A Murder of Quality AND Call for the Dead

by John le Carré

  “What’s under the Act?” asked Smiley.

  “Oh, he’s only joking. It means your record’s so long you’re eligible for Preventive Detention—years of it. He sounds like my type,” Mendel continued. “Leave him to me.”

  They found the yard as the constable had described, between two dilapidated pre-fabs in an uncertain row of hutments erected on the bomb site. Rubble, clinker and refuse lay everywhere. Bits of asbestos, timber and old iron, presumably acquired by Mr Scarr for resale or adaptation, were piled in a corner, dimly lit by the pale glow which came from the further pre-fab. The two men looked round them in silence for a moment. Then Mendel shrugged, put two fingers in his mouth and whistled shrilly.

  “Scarr!” he called. Silence. The outside light on the far pre-fab went on, and three or four pre-war cars in various stages of dilapidation became dimly discernible.

  The door opened slowly and a girl of about twelve stood on the threshold.

  “Your dad in, dear?” asked Mendel.

  “Nope. Gone to the Prod, I ’spect.”

  “Righto, dear. Thanks.”

  They walked back to the road.

  “What on earth’s the Prod, or daren’t I ask?” said Smiley. “Prodigal’s Calf. Pub round the corner. We can walk it—only a hundred yards. Leave the car here.”

  It was only just after opening time. The public bar was empty, and as they waited for the landlord to appear the door swung open and a very fat man in a black suit came in. He walked straight to the bar and hammered on it with a half-crown.

  “Wilf,” he shouted. “Take your finger out, you got customers, you lucky boy.” He turned to Smiley; “Good evening, friend.”

  From the rear of the pub a voice replied: “Tell ’em to leave their money on the counter and come back later.”

  The fat man looked at Mendel and Smiley blankly for a moment, then suddenly let out a peal of laughter: “Not them, Wilf—they’re busies!” The joke appealed to him so much that he was finally compelled to sit on the bench that ran along the side of the room, with his hands on his knees, his huge shoulders heaving with laughter, the tears running down his cheeks. Occasionally he said, “Oh dear, Oh dear,” as he caught his breath before another outburst.

  Smiley looked at him with interest. He wore a very dirty stiff white collar with rounded edges, a flowered red tie carefully pinned outside the black waistcoat, army boots and a shiny black suit, very threadbare and without a vestige of a crease in the trousers. His shirt cuffs were black with sweat, grime, and motor oil and held in place by paper-clips twisted into a knot.

  The landlord appeared and took their orders. The stranger bought a large whisky and ginger wine and took it at once to the saloon bar, where there was a coal fire. The landlord watched with disapproval.

  “That’s him all over, mean sod. Won’t pay saloon prices, but likes the fire.”

  “Who is he?” asked Mendel.

  “Him? Scarr his name is. Adam Scarr. Christ knows why Adam. See him in the Garden of Eden: bloody grotesque, that’s what it is. They say round here that if Eve gave him an apple he’d eat the ruddy core.” The landlord sucked his teeth and shook his head. Then he shouted to Scarr: “Still, you’re good for business, aren’t you, Adam? They come bloody miles to see you, don’t they? Teenage monster from outer space, that’s what you are. Come and see. Adam Scarr: one look and you’ll sign the pledge.”

  More hilarious laughter. Mendel leant over to Smiley. “You go and wait in the car—you’re better out of this. Got a fiver?”

  Smiley gave him five pounds from his wallet, nodded his agreement and walked out. He could imagine nothing more frightful than dealing with Scarr.

  “You Scarr?” said Mendel.

  “Friend, you are correct.”

  “TRX 0891. That your car?”

  Mr Scarr frowned at his whisky and ginger. The question seemed to sadden him.

  “Well?” said Mendel.

  “She was, squire, she was.”

  “What the hell do you mean?”

  Scarr raised his right hand a few inches then let it gently fall. “Dark waters, squire, murky waters.”

  “Listen, I’ve got bigger fish to fry than ever you dreamt of. I’m not made of glass, see? I couldn’t care bloody less about your racket. Where’s that car?”

  Scarr appeared to consider this speech on its merits. “I see the light, friend. You wish for information.”

  “Of course I bloody well do.”

  “These are hard times, squire. The cost of living, dear boy, is a rising star. Information is an item, a saleable item, is it not?”

  “You tell me who hired that car and you won’t starve.”

  “I don’t starve now, friend. I want to eat better.”

  “A fiver.”

  Scarr finished his drink and replaced his glass noisily on the table. Mendel got up and bought him another.

  “It was pinched,” said Scarr. “I had it a few years for self-drive, see. For the deepo.”

  “The what?”

  “The deepo—the deposit. Bloke wants a car for a day. You take twenty quid deposit in notes, right? When he comes back he owes you forty bob, see? You give him a cheque for thirty-eight quid, show it on your books as a loss and the job’s worth a tenner. Got it?”

  Mendel nodded.

  “Well, three weeks ago a bloke come in. Tall Scotsman. Well-to-do, he was. Carried a stick. He paid the deepo, took the car and I never see him nor the car again. Robbery.”

  “Why not report it to the police?”

  Scarr paused and drank from his glass. He looked at Mendel sadly.

  “Many factors would argue against, squire.”

  “Meaning you’d pinched it yourself?”

  Scarr looked shocked. “I have since heard distressing rumours about the party from which I obtained the vehicle. I will say no more,” he added piously.

  “When you rented him the car he filled in forms, didn’t he? Insurance, receipt and so on? Where are they?”

  “False, all false. He gave me an address in Ealing. I went there and it didn’t exist. I have no doubt the name was also fictitious.”

  Mendel screwed the money into a roll in his pocket, and handed it across the table to Scarr. Scarr unfolded it and, quite unselfconscious, counted it in full view of anyone who cared to look.

  “I know where to find you,” said Mendel; “and I know a few things about you. If that’s a load of cock you’ve sold me I’ll break your bloody neck.”

  It was raining again and Smiley wished he had brought a hat. He crossed the road, entered the side street which accommodated Mr Scarr’s establishment and walked towards the car. There was no one in the street, and it was oddly quiet. Two hundred yards down the road Battersea General Hospital, small and neat, shed multiple beams of light from its uncurtained windows. The pavement was very wet and the echo of his own footsteps was crisp and startling.

  He drew level with the first of the two pre-fabs which bordered Scarr’s yard. A car was parked in the yard with its sidelights on. Curious, Smiley turned off the street and walked towards it. It was an old MG saloon, green probably, or that brown they went in for before the war. The number-plate was barely lit, and caked in mud. He stooped to read it, tracing the letters with his forefinger: TRX 0891. Of course—that was one of the numbers he had written down this morning.

  He heard a footstep behind him and stood up, half turning. He had begun to raise his arm as the blow fell.

  It was a terrible blow—it seemed to split his skull in two. As he fell he could feel the warm blood running freely over his left ear. Not again, oh Christ, not again, thought Smiley. But he hardly felt the rest—just a vision of his own body, far away, being slowly broken like rock; cracked and split into fragments, then nothing. Nothing but the warmth of his own blood as it ran over his face into the cinders, and far away the beating of the stonebreakers. But not here. Far away.

  7

  MR SCARR’S STORY

  Mendel looked at
him and wondered whether he was dead. He emptied the pockets of his own overcoat and laid it gently over Smiley’s shoulders, then he ran, ran like a madman towards the hospital, crashed through the swing-doors of the out-patients’ department into the bright, twenty-four-hour interior of the hospital. A young coloured doctor was on duty. Mendel showed him his card, shouted something to him, took him by the arm, tried to lead him down the road. The doctor smiled patiently, shook his head and telephoned for an ambulance.

  Mendel ran back down the road and waited. A few minutes later the ambulance arrived and skilful men gathered Smiley up and took him away.

  Bury him, thought Mendel; I’ll make the bastard pay.

  He stood there for a moment, staring down at the wet patch of mud and cinders where Smiley had fallen; the red glow of the car’s rear lights showed him nothing. The ground had been hopelessly churned by the feet of the ambulance men and a few inhabitants from the pre-fabs who had come and gone like shadowy vultures. Trouble was about. They didn’t like trouble.

  “Bastard,” Mendel hissed, and walked slowly back towards the pub.

  The saloon bar was filling up. Scarr was ordering another drink. Mendel took him by the arm. Scarr turned and said:

  “Hullo, friend, back again. Have a little of what killed Auntie.”

  “Shut up,” said Mendel; “I want another word with you. Come outside.”

  Mr Scarr shook his head and sucked his teeth sympathetically.

  “Can’t be done, friend, can’t be done. Company.” He indicated with his head an eighteen-year-old blonde with off-white lipstick and an improbable bosom, who sat quite motionless at a corner table. Her painted eyes had a permanently startled look.

  “Listen,” whispered Mendel; “in just two seconds I’ll tear your bloody ears off, you lying sod.”

  Scarr consigned his drinks to the care of the landlord and made a slow, dignified exit. He didn’t look at the girl.

  Mendel led him across the street towards the pre-fabs. The sidelights of Smiley’s car shone towards them eighty yards down the road.

  They turned into the yard. The MG was still there. Mendel had Scarr firmly by the arm, ready if necessary to force the forearm back and upwards, breaking or dislocating the shoulder joint.

  “Well, well,” cried Scarr with apparent delight. “She’s returned to the bosom of her ancestors.”

  “Stolen, was it?” said Mendel. “Stolen by a tall Scotsman with a walking stick and an address in Ealing. Decent of him to bring it back, wasn’t it? Friendly gesture, after all this time. You’ve mistaken your bloody market, Scarr.” Mendel was shaking with anger. “And why are the sidelights on? Open the door.”

  Scarr turned to Mendel in the dark, his free hand slapping his pockets in search of keys. He extracted a bunch of three or four, felt through them and finally unlocked the car door. Mendel got in, found the passenger light in the roof and switched it on. He began methodically to search the inside of the car. Scarr stood outside and waited.

  He searched quickly but thoroughly. Glove tray, seats, floor, rear window-ledge: nothing. He slipped his hand inside the map pocket on the passenger door, and drew out a map and an envelope. The envelope was long and flat, grey-blue in colour with a linen finish. Continental, thought Mendel. There was no writing on it. He tore it open. There were ten used five-pound notes inside and a piece of plain postcard. Mendel held it to the light and read the message printed on it with a ball-point pen:

  FINISHED NOW SELL IT.

  There was no signature.

  He got out of the car, and seized Scarr by the elbows. Scarr stepped back quickly. “What’s your problem, friend?” he asked.

  Mendel spoke softly. “It’s not my problem, Scarr, it’s yours. The biggest bloody problem you ever had. Conspiracy to murder, attempted murder, offences under the Official Secrets Act. And you can add to that contravention of the Road Traffic Act, conspiracy to defraud the Inland Revenue, and about fifteen other charges that will occur to me while you nurse your problem on a cell bed.”

  “Just a minute, copper, let’s not go over the moon. What’s the story? Who the hell’s talking about murder?”

  “Listen, Scarr, you’re a little man, come in on the fringe of the big spenders, aren’t you? Well, now you’re the big spender. I reckon it’ll cost you fifteen years.”

  “Look, shut up, will you.”

  “No I won’t, little man. You’re caught between two big ones, see, and you’re the mug. And what will I do? I’ll bloody well laugh myself sick while you rot in the Scrubs and contemplate your fat belly. See that hospital, do you? There’s a bloke dying there, murdered by your tall Scotsman. They found him half an hour ago bleeding like a pig in your yard. There’s another one dead in Surrey, and for all I know there’s one in every bloody home county. So it’s your problem, you poor sod, not mine. Another thing—you’re the only one who knows who he is, aren’t you? He might want to tidy that up a bit, mightn’t he?”

  Scarr walked slowly round to the other side of the car.

  Mendel sat in the driving seat and unlocked the passenger door from the inside. Scarr sat himself beside him. They didn’t put the light on.

  “I’m in a nice way of business round here,” said Scarr quietly, “and the pickings is small but regular. Or was till this bloke come along.”

  “What bloke?”

  “Bit by bit, copper, don’t rush me. That was four years ago. I didn’t believe in Father Christmas till I met him. Dutch, he said he was, in the diamond business. I’m not pretending I thought he was straight, see, because you’re not barmy and nor am I. I never asked what he done and he never told me, but I guessed it was smuggling. Money to burn he had, came off him like leaves in autumn. ‘Scarr,’ he said; ‘you’re a man of business. I don’t like publicity, never did, and I hears we’re birds of a feather. I want a car. Not to keep, but to borrow.’ He didn’t put it quite like that because of the lingo, but that’s the sense of it. ‘What’s your proposition?’ I says. ‘Let’s have a proposition.’

  “‘Well,’ he says; ‘I’m shy. I want a car that no one can ever get on to, supposing I had an accident. Buy a car for me, Scarr, a nice old car with something under the bonnet. Buy it in your own name,’ he says, ‘and keep it wrapped up for me. There’s five hundred quid for a start, and twenty quid a month for garaging. And there’s a bonus, Scarr, for every day I take it out. But I’m shy, see, and you don’t know me. That’s what the money’s for,’ he says. ‘It’s for not knowing me.’

  “I’ll never forget that day. Raining cats and dogs it was, and me bent over an old taxi I’d got off a bloke in Wandsworth. I owed a bookie forty quid, and the coppers were sensitive about a car I’d bought on the never never and flogged in Clapham.”

  Mr Scarr drew breath, and let it out again with an air of comic resignation.

  “And there he was, standing over me like my own conscience, showering old singles on me like used tote tickets.”

  “What did he look like?” asked Mendel.

  “Quite young he was. Tall, fair chap. But cool—cool as charity. I never saw him after that day. He sent me letters posted in London and typed on plain paper. Just ‘Be ready Monday night,’ ‘Be ready Thursday night,’ and so on. We had it all arranged. I left the car out in the yard, full of petrol and teed up. He never said when he’d be back. Just ran it in about closing time or later, leaving the lights on and the doors locked. He’d put a couple of quid in the map pocket for each day he’d been away.”

  “What happened if anything went wrong, if you got pinched for something else?”

  “We had a telephone number. He told me to ring and ask for a name.”

  “What name?”

  “He told me to choose one. I chose Blondie. He didn’t think that was very funny but we stuck to it. Primrose 0098.”

  “Did you ever use it?”

  “Yes, a couple of years ago I took a bint to Margate for ten days. I thought I’d better let him know. A girl answered the phone—
Dutch too, by the sound of her. She said Blondie was in Holland, and she’d take a message. But after that I didn’t bother.”

  “Why not?”

  “I began to notice, see. He came regular once a fortnight, the first and third Tuesdays except January and February. This was the first January he come. He brought the car back Thursday usually. Odd him coming back tonight. But this is the end of him, isn’t it?” Scarr held in his enormous hand the piece of postcard he had taken from Mendel.

  “Did he miss at all? Away long periods?”

  “Winters he kept away more. January he never come, nor February. Like I said.”

  Mendel still had the £50 in his hand. He tossed them into Scarr’s lap.

  “Don’t think you’re lucky. I wouldn’t be in your shoes for ten times that lot. I’ll be back.”

  Mr Scarr seemed worried.

  “I wouldn’t have peached,” he said; “but I don’t want to be mixed up in nothing, see. Not if the old country’s going to suffer, eh, squire?”

  “Oh, shut up,” said Mendel. He was tired. He took the postcard back, got out of the car and walked away towards the hospital.

  There was no news at the hospital. Smiley was still unconscious. The CID had been informed. Mendel would do better to leave his name and address and go home. The hospital would telephone as soon as they had any news. After a good deal of argument Mendel obtained from the sister the key to Smiley’s car.

  Mitcham, he decided, was a lousy place to live.

  8

  REFLECTIONS IN A HOSPITAL WARD

  He hated the bed as a drowning man hates the sea. He hated the sheets that imprisoned him so that he could move neither hand nor foot.

  And he hated the room because it frightened him. There was a trolley by the door with instruments on it, scissors, bandages and bottles, strange objects that carried the terror of the unknown, swathed in white linen for the last Communion. There were jugs, tall ones half covered with napkins, standing like white eagles waiting to tear at his entrails, little glass ones with rubber tubing coiled inside them like snakes. He hated everything, and he was afraid. He was hot and the sweat ran off him, he was cold and the sweat held him, trickling over his ribs like cold blood. Night and day alternated without recognition from Smiley. He fought a relentless battle against sleep, for when he closed his eyes they seemed to turn inwards on the chaos of his brain; and when sometimes by sheer weight his eyelids drew themselves together he would summon all his strength to tear them apart and stare again at the pale light wavering somewhere above him.