They drove carefully, slowed by the unrelieved congestion, for several moments in complete silence. Abruptly Samuels said: ‘Your first overseas assignment?’
Gower considered lying, not wanting to concede his inexperience, but he didn’t. ‘Yes.’
Samuels nodded, an impression confirmed. ‘Very necessary you know exactly how people feel.’
Gower had expected the distancing attitude – could recall the actual warning – but he hadn’t anticipated being confronted by it literally within an hour of getting off the plane. He felt an edge of temper but quickly curbed it. There was still no reason for him to be cowed by the overbearing manner of a man who rolled words around in his mouth. Intentionally difficult, Gower said: ‘Feel about what?’
Samuels’ face creased into a confused frown. ‘Thought that was obvious.’
‘I would have thought it to be equally obvious that my function here is
Samuels’ already furrowed face coloured, but oddly, two sharply defined red patches appearing on his cheeks, like a clown’s make-up. Stiffly he said: ‘I think it is essential for you not to forget that I am a senior member of the legation here!’
‘I won’t,’ promised Gower, just as stiffly. He believed he had made the necessary correction, but it was important for him not to become too cocky.
They were in the city now, and after the curly-tipped traditional houses on the way from the airport Gower was surprised at the row after row of modern concrete blocks, some almost skyscraper-high. The streets were wider, too, enabling them to move slightly faster.
‘You speak any Chinese languages?’ demanded Samuels.
‘No,’ confessed Gower.
There was a grunt from the other man, as if the admission was confirmation of another undisclosed impression. ‘There are English-language maps at the embassy, with places marked to show their positioning to the legation. Don’t go wandering off without one. You’ll get lost.’
Gower reckoned the other man found it difficult to be anything other than patronizing. ‘I won’t.’
‘Do you intend moving around the city a lot?’
‘Not a lot,’ said Gower.
‘Good.’ There was another quick look across the car. ‘Always remember the embassy is very closely monitored by the authorities.’
‘I won’t,’ repeated Gower.
‘Some material has arrived for you, in the pouch,’ announced Samuels. ‘It’s in the safe, in the embassy vault.’
‘I’d appreciate it remaining there, until I might need it.’
‘Not for too long,’ said Samuels.
‘It’s not causing any inconvenience, is it?’
Samuels didn’t reply.
The residential compound was at the rear but separate from the legation itself, a range of low, barrack-type buildings. The quarters allocated to Gower were at the end of an apparently empty wing. It consisted of a living area furnished with a basic three-piece suite, very old-fashioned in style and hung in Paisley-patterned loose covers. An unsteady-looking table with four chairs stood in a dining annex with one wall almost completely occupied by a dresser-type piece of furniture with drawers and cupboards below and a latticework of shelves and standing places above a long, flat display surface. There was a television, with compatible video-playing equipment beneath, on a fitted television table. The carpet directly in front was oddly threadbare in one place, as if someone had intentionally rubbed away the weave. Everything was covered with a faint layer of dust. The dust continued in the bedroom, with just a bed, a bare dressing-table and fitted wardrobes along one wall and a strangely sized bed, wider than a single but not big enough to be considered a double. The kitchen was narrow, without any appliances on the Formica working tops. The kettle was an old metal type that had to be placed on heat to boil, and the refrigerator was small and bow-fronted, from the same era as the suite in the outside living-room. Gower thought it looked like a forgotten furniture repository rather than a place to be lived in.
‘Temporary accommodation; that’s all you’ll need, after all,’ said Samuels, defensively.
‘It looks very comfortable,’ lied Gower.
‘Be pointless your trying to watch Chinese television,’ said the political officer. ‘Rubbish anyway. There’s a video selection in the embassy library: pretty old stuff, though.’
‘I’ll remember that.’
‘Ian Nicholson’s the official housing and hospitality officer. Anything else you need to know, ask him.’ He paused. ‘An hour, for the ambassador?’
‘I’ll be waiting.’
The shower was hot, although the water came unevenly and in spurts, juddering loudly through the pipes: Gower forgot to wipe the dust from the bottom of the stall and initially, mixed with water, it formed a faint mud scum. As he dressed, Gower made a mental note to ask Ian Nicholson about clothes-washing facilities, which shouldn’t be a problem in a country that had given the world the Chinese laundry. All the hangers in the wardrobe were metal wire. Remembering the instruction to trust no one, wherever he was, Gower set his traps. He put one jacket away in the wardrobe facing in the opposite direction to the other three, fastened the right clasp of his suitcase but not the left, and closed the bottom drawer of the dressing-table with just an inch protruding.
Samuels telephoned precisely on the hour.
The interior of the embassy was a marked contrast to the barely functional sparseness of the living accommodation. Everything gleamed from polish and attention: there were Chinese carpet wall hangings and a lot of Chinese carvings and sculptures in niches and on display pedestals. There were revolving fans in the ceilings of all the rooms and corridors through which Gower passed, but he guessed at additional air-conditioning from the coolness, which was practically chilling compared to the outside courtyard across which he had walked, with worsening perspiration, to reach the main building.
Peter Samuels was standing beside Sir Timothy Railton when Gower entered the ambassador’s office. The man nodded to the formal introductions but offered no handshake. It was Samuels who gestured to an already positioned chair: the political officer remained standing.
The ambassador nodded sideways to the other diplomat and said: ‘You’ve talked? So there’s no misunderstandings? You know your position here?’
‘I did, before I left England,’ said Gower, surprised both by the staccato questioning and by the man himself. The ambassador was immaculately dressed, although the suit was light grey and discreetly checked, and with a waistcoat, despite the outside heat. The tie was Stowe, the shirt-collar hard and starched. Gower couldn’t see but he guessed there was a monogram somewhere. There was a signet ring, although he was too far away to see if it carried a crest. Railton was a very smooth-faced, narrow-lipped man, his hair black but thinning and combed directly back from his forehead, flat against his skull. Although the ambassador was so much smaller in stature, Gower decided at once from their demeanour and attitude that he and his political officer were very much a matching pair. Gilbert and Sullivan could probably have written a convincing duet for them.
‘Most ambassadors choose not to be aware of you people in their embassies,’ declared Railton. ‘I’m not one of them.’
Gower couldn’t think of a reply.
‘I regard you as a questionable but not a necessary evil,’ declared Railton. ‘Don’t want you thinking, no matter how little time you’re here, that you’re welcome. You’re not. Don’t want any nonsense, any difficulties, while you
Gower hesitated. ‘I have already assured Mr Samuels that I am fully aware of the sensitivity of this embassy.’
Railton gazed unconvinced across the heavy, inlaid desk. Decorative carpets hung from two of the walls and on a display stand to the left of the desk was a stampede of high-necked Chinese horses. Behind the man, through an expansive window, Gower could see three conical-hatted Chinese bent over ornately created, almost barbered lawns and flowerbeds. Railton said: ‘I’ve no intention of having this embassy compromised. Any nonsense and I
