Charlie’s Apprentice

I was catching: the train I saw surrounded by troops as I left.’

‘Jesus!’ said Julia, aghast.

‘Which was another very good reason why I didn’t want to catch the plane out of Beijing that Samuels ordered me to catch: considerately booked for me.’

‘You think they’d still have tried to put you and Gower on trial, if they’d got you?’

‘If they’d caught me.’

‘You sure Pickering was part of it?’

‘It all goes back to the nonsense of how Snow was treated. Not in the beginning. Then Snow was properly handled by his Control. There was a man called Bowley. Another named George Street. Their liaison procedures were impeccable. Snow could make his meetings through the public event visits through the embassy but more regularly by using the trips for his asthma medication from the resident doctor. I checked with two who have retired to Sussex. But then Pickering arrived. The same Pickering who sent a cable on a security reserved line to London – but monitored in Hong Kong, where I found it – informing Miller directly of a meeting I had with him. The same Pickering who from the moment of his arrival in Beijing closed down the asthma drug facility and told Snow he had in future to get his stuff from Rome, separating him from the embassy. Like Foster kept the poor bastard at arm’s length, although Foster didn’t know how he was being used in the scheme, constantly to expose Snow and force him into that ridiculous message-signalling crap, which really did become obsolete with the ending of the Cold War that everyone keeps on about. Foster – another first-time appointee, according to the files – was too stupid to have realized or suspected, of course.’

‘Why was Foster withdrawn, for Gower and you to go in?’

‘Foster’s withdrawal indicated panic, for the Chinese to pick up on: don’t forget, we were doing it to fool them and keep Robertson safe: we didn’t know we were fooling ourselves. Gower going in – and me after him – showed more panic. It was all part of Miller and Patricia Elder’s perfect package. With the Chinese laughing their balls off at all the effort we were going to for their benefit.’

‘It’s inconceivable that Snow and Gower and you were considered expendable, to protect one man!’ refused the girl.

Charlie slowly moved his head from side to side. ‘Not to keep someone like Robertson in place. I don’t know, but Robertson must have proved himself over and over again to London. The Chinese would have guaranteed that. They must have passed over an enormous amount of genuine stuff to have built up Robertson’s credibility. You any idea what a completely trusted agent can do, feeding disinformation back to people who never query it because he’s so reliable?’

Julia visibly shuddered, pushing her glass forward for more wine. ‘Why?’ she demanded sharply. ‘Why any of this? Why did Snow and Gower and you have to be entrapped? I can’t accept what you’re telling me!’

‘Robertson was an asset, always to be protected,’ insisted Charlie. ‘That’s why Snow was approached, as permanent, in-place insurance against Robertson being suspected by the Chinese: approached by our idiots who didn’t know Robertson was with the Chinese ever since his brainwashing imprisonment. Snow told me at the embassy our people came to him within days of his appointment to Beijing being decided by his Curia, before any public announcements. Again, that could only have come from Robertson, who would have been consulted beforehand. Any mistake Robertson made could have been switched on to Snow. Who was always expendable, as far as London was concerned. But it wasn’t London who became concerned. It was Beijing. Because Snow was too good. Look what he got on that trip, despite being chaperoned by Li. Snow was bloody marvellous! So he had to be got rid of. And then there was the Chinese decision to move against their dissidents again. But not like before, in Tiananmen. The international outcry was too much then: they couldn’t risk arbitrary round-ups and imprisonment. It had to be internationally acceptable. Robertson would have marked Zhang Su Lin the moment he came into the mission. What better way of staging a countrywide swoop and a huge and genuine show trial than by being able to prove a connection between Zhang and Snow – both of whom would have confessed – with Gower and me thrown in for good measure? It was perfect.’

Julia was slumped wearily over the table. ‘It’s still difficult to follow: I’m not even sure I want to follow it!’

‘No one was supposed to follow it,’ said Charlie. ‘Not the way Miller and Patricia Elder set it up, believing Robertson at risk of exposure because of the past connection of the mission with Zhang Su Lin. And certainly not how the Chinese twisted it back against us, to rid themselves of a troublesome priest.’

Julia straightened, seemingly too overwhelmed to argue against him any more. ‘So what are you going to do?’

‘I’ve done all I can,’ said Charlie. ‘I’ve warned them against Robertson, which is the most important thing. It means we haven’t got an asset left in Beijing, but at least we’re not going to be misled with phoney information, for as long as the old bastard goes on living …’ He shrugged, resigned. ‘I could challenge them, about Samuels and Pickering and all the intercepted messages, but you know and I know that I’d achieve bugger-all. There’d be denials. Within an hour, there would be no evidence left in the Hong Kong files.’

‘I suppose you’re right,’ agreed Julia, sadly.

‘I’m screwed,’ said Charlie. ‘Not as badly or as much as they intended me to be. But I’m still screwed.’

‘I wish there was something – any thing – that I could do!’

Now Charlie straightened. ‘You’ve done a lot already.’

‘It just doesn’t seem fair!’

‘Life isn’t.’ Charlie looked enquiringly around the room, for their waitress. ‘We haven’t even ordered yet.’

‘I’m not hungry.’

‘I am!’ said Charlie, enthusiastically. ‘A lot of that Chinese food was shit!’ He ordered cajun blackened chicken. It was good.

It was an easier run down from London than he’d expected, so Charlie had time to stop at the Stockbridge hotel that allowed the exclusive fishing club their special privileges. They had Islay malt, which he recognized as his privilege. He savoured two whiskies, still trying to plan his moves to survive in the department, which he was determined to do. The snare he’d already laid seemed very inadequate: he still wasn’t sure whether – or how – to play his trump card.

Charlie was still at the nursing home when visiting began, hesitating at the matron’s office to apologize for his recent absence.

‘I’m glad you’re here at last,’ said the woman. ‘We’ve got something for you.’ Seeing Charlie’s reaction when he opened the package, she said worriedly: ‘Whatever is it? I thought for a moment you were going to faint.’

‘Nothing,’ said Charlie, thick-throated. He’d thought he was going to collapse, as well. And he’d never done that before, no matter how great the shock.

The package contained two photographs.

One was of the Director-General and Patricia Elder which he guessed he had actually seen being taken that morning outside the Regent’s Park penthouse.

The other was of a baby. Written on the back, in handwriting he recognized because they’d often left notes for each other in Moscow, was: ‘Her name is Sasha’ and a date.

Fifty

Charlie cut the visit as short as he could, but it still took a supreme effort of will to sit by his mother’s bedside and maintain even a minimal conversation. It didn’t help that she was more alert than she had been for months, talking incessantly and clearly expecting him to stay much longer, as did the nursing home staff. He left promising to extend his next visit.

He stopped again at the Stockbridge hotel, the first available convenient place, still feeling shaky. He couldn’t believe how close he’d been to collapsing when he’d recognized Natalia’s writing! He was getting far too bloody old for shocks like that. Shock wasn’t the right word, although it described how it had affected him. He couldn’t think how he wanted to express it, but revelation was one word that occurred to him. Escape – inexplicably – was another. Then he asked himself why it was important to categorize it at all, so he stopped bothering, because there was so much else he had to think about. He bought another Islay malt, a large one, and settled in a corner far away