They never talked about Sarah. It was as if they shared a single relationship to Avery's wife, like children who are able to share a toy they no longer care for. LeClerc said, "Well, she's got that son of yours to keep her company."

"Yes, rather."

LeClerc was proud of knowing it was a son and not a daughter.

He took a cigarette from the silver box on his desk. He had told Avery once: the box was a gift, a gift from the war. The man who gave it to him was dead, the occasion for giving it was past; there was no inscription on the lid. Even now, he would say, he was not entirely certain whose side the man had been on, and Avery would laugh to make him happy.

Taking the file from his desk, LeClerc now held it directly under the light as if there were something in it which he must study very closely.

"John."

Avery went to him, trying not to touch his shoulder.

"What do you make of a face like that?"

"I don't know. It's hard to tell from photographs."

It was the head of a boy, round and blank, with long, fair hair swept back.

"Leiser. He looks all right, doesn't he? That was twenty years ago, of course," LeClerc said. "We gave him a very high rating." Reluctantly he put it down, struck his lighter and held it to the cigarette. "Well," he said briskly, "we seem to be up against something. I've no idea what happened to Taylor. We have a routine consular report, that's all. A car accident apparently. A few details, nothing informative. The sort of thing that goes out to next of kin. The Foreign Office sent us the teleprint as it came over the wire. They knew it was one of our pa.s.sports." He pushed a sheet of flimsy paper across the desk. He loved to make you read things while he waited. Avery glanced at it: "Malherbe? Was that Taylor's cover name?"

"Yes. I'll have to get a couple of cars from the Ministry pool," LeClerc said. "Quite absurd not having our own cars. The Circus has a whole fleet." And then, "Perhaps the Ministry will believe me now. Perhaps they'll finally accept we're still an operational department."

"Did Taylor collect the film?" Avery asked. "Do we know whether he got it?"

"I've no inventory of his possessions," LeClerc replied indignantly. "At the moment, all his effects are impounded by the Finnish police. Perhaps the film is among them. It's a small place and I imagine they like to stick to the letter of the law." And casually, so that Avery knew it mattered, "The Foreign Office is afraid there may be a muddle."

"Oh dear," said Avery automatically. It was their practice in the Department: antique and understated.

LeClerc looked directly at him now, taking interest. "The Resident Clerk at the Foreign Office spoke to the a.s.sistant half an hour ago. They refuse to involve themselves. They say we're a clandestine service and must do it our own way. Somebody's got to go out there as next of kin; that is the course they favour To claim the body and effects and get them back here. I want you to go."

Avery was suddenly aware of the pictures round the room, of the boys who had fought in the war. They hung in two rows of six, either side of the model of a Wellington bomber, rather a dusty one, painted black with no insignia. Most of the photographs had been taken out of doors. Avery could see the hangars behind, and between the young, smiling faces the half-hidden fuselages of parked aircraft.

Beneath each photograph were signatures, already brown and faded, some fluent and racy, others-they must have been the other-ranks-self-conscious and elaborate, as if the writers had come unnaturally to fame. There were no surnames, but sobriquets from children's magazines: Jacko, Shorty, Pip and Lucky Joe. Only the Mae West was uniform, the long hair and the sunny, boyish smile. They seemed to like having their photographs taken, as if being together were an occasion for laughter which might not be repeated. The men in front were crouching comfortably, like men used to crouching in gun turrets, and those behind had put their arms carelessly over one another's shoulders. There was no affectation but a spontaneous goodwill which does not seem to survive war or photographs.

One face was common to every picture, right to the end: the face of a slim, bright-eyed man in a duffle coat and corduroy trousers. He wore no life jacket and stood a little apart from the men as if he were somehow extra. He was smaller than the rest, older. His features were formed; he had a purpose about him which the others lacked. He might have been their schoolmaster. Avery had once looked for his signature to see if it had altered in the nineteen years, but LeClerc had not signed his name. He was still very like his photograph: a shade more set around the jaw perhaps, a shade less hair.

"But that would be an operational job," said Avery uncertainly.

"Of course. We're an operational department, you know." A little buck of the head. "You are ent.i.tled to operational subsistence. All you have to do is collect Taylor's stuff. You're to bring back everything except the film, which you deliver to an address in Helsinki. You'll be instructed about that separately. You come back and you can help me with Leiser-"

"Couldn't the Circus take it on? I mean, couldn't they do it more simply?"

This smile came slowly. "I'm afraid that wouldn't answer at all. It's our show, John: the commitment is within our competence. A military target. I would be shirking our responsibility if I gave it to the Circus. Their charter is political, exclusively political."

His small hand ran over his hair, a short, concise movement, tense and controlled. "So it's our problem. Thus far, the Ministry approves my reading"-a favourite expression- "I can send someone else if you prefer-Woodford or one of the older men. I thought you'd enjoy it. It's an important job, you know; something new for you to tackle."

"Of course. I'd like to go ... if you trust me."

LeClerc enjoyed that. Now he pushed a piece of blue draft paper into Avery's hand. It was covered with LeClerc's own writing, boyish and rounded. He had written "Ephemeral" at the top and underlined it. In the left-hand margin were his initials, all four, and beneath them the word Uncla.s.sified. Once more Avery began reading.

"If you follow it carefully," LeClerc said, "you'll see that we don't specifically state that you are next of kin; we just quote from Taylor's application form. That's as far as the Foreign Office people are prepared to go. They've agreed to send this to the local consulate via Helsinki."

Avery read: Following from Consular Department. Your Teleprint re Malherbe. John Somerton Avery, holder of British pa.s.sport no -, half brother of deceased, is named in Malherbe's pa.s.sport application as next of kin. Avery informed and proposes fly out today take over body and effects. NAS flight 201 via Hamburg, ETA 1820 local time. Please provide usual facilities and a.s.sistance.

"I didn't know your pa.s.sport number," LeClerc said. "The plane leaves at three this afternoon. It's only a small place; I imagine the Consul will meet you at the airport. There's a flight from Hamburg every other day. If you don't have to go to Helsinki you can take the same plane back."

"Couldn't I be his brother?" Avery asked lamely. "Half brother looks fishy."

"There's no time to rig the pa.s.sport. The Foreign Office is being very sticky about pa.s.sports. We had a lot of trouble about Taylor's." He had returned to the file. "A lot of trouble. It would mean calling you Malherbe as well, you see. I don't think they'd like that." He spoke without attention, paying out rope.

The room was very cold.

Avery said, "What about our Scandinavian friend"-LeClerc looked uncomprehending-"Lansen. Shouldn't someone contact him?"

"I'm attending to that." LeClerc, hating questions, replied cautiously as if he might be quoted.

"And Taylor's wife?" It seemed pedantic, to say widow. "Are you attending to her?"

"I thought we'd go around first thing in the morning. She doesn't have a telephone. Telegrams are so cryptic."

"We?" said Avery. "Do we both need to go?"

"You're my aide, aren't you?" LeClerc said.

It was too quiet. Avery longed for the sound of traffic and the buzz of telephones. By day they had people about them, the tramp of messengers, the drone of registry trolleys. He had the feeling, when alone with LeClerc, that the third person was missing. No one else made him so conscious of behaviour, no one else had such a disintegrating effect on conversation. He wished LeClerc would give him something else to read.

"Have you heard anything about Taylor's wife?" LeClerc asked. "Is she a secure sort of person?"

Seeing that Avery did not understand, he continued: "She could make it awkward for us, you know. If she decided to. We shall have to tread carefully."

"What will you say to her?"

"We shall play it by ear. The way we did in the war. She won't know, you see. She won't even know he was abroad."

"He might have told her."

"Not Taylor. Taylor's an old hand. He had his instructions and knew the rules. She must have a pension, that's most important. Active service." He made another brisk, finite gesture with his hand.

"And the staff; what will you tell them?"

"I shall hold a meeting this morning for Heads of Sections. As for the rest of the Department, we shall say it was an accident."

"Perhaps it was," Avery suggested.

LeClerc was smiling again; an iron bar of a smile, like an affliction.

"In which case we shall have told the truth; and have more chance of getting that film."

There was still no traffic in the street outside. Avery felt hungry. LeClerc glanced at his watch.

"You were looking at Gorton's report," Avery said.

He shook his head, wistfully touched a file, revisiting a favourite alb.u.m. "There's nothing there. I've read it over and over again. I've had the other photographs blown up to every conceivable size. Haldane's people have been on them night and day. We just can't get any further."

Sarah was right: to help him wait.

LeClerc said-it seemed suddenly the point of their meeting-"I've arranged for you to have a short talk with George Smiley at the Circus after this morning's conference. You've heard of him?"

"No," Avery lied. This was delicate ground.

"He used to be one of their best men. Typical of the Circus in some ways, of the better kind. He resigns, you know, and comes back. His conscience. One never knows whether he's there or not. He's a bit past it now. They say he drinks a good deal. Smiley has the North European desk. He can brief you about dropping the film. Our own courier service is disbanded, so there's no other way: the P.O. doesn't want to know us; after Taylor's death I can't allow you to run around with the thing in your pocket. How much do you know about the Circus?" He might have been asking about women, wary, an older man without experience.

"A bit," said Avery. "The usual gossip."

LeClerc stood up and went to the window. "They're a curious crowd. Some good, of course. Smiley was good. But they're cheats," he broke out suddenly. "That's an odd word, I know, to use about a sister service, John. Lying's second nature to them. Half of them don't know any longer when they're telling the truth." He was inclining his head studiously this way and that to catch sight of whatever moved in the waking street below. "What wretched weather. There was a lot of rivalry during the war, you know."

"I heard."

"That's all over now. I don't grudge them their work. They've more money and more staff than we have. They do a bigger job. However, I doubt whether they do a better one. Nothing can touch our Research Section, for example. Nothing." Avery suddenly had the feeling that LeClerc had revealed something intimate, a failed marriage or a discreditable act, and that now it was all right.

"When you see Smiley, he may ask you about the operation. I don't want you to tell him anything, do you see, except that you are going to Finland and you may be handling a film for urgent dispatch to London. If he presses you, suggest it is a training matter. That's all you're authorized to say. The background, Gorton's report, future operations-none of that concerns them in the least. A training matter."

"I realize that. But he'll know about Taylor, won't he, if the P.O. knows?"

"Leave that to me. And don't be misled into believing the Circus has a monopoly of agent running. We have the same right. We just don't unnecessarily." He had restated his text.

Avery watched LeClerc's slim back against the lightening sky outside; a man excluded, a man without a card, he thought.

"Could we light the fire?" he asked, and went into the corridor where Pine had a cupboard for mops and brushes. There was kindling wood and some old newspapers. He came back and knelt in front of the fireplace, keeping the best pieces of cinder and coaxing the ash through the grate, just as he would in the flat at Christmas. "I wonder if it was really wise to let them meet at the airport," he asked.

"It was urgent. After Jimmy Gorton's report, it was very urgent. It still is. We haven't a moment to lose."

Avery held a match to the newspaper and watched it burn. As the wood caught, the smoke began to roll gently into his face, causing his eyes to water behind his gla.s.ses. "How could they know Lansen's destination?"

"It was a scheduled flight. He had to get clearance in advance."

Tossing more coal on to the fire, Avery got up and rinsed his hands at the basin in the corner, drying them on his handkerchief.

"I keep asking Pine to put me out a towel," said LeClerc. "They haven't enough to do, that's half the trouble."

"Never mind." Avery put the wet handkerchief in his pocket. It felt cold against his thigh. "Perhaps they will have now," he added without irony.

"I thought I'd get Pine to make me up a bed here. A sort of ops room." LeClerc spoke cautiously, as if Avery might deprive him of the pleasure. "You can ring me here tonight from Finland. If you've got the film, just say the deal's come off."

"And if not?"

"Say the deal's off."

"It sounds rather alike," Avery objected. "If the line's bad, I mean. 'Off' and 'Come off.'"

"Then say they're not interested. Say something negative. You know what I mean."

Avery picked up the empty scuttle. "I'll give this to Pine."

He pa.s.sed the duty room. An Air Force clerk was half asleep beside the telephones. He made his way down the wooden staircase to the front door.

"The Boss wants some coal, Pine." The porter stood up, as he always did when anyone spoke to him, at attention by his bed in a barrack room.

"I'm sorry, sir. Can't leave the door."

"For G.o.d's sake, I'll look after the door. We're freezing up there."

Pine took the scuttle, b.u.t.toned his tunic and disappeared down the pa.s.sage. He didn't whistle these days.

"And a bed made up in his room," Avery continued when Pine returned. "Perhaps you'd tell the duty clerk when he wakes up. Oh, and a towel. He must have a towel by his basin."

"Yes, sir. Wonderful to see the old Department on the march again."

"Where can we get breakfast around here? Is there anywhere nearby?"

"There's the Cadena," Pine replied doubtfully. "But I don't know whether it would do for the Boss, sir. We had the canteen in the old days. Slingers and wadge."

It was quarter to seven. "When does the Cadena open?"

"Couldn't say, sir."

"Tell me, do you know Mr. Taylor at all?" He nearly said "did."

"Oh yes, sir."

"Have you met his wife?"

"No, sir."

"What's she like? Have you any idea? Heard anything?"

"Couldn't say, I'm sure, sir. Very sad business indeed, sir."

Avery looked at him in astonishment. LeClerc must have told him, he thought, and went upstairs. Sooner or later he would have to telephone Sarah.

Three.