Charlie’s Apprentice (46 page)

He didn’t feel sick any more and his breathing had settled down after the fright of the money-changer. The bible felt solid and comforting in his hand, no longer wet. His confidence, just as solid and comforting, was returning, too. What would he read, when he was hidden away on the Shanghai-bound sleeper? There were several teachings about overcoming evil, in Philippians: one very apposite tract, about wrestling against the rulers of darkness, which he’d surely been doing for the past three years in Beijing. Snow at once curbed the arrogance. Perhaps the Book of Proverbs was more fitting: particularly the warning of pride going before destruction and haughty spirits before a fall. Except that he was not going to destruction. He was going to safety with a man whose planning was working out just as he had promised it would. By this time tomorrow they would be secure in the Philippines: maybe even have moved on. There was no real reason for his going to London: the man had already accepted the end of any relationship. He didn’t know, but it was probably easy to get a flight from Manila to Rome: if not direct, then by changing somewhere en route. He would have to talk about it, on the way to Shanghai. He’d definitely go straight to Rome, if it was possible.

Snow finally reached the window. He hesitated, at whether he wanted a single or return to Nanchang, confronting a question they had not rehearsed. He asked for a return, guessing the clerk would remember him if any enquiry was made because he was a Westerner who had chosen hard-seat travel.

Snow patiently queued to pass through the barrier, unconcerned at the returning shortness of breath. It wasn’t bad, hardly anything, and it was obvious there was going to be something because of the tension of these last few minutes. Literally minutes, he calculated: seven, before the Nanchang train pulled out, twenty-two before the departure of the train he’d really be on, to Shanghai. He filed through, without any interest from the inspectors, on to the common, linking concourse that joined all the tracks at their very top, where the expresses arrived and departed. Everything was exactly as it had been promised at the embassy, with two tracks, both empty, separating the trains. Maybe a hundred yards between them: a simple, unhurried walk. He was anxious now to get to the embassy man: to be hidden away and from then on be told by him what to do and how to do it. He’d done very well by himself, though: gone through it all precisely as he’d been instructed, without any deviation. Apart from the bible. He was glad he’d brought it.

So close to departure, the Nanchang hard-seat carriages were overflowing with people, every available space already occupied. Snow didn’t bother to move from just beyond the door. Four minutes. As a precaution he brought the inhaler to his mouth. Three minutes. The noise of departure grew from outside, on the platform: a public address announcement, difficult to hear, and shouts from railway guards, and steam hissing up from beneath the skirts of the carriage. The whole train jerked forward, as the brakes began to release.

Snow got off. He actually descended on to the platform into the billowing steam, glad of its concealment. No need to hurry: no need at all. Plenty of time. Beside him the train groaned into life, coughing more steam: asthmatic, like he was. Near the concourse now: ten yards, no more. Once he was on the concourse there were just the two intervening tracks to pass. Very close. Practically there. Snow turned on to the concourse.

Which was when Charlie saw him.

Charlie had been a long time at the window of their two-berth sleeper, straining for the first sight of the priest, wanting to be at the door when the man boarded, to hurry him inside as quickly as possible. Snow appeared to be moving well, just as he should, purposefully but without any hurry to attract attention. It was going fine, Charlie thought: absolutely fine.

There must have been a shout, a challenge, but enclosed and still some distance away in his tiny compartment Charlie never heard anything. It all unfolded before him in a silent, sickening tableau. Snow jerked to a halt, staring straight ahead at something concealed from Charlie by the curve of the carriages. Then twisted behind him. Charlie did see them then: men in khaki uniforms and plainclothes officers as well, fanning out from the barrier. There was a lot of arm-waving from the men in suits. Still Charlie could hear nothing. Snow turned back again and began to run towards the train he was trying to reach, but halted almost at once. Into Charlie’s view came the squad Snow had first seen. The priest was looking frantically, hopelessly, in both directions: Charlie could make out the open, gasping mouth and the rolling eyes bulging in terror.

‘They’ve got you,’ said Charlie, to himself. Got us all, he thought.

Snow ran again. Not towards either group but jumped off the raised platform on to the track, stupidly and pointlessly, so stupidly pointless that neither squad made any attempt to chase him because there was nowhere for him to run.

Charlie realized what Snow was trying to do. The Nanchang train was starting forward but hardly moving, the brakes still not fully off, and Snow was stumbling across the empty lines to get to it.

It was blind, desperate, unthinking panic, with no possible chance of escape because he was level with the tracks, putting the closed doors far above him, tall as he was. Snow still tried. In those last few moments he didn’t run properly at all. It became a lurch, arms clasped about his chest. Alongside the train he staggered parallel for a few moments, bringing himself to one last, supreme effort of leaping upwards for the door handle to pull himself aboard. The priest actually did get a hold on the handle and briefly, for just a few seconds, appeared to hang suspended. Then he let go and fell backwards, not on to the empty track but beneath the wheels of the Nanchang train. It continued on, carriage after carriage, no one ordering it to stop.

Charlie didn’t wait to see it clear the station. He walked in the opposite direction from the platform from which the Nanchang train had just left, getting off the concourse by a far gate but turning back on himself when he was on the other side of the fenced barrier to see everything. There were a lot more soldiers, running from beyond the Shanghai express. And a lot more, with plainclothes Security Bureau men all down on the tracks, formed into a solid circle around the body, which was hidden from view. There was a lot of shouting and gesticulating but mostly they just looked. Charlie recognized one of the plain-suited men in the very centre of the gathering as the bespectacled Li Dong Ming, whose photograph he had memorized in London.

As he passed, Charlie saw it was a bible that Snow had been carrying. He must have dropped it when he fled down on to the lines. It had fallen open on the concourse and the wind was blowing the thin leaves one way and then the other, like an unseen hand hurrying through for a lost passage.

‘Oh my God!’ Samuels swallowed, heavily, his throat going up and down. ‘You sure he’s dead?’

‘A train ran over him. At least four carriages. Of course he’s bloody dead!’

‘What about you? Do they know about you?’

‘No,’ said Charlie, shortly. He was glad the sleeper reservations had not been made by name. The flight bookings, which had been in false identities, would have to be cancelled.

‘You’ll have to tell London. We both will, to our respective people,’ said the political officer. ‘What are you going to say?’

‘That Snow’s dead. And that the chain’s been broken. Providing he doesn’t confess, there’s no accusation that can be brought against John Gower now.’

Samuels regarded Charlie with his lip curled. ‘Just that!’ he said, disgustedly.

‘That’s all they wanted,’ said Charlie. ‘All any of them wanted. They’ll think it worked out well.’ He didn’t. He thought he was going to have to watch his ass more closely than he ever had before. And a few others, too.

Forty-seven

A lot of things happened in a very short time. Some good. Some bad. Some Charlie couldn’t decide one way or the other.

The official notification of Snow’s death came to the embassy from Father Robertson, who was officially informed by the Chinese. There was no public denunciation of the younger priest as a spy, which had been the immediate concern in messages to Samuels from the Foreign Office and to Charlie from Patricia Elder. In that same first cable to Charlie, the deputy Director-General ordered him to rebase to London as soon as possible. He didn’t acknowledge it.

Father Robertson made two visits to the embassy to arrange for the shipment of the body back to England for burial in the family vault in Sussex. Samuels met him on both occasions, and on the third accompanied the elderly man from the mission to the Foreign Ministry, to complete the final formalities for the release of the body. Charlie asked to sit in unobtrusively on the embassy meetings. Samuels refused. Charlie, who thought Samuels was a pompous shit, did however time his own visits to be at the embassy when Father Robertson came. He saw a slightly bent, careworn man making an obvious effort to cope with circumstances threatening to overwhelm him. Dr Pickering was necessarily part of the group that met the priest on every occasion. In addition to Samuels and Pickering, both Plowright and Nicholson were at the meetings and also went to the Foreign Ministry interview, in the event of a legal question arising. None did.

Samuels agreed with visible reluctance to see Charlie after that Chinese Foreign Office encounter.

‘I really can’t understand why you’re hanging around any longer!’ protested the political officer. ‘You’ve been ordered home. Why not go?’

‘I want to make sure something doesn’t come up that we didn’t expect: that’s important, don’t you think?’

‘Nothing will,’ said Samuels. ‘They’ve released the body. Signed all the forms. It’s over, thank God.’

‘How’s Father Robertson? He looks wrecked.’

‘Hanging on by a thread.’

‘He didn’t say anything that I should know about? That my department needs to hear?’ Charlie disliked getting things at second hand.

‘Of course not!’ said Samuels, impatiently. ‘He doesn’t know I’m aware of what Snow was doing. And Snow’s admission to him was covered by the secrecy of the confessional, wasn’t it?’

‘I thought he might have told you if Li had come to the mission again.’

‘I can hardly ask, can I? Again, I’m not supposed to know.’

‘What’s coming trom Rome?’

Samuels shrugged. ‘Shock and mourning. As far as they are concerned, Snow was the victim of a tragic accident.’

‘It’s not all over is it?’ reminded Charlie. ‘It won’t all be cleared up until John Gower is released. Which won’t happen if he admits who he really is.’

Samuels shifted, uncomfortably. ‘The ambassador expects to be recalled. It’s a hell of a risk, if Gower does break: confirmation of direct British government involvement. Another reason we want you out. We need to be able to account for every person at the embassy: you’ve been coming too much.’

‘I can’t be connected with anything,’ said Charlie, irritably.

‘You got Snow here, to the embassy. Which makes the connection. You were at the railway terminus when he got killed.’

‘But I was never identified,’ rejected Charlie. He’d been bloody lucky as well as professionally very smart.

‘This is China, for God’s sake! It would be enough if they wanted to move against you: certainly if Gower cracks and they want someone else to make a show trial!’

Charlie nodded, solely for Samuels’ benefit. ‘Certainly no reason to stay: I can’t officially become involved in helping John Gower.’

‘I can tell the ambassador you’re going? The Foreign Office, as well?’

‘Very soon,’ assured Charlie. In your dreams, he thought.

‘I know what you’re hoping for!’ declared Samuels, suddenly. ‘You’re hoping Gower’s going to be released, for you to escort him home. Like looking after like. Which is stupid, bloody madness.’

Something was, conceded Charlie: he wished he could work out what it was. ‘It would be stupid, bloody madness. That’s why I’m not even thinking about it.’

‘Get out!’ insisted Samuels. ‘Your being here is endangering the embassy.’

Not really, Charlie decided. He acknowledged that the frequency with which he visited the legation
had
probably identified him for what he was to several members of the embassy, although they would have linked him to the publicly accused Gower, not to Snow. And he had connected himself to Snow with the message-passing request to Pickering. But that was all internal. Safe. There wasn’t anything
external
. So Samuels was panicking, talking through the hole in his ass.

Charlie made a point of seeking out the doctor the same afternoon as his encounter with Samuels. Pickering greeted him with expected brusqueness but not with positive hostility, not even as dismissive as the political officer.

Pickering agreed with Charlie’s easy opening that Father Robertson was showing signs of understandable strain. ‘Which I don’t like, coming so soon after the other business.’

‘Snow told me you’d diagnosed nervous exhaustion.’

Pickering nodded. ‘We reached an understanding then – Snow and I – that if I thought Robertson was medically incapable of remaining here I should tell their Curia, in Rome.’

‘
Is
he medically incapable in your opinion?’

‘Close,’ judged Pickering. ‘I’ve got to make allowances for the shock of how Snow died, of course. He could pick up when he’s properly realized what has happened.’

At once calling to mind Snow’s admission at their first meeting, Charlie decided the old man would probably have more difficulty accepting, and living with, what he’d been told in the confessional. ‘What if he doesn’t?’

Pickering humped his shoulders. ‘I don’t know who to tell in Rome. The assumption was always that Snow would handle it. Certainly from the outburst from Robertson, when it arose before, he wouldn’t admit any incapacity to Rome himself. He’d do the reverse.’

‘How many British patients do you have in Beijing?’ asked Charlie.

There was another uncertain shoulder movement. ‘No idea. Quite a few, as a regular panel. And it’s obvious that in emergencies I’m here for any Brit that gets ill. It’s regulation Foreign Office advice.’