Charlie’s Apprentice

Thirty-three

It was the attentive Ian Nicholson who raised the alert, although with no immediate urgency: at first Nicholson regarded the problem as no greater than that of a visiting Foreign Office colleague getting lost in a strange and unaccustomed city, without the ability to speak or read the language to seek help. Initially Nicholson even hesitated about mentioning it at all, and having decided he should he was uncertain whom to tell, because it was not a situation he had encountered before. He finally determined upon the senior security officer, Alan Rossiter, who was as uncertain as Nicholson and for the same reasons. It was late afternoon, minutes before the embassy was officially closing for the day, before Rossiter finally spoke to Peter Samuels and the sensitive bells began to jangle.

Samuels ordered the security man and Nicholson to remain on the premises for a possible discussion with the ambassador. Samuels held the senior legal attache, Patrick Plowright, for the same reason, without offering an explanation.

‘This could be everything we feared,’ judged Railton, when the political officer disclosed Gower’s absence. The ambassador was away from his desk, fidgeting in front of the fireplace and the largest of the carpet wall hangings, striding back and forth but only briefly, not more than four or five steps in either direction.

‘We don’t know that it’s bad at all, at this point,’ cautioned the political officer. ‘He apparently indicated to Nicholson that he would be back around mid-day. He hasn’t arrived.’

Railton looked unnecessarily at his watch. ‘He’s been adrift for six hours then?’

‘If he is missing,’ said Samuels, trying to calm the other man. ‘There could be a dozen reasons why he hasn’t returned yet. We just don’t know: can’t know.’

‘Damn them!’ said Railton, vehemently. ‘Damn these stupid services with their cloak-and-dagger rubbish! You’re right: we don’t know what the hell the man was up to. So we can’t formulate any sort of response!’

‘We haven’t been asked to make one yet,’ pointed out Samuels.

‘What have you done, so far?’

‘Told Rossiter and Nicholson to stand by. Plowright, too.’

Railton nodded approval, ‘Quite right. Best to confine it to as small a group as possible. We should tell London, of course.’

‘Should we?’ queried Samuels. ‘Tell them what? Gower didn’t log an official return time. Just mentioned casually that he would be back.’

Railton stopped his up-and-down promenade. ‘Damn the man and all he represents! This could be awful: disastrous.’

‘I don’t think we should tell the others what Gower’s real function was,’ warned Samuels. ‘Not unless there is something official, from the government here. In which case they’ll learn anyway. For the moment I recommend we do nothing too prematurely, either within the embassy or with the authorities, outside.’

Railton nodded again. ‘Quite right: nothing premature. Just prepare ourselves. Call the others.’

By the time they assembled, Nicholson noticeably nervous, Railton was re-established behind his impressive desk, showing no signs of the agitation of a few minutes before. He waved them to gather chairs for themselves, conveying the impression of a casual discussion, not a matter of any urgency. He smiled towards Nicholson, furthering the young man’s uncertainty, and said: ‘Now what do we think we’ve got here?’

‘I am not sure, sir,’ said the Scot, immediately apologetic. ‘Maybe I’ve been too hasty. I’m sorry…’

‘Rather have a reaction than no reaction at all,’ encouraged Railton. ‘I just want to get everything clear in my mind. Tell me exactly what this man Gower told you, about getting back.’

‘He’s eaten with us a couple of times: Jane’s buying a dress for him to take home to his fiancee. At dinner last night he said he was going out into the town, but would certainly be back for lunch. We arranged to eat together in the mess.’

‘A definite arrangement, then?’ pressed Railton.

‘I thought so.’

‘Did he say anything else?’ came in Samuels.

Nicholson thought about the question, before answering it. ‘Not about today,’ the man shrugged. ‘He mentioned that he expected to be going home very shortly.’

There was a silence.

Samuels said: ‘ Certainly be back by midday?’

‘That’s what he said,’ agreed Nicholson, frowning at the need for such constant repetition.

‘And that he was going home very shortly?’ echoed the ambassador.

‘Yes.’

The ambassador’s hands began moving around the desk, as if he were anxious to employ them. ‘Did he say where he was going?’

Nicholson shook his head. ‘Just out.’

Rossiter noisily cleared his throat, a reminder of his presence. ‘Beijing is confusing to a newcomer: very easy to get lost. He could very easily turn up in a while.’ Rossiter looked the military policeman he had once been. He sat oddly to attention, all three buttons of his jacket done up, hair shorn almost to the point of baldness up to the very top of his head.

‘I am not, at this stage, regarding this as sinister,’ insisted Railton. ‘I have no reason or cause to regard anything as sinister.’

‘Can we explore that?’ came in Plowright, quickly. Plowright was an unsettlingly diminutive man, just inches from being dwarflike. It was the embarrassing absence of stature that had taken him into the diplomatic legal profession, rather than any practising career before a Bar behind which he would have looked ridiculous. Plowright always dressed, as he was now, in the black jacket and striped trousers of his profession: customarily, in introducing himself, he identified the Inn of Court in London through which he had been called to the Bar, as if proof were necessary that he really was a qualified barrister.

‘What do you mean by exploring it?’ demanded Samuels.

‘This man Gower was here to carry out a survey of embassy facilities?’

‘Yes,’ agreed Samuels.

There was another silence.

‘ Was he?’ demanded the senior lawyer, at last.

‘I’m not sure I understand that question,’ evaded the ambassador.

Plowright had found that because of his smallness people tended to diminish him in everything. It annoyed him. He sighed. ‘The most obvious explanation at the moment for what’s happened is that Gower has got lost: that he’ll reappear, hopefully very shortly. For which we will all be relieved and grateful. But if he doesn’t…’ The man paused, seeking a legal nicety. ‘… if for some unfortunate reason there is a difficulty in which I have to become officially involved, I need to be fully acquainted with the true facts. And all of the facts.’ He looked rapidly between the ambassador and the political officer, waiting to see which would reply.

‘I am not sure…’ started Samuels.

‘… I think we all are, in this room,’ cut off the senior lawyer. ‘I am not familiar in this or any other embassy to which I have been attached with facility officers travelling thousands of miles to perform a function that could be more than adequately fulfilled in half a day by any second secretary.’

Samuels gave no reaction, but the ambassador shifted uncomfortably. A diplomat happy nesting in the thicket of diplomatic ambiguity, Railton said: ‘My advice from London was that John Gower was a facilities officer. It is as such that he is accredited.’

‘So you know of no other reason, apart from his becoming lost, why he has not yet returned to this embassy?’

‘No,’ said Railton, thinly.

‘There are other possibilities, beyond his having simply lost his way,’ suggested the security officer. ‘He could have fallen ill, been taken to hospital somewhere. Or been involved in an accident, which could also have put him into hospital.’

‘They are possibilities,’ agreed Samuels. Now he was thin-voiced. ‘But in either event I would have expected official contact. He would have been carrying documentation identifying him as English even if he was unconscious or incapable of communicating.’

‘Couldn’t we contact the obvious places – hospitals or police stations – just in case?’ asked Nicholson, ingenuously. ‘We surely can’t just sit around and wait, expecting him to surface?’

‘No!’ said Samuels, too sharply. ‘I don’t think we need to go outside of this embassy for the moment.’

‘He could be hurt!’ persisted Nicholson.

‘No!’ endorsed Railton. ‘We wait.’

‘How long for?’ asked Rossiter.

Railton looked at his political officer for guidance. When Samuels said nothing, the ambassador said: ‘Tomorrow. We’ll give it twenty-four hours. If he hasn’t come back by then, we’ll start making enquiries.’ He looked to each of them. ‘In the meantime, I don’t want this spread about the embassy: it’s very easy here for rumours to become ridiculously outlandish. For the moment this remains a matter between ourselves. And that is an official instruction. Understood?’

There were various head movements and sounds of agreement from the men assembled in the room.

‘I want everyone standing by, obviously…’ Railton nodded towards the political officer. ‘Peter and I might decide upon another conference, whatever happens, tomorrow…’ The ambassador looked between Nicholson and Rossiter. ‘I want you obviously to monitor his quarters, in case he comes back. If he does, I want to be informed immediately, irrespective of the time.’

Samuels remained behind, after the others left. In pointed reminder, Samuels said: ‘ Certainly back for lunch. And that he was going home very shortly.’

‘I felt like an idiot,’ complained Railton. ‘And what the hell did that gnome of a lawyer think he was up to?’

‘Being professional, as he saw it,’ suggested Samuels.

‘I think we should tell London,’ said Railton, reaching a reluctant decision. ‘If everything turns out all right, then so be it. But I don’t want the Foreign Office and the Foreign Secretary caught unawares if it’s not all right. They’ve got to be prepared, as best they can be. Get whatever guidance there is from Gower’s people. I’d like whatever there is, too.’

Samuels nodded, accepting the instruction. ‘Shall I express our concern at this stage? Or merely make a report?’

Railton remained head bent at his desk for several moments. ‘Express our concern,’ he said, looking up. ‘A simple report might lie around undistributed for days. If we indicate concern, it’ll get some reaction: get it sent to the right departments.’ The diplomat paused before adding: ‘I just know it’s going to be bad. Disastrous.’

‘I think you are right,’ said Samuels, at the door. ‘I think Gower has been arrested. So God knows what the end is going to be.’

The wording of the cable did result in it being instantly directed across the river from Whitehall to Westminster Bridge Road: Peter Miller was alerted by telephone in advance of its actual arrival, so Patricia Elder was already with him when it was delivered.

‘No official denunciation or protest,’ Patricia pointed out. ‘There would have been, if he’d broken.’

‘We can’t anticipate the severity of the questioning,’ said Miller. ‘But we’ve got to try to minimize that as best we can. The only way is the strongest possible protest: make them apprehensive of treating him badly. I’ll give the Foreign Office briefing personally. Gower’s cover is one hundred per cent: the line has to be that he’s an innocent diplomat, wrongly detained.’

‘There’s too much we don’t know,’ protested Patricia. She nodded towards the message. ‘What’s their guidance?’

‘To make every possible enquiry!’ said Miller, contemptuously.

‘We’re hamstrung, not knowing any of the circumstances!’

‘If it were unarguably incriminating there would have been a public announcement by now,’ insisted Miller.

‘It’ll be the most unholy mess if Gower breaks.’

‘He was the most resistant to interrogation, in his entry course. He won’t break easily.’

Natalia felt herself in the middle of a tightrope with both ends fraying, not knowing which way to dash to safety. It all had to be perfectly coordinated, and at the moment it wasn’t. The Federal Prosecutor, who was responsible for any prosecution of Eduard, had acknowledged her approach and then written in greater length, and the previous day there had been a telephone call which she had avoided, with an innocent message left with a secretary for her to return the call, to arrange a meeting. Natalia did not think she could put it off much longer. Two days, she decided. Three at the most. That was the maximum she could allow herself. Just three days.

In his office further along the same corridor and on the same level at Yasenevo, Fyodor Tudin was finalizing the plans he was sure were going to get rid of Natalia Fedova for ever. He was very excited.