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The Spy Who Went...
24 August 2001
This Le Carre parody is courtesy of Robert Ing, a regular contributor to the Archers .
Leamas slowed to fifteen and engaged second gear. He had been here so many times before. Even the faces seemed the same. By the side of the road, a hard-faced red haired woman - a government inspector of some sort - was waving her clipboard. A confused old man was asking if anyone had seen someone called Peggay. The smoke rose into the sky as it always did, and the orange lights flashed monotonously.
Leamas wondered why, whenever his appointment really was urgent, he always found himself stuck behind a combine.
"Foley had never produced anything worth hearing"
Leamas was not a philosophical man. When they had posted him in charge of the Station, he knew that it was intended as a backwater for him to work out his time until retirement. No-one went to the Station from choice. Foley and Tucker, who worked to him, each had their own reasons to be on the sidelines. Foley had never produced anything worth hearing, and Tucker's youthful indiscretion had almost compromised the entire network.The old hands all said that the station was a dead loss; with the entire Corporation crying out for high-grade garbage, it had achieved virtually nothing. Leamas had been prepared to work out his time.
And then, Josef had arrived, and suddenly everything had changed. Leamas' experience told him that Josef was in a different league from his usual sources; quite simply, he could provide the higher bosh in its purest form at no notice and in unlimited quantities.
Leamas gave him the code-name Grundy and sent an optimistic report to London. And London was not disappointed. Josef transmitted almost every day, each production more ludicrous than the last. It was just the kind of result that might keep Leamas away from early retirement. Until Frei arrived on the scene.
"a superficially benevolent face, but unrelieved by any trace of humour"
It was odd how quickly Leamas saw that Frei was the writing on the wall. He knew his dossier inimately: Bertold Frei, aged 65. The photograph showed a superficially benevolent face, but unrelieved by any trace of humour. Few of those he captured were ever seen again. Even Josef was afraid of Frei, and, thought Leamas, rightly so for it was Frei who had blown him. Still, Josef had continued to transmit for a remarkable time, even if the quality had declined towards the end as Frei had got closer to him.
And then, suddenly, nothing. There could be only one explanation: Josef had been blown, and Leamas could only pray that he had had time to go on the run and reach the arranged Free House before Frei caught up with him. And tomorrow, Leamas would have to face Control (Regions) with the news that he was leaving the Station as he had arrived: without any network at all worthy of the name.
Leamas swung the car off the road and cut the engine. As he fumbled with the key in the doorlock, he felt a shadow fall over him. Turning, he found himself face to face with Frei, who was smiling mirthlessly. "Oi'd loike to read you a little poem about dentures," he said. Leamas shuddered...
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