Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Smiley visits the secret London safehouse. The old woman whom Esterhase employs to guard the building and operate the radios shows Smiley around the house, pointing out the locations of the hidden microphones. When Guilliam arrives, he adjusts the wiring. The men wait.

In Paris, Tarr receives a response to his message. He tells Mackelvore’s assistant to decode the message from Alleline, who asks for evidence of Tarr’s claims and tells Tarr to discuss the matter with Mackelvore. Tarr laughs, believing that Alleline is stalling for time.

Smiley waits for the mole to appear. He is still not certain of Gerald’s real identity, but he has his suspicions. He anxiously holds a gun in his hand and wonders whether the Operation Witchcraft team have a secret procedure that he has overlooked. Mendel messages them from outside the Circus, saying that someone has just exited the building, but he isn’t sure who. Smiley tells Guilliam that the mole is coming to the safehouse. The mole and Polyakov both arrive; Smiley listens to them talk, recognizing the voice in the room discussing Tarr’s message. Though he still does not want to believe it to be true, his theory is correct: Haydon is the mole. Mendel and Guilliam confront Haydon as Lacon waits outside. Smiley invites the men to place their hands on their heads and wait with him for Alleline to arrive.

Alleline and Bland arrive at the safehouse. Inside, Polyakov insists that he cannot be arrested because he has diplomatic immunity. Haydon seems unaffected by the attempted arrest. Smiley plays the recordings of the men’s conversations, showing that they are conspiring against the Circus. Lacon and Esterhase appear with one of Smiley’s men. In Smiley’s opinion, Haydon’s situation provides the Circus with the opportunity to speak to Karla and possibly save any of the intelligence assets, agents, and information that Haydon has betrayed. Polyakov listens to the British men’s suggestions. He plans to contact his superiors and agrees to return to the house in three days’ time. Esterhase bids a surprisingly emotional farewell to Polyakov; he and Bland depart. Polyakov does not say goodbye to anyone else before he leaves. Alleline gives instructions that Tarr be contacted in Paris and allowed to return to Britain, with his defector status removed. Haydon is taken away in a van. Alleline decides to take a period of indefinite leave from his job in charge of the Circus. In the meantime, Smiley is asked to take over the Circus on a temporary basis. 

Smiley takes two days to himself before accepting the offer to take over at the Circus. He worries about Haydon at the hands of the interrogators and is perturbed by the idea that Haydon will be sent to Russia. Haydon insists on seeing Smiley; the interrogation has not progressed at all, and Haydon has revealed nothing, so Smiley agrees. On arrival, he is angry that Haydon has been beaten and that the security around him has been reduced. However, Smiley struggles to truly be angry with Haydon. After a walk around the grounds, Haydon gives his confession to Smiley. The confession is filled with high-minded statements which reference faded glories and the nostalgic past, and the death of the West “by greed and constipation” (293). Haydon hates America and came to realize that Britain was no longer a relevant player on the world stage. After becoming disillusioned with the moral decline of the West, Haydon hatched a plan to help the East.

Haydon asks Smiley to deliver a message to his girlfriend, which Smiley does that evening. Smiley hands the girl a check and tells her to forget about Haydon, who will not return. She reacts angrily. Smiley returns home and suspects that someone is following him. The next day, he returns to Haydon’s prison cell. Haydon is set to depart for Russia the next day, so he asks Smiley to make final arrangements for him. This includes paying a small sum to a male lover in London. Smiley listens to Haydon talk about how he passed information to Karla for decades, but only information which might help the Russians against the Americans. He insists that he never gave them anything damaging to British interests at first, but then became even more disillusioned with the state of Britain. After nearly being caught by Control, Operation Witchcraft allowed Karla and Haydon to replace Control with a more agreeable person and control the flow of information into the Circus.

When Control got ever closer to uncovering Haydon, Karla arranged for Stevcek to offer to defect, setting a trap for Control in the form of Operation Testify. However, Haydon was forced to endanger his friend, Prideaux. Before departing, Prideaux warned Haydon about Control’s investigation. After, Haydon worked to bring Prideaux back to Britain and save him from the Russians. Haydon insists that he still sees himself as an artist and hopes that people will remember him well. He also reveals that his affair with Ann was a scheme devised by Karla to distract Smiley’s attentions if he ever investigated the mole. Haydon says that Karla respected Smiley and considered him “quite good” (300). Smiley leaves without saying goodbye. He drives back to London, goes to the cinema, and then returns home after dinner to find Lacon and the minister waiting for him. They drive him back to the prison, where Haydon has been killed by an unknown person. Smiley returns to London and thinks about Haydon and Ann. As his train stops, he waits at the station. Ann collects him in her car.

Prideaux returns to the school but spends most of his time in his caravan. To Roach, Prideaux’s behavior reminds him of his parents during their divorce. He believes that Prideaux’s mood is due to his mother’s death. As Prideaux slowly recovers his enthusiasm for life, Roach relaxes. He convinces himself that the incident with the gun was nothing more than a dream.