Call For The Dead s-1

by John le Carré

  He could think of nothing to say. After a while, she said: "He liked you, you know. He really liked you . . . he said you were a clever little man. It was quite a surprise when Samuel called anyone clever." She shook her head slowly. Perhaps it was the reaction that made her smile: "He used to say there were two forces in the world, the positive and the negative. 'What shall I do then?' he would ask me; 'Let them ruin their harvest because they give me bread? Creation, progress, power, the whole future of mankind waits at their door: shall I not let them in?' And I said to him: 'but Samuel, maybe the people are happy without these things?' But you know he didn't think of people like that.

  "But I couldn't stop him. You know the strangest thing about Fennan? For all that thinking and talking, he had made up his mind long ago what he would do. All the rest was poetry. He wasn't co-ordinated, that's what I used to tell him . . ?"

  "... and yet you helped him," said Smiley.

  "Yes, I helped him. He wanted help so I gave it him. He was my life?"

  "I see?"

  "That was a mistake. He was a little boy, you know. He forgot things just like a child. And so vain. He had made up his mind to do it and he did it so badly. He didn't think of it as you do, or I do. He simply didn't think of it like that. It was his work and that was all.

  "It began so simply. He brought home a draft telegram one night and showed it to me. He said; 'I think Dieter ought to see that' — that was all. I couldn't believe it to begin with — that he was a spy, I mean. Because he was, wasn't he? And gradually, I realised. They began to ask for special things. The music case I got back from Freitag began to contain orders, and sometimes money. I said to him: 'Look at what they are sending you — do you want this?' We didn't know what to do with the money. In the end we gave it away mostly, I don't know why. Dieter was very angry that winter, when I told him?"

  "What winter was that?" asked Smiley.

  "The second winter with Dieter — 1956 in Murren. We met him first in January, 1955. That was when it began. And shall I tell you something? Hungary made no difference to Samuel, not a tiny bit of difference. Dieter was frightened about him then, I know, because Freitag told me. When Fennan gave me the things to take to Weybridge that November I nearly went mad. I shouted at him: 'Can't you see it's the same? The same guns, the same children dying in the streets? Only the dream has changed, the blood is the same colour. Is this what you want?' I asked him: 'Would you do this for Germans, too? It's me who lies in the gutter, will you let them do it to me?' But he just said: 'No Elsa, this is different? And I went on taking the music case. Do you understand?"

  "I don't know. I just don't know. I think perhaps I do?"

  "He was all I had. He was my life. I protected myself, I suppose. And gradually I became a part of it, and then it was too late to stop .... And then you know," she said, in a whisper; "there were times when I was glad, times when the world seemed to applaud what Samuel was doing. It was not a pretty sight for us, the new Germany. Old names had come back, names that had frightened us as children. The dreadful, plump pride returned, you could see it even in the photographs in the papers, they. marched with the old rhythm. Fennan felt that too, but then thank God he hadn't seen what I saw.

  "We were in a camp outside Dresden, where we used to live. My father was paralysed. He missed tobacco more than anything and I used to roll cigarettes from any rubbish I could find in the camp — just to pretend with. One day a guard saw him smoking and began laughing. Some others came and they laughed too. My father was holding the cigarette in his paralysed hand and it was burning his fingers. He didn't know, you see.

  "Yes, when they gave guns to the Germans again, gave them money and uniforms, then sometimes — just for a little while — I was pleased with what Samuel had done. We are Jews, you know, and so .. ?"

  "Yes, I know, I understand," said Smiley: "I saw it too, a little of it."

  "Dieter said you had?"

  "Dieter said that?"

  "Yes. To Freitag. He told Freitag you were a very clever man. You once deceived Dieter before the war, and it was only long afterwards that he found out, that's what Freitag said. He said you were the best he'd ever met?"

  "When did Freitag tell you that?"

  She looked at him for a long time. He had never seen in any face such hopeless misery. He remembered how she had said to him before; "The children of my grief are dead." He understood that now, and heard it in her voice when at last she spoke:

  "Why, isn't it obvious? The night he murdered Samuel.

  "That's the great joke, Mr. Smiley. At the very moment when Samuel could have done so much for them — not just a piece here and a piece there, but all the time — so many music cases — at that moment their own fear destroyed them, turned them into animals and made them kill what they had made.

  "Samuel always said; 'they will win because they know and the others will perish because they do not: men who work for a dream will work for ever' — that's what he said. But I knew their dream, I knew it would destroy us. What has not destroyed? Even the dream of Christ."

  "It was Dieter then, who saw me in the park with Fennan?"

  "Yes."

  "And thought—"

  "Yes. Thought that Samuel had betrayed him. Told Freitag to kill Samuel?"

  "And the anonymous letter?"

  "I don't know. I don't know who wrote it. Someone who knew Samuel I suppose, someone from the office who watched him and knew. Or from Oxford, from the Party. I don't know. Samuel didn't know either."

  "But the suicide letter—"

  She looked at him, and her face crumpled. She was almost weeping again. She bowed her head:

  "I wrote it. Freitag brought the paper, and I wrote it. The signature was already there. Samuel's signature."

  Smiley went over to her, sat beside her on the sofa and took her hand. She turned on him in a fury and began screaming at him: "Take your hands off me! Do you think I'm yours because I don't belong to them? Go away! Go away and kill Freitag and Dieter, keep the game alive, Mr. Smiley. But don't think I'm on your side, d'you hear? Because I'm the wandering Jewess, the no-man's land, the battlefield for your toy soldiers. You can kick me and trample on me, see, but never, never touch me, never tell me you're sorry, d'you hear? Now get out! Go away and kill?"

  She sat there, shivering as if from cold. As he reached the door he looked back. There were no tears in her eyes.

  Mendel was waiting for him in the car.

  XIII

  The Inefficiency Of Samuel Fennan

  They arrived at Mitcham at lunch time. Peter Guillam was waiting for them patiently in his car.

  "Well, children; what's the news?"

  Smiley handed him the piece of paper from his wallet. "There was an emergency number, too — Primrose 9747. You'd better check it but

  I'm not hopeful of that either."

  Peter disappeared into the hall and began telephoning. Mendel busied himself in the kitchen and returned ten minutes later with beer, bread and cheese on a tray. Guillam came back and sat down without saying anything. He looked worried. "Well," he said at last; "what did she say, George?"

  Mendel cleared away as Smiley finished the account of his interview that morning.

  "I see," said Guillam. "How very worrying. Well, that's it, George, I shall have to put this on paper today, and I'll have to go to Maston at once. Catching dead spies is a poor game really — and causes a lot of unhappiness:'

  "What access did he have at the F.O.?" asked Smiley.

  "Recently a lot. That's why they felt he should be interviewed, as you know."

  "What kind of stuff, mainly?"

  "I don't know yet. He was on an Asian desk until a few months ago but his new job was different:"

  "American, I seem to remember," said Smiley. "Peter?"

  "Yes:"

  "Peter, have you thought at all why they wanted to kill Fennan so much. I mean, supposing he had betrayed them, as they thought, why kill him? They had nothing to gain:"

>   "No; no, I suppose they hadn't. That does need some explaining, come to think of it ... or does it? Suppose Fuchs or Maclean had betrayed them, 1 wonder what would have happened. Suppose they had reason to fear a chain reaction — not just here but in America — all over the world? Wouldn't they kill him to prevent that? There's so much we shall just never know."

  "Like the 8.30 call?" said Smiley.

  "Cheerio. Hang on here till I ring you, will you? Maston's bound to want to see you. They'll be running down the corridors when I tell them the glad news. I shall have to wear that special grin I reserve for bearing really disastrous tidings."

  Mendel saw him out and then returned to the drawing-room. "Best thing you can do is put your feet up," he said. "You look a ruddy mess, you do."

  "Either Mundt's here or he's no," thought Smiley as he lay on the bed in his waistcoat, his hands linked under his head. "If he's not, we're finished. It will be for Maston to decide what to do with Elsa Fennan, and my guess is he'll do nothing.

  "If Mundt is here, it's for one of three reasons: A, because Dieter told him to stay and watch the dust settle; B, because he's in bad odour and afraid to go back; C, because he has unfinished business.

  "A is improbable because it's not like Dieter to take needless risks. Anyway, it's a woolly idea.

  "B is unlikely because, while Mundt may be afraid of Dieter he must also, presumably, be frightened of a murder charge here. His wisest plan would be to go to another country.

  "C is more likely. If I was in Dieter's shoes I'd be worried sick about Elsa Fennan. The Pidgeon girl is immaterial — without Elsa to fill in the gaps she presents no serious danger. She was not a conspirator and there is no reason why she should particularly remember Elsa's friend at the theatre. No, Elsa constitutes the real danger?"

  There was, of course, a final possibility, which Smiley was quite unable to judge: the possibility that Dieter had other agents to control here through Mundt. On the whole he was inclined to discount this, but the thought had no doubt crossed Peter's mind.

  No ... it still didn't make sense — it wasn't tidy. He decided to begin again.

  What do we know? He sat up to look for pencil and paper and at once his head began throbbing. Obstinately he got off the bed and took a pencil from the inside pocket of his jacket. There was a writing pad in his suitcase. He returned to the bed, shaped the pillows to his satisfaction, took four aspirin from the bottle on the table and propped himself against the pillows, his short legs stretched before him. He began writing. First he wrote the heading in a neat, scholarly hand, and underlined it.

  "What do we know?"

  Then he began, stage by stage, to recount as dispassionately as possible the sequence of events hitherto:

  "On Monday 2nd January Dieter Frey saw me in the park talking to his agent and concluded…" Yes, what did Dieter conclude? That Fennan had confessed, was going to confess? That Fennan was my agent? "... and concluded that Fennan was dangerous, for reasons still unknown. The following evening, the first Tuesday in the month, Elsa Fennan took her husband's reports in a music case to the Weybridge Repertory Theatre, in the agreed way, and left the case in the cloakroom in exchange for a ticket. Mundt was to bring his own music case and do the same thing. Elsa and Mundt would then exchange tickets during the performance. Mundt did not appear. Accordingly she followed the emergency procedure and posted the ticket to a prearranged address, having left the theatre early to catch the last post from Weybridge. She then drove home to be met by Mundt, who had, by then, murdered Fennan, probably on Dieter's orders. He had shot him at point blank range as soon as he met him in the hall. Knowing Dieter, I suspect that he had long ago taken the precaution of keeping in London a few sheets of blank writing paper signed with samples, forged or authentic of Sam Fennan's signature, in case It was ever necessary to compromise or blackmail him. Assuming this to be so, Mundt brought a sheet with him in order to type the suicide letter over the signature on Fennan's own typewriter. In the ghastly scene which must have followed Elsa's arrival, Mundt realised that Dieter had wrongly interpreted Fennan's encounter with Smiley, but relied on Elsa to preserve her dead husband's reputation — not to mention her own complicity. Mundt was therefore reasonably safe. Mundt made Elsa type the letter, perhaps because he did not trust his English. (Note: But who the devil typed the first letter, the denunciation?)

  "Mundt then, presumably, demanded the music case he had failed to collect, and Elsa told him that she had obeyed standing instructions and posted the cloakroom ticket to the Hampstead address, leaving the music case at the theatre. Mundt reacted significantly: he forced her to telephone the theatre and to arrange for him to collect the case that night on his way back to London. Therefore either the address to which the ticket was posted was no longer valid, or Mundt intended at that stage to return home early the next morning without having time to collect the ticket and the case.

  "Smiley visits Walliston early on the morning of Wednesday 4th January and during the first interview takes an 8.30 call from the exchange which (beyond reasonable doubt) Fennan requested at 7.55 the previous evening. Why?

  "Later that morning S. returns to Elsa Fennan to ask about the 8.30 call — which she knew (on her own admission) would 'worry me' (no doubt Mundt's flattering description of my powers had had its effect). Having told S. a futile story about her bad memory she panics and rings Mundt.

  "Mundt, presumably equipped with a photograph or a description from Dieter, decides to liquidate S. (on Dieter's authority?) and later that day nearly succeeds. (Note: Mundt did not return the car to Scarr's garage till the night of the 4th. This does not necessarily prove that Mundt had no plans for flying earlier in the day. If he had originally meant to fly in the morning he might well have left the car at Scarr's earlier and gone to the airport by bus.)

  "It does seem pretty likely that Mundt changed his plans after Elsa's telephone call. It is not clear that he changed them because of her call." Would Mundt really be panicked by Elsa? Panicked into staying, panicked into murdering Adam Scarr, he wondered.

  The telephone was ringing in the hall.

  "George, it's Peter. No joy with the address or the telephone number. Dead end."

  "What do you mean?"

  "The telephone number and the address both led to the same place — furnished apartment in Highgate village?"

  "Well?" "Rented by a pilot in Lufteurope. He paid his two months' rent on 5th January and hasn't come back since."

  "Damn?"

  "The landlady remembers Mundt quite well. The pilot's friend. A nice polite gentleman he was, for a German, very open handed. He used to sleep on the sofa quite often."

  "Oh God."

  "I went through the room with a toothcomb. There was a desk in the corner. All the drawers were empty except one, which contained a cloakroom ticket. I wonder where that came from . . . Well, if you want a laugh, come round to the Circus. The whole of Olympus is seething with activity. Oh, incidentally —"

  "Yes?"

  "I dug around at Dieter's flat. Another lemon. He left on 4th January. Didn't tell the milkman."

  "What about his mail?"

  "He never received any, apart from bills. I also had a look at Comrade Mundt's little nest: couple of rooms over the Steel Mission. The furniture went out with the rest of the stuff. Sorry?"

  "I see."

  "I'll tell you an odd thing though, George. You remember I thought I might get on to Ferman's personal possessions — wallet, notebook and so on? From the police?"

  "Yes?"

  "Well, I did. His diary's got Dieter's full name entered in the address section with the Mission telephone number against it. Bloody cheek?"

  "It's more than that. It's lunacy. Good Lord."

  "Then for the fourth of January the entry is 'Smiley C.A. Ring 8.30: That was corroborated by an entry for the third, which ran 'request call for Wed. morning: There's your mysterious call:"

  "Still unexplained." A pause.

  "George, I se
nt Felix Taverner round to the F.O. to do some ferreting. It's worse than we feared in one way, but better in another.’"

  "Why?"

  "Well, Taverner got his hands on the registry schedules for the last two years. He was able to work out what files have been marked to Fennan's section. Where a file was particularly requested by that section they still have a requisition form."'

  "I'm listening?"

  "Felix found that three or four files were usually marked in to Fennan on a Friday afternoon and marked out again on Monday morning; the inference is that he took the stuff home at week-ends?"

  "Oh my Lord!"

  "But the odd thing is, George, that during the last six months, since his posting in fact, he tended to take home unclassified stuff which wouldn't have been of interest to anyone."

  "But it was during the last months that he began dealing mainly with secret files," said Smiley. "He could take home anything he wanted:"

  "I know, but he didn't. In fact you'd almost say it was deliberate. He took home very lowgrade stuff barely related to his daily work. His colleagues can't understand it now they think about it — he even took back some files handling subjects outside the scope of his section?"

  "And unclassified?"

  "Yes — of no conceivable intelligence value?"

  "How about earlier, before he came into his new job? What kind of stuff went home then?"

  "Much more what you'd expect — files he'd used during the day, policy and so on:"

  "Secret?"

  "Some were, some weren't. As they came."

  "But nothing unexpected — no particularly delicate stuff that didn't concern him?"

  "No. Nothing. He had opportunity galore quite frankly and didn't use it. Windy, I suppose."

  "So he ought to be if he puts his controller's name in his diary."

  "And make what you like of this: he'd arranged at the F.O. to take a day off on the fourth — the day after he died. Rather an event apparently — he was a glutton for work, they say."