"Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" - читать интересную книгу автора (le Carré John)CHAPTER NINEBefore Tarr left, Smiley asked a number of questions of him. He was gazing not at Tarr but myopically into the middle distance, his pouchy face despondent from the tragedy. 'Where is the original of that diary?' 'I put it straight back in the dead letter box. Figure it this way, Mr Smiley: by the time I found the diary Irina had been in Moscow twenty-four hours. I guessed she wouldn't have a lot of breath when it came to the interrogation. Most likely they'd sweated her on the plane, then a second going over when she touched down, then question one as soon as the big boys had finished their breakfast. That's the way they do it to the timid ones: the arm first and the questions after, right? So it might be only a matter of a day or two before Centre sent along a footpad to take a peek round the back of the church, okay?' Primly again: 'Also I had my own welfare to consider.' 'He means that Moscow Centre would be less interested in cutting his throat if they thought he hadn't read the diary,' said Guillam. 'Did you photograph it?' 'I don't carry a camera. I bought a dollar notebook. I copied the diary into the notebook. The original I put back. The whole job took me four hours flat.' He glanced at Guillam, then away from him. In the fresh daylight, a deep inner fear was suddenly apparent in Tarr's face. 'When I got back to the hotel, my room was a wreck; they'd even stripped the paper off the walls. The manager told me, "Get the hell out". He didn't want to know.' 'He's carrying a gun,' said Guillam. 'He won't part with it.' 'You're damn right I won't.' Smiley offered a dyspeptic grunt of sympathy: 'These meetings you had with Irina: the dead letter boxes, the safety signals and fallbacks. Who proposed the tradecraft: you or she?' 'She did.' 'What were the safety signals?' 'Body talk. If I wore my collar open she knew I'd had a look around and I reckoned the coast was clear. If I wore it closed, scrub the meeting till the fallback.' 'And Irina?' 'Handbag. Left hand, right hand. I got there first and waited up somewhere she could see me. That gave her the choice: whether to go ahead or split.' 'All this happened more than six months ago. What have you been doing since?' 'Resting,' said Tarr rudely. Guillam said: 'He panicked and went native. He bolted to Kuala Lumpur, then lay up in one of the hill villages. That's his story. He has a daughter called Danny.' 'Danny's my little kid.' 'He shacked up with Danny and her mother,' said Guillam, talking, as was his habit, clean across anything Tarr said. 'He's got wives scattered across the globe but she seems to lead the pack just now.' 'Why did you choose this particular moment to come to us?' Tarr said nothing. 'Don't you want to spend Christmas with Danny?' 'Sure.' 'So what happened? Did something scare you?' 'There was rumours,' said Tarr sullenly. 'What sort of rumours?' 'Some Frenchman turned up in KL telling them all I owed him money. Wanted to get some lawyer hounding me. I don't owe anybody money.' Smiley returned to Guillam. 'At the Circus he's still posted as a defector?' 'Presumed.' 'What have they done about it so far?' 'It's out of my hands. I heard on the grapevine that London Station held a couple of war parties over him a while back but they didn't invite me and I don't know what came of them. Nothing, I should think, as usual.' 'What passport's he been using?' Tarr had his answer ready: 'I threw away Thomas the day I hit Malaya. I reckoned Thomas wasn't exactly the flavour of the month in Moscow and I'd do better to kill him off right there. In KL I had them run me up a British passport, name of Poole.' He handed it to Smiley. 'It's not bad for the money.' 'Why didn't you use one of your Swiss escapes?' Another wary pause. 'Or did you lose them when your hotel room was searched?' Guillam said: 'He cached them as soon as he arrived in Hong Kong. Standard practice.' 'So why didn't you use them?' 'They were numbered, Mr Smiley. They may have been blank but they were numbered. I was feeling a mite windy, frankly. If London had the numbers, maybe Moscow did too, if you take my meaning.' 'So what did you do with your Swiss escapes?' Smiley repeated pleasantly. 'He says he threw them away,' said Guillam. 'He sold them more likely. Or swapped them for that one.' 'How? Threw them away how? Did you burn them?' 'That's right, I burned them,' said Tarr, with a nervy ring to his voice, half a threat, half fear. 'So when you say this Frenchman was enquiring for you-' 'He was looking for Poole.' 'But who else ever heard of Poole, except the man who faked this passport?' Smiley asked, turning the pages. Tarr said nothing. 'Tell me how you travelled to England,' Smiley suggested. 'Soft route from Dublin. No problem.' Tarr lied badly under pressure. Perhaps his parents were to blame. He was too fast when he had no answer ready, too aggressive when he had one up his sleeve. 'How did you get to Dublin?' Smiley asked, checking the border stamps on the middle page. 'Roses.' He had recovered his confidence. 'Roses all the way. I've got a girl who's an air hostess with South African. A pal of mine flew me cargo to the Cape, at the Cape my girl took care of me then hitched me a free ride to Dublin with one of the pilots. As far as anyone back East knows I never left the peninsula.' 'I'm doing what I can to check,' said Guillam to the ceiling. 'Well you be damn careful, baby,' Tarr snapped down the line to Guillam. 'Because I don't want the wrong people on my back.' 'Why did you come to Mr Guillam?' Smiley enquired, still deep in Poole's passport. It had a used, well-thumbed look, neither too full nor too empty. 'Apart from the fact that you were frightened, of course.' 'Mr Guillam's my boss,' said Tarr virtuously. 'Did it cross your mind he might just turn you straight over to Alleline? After all, you're something of a wanted man as far as the Circus top brass is concerned, aren't you?' 'Sure. But I don't figure Mr Guillam's any fonder of the new arrangement than you are, Mr Smiley.' 'He also loves England,' Guillam explained with mordant sarcasm. 'Sure. I got homesick.' 'Did you ever consider going to anyone else but Mr Guillam? Why not one of the overseas residencies, for instance, where you were in less danger? Is Mackelvore still head man in Paris?' Guillam nodded. 'There you are, then: you could have gone to Mr Mackelvore. He recruited you, you can trust him: he's old Circus. You could have sat safely in Paris instead of risking your neck over here. Oh dear God. Lacon, quick!' Smiley had risen to his feet, the back of one hand pressed to his mouth as he stared out of the window. In the paddock Jackie Lacon was lying on her stomach screaming while a riderless pony careered between the trees. They were still watching as Lacon's wife, a pretty woman with long hair and thick winter stockings, bounded over the fence and gathered the child up. 'They're often taking tumbles,' Lacon remarked, quite cross. 'They don't hurt themselves at that age.' And scarcely more graciously: 'You're not responsible for everyone, you know, George.' Slowly they settled again. 'And if you had been making for Paris,' Smiley resumed, 'which route would you have taken?' 'The same till Ireland then Dublin-Orly I guess. What do you expect me to do: walk on the damn water?' At this Lacon coloured and Guillam with an angry exclamation rose to his feet. But Smiley seemed quite unbothered. Taking up the passport again he turned slowly back to the beginning. 'And how did you get in touch with Mr Guillam?' Guillam answered for him, speaking fast: 'He knew where I garage my car. He left a note on it saying he wanted to buy it and signed it with his workname, Trench. He suggested a place to meet and put in a veiled plea for privacy before I took my trade elsewhere. I brought Fawn along to babysit-' Smiley interrupted: 'That was Fawn at the door just now?' 'He watched my back while we talked,' Guillam said. 'I've kept him with us ever since. As soon as I'd heard Tarr's story, I rang Lacon from a callbox and asked for an interview. George, why don't we talk this over among ourselves?' 'Rang Lacon down here or in London?' 'Down here,' said Lacon. There was a pause till Guillam explained: 'I happened to remember the name of a girl in Lacon's office. I mentioned her name and said she had asked me to speak to him urgently on an intimate matter. It wasn't perfect but it was the best I could think of on the spur of the moment.' He added, filling the silence, 'Well damn it, there was no 'There was every reason.' Smiley had closed the passport and was examining the binding by the light of a tattered reading lamp at his side. 'This is rather good, isn't it?' he remarked lightly. 'Really very good indeed. I'd say that was a professional product. I can't find a blemish.' 'Don't worry, Mr Smiley,' Tarr retorted, taking it back, 'it's not made in Russia.' By the time he reached the door his smile had returned. 'You know something?' he said, addressing all three of them down the aisle of the long room. 'If Irina is right, you boys are going to need a whole new Circus. So if we all stick together I guess we could be in on the ground floor.' He gave the door a playful tap. 'Come on, darling, it's me. Ricki.' 'Thank you! It's all right now! Open up, please,' Lacon shouted and a moment later the key was turned, the dark figure of Fawn the babysitter flitted into view and the four footsteps faded into the big hollows of the house, to the distant accompaniment of Jackie Lacon's crying. |
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