Len Deighton - Spy Sinker

'I don't want to look at files,' said the D-G with a weary despair that came out like irritation. Everyone waited for the D-G to speak again but he settled back in his seat and sighed.

Sir Percy clicked his ballpoint and said, 'Since Bret often takes his orders directly from you, I thought you might want to interpose.'

'Has anyone spoken with Bret?' the D-G asked.

'With your permission,' said Ladbrook, 'I propose a preliminary "talk-through" as soon as it's made official.'

'That's the usual way, is it?'

'Yes, Sir Henry, that's the usual way.'

The Deputy said, 'The interrogator wanted to be quite sure that Bret didn't cite you as a reason for not answering.'

'On this sort of inquiry,' added Ladbrook, 'a loss of momentum like that can be difficult to make up afterwards.'

'I understand,' said the D-G. He noticed Harry Strang get a pen from his waistcoat. So Harry knew how it had to end.

'He'll probably want to speak with you on the phone,' said

Ladbrook. 'When I first tackle him, I mean. He'll probably want to put a call through to you.'

'And you want me not to take the call?' said the D-G.

'Whatever you think best, Sir Henry,' said Ladbrook.

'But I'll bugger up your interrogation if I do take it; is that what you mean?'

Ladbrook smiled politely but didn't answer.

'Give me the form,' said the D-G. 'Let's get it over as quickly as possible.' The Deputy handed his ballpoint to him and slid the papers across the polished table.

'I can do the rest of the paperwork,' said the Deputy gently. 'Morgan can counter-sign the chit on your behalf.'

'It will be a nonsense,' said the D-G as he put his signature on the form. 'I can tell you that here and now. I've known Bret Rensselaer for years; salt of the earth, Bret Rensselaer.'

Harry Strang smiled. He was old enough to remember someone using the almost identical words about Kim Philby.

England. April 1984.

How far can you run into a wood? asks the ancient schoolboy joke. Halfway: after that you're running out. A missile stops in the air and begins to fall back to the ground, a sportsman's career reaches a physical peak at which it begins decline. A flower in full bloom falls, water at its most exuberant disappears into vapour. For most things in nature there comes a moment when triumph is doom in disguise. So it was for Pavel Moskvin that lovely day in Berlin when, fittingly enough, the first growths of spring marked the end of winter.

Erich Stinnes was also riding high. Everything had gone as he'd predicted. The British seemed to have accepted him at face value because they found it so difficult to believe that anyone could resist their way of life. Stinnes had played his role to perfection. Tropfenweise , drip by drip, he had worn away the hard diamond face of Rensselaer's reputation until, in front of the committee, he shattered it completely.

The culmination of all that Stinnes had worked for came on what had promised to be a routine visit of the 'Stinnes committee' to Berwick House, where he was being held. An eighteenth-century manor set in seven acres of attractive English countryside, its fifteen-foot-high stone wall and ancient moat had made it easy to adapt into a detention centre. The Whitehall clerks, who had seized house and contents from its owners by means of some catch-all legislation, had done little to repair the damage caused by the Luftwaffe's bombs. There was a musty smell in the house, and if you looked closely enough at the rotting structure you'd find the woodworms were working harder than anyone.

The committee travelled together in a bus except for Bret. He arrived in his chauffeur-driven Bentley having used the lunch hour to squeeze in an appointment with the doctor. He looked drawn, and the skin under his eyes had blackened so that the eternally youthful Bret was suddenly aged.

There was such a crowd that they all sat round the big polished table in what at one time had been the dining room. On the panelled wall there was a huge oil painting. A family posed stiffly on a hill near the newly built Berwick House, and stared at the painter as he extended to Gainsborough what is reputed to be the sincerest form of flattery.

The committee were all trying to show how knowledgeable and important they were. Bret Rensselaer sat at one end, and thus established his authority as chairman. Stinnes faced him at the far end, an adversary's positioning that Bret afterwards thought might have contributed to the subsequent fiasco. Bret looked at his watch frequently, but otherwise sat with that look of attention that people who sit on too many committees master, to conceal the fact that they are half asleep. He had heard it all before. Well, thought Stinnes, I'll see if I can wake you up, Mr Rensselaer.

In a committee like that, there would always be a couple of know-alls. It was exactly the same in Moscow: Stinnes could have named their counterparts. The worst bore was Billy Slinger from MIS, a scrawny fellow with a thin, carefully trimmed moustache and a restrained Tyneside accent that Stinnes found challenging. He had been attached to the committee to advise on communications. Of course he felt he must prove to them all how clever he was.

Erich Stinnes had endured the ups and downs of his detention with little change, but there was not much to change. Stinnes was a tough middle-aged man with a sallow face, and hair that he liked to keep as short as possible. When he took off his metal-rimmed glasses – which he did frequently – he blinked like an owl and looked round at the committee as if he preferred to see them slightly out of focus.

Stinnes fielded the questions artfully and let Slinger demonstrate his technical knowledge until he got on to signals procedures. This was something that Moscow had agreed he could disclose, so, quietly and conversationally, he went through the Embassy routines. He started with the day-to-day domestics and went on to a few KGB encoding styles. These were technical developments that Slinger was unlikely to be familiar with, and thus he was unlikely to know that they had already been superseded or were used only for mundane traffic.

Out of the corner of his eye he watched Rensselaer uncoil like a serpent disturbed by the approach of heavy footsteps. 'This is all new to me,' said Slinger repeatedly, his accent more pronounced as he filled sheets of paper with notes scribbled so fast and so excitedly that his pencil broke and he had to grab another and ask Stinnes to slow down.

The other members of the committee became enthusiastic too. Between eager questions from Slinger, one of the committee asked him why he hadn't disclosed these gems earlier. Stinnes didn't answer immediately. He looked at Bret Rensselaer and then looked away and took a long time lighting up a cheroot.

'Well?' said Bret finally. 'Let's hear it.'

'I did,' said Stinnes finally. 'I told you during the first days but I thought it must be stuff you knew already.'

Bret jumped up as if he was going to start shouting. They all looked at him. And then Bret realized that an argument with Stinnes in front of the committee was only going to make him look ridiculous. He sat down again and said, 'Carry on, Slinger. Let's get it down on paper.'

Stinnes inhaled on his cheroot and looked from one to the other like a social worker in the presence of a combative family. Then he started to give them even more material: Foreign Country routeings, Embassy signals room times and procedures and even Embassy contact lists.

It took about an hour, and included some long silences while Stinnes racked his brains, and a few little Stinnes jokes which – due to the tension in the room – everyone laughed at. By the end, the committee was intoxicated with success. Satisfaction flushed their faces and circulated through their veins like freshly sugared blood. And not the least of their triumph was the warm feeling they got from knowing that Bret Rensselaer, so cold and patrician, so efficient and patriotic, was going to get his rightful comeuppance.