Charlie’s Apprentice

Gower guessed from the length of the journey that he was being taken outside the city. He was glad of the time, using it to recover. He remained hollowed out with fear but it was lessening: certainly he’d pulled back from the collapse that was still making it uncomfortable to sit on the cold metal bench. He hoped there wouldn’t be a visibly damp patch when he stood up.

Had to think! Had to work out what had happened – what was happening – and decide how to confront it. Remember all the interrogation resistance! Think! Always take, never give, he remembered. Say the minimum at this stage then. Make the protests necessary for an innocent diplomat but no more: wait to see what the accusations were. What could they be? Difficult to anticipate yet. He had to assume Jeremy Snow had been arrested: confessed about the Taoist temple and what they used it for. But Snow couldn’t have identified him, either by name or description, because the priest didn’t have either! So there was nothing personally incriminating against him. Couldn’t be. Deny anything and everything. Certainly any knowledge of a priest named Jeremy Snow. Which wasn’t cowardice. Or abandoning the man. It was common, practical sense. Snow had been told again and again to run. And arrogantly refused. He was the architect of his own destruction. Now it all came down to damage limitation. Interrogation resistance. Vital they weren’t able to link him with anything, to form a provable connection with the embassy. A good liar tells the fewest lies. Important to remember that. Important to remember everything. He was in a difficult situation but that’s all it was, difficult. Not disastrous. Possible, even, to extricate himself. Thank God for this journey, giving him the chance to think. Not frightened any more: properly apprehensive, properly alert, but not frightened. Ridiculous to have pissed himself. No one would ever know. Make the necessary protests of an innocent diplomat, he thought again. Now was the time: to wait might indicate an acceptance of guilt.

Addressing the officer who spoke at least some English, Gower said: ‘I demand an explanation for this illegal detention. I am an accredited British diplomat, guaranteed protection in your country according to the Vienna Convention.’

It was the civilian who answered. ‘Be quiet. You are a spy.’ The tone was extremely soft, almost difficult to hear: the sibilants hissed.

‘That is a ridiculous accusation!’

‘Quiet.’ The hands made a damping-down movement.

‘I demand the embassy is told of my arrest.’

The plainclothes man ignored him, saying something instead to the uniformed officer. The thickset man shrugged, looked directly at Gower, then back to the other, shrugging a second time.

Enough, judged Gower: no more. He wondered how much further they had to go. They seemed to have been driving for almost an hour. He wished he’d thought to time it, when they’d set off. Too frightened then: not thinking properly. Recovered now. He could get himself out of this: sure he could.

Because he had belatedly fixed the time, Gower knew it was a further fifteen minutes before they stopped. Gower emerged into what appeared to be a huge area of single- and two-storey barracks: where he stood there was a group of taller buildings which he guessed marked the centre of the camp. Soldiers piled out of a van which had obviously followed them from the city: there were other men in a variety of uniforms moving around the buildings. Between a gap separating two of the barracks Gower could see a group of men drilling.

The black-suited civilian herded Gower into the block outside which they had halted. They went the full length of the block, along a corridor of closed doors on either side, encountering no one on their way. It was absolutely quiet. The walls were yellow and dirty: their feet squeaked on the rubber composite floor. The plain-clothes man opened a door at the far end of the corridor without knocking or giving any warning. Another Chinese sat at a table, waiting. The man was bespectacled and wore a buttoned-to-the-neck tunic. He appeared very young: younger, decided Gower, than he was. As he got further into the room, Gower saw two more Chinese at a side-table, behind the door: there was recording apparatus on the table and both men had notebooks opened before them.

The man who had travelled with him in the van indicated a chair directly opposite the already seated man. Gower hesitated, unsure if he should obey or if he should make another protest, finally sitting down. He was pleased at how calm he felt. There was no discomfiting wetness, either: he had forgotten to look behind him in the van, to see if he’d marked the metal bench.

‘You will tell us your name,’ declared the open-faced man at the table. ‘Mine is Chen Hong Qi. You will come to know me.’ The English was better than that of the escort in the van.

‘I am an accredited British diplomat, attached to Her Majesty’s embassy in Beijing. I demand immediate access to my embassy. And an explanation of this outrage!’

‘Name.’ The tone was practically conversational.

‘I am required by no protocol applicable here to supply my name to you.’

‘Name,’ persisted the young man.

They couldn’t deny him access to the British embassy, Gower thought. They would need a name to give to the legation, when they made contact. ‘John Gower,’ he supplied at last. The ambassador and the political officer would finally go apoplectic when they heard: both would regard it as precisely the type of problem they had so fervently wanted to avoid.

‘What is the reason for your being in Beijing?’

‘I demand immediate communication with my embassy!’

‘Turn out all your pockets.’

‘No!’

There was a sigh. ‘We will allow you to turn out your pockets yourself. Or you will be forcibly searched.’

‘It is improper for you to threaten any physical assault or restraint.’

‘Empty your pockets.’ The tone now was not so much conversational as dismissive, a weariness at having to deal with an irritant.

The man who had travelled in the van was standing beside the notetakers. Now he pushed himself away from the wall, as if expecting to receive an order. Gower realized for the first time that the squat man in the khaki uniform had not come into the room. Take, don’t give. But why not? He was carrying nothing incriminating: nothing that could even be twisted to be made so. Taking his time – consciously moving more slowly than was necessary – he started stacking the contents of his pockets on the table between them. There was a flare of anger, instantly subdued, when the man flicked open his wallet and looked curiously for several moments at the photograph of Marcia. The printed card he had intended leaving beneath the lion statue for Jeremy Snow was the last thing he put upon the table.

The original escort came further from the wall, standing beside the other Chinese as they went through everything. As they did so, initially unspeaking, Gower suddenly wondered if the thin man in the black suit was the suspicious Mr Li who was demanding the photographs from the priest. Both took a long time over the street map of Beijing: Chen held it before him, twisting it to the light, seeking any markings. It was impossible to infer anything from their facial reactions, which were minimal anyway, but towards the end of the examination Chen grunted and Gower decided they were two very disappointed men. There was a staccato exchange of Chinese between them. Picking up the card, the man said: ‘What is this?’

‘The address here in Beijing of the British embassy.’ And utterly meaningless to you, thought Gower.

‘Why?’

‘I do not know the city: I needed the address with me if I got lost.’ An explanation against which it was impossible to argue.

‘You bought flowers, by the temple?’

Careful, thought Gower: very, very careful. The one action that might cause him difficulties. ‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

The lie had to be one from which he would not deviate. ‘For my room, at the embassy.’

‘You were going towards the shrine, where flowers are displayed.’

‘I was curious. I wanted to look at the shrine.’

‘You were going to put flowers there.’

‘Nonsense! I have told you why I wanted them.’ They’d seized him too soon, Gower realized, abruptly: just minutes or seconds too soon! If they’d waited just a moment longer he would have arranged the flowers and not now been able to explain them.

‘You were going to leave a signal,’ insisted Chen. ‘You are engaged in counter-revolutionary activities in my country.’