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old Schuyler Law about anti-woman and -minority attitudes that they’ve agreed to have a course in women in literature andthe law, to be taught by a law professor and someone from outside the law, who will, it is to be hoped, lead the discussion off into byways concerning Jane Eyre, the wills in
Wuthering Heights
, and the trials of Orestes and Billy Budd. Yes, my dear. I know, I haven’t answered your question about the Theban. I had to appear to meet you accidentally; surely you see that.”
    “No,” Kate said. “I don’t. Why did you have to meet me accidentally?”
    “Well, you had to have met me before I broke into your apartment; you recognized me, don’t you see? I had to talk to you, but I had to do it privately, and I had to establish myself so that you would talk to me privately. As you are. I don’t blame you for feeling you met a pussycat who turned into a tiger,” Harriet said. “I feel the same myself.”
    Reed had decided that the moment for him to enter this conversation, if it could be called a conversation, had arrived. “What I don’t understand,” he said, “and I don’t think Kate does either, is why you had to see her, privately or otherwise. True, you will both be working at the Schuyler Law School, as will I. But if you wanted to make our acquaintance, surely there were less dramatic ways to do it.”
    Harriet stared at her empty glass, twirling it around. “Do you remember,” she asked, “that woman faculty member from Schuyler Law, just recently tenured, who died subsequently as the result of falling beneath a truck?”
    “Vaguely,” Reed said. It was now Kate’s turn to disappear into a profound silence. “I have only thefaintest memory of the woman’s death. In fact, it wouldn’t have received much attention in this violent city if they hadn’t decided at Schuyler Law to mock her by publishing a parody of her ideas after her death.”
    “Disaster hardly grabs our attention in this city, dearly as I love it,” Harriet said. “The point is, did she fall or was she pushed? Under the truck, I mean. The police found no evidence of her being pushed, but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t. Doesn’t it strike either of you as odd that the first woman faculty they hired met a violent death? Is that too difficult a question? It’s the sort of thing I wanted to discuss privately with you two.” She looked at Reed.
    “It’s certainly too difficult a question for tonight,” he said. “I’ve clean run out of energy. We’ll reconvene soon, I promise.”
    “All right then,” Harriet said, regarding with a certain plaintiveness her empty glass. “If you say so.” She rose to her feet, putting the glass down. “You’re angry about my getting in here. That was showing off; I apologize. But please try to trust me. Do you know what Smiley said to the students at Sarratt when they asked him how to recognize a lie? He said: ‘Oh, there’s
some
art to faulting the liar, of course there is. But the real art lies in recognizing the truth, which is a great deal harder.’ ” This time she looked at Kate, who shook her head to indicate that Smiley’s words were new to her.
    “Well,” Reed said, “if you two are going to exchange quotations, I’m off to bed. I really do thinkwe’ve carried on long enough for one evening, don’t you?”
    “Right you are,” Harriet said. “I’m going, and if I come again, it will be because I’m invited and announced nicely by the watchdog downstairs.”
    And with that they saw her to the door.

“It’s time you handed on your wisdom to the new boys, Ned,” he had told me over a suspiciously good lunch at the Connaught
. “And
to the new
girls,”
he added, with a loathsome smirk. “They’ll be letting them into the Church next, I suppose.”
    — JOHN LE CARRÉ
THE SECRET PILGRIM
Three

    T HE next morning, when Kate had got herself up, fed, and ready to face the day, she found a message on her answering machine from Blair Whitson,