Charlie’s Apprentice (11 page)

‘You haven’t talked much about it.’

‘It’s been interesting,’ he said, generally. ‘Ironing out the final points, really. Could be that administration won’t be as boring as we thought it might be.’

Marcia finished her brandy, looking curiously across the table at him. ‘Like what?’

She was responding exactly as he’d hoped. ‘Seems I’m in line for the section that deals with embassies abroad: I might have to travel a bit, from time to time.’

‘I always thought overseas embassies were autonomous?’

‘They are, most of the time. It would be irregular.’

‘How long would you be away? Weeks? Months?’

Gower didn’t want to get involved in too many specifics: her acceptance had to be gradual. ‘It would vary.’ He hesitated, deciding against suggesting there could even be a permanent attachment. There was time for that later: there was the far more important point to establish in her mind.

‘I hope it isn’t too often.’ She smiled. ‘Or too long. I’m getting to like having you around.’

Gower recognized the invitation in her final remark but he ignored it. ‘So I guess I’ll be going through the big ceremony in the next week or so.’

‘What big ceremony?’

‘Swearing and signing the Official Secrets Act.’

‘Secrets!’ She frowned, head to one side, half-smiling as if anticipating a joke.

‘I’m joining the Foreign Office, darling! It’s routine to have to sign the Act.’ Which was quite true, so there was no lie upon which he could be caught out. Another lesson: a good liar only ever lies to the barest minimum.

‘It all sounds very dramatic’

‘It’s not really.’ He gestured for the bill. It was larger than he’d calculated but the setting had turned out to be perfect for the hurdle he believed he was crossing easily, so it had been worth it.

‘Why is it necessary to swear to an Act?’

‘I’ll come into contact with information and facts that are classified: things I can’t talk about.’

‘Not even to me?’ she demanded, in mock offence.

‘I can hardly imagine you’d be interested in any case. It’ll probably be dull statistics.’ He paid, smiling his thanks to the head waiter. It had all gone exceptionally well: she’d accepted without as much questioning as he’d anticipated the thought of his unexpectedly going abroad, and with the truthful explanation of the Official Secrets Act he had a shield behind which he could hide if ever she became persistently curious.

‘So you’re going to keep things from me!’ she said as they reached the vestibule leading out into the rue de Varenne, pretending still to be offended.

‘Nothing important that will ever affect you and me,’ promised Gower, taking her opening.

They set out walking unhurriedly towards the Dôme des Invalides, the Eiffel Tower illuminated in the far distance. Marcia clung to his arm, pulling herself close to him. Not thinking any longer of the talk he had orchestrated between them or of how successful it had been, Gower said: ‘Nothing is going to stop it being like this always.’

Marcia stopped, bringing Gower to a halt beside her, determined in her slight drunkenness to emphasize what she was going to say. ‘I’m never, ever, going to keep a secret from you! I love you so much I want you to know everything.’

At last Gower felt a flicker of unease at deceiving her, trying quickly to erase it. He’d
had
to do it, he tried to convince himself. Nothing he would have to keep from her would affect their personal relationship anyway. Better for her to know virtually nothing than everything and go through hell every time he went off on an assignment. Hadn’t that been another lecture?

Snow knew that with so much information to pass on and even more to discuss it was essential for there to be a personal meeting between himself and Foster, although there was no close enough event on the British embassy calendar to use to cover the encounter. So it had to be governed by the system for emergency contact established by Foster.

The marker point was the Taoist temple to the west of the Forbidden City, a run-down area of lean-to food stalls and skeletal flower booths. It was because of the flower-sellers that Foster had selected the spot. The day after his arrival back in Beijing Snow went there to purchase a spray of meagre chrysanthemums, carefully selecting only four orange blooms in the bunch. He arranged the flowers on the far left of the travellers’ shrine outside the temple. He had to pass the shrine on three consecutive days before he saw Foster’s agreement signal, a replacement bouquet in which there were four white chrysanthemums, two already shedding their petals.

Back at the mission that night Father Robertson said: ‘Nothing happened during the journey that might have upset the authorities?’

Snow suppressed the exasperation. ‘Nothing. My escort even talked of coming here, to see our work.’

‘Why?’ demanded the older man, in immediate concern. ‘There must be a reason!’ By this time in the afternoon the smell of whisky was always strong, the words slipping.

‘I don’t expect he will come.’

‘We won’t make any more travel applications for a while,’ decided the mission head. ‘It upsets them.’

Snow released the sigh at last. There was so much more he could achieve, on every level, if this doddering old man were withdrawn.

Twelve

The rendezvous was prearranged in the Purple Bamboo Park, triggered by Snow leaving the flower signal at the Taoist temple. Snow went through what he considered the totally unnecessary and ridiculous routine, impatient for Walter Foster to arrive. It was possible the man wouldn’t make the meet at all. Foster only completed an encounter after satisfying himself it was safe to do so. If there was no approach, it would mean Foster was
not
satisfied: the attempt would have to be tried the following day at a different location.

Outwardly he was sure he appeared a foreigner relaxing in one of the city’s most attractive public places. To Snow’s right, in the park, there were several pockets of kite-flyers: closer, near the pagoda by a stream, a group of people, all elderly, were going through the
tai ji quan
dance of meditation, like choreographed, slow-motion boxers. Snow looked from one to the other with apparent interest, in reality seeking Foster, who had to be already there, somewhere, making sure.

Snow decided he couldn’t go on like this. He had to endure the twitching existence with Father Robertson, because there was no alternative: the Jesuit Curia were prepared to accept the Chinese government retaining the elderly priest as their tame totem, which in turn enabled Snow to take up residence in the city, even though he was not officially recognized as a Jesuit priest, nor at the moment officially permitted to perform or instruct any of their teachings. But he was no longer prepared to endure this arm’s-length existence with Walter Foster. If the man wasn’t agreeable to any improvement, he’d complain directly to London. Snow smiled to himself, the irritation and impatience lessening at a sudden awareness. The ultimate resolve lay entirely with him: if a change wasn’t agreed, he’d refuse to go on. Snow knew he was too good – too useful – for them to lose him like that. Christian or unchristian considerations about Foster’s career didn’t come into it: Foster had made the unacceptable rules.

And then he saw the man.

The supposed diplomat was hurrying from the direction of the pagoda, head lowered, eyes to the ground, as if he were trying physically to diminish himself. Getting nearer the bench upon which Snow sat, Foster lifted his head to make a last-minute check before lowering himself on to the adjoining seat. The entire charade had looked absurdly furtive.

‘We’re quite clear,’ announced Foster. He was a small man, red hair awry from his hurried walk, red-faced as well from the exertion. The redness accentuated the freckles. The three jacket buttons of his tight, blue-striped suit were all secured: he didn’t undo them when he sat down, straining into tight ridges the cloth around his slightly bulged body. In his lap his hands moved constantly one over the other, as if he were washing them.

‘Of course we are!’ said Snow. ‘We could have set up something far more sensible if you’d agreed to see me before I left.’

‘It wasn’t possible.’

‘It could have been
made
possible. I’m not prepared to go on like this. If you want me to continue – if London wants me to continue – there must be regular meetings.’

‘I could talk with London. They make the rules.’

Snow sighed, wondering if the man had ever made an independent decision in his life. ‘If there’s no improvement, I want to take it up with London myself.’

There was another sideways look. ‘Is that a threat?’

‘I do not want to do anything to endanger your position here. Or your career. I will show you any letter I wish to be sent on to London.’

Foster was silent for several moments. ‘You’re being very honest.’

‘Priests are supposed to be honest.’ It was not, Snow accepted, a dictum he practised with Father Robertson. He considered the deceit justified. There was a concentrated movement far away to their right, a few people running, and Snow realized that the wind was dropping and the kites with it: two or three seemed to have collided, snarling their lines.

‘I was told very specifically in London that there never had to be any official difficulty: since the changes in Moscow, this is the most sensitive posting in the world.’

Snow sighed again, realizing there was no purpose in taking this up at a local level. ‘Talk to London,’ he urged, but patiently at last. ‘Say – and I really
want
you to say – that I can’t continue working under this present arrangement.’

‘That
is
a threat!’ insisted the man.

‘It’s a choice. Your choice. London’s choice.’ Snow was surprised he didn’t feel more uncomfortable, talking so aggressively: actually browbeating the other man. But was he? Wasn’t he, rather, trying to restore a situation to the proper footing, the way he’d operated with all Foster’s predecessors?

There was another silence between them, longer this time. Across the park, all the birdlike kites had come home to roost: men were huddled in head-bent intensity, untangling strings. At last Foster said: ‘Tell me about the trip.’

Well rehearsed, Snow went chronologically through the journey, setting out the successes before reaching Zhengzhou and the less easily documented findings afterwards. He finished by edging along the seat to the other man a brown paper carton containing canisters of all the film he had exposed, his journal of the map coordinates he believed important and his full written account of everything that had happened. Foster became more and more agitated during the narrative, finally twisting directly to face the priest.

‘You were suspected!’ declared Foster, at once.

‘For being what? Nothing happened to me – no conversation was ever begun with me – that doesn’t happen every day to every
waiguoren
in every major city in China.’

‘No!’ refused Foster. ‘You were under surveillance! Oh my God!’

‘Stop it!’ ordered Snow, curtly, unhappy at the other man’s panicked reaction. ‘I’m not under surveillance now. You personally checked it, before making the meeting. So you know you’re safe: that I’m safe.’

‘From what you’ve said Li seems far more than an escort. You were targeted.’ He straightened further, looking apprehensively around the grassed area.

‘If I
was
targeted, it failed, didn’t it? I saw every ploy for what it was and refused to respond. Not even Li – for all the effort he put into trying to make me say or do something indiscreet – could make the slightest accusation in any report that I couldn’t refute on every level.’

‘I don’t like it,’ complained Foster. ‘I’ll have to give a full account to London.’ Again he looked nervously around him.

‘I’ve already done that, in my own report.’

‘They’ll need my opinion, too.’

Coloured to maintain the arm’s-length meetings, guessed Snow. ‘We’ll need to meet again for me to get their decision how we’re going to meet in the future.’

Foster attempted to back off immediately. ‘We could use a normal drop.’

‘I want a personal meeting.’

‘The same as today,’ insisted Foster. ‘If I am not happy, I won’t make the contact.’

Something
had
to be done! ‘Don’t run out on me.’

‘What are you accusing me of?’

‘I know how sensitive everything is here,’ avoided Snow. ‘Nothing has been endangered. Nor will it be. There’s no reason for anyone to lose their heads.’

‘London’s got to decide about all this,’ said Foster. ‘There has been a lot of government-inspired comment in the
People’s Daily
about foreign intervention and counter-revolution. Something is building up.’

Snow decided that instead of being his link with London this man was a positive barrier. ‘But not connected with me. So there’s nothing for London
to
decide: they just have to be told about what happened.’

‘You’ve got to take care!’ said the embassy man.

‘I
always
take care,’ sighed Snow, bored with the need for repetition. He’d have to complain, irrespective of any effect it had upon Foster’s career.

‘
Extra
care.’

Snow felt his chest begin to tighten. He always carried a relieving inhaler, but he was strangely reluctant to ease the asthma by using it in front of the other man. Foster might construe it as being brought on by matching nervousness when in fact it was caused by his angry impotence, at this fool and this meeting.

‘You leave first,’ ordered Foster. ‘I’ll watch you out: make sure you’re clear.’

‘A week from now. Here,’ repeated Snow. ‘No flower signal nonsense.’

‘All right,’ said Foster, uncertainly.

Snow
did
feel some apprehension, walking from the park, and his anger at the other man increased for creating the totally unnecessary tension. His discomfort grew, banding tighter, and he began to strain for breath. But still he denied himself the relief until he knew he was well beyond Foster’s view. By which time he had left it too late. The seat was actually filming before his eyes when he reached it, slumping down to fumble the inhaler finally to his mouth. It took a long time for the muscles to relax: even then there was a rasping wheeze which Snow knew would take maybe an hour completely to leave him.