John le Carré - The Honourable Schoolboy

You're wrong, sport. Don't know how, don't know why, but you're wrong.

The fact that I am wrong, he had once replied to Ann, in the midstream of one of their endless arguments, does not make you right.

He heard Martello again, speaking in present time.

'George, we have people waiting with open arms for what we can give them. What Nelson can.'

A phone was ringing. Murphy took the call and relayed the message to the silent room: 'Landline from the aircraft carrier, sir. Navy int. has the junks dead on schedule, sir. South wind favourable and good fishing along the way. Sir, I don't even think Nelson's riding with them. I don't see why he should.'

The focus shifted abruptly to Murphy, who had never before been heard to express an opinion.

'What the hell's that, Murphy?' Martello demanded, quite astonished. 'You been to the fortune-teller too, son?'

'Sir, I was down on the ship this morning and those people have a lot of data. They can't figure why anybody who lives in Shanghai would ever want to exit out of Swatow. They would do it all different, sir. They would fly or train to Canton, then take the bus maybe to Waichow. They say that's a lot safer, sir.'

'These are Nelson's people,' Smiley said, as the heads swung sharply back on him. 'They're his clan. He would rather be at sea with them, even if he's at risk. He trusts them.' He turned to Guillam. 'We'll do this,' he said. 'Tell Rockhurst to distribute a description of Westerby and the girl together. You say he hired the car under his workname? Used his escape papers?'

'Yes.'

'Worrell?'

'Yes.'

'The police are looking for a Mr and Mrs Worrell then, British. No photographs, and make sure the descriptions are vague enough not to arouse suspicion. Marty.'

Martello was all attentiveness. 'Is Ko still on his boat?' Smiley asked. 'Nestled right in there with Tiu, George.'

'It is just possible Westerby may try to reach him. You have a static post at the quayside. Put more men down there. Tell them to keep eyes in the back of their heads.'

'What are they looking for?'

'Trouble. The same goes for surveillance on his house. Tell me -' he sank into his thoughts a moment, but Guillam need not have worried. 'Tell me — can you simulate a fault on Ko's home telephone line?'

Martello glanced at Murphy.

'Sir, we don't have the apparatus handy,' Murphy said, 'but I guess we could...'

'Then cut it,' Smiley said simply. 'Cut the whole cable if necessary. Try and do it near some roadworks.'

Having dispensed his orders, Martello came lightly across the room, and sat himself at Smiley's side.

'Ah George, about tomorrow, now. Do you think we might, ah, put a little hardware on standby, as well?' From the desk where he was telephoning Rockhurst, Guillam watched the dialogue most intently. From across the room, so did Sam Collins. 'Just seems there's no telling what your man Westerby might do, George. We have to be prepared for all emergencies, right?'

'By all means stand anything by. But for the time being, if you don't mind, we'll leave the interception plans as they are. And the competence with me.'

'Sure, George. Sure,' said Martello fulsomely, and with the same church-like reverence tiptoed back to his own camp.

'What did he want?' Guillam demanded in a low voice, crouching at Smiley's side. 'What's he trying to get you to agree to?'

'I will not have it, Peter,' Smiley warned, also under his breath. He was suddenly very angry. 'I shall not hear you again. I shall not tolerate your Byzantine notions of a palace plot. These people are our hosts and our allies. We have a written agreement with them. We have quite enough to worry about already without grotesque, and, I may tell you honestly, paranoid fancies. Now please -'

'I tell you!' Guillam began, but Smiley closed him down.

'I want you to get hold of Craw. Call on him if necessary. Perhaps the journey would do you good. Tell him Westerby's on the rampage. He's to let us know at once if he has word of him. He'll know what to do.'

Still walking the line of seats, Fawn watched Guillam leave, while his fists continued restlessly kneading whatever was inside them.

In Jerry's world, it is also three in the morning, and the madame had found him a razor, but no fresh shirt. He had shaved and cleaned himself up as best he could, but his body still ached from head to toe. He stood over Lizzie where she lay on the bed and promised to be back in a couple of hours but he doubted whether she even heard him. More papers print girls instead of news, he remembered, and the world be a damn sight better place, Mr Westerby.

He took pak-pais, knowing they were less under the thumb of the police. Otherwise he walked, and the walking helped his body and his mystical process of decision taking, because back there on the divan it had suddenly become impossible. He needed to move in order to find direction. He was heading for Deep Water Bay, and he knew he was entering badland. Now that he was on the loose they would be on to that launch like leeches. He wondered who they had, what they were using. If it was the Cousins he would look for too much hardware, and overmanning. Rain was coming on and he feared it would clear the fog. Above him, the moon was already partly free and as he padded silently down the hill he could make out by its pale light the nearest stockbroker junks groaning and tugging at their moorings. A southeast wind, he noticed, and rising. If it's a static observation post, they'll go for height, he thought, and sure enough, there on the promontory to his right, he saw a battered-looking Mercedes van tucked between the trees, and the aerial with its Chinese streamers. He waited, watching the fog roll, till a car came down the hill with its lights full on, and as soon as it was past him he darted across the road, knowing that not all the hardware in the world would enable them to see him behind the advancing headlights. At the water's level the visibility was down to zero, and he had to grope in order to pick out the rickety wooden causeway he remembered from his previous reconnaissance. Then he found what he was looking for. The same toothless old woman sat in her sampan grinning up at him through the fog.

'Ko,' he whispered. 'Admiral Nelson. Ko?'

The echo of her cackle bounded away across the water.

'Po Toi!' she screamed. 'Tin Hau! Po Toi!'

'Today?'

'Today!'

'Tomorrow?'

'Tomollow!'

He tossed her a couple of dollars and her laughter followed him as he crept away.

I'm right, Lizzie's right, we're right, he thought. He's going to the festival. He hoped to God Lizzie was staying put. If she woke up, he wouldn't put it past her to wander.

He walked, trying to stamp away the aching in his groin and back. Take it stage by stage, he thought. Nothing big. Just play it as it comes. The fog was like a corridor leading to different rooms. Once he met an invalid car crawling along the kerb, as its owner exercised his Alsatian dog. Once, two old men in undervests performing their morning exercises. In a public garden small children stared at him from a rhododendron bush which they seemed to have made their home, for their clothes were draped over the branches and they were naked as the refugee kids in Phnom Penh.

She was sitting up waiting for him when he returned and she looked terrible.

'Don't do that again,' she warned, and shoved her arm through his as they set out to find some breakfast and a boat. 'Don't ever bloody walk out on me without warning.'

Hong Kong at first possessed no boats at all that day. Jerry would not contemplate the big out-island ferries which took the trippers. He knew the Rocker would have them sewn up. He refused to go down to the bays and make conspicuous enquiries. When he telephoned the listed water-taxi firms whatever they had was either rented or too small for the voyage. Then he remembered Luigi Tan the fixer, who was a myth at the Foreign Correspondents' club: Luigi could get you anything from a Korean dance troupe to a cut-price air-ticket faster than any fixer in town. They took a taxi to the other side of Wanchai, where Luigi had his lair, then walked. It was eight in the morning but the hot fog had not lifted. The unlit signs sprawled over the narrow lanes like spent lovers: Happy Boy, Lucky Place, Americana. The crowded food stalls added their warm smells to the reek of petrol fumes and smuts. Through splits in the wall they sometimes glimpsed a canal. 'Anyone tell you where to find me;, Luigi Tan liked to say. 'Ask for the big guy with one leg.'