Charlie’s Apprentice

Thirty-two

Only two men travelled with him in the van. One was the thickset officer who had appeared to be in charge of the arrest. The other was a civilian, a thin, bony man in a black, Western-style suit who made frequent gestures as he talked. There was a lot of conversation between the two of them. Although he could not understand what was being said, Gower got the impression the civilian was in some way superior to the officer, whose attitude was deferential.

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.’

‘Preposterous!’ rejected Gower. When were specific charges going to be put against him, maybe even with Jeremy Snow being identified by name?

‘Our courts deal leniently with counter-revolutionaries who confess.’

‘There is nothing whatsoever for me to confess,’ rejected Gower. ‘I demand to be released. The strongest possible protests will be made by my embassy to your Foreign Ministry.’

‘Why did you come to Beijing?’

No danger here if he maintained the established lie. ‘To examine the facilities that exist at the embassy, for British diplomats and employees.’

‘That is not true.’

‘The embassy will confirm it.’

‘Tell us the true reason for your being here.’

‘I have already done so.’ If they had something better, something provable against him, they would surely have produced it by now!

‘Admit what you’re here for!’

Gower remained as he was, refusing to speak.

‘Answer me!’ Chen’s voice was becoming louder.

Desperation, determined Gower. Dare he risk the open confrontation? It might give him some indication if they really had anything against him. ‘I have answered your questions, which according to my legal status I am not required to do. I did so to show my cooperation, over what is clearly a mistake. But not any more. I demand to be able to speak with my embassy.’

‘We know what you have done, since you have been in Beijing,’ said the Chinese. ‘And we know why you did it. What you hoped to achieve.’

Bluff, dismissed Gower. They had made a mistake, seizing him too quickly. Now their only hope of making a case would be if he stupidly gave them a confession. Gower slumped as best he could in the straight-backed chair, trying to convey an impression of relaxed confidence.

The man who had been in the van said something from his place near the wall. Chen’s reply was sharp and irritable. To Gower he said: ‘Take off your clothes.’

‘What?’

‘Take off your clothes.’

‘I absolutely refuse!’

Chen sighed. ‘Do it yourself. Or be stripped.’

It was an established questioning technique, to demean a man with his nakedness, recalled Gower. But he’d gone through it, in training: knew how to refuse the embarrassment. He stood, actually having to feign the reluctance, worried only there might be a yellow stain on his underpants. It wasn’t much. He stood with his hands cupped in front of him, expecting the examination to continue. Instead one of the men by the recording apparatus picked a bundle Gower hadn’t noticed before from a side chair, carrying it to him. Gower stared at the trousers and slipover top. They were striped, white and blue: at first he thought the stiffness was because they were made of canvas, but then he detected the human smell and realized it was from months, even years, of unwashed wear by others. ‘I will not wear these!’

Chen shrugged, as if he were uninterested, going himself to open the door to a military escort outside.

‘I want my embassy informed about this!’ Gower tried, once more.

The man gave a hand-flicking, discarding gesture. The escort formed up around Gower. With no alternative – still naked – he allowed himself to be led away. Close to the door through which he had originally entered, he was jostled down echoing stone steps into what was obviously a basement detention centre. There were solid metal doors along either side. Again, as in the corridor above, there was no sound from behind any of them.

Gower was prodded towards the middle cell, entering but instantly stopping on the threshold, gagging at the stench. There was a concrete bunk to his left, forming part of the wall out from which it was built. There was no pillow and only one thin blanket. Against the far wall, facing him, there was a small table, fronted by a stool. The gagging smell was coming from an uncurtained, open hole in the corner furthest from the bed, a stink of never-emptied sewage so bad that Gower retched and thought he was going to have to go to it to be sick. He only just managed to avoid it, swallowing the bile, recognizing that what he had thought to be the black stains of excreta all around the edge of the hole was, in fact, a cluster of gorging flies. There was a shove from behind and someone threw the sweat-starched tunic after him.

Gower edged on to the concrete ledge, arms tight across himself again, willing the revulsion to go. It still took a long time for him to be sure he wouldn’t be sick. If the embassy reacted with the outrage that it should, he could be out of this obscenely vile place by the evening. He hoped to God he was: he couldn’t imagine spending a whole night there. Certainly not being able to sleep. Hurry, he thought: dear God, please hurry.

It was to be some hours, slumped in growing despair on the rock-hard ledge, before Gower accepted he wasn’t going to be freed, because the embassy hadn’t been told of his detention.

It was bitterly, damply, cold. At first Gower tried just to use the blanket, twitching at the movement of whatever lived in it against his skin, but he began to shiver violently, so at last he was forced to put on the tunic. It was much too small for him: the top was like a straitjacket.

Would the embassy hurry to find him, when he was missed? That would be the ordinary reaction to the disappearance of someone accredited to the legation. But he wasn’t regarded as ordinary by an ambassador who considered him a nuisance and would regard him as a positive liability after this.

There was no guarantee they’d do anything quickly. Gower was still shaking, but it wasn’t solely from the cold any more.