Charlie’s Apprentice

different suit today, blue, but still severely businesslike. The greying hair seemed neater than the last time, and Charlie guessed she’d had it cut again. He still thought it was a mistake. The new shortness made even more pronounced the already strong features that didn’t need accentuating. There were still the two flower arrangements, although the blooms had been changed: they looked fresh. There were no folders on this occasion.

‘You seemed to find a lot to write about, after just one meeting with Gower,’ she said at once.

‘It’s a new job: I’m not sure what’s expected of me.’

‘The best you can do.’ The black eyes bored into him.

Bitch, thought Charlie. ‘I considered it a security lapse, instructors at training facilities disclosing their names. Don’t you?’

The woman lowered her head, in unspeaking concession. ‘I have already issued a memorandum, correcting it in future.’

‘How long has it been allowed? How long has it gone on?’

There was another head movement. ‘I’ve begun an inquiry into that, too.’

‘There’ll be a lot of lying. You’ll never get an accurate figure. If I were you I’d try to find out the other way around: enquire from officers who have passed out in …’ Charlie hesitated, seeking a sensible period. ‘… maybe the last four or five years.’

Patricia Elder sighed. ‘I’ve gone back six years.’

‘Good,’ said Charlie, feeling satisfied.

‘I am impressed, if that’s what you want to hear.’

‘It’s not,’ said Charlie, which wasn’t completely true: he was trying to impress this woman who for the moment had power over him. ‘What about Personnel bandying your name all over the place?’

‘Reprimands have been issued. It won’t happen again.’

‘You having every single memorandum checked, since you took up your appointment?’

‘ I’m not the person you’re supposed to be training!’

Charlie noted, pleased, that there was no outrage in the protest. ‘I sent a third memorandum.’

‘I read it.’

‘And?’ Charlie prompted.

‘According to the security log, your meeting with John Gower ended at 3.39 pm. I received that afternoon a memorandum from John Gower timed at 4.20 pm, warning me that you had advised him, in the event of hostile interrogation, to disclose the names of every one of the instructors who had allowed him to know their identity, my own identity, and the location of this building.’

Charlie smiled, broadly, in increasing satisfaction. ‘That’s excellent! Did he make any recommendation? Suggest I was a security risk?’

Patricia Elder frowned, coming slightly forward over her desk. ‘Was that what it was? A test you set up, to see if he would respond?’

‘Of course it was a test!’ said Charlie. ‘And he passed it.’

‘What if he hadn’t reported you?’

‘It would have put a doubt in my mind of his ever completely becoming the sort of officer he should.’

‘Would you have disclosed the information, under forced interrogation?’

‘Every one.’

‘You really mean that?’

‘Of course I mean it. If instructors are stupid enough to let their names be known, it’s their fault if they get a hostile file created on them. If security here is so lax your name is openly used on memoranda, then your identity deserves to become public knowledge as well. And what I told him about this place is true: this address is probably on lavatory walls in outer Mongolia. Why should anyone with their balls in a vice suffer more than they have to, because there aren’t professionals back here training them?’

‘The old Cold War warrior!’ mocked the woman. ‘And I’m not sure people get their balls put in a vice during interrogation any more.’

Charlie wasn’t offended by the sarcasm. ‘They will, if the interrogators think there’s something important enough to find out. And you agree with me about poor security: if you hadn’t, you wouldn’t have ordered the tightening up you’ve already told me about.’ Charlie wasn’t sure but he thought she was colouring slightly, as if she were embarrassed at being so easily caught out.

‘So it’s begun well!’ she said, briskly, wanting to move the conversation on.

‘Well enough.’

‘Any idea how long it’s going to take?’

‘Not yet,’ frowned Charlie. ‘There’s no hurry, is there?’

‘None whatsoever,’ smiled the woman.

In one of those illogicalities of Chinese life to which Jeremy Snow had long ago become accustomed there was no luxingshe tourist bureau on Zhengzhou station, even though it was a large terminus. The first station official claimed not to know where the Jasmine Hotel was: from the direction from a second, it seemed too far to walk. Snow took a pedicab, instantly immersed in a shoal of bicycles weaving and darting all around him: just like the fish of which they reminded him, they always appeared on the point of disastrous collision but never quite hit each other. He saw that several riders were wearing pollution masks and wondered if he would soon have to use his.

Li Dong Ming was sitting patiently in the hotel foyer when Snow arrived, hurrying forward the moment the priest identified himself to the receptionist. There was no smile of greeting from the official escort, just the vaguest of bows. The spectacles added to the expression of seriousness: the man’s ears stuck out as prominently as they had appeared in the photograph provided in Beijing. He was extremely short, hardly more than 5’ tall, creating an almost ludicrous comparison between their respective heights.

The dormitory that had been allocated was small, fitted with only two beds.

‘I have the other one,’ said Li. ‘It seemed best, don’t you think?’ He had to strain to talk to the priest.

‘Yes,’ said Snow, not quite sure to what he was agreeing.

Nine

The next session began well. Everything Gower wore was subdued. The shirt was plain white, with no monogram, the tie a bland blue and the chain-store suit nondescript. He’d left off the signet ring. He continued to call Charlie ‘sir’. Charlie supposed the man had to address him in some way.

Charlie carefully chose the centre at Berkshire where he knew Gower had not been instructed: he didn’t want identification by association from instructors careless of security.

Charlie selected the motorway route. After half a mile he demanded the number of vehicles Gower had overtaken since they’d joined and which cars that had been behind from the beginning were still close.

‘Someone’s following! It’s a test!’ exclaimed Gower, snatching a series of hurried looks into the rear-view mirror.

‘Soon it isn’t going to be training. When you’re operational and it’s got to be an automatic reflex to check. And check and check again. You’ve always got to know what’s happening around you.’

‘Even when I’m not on assignment.’

‘Always,’ insisted Charlie. He wasn’t happy with the slight head movement of disbelief from the other man.

‘Are we being followed?’

‘You tell me.’

Gower was silent for several moments. Then he admitted: ‘I don’t know how to identify pursuit in this sort of circumstance.’

Charlie was glad Gower’s admission hadn’t taken longer: the turn-off was already indicated. ‘Slow, into the inside lane. Mark the cars behind. And those ahead, too. In a moving vehicle it’s as easy to watch a target from the