He glanced at the clock, then at his watch. Christ, stop looking at your d.a.m.n watch! Think of Camilla, think of her starting her lesson, think of those aunts you didn"t spend the weekend with, think of Alwyn not looking in your bag. Think of anything but the time. Eighteen minutes to wait. "Peter, if you have the smallest reservation, you really mustn"t go ahead with it. Nothing is as important as that." Great, so how do you spot a reservation, when thirty teenage b.u.t.terflies are mating in your stomach, and the sweat is like a secret rain inside your shirt? Never, he swore, never had he had it this bad.

Opening the Testify file he tried to read it.

It wasn"t all that thin, but it wasn"t fat either. It looked pretty much like a token volume, as Smiley had said: the first serial was taken up with a description of what wasn"t there. "Annexes 1 to 8 held London Station, cross refer to PFs ELLIS Jim, PRIDEAUX Jim, HAJEK Vladimir, COLLINS Sam, HABOLT Max..." and Uncle Tom Cobley and All. "For these files, consult H/London Station or CC," standing for Chief of Circus and his appointed mothers. Don"t look at your watch, look at the clock and do the arithmetic, you idiot. Eight minutes. Odd to be pinching files about one"s predecessor. Odd to have Jim as a predecessor, come to think of it, and a secretary who held a wake over him without ever mentioning his name. The only living trace Guillam had ever found of him, apart from his workname on the files, was his squash racquet jammed behind the safe in his room, with J.P. hand-done in poker work on the handle. He showed it to Ellen, a tough old biddy who could make Cy Vanhofer quail like a schoolboy, and she broke into floods of tears, wrapped it and sent it to the housekeepers by the next shuttle with a personal note to the Dolphin insisting that it be returned to him "if humanly possible". How"s your game these days, Jim, with a couple of Czech bullets in your shoulder bone?

Still eight minutes.

"Now if you could contrive," said Smiley, "I mean if it wouldn"t be too much bother, to take your car in for a service at your local garage. Using your home phone to make the appointment, of course, in the hope that Toby is listening..."

In the hope. Mother of pearl. And all his cosy chats with Camilla? Still eight minutes.

The rest of the file seemed to be Foreign Office telegrams, Czech press cuttings, monitoring reports on Prague radio, extracts from a policy file on the resettlement and rehabilitation of blown agents, draft submissions to the Treasury and a post-mortem by Alleline which blamed Control for the fiasco. Sooner you than me, George.

In his mind, Guillam began measuring the distance from his desk to the rear door where Alwyn dozed at the reception counter. He reckoned it was five paces and he decided to make a tactical staging post. Two paces from the door stood a chart chest like a big yellow piano. It was filled with oddments of reference: large-scale maps, back copies of Who"s Who, old Baedekers. Putting a pencil between his teeth he picked up the Testify file, wandered to the chest, selected a telephone directory of Warsaw and began writing names on a sheet of paper. My hand! a voice screamed inside him: my hand is shaking all over the page, look at those figures, I might be drunk! Why has no one noticed? The girl Juliet came in with a tray and put a cup on his desk. He blew her a distracted kiss. He selected another directory, he thought for Poznan, and laid it beside the first. When Alwyn came through the door he didn"t even look up.

"Telephone, sir," he murmured.

"Oh to h.e.l.l," said Guillam deep in the directory. "Who is it?"

"Outside line, sir. Someone rough. The garage, I think, regarding your car. Said he"d got some bad news for you," said Alwyn, very pleased.

Guillam was holding the Testify file in both hands, apparently cross-referring with the directory. He had his back to Sal and he could feel his knees shaking against his trouser legs. The pencil was still jammed in his mouth. Alwyn went ahead and held the swing door for him and he pa.s.sed through it reading the file: like a d.a.m.ned choirboy, he thought. He waited for lightning to strike him, Sal to call murder, old Ben the superspy to leap suddenly to life, but it didn"t happen. He felt much better: Alwyn is my ally, I trust him, we are united against the Dolphin, I can move. The swing doors closed, he went down the four steps and there was Alwyn again, holding open the door to the telephone cubicle. The lower part was panelled, the upper part gla.s.s. Lifting the receiver he laid the file at his feet and heard Mendel tell him he needed a new gear box, the job could cost anything up to a hundred quid. They"d worked this up for the benefit of the housekeepers or whoever read the transcripts, and Guillam kept it going nicely to and fro till Alwyn was safely behind his counter, listening like an eagle. It"s working, he thought, I"m flying, it"s working after all. He heard himself say: "Well, at least get on to the main agents first and find out how long they"ll take to supply the d.a.m.n thing. Have you got their number?" And irritably: "Hang on."

He half opened the door and kept the mouthpiece jammed against his backside because he was very concerned that this part should not go on tape. "Alwyn, chuck me that bag a minute will you?"

Alwyn brought it over keenly, like the first-aid man at a football match. "All right, Mr Guillam, sir? Open it for you, sir?"

"Just dump it there, thanks."

The bag was on the floor outside the cubicle. Now he stooped, dragged it inside and unzipped it. At the middle, among his shirts and a lot of newspaper, were three dummy files, one buff, one green, one pink. He took out the pink file and his address book and replaced them with the Testify file. He closed the zip, stood up and read Mendel a telephone number, actually the right one. He rang off, handed Alwyn the bag and returned to the reading room with the dummy file. He dawdled at the chart chest, fiddled with a couple more directories, then sauntered to the archive carrying the dummy file. Allitson was going through a comedy routine, first pulling then pushing the laundry basket.

"Peter, give us a hand will you, I"m stuck."

"Half a sec."

Recovering the four-three file from the Testify pigeonhole, he replaced it with the dummy, restored it to its rightful place in the four-three alcove and removed the green slip from the bracket. G.o.d is in his Heaven and the first night was a wow. He could have sung out loud: G.o.d is in his Heaven and I can still fly.

He took the slip to Sal, who signed it and put it on a spike as she always did. Later today she would check. If the file was in its place she would destroy both the green slip and the flimsy from the box, and not even clever Sal would remember that he had been alongside the four-four alcove. He was about to return to the archive to give old Allitson a hand when he found himself looking straight into the brown, unfriendly eyes of Toby Esterhase.

"Peter," said Toby in his not quite perfect English. "I am so sorry to disturb you but we have a tiny crisis and Percy Alleline would like quite an urgent word with you. Can you come now? That would be very kind." And at the door, as Alwyn let them out: "Your opinion he wants actually," he remarked with the officiousness of a small but rising man. "He wishes to consult you for an opinion."

In a desperately inspired moment Guillam turned to Alwyn and said, "There"s a midday shuttle to Brixton. You might just give Transport a buzz and ask them to take that thing over for me, will you?"

"Will do, sir," said Alwyn. "Will do. Mind the step, sir."

And you pray for me, thought Guillam.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE.

"Our Shadow Foreign Secretary," Haydon called him. The janitors called him Snow White because of his hair. Toby Esterhase dressed like a male model but the moment he dropped his shoulders or closed his tiny fists he was unmistakably a fighter. Following him down the fourth-floor corridor, noting the coffee-machine again, and Lauder Strickland"s voice explaining that he was un.o.btainable, Guillam thought: "Christ, we"re back in Berne and on the run."

He"d half a mind to call this out to Toby, but decided the comparison was unwise.

Whenever he thought of Toby, that was what he thought of: Switzerland eight years ago, when Toby was just a humdrum watcher with a growing reputation for informal listening on the side. Guillam was kicking his heels after North Africa, so the Circus packed them both off to Berne on a one-time operation to spike a pair of Belgian arms dealers who were using the Swiss to spread their wares in unpopular directions. They rented a villa next door to the target house and the same night Toby opened up a junction box and rearranged things so that they overheard the Belgians" conversations on their own phone. Guillam was boss and legman and twice a day he dropped the tapes on the Berne residency, using a parked car as a letter box. With the same ease Toby bribed the local postman to give him a first sight of the Belgians" mail before he delivered it, and the cleaning lady to plant a radio mike in the drawing room where they held most of their discussions. For diversion they went to the Chikito and Toby danced with the youngest girls. Now and then he brought one home but by morning she was always gone and Toby had the windows open to get rid of the smell.

They lived this way for three months and Guillam knew him no better at the end than on the first day. He didn"t even know his country of origin. Toby was a sn.o.b and knew the places to eat and be seen. He washed his own clothes and at night he wore a net over his Snow White hair, and on the day the police hit the villa and Guillam had to hop over the back wall, he found Toby at the Bellevue Hotel munching patisseries and watching the the dansant. He listened to what Guillam had to say, paid his bill, tipped first the band-leader, then Franz the head porter, then led the way along a succession of corridors and staircases to the underground garage where he had cached the escape car and pa.s.sports. There also, punctiliously, he asked for his bill. "If you ever want to get out of Switzerland in a hurry," thought Guillam, "you pay your bills first". The corridors were endless, with mirror walls and Versailles chandeliers, so that Guillam was following not just one Esterhase but a whole delegation of them.

It was this vision that came back to him now, though the narrow wooden staircase to Alleline"s rooms was painted mud green and only a battered parchment lampshade recalled the chandeliers.

"To see the Chief," Toby announced portentously to the young janitor who beckoned them through with an insolent nod. In the anteroom at four grey typewriters sat the four grey mothers in pearls and twinsets. They nodded to Guillam and ignored Toby. A sign over Alleline"s door said "engaged". Beside it, a six-foot wardrobe safe, new. Guillam wondered how on earth the floor took the strain. On its top, bottles of South African sherry, gla.s.ses, plates. Tuesday, he remembered: London Station"s informal lunch meeting.

"I"ll have no phone calls, tell them," Alleline shouted as Toby opened the door.

"The Chief will take no calls, please, ladies," said Toby elaborately, holding back the door for Guillam. "We are having a conference."

One of the mothers said: "We heard."

It was a war party.

Alleline sat at the head of the table in the megalomaniac"s carving chair, reading a two-page doc.u.ment, and he didn"t stir when Guillam came in. He just growled: "Down there with you. By Paul. Below the salt," and went on reading with heavy concentration.

The chair to Alleline"s right was empty and Guillam knew it was Haydon"s by the posture-curve cushion tied to it with string. To Alleline"s left sat Roy Bland, also reading, but he looked up as Guillam pa.s.sed and said "Wotcher, Peter" then followed him all the way down the table with his bulging pale eyes. Next to Bill"s empty chair sat Mo Delaware, London Station"s token woman, in bobbed hair and a brown tweed suit. Across from her, Phil Porteous, the head housekeeper, a rich servile man with a big house in suburbia. When he saw Guillam he stopped his reading altogether, ostentatiously closed the folder, laid his sleek hands over it and smirked.

"Below the salt means next to Paul Skordeno," said Phil, still smirking.

"Thanks. I can see it."

Across from Porteous came Bill"s Russians, last seen in the fourth-floor men"s room, Nick de Silsky and his boyfriend Kaspar. They couldn"t smile and for all Guillam knew they couldn"t read either because they had no papers in front of them; they were the only ones who hadn"t. They sat with their four thick hands on the table as if somebody was holding a gun behind them, and they just watched him with their four brown eyes.

Downhill from Porteous sat Paul Skordeno, now reputedly Roy Bland"s fieldman on the satellite networks, though others said he ran between wickets for Bill. Paul was thin and mean and forty with a pitted brown face and long arms. Guillam had once paired with him on a tough-guy course at the Nursery and they had all but killed each other.

Guillam moved the chair away from him and sat down, so Toby sat next along like the other half of a bodyguard. What the h.e.l.l do they expect me to do? thought Guillam: make a dash for freedom? Everyone was watching Alleline fill his pipe when Bill Haydon upstaged him. The door opened and at first no one came in. Then a slow shuffle and Bill appeared, clutching a cup of coffee in both hands, the saucer on top. He had a striped folder jammed under his arm and his gla.s.ses were over his nose for a change, so he must have done his reading elsewhere. They"ve all been reading it except me, thought Guillam, and I don"t know what it is. He wondered whether it was the same doc.u.ment that Esterhase and Roy were reading yesterday and decided on no evidence at all that it was; that yesterday it had just come in; that Toby had brought it to Roy and that he had disturbed them in their first excitement; if excitement was the word.

Alleline had still not looked up. Down the table Guillam had only his rich black hair to look at, and a pair of broad tweedy shoulders. Mo Delaware was pulling at her forelock while she read. Percy had two wives, Guillam remembered, as Camilla once more flitted through his teeming mind, and both were alcoholics, which must mean something. He had met only the London edition. Percy was forming his supporters" club and gave a drinks party at his sprawling panelled flat in Buckingham Palace Mansions. Guillam arrived late and he was taking off his coat in the lobby when a pale blonde woman loomed timidly towards him holding out her hands. He took her for the maid wanting his coat.

"I"m Joy," she said in a theatrical voice, like "I"m Virtue" or "I"m Continence". It wasn"t his coat she wanted but a kiss. Yielding to it, Guillam inhaled the joint pleasures of "Je Reviens" and a high concentration of inexpensive sherry.

"Well now, young Peter Guillam" - Alleline speaking - "are you ready for me finally or have you other calls to make about my house?" He half looked up and Guillam noticed two tiny triangles of fur on each weathered cheek. "What are you getting up to out there in the sticks these days?" - turning a page - "apart from chasing the local virgins, if there are any in Brixton which I severely doubt - if you"ll pardon my freedom, Mo - and wasting public money on expensive lunches?"

This banter was Alleline"s one instrument of communication, it could be friendly or hostile, reproachful or congratulatory, but in the end it was like a constant tapping on the same spot.

"Couple of Arab ploys look quite promising. Cy Vanhofer"s got a lead to a German diplomat. That"s about it."

"Arabs," Alleline repeated, pushing aside the folder and dragging a rough pipe from his pocket. "Any b.l.o.o.d.y fool can burn an Arab, can"t he, Bill? Buy a whole d.a.m.n Arab cabinet for half a crown if you"ve a mind to." From another pocket Alleline took a tobacco pouch, which he tossed easily on to the table. "I hear you"ve been hobn.o.bbing with our late-lamented Brother Tarr. How is he these days?"

A lot of things went through Guillam"s mind as he heard himself answer. That the surveillance on his flat did not begin till last night, he was sure of it. That over the weekend he was in the clear unless Fawn the captive babysitter had doubled, which would have been hard for him. That Roy Bland bore a close resemblance to the late Dylan Thomas, Roy had always reminded him of someone and till this moment he"d never been able to pin down the connection, and that Mo Delaware had only pa.s.sed muster as a woman because of her brownie mannishness. He wondered whether Dylan Thomas had had Roy"s extraordinary pale blue eyes. That Toby Esterhase was helping himself to a cigarette from his gold case, and that Alleline didn"t as a rule allow cigarettes but only pipes, so Toby must stand pretty well with Alleline just now. That Bill Haydon was looking strangely young and that Circus rumours about his love life were not after all so laughable: they said he went both ways. That Paul Skordeno had one brown palm flat on the table and the thumb slightly lifted in a way that hardened the hitting surface on the outside of the hand. He thought also of his canvas case: had Alwyn put it on the shuttle? Or had he gone off for his lunch leaving it in Registry, waiting to be inspected by one of these new young janitors bursting for promotion? And Guillam wondered not for the first time just how long Toby had been hanging around Registry before he noticed him.

He selected a facetious tone: "That"s right, Chief. Tarr and I have tea at Fortnum"s every afternoon."

Alleline was sucking at his empty pipe, testing the packing of the tobacco.

"Peter Guillam," he said deliberately, in his pert brogue. "You may not be aware of this, but I am of an extremely forgiving nature. I am positively seething with goodwill, in fact. All I require is the matter of your discussion with Tarr. I do not ask for his head, nor any other part of his d.a.m.ned anatomy, and I will restrain my impulse personally to strangle him. Or you." He struck a match and lit his pipe, making a monstrous flame. "I would even go so far as to consider hanging a gold chain about your neck and bringing you into the palace from hateful Brixton."

"In that case I can"t wait for him to turn up," said Guillam.

"And there"s a free pardon for Tarr till I get my hands on him."

"I"ll tell him. He"ll be thrilled."

A great cloud of smoke rolled out over the table.

"I"m very disappointed with you, young Peter. Giving ear to gross slanders of a divisive and insidious nature. I pay you honest money and you stab me in the back. I consider that extremely poor reward for keeping you alive. Against the entreaties of my advisers, I may tell you."

Alleline had a new mannerism, one that Guillam had noticed often in vain men of middle age: it involved taking hold of a tuck of flesh under the chin, and ma.s.saging it between finger and thumb in the hope of reducing it.

"Tell us some more about Tarr"s circ.u.mstances just now," said Alleline. "Tell us about his emotional state. He has a daughter, has he not? A wee daughter name of Danny. Does he talk of her at all?"

"He used to."

"Regale us with some anecdotes about her."

"I don"t know any. He was very fond of her, that"s all I know."

"Obsessively fond?" His voice rose suddenly in anger. "What"s that shrug for? What the h.e.l.l are you shrugging at me like that for? I"m talking to you about a defector from your own d.a.m.n section, I"m accusing you of playing hookey with him behind my back, of taking part in d.a.m.n-fool parlour games when you don"t know the stakes involved, and all you do is shrug at me down the table. There"s a law, Peter Guillam, against consorting with enemy agents. Maybe you didn"t know that. I"ve a good mind to throw the book at you!"

"But I haven"t been seeing him," said Guillam as anger came also to his rescue. "It"s not me who"s been playing parlour games. It"s you. So get off my back."

In the same moment he sensed the relaxation round the table, like a tiny descent into boredom, like a general recognition that Alleline had shot off all his ammunition and the target was unmarked. Skordeno was fidgeting with a bit of ivory, some lucky charm he carried round with him. Bland was reading again and Bill Haydon was drinking his coffee and finding it terrible, for he made a sour face at Mo Delaware and put down the cup. Toby Esterhase, chin in hand, had raised his eyebrows and was gazing at the red cellophane which filled the Victorian grate. Only the Russians continued to watch him unblinkingly, like a pair of terriers not wanting to believe that the hunt was over.

"So he used to chat to you about Danny, eh? And he told you he loved her," said Alleline, back at the doc.u.ment before him. "Who"s Danny"s mother?"

"A Eurasian girl."

Now Haydon spoke for the first time. "Unmistakably Eurasian, or could she pa.s.s for something nearer home?"

"Tarr seems to think she looks full European. He thinks the kid does too."

Alleline read aloud: "Twelve years old, long blonde hair, brown eyes, slim. Is that Danny?"

"I should think it could be. It sounds like her."

There was a long silence and not even Haydon seemed inclined to break it.

"So if I told you," Alleline resumed, choosing his words extremely carefully: "if I told you that Danny and her mother were due to arrive three days ago at London Airport on the direct flight from Singapore, I may take it you would share our perplexity."

"Yes, I would."

"You would also keep your mouth shut when you got out of here. You"d tell no one but your twelve best friends?"

From not far away came Phil Porteous"s purr: "The source is extremely secret, Peter. It may sound to you like ordinary flight information but it isn"t that at all. It"s ultra, ultra sensitive."

"Ah well, in that case I"ll try to keep my mouth ultra shut," said Guillam to Porteous and while Porteous coloured, Bill Haydon gave another schoolboy grin.

Alleline came back. "So what would you make of this information? Come on, Peter" - the banter again - "Come on, you were his boss, his guide, philosopher and his friend, where"s your psychology for G.o.d"s sake? Why is Tarr coming to England?"

"That"s not what you said at all. You said Tarr"s girl and her daughter Danny were expected in London three days ago. Perhaps she"s visiting relations. Perhaps she"s got a new boyfriend. How should I know?"

"Don"t be obtuse, man. Doesn"t it occur to you that where little Danny is, Tarr himself is unlikely to be far behind? If he"s not here already, which I"m inclined to believe he is, that being the manner of men to come first and bring their impedimenta later. Pardon me, Mo Delaware, a lapse."

For the second time Guillam allowed himself a little temperament. "Till now it had not occurred to me, no. Till now Tarr was a defector. Housekeeper"s ruling as of seven months ago. Right or wrong, Phil? Tarr was sitting in Moscow and everything he knew should be regarded as blown. Right, Phil? That was also held to be a good enough reason for turning the lights out in Brixton and giving one chunk of our workload to London Station and another to Toby"s lamplighters. What"s Tarr supposed to be doing now: redefecting to us?"

"Redefecting would be a d.a.m.ned charitable way of putting it, I"ll tell you that for nothing," Alleline retorted, back at the paper before him. "Listen to me. Listen exactly, and remember. Because I"ve no doubt that like the rest of my staff you"ve a memory like a sieve, all you prima donnas are the same. Danny and her mother are travelling on fake British pa.s.sports in the name of Poole, like the harbour. The pa.s.sports are Russian fakes. A third went to Tarr himself, the well known Mister Poole. Tarr is already in England but we don"t know where. He left ahead of Danny and her mother and came here by a different route, our investigations suggest a black one. He instructed his wife or mistress or whatever" - he said this as if he had neither - "pardon again, Mo, to follow him in one week, which they have not yet done, apparently. This information only reached us yesterday so we"ve a lot of footwork to do yet. Tarr instructed them, Danny and her mother, that if by chance he failed to make contact with them, they should throw themselves on the mercy of one Peter Guillam. That"s you, I believe."

"If they were due three days ago what"s happened to them?"

"Delayed. Missed their plane. Changed their plans. Lost their tickets. How the h.e.l.l do I know?"

"Or else the information"s wrong," Guillam suggested.

"It isn"t," Alleline snapped.

Resentment, mystification: Guillam clung to them both. "All right. The Russians have turned Tarr round. They"ve sent his family over - G.o.d knows why, I"d have thought they"d put them in the bank - and they"ve sent him too. Why"s it all so hot? What sort of plant can he be when we don"t believe a word he says?"

This time, he noticed with exhilaration, his audience was watching Alleline; who seemed to Guillam to be torn between giving a satisfactory but indiscreet answer, or making a fool of himself.

"Never mind what sort of plant! Muddying pools. Poisoning wells, maybe. That d.a.m.n sort. Pulling the rug out when we"re all but home and dry." His circulars read that way too, thought Guillam. Metaphors chasing each other off the page. "But just you remember this. At the first peep, before the first peep, at the first whisper of him or his lady or his wee daughter, young Peter Guillam, you come to one of us grown-ups. Anyone you see at this table. But not another d.a.m.n soul. Do you follow that injunction perfectly? Because there are more d.a.m.n wheels within wheels here than you can possibly guess or have any right to know..."

It became suddenly a conversation in movement. Bland had plugged his hands into his pockets and slouched across the room to lean against the far door. Alleline had relit his pipe and was putting out the match with a long movement of his arm while he glowered at Guillam through the smoke. "Who are you courting these days, Peter, who"s the lucky wee lady?" Porteous was sliding a sheet of paper down the table for Guillam"s signature. "For you, Peter, if you please." Paul Skordeno was whispering something into the ear of one of the Russians, and Esterhase was at the door giving unpopular orders to the mothers. Only Mo Delaware"s brown, una.s.suming eyes still held Guillam in their gaze.

"Read it first, won"t you," Porteous advised silkily.

Guillam was half through the form already: "I certify that I have today been advised of the contents of Witchcraft report No. 308, Source Merlin," ran the first paragraph. "I undertake not to divulge any part of this report to other members of the service, nor will I divulge the existence of Source Merlin. I also undertake to report at once any matter which comes to my notice which appears to bear on his material."

The door had stayed open and, as Guillam signed, the second echelon of London Station filed in, led by the mothers with trays of sandwiches: Diana Dolphin, Lauder Strickland looking taut enough to blow up, the girls from distribution and a sourfaced old warhorse called Haggard, who was Ben Thruxton"s overlord. Guillam left slowly, counting heads because he knew Smiley would want to know who was there. At the door, to his surprise, he found himself joined by Haydon, who seemed to have decided that the remaining festivities were not for him.

"Stupid b.l.o.o.d.y cabaret," Bill remarked, waving vaguely at the mothers. "Percy"s getting more insufferable every day."

"He does seem to," said Guillam heartily.

"How"s Smiley these days? Seen much of him? You used to be quite a chum of his, didn"t you?"

Guillam"s world, which was showing signs till then of steadying to a sensible pace, plunged violently. "Afraid not," he said, "he"s out of bounds."