‘Whatever it is you’re thinking of, don’t even bother to ask,’ said Samuels.
The request from the State-appointed defender for Natalia to appear as a character witness for Eduard was made through Agency channels, which surprised her: if it had come at all she would have expected it to have been sent direct to Leninskaya. She used the same Agency route to reply, refusing the request.
Forty-five
The problem of Jeremy Snow took on a whole new and deeper significance as soon as the priest entered the room at the embassy that Samuels had made available. After the meeting with the liaison man in London and from much of what he had read in the files, Charlie had expected a bombastic, self-opinionated man. But there was no arrogance at all. The asthmatic priest was wheezing with apprehension. Almost as soon as he came in he said: ‘Thank God you’re here: I’ve been terribly wrong,’ and Charlie guessed Snow would collapse and make a full confession within minutes of being seized.
‘It can still be sorted out,’ said Charlie, seeing the priest’s need for reassurance. Although he knew the personal statistics from the file, Snow’s height still surprised him.
‘What about the man who’s been arrested? He came for me, didn’t he?’
‘Your safety is his safety.’
‘Are you sure?’
He wasn’t, realized Charlie. ‘Positive,’ he said. ‘But there can’t be the slightest mistake. We’ll only get one chance. So I want to know everything from the beginning. And from the beginning I mean from the moment you were approached to work for London. In as much detail as you can recall.’
It took a very long time, because Charlie frequently interrupted, pressing constantly for every possible thing, refusing even to accept a generality he could have filled in for himself from the dossiers he had studied in London. Several times Snow had to stop completely, until his breathing improved, and when he finally finished he was slumped, drained, in his chair. Still Charlie wanted more.
‘This problem of contact only began with Foster?’
Snow nodded. ‘In the last six months. With Bowley and Street everything was fine. Foster said we had to be far more carefuclass="underline" that the times I could legitimately come here were sufficient and that we should keep the outside visits to the barest minimum.’
‘How long was this man, Zhang Su Lin, a source?’
‘Just under a year, I suppose. He started at the classes very soon after Tiananmen, but I had no idea he was a dissident at first, of course. He was in Tiananmen when the massacre happened.’
‘How good was he? As a source, I mean?’
‘He seemed very well in with people in Beijing. He told me once that he expected to get arrested after Tiananmen because all the others rounded up knew him and he thought they would name him during questioning. But he wasn’t. He gave me some Shanghai leads, too.’
‘Why did he cease coming to the classes?’
‘I never knew. He just didn’t turn up one day: there was no warning. I wondered if he had been arrested, after alclass="underline" he was very much into writing and issuing the protest wall posters and bulletins. But he obviously wasn’t. Not until last month.’
‘Did he know you were passing the information on?’
‘Not in the way you mean. As far as he was concerned, we were just talking, but of course he expected me to tell others, outside China. That’s the whole point, getting the information out that there is protest, within the country.’
‘So he’ll name you?’
‘He could say he attended my English classes, for a period. That was no secret anyway. But not that I knew him as anyone actively connected or particularly interested in the dissident movement.’
It wouldn’t matter, thought Charlie. The connection between Zhang and Snow would emerge, during the questioning of the Chinese dissident: it probably already had. Which gave them more than enough for a completely genuine spy trial, according to Chinese law. And that was before they even got to Snow’s trip and the material he had gathered in Shanghai, for which they were patiently waiting, believing Snow trapped and Gower at their mercy, for whatever they chose to do. Reminded, Charlie looked to the side of the room, where the small desk obviously utilized when it served as an office had been pushed against the wall in an unsuccessful effort to create more space. Nodding towards the package lying on it, he said: ‘There’s your photographs.’
‘I’ve got what Li gave me,’ announced Snow, in return, groping into the inside pocket of his jacket.
Charlie laid out on the table the Shanghai shots that had been doctored in London and then directly beneath each frame made the match from what the Chinese had provided. They weren’t absolutely identical – the innocuous Chinese shots were not precisely from the same spot – but Charlie accepted that scarcely mattered, for the use the Chinese intended to make of them. The technicians in London had done the best job they could. Snow’s prints appeared to have been very badly developed: in only one was there even a suggestion of a ship, and if he had not been looking specifically for it Charlie’s first impression would have been that it was a low cloud base. The down side was that the Chinese would be looking specifically.
‘They’re very good!’ said Snow, at his shoulder.
‘Not good enough,’ said Charlie.
‘What are we going to do then?’ demanded the priest, in instant alarm.
Charlie thought again how quickly the man would collapse, under pressure. ‘There’s a way round it,’ he promised, in fresh reassurance. ‘It’s all going to be all right.’
‘When?’
‘Tomorrow.’
Snow’s sigh of relief was audible, beyond his strained breathing. ‘I’ve got Father Robertson’s permission to leave.’
‘You told me.’ Charlie still wished the stupid clerical bureaucracy hadn’t been necessary, despite the security of the confessional.
‘I want to go to Rome, as soon as possible. I’m going to ask to go into a retreat. I need a lot of time.’
‘Let’s just think of getting out of Beijing at the moment,’ urged Charlie.
‘I won’t do any more,’ declared Snow.
Charlie frowned at the man, not understanding. ‘Any more what?’
‘Work for you. I thought it was important: still do. But it’s brought too much suffering. To the man who’s been arrested. And to Father Robertson. I have a lot of apologies to make, in prayer.’
‘We wouldn’t expect you to, not any more. We accept that this is the end.’ The man wouldn’t have any use, once he was out of Beijing, but Charlie decided it wasn’t necessary to make the cynicism as clear as that.
‘What must I do?’ asked Snow, obediently.
‘Everything exactly as I say,’ insisted Charlie. ‘And in precisely the sequence I set out. Don’t deviate, in any way …’ He picked up the London-supplied photographs, keeping them in his hands. ‘It’ll take the Chinese a while to prove these have been altered. Certainly more than a day …’ He started to separate the prints into two sets, carefully putting to one side the particular print that more obviously than all the rest showed something that Snow should not have photographed. Charlie added one more Shanghai picture and three innocent prints to the held-back pile, offering the rest to Snow. ‘For Li.’
‘He’ll know some are missing.’
‘I know he will,’ agreed Charlie, at once. ‘You’re going to tell him. Remember, everything in the order I dictate.’
‘Tell me how.’