Alexander McCall Smith - The Dog Who Came In From The Cold

“We meet again, old chap,” said Sebastian Duck. “Everything all right? You seem happy enough.”

“He’s a bright-looking dog, isn’t he?” remarked Tilly. “I gather that these Pimlico Terriers are meant to be very intelligent.”

“And friendly too. How are you feeling, Freddie, old bean?” Sebastian Duck reached down and let Freddie de la Hay sniff at the back of his hand. “Remember me?”

Tilly smiled at the term “old bean”. In most circles it was considered archaic, belonging to a Wodehousian world that had long disappeared, but this was not true of MI6, where it was still used extensively (a fact not widely known). It was almost a shibboleth, a password that identified one member of the service to another.

Sebastian Duck now withdrew his hand from Freddie’s exploratory lick. He reached into his coat pocket and took out a collar. This collar was thicker and wider than the average dog collar and was punctuated at regular intervals by silver studs.

“These studs act as aerials,” he said, showing it to Tilly. “The transmitter is here, in the middle. See? It’s very cunningly concealed. And this part, here, this slightly thicker section, is the battery. It should last about ten days. Then you have to recharge the dog … or rather the battery.”

Tilly examined the collar. Taking it in her hands, she felt the weight of it. Poor Freddie de la Hay – he would certainly notice it. “He’s not a very big dog,” she said. “It’s going to be heavy for him.”

“The least of his worries,” said Sebastian Duck.

“What do you mean by that?”

Sebastian Duck looked down at Freddie, who was gazing up at him. “Trusting little chap, isn’t he?” He patted Freddie on the head. “What do I mean? Well, you remember what happened to Rover Williams? Remember?”

Tilly shook her head. “Before my time, I think.”

Sebastian Duck explained. “He was one of the dogs sent down the tunnels in Berlin. We had a listening tunnel that went under the Russian sector. Rover Williams was sent in to plant a transmitter. He had been trained to detach the goods by biting at his collar.”

“And?”

“They got him.”

Tilly sighed. There were times when she wondered whether the service was quite right for her. Conflict. Risk. Duplicity. And, on top of it all, danger.

“Yes,” he continued. “They got him. And then they turned him.”

Tilly showed her surprise. “He worked for them?”

“Yes. We spotted him in the East once or twice thereafter. They used him as a listening post. You know the sort of thing – nobody suspects a dog, and so they would leave him lying around in a café or a bar. People talked, and it went straight through his transmitter. Very clever.”

Tilly closed her eyes for a moment and imagined the scene: a deserted street, one of those streets of the old East Berlin, with rain-slicked pavements and windows that were never more than half-lit. A drab state-run café on the corner, the smell of Trabi exhaust hanging in the air, a general atmosphere of fear and distrust. And there was Rover Williams lying patiently on the café floor, an unwitting pawn in the absurd human game of espionage.

“I suppose that dogs can’t distinguish,” she mused. “They can have no concept of disloyalty.”

Sebastian disagreed. “No, dogs are very loyal. It’s just that their loyalty is to the leader of whatever pack they find themselves in. So Rover Williams would have thought he was doing his duty to his new masters. He was being loyal.”

Tilly mulled this over. She had difficulty with the concept of duty here. Did dogs actually think in those terms? Did a dog say to itself: I have to do this or that? Of course not. Dogs did not think in sentences. Then how did they think?

But there was no time for further discussion on the theme of loyalty. Sebastian Duck had taken the transmitter from her and was now removing Freddie de la Hay’s old collar before replacing it with the new one. Freddie sat quite still as this took place. He was not sure what to think, but he was aware of a rather heavy weight being added to his neck. Something was happening to him, and he was not certain that he liked it.

Sebastian fastened the collar and straightened up. “Right,” he said. “Now let’s go over what happens next. You wait a day or two. Let them see you with Freddie de la Hay. In particular let Podgornin – he’s the chubby one –get to know Freddie. Watch for when he goes out to buy cigarettes – he’s a sixty-a-day man, according to his file. Follow him and then let him meet Freddie. We know that he’s very keen on these dogs. Then, next Tuesday, go and tell Podgornin that you’ve been called away. Sick relative. Can’t take Freddie because she’s allergic to dog hair. Could he possibly look after him?” He paused. “Then we’re in.”

Tilly nodded. “It seems clear enough.” Then, after a moment’s hesitation, “But what if they find out about his collar?”

Sebastian Duck made a gesture of helplessness. “He’s a volunteer,” he said.

It struck Tilly as a callous remark, and she frowned and looked away. Freddie de la Hay was not a volunteer; no dog was. Every single one of them was a conscript, just as most of us were, ultimately, in many aspects of our lives. We were conscripts, she thought, in battles that very few of us actually chose. We worked and worked, often in jobs that we did not really like; we paid taxes, and yet more taxes; we shouldered the burdens of awkward relatives whom we did not choose, who were just there, issued to us at birth; we lived in places because that was simply where we found ourselves. Conscripts.

Freddie de la Hay looked up, first at Tilly and then at Sebastian Duck. More biscuits, he thought.

James made the first move to patch things up with Caroline. “That risotto,” he said over the telephone.

“What risotto?”

“The risotto I was going to make for you before …” Before what? He searched for the right word. “Before our misunderstanding.”

Caroline was brisk. “Oh,” she said, “don’t worry about that. That’s all over.” But not for Dee, she thought. She had yet to confront Dee about her duplicity in not confessing that she had gone out to dinner with James. But she would, she thought, when the time was right. On the other hand … poor Dee, with all her vitamins and colonic irrigation and the rest of it; she was very rarely invited out by anybody to anything, and it seemed churlish to begrudge her a little treat with James. No, she would not confront her; she would, instead, forgive her, or, at the most, make a brief reference now and then to the Poule au Pot, just so that Dee would know that she knew all about it. Forgiveness was all very well, but one should not allow others to get away with everything.

“Are you listening, Caroline?”

“Yes, yes. My thoughts were just wandering a bit. You were saying something about a risotto.”

James sighed. Caroline lacked focus. Yet we all had our faults, and even he … What were his faults? Indecision? Uncertainty about who he was? “I’d rather like to come round and make it for you this evening. I’ll get the shopping.”

Caroline hesitated. She was not sure whether she wanted to see James that evening. There were some times which seemed right for seeing James, and some which did not. That particular evening was of indeterminate status … “Oh, all right.” She realised that she sounded rude, and corrected herself. One should not be ungrateful for offers to cook risotto …

James was punctual, and Caroline let him in. He had with him a green carrier bag bulging with risotto ingredients. From out of the top of the bag the neck of a wine bottle peeped. Caroline leaned forward and planted a kiss on his cheek. She did it automatically, and then, realising what she had just done, for a moment afterwards was prepared for him to recoil. He did not.