The Secret Pilgrim by John le Carré

memory. You’re sure Ben never mentioned him to you?”
    â€œI told you. No.”
    I had not intended this to sound so adamant. There’s always a mystery about how often you can deny a thing without beginning to sound like a liar, even to yourself; and of course this was the very mystery Smiley was playing upon in order to bring hidden things to the surface in me.
    â€œYes, well you did tell me no,” he agreed with his habitual courtesy, “And I did hear you say no. I merely wondered whether I had jogged your memory?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œHaggarty and Seidl were friends, ” he continued, speaking, if it were possible, even more slowly. “So far as their business allowed, they were close friends. Seidl had been a prisoner of war in England, Haggarty in Germany. While Seidl was working as a farm labourernear Cirencester in 1944, under the relaxed conditions for German prisoners of war that prevailed by then, he succeeded in courting an English landgirl. His guards at the camp took to leaving a bicycle for him outside the main gates with an army greatcoat tossed over the handlebar to cover Seidl’s prisoner-of-war tunic. As long as he was back in his own bed by reveille, the guards turned a blind eye. Seidl never forgot his gratitude to the English. When the baby came along, Seidl’s guards and fellow prisoners came to the christening. Charming, isn’t it? The English at their best. But the story doesn’t ring a bell?”
    â€œHow could it? You’re talking about a joe!”
    â€œA blown joe. One of Ben’s. Haggarty’s experiences of German prison camp were not so uplifting. Never mind. In 1948 while Haggarty was nominally working with the Control Commission, he picked up Seidl in a bar in Hannover, recruited him and ran him back into East Germany, to his home town of Leipzig. He has been running him ever since. The Haggarty-Seidl friendship has been the linchpin of the Berlin Station for the last fifteen years. At the time of his arrest last week, Seidl was fourth man in the East German Foreign Ministry. He had served as their Ambassador in Havana. But you’ve never heard of him. Nobody ever mentioned him to you. Not Ben. Not anyone.”
    â€œNo,” I said, as wearily as I could manage.
    â€œOnce a month Haggarty was accustomed to going into East Berlin and debriefing Seidl—in a car, in a safe flat, on a park bench, wherever—the usual thing. After the Wall there was a suspension of service for a while, before the meetings were cautiously resumed. The game was to cross in a Four Power vehicle—say, an army jeep— introduce a substitute, hop out at the right moment and rejoin the vehicle at an agreed point. It sounds perilous and it was, but with practice it worked. If Haggarty was on leave or sick, there was no meeting. A couple of months ago Head Office ruled that Haggarty should introduce Seidl to be a successor. Haggarty is past retiring age, Willis has had Berlin so long he’s blown sky high, and besideshe knows far too many secrets to go wandering around behind the Curtain. Hence Ben’s posting to Berlin. Ben was untarnished. Clean. Haggarty in person briefed him—I gather exhaustively. I’m sure he was not merciful. Haggarty is not a merciful man, and a twelve-strong network can be a complicated matter: who works to whom and why; who knows whose identity; the cut-outs, codes, couriers, covernames, symbols, radios, dead-letter boxes, inks, cars, salaries, children, birthdays, wives, mistresses. A lot to get into one’s head all at once.”
    â€œI know.”
    â€œBen told you, did he?”
    I did not rise to him this time. I was determined not to. “We learned it on the course. Ad infinitum, ” I said.
    â€œYes. Well, I suppose you did. The trouble is, the theory’s never quite the same as the real thing, is it? Who’s his best friend, apart from you?”
    â€œI don’t