Our Kind of Traitor by John le Carré

Author:John le Carré
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780670919024
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd (UK)
Published: 2010-09-15T11:20:15.515000+00:00

Dima resumes, reading rapidly, as before, from script in Russian:

‘In this map will be recorded international routes of all black monies under control of the one they are calling Dima who is speaking to you.’

At Matlock’s bidding, Hector yet again pauses the tape.

‘What he’s talking about here isn’t a map, it’s a link chart,’ Matlock complains, in the tone of a man correcting Dima’s inadequate vocabulary. ‘And I’ll just say this regarding link charts, if you’ll bear with me. I’ve seen a few link charts in my time. They tend to resemble multicoloured rolls of barbed wire leading in no direction known to man, in my experience. Useless, in other words, in my judgement,’ he adds with satisfaction. ‘I put them in much the same category as pronouncements regarding mythical criminal conferences on the Black Sea in the year 2000.’

You should see Yvonne’s link chart, it’s absolutely wild, Luke wants to tell him in a fit of miserable hilarity.

Matlock on a winning streak does not lightly let go. He is shaking his head and smiling ruefully:

‘You know something, Hector? If I had a five-pound note for every piece of pedlar material from untried sources that our Service has fallen for over the years – not all in my time, I’m glad to say – I’d be a rich man. Link charts, Bilderberg plots, world conspiracies, and that old green shed in Siberia that’s full of rusty hydrogen bombs, they’re all one to me. Not rich by the standards of their ingenious fabricators, maybe, or your standards either. But for the likes of me, very comfortably off indeed, thank you.’

Why the hell doesn’t Hector cut Bully Boy down to size? But Hector appears to have no stomach left for retaliation. Worse still, to Luke’s despair, he doesn’t bother to play the last section of Dima’s historic offer. He switches off the tape recorder, as if to say ‘tried that one, didn’t work’, and with a chagrined smile and a rueful ‘Well, maybe you’ll be better off with some pictures to look at, Billy’, takes up the remote control for the plasma screen and switches off the light.

*

In the gloom, an amateur video camera shakily roams the battlements of a medieval fort, then descends to the sea wall of an ancient harbour crowded with expensive sailing boats. It is dusk, the camera is of poor quality, unequal to the failing light. A ninety-foot luxury yacht in blue and gold lies at anchor outside the harbour walls. It is dressed overall with fairy lights, its portholes are lit. Distant dance music reaches us from across the water. Perhaps someone is celebrating a birthday or a wedding? From its stern hang the flags of Switzerland, Britain and Russia. At its masthead, a golden wolf bestrides a crimson field.

The camera closes on the bow. The ship’s name, inscribed in fancy Roman and Cyrillic gold lettering, is Princess Tatiana.

Hector is providing a flat, dispassionate commentary:

‘Property of a newly formed company called First Arena Credit Bank of

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