John le Carre - Our kind of traitor

The boys were less amenable:

'Have we got to play with this kids' stuff?' Viktor bawled incredulously over the wind-rush, pointing at a Frisbee poking out of a toggle bag.

'That's the plan!'

'I thought we were going to play cricket' – Viktor again.

'So we can go to Eton School!' – Alexei.

'We'll try!' – Perry.

'Then we're not going to the mountains!'

'Why not?'

'You can't play cricket in the fucking mountains! No flat places! Farmers get pissed off. So we're going somewhere flat, right?'

'Did Dima tell you it was somewhere flat?'

'Dima's like you! Mysterious! Maybe he's in deep shit! Maybe the cops are after him!' Viktor shouted, apparently very excited by the idea.

But Alexei was incensed:

'You don't ask that! It's not cool. It's fucking shaming to ask a thing like that about your father, asshole. At Eton they're gonna kill you for that!'

Viktor pulled out the Frisbee and, deciding to have second thoughts about it, affected to test its balance in the through-draught.

'OK, so I didn't ask the question!' he yelled. 'I revoke it totally! Our dad is not in deep shit and the cops love him. The question is hereby revoked, OK? The question was never asked. It is an ex-question!' – which, for all its banter, left Perry speculating whether the boys had been smuggled before: perhaps back in the killing time in Perm, when Dima was still clawing his way up.

'Can I ask you two gents something?' he said, beckoning them forward until they were crouching beneath him. 'We're going to be spending a bit of time together. OK?'

'OK!'

'So maybe you could drop the shits and fuckings in front of your mother and the kids? Gail too.'

They consulted each other, shrugged. OK. Be like that. See if we care. But Viktor wasn't deterred. He was cupping his hands and whisper-shouting into Perry's ear so that the girls didn't hear:

'The big funeral, OK? The one we just did in Moscow? The tragedy? Thousands mourned, OK?'

'What about it?'

'It began as a road wreck, OK? Misha and Olga were killed in a road wreck. Bullshit. It was never a road wreck. It was a shooting. So who shot them? A bunch of crazy Chechen who didn't steal anything and spent a fortune on Kalashnikov bullets. Why? Because they hate Russians. Bullshit. It was never the fucking Chechen!'

Alexei was pummelling him, trying to put his hand over Viktor's mouth, but Viktor shoved it away.

'Ask anyone in Moscow who knows anything. Ask my friend Piotr. Misha was whacked. He was up against the mob. That's why they took him out. Olga too. Now they're gonna try and take out Dad before the cops get him. Right, Mom?' He was yelling at Tamara through the slats. 'What they call a little warning to show everyone who's boss! Mom knows all that stuff. She knows everything. She did two years in Perm police gaol for blackmail and extortion. Questioned for seventy-two hours non-stop, five times. Beaten shitless. Piotr's seen her record. Harsh methods were employed. Official. Right, Mom? That's why she don't say nothing any more to anyone except to God. They beat it out of her. Hey, Mom! We love you!'

Tamara recedes further into the shadows. Perry's mobile rings. Luke, crisp and very guarded:

'All well?' Luke asks.

'So far, yes. How's our friend?' – Perry asks, meaning Dima.

'Happy and sitting right here beside me in the car. Sends his best.'

'Reciprocated,' Perry replies cautiously.

'From now on, whenever there's a chance, we do smaller groups. They're easier to move and harder to identify. Can you dress the boys up a bit?'

'How?'

'Just make them look a bit different from each other. So they're not such identical twins.'

'Sure.'

'And take a crowded train up. Maybe spread people around. A boy to each carriage, you and the girls in another. Get Harry to buy your tickets for you in Interlaken so that you're not all queuing up at the same desk. Understood?'

'Understood.'

'Any word from Doolittle?'

'Too soon. She only just left.'

It was the first time they'd spoken directly of Gail's defection.

'Well, she's doing the right thing. Don't let her think otherwise. Tell her that.'

'I will.'

'She's a godsend and we need her to be successful.' Luke speaking in riddles. He has no choice. Dima is sitting 'right here beside me in the car'.

Clambering past the girls, Perry taps Ollie on the shoulder and shouts appropriate instructions into his ear.

*

Katya and Irina have found their cheese rolls and crisps and are head to head, munching and humming to each other. Now and then they turn round to look at Ollie's hat and burst out giggling. Once Katya reaches out to touch it, but loses her nerve. The twins have settled for a game of pocket chess and their bananas.

'Next stop, Interlaken, boys and girls!' Ollie yells over his shoulder. 'I'll be parking at the railway station and taking the first train up with Madam and the luggage. You lovelies have a nice walk and a sausage, maybe, and follow me up the hill in your own sweet time. Happy as agreed, Professor?'

'All very happy as agreed,' Perry confirms, having consulted the girls.

'Well, we're not happy at all!' Alexei yelps in protest, and flops back on to the cushions with his arms out. 'We are expletive miserable!'

'Any particular reason?' Perry inquires.

'Every particular reason! We are going to Kandersteg, I know it! I will not go to Kandersteg again, ever! I will not rock climb, I am not a fucking fly, I have vertigo and I do not enjoy the companionship of Max!'

'Wrong on all counts,' says Perry.

'You mean we're not going to Kandersteg?'

'I do.'

But Gail is, he thinks again, glancing at his watch.

*

By three o'clock, thanks to a timely train connection in Spiez, Gail had found the house. It wasn't difficult. She'd asked at the post office: does anyone know a ski teacher called Max, a private instructor, not official Swiss Ski School, parents run a hotel? The large lady at the guichet wasn't certain so she consulted the thin man at the sorting desk, who thought he knew but for safety's sake consulted the boy loading parcels into the big yellow trolley, and the answer came back down the line: the Hotel Rossli along the high street on the right-hand side, his sister works there.

The high street was dizzy with unseasonably early sunshine and the mountains either side were shrouded in haze. A family of honey-coloured dogs basked on the pavement or sheltered under shop awnings. Holidaymakers with sticks and sunhats peered into windows of souvenir shops, and on the terrace of the Hotel Rossli a scattering of them sat at tables eating cake and cream and drinking iced coffee through straws out of long glasses.

An overworked red-headed girl in Swiss costume was the only person serving, and when Gail tried to talk to her she told Gail to sit down and wait her turn, so instead of walking straight out again, which would have been her normal reaction, she had meekly sat down, and when the girl came she first ordered a coffee she didn't want, then asked whether by any chance she was the sister of Max, the great mountain guide, at which the girl broke into a radiant smile and had all the time in the world.

'Well, not a guide yet, actually, not officially, and great, I don't know! First he must make the exam, which is rather difficult,' she said, proud of her English and grateful to practise it. 'Unfortunately Max began a bit late. Before, he wanted to be an architect but he didn't like to leave the valley. He's quite a dreamer actually, but fingers crossed, now he is settled down at last, and next year he will qualify. We hope! Maybe he is in the mountains today. Do you want me to call Barbara?'

'Barbara?'

'She's actually very nice. We say she has completely converted him. It was high time, I must say!'