Julia drank at last. Soft-voiced, she said: ‘I typed the cables … I didn’t realize … Christ, Charlie, I did it and I didn’t even realize what I was being told to do …!’
‘It’s not your fault: not important.’
‘Not important! Snow’s dead. We don’t know yet what Gower went through. You could have gone through the same. Worse even!’
Time to move on, Charlie decided. ‘I might not have thought about looking in Hong Kong if it hadn’t been for something Samuels said. Silly really. It’s just that I listen to everything. He talked about Snow being “swept up”. That’s a trade expression: departmental. Not the way a diplomatic officer talks. And then, later, he referred to the fact that Snow had used the confessional to tell Father Robertson what he had done, to get permission to run. Snow told me he’d done it. Only me. And I didn’t tell anybody. So the only other person from whom Samuels could have learned about it was Robertson himself. There were a lot of other things, as well. Like a political officer baby-sitting a sick missionary, which a person of his rank and pomposity would never have done, unless of course he was the man’s Control and worried that Robertson, sick with remorse at what he was doing, might have hallucinated and talked about it. No message ever got to or from Rome, about Robertson’s illness, incidentally. Or about the Chinese targeting Snow. I know because I stopped off in Rome on the way back: the Jesuit Curia didn’t know what I was talking about. That was the advantage of mailing through the British embassy: Samuels could filter everything. Run a very tight ship.’
Julia moved her head, aimlessly, stunned.
‘Samuels is the Resident, isn’t he?’
The head movement was more positive, a refusal to confirm the question.
‘Snow’s death told me,’ said Charlie. ‘English was OK to set up the airport decoy, making plane reservations I never intended to take up. But I needed Samuels’ ability to speak Mandarin to go through the train departures. That’s how the Chinese were able to have so many men in place, at the station: Samuels told Robertson how we were planning to get away. And Robertson alerted the people to whom he is really answering these days.’
‘No!’ disputed Julia, at once. ‘If they knew Snow was on the Nanchang train – moved against him when he left, to get to you – how come they didn’t get you, as well?’
‘They tried,’ said Charlie, smiling across at her. ‘The Shanghai express wasn’t the only train leaving at five that afternoon. There was one to Changsha, four tracks further along the concourse. That’s the train I told Samuels I was catching: the train I saw surrounded by troops as I left.’
‘Jesus!’ said Julia, aghast.
‘Which was another very good reason why I didn’t want to catch the plane out of Beijing that Samuels ordered me to catch: considerately booked for me.’
‘You think they’d still have tried to put you and Gower on trial, if they’d got you?’
‘If they’d caught me.’
‘You sure Pickering was part of it?’
‘It all goes back to the nonsense of how Snow was treated. Not in the beginning. Then Snow was properly handled by his Control. There was a man called Bowley. Another named George Street. Their liaison procedures were impeccable. Snow could make his meetings through the public event visits through the embassy but more regularly by using the trips for his asthma medication from the resident doctor. I checked with two who have retired to Sussex. But then Pickering arrived. The same Pickering who sent a cable on a security reserved line to London – but monitored in Hong Kong, where I found it – informing Miller directly of a meeting I had with him. The same Pickering who from the moment of his arrival in Beijing closed down the asthma drug facility and told Snow he had in future to get his stuff from Rome, separating him from the embassy. Like Foster kept the poor bastard at arm’s length, although Foster didn’t know how he was being used in the scheme, constantly to expose Snow and force him into that ridiculous message-signalling crap, which really did become obsolete with the ending of the Cold War that everyone keeps on about. Foster – another first-time appointee, according to the files – was too stupid to have realized or suspected, of course.’
‘Why was Foster withdrawn, for Gower and you to go in?’
‘Foster’s withdrawal indicated panic, for the Chinese to pick up on: don’t forget, we were doing it to fool them and keep Robertson safe: we didn’t know we were fooling ourselves. Gower going in – and me after him – showed more panic. It was all part of Miller and Patricia Elder’s perfect package. With the Chinese laughing their balls off at all the effort we were going to for their benefit.’
‘It’s inconceivable that Snow and Gower and you were considered expendable, to protect one man!’ refused the girl.
Charlie slowly moved his head from side to side. ‘Not to keep someone like Robertson in place. I don’t know, but Robertson must have proved himself over and over again to London. The Chinese would have guaranteed that. They must have passed over an enormous amount of genuine stuff to have built up Robertson’s credibility. You any idea what a completely trusted agent can do, feeding disinformation back to people who never query it because he’s so reliable?’
Julia visibly shuddered, pushing her glass forward for more wine. ‘Why?’ she demanded sharply. ‘Why any of this? Why did Snow and Gower and you have to be entrapped? I can’t accept what you’re telling me!’
‘Robertson was an asset, always to be protected,’ insisted Charlie. ‘That’s why Snow was approached, as permanent, in-place insurance against Robertson being suspected by the Chinese: approached by our idiots who didn’t know Robertson was with the Chinese ever since his brainwashing imprisonment. Snow told me at the embassy our people came to him within days of his appointment to Beijing being decided by his Curia, before any public announcements. Again, that could only have come from Robertson, who would have been consulted beforehand. Any mistake Robertson made could have been switched on to Snow. Who was always expendable, as far as London was concerned. But it wasn’t London who became concerned. It was Beijing. Because Snow was too good. Look what he got on that trip, despite being chaperoned by Li. Snow was bloody marvellous! So he had to be got rid of. And then there was the Chinese decision to move against their dissidents again. But not like before, in Tiananmen. The international outcry was too much then: they couldn’t risk arbitrary round-ups and imprisonment. It had to be internationally acceptable. Robertson would have marked Zhang Su Lin the moment he came into the mission. What better way of staging a countrywide swoop and a huge and genuine show trial than by being able to prove a connection between Zhang and Snow – both of whom would have confessed – with Gower and me thrown in for good measure? It was perfect.’
Julia was slumped wearily over the table. ‘It’s still difficult to follow: I’m not even sure I want to follow it!’
‘No one was supposed to follow it,’ said Charlie. ‘Not the way Miller and Patricia Elder set it up, believing Robertson at risk of exposure because of the past connection of the mission with Zhang Su Lin. And certainly not how the Chinese twisted it back against us, to rid themselves of a troublesome priest.’
Julia straightened, seemingly too overwhelmed to argue against him any more. ‘So what are you going to do?’
‘I’ve done all I can,’ said Charlie. ‘I’ve warned them against Robertson, which is the most important thing. It means we haven’t got an asset left in Beijing, but at least we’re not going to be misled with phoney information, for as long as the old bastard goes on living …’ He shrugged, resigned. ‘I could challenge them, about Samuels and Pickering and all the intercepted messages, but you know and I know that I’d achieve bugger-all. There’d be denials. Within an hour, there would be no evidence left in the Hong Kong files.’