Tu shrugged. ‘It’s the story of a wrong turn, as so many of us have taken in life. A story of might-have-been and had-I-only. Then, spring ’97, our merry band of madmen get a new member in their ranks, a well-to-do sort, pragmatic, self-assured. As you might expect, the first thing the doctors do is take care of that self-assurance. He’s not exactly an unknown quantity in dissident circles, this chap, he’s something of a local hero for fighting against corruption. He was section head in an electronic components factory and led thousands of employees in a protest against the management getting rich on the backs of the workers. Went to Beijing with proof, and was arrested and sectioned for his pains. In the ankang they give him all kinds of muck, he gets ill, his hair falls out, he has fits, can’t sleep, his nerves are shot and his memory’s full of holes but they can’t break his will to live. His only goal is to get out of there as quick as he can, and he has powerful friends in Shanghai, for instance his brother-in-law plays golf with the chief of police. This man likes Hongbing. He spends a lot of time with him, listens to what he has to say, slowly puts him back together again. Six months later he’s back outside, gets a senior job at a software company and makes plans to get rich and powerful. The year after that, when Hongbing’s finally free, he’s thirty years old and he’s spent five of those years in the clinic; his friend from the ankang fixes him a job with a car dealer and takes it upon himself to take care of him whenever and however he can.’
The sun had climbed higher. Soft, rosy dawn light touched all the rooftops.
‘You’re the friend from the ankang,’ Jericho said softly.
‘Yes.’ Tu took his glasses off and began to clean them on a corner of his shirt. ‘I’m the friend. That’s the link between Hongbing and me.’
Jericho was silent for a while.
‘And Hongbing has never talked to Yoyo about this time?’
‘Never.’ Tu held the glasses up to the light and looked thoughtfully at the lenses. ‘Have a look at your own life, Owen. You know it yourself, there are some experiences that just lock your vocal cords tight. You’re tongue-tied by the shame, and also, you think that if you don’t talk about it, it will fade with the years, but its power over you simply grows. After he was freed, Hongbing considered going to court. I told him, build your own life up first before you take any more steps. He had such a knack with cars! Whenever a new model came onto the market, he would know all there was to know about it within days. He listened to me, and worked up to being a salesman. In 1999 he got to know a girl from Ningbo and married her, in a great rush. They didn’t suit one another, not one tiny bit, but he wanted to catch up on his five lost years, fast-forward and start a family as soon as possible. Yoyo was born, the marriage broke up just as predicted, since Hongbing suddenly decided he wasn’t able to love any more. Truth was it was only himself he couldn’t love, and he still can’t today. The girl went back to Ningbo, Hongbing was given custody and tried to give Yoyo what he didn’t have.’
‘Kindness.’
‘Hongbing’s problem is that he thinks he doesn’t deserve kindness. But Yoyo has got the wrong idea. She thinks that she’s done something wrong. By saying nothing he’s given her an enormous guilt complex, which is exactly the opposite of what he intended, but you’ve met him, you know what he’s like by now. He’s walled himself up in his own silence.’ Tu sighed. ‘The night before last, in Berlin, when I was out on the tiles with Yoyo and you were sulking in the hotel, I finally got round to telling her my story. She’s clever, Yoyo, and straight away she asked whether something like that had happened to Hongbing.’
‘What did you say?’
‘Nothing.’
‘He’ll have to talk to her.’
‘Yes.’ Tu nodded. ‘Once he can break out of his shell. I have to tell you that in secret, without her having the least idea, he’s still fighting to be rehabilitated.’
‘And you? Were you ever rehabilitated?’
‘In 2002, when I became manager at the software company, I decided to lodge an appeal. It was rejected nine times. Then, totally out of the blue, I heard that it was all a dreadful mistake and that I had been the victim of misdiagnosis, even of a criminal conspiracy! My reputation was restored and that smoothed the path for my career. I put in a word for Hongbing and got him made technical director of a Mercedes dealership, which gave him enough of a livelihood that he could go to court at last, and he’s been making his case ever since. He’s gathered whole crates full of evidence, medical affidavits showing that he was never mentally ill, but so far his sentence has only ever been partially revised. I picked my fight with corrupt managers, but they’d broken the law after all. He took on the Party. And the Party’s an elephant, Owen. He’s a marked man, he’s scarred for life. I think that if he were fully rehabilitated, he might even be able to confide in Yoyo, but as it is—’
Jericho turned his teacup around between his fingers.
‘Yoyo has to learn the truth, Tian,’ he said. ‘If Hongbing won’t talk to her, you’ll have to.’
‘Ah well.’ Tu perched his glasses back on his nose and gave a wry grin. ‘After this morning, at least I have some practice.’
‘Thank you for telling me.’
Tu gazed at the empty crisp packets, lost in thought. Then he looked Jericho in the eyes.
‘You’re my friend, Owen. Our friend. You’re one of us. You’re part of it.’
2 June 2025
LYNN
London, Great Britain
The address 85 Vauxhall Cross, in the south-west of the city, on Albert Embankment near Vauxhall Bridge, looked as if King Nebuchadnezzar II had tried to build a Babylonian ziggurat with Lego bricks. In fact, the sand-coloured hulk with the green armoured glass surfaces contained the beating heart of British security, the Secret Intelligence Service, also known as SIS or MI6. In spite of its playful appearance, it was a genuine bulwark against the enemies of the United Kingdom, last attacked by an IRA unit twenty-five years ago, when a missile had been fired at it from the opposite bank, although without doing much more than shake the cups and saucers in the Secret Service coffee lounge.
Jennifer Shaw was on her way to her son’s birthday dinner when she received a call from a very senior authority. She switched to receive, and C’s voice filled the leather-scented interior of her freshly restored Jaguar Mark 2. In most people’s eyes, the head of the British Foreign Secret Service was, after thirty-one James Bond films, called M, which was quite close to the reality, except that Sir Mansfield Smith-Cumming, the legendary first director, had introduced the letter C, and since then all directors had been called C – not least because it happened to stand for ‘control’.
‘Hello, Bernard,’ said Shaw, in the certain knowledge that her evening was stuffed.
‘Jennifer. I hope I’m not disturbing you.’
A set phrase. Bernard Lee, the current director, couldn’t have cared less if he was disturbing her, or how. The only disturbance that he would have acknowledged was the disturbance to national security.
‘I’m on my way to Bibendum,’ she said truthfully.
‘Oh, always excellent. Especially the skate wing. I haven’t been there for ages. Could you call in on me for a moment beforehand?’
‘How long’s a moment?’
‘Only if you have time. On the other hand—’
‘The traffic’s not too bad. Give me ten minutes.’
‘Thanks.’
She called her son from her mobile and told him to go ahead and order a starter without her, but to get her a double portion of the iced lime soufflé.