Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

After a difficult day, George Smiley returns to his house in London. He lives alone, having separated from Ann, his wife, who has spent a large amount of his pension. Smiley has been forced to retire against his will so struggles to fill his days with satisfying activities. He regretfully looks back on an evening spent with Roddy Martindale, an old acquaintance who works for the British government. Martindale excitedly invited Smiley to dinner, whereupon he revealed information about Smiley’s dismissal. Even though he dislikes Martindale, Smiley listened attentively as he was told that he was forced to retire because he was too close of an alley to Control, his former supervisor in the British intelligence service. Though Control is supposedly dead, Martindale has heard rumors that he is still alive and living in South Africa. Control’s time as the head of the intelligence service ended after a botched operation in Czechoslovakia. An agent was killed, and the story made the news. Smiley refuses to comment on the situation. Annoyed at Smiley’s lack of engagement, Martindale discusses the man who has replaced Control, Percy Alleline. However, Martindale suspects that Smiley is still involved in intelligence operations. Smiley refuses to comment. 

Still resentful about his dinner with Martindale, Smiley entertains the idea of selling his London home and moving to a countryside cottage. He plans to abandon any attempts to reunite with Ann, even if she returns to him. Smiley finds retirement dull so keeps his mind occupied with mental exercises, such as memorizing the cars parked outside his house. These exercises are born out of a lifetime in the intelligence services and a fundamental paranoia, as Smiley has “the secret fear” (21) that all the enemies he made might one day find him. As a result, he uses techniques to determine if anyone has tried to enter his house while he is away. When he enters, he discovers an unfamiliar umbrella. It belongs to Peter Guilliam, who invites Smiley to the home of a senior government advisor named Oliver Lacon.

Meanwhile, Roach worries about Prideaux. Prideaux has shown his flair for languages by speaking to one of the gardeners who knows no English, but Roach also suspects that Prideaux has stolen a letter addressed to Miss Aaronson, a pleasant teacher who Roach likes. Prideaux now has a typewriter, and Roach wonders whether he is writing letters to alleviate his loneliness. 

Smiley accompanies Guilliam to Lacon’s home in Ascot. He knows that Guilliam was not thrown out of the Circus, the name given to the headquarters of the intelligence services. When he mentions this, Guilliam claims that he was given a new job. He is now part of scalphunters, the team which deals with defectors, traitors, and situations which will inevitably involve “murder and kidnapping and crash blackmail” (25). Guilliam provides Smiley with an update of the new organization structure in the Circus, where Bill Haydon is now in charge of the London station. Roy Bland is Haydon’s second-in-command. When Smiley asks about a man named Jim Ellis, he is told that Ellis remains in quarantine due to an injury. Smiley recalls a previous visit to Lacon’s home, after Ellis was featured in news reports. At Lacon’s house, Guilliam and Smiley are joined by Ricki Tarr from Penang, an agent and former gunrunner who has been recruited abroad and now works in British colonies such as Kenya and Malaysia. Tarr reminds Smiley that Smiley first vetted him for the scalphunters. After being prompted, Smiley recalls Tarr’s particularly violent operations. 

Tarr recounts a story about the scalphunters. The story takes place six months before the men meet at Lacon’s house. As Tarr recounts, a quiet period in the scalphunters’ office was interrupted by the news of a trade delegate from the Soviet Union who warranted investigation. This man, codenamed Boris, was assigned to Tarr by Guilliam. Tarr travelled to Hong Kong and reported back on Boris’s activities. Boris partied all night and worked all day, exhausting the local operatives. Tarr took over the surveillance. As he tailed Boris, he overheard a conversation between Boris, a Swedish man, and a Chinese woman. According to Tarr, Boris did not appear to be a typical trade delegate. Instead, he was likely an intelligence operative. Later, Tarr tracked down Boris’s romantic partner, Irina. Boris and Irina were in a common law marriage, which Tarr points out is a breach of the procedures of the Soviet Union. 

Tarr continues his story. He approached Irina and learned that she was a textile delegate. Irina complained about Boris to Tarr, claiming that Boris treated her badly. As a result, Tarr decided to prolong his stay in Hong Kong. He continued to speak to Irina, trying to extract as much information from her about Boris as possible. Irina fell in love with Tarr, telling him that she and Boris were working for Soviet intelligence; her training allowed her to see through Tarr’s cover story and deduce that he was also an agent. Irina was a courier and Boris was an intelligence agent. However, Boris was not good at his job and spent most of his time pursuing other women. Irina gave Tarr a wealth of information about her cover story and her code names. She also told him about her previous assignments, showing him the tools she used, such as a micro camera and a signal pen. Tarr learned about the Soviet intelligence network in Hong Kong, but Lacon believes that Irina was feeding him false information. Lacon turns pale as Tarr finishes his story; he is worried that the British intelligence operation in the colony of Hong Kong has been compromised.

Tarr continues his story, explaining that he began to think that Irina was becoming unstable. She changed her story often and struggled to stick to her decisions. Her frequent mentions of Alleline and her desire to defect to Britain interested Tarr, so he approached the local British agent named Thesinger. Using Thesinger’s messaging device, Tarr contacted the London headquarters. He sent a coded explanation of Irina’s situation and revealed that she wished to defect, bringing with her important information about a potential security breach in Control. Smiley interrupts Tarr, asking him to be precise about his words in the message. Tarr tells Smiley that his message warned of “information crucial to the well-being of the Circus, but not yet disclosed” (42). He waited for a response from Control to tell him how to proceed, but only received confirmation that they had read the message. Later, Control requested more information about Irina and her role in Soviet intelligence. Tarr suspected that they were stalling for time. When Tarr tried to meet with Irina again, she disappeared. Tarr searched for her and learned about a Soviet plane which departed from Hong Kong in a rushed, unscheduled manner with three people on board who seemed to be escorting a comatose woman on a stretcher.