Charlie’s Apprentice (16 page)

‘You must be Father Robertson?’ said Li.

‘That is so.’ Only at the very end of the short sentence did the confirmation become a throat-clearing cough.

Hurrying to cover the awkwardness, Snow made the formal introductions, identifying the Chinese as his recent travel companion. ‘Mr Li asked if he could see our church.’

‘And the photographs?’ said Li, at once.

‘Photographs?’ The question rasped from the older priest. The whisky intake was discernible.

‘Souvenir photographs,’ elaborated Snow. ‘Reminders of the trip.’

Father Robertson remained where he had stopped, appearing lost in a church in which he should have felt most at home. Li gazed around at everything, tilting his head to look up into the organ loft, then closely examining the altar area. The day had faded even more now, much of the main church already dark, the two side chapels blacked out from view. The spiked stand for votive candles was empty, showing no sign of use, beside a confessional in which Snow occasionally went through the charade with Father Robertson, never once making a proper confession, satisfied the avoidance would not lead to eternal damnation because of the necessity of what he was secretly doing. Father Robertson must have extinguished the two larger, thicker altar candles before they entered: both still sent a tangled thread of smoke upwards, quickly to be lost in the expanse of the place. Li returned up the aisle from the altar, dragging his finger over the pew backs to make arrow trails in the dust. Snow realized the Chinese was looking for indications that the church was used for regular group worship, happy the man was going to be disappointed.

Li halted, beside them, and said: ‘It is a large building. This could be a home for many people.’

‘It was, in the past,’ scored Snow, immediately, careless of the tremor that visibly passed through Father Robertson.

‘That was a use of words that I don’t quite understand,’ complained Li.

Snow didn’t believe the protest. Before Snow could respond, however, Father Robertson said: ‘It is no longer used for worship! The government has agreed it can remain as it is, though.’

‘Yes,’ said Li, as if already aware. Looking directly at Snow, he said: ‘You worship here?’

‘I do,’ confirmed Snow, at once. ‘There is no official restriction upon our doing that.’

‘Quite so,’ agreed Li, again as if he already knew.

‘Is there anything else you would like to see?’ invited Snow.

‘Is there anything else I
should
see?’

Snow gestured around the vaulted building. ‘This is what there is. All there is.’

‘Thank you, for giving me so much of your time.’

‘You gave me so much of yours,’ said Snow, conscious of Father Robertson’s head swivelling worriedly back and forth again.

‘You won’t forget the photographs?’

‘I would not expect to hear back very quickly.’

‘It is not difficult for me to call.’ To Father Robertson, Li said: ‘I will probably see you again then?’

‘Yes,’ The quaver was scarcely noticeable.

Pointedly Snow said: ‘The front door of the church is permanently locked. I will guide you out the way we came in.’

Li fell into step with the priest without any attempt at conversation: at a turning, Snow saw Father Robertson at a hesitating distance. The chief of mission was hovering in the office corridor when Snow came back from the street exit, one hand clasped over the other.

‘What photographs?’ the white-haired man demanded once more.

‘Ordinary tourist photographs.’ Snow was not alarmed by Li’s visit, but for the first time he was prepared to admit, to himself, that the man’s interest was going beyond that of a normal tour escort: he didn’t want an additional inquisition from his superior.

‘Your trip has offended them! We’re under scrutiny.’

‘Which will discover what?’

‘I don’t want the mission closed down!’

‘The mission
is
closed down!’ said Snow, in renewed annoyance.

‘We’re permitted to remain here.’

‘As what? It’s surprising we’re not officially part of group tours, as another aspect of Chinese history.’

‘A Jesuit mission exists as long as we are a presence here!’

‘We’re a joke!’ insisted Snow, utterly careless of letting the anger show. Careless, too, of upsetting the old man: welcoming, in fact, a target at which to direct some of the pent-up frustration.

Father Robertson winced, as if there had been a physical blow. ‘God’s work is not a joke.’

‘We are not
doing
God’s work!’ persisted Snow.

‘We are doing what we are told to do, by the Curia.’

What was the point of any discussion with this man? ‘There is nothing here that can cause any official difficulty. We both know that. The man is a busybody: that is all. I will get him his photographs. And that will be the end of it.’

‘I have personal experience of how they think!’

‘The Cultural Revolution is over!’

‘The official mentality is the same. I shall have to make an official report, to Rome. We should advise the embassy, as well.’

And Snow supposed he would after all have to tell Walter Foster: it was becoming difficult any more even to think of the journey through the southern and eastern provinces as a success.

‘We were sorry you didn’t manage to come last month.’

Charlie didn’t doubt the matron, whose name was Hewlett, had positioned herself at the door of her office to intercept his arrival. ‘Pressure of business, I’m afraid.’

‘She does so much look forward to personal visits, you know? Particularly now she is maintaining this improvement.’

‘I’11 come as often as I can.’

‘As long as you do,’ said the matron, bossily.

On his way back to London Charlie realized he hadn’t tried to confirm his inference of what Julia Robb had conveyed about Miller and Patricia Elder. Perhaps he would have time before he was assigned a new apprentice.

Seventeen

Patricia Elder used Miller’s discarded shirt as a dressing-gown to make the breakfast coffee, naked beneath. The apartment, the entire top floor of a period mansion on the edge of Regent’s Park, was owned by Miller’s wife and she used it when she came up from the country, so Patricia never kept any of her clothes there. The programme and ticket stubs for the previous night’s opera at Covent Garden were on the hall table, ready to be taken and disposed of when they left. So was the after-theatre dinner bill for two.

The breakfast alcove was in the bay of the window overlooking the park. Miller was already at the table, dressed apart from his jacket, when Patricia came in from the kitchen. ‘Do you want anything to eat?’

The Director-General looked up from his newspaper, shaking his head. ‘Last night’s got a bad review. I’ve certainly seen better performances. Glyndebourne, for instance.’

‘I wasn’t with you at Glyndebourne,’ reminded Patricia, pointedly. As with everything else, they took great care where to be together in public. It was at Miller’s insistence, not hers.

‘Believe me, it was better,’ he insisted, looking directly at her, guessing the mood in which she had awoken. His impression was that they had lately become more frequent. He hoped she wasn’t going to become difficult.

Patricia poured the coffee and said: ‘These are the good times, when we can spend two or three nights consecutively together.’

Miller suppressed the sigh. ‘I like it, too. But don’t, darling. Please!’

‘Don’t what?’ she demanded sharply. ‘I didn’t say anything!’

‘You don’t have to,’ he said, wearily. He wondered if he could cut the conversation off by returning to the newspaper but decided against it. She’d become even more resentful.

‘You don’t love her. She doesn’t love you.’

Instead of immediately answering – because he could not quickly think of an answer he knew would satisfy her – Miller gazed fleetingly around the sprawling, antique-cluttered flat. That was a mistake.

‘I can’t believe it!’ exclaimed Patricia, seeing the look. ‘I can’t believe you stay just because she’s got money!’

‘I didn’t say that,’ Miller defended, weakly.

‘You didn’t have to,’ she said, using his words against him.

‘It’s not the money.’

‘So why then?’

‘I want to get the boys settled. We’ve talked it through enough times.’

‘
You’ve
talked about it enough times, as an excuse! They’re grown up, for Christ’s sake!’ She hadn’t argued this forcefully before. She wanted to but at the same time she was frightened, not anxious to push him too much.

‘They’re still both at university. I don’t want to create a family crisis that could affect that.’

‘You know how long we’ve been together, you and I?’

‘Of course I do.’

‘Five years!’ said Patricia. ‘Five years of unkept promises. I even transferred from counter-intelligence because you said you didn’t want us to be apart!’

‘I don’t!’ insisted the man. ‘But the transfer was as much professional as personal.’ He was desperate for something to deflect the attack, surprised by her determination. Patricia
had
made all the concessions and all the sacrifices since the affair started. So why didn’t he divorce Ann? There
was
no feeling between them now: he wasn’t sure much had ever existed. It had practically been an arranged match, both minor aristocrat families – his impoverished, Ann’s securely wealthy – knowing each other for years, expecting their respective children to marry. Which they’d done, having the same expectation without quite knowing why.

It
wasn’t
the money, Miller told himself, although he liked the security of having it always available. So what was it? A mixture of things, he decided, answering the repeated question. There was the impact a divorce might have upon his career, which he despised himself for thinking. It wasn’t a fear directed towards Ann, who he didn’t think would give a damn. The risk came from her impeccable family being offended by the minimal slur a divorce might cause: a family whose influence had carried him through his official career so far. Ann’s was a lineage traditionally involved for almost a hundred years through Permanent Secretaries and ministry mandarins in the perpetually enduring government of the country, irrespective of which political party imagined itself in power. And those influences and panelled-club connections extended particularly through the Foreign Office, to which he was now attached. What other element was there in the mixture? Selfishness, he conceded. He didn’t
want
the upheaval, the absolute disruption, that a divorce would even temporarily bring to his comfortably arranged, comfortably convenient life. Which could only surely mean that he didn’t love Patricia sufficiently? He was sure – or fairly sure – he did.

‘I’m not prepared to go on for ever,’ warned the woman. She was, she recognized at once. She didn’t have any alternative, apart from lonely, solitary spinsterhood.

‘I’m not asking you to.’ He was becoming irritable at her persistence.

In her confused anxiety it was Patricia who backed off, changing the subject with the abruptness of a switch being thrown. ‘Are we leaving separately this morning?’

Sometimes they staggered their departure from the Regent’s Park mansion, from which the penthouse apartment had its own discreet exit, so as to produce an acceptably different time to arrive at the office.

‘The diplomatic pouch from Beijing should have arrived overnight,’ said Miller, seizing the escape. ‘I want to get to it first thing: I’ll précis it, before you get in.’

‘I’m more interested in what we get
after
the embassy encounter.’

Miller realized, relieved, that Patricia had turned completely to professional considerations. ‘I’m not sure how objective Foster’s evaluation will be any longer, when they finally
do
meet. And Snow has made his position clear, refusing any further liaison contact.’

‘Snow will be expecting our response, to his demand for a new controller.’

Miller leaned forward over the table, looking reflectively downwards. ‘That’s got to be balanced by a hair: one mistake on our part and it’ll all end in disaster.’

‘So what’s the guidance we give Foster?’

‘We’ll have to wait to see if there is anything new in the pouch this morning,’ pointed out the Director-General, logically. ‘If there
isn’t
, I don’t see we give Foster any fresh instructions at all.’

‘You don’t want the withdrawal orders from us?’

Miller screwed his face up quizzically, at the same time shaking his head. ‘I’d rather it be his decision. It would ultimately look better.’

‘Something else that hangs by a hair,’ mused the woman.

‘Foster’s got to be out first. The sequence has to be right.’

‘The sequence has
always
had to be right,’ reminded the woman.

After he’d left, Patricia hand-washed the breakfast things, dried them and restored them all to their respective cupboards so no evidence remained of two people having used the flat. Before finally leaving she checked carefully through every room – particularly the bedroom – to ensure she’d left nothing behind that shouldn’t be there. As she was passing the hall table, she saw Miller had left the theatre programme, ticket stubs and restaurant bill for her to throw away. She hesitated for several moments before gathering everything up and stuffing it into her handbag. She waited until she had crossed the river and was several miles from Regent’s Park before tossing the things into a waste basket. Even then she found a separate bin for the programme than for the tickets. She went directly into Miller’s suite when she arrived.

‘Just as it was,’ reported Miller at once. ‘Foster wants guidance, for the embassy meeting, that’s all.’

‘Good,’ said the deputy Director.

Every building with any sort of vantage point directly overlooking the headquarters of Britain’s external intelligence service is government-owned and occupied, to prevent a hostile service gaining access – or worse, permanent occupancy – to carry out surveillance of people entering or leaving. The monitoring that is attempted is, therefore, haphazard and virtually unproductive, snatched from passing vehicles or briefly parked cars and vans or temporarily halting pedestrians. Any effort positively to identify SIS operatives is additionally hampered by the building itself on some floors being occupied by government offices totally unconnected with any intelligence activity.