Call for the Dead by Carré John le

Author:Carré, John le [Carré, John le]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: thriller, Mystery, Fiction, Suspense, Crime, Espionage
ISBN: 9780143191186
Google: SBmTBQAAQBAJ
Amazon: B00RW6O2CW
Goodreads: 25255098
Publisher: Penguin Canada
Published: 1961-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

10

The Virgin’s Story

Mendel drove very well, with a kind of schoolma’amish pedantry that Smiley would have found comic. The Weybridge road was packed with traffic as usual. Mendel hated motorists. Give a man a car of his own and he leaves humility and common sense behind him in the garage. He didn’t care who it was—he’d seen bishops in purple doing seventy in a built-up area, frightening pedestrians out of their wits. He liked Smiley’s car. He liked the fussy way it had been maintained, the sensible extras, wing mirrors and reversing light. It was a decent little car.

He liked people who looked after things, who finished what they began. He liked thoroughness and precision. No skimping. Like this murderer. What had Scarr said? “Young, mind, but cool. Cool as charity.” He knew that look, and Scarr had known it too…the look of complete negation that reposes in the eyes of a young killer. Not the look of a wild beast, not the grinning savagery of a maniac, but the look born of supreme efficiency, tried and proven. It was a stage beyond the experience of war. The witnessing of death in war brings a sophistication of its own; but beyond that, far beyond, is the conviction of supremacy in the heart of the professional killer. Yes, Mendel had seen it before: the one that stood apart from the gang, pale eyed, expressionless, the one the girls went after, spoke of without smiling. Yes, he was a cool one all right.

Scarr’s death had frightened Mendel. He made Smiley promise not to go back to Bywater Street when he was released from the hospital. With any luck they’d think he was dead, anyway. Scarr’s death proved one thing, of course: the murderer was still in England, still anxious to tidy up. “When I get up,” Smiley had said last night, “we must get him out of his hole again. Put out bits of cheese.” Mendel knew who the cheese would be: Smiley. Of course if they were right about the motive there would be other cheese too: Fennan’s wife. In fact, Mendel thought grimly, it doesn’t say much for her that she hasn’t been murdered. He felt ashamed of himself and turned his mind to other things. Such as Smiley again.

Odd little beggar, Smiley was. Reminded Mendel of a fat boy he’d played football with at school. Couldn’t run, couldn’t kick, blind as a bat but played like hell, never satisfied till he’d got himself torn to bits. Used to box, too. Came in wide open swinging his arms about: got himself half killed before the referee stopped it. Clever bloke, too.

Mendel stopped at a roadside café for a cup of tea and a bun, then drove into Weybridge. The Repertory Theatre was in a one-way street leading off the High Street where parking was impossible. Finally he left the car at the railway station and walked back into the town.

The front doors of the theatre were locked. Mendel walked round to the side of the building under a brick archway.

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