Call For The Dead

'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 C.I.D. 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.

VIII 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.

Then came a blessed day when someone must have drawn the blinds and let in the grey winter light. He heard the sound of traffic outside and knew at last that he would live.

So the problem of dying once more became an academic one — a debt he would postpone until he was rich and could pay in his own way. It was a luxurious feeling, almost of purity. His mind was wonderfully lucid, ranging like Prometheus over his whole world; where had he heard that: 'the mind becomes separated from the body, rules a paper kingdom ..'? He was bored by the light above him, and wished there was more to look at. He was bored by the grapes, the smell of honeycomb and flowers, the chocolates. He wanted books, and literary Journals; how could he keep up with his reading if they gave him no books? There was so little research done on his period as it was so little creative criticism on the seventeenth century.

It was three weeks before Mendel was allowed to see him. He walked in holding a new hat and carrying a book about bees. He put his hat on the end of the bed and the book on the bedside table. He was grinning.

'I bought you a book,' he said; 'about bees. They're clever little beggars. Might interest You.'

He sat on the edge of the bed. 'I got a new hat. Daft really. Celebrate my retirement. '

'Oh yes, I forgot. You're on the shelf too.' They both laughed, and were silent again.

Smiley blinked. 'I'm afraid you're not very distinct at the moment. I'm not allowed to wear my oId glasses. They're getting me some new ones.' He paused. 'You don't know who did this to me, do you?'

'May do. Depends. Got a lead, I think. I don't know enough, that's the trouble. About your job, I mean. Does the East German Steel Mission mean anything to you?'

'Yes I think so. It came here four years ago to try ,and get a foot in the Board of Trade.'

Mendel gave an account of his transactions with Mr. Scarr. '... Said he was Dutch. The only way Scarr had of getting in touch with him was by ringing a Primrose telephone number. I checked the subscriber. Listed as the East German Steel Mission, in Belsize Park. I sent a bloke to sniff round. They've cleared out. Nothing there at all, no furniture, nothing. Just the telephone, and that's been ripped out of its socket.'

'When did they go?'

'3rd January. Same day as Fennan was murdered.' He looked at Smiley quizzically. Smiley thought for a minute and said:

'Get hold of Peter Guillam at the Ministry of Defence and bring him here tomorrow. By the scruff of the neck?'

Mendel picked up his hat and walked to the door.

'Goodbye,' said Smiley; 'thank you for the book.'

'See you tomorrow,' said Mendel, and left.

Smiley lay back in bed. His head was aching. Damn, he thought, I never thanked him for the honey. It had come from Fortnums, too.

Why the early morning call? That was what puzzled him more than anything. It was silly, really, Smiley supposed, but of all the unaccountables in the case, that worried him most.

Elsa Fennan's explanation had been so stupid, so noticeably unlikely. Ann, yes; she would make the exchange stand on its head if she'd felt like it, but not Elsa Fennan. There was nothing in that alert, intelligent little face, nothing in her total independence to support the ludicrous claim to absent-mindedness. She could have said the ex- change had made a mistake, had called the wrong day, anything. Fennan, yes; he had been absentminded. It was one of the odd inconsistencies about Fennan's character which had emerged in the enquiries before the interview. A voracious reader of Westerns and a passionate chess player, a musician and a spare time philosopher, a deep thinking man — but absent-minded. There had been a frightful row once about him taking some secret papers out of the Foreign Office, and it turned out that he had put them in his despatch case with his Times and the evening paper before going home to Walliston.

Had Elsa Fennan, in her panic, taken upon herself the mantle of her husband? Or the motive of her husband? Had Fennan asked for the call to remind him of something, and had Elsa borrowed the motive? Then what did Fennan need to be reminded of — and what did his wife so strenuously wish to conceal?

Samuel Fennan. The new world and the old met in him. The eternal Jew, cultured, cosmopolitan, self- determinate, industrious and perceptive: to Smiley, immensely attractive. The child of his century; persecuted, like Elsa, and driven from his adopted Germany to University in England. By the sheer weight of his ability he had pushed aside disadvantage and prejudice, finally to enter the Foreign Office. It had been a remarkable achievement, owed to nothing but his own brilliance. And if he was a little conceited, a little disinclined to bide the decision of minds more pedestrian than his own, who could blame him? There had been some embarrassment when Fennan pronounced himself in favour of a divided Germany, but it had all blown over, he had been transferred to an Asian desk and the affair was forgotten. For the rest, he had been generous to a fault, and popular both in Whitehall and in Surrey, where he devoted several hours each week-end to charity work. His great love was skiing. Every year he took all his leave at once and spent six weeks in Switzerland or Austria. He had visited Germany only once, Smiley remembered — with his wife about four years ago.