Charlie’s Apprentice

Forty

It did not take Charlie long to form an opinion about Walter Foster and it confused him, as quite a lot in the files and records had confused him. Despite insisting that he wanted every detail – he actually used the word debriefing – Charlie had constantly to interrupt the former liaison man to clarify or bring out points Foster seemed to consider unimportant: it quickly became an account to justify himself. The priest, Charlie decided, had been handled very badly. Which added further to the confusion.

‘You dictated the contact procedure?’ queried Charlie.

‘Not me,’ said Foster, instantly defensive. ‘London’s orders. Standard stuff: the usual separation from the embassy.’

‘Couldn’t you have adjusted it?’ Charlie wondered if that was what Gower had tried to do.

‘Snow wanted too much: virtually meetings every week. That would have been dangerous.’

‘Your decision?’

‘Following orders.’

‘How often did you meet?’

‘Regularly enough, when there were things at the embassy that the British community came to. And then when we needed to, just the two of us.’

‘How often were the embassy occasions?’ persisted Charlie.

Foster shrugged. ‘Once a month, I suppose. Sometimes a little longer. That was the benefit of how we worked: there wasn’t a pattern that could be identified.’

‘Why couldn’t you meet Snow as often as the man wanted?’

‘For exactly the objection I’ve just told you!’ insisted Foster, indignantly. ‘It would have created a pattern that could have been picked up.’

‘Snow’s not well?’

‘He suffers from asthma,’ qualified Foster.

‘Badly?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘Wouldn’t it have been the perfect way for Snow to have met you whenever he liked, coming to the embassy for medication or to see the resident doctor?’

From the surprise obvious on Foster’s face, Charlie guessed the opportunity hadn’t occurred to the other man.

‘The instructions were always that there had to be no provable embassy link. That was always how I had to work.’

‘How did you feel about him, personally?’ Charlie was curious how Foster would explain the breakdown between himself and the priest.

The man coloured slightly, heightening the sandstorm of freckles. ‘He was arrogant.’

‘So you didn’t get on?’

‘That’s not important.’

‘I would have thought it was, in a place like Beijing.’

‘We had a working relationship. It was satisfactory.’

It very definitely hadn’t been, thought Charlie. It had been obvious that he should talk to the man who had been the priest’s Control, but he wasn’t learning at all what he’d expected. He wasn’t sure, at that moment, exactly what he was learning. ‘How were things between Snow and the other priest, Father Robertson?’

Foster shrugged again. ‘Not particularly good, I don’t think. Robertson was very worried about upsetting the Chinese and getting the mission closed down.’

Charlie frowned. ‘Snow told you that?’

‘Several times. He called Robertson an old woman.’

‘What did you think of him?’

‘I only met him a few times, at embassy things. He seemed nervous but I always thought that was understandable, after being jailed like he was.’

‘Did he talk about that?’

‘Not to me. It was something we all knew about, at the embassy. It made him kind of a celebrity.’

They didn’t know yet how Gower had been arrested, Charlie remembered. ‘Apart from the occasions when he could visit the embassy for some event, you always signalled Snow for a meeting? Or he signalled you?’

The other man nodded. ‘Usually he signalled me. Like I said, he wanted too much contact.’

‘You always met in public places? Never went to the mission?’

‘Never!’ Foster seemed appalled at the suggestion.

‘You read about Gower’s arrest?’

Foster nodded. ‘I guessed he was ours.’

‘I was wondering if he tried to do things differently from you. Tried to make a direct approach.’

‘If he’d done that, they’d have picked up Snow as well, wouldn’t they?’

Charlie nodded. ‘I suppose you’re right.’

‘None of this would have happened if he’d done what I told him.’

‘I thought there was some problem about leaving without his Order’s authority.’

‘An excuse, that’s all,’ insisted Foster. ‘He wouldn’t listen.’

‘It can’t have been easy.’

‘Beijing isn’t easy. People don’t realize.’

‘That’s true,’ sympathized Charlie. ‘People never do.’

‘I hope I’ve helped.’

‘You have,’ assured Charlie. ‘A lot.’

‘You’re sure you haven’t heard where my next posting is to be?’

‘Sorry,’ said Charlie.

‘I didn’t like Beijing very much.’

‘I guessed,’ said Charlie. ‘It’s all behind you now.’

‘Thank God.’

Why was it, wondered Charlie, that things dumped upon him so often didn’t make any sense at all?

Julia had said she did not want to eat out, so she cooked at home, and Charlie quickly decided it was a mistake for him to have accepted. He tried very hard but she barely responded to anything he said. She pushed her plate away virtually untouched.

‘This isn’t exactly the last supper!’ he protested, still trying.

‘I don’t think that’s funny.’ It had been Julia who’d returned his visaed passport and given him the plane tickets for the following day.

In view of the situation, Charlie had half expected a final briefing from Patricia Elder or even the Director-General himself, although he supposed there wasn’t anything further for them to talk about. ‘I’ll be all right.’ Julia’s concern unsettled him.

‘Gower’s fiancée was on television before you got here. She looked dreadful.’

‘Gower wanted me to meet her. I didn’t.’

Julia nodded, not needing an explanation. ‘The deputy Director has tried to get her treated properly, at the Foreign Office. That’s why she was on television: going in to see one of the permanent secretaries.’

So Patricia Elder wasn’t an ogress who used razor-blades for tampons after all. ‘That’s considerate.’

‘Won’t do much to help, though, will it?’

‘Still nothing on Snow? Or access to Gower?’ He supposed he would have been told, but he’d known of worse oversights, in the past.

She shook her head. ‘There was a request to the Foreign Office, to send a lawyer out to help. They refused.’

Drawbridges being raised, portcullises slammed down, recognized Charlie: he always had regarded that message about assistance and protection in the front of his passport as a load of bullshit. ‘There’s probably not a lot he could have done, in any practical sense.’ Except hopefully put up a faint smoke-screen for him.

‘For Christ’s sake be careful, Charlie.’

‘Always.’

‘I mean it!’

‘So do I.’ The early flight the following morning gave him an excuse to leave: he was certainly anxious to get away from the awkwardness. ‘I think I should be going.’

‘If you want …’Julia started, then stopped.

‘What?’ asked Charlie, more unsettled than ever.

‘Nothing.’

He was very glad she hadn’t continued: Charlie didn’t want anything to go beyond the stage of being platonic. He was comfortable at that level. Not at many others.

‘Just don’t take any chances,’ she pleaded.

‘I see them, I avoid them,’ promised Charlie. Or sometimes turn them to my advantage, he thought, when he arrived in Beijing less than twenty-four hours later, although not on the aircraft for which Julia had given him a ticket but on a Pakistani flight to which he’d changed at London airport.

He assimilated himself among the confusion of an organized tour group, staying close through the baggage collection and the straggling exit of overtired, overawed people as they crocodiled across the concourse to the waiting coach. Only then did he detach himself towards the taxis, but the tour guide, who wore an identifying armband and a lapel badge naming him as Peter, said: ‘Visiting by yourself?’

‘Yes,’ said Charlie.

‘We’ll give you a lift in, if you like: there’s plenty of room on the coach.’

‘That’s very kind of you,’ accepted Charlie. He hoped his luck continued like this: it was long overdue.