The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

10 The Third Day

Peters didn't appear that afternoon, nor the next morning. Leamas stayed in, waiting with growing irritation for some message, but none came. He asked the housekeeper but she just smiled and shrugged her heavy shoulders. At about eleven o'clock the next morning he decided to go out for a walk along the front, bought some cigarettes and stared dully at the sea.

There was a girl standing on the beach throwing bread to the sea gulls. Her back was turned to him. The sea wind played with her long black hair and pulled at her coat, making an arc of her body, like a bow strung toward the sea. He knew then what it was that Liz had given him; the thing that he would have to go back and find if ever he got home to England: it was the caring about little things—the faith in ordinary life; that simplicity that made you break up a bit of bread into a paper bag, walk down to the beach and throw it to the gulls. It was this respect for triviality which he had never been allowed to possess; whether it was bread for the sea gulls or love, whatever it was he would go back and find it; he would make Liz find it for him. A week, two weeks perhaps, and he would be home. Control had said he could keep whatever they paid—and that would be enough. With fifteen thousand pounds, a gratuity and a pension from the Circus, a man—as Control would say—can afford to come in from the cold.

He made a detour and returned to the bungalow at a quarter to twelve. The woman let him in without a word, but when he had gone into the back room he heard her lift the receiver and dial a telephone number. She spoke for only a few seconds. At half-past twelve she brought his lunch, and, to his pleasure, some English newspapers which he read contentedly until three o'clock. Leamas, who normally read nothing, read newspapers slowly and with concentration. He remembered details, like the names and addresses of people who were the subject of small news items. He did it almost unconsciously as a kind of private pelmanism, and it absorbed him entirely.

At three o'clock Peters arrived, and as soon as Leamas saw him he knew that something was up. They did not sit at the table; Peters did not take off his mackintosh.

"I've got bad news for you," he said. "They're looking for you in England. I heard this morning. They're watching the ports."

Leamas replied impassively, "On what charge?"

"Nominally for failing to report to a police station within the statutory period after release from prison."

"And in fact?"

"The word is going around that you're wanted for an offense under the Official Secrets Act. Your photograph's in all the London evening papers. The captions are very vague."

Leamas was standing very still.

Control had done it. Control had started the hue and cry. There was no other explanation. If Ashe or Kiever had been pulled in, if they had talked—even then, the responsibility for the hue and cry was still Control's. "A couple of weeks," he'd said; "I expect they'll take you off somewhere for the interrogation—it may even be abroad. A couple of weeks should see you through, though. After that, the thing should run itself. You'll have to lie low over here while the chemistry works itself out; but you won't mind that, I'm sure. I've agreed to keep you on operational subsistence until Mundt is eliminated: that seemed the fairest way."

And now this.

This wasn't part of the bargain; this was different. What the hell was he supposed to do? By pulling out now, by refusing to go along with Peters, he was wrecking the operation. It was just possible that Peters was lying, that this was the test—all the more reason that he should agree to go. But if he went, if he agreed to go east, to Poland, Czechoslovakia or God knows where, there was no good reason why they should ever let him out—there was no good reason (since he was notionally a wanted man in the West) why he should want to be let out.

Control had done it—he was sure. The terms had been too generous, he'd known that all along. They didn't throw money about like that for nothing—not unless they thought they might lose you. Money like that was a douceur for discomforts and dangers Control would not openly admit to. Money like that was a warning; Leamas had not heeded the warning.

"Now how the devil," he asked quietly, "could they get onto that?" A thought seemed to cross his mind and he said, "Your friend Ashe could have told them, of course, or Kiever..."

"It's possible," Peters replied. "You know as well as I do that such things are always possible. There is no certainty in our job. The fact is," he added with something like impatience, "that by now every country in Western Europe will be looking for you."

Leamas might not have heard what Peters was saying. "You've got me on the hook now, haven't you, Peters?" he said. "Your people must be laughing themselves sick. Or did they give the tip-off themselves?"

"You overrate your own importance," Peters said sourly.

"Then why do you have me followed, tell me that? I went for a walk this morning. Two little men in brown suits, one twenty yards behind the other, trailed me along the seafront. When I came back the housekeeper rang you up."

"Let us stick to what we know," Peters suggested. "How your own authorities have got on to you does not at the moment acutely concern us. The fact is, they have."

"Have you brought the London evening papers with you?"

"Of course not. They are not available here. We received a telegram from London."

"That's a lie. You know perfectly well your apparatus is only allowed to communicate with Centre."

"In this case a direct link between two outstations was permitted," Peters retorted angrily.

"Well, well," said Leamas with a wry smile, "you must be quite a big wheel. Or"—a thought seemed to strike him—"isn't Centre in on this?"

Peters ignored the question.

"You know the alternative. You let us take care of you, let us arrange your safe passage, or you fend for yourself—with the certainty of eventual capture. You've no false papers, no money, nothing. Your British passport will have expired in ten days."

"There's a third possibility. Give me a Swiss passport and some money and let me run. I can look after myself."

"I am afraid that is not considered desirable."

"You mean you haven't finished the interrogation. Until you have I am not expendable?"

"That is roughly the position."

"When you have completed the interrogation, what will you do with me?" Peters shrugged. "What do you suggest?"

"A new identity. Scandinavian passport perhaps. Money."

"It's very academic," Peters replied, "but I will suggest it to my superiors. Are you coming with me?"

Leamas hesitated. Then he smiled a little uncertainly and asked, "If I didn't, what would you do? After all, I've quite a story to tell, haven't I?"

"Stories of that kind are hard to substantiate. I shall be gone tonight. Ashe and Kiever..." He shrugged. "What do they add up to?"

Leamas went to the window. A storm was gathering over the gray North Sea. He watched the gulls wheeling against the dark clouds. The girl had gone.

"All right," he said at last, "fix it up."

"There's no plane east until tomorrow. There's a flight to Berlin in an hour. We shall take that. It's going to be very close."

Leamas' passive role that evening enabled him once again to admire the unadorned efficiency of Peters' arrangements. The passport had been put together long ago—Centre must have thought of that. It was made out in the name of Alexander Thwaite, travel agent, and filled with visas and frontier stamps—the old, well-fingered passport of the professional traveler. The Dutch frontier guard at the airport just nodded and stamped it for form's sake—Peters was three or four behind him in the queue and took no interest in the formalities.

As they entered the "passengers only" enclosure Leamas caught sight of a bookstall. A selection of international newspapers was on show: Figaro, Monde, Neue Züricher Zeitung, Die Welt, and half a dozen British dailies and weeklies. As he watched, the girl came around to the front of the kiosk and pushed an Evening Standard into the rack. Leamas hurried across to the bookstall and took the paper from the rack.

"How much?" he asked. Thrusting his hand into his trouser pocket he suddenly realized that he had no Dutch currency.

"Thirty cents," the girl replied. She was rather pretty; dark and jolly.

"I've only got two English shillings. That's a guilder. Will you take them?"

"Yes, please," she replied, and Leamas gave her the florin. He looked back. Peters was still at the passport desk, his back turned. Without hesitation Leamas made straight for the men's lavatory. There he glanced rapidly but thoroughly at each page, then shoved the paper in the litter basket and re-emerged. It was true: there was his photograph with the vague little passage underneath. He wondered if Liz had seen it. He made his way thoughtfully to the passengers' lounge. Ten minutes later they boarded the plane for Hamburg and Berlin. For the first time since it all began. Leamas was frightened.