A Murder of Quality

There was a moment's silence, then Smiley continued: 'Our readers will, of course, remember Mrs Rode as the winner of our Kitchen Hints competition. Was she a good cook, Mr Rode?'

'Very good, for plain things, not fancy.'

'Is there any little fact that you would specially like us to include, anything she herself would like to be remembered by?'

Rode looked at him with expressionless eyes. Then he shrugged.

'No, not really. I can't think of anything. Oh, you could say her father was a magistrate up North. She was proud of that.'

Smiley finished his coffee and stood up.

'You've been very patient with me, Mr Rode. We're most grateful, I assure you. I'll take care to send you an advance copy of our notice…'

'Thanks. I did it for her, you see. She liked the Voice; always did. Grew up with it.'

They shook hands.

'By the way, do you know where I can find old Mr Glaston? Is he staying in Carne or has he returned to Branxome?'

'He was up here yesterday. He's going back to Branxome this afternoon. The police wanted to see him before he left.'

'I see.'

'He's staying at the Sawley.'

'Thank you. I might try and see him before I go.'

'When do you leave, then?'

'Quite soon, I expect. Good-bye, then, Mr Rode. Incidentally—' Smiley began.

'Yes?'

'If ever you're in London and at a loose end, if ever you want a chat… and a cup of tea, we're always pleased to see you at the Voice, you know. Always.'

'Thanks. Thanks very much, Mr—'

'Smiley.'

'Thanks, that's very decent. No one's said that to me for a long time. I'll take you up on that one day. Very good of you.'

'Good-bye.' Again they shook hands; Rode's was dry and cool. Smooth.

He returned to the Sawley Arms, sat himself at a desk in the empty resident's lounge and wrote a note to Mr Glaston:

Dear Mr Glaston,

I am here on behalf of Miss Brimley of the Christian Voice. I have some letters from Stella which I think you would like to see. Forgive me for bothering you at this sad moment; I understand you are leaving Carne this afternoon and wondered if I might see you before you left.

He carefully sealed the envelope and took it to the reception desk. There was no one there, so he rang the bell and waited. At last a porter came, an old turnkey with a grey, bristly face, and after examining the envelope critically for a long time, he agreed, against an excessive fee, to convey it to Mr Glaston's room. Smiley stayed at the desk, waiting for his answer.

Smiley himself was one of those solitaries who seem to have come into the world fully educated at the age of eighteen. Obscurity was his nature, as well as his profession. The byways of espionage are not populated by the brash and colourful adventurers of fiction. A man who, like Smiley, has lived and worked for years among his country's enemies learns only one prayer: that he may never, never be noticed. Assimilation is his highest aim, he learns to love the crowds who pass him in the street without a glance; he clings to them for his anonymity and his safety. His fear makes him servile—he could embrace the shoppers who jostle him in their impatience, and force him from the pavement. He could adore the officials, the police, the bus conductors, for the terse indifference of their attitudes.

But this fear, this servility, this dependence, had developed in Smiley a perception for the colour of human beings: a swift, feminine sensitivity to their characters and motives. He knew mankind as a huntsman knows his cover, as a fox the wood. For a spy must hunt while he is hunted, and the crowd is his estate. He could collect their gestures and their words, record the interplay of glance and movement, as a huntsman can record the twisted bracken and the broken twig, or as a fox detects the signs of danger.

Thus, while he waited patiently for Glaston's reply and recalled the crowded events of the last forty-eight hours, he was able to order and assess them with detachment. What was the cause of D'Arcy's attitude to Fielding, as if they were unwilling partners to a shabby secret? Staring across the neglected hotel gardens towards Carne Abbey, he was able, to glimpse behind the lead roof of the Abbey the familiar battlements of the school: keeping the new world out and the old world secure. In his mind's eye he saw the Great Court now, as the boys came out of Chapel: the black-coated groups in the leisured attitudes of eighteenth-century England. And he remembered the other school beside the police station: Carne High School; a little tawdry place like a porter's lodge in an empty graveyard, as detached from the tones of Carne as its brick and flint from the saffron battlements of School Hall.

Yes, he reflected, Stanley Rode had made a long, long journey from the Grammar School at Branxome. And if he killed his wife, then the motive, Smiley was sure, and even the means, were to be found in that hard road to Carne.