The Buddha of Brewer Street (33 page)

It was not inevitable, perhaps, that the Chinese would get there first, but it had been inevitable that they would get there eventually. While Goodfellowe had relied on inspiration and intuition, they had simply broken down doors, first at all the obvious locations then at locations that grew ever more obscure. But anything with a Chinese link qualified, anything that bore a Chinese face, even an inconspicuous dry-cleaners in Brewer Street. It could only have been a matter of time and, after Mo had raised the reward, that time had run out increasingly rapidly. Goodfellowe had lost the race, only by minutes, but in a world of desperate men and women that was more than enough. There were no prizes for also-rans.

His way was barred by a constable. Goodfellowe waved his House of Commons pass once more. ‘I know the family,’ he insisted, and was allowed through. The door to the apartment was open, the stairs leading up were crowded. The main room was chaos. An upturned table, a weeping woman, a distraught father and more policemen than the room could comfortably hold. A WPC was bringing tea from the kitchen. A small brass
bodhisattva
stared forlornly from the small shrine on the wall.

A detective sergeant recognized him and took him to one side. A child, snatched in broad daylight, he explained. No apparent reason, no immediate explanation, but – his voice dropping – a difficult area this, with its strip joints and assorted low life. Could be a gang matter. Everyone involved was Chinese. Except the woman, apparently, and she was some other form of Oriental. ‘Not much for you here, sir. Bit crowded. Appreciate your interest, but best if you leave.’

Which is what he did. There was no point in staying. He had failed. The child was gone.

Outside in Brewer Street it had begun to snow. The middle of May yet it fell grey and chilling, right across London. An omen. As though the whole world was losing its way.

Alerted by his death-defying call on the mobile phone, they were waiting for him on the other side of the security tape, their senses in the grip of winter.

‘The child gone?’ Frasi’s voice had a sharpness to it, almost a tone of indictment.

‘Yes.’

‘It is the end of everything,’ Kunga whispered.

Wangyal could find no words, the tears streaming down his cheek witness to his utter misery.

‘You have failed us,’ Phuntsog said, without adornment. He could always be relied upon.

‘You are harsh, Phuntsog,’ Kunga rebuked.

‘Am I? We search in one place, then he tells us search in another. When all the while we should have been looking here.’

‘Our enemies have been powerful.’

‘And kept most powerfully informed. Often by Minister Goodfellowe.’

‘He cannot be blamed. No one is to blame.’

‘We have lost our great protector, our homeland, everything. Yet you tell me no one is to blame? The very soul of Tibet has been destroyed, Kunga Tashi.’

‘We have tried …’

‘You cannot wash your hands so easily …’

‘It could have been so very different …’

As the snow fell they began to argue amongst themselves and to lay blame for failure. Goodfellowe felt no anger with them, not even with Phuntsog’s accusations, for their hearts had been ripped out in front of them and pain was inevitable. Yet he felt soiled. He had helped bring them to this point, where friendship was dying along with their hope.

Eventually the melting snow underfoot began to find its way through their soles and to freeze their need for recrimination. They had argued themselves to sullenness. This group of men represented the future of Tibet, and now it was nothing but fragments. The tears in Wangyal’s eyes welled ever more openly.

‘I apologize, Tummo,’ Kunga offered. ‘We have abused your kindness.’

‘It is I who have abused your trust. You relied on me. I failed. It was my fault as much as anyone’s that we didn’t get here in time.’

‘But without you we would not have got here at all.’

Brewer Street stood drab and silent in the snow. The policemen on duty had sought shelter, the other spectators had fled to the warmth indoors. It was like a Lowry painting, colours faded and mournful, with five round-shouldered men bound together only by defeat.

‘What should we do, Tummo?’ Kunga at least still looked to him for guidance.

Goodfellowe wrapped his jacket tightly around him and studied the mean skies. ‘You go make your mark with the parents, Kunga. They’ll need you as much as we need them.’

‘And you?’

‘I don’t know about you gentlemen,’ he sniffed, blowing into cupped hands to restore his circulation, ‘but I’m dying for a cup of tea. And I think I know just the place.’

There had been a crackdown in Tibet. The Chinese were taking no chances. As the search for the child had intensified, their net had been thrown wide and anyone associated with the Dalai clique had been hauled in for questioning. Monks, nuns, former officials, teachers, particularly elderly abbots, anybody who featured on the political files of the Ministry of State Security – and there were thousands – had been questioned, then frequently cudgelled and bludgeoned. And, in almost every case, locked up.

Under Chinese occupation, imprisonment had become Tibet’s largest and fastest growing industry. Even though peasants starved, more resources had been thrown at it than agriculture. While Tibetan schools were closed across the land, new gaols appeared like lambs in spring. Yet still there were not enough, for the prisons overflowed. Prisons like the notorious Drapchi, Prison Number One, a few kilometres north of Lhasa. During the days of independence the place had been best known for its holy shrine, but the Chinese had turned it into a site for what they termed an institute of re-education, intended to accommodate up to eight hundred ‘scholars’. Now it held nearly two thousand as Tibet was assailed by a deluge of despair. The prison authorities had little idea for what precise reason or for how long these people were being held but, since they were Tibetans, what did it matter? The cells overflowed, every corner was filled, even those that were designed for purposes other than simple incarceration. Like those places reserved for political prisoners in Unit 5, cells that were less than five feet high and in which no one could stand erect. And those cells where the floor was constantly six inches deep in water and filth and where a single night left most inmates crying for feeling back in their limbs.

A cauldron of sorrows.

And as snow fell across Brewer Street, a great shaking of the earth hit Lhasa. Buildings trembled, people ran in terror through the streets, the skies darkened like night as they filled with dust. Many thought it heralded the end of the world. Cracks and fissures appeared everywhere, in roads, through walls and roofs and across the passions of everyone in the capital. Yet this was no ordinary earthquake. Nothing fell down. Not a building nor a single bridge collapsed. It was a portent, of that few had any doubt, a warning of what was to come.

In Drapchi gaol they discovered that the shifting ground had caused a subtle change to the geometry. No cell had burst, no bars had been breached, but instead the locked doors throughout the gaol had stuck firmly in their jambs. They couldn’t be opened. And if they were, there was the thought that the whole stinking place might collapse around them.

So what? The Institute of Geological Sciences predicted that there would be more shocks which might finish off the job. These strange superstitious Tibetans might yet be crushed by their own ungrateful gods. So leave them there! Stuck fast behind the doors. It would save their gaolers the trouble of throwing away the keys.

It was a slow and tiring cycle ride all the way up to Hampstead Heath. He’d buckled the front wheel going over the kerb outside the sex shop and it squeaked in protest with every turn. It made steering difficult in the snow, which was beginning to settle both upon the road and upon Goodfellowe himself. Perhaps he should have gone by Tube after all, his destination was just along from Golders Green Station, but he needed the fresh air and the time to think.

He gambled that she would have taken the child to the Residence rather than the Embassy, where there were too many prying eyes. Madame Lin would not be proud of what she had done and would have little wish to parade a captive two-year-old. But the child would need to be secure, on diplomatically protected soil, until he was flown out on a diplomatically protected flight. So it had to be the Residence.

It lay just off the Heath, a sombre red-brick Gothic mansion that stood behind high walls, its entrance protected by heavy metalwork gates and a phalanx of obtrusive security devices. Outside Goodfellowe slithered precariously to a halt, the brakes jammed with slush and all but useless. He was feeling distinctly damp around the collar where the snow had melted and trickled down his face and neck. In normal circumstances he would have considered this a first-class workout. Now it appeared little short of madness.

He rang the intercom. He could feel the presence of the red-eyed security camera watching him, but there was no answer. He rang again. Still nothing. Perhaps the intercom wasn’t working. Or perhaps he’d got this all wrong and they weren’t here. The place looked almost abandoned. The rhododendron bushes were unkempt, the silver birch bent in sorrow, the driveway was covered in moss and old leaves. A garden hose trailed along the side of the short drive; it didn’t appear to have been used or moved for some time. A fruitless journey. Another screw-up, one amongst so many. He stood pressed up against the wrought-iron gate, peering forlornly through its bars.

Then he saw her, looking out through the snow from one of the leaded windows on the first floor. She was staring directly at him. There was a curious cast to her eyes, not the arrogance of victory but something that might almost be mistaken for compassion. He brushed damp hair from his eyes, returning the stare, trying to hate, but failing. How could he hate her? They were too much alike. All he could offer was futile defiance. Then she stepped back out of sight.

A moment later the buzzer rang and the automatic gates swung apart.

The bicycle made an uncertain track through the snow to the heavy wooden front doors. Standing before them, Goodfellowe made an attempt to shake the snow from his clothes but they were now so wet that the effort met with only modest success. Then the doors opened and he was ushered inside by an elderly Chinese servant who appeared to have a limp and only one tooth. He spoke no English but there was no mistaking the surprise on his face as he examined Goodfellowe and the puddle that was already beginning to form beneath him on the marble floor. With a quick bow of apology the servant disappeared, returning a few seconds later with two warm, dry towels, one for his hair and the other for him to stand on. It was only now he was standing in the dark hallway that Goodfellowe realized how bitterly cold he had become.

‘An omen, perhaps?’ Madame Lin appeared at the top of the stairs. ‘The weather is an omen?’

‘Undoubtedly,’ Goodfellowe concurred, finishing the running repairs to his hair. ‘But the skill is not in recognizing an omen. It is in deciding what it means.’

‘And what do you believe such snow means, Thomas?’

‘That many cricket matches are about to be abandoned.’

‘Perhaps many kingdoms, too.’

‘Ah, but which ones? Omens don’t tell us such things. That is for you and me to decide.’

‘Then I believe the decision is already made.’

He threw the towel in the corner, an aggressive gesture. ‘I’ve come for the child.’

‘Of course you have.’

‘You admit he’s here?’ He looked around as though expecting to see some sign.

‘I see no point in denying it. Not to you.’

‘You can’t take him back to China, you know.’ He sounded defiant, but didn’t feel it.

‘But Thomas, he is already in China. This is a diplomatic residence. Legally it is Chinese territory. Foreign soil. You have no power here.’

‘I could make it very tough for you. In the media.’

‘Thomas, Thomas. I’m glad to see you have not lost your sense of humour. Did you learn nothing from Tienanmen? You would be no more than a fly banging its head against the Great Wall.’

‘And I’ll ask questions in Parliament.’

She looked down from her position at the top of the stairs, like a schoolmistress lecturing a dullard class. ‘So what would you ask the Prime Minister to do? Make an enemy of China? Sacrifice investment worth billions of pounds? Perhaps the thousands of jobs that depend on it?’ She shook her head. ‘No one could be so rash and foolish.’

‘You obviously don’t know the Prime Minister.’

She laughed lightly. ‘But I do. And perhaps you are right in his case. But even if you could persuade him to become involved, even if you could convince him that the baby Jesus himself was inside the building with Herod sharpening his knives in the kitchen, there is nothing he could do. Not here. Not in China.’ Her voiced softened, no triumphalism. ‘And there is nothing you can do either, Thomas.’

He considered the point carefully. ‘Except perhaps have tea.’

She smiled and waved him up the stairs. ‘I have some waiting. Please join me. It’s jasmine, I’m afraid; a little gentle for your taste, perhaps. But refreshing after your long journey. I’m sorry that your time has been wasted.’

She led the way into a sitting room full of narrow windows and light that had been made heavy by the snow. A lonely room, he realized, for a lonely woman. She poured tea from a low table while Goodfellowe started upon a tour of inspection, as though he were looking for something special. He found it above the marble fireplace, a pair of fine Tang dynasty earthenware camels partially covered in a three-colour glaze of deep emerald, brown and cream. He took one in each hand, weighing them.

‘Magnificent,’ he muttered.

‘Seventh century. I am delighted you appreciate them.’

He held one up above eye level, examining it from all sides. ‘To look at it you’d almost think it was … why, genuine.’ He released his grip. The camel shattered into fragments in the hearth.

‘Thomas! Are you mad …?’

He shuffled the broken pieces around with his toe. ‘To be honest I’ve no idea whether it was genuine or not. I’m no judge of such things. Not many people are, which is why it’s so easy to get away with good forgeries. But was that the genuine article? Or is it this one? Or are they both fake?’ The second camel fell and smashed with a sound like gunshot.