‘It can’t have been very pleasant.’
‘I’m glad to be back.’
‘Well in time for your school.’
At best the class comprised twenty people, but the attendance was irregular. Snow had wanted the lessons to be given in the church, but Father Robertson had insisted that would be provocative so they were conducted in the church hall. Snow said: ‘I was thinking, while I walked. I would like officially to take leave owing me. To travel around the country a little.’
‘Where?’
Snow was surprised there had not been the instant rejection that had greeted previous suggestions of his moving around the country. He shrugged. ‘Shenyang perhaps. Or south, to Wuhan or Chongqin.’
‘I once travelled to all those places,’ said the head of a mission that no longer existed. ‘People were not frightened then.’ The nostalgia acted as a reminder. ‘You could endanger our position here.’
What position? thought Snow, cynically. ‘Of course I would not think of openly discussing religion, not with anyone.’
‘It still might be dangerous.’
‘I would be extremely careful.’
Father Robertson was reflective for several moments. ‘Make a general application, to see how it is received.’
Snow was more surprised by the acquiescence. ‘I could get to the Foreign Ministry this afternoon.’
‘Tomorrow,’ decided Father Robertson. ‘You’re tolerated here as an English lecturer. So the school comes first.’
Fifteen people turned up for class. One was a man of about twenty who hadn’t come before and Snow guessed he was sheltering from the dust storm. He spoke English well but had difficulty reading it. Snow didn’t believe the man’s promise to return the following week.
He considered disobeying Father Robertson by trying to reach the Foreign Ministry before it closed but decided against it. He’d wait until tomorrow, when there weren’t any English classes scheduled. The necessary Foreign Ministry in the morning and probably the more important Gong An Ju, the Public Security Bureau, in the afternoon.
‘Well?’ demanded Miller. He reached out, brushing her hand, wanting the brief physical contact.
Patricia Elder shifted more fully to face the man, offering her hand to answer the touch, always pleased with intimate gestures like that. ‘It’s difficult to believe he’s been responsible for all that I’ve read in his files.’
Miller continued to frown, hoping the woman was not being over-cautious. ‘I’m not sure appearance has got anything to do with it …’
‘… I am,’ she interrupted, confident of their relationship. ‘I think everything about Charlie Muffin is calculated to mislead. And most certainly his appearance.’
‘I thought you might have told him just now, in front of me. Make it clear that it is with my authority.’
She shook her head. ‘It’s important he realizes from the beginning there’s no longer any special relationships: most definitely not with the Director-General. From now on he’s simply an ordinary officer who’s got to take orders, as and when they’re given. My orders. We’ll keep your authority for when he challenges me.’
‘Have you chosen someone?’ he asked.
She nodded. ‘John Gower. University entrant. Incredibly keen. Scored the highest for interrogation resistance.’
‘When are you going to brief Muffin?’
She smiled. ‘When there’s a benefit to be gained. Which isn’t yet.’
Four floors below, Charlie Muffin was thinking: attempting a very personal – and therefore vitally important – assessment of where he stood. If he stood anywhere at all. A woman! He was to be ordered about by a woman! Why not? Why the automatic sexism? Because it had never happened before, that was why not. He’d never had to work this way. Nothing to do with her sex: it was to do with too many dismissive changes. He had no chauvinistic difficulty about the fact that Patricia Elder was a woman. Or that he was expected to do what she told him to do, when she told him to do it. He just hoped she was properly professional, that’s all. Which was male chauvinism.
She’d worked hard during their brief meeting, to make it clear how much she was the superior and he was the subordinate. Why? The peremptory manner could indicate nervousness, a bravado effort to intimidate him. Or, on the other hand, to show a self-assured confidence and convey that from now on he was very much the subordinate. What about Patricia Elder herself? No wedding ring, which had to be kept in mind. No discernible accent, but obviously well educated private school delivery. No bust to get excited about but the suit jacket was high buttoned and might have hidden a surprise. Nice legs, crossed without embarrassment at his quick examination: strong-featured, the nose almost too big and not helped by the shortness with which she wore her slightly greying hair. Better to have grown it longer. Interesting, full-lipped mouth and unusual eyes, which were probably cosmetically described as brown but which he thought closer to black. She’d used them very directly, too, staring at him when she spoke, not dropping her gaze when he’d stared just as fixedly back, curious if he could face her down. But always an uncertainty. Charlie couldn’t understand that inference: couldn’t understand it at all.
What else?
Possibly that Peter Miller was a sneaky bastard. And that Julia Robb might not be the robotic ball-breaker she’d appeared. Charlie was sure Miller hadn’t used any foot button to activate the intercom. So it could have been on and relaying his arrival conversation with the girl. So she could have been protecting him, against betraying himself as … Charlie stopped, seeking the word, grinning when it came. Against betraying himself as a sneaky bastard, he supposed. Whatever, he’d have to be careful around Miller’s suite if he were ever allowed entry from now on, until he discovered if the Director-General did play eavesdropping tricks.
What about the meeting itself? Confusing, Charlie judged. There hadn’t been any real purpose in it: at least not one that he could find. It hadn’t needed a personal encounter for Miller to announce how he intended running the organization in the future. Or for the introduction to Patricia Elder to be made personally, either.
There had been no mention of anything positive for him to do. Despite the self-admonishment against expecting things in advance he had anticipated being given something today: something that would have broken this stultifying, paper-dart-throwing inactivity.
Analysed completely, what had taken place today was nothing more than his being summoned for examination, like a museum exhibit or maybe a laboratory specimen, to see how he would jump when the acid dripped on the nerve ends. Which had they considered him to be?
The musing began idly, his mind drifting, but abruptly Charlie began to concentrate. Couldn’t that be precisely the purpose: for them to study him, for some reason? It certainly hadn’t appeared an intense examination, from the quickness of the meeting, and the short conversation hadn’t given any indication, but it was the reason that made the most sense. Charlie liked things to make sense.
Examined for what? An impossible question, at this stage. Maybe not even a question. Maybe he was again mistakenly anticipating things, when there was nothing to anticipate. All he could do was wait. As he had been waiting, for far too long.
In Beijing, the People’s Daily carried a lengthy diatribe warning of foreign reactionaries encouraging counterrevolution within the country, pledging that any such activity would be sought out and crushed, with its perpetrators put on trial.
Three
Jeremy Snow never expected the length or the intensity of Father Robertson’s lecture upon every possible pitfall and disaster after the favourable reaction to his travel application. More specifically than ever before, the old man talked of the prisons and even the two re-education installations in which he had been incarcerated, regimes of rifle-butt discipline and brainwashing propaganda.