A Legacy of Spies

by John le Carré

  It being the general rule that debriefings should commence while the subject is still ‘hot’, our team reassembled in the living room of the main house prompt at 0900 hours next morning. The session continued with intermissions until 2105 hours. Tape recording was monitored by Millie McCraig from her apartment, who also used the opportunity to make a thorough search of Tulip’s suite and possessions. Questioning was led by Lugg (Louisa) according to brief, with subsidiaries from Avon (Anna), and interjections from Dr Meadows (Frank) whenever an opportunity was offered to explore Tulip’s mind-set and motivation.

  Despite attempts to disguise the purpose of Frank’s seemingly innocent enquiries, however, Tulip was quick to identify their psychological nature and, on being informed that he was a medical doctor, mocked him for being a disciple of ‘that arch-liar and forger Sigmund Freud’. Whipping herself into a fury, she then announced that she had only ever had one doctor in her life and his name was Karl Riemeck; that Frank was an arsehole, and ‘if you [Dr Meadows] wish to make yourself useful to me, bring me my son!’ Not wishing to be a negative presence, Dr Meadows felt it sensible to return to London but to remain on hand should his services be required.

  For the next two days, despite such periodic outbursts, debriefing sessions proceeded efficiently in an atmosphere of relative calm, the tapes of each session being shuttled nightly to Marylebone.

  Of primary interest to H/Covert was the flow of Soviet intelligence on British targets, slight though it was, coming into Rapp’s office from Moscow. While accepting that very little of such intelligence had featured in the documents Tulip had succeeded in photographing, were there perhaps matters she had read or overheard in respect of Moscow’s live sources in the United Kingdom that she had either forgotten or considered unworthy of report? Was there any hint, any boasting, for instance, of highly placed live sources inside the British political or intelligence establishment? Of British codes and cyphers penetrated?

  Despite putting such questions to Tulip in many different guises, and it must be said to her increasing irritation, we are not able to point to any positive outcome. The value of Tulip’s product should nevertheless in our assessment be rated high to very high, bearing in mind that her reporting has been severely hampered by operational conditions. For as long as she was operative, she reported only to Mayflower, never to Berlin Station direct. Questions of potential sensitivity had not been conveyed to her on the grounds that, if divulged under interrogation, they would reveal weaknesses in our own intelligence armour. These could now be put without restraint: for example, enquiries regarding the reliability of other potential or active sub-sources; identity of foreign diplomats and politicians under Stasi control; the possible explanation of covert pay-streams revealed in documents that she had photographed on Rapp’s desk, but not otherwise handled; the location and appearance of secret signals installations she had visited while in Rapp’s company, their layout, their entry procedures, the size, shape and direction of their antennae, and any evidence of Soviet or other non-German presence on the site; and broadly any other intelligence which until now had effectively gone to waste due to the scarcity of time available for treffs with Mayflower, the scattershot nature of their conversations and the limitations imposed by clandestine methods of communication.

  While frequently expressing frustration and venting it in abusive language, Tulip also appeared to relish being the centre of attention, even bantering flirtatiously when allowed with Camp 4’s two security guards, Harper, the younger one, being particularly favoured. With the coming of each evening, however, her mood swiftly changed to one of guilty despair, its prime object being her son Gustav, but also her sister Lotte, whose life she claimed to have ruined by her defection.

  Safe house keeper Millie McCraig sat up with her intermittently through the night. Having discovered a mutual Christian faith, the two frequently prayed together, Tulip’s saint of choice being St Nicholas, a miniature icon of whom had accompanied her throughout her exfiltration. Their shared interest in cycling provided further common ground. At Tulip’s urging, McCraig (Ella) obtained a catalogue of children’s bicycles. Excited to discover that McCraig was Scottish, Tulip immediately demanded a map of the Scottish Highlands so that the two of them could discuss cycling routes together. An Ordnance Survey map was delivered from Head Office next day. However, her mood remained uneven, and tantrums were frequent. The sedatives and sleeping pills that McCraig provided at her request appeared to be of little avail.

  At any point in our debriefing sessions, Tulip would demand to know on what date Gustav would be exchanged, and even whether he had been exchanged already. In reply, she was assured according to brief that the matter was being negotiated at the highest level by the Herr Direktor and could not be resolved overnight.

  3. TULIP’s recreational needs.

  From the moment of her arrival in the UK, Tulip made clear her need for physical exercise. The RAF fighter plane had been cramped, the drive to Camp 4 had made her feel like a prisoner, confinement of any sort was unbearable to her, etc. Since the Camp 4 paths are not suitable for cycling, she would run. Having obtained her shoe size, Harper went into Salisbury for a pair of plimsolls and for the next three mornings Tulip and Avon (Anna), a keen exercise person, jogged the perimeter paths together before breakfast, Tulip taking with her a light shoulder bag for any fossil or rare stone that might interest Gustav. Borrowing the Russian jargon, she called it her ‘perhaps bag’. The estate also offers a small gymnasium which, when other means failed, provided Tulip with temporary relief from her evident stress. Regardless of the hour, Millie McCraig never failed to accompany her to the gymnasium.

  Tulip’s normal practice was to stand ready-dressed at the French window of her living room at 0600 hours and wait for Avon to appear. However on this particular morning, Tulip was not standing at her window. Avon therefore entered the guest suite from the garden side, calling out her name, rattling the bathroom door and, on receiving no response, opening it in vain. Avon then enquired of McCraig over the interconnecting phone where Tulip was to be found, but McCraig was unable to enlighten her. By now seriously concerned, Avon then set off at a fast pace along the perimeter path. As a precaution, McCraig meanwhile alerted Harper and Lowe that our guest had ‘gone runabout’, and the two security guards at once began quartering the estate.

  4. Discovery of TULIP. Personal Statement by J. Avon.

  Entered from the eastern side, the circuit path of the estate rises steeply for some twenty yards, and plateaus out for about a quarter of a mile before turning north and descending into a marshy dell crossed by a wooden footbridge leading in turn to an ascending wooden staircase of nine steps, the upper steps being partly overshadowed by a spreading chestnut tree.

  On turning north and beginning my descent to the dell, I caught sight of Tulip hanging by the neck from a low branch of the chestnut, eyes open and hands to her sides. It is my memory that the clearance between her feet and the nearest wooden step was no more than twelve inches. The noose around her neck was so thin that at first sight she appeared to be floating in thin air.

  I am a woman of 42. I must emphasize that I have recorded these impressions as they remain in my mind today. I am Service-trained and have experience of operational emergency. It is therefore humbling to confess that my only impulse on seeing Tulip hanging from a tree was to run back to the house as fast as possible and summon help rather than attempt to cut her down and resuscitate her. I deeply regret this lapse of operational composure, although I am now assured categorically that Tulip had been dead for at least six hours when I found her, which is a major relief to me. Plus the fact that I had no knife, and the rope was out of my reach.

  Supplementary report by Millie McCraig, safe house keeper, Camp 4, career officer Grade 2, on the care, maintenance and suicide of sub-source TULIP. Copy to George Smiley H/Covert (only).

  Millie as I knew her then: bride of the Service, devou
t daughter of a minister of the Free Presbyterian Church. Climbs the Cairngorms, rides to hounds and has a history of dangerous places. Lost her brother to the war, her father to cancer, and her heart, according to rumour, to a married older man who loved honour more. There were tongues that said the man in the case was George, though nothing I ever saw between them led me to believe it. But woe betide any of us young bloods who tried to lay a finger on her, for Millie would have none of us.

  1. Disappearance of TULIP.

  Having been informed by Jeanette Avon at 0610 hours that Tulip had set out for a morning run on her own, I immediately requested security (Harper and Lowe) to institute a search of the estate, concentrating on the perimeter path, which I understood from Avon to be Tulip’s preferred route. As a precaution I then undertook an inspection of the guest suite and established that her tracksuit and running shoes were still in her wardrobe. The French day clothes and underclothes with which she had been issued in Prague, on the other hand, were not. Although she had neither identity papers nor money in her possession, her handbag, which I had earlier established contained nothing beyond personal necessities, was also missing.

  The situation being beyond the competence of Covert, and H/Covert being absent on urgent duty in Berlin, I took the executive decision to call the duty officer at Joint Steering and request him to inform police liaison that an escaped mental patient answering Tulip’s description was at large in the vicinity, that she was non-violent, spoke no English and was undergoing psychiatric treatment. If found, she should be returned to this Institute.

  I then called Dr Meadows at his consulting rooms in Harley Street and left word with his secretary that he should please return asap to Camp 4, to be told that, having received word from HO, he was already on his way.

  2. Discovery of an unauthorized intruder at Camp 4.

  I had scarcely completed these calls when I received word from Harper over the Camp 4 internal intercommunication system advising me that, in the course of his search for Tulip, he had discovered, at a wooded point close to the eastern perimeter, an injured person, male, apparently an intruder, who having made his way through a freshly cut hole at a point close to the bypass, had stepped on, and activated, an ancient snare, partly overgrown, and presumably left there by a poacher in the days before the Circus acquired the premises.

  The said snare, an illegal and antiquated device, consisted of rusted dragon’s teeth, still sprung. The intruder, according to Harper, had caught his left leg in the mechanism and, by thrashing about, entangled himself further. He spoke good English, but with a foreign accent, and insisted that, on seeing the hole in the fence, he had climbed through it in order to perform a natural function. He also explained that he was a passionate birdwatcher.

  With the arrival of Lowe, the two men between them had released the intruder, whereupon he had punched Lowe in the stomach, then head-butted Harper in the face. After a further struggle, the two men had pacified the intruder and delivered him to the Stoop, which lay conveniently close. He was now confined in the holding cell (Submarine), with a temporary dressing to his left leg. In accordance with standing security procedure, Harper had reported the incident, providing as full a description as possible of the intruder directly to HO Internal Security and to H/Covert, now on his way back from Berlin. On my enquiring of Harper whether he or Lowe had meanwhile sighted the missing Tulip, he replied that the intruder had temporarily diverted them from their search, which they would immediately resume.

  3. News of TULIP’s death.

  It was approximately at this point of time that Jeanette Avon appeared at the porch of the main house in a distraught condition to announce that she had seen Tulip hanging by the neck from a tree, presumably dead, at point 217 on the estate map. I immediately passed this information to Harper and Lowe and, having confirmed that their intruder was immobilized, instructed them to proceed with all speed to point 217 and apply necessary assistance.

  I then sounded a Red Alert requiring all resident support staff to assemble immediately in the main house. This included the two cooks, one driver, one maintenance man, two cleaners and two laundrymen: see list at Appendix A. I informed them that a dead body had been found on the estate, and they should all remain in the main house until further notice. I did not consider it necessary to inform them that an unauthorized intruder had also been found.

  Fortunately at this juncture Dr Meadows appeared, having driven himself at high speed in his Bentley car. He and I at once set out along the eastern perimeter path in the direction of point 217. We arrived to find Tulip cut down and clearly dead, lying on the ground with a ligature in place around her neck, and Harper and Lowe standing watch over her. Harper, bleeding from the face having been head-butted by the intruder, was minded to summon the police, Lowe an ambulance. In the event, I advised that neither should be summoned without the approval of H/Covert who was on his way to Camp 4. Dr Meadows, after a preliminary examination of the body, was of a similar opinion.

  I accordingly instructed Harper and Lowe to return to the Stoop, contact nobody, await further orders and on no account attempt to engage their prisoner in conversation. Once they had departed the scene, Dr Meadows confided to me that Tulip had been dead for several hours before discovery.

  While Dr Meadows continued his examination of the dead woman, I took note of her attire, which consisted of her French twinset, pleated skirt and court shoes. The pockets of the twinset jacket were empty except for two used paper tissues. Tulip had been complaining of a slight cold. Her ‘perhaps bag’ was stuffed with her remaining French underclothes.

  Our instructions, which by now were being relayed non-stop from Head Office over the Camp 4 intercom, were to transfer the body immediately to the Stoop. I therefore summoned Harper and Lowe to act as stretcher party. This was promptly done, despite the fact that Harper by now was bleeding profusely from his wound.

  Together with Dr Meadows, I returned to the main house. To her credit, Avon had collected herself and was distributing tea and biscuits to the staff, and generally enlivening them. The Head Office crisis party under H/Covert was now expected to arrive by mid-afternoon. Meantime all but Harper and Lowe were to remain in the main house while Dr Meadows cleaned Harper’s facial contusions and attended the injured intruder now incarcerated in the Submarine.

  A discussion meanwhile took place among those confined to the main house. Jeanette Avon insisted on counting herself the person most responsible for Tulip’s suicide, but I took it upon myself to contradict this suggestion. Tulip was clinically depressed, her sense of guilt and longing for Gustav were unbearable, she had destroyed the life of her sister Lotte. Suicide was probably in her mind by the time she arrived in Prague, and certainly by the time she reached Camp 4. She had made her choices and paid the ultimate price.

  And now enter George, bearing false messages:

  4. Arrival of H/Covert [Smiley] and Inspector Mendel.

  H/Covert (Smiley) arrived at 1555 hours accompanied by Inspector (retd) Oliver Mendel, a Covert Occasional. Dr Meadows and I immediately escorted them to the Stoop.

  I then returned to the main house, where Ingeborg Lugg and Jeanette Avon together continued to soothe the agitations of the assembled staff. It was another two hours before Mr Smiley returned from the Stoop accompanied by Inspector Mendel. Calling the staff together, Mr Smiley offered his personal condolences, together with the assurance that sub-source Tulip had only herself to blame for her death, and nobody in Camp 4 had cause to reproach themselves.

  Evening was now coming on. With the shuttle bus waiting in the forecourt and many of the team anxious to get home to Salisbury, H/Covert took a moment to put their minds at rest regarding the discovery of a ‘mystery intruder’ of whom some might have heard. With Inspector Mendel smiling reassurance beside him, he confessed that he was about to ‘blab’ to the team a secret they would never normally share, but in the circumstances he had decid
ed that they deserved nothing less than full disclosure.

  The mystery intruder was no mystery, he explained. He was a valued member of an elite and little-known section of our sister service, MI5, tasked to penetrate by lawful and unlawful means the defences of our country’s most sensitive and secret facilities. As it happened, he was also a personal and professional friend of Inspector Mendel here. Laughter. It was in the nature of such live exercises that the facility targeted should not be informed, and the fact that the exercise had been scheduled for the same day that Tulip had elected to do away with herself was no more than ‘the act of a malign Providence’, to use Smiley’s words. The same Providence had guided the intruder’s feet into the deer trap. Laughter. Harper and Lowe had acquitted themselves nobly. Both had had the situation explained to them and ruefully accepted it, even if they felt, understandably, that ‘our friend had somewhat overdone his violent reaction’ – H/Covert, to more laughter.

  And for our further disinformation:

  H/Covert further confided to the gathering that the intruder, who was in fact no foreigner but an honest-to-God, all British native of Clapham, was already on his way to Casualty in Salisbury where he would receive a tetanus injection and have his injuries attended to. Inspector Mendel would be visiting his old friend shortly, and taking him a bottle of whisky with the compliments of Camp 4. Applause.