A Delicate Truth A Novel - By John Le Carre Page 0,14

bastard, show!’ – Don, to the absent Aladdin.

‘Too busy having it away, randy sod’ – Andy, to himself.

Aladdin is waterproof, Paul, Elliot is insisting across his desk in Paddington. We do not lay one single finger on Aladdin. Aladdin is fireproof, he is bulletproof. That is the solemn deal that Mr Crispin has cut with his highly valuable informant, and Mr Crispin’s word to an informant is sacred.

‘Skipper’ – Don again, this time with both arms up.

A motorcyclist is weaving his way along the metalled service track, flashing his headlight from side to side. No helmet, just a black-and-white keffiyeh flapping round his neck. With his right hand he is steering the bike, while his left holds what appears to be a bag by its throat. Swinging the bag as he goes along, displaying it, showing it off, look at me. Slender, wasp-waisted. The keffiyeh masking the lower part of his face. As he draws level with the centre of the terrace his right hand leaves the handlebars and rises in a revolutionist’s salute.

Reaching the end of the service track, he seems all set to join the coast road, heading south. Abruptly he turns north, head thrust forward over the handlebars, keffiyeh streaming behind him and, accelerating, races towards the Spanish border.

But who cares about a hell-bent motorcyclist in a keffiyeh when his black bag sits like a plum pudding in the middle of the metalled track, directly in front of the doorway leading to house number seven?

*

The camera has closed on it. The camera enlarges it. Enlarges it again.

It’s a common-or-garden black plastic bag, bound at the throat with twine or raffia. It’s a bin bag. It’s a bin bag with a football or a human head or a bomb in it. It’s the kind of suspicious object which, if you saw it lying around untended at a railway station, you either told someone or you didn’t, depending how shy you were.

The cameras were vying with each other to get at it. Aerial shots followed ground-level close-ups and wide-angle shots of the terrace at giddying speed. Out to sea, the helicopter had dropped low over the mother ship in protection. In the hide, Jeb was urging sweet reason:

‘It’s a bag, Elliot, is what it is’ – his Welsh voice at its gentlest and most persistent. ‘That’s all we know, see. We don’t know what’s in it, we can’t hear it, we can’t smell it, can we? There’s no green smoke coming out of it, no external wires or aerials that we can see, and I’m sure you can’t either. Maybe it’s just a kid doing a bit of fly-tipping for his mum … No, Elliot, I don’t think we’ll do that, thank you. I think we’ll leave it where it is and let it do whatever it was brought here to do, if you don’t mind, and we’ll go on waiting till it does it, same as we’re waiting for Aladdin.’

Is this an electronic silence or a human one?

‘It’s his weekly washing,’ Shorty suggested under his breath.

‘No, Elliot, we’re not doing that,’ said Jeb, his voice much sharper. ‘We emphatically are not going down to take a closer look inside that bag. We’re not going to interfere with that bag in any way, Elliot. That could be exactly what they’re waiting for us to do: they want to flush us out in case we’re on the premises. Well, we’re not on the premises, are we? Not for a teaser like that we’re not. Which is another good reason for leaving it put.’

Another fade-out, a longer one.

‘We have an arrangement, Elliot,’ Jeb continued with superhuman patience. ‘Maybe you’ve forgotten that. Once the land team has fixed the target, and not before, we’ll come down the hill. And your sea team, you’ll come in from the sea, and together we’ll finish the job. That was the arrangement. You own the sea, we own the land. Well, the bag’s on the land, isn’t it? And we haven’t fixed the target, and I’m not about to see our respective teams going into a dark building from opposite sides, and nobody knowing who’s waiting there for us, or isn’t. Do I have to repeat that, Elliot?’

‘Paul?’

‘Yes, Nine.’

‘What’s your personal take on that bag? Advise me immediately. Do you buy Jeb’s arguments or not?’

‘Unless you have a better one, Nine, yes I do’ – firm but respectful, taking his tone from Jeb’s.

‘Could be a warning to Punter to do a runner. How about that, then?