The Looking Glass War by John le Carré Read Free Book Online Page B

put in one corner with a counterpane over it. A clean towel hung beside the basin. The desk was new, of grey steel, Government issue. The walls were filthy. Here and there the cream paint had peeled, showing dark green beneath. It was a small, square room with Ministry of Works curtains. There had been a row about the curtains, a question of equating Leclerc’s rank to the Civil Service scale. It was the one occasion, so far as Avery knew, when Leclerc had made any effort to improve the disorder of the room. The fire was nearly out. Sometimes when it was very windy the fire would not burn at all, and all through the day Avery could hear from next door the soot falling in the chimney.
    Avery watched them come in; Woodford first, then Sandford, Dennison and McCulloch. They had all heard about Taylor. It was easy to imagine the news going round the Department, not as headlines, but as a small and gratifying sensation, passed from room to room, lending a briskness to the day’s activity, as it had to these men; giving them a moment’s optimism, like a rise in pay. They would watch Leclerc, watch him as prisoners watch a warder. They knew his routine by instinct, and they waited for him to break it. There would not be a man or woman in the Department but knew they had been called in the middle of the night, and that Leclerc was sleeping in the office.
    They settled themselves at the table, putting their cups in front of them noisily like children at a meal, Leclerc at the head, the others on either side, an empty chair at the farther end. Haldane came in, and Avery knew as soon as he saw him that it would be Leclerc versus Haldane.
    Looking at the empty chair, he said, ‘I see I’m to take the draughtiest place.’
    Avery rose, but Haldane had sat down. ‘Don’t bother, Avery. I’m a sick man already.’ He coughed, just as he coughed all year. Not even the Summer could help him, apparently; he coughed in all seasons.
    The others fidgeted uncomfortably; Woodford helped himself to a biscuit. Haldane glanced at the fire. ‘Is that the best the Ministry of Works can manage?’ he asked.
    ‘It’s the rain,’ Avery said. ‘The rain disagrees with it. Pine’s had a go but he made no difference.’
    ‘Ah.’
    Haldane was a lean man with long, restless fingers; a man locked in himself, slow in his movements, agile in his features, balding, spare, querulous and dry; a man seemingly contemptuous of everything, keeping his own hours and his own counsel; addicted to crossword puzzles and nineteenth-century water colours.
    Carol came in with files and maps, putting them on Leclerc’s desk, which in contrast to the remainder of his room was very tidy. They waited awkwardly until she had gone. The door securely closed, Leclerc passed his hand cautiously over his dark hair as if he were not quite familiar with it.
    ‘Taylor’s been killed. You’ve all heard it by now. He was killed last night in Finland, travelling under another name.’ Avery noticed he never mentioned Malherbe. ‘We don’t know the details. He appears to have been run over. I’ve told Carol to put it about that it was an accident. Is that clear?’
    Yes, they said, it was quite clear.
    ‘He went to collect a film from … a contact, a Scandinavian contact. You know whom I mean. We don’t normally use the routine couriers for operational work, but this was different; something very special indeed. I think Adrian will back me up there.’ He made a little upward gesture with his open hands, freeing the wrists from his white cuffs, laying the palms and fingers vertically together; praying for Haldane’s support.
    ‘Special?’ Haldane repeated slowly. His voice was thin and sharp like the man himself, cultivated, without emphasis and without affectation; an enviable voice. ‘It was different, yes. Not least because Taylor died. We should never have used him, never,’ he observed flatly. ‘We broke a first principle of intelligence. We used a man on the