The Spy Who Came in From the Cold by John le Carré

confidence in us. It was thebeginning
of the end.”
    “How much did you get out of him?”
    Leamas hesitated. “How
much? Christ, I don’t know. It lasted an unnaturally long time. I think
he was blown long before he was caught. The standard dropped in the last few
months; think they’d begun to suspect him by then and kept him away from the
good stuff.”
    “Altogether, what did he give you?”
Peters persisted.
    Piece by piece, Leamas recounted the full extent
of all Karl Riemeck’s work. His memory was, Peters noted approvingly,
remarkably precise considering the amounthe drank. He could give dates and names, he
could remember the reaction from London ,
the nature of corroboration where it existed. He could remember sums of money
demanded and paid, the dates of the conscription of other agents into the network.
    “I’m sorry,” said Peters at last,
“but I do not believe that one man, however well placed, however careful, however industrious, could have acquired such a range ofdetailed knowledge. For that matter,
even if he had he would never have been able tophotograph it.”
    “He was able,” Leamas persisted,
suddenly angry. “He bloody well did andthat’s all there is to it.”
    “And the Circus never told you to go into it
with him, exactly how and when he saw all this stuff?”
    “No,” snapped Leamas. “Riemeck was
touchy about that, and London was content to let it go.”
    “Well, well,” Peters mused.
    After a moment Peters said, “You heard about
that woman, incidentally?”“What
woman?” Leamas asked sharply.
    “Karl Riemeck’s mistress, the one who came
over to West Berlin the night Riemeck was
shot.”
    “Well?”
    “She was found dead a week ago. Murdered. She was shot from a car as she left her flat.”
    “It used to be my flat,” said Leamas mechanically.
    “Perhaps,” Peters suggested, “she
knew more about Riemeck’s network than you did.”
    “What the hell do you mean?” Leamas
demanded.
    Peters shrugged. “It’s all very
strange,” he observed. “I wonder who killed her.”
    When they had exhausted the case of Karl Riemeck,
Leamas went on to talk of other less spectacular agents, then of the procedure
of his Berlin office, itscommunications,
its staff, its secret ramifications— flats, transport, recording and
photographic equipment. They talked long into the night and throughout the next
day, and when at last Leamas stumbled into bed the following night he knew he
hadbetrayed all that he knew of
Allied Intelligence in Berlin and had drunk two bottles ofwhisky
in two days.
    One thing puzzled him: Peters’ insistence that
Karl Riemeck must have had help—must have had a high level collaborator.
Control had asked him the samequestion—he
remembered now—Control had asked about Riemeck’s access. Howcould they both be so sure Karl
hadn’t managed alone? He’d had helpers, of course; like the guards by the canal
the day Leamas met him. But they were small beer—Karl had told him about them.
But Peters—and Peters, after all, would know precisely how much Karl had been
able to get his hands on—Peters had refused to believe Karl had managed alone.
On this point, Peters and Control were evidently agreed.
    Perhaps it was true. Perhaps there was somebody
else. Perhaps this was thespecial
interest whom Control was so anxious to protect from
Mundt. That would meanthat Karl
Riemeck had collaborated with this special interest and provided what both ofthem had together obtained. Perhaps
that was what Control had spoken to Karl about,alone, that evening in Leamas’ flat in Berlin .
    Anyway, tomorrow would tell. Tomorrow he would
play his hand.
    He wondered who had killed Elvira. And he wondered why they had killed her. Of course—here was a point, here was a possible
explanation—Elvira, knowing the identity of Riemeck’s special collaborator, had
been murdered by that collaborator…No, that was too farfetched. It overlooked
the difficulty of crossing from East