He sat down, smoked a cigarette, and wondered if he should stay put. He decided that Natasha would not know where he was. He stood again and told himself that, if their intention had been to kill him, they would have done so earlier, when fewer people were around.
Field came out of the Carter Road quarters confidently, his hand tucked into the pocket of his jacket, gripping the butt of his revolver hard. He saw them immediately. Two were leaning against the iron railings opposite, a third waiting farther up toward the top of the road.
Field walked briskly, ignoring them. The man ahead drifted forward and allowed him the space to do what he’d intended, which was to turn into the churchyard.
He moved with less haste through the graveyard, as though he had come to visit a dead relative. He entered the front of the church.
Field had only been to one service here, but it was enough for him to be familiar with the layout. He sprinted down the center aisle, past the pulpit, and out into the vestry. The door was locked, but he opened a narrow window next to it and squeezed through. He climbed the wall behind and dropped down into the street.
He was about to run when he noticed another man standing on the opposite side of the road. He was wearing a white trilby and was not one of the three Field had seen before.
An expatriate woman walking her dog shot Field a curious and concerned glance, surprised at his sudden emergence, perhaps sensing his unease. Field brushed down his suit and began to walk again. The man followed and Field turned back once to see two of the others swiftly rounding the corner, the third climbing over the wall behind him.
Field waited for a black Buick to pass before he crossed the road. He thought there were four or five of them, if not more.
Inside the lobby at Central, a group of uniformed Chinese officers was waiting by the stairs, their Thompson machine guns propped up against the wall. Field passed them and climbed up to the S.1 office.
As he entered, he could see Granger standing by the window in his glass office, the telephone to his ear, almost hidden in a cloud of smoke. Prokopieff was at his desk, leaning back in his chair, the suspenders of his trousers hanging down beside his knees, his scuffed boots against one cubicle wall, his head against the other. He was reading a newspaper, a blue censorship pencil in his hand. He looked at Field steadily.
Yang stood from behind her desk. She had a note in her hand, and Field’s spirits surged until he read,
“Richard?” Field looked up. Granger was half out of his door. “Have you got a minute?”
Field folded up the sheet of paper and slipped it into his pocket. He noticed Yang was avoiding his eyes.
He shut the glass door behind him, banging the blind.
“I’ll take you up in a minute,” Granger said as he sat behind his desk.
“Take me up where?”
“I don’t blame you, Richard, but I would have expected to be informed.”
Field frowned.
“This is not a cowboy operation. We are entirely reliant on the council for funding, and to go in riding shotgun, accusing someone like Charles Lewis . . .” Granger shook his head. “We’ll go up in a minute. I’ll come and find you.” Granger pointed Field toward his desk. “You’re still coming tonight?”
“Dinner. Yes, of course.”
“Are you all right, Richard?”
“I’m fine, yes.”
“You look distressed.”
“No . . . I’m fine.”
“We need to talk about this supplement.”
There was a long silence. Granger looked at the smoke hanging in the air between them.
“I’ve a meeting of the budgetary committee this afternoon. I was thinking of around two hundred a month?”
Field realized he was expected to answer. He was about to say that he had already received two payments into his account, when he realized that this had nothing to do with what Granger was telling him. “That’s generous.”
“It will be paid directly into your account at the same time as your salary.”
“So this will be the first payment?”
“Yes. To be honest, at the moment I don’t feel especially like rewarding you, but I’ve got to put it in front of the committee and I promised we would discuss it, so we are. You don’t seem terribly pleased.”
“No . . . I mean yes.”
“It is paid to all members of my department here and rises as you become more senior. It’s an insurance payment.”
“An insurance payment?”
“This is an expensive city and I want the members of my department to be immune from its temptations, do you see?”
“Yes.”
“Nothing extra is expected of you; it is designed to reflect the special nature of the work in this department and the sensitivity of it. I hope you appreciate it, Richard. Most others do and it was a bloody nightmare getting it past the budget committee.”
