Charlie’s Apprentice

concentrating for the abrupt confusion it might hopefully cause, he halted halfway along a road, feigning the uncertainty of a stranger realizing he had taken the wrong turning and going back the way he had come, intent upon anyone wheeling around to follow. No one did, at any of his staged performances.

Although he had seen pictures and newsreels, the vastness of Tiananmen Square momentarily overawed him. From where he stood the giant memorial photograph of Mao Tsetung was postage-stamp size, the Great Hall of the People and the walled Forbidden City initially of doll’s house dimensions. He couldn’t guess how many people were there in total – certainly hundreds – but the square still looked comparatively deserted.

Gower set out across it, towards the tomb with its snake of the faithful waiting to make their obeisance. As he walked he was aware for the first time of a fine dust in the air: it was settling on his face and hands and was gritty in his mouth. There was no sun, as there hadn’t been the previous day, but heat seemed trapped beneath the blanket of thick clouds, causing him to sweat. Mingling with the dust, it made his skin irritate. He used the act of taking off his jacket, throwing it over one shoulder, to turn fully to look around him. Nowhere, as far as he could see, was there anyone who appeared to be following or watching.

Perhaps he wasn’t being watched. Despite the warnings there was no guarantee – and certainly no way of finding one – that surveillance was absolute. Perhaps it was a hit-or-miss business: perhaps sometimes it was possible to go out of the legation and move about the streets without any official interest whatsoever. But there was no way of finding that out, either. So the assumption had to be that there was a permanent counter-intelligence attention.

So why was he allowing his mind to drift in a direction it was pointless to follow? A permissible, if naive, reflection. Now dismissed. Back to reality. The reality which said that somewhere, among the swallowed-up clusters of supposed tourists to the massive, historically bloodstained square, there was a man or men – or women – checking everything he did, everywhere he went.

Gower began to walk the full length of the Great Hall facade, mouth tight against the grit, the aching beginning of protest in his legs. The approach came when he was practically halfway along, the whispering arrival beside him so quick and unexpected he physically jerked sideways away from the man, startled.

‘I buy dollars?’

Genuine? Or for the watchers? Working on the just decided assumption of constant attention, Gower stopped, fully to confront the man. As he did so, Gower realized that trying as hard as he had been to pick out people near to him he hadn’t spotted this tout, who had to have been close to have made this sudden approach. ‘I will not exchange money unofficially. Go away.’

‘Best rates.’

Hoping that if there had been an audience the positive refusal would have been witnessed, Gower walked on, refusing to answer the continuing offers ranging through world currencies, almost theatrically ignoring the existence of the man hurrying alongside, steel-protected shoes rattling over the stonework. Despite Nicholson’s forewarning, Gower still hadn’t expected an approach on his first outing. He was practically at the far extreme of the Great Hall facade before the disappointed money-dealer accepted defeat and broke away. Gower stopped again, watching the man go to stalls at the edge of the square, discreetly to approach a four-strong group of Western tourists, from their clothes most likely American or Canadian. Both men instantly shook their heads, but one of the women felt out to her companion’s arm, stopping the rejection. It took about ten minutes to complete the transaction finalized by a conjuror’s flick of hand movements as the money was switched from one to the other. The Chinese split urgently away, without looking back. There was no official challenge or intervention. One of the women took a photograph of the disappearing man. There was a lot of laughing and head-nodding approval.

Gower started walking again towards the Forbidden City, guessing he had not allowed sufficient time later to climb Coal Hill as well as explore in one afternoon the world in which former Chinese emperors spent their entire lives.

The Forbidden City was labyrinthine. And a blaze of squinting colour, glaring oranges and reds on roofs and walls, the pathways and alleys guarded by statues and carvings of real and mythical creatures: doleful, slumped elephants and head-raised, snarling monsters with tortoise armour and spike-haired lions, squatting with teeth bared in ferocity. Gower walked with apparent aimlessness, in reality following the route set out for him in London. He found the empty brick-space on the bridge over a narrow, carp- and goldfish-filled stream: the crevice into which a single sheet of paper could be slipped, by the haunch of a hunched lion: the overhanging, concealing bush that formed a perfect cache by a refuse bin near a raised and tomb-like rectangle, and another hiding place at the back of a huge storage receptacle in what he took to be a former receiving room of the long-ago emperors.

He neither paused nor showed interest in any of the designated places, deciding as he strolled by that on the subsequent, priest-summoning deliveries a camera would give him the necessary excuse to hesitate and conceal his messages. The ever-changing statues and figures and displays and halls gave him a constant excuse to turn and look around him: not once, from one examination to the next, did he isolate anyone paying special attention to him.

Gower cut the visit short when he judged himself to be about halfway around the sprawling enclave, postponing an attempt upon the hill until the following day. Should he think of secreting a message to Jeremy Snow then? He wasn’t sure. Wrong to hurry, came the warning voice in his mind: nothing to be gained by unnecessary haste, everything to lose. His pace, his safety: and the safety, of course, of the priest. Indeed, a positive, professional reason for taking as many additional days as he wanted: watchers would be lulled trailing behind a camera-toting sightseer. He might just carry a message tomorrow. Then again, he might just not.

The eager Nicholson was in ambush when he got back to the embassy and Gower allowed himself to be pressed into their dining together. The wife, whose name was Jane, was a mousy woman who blinked a lot, as if she needed spectacles. She wore a dragon-patterned silk cheong-sam like a banner to prove she had assimilated the local culture. It was too tight, showing the bumps and knobs of her underwear. Gower remembered to ask about laundry and was assured by Nicholson it was excellent: he simply had to hand it to his Chinese houseboy. It reminded Gower to check his room traps.

‘Ian tells me it’s only a fleeting visit?’ said the woman.

‘Just checking the local facilities: seeing if anything could be improved,’ said Gower.

‘Which will throw us together a lot,’ said Nicholson. ‘That’s a big part of my job, knowing what’s available here and what’s not.’

‘I guess it will,’ agreed Gower. On the ambassador’s direct order he had to go through the pretence with the man.

‘So how long will you be here?’ asked Jane.

Gower shrugged, noncommittal. ‘No real time-limit. It’s got to be done properly. But I wouldn’t expect it to be more than a month.’

None of the room snares had been tripped when he got back to his quarters. He still decided to leave what had been pouched to him from London in the embassy security vault.

*

After the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe at Longchamp, which Miller dutifully attended with her, Lady Ann announced her intention to tour the French stables on a bloodstock-buying expedition, which allowed Miller and Patricia Elder almost a month to be permanently together. For only the third time since her affair with Miller began, Patricia moved some of her clothes and personal belongings into the mansion penthouse.

It was obviously the most convenient thing to do, to avoid Patricia having daily to commute to her own house in Chiswick to change her clothes, but Miller was apprehensive at the chance it gave her to press the well rehearsed and too often repeated divorce demands.

Their first night together – the day Gower flew to Beijing – Patricia declared she did not want to go out to eat but to cook for him in the apartment, which she did superbly. Afterwards, huddled together on a couch with brandy bowls in hand, Patricia said this was how it should be all the time and didn’t he think so too. He agreed, nervously, waiting for the familiar complaint, but she didn’t say anything more. Neither did she the next night, when they ate in again, and just very slightly Miller began to relax.

Perhaps, he thought hopefully, there wasn’t going to be a scene: perhaps, having made so many protests, Patricia was reconciled to everything staying as it was. That’s what he really wanted: things to go on undisturbed as they were.

‘New shoes?’ queried Julia.