 'I think you should please all go to another room while I talk to Tamara. If Natasha rings, I need to speak to her first. Agreed everyone?'

*

There being no other chair in Tamara's dark corner, Perry pulled up a wooden bench supported by two carved bears, and the two of them sat on it, watching Tamara's tiny, black eyes move between them without engaging.

'Tamara,' said Gail. 'Why is Natasha frightened to meet her father?'

'She must have a child.'

'Has she told you that?'

'No.'

'But you've noticed.'

'Yes.'

'How long ago did you notice?'

'It is immaterial.'

'But in Antigua already?'

'Yes.'

'Have you discussed it with her?'

'No.'

'With her father?'

'No.'

'Why have you not discussed it with Natasha?'

'I hate her.'

'Does she hate you?'

'Yes. Her mother was whore. Now Natasha is whore. It is not surprising.'

'What will happen when her father finds out?'

'Maybe he will love her more. Maybe he will kill her. God will decide.'

'Do you know who the father is?'

'Maybe it is many fathers. From the riding school. The ski school. Maybe it is the postman, or Igor.'

'And you have no idea where she is now?'

'Natasha does not confide in me.'

*

Outside in the stable yard it had come on to rain. In the paddock the two handsome chestnut horses were playfully head-butting each other. Gail, Perry and Ollie stood in the shadow of the horsebox. Ollie had spoken to Luke on his mobile. Luke had had a problem talking because he had Dima with him in the car. But the message that Ollie now relayed brooked no argument. His voice remained calm but his flawed cockney became a tangle in the tension:

'We're to get the hell out of here right now. There's been serious developments and we can't hold up the convoy for one single ship no more. Natasha's got their mobile numbers, and they've got hers. Luke don't want us to run into Igor, so we bloody don't do that. He says you got to get everybody aboard now, please, Perry, and we hightail it now, got it?'

Perry was halfway back to the house when Gail drew him aside:

'I know where she is,' she said.

'You seem to know quite a lot I don't.'

'Not that much. Enough. I'm going to get her. I want you to back me up. No heroics, no little-woman stuff. You and Ollie take the family, I'll follow you with Natasha when I find her. That's what I'm going to tell Ollie, and I need to know I've got your support.'

Perry put both his hands to his head as if he'd forgotten something, then let them fall to his sides in surrender: 'Where is she?'

'Where's Kandersteg?'

'Go to Spiez, take the Simplon railway up the mountain. Have you got money?'

'Plenty. Luke's.'

Perry looked helplessly at the house, then at big Ollie in his fedora waiting impatiently beside the horsebox. Then back at Gail.

'For God's sake,' he breathed in bewilderment.

'I know,' she said.

In an emergency Perry Makepiece was known to his fellow climbers as a clear-headed thinker and a decisive man of action, and he prided himself on seeing little difference between the two. He was apprehensive for Gail, aware of the precariousness of the operation, appalled by Natasha's pregnancy and by the thought that Gail should have found it necessary to keep it from him. At the same time he respected her reasons and blamed himself for them. The image of Tamara sickened out of her wits by jealousy of Natasha, like some harridan in a Dickensian novel, was disgusting to him and compounded his feelings of concern for Dima. His last sight of him in the massage room had moved him beyond an understanding of himself: an unreformed, lifelong criminal, confessed murderer and number-one money-launderer is my responsibility and friend. Much as he respected Luke, he wished that Hector hadn't had to leave the field to his second-in-command at the moment when the operation was heading either for goal, or meltdown.

Yet his response to this perfect storm was the same as it might have been if the rope had broken under him on a bad rock face: stay steady, assess the risk, look after the weakest players, find a way. Which was what he was doing now, crouching in the horsebox with Dima's natural and adopted children spread around him in one compartment, and Tamara's unbiddable shadow in strips between the slats of the partition. You have two small Russian girls and two adolescent Russian boys and one mentally unstable Russian woman in your charge and your task is to get them to the top of the mountain without anyone noticing. What do you do? Answer: you get on with it.

Viktor in a rush of gallantry had demanded to accompany Gail wherever she was going, he didn't care, just anywhere. Alexei had mocked him, insisting that Natasha only wanted her father's attention and that Viktor only wanted Gail's. The little girls hadn't wanted to go anywhere without Gail. They would stay in the house and protect it till she came back with Natasha. Igor would look after them in the meantime. To their entreaties, Perry the born group leader had repeated the same patient but emphatic answer:

'Dima's wish is that you come with us immediately. No, it's a mystery tour. He told you that. You'll know where we're going when we've got there, but it's an exciting place and you haven't been there before. Yes, he'll be joining us tonight. Viktor, you take these two suitcases, Alexei those two. No need to lock up, Katya, thank you, Igor will be back any minute. And the cat stays. Cats love places more than people. Viktor, where are your mother's icons? In the suitcase. Good. Whose is that teddy bear? Well, he needs to come with us too, doesn't he? Igor doesn't need a bear, and you do. And everybody please go to the toilet now, whether or not you want to.'

Inside the horsebox, the girls were at first mute, then suddenly noisy and quite jolly, largely on account of Ollie and his broad-brimmed black fedora, which he solemnly doffed as he bowed them into his royal coach. Everyone had to shout above the din. Rattly horseboxes are not insulated for sound.

Where are we going? – the girls yelled.

Fucking Eton School – Viktor.

Secret – Perry.

Whose secret? – the girls.

Dima's, silly – Viktor.

How long will Gail be?

Don't know. Depends on Natasha – Perry.

Will they be there before us?

Shouldn't think so – Perry.

Why can't we look out the back?

'Because it's completely against Swiss law!' Perry shouted, but the girls still had to lean forward to hear him. 'The Swiss have laws for everything! Looking out of the back of a moving horsebox is a particularly grave offence! People who do it go to prison for a very long time! Better find out what Gail's put in your rucksacks!'