The Russia House by John le Carré Read Free Book Online Page A

of freewheelers in Notting Hill.’
    Ned gave a pleasant laugh. ‘And did you tell Spikey about the notebooks? In your relief, Niki? It would have been perfectly natural in the circumstances. To confide.’
    ‘I wouldn’t dream of it, Ned. Not to a soul. I never did, I never will. I’m only telling you because he’s vanished and you’re official.’
    ‘How about Lydia?’
    The offence to Landau’s dignity momentarily outweighed his admiration of Ned, and even his surprise at Ned’s familiarity with his affairs.
    ‘My ladies, Ned, they know a little about me. They may even think they know more than they do,’ he replied. ‘But they do not share my secrets because they are not invited to.’
    Ned continued writing. And somehow the trim movement of the pen, coupled with the suggestion that he could have been indiscreet, provoked Landau into chancing his hand, because he had noticed already that every time he started to talk about Barley, a kind of freeze settled over Ned’s quietly reassuring features.
    ‘And Barley’s really all right, is he? He hasn’t had an accident or anything?’
    Ned seemed not to hear. He took a fresh card and resumed his writing.
    ‘I suppose Barley would have used the Embassy, wouldn’t he?’ said Landau. ‘Him being a professional. Barley. It’s the chess that gives him away, if you want to know. He shouldn’t play it, in my opinion. Not in public.’
    Then and only then did Ned’s head rise slowly from the page. And Landau saw a stony expression in his face that was more frightening than his words. ‘We never mention names like that, Niki,’ said Ned very quietly. ‘Not even among ourselves. You couldn’t know, so you’ve done nothing wrong. Just please don’t do it again.’
    Then seeing perhaps the effect that he had had on Landau, he got up and strolled to a satinwood sidetable and poured two glasses of sherry from a decanter and handed one to Landau. ‘And yes, he’s all right,’ he said.
    So they drank a silent toast to Barley, whose name Landau had by then sworn to himself ten times already would never again cross his lips.
    ‘We don’t want you to go to Gdansk next week,’ said Ned. ‘We’ve arranged a medical certificate and compensation for you. You’re ill. Suspected ulcer. And stay away from work in the meantime, do you mind?’
    ‘I’ll do whatever you say,’ said Landau.
    But before he left he signed a declaration of the Official Secrets Act while Ned benignly looked on. It’s a weaselly document in legal terms, calculated to impress the signatory and no one else. But then the Act itself is scarcely a credit to its drafters either.
    After that, Ned switched off the microphones and the hidden video cameras that the twelfth floor had insisted on because it was becoming that kind of operation.
    And this far, Ned did everything alone, which was his good right as head of the Russia House. Fieldmen are nothing if not loners. He didn’t even call in old Palfrey to read the riot act. Not yet.
    If Landau had felt neglected until that afternoon, for the rest of the week he was swamped with attention. Early the next morning, Ned telephoned asking him with his customary courtesy to present himself to an address in Pimlico. It turned out to be a 1930s block of flats, with curved steel-framed windows painted green and an entrance that should have led to a cinema. In the presence of two men whom he did not introduce, Ned took Landau crisply through his story a second time, then threw him to the wolves.
    The first to speak was a distraught, floating man with baby-pink cheeks and baby-clear eyes and a flaxen jacket to match his straggling flaxen hair. His voice floated too. ‘You said a blue dress, I think? My name’s Walter,’ he added, as if himself startled by the news.
    ‘I did, sir.’
    ‘You’re sure?’ he piped, rolling his head and peering crookedly at him from under his silken brow.
    ‘Totally, sir. A blue dress with a brown perhaps-bag. Most