The High Commissioner

by Jon Cleary

  She walked to the window and looked out at the traffic passing up and down Avenue Road. She had rented this house in St. John’s Wood at the same time as she had rented the apartment in Kensington. Bay Vien had taught her that a good general always had a second prepared position in case of retreat; she had also learned from the Viet Cong that a good guerrilla never operated from the same base all the time. She looked about the luxurious room in which she stood and smiled to herself: this was the sort of guerrilla war she enjoyed. The house belonged to a stockbroker who, she had discovered after taking the house, was currently simmering in one of Her Majesty’s prisons for misusing clients’ funds. She had not been shocked by the discovery: corruption, like sex, was a commercial way of life with her. The man, whoever he was, was just a fool to have been caught.

  She wandered restlessly about the room, impatient for Jamaica to arrive. She had learned to control herself, but she had ever mastered the art of relaxing; the quality of repose was to her often no more than a resignation, the bowing of a woman to a man’s domination. And no man, not even Bay Vien, had ever dominated her. She picked up several of the morning newspapers, with their stories and pictures of the bomb explosion yesterday. Each paper had its own approach to the story. The Daily Express didn’t think it was part of the British way of life; The Financial Times said the effect of the explosion had not been felt on the Stock Exchange; the Daily Telegraph commented that nothing like this had happened in thirteen years of Tory government She threw down the papers with a curse of anger. If it had not been for that interfering Australian security man, Quentin would now be dead and the conference would already be crumbling into ruins of suspicion, charges and counter-charges. She had to do something! But what?

  Pham Chinh opened the door, his flat brown face seemingly flattened further by shock. “There are two Chinese to see you,” he said in French, his voice hissing a little. He was a superstitious man and he was beginning to be afraid: too much had gone wrong over the past two days. And now these unknown Chinese: “They won’t give their names.”

  Madame Cholon hesitated. Curiosity was another of her weaknesses, a peasant inheritance; her first reaction was to say she was not at home, but she knew she would not rest till she knew who the Chinese were and what they wanted. “Show them in.”

  Pham Chinh opened the door wider, jerked his head and stood aside to let the two Chinese, both of them short, one fat, the other thin, pass by him into the room Then he came into the room behind them, to stand beside the door with his arms folded and his feet planted together. Madame Cholon hid a smile: Pham Chinh always looked ridiculous, like a bad actor, when he tried to look tough.

  She spoke to the Chinese in French. “What can I do for you, gentlemen?”

  The fat man said something in Chinese, but Madame Cholon shook her head. She spoke some Chinese, but she was not at home in the language and she did not want to miss any of the nuances that might be in the conversation.

  “Do you speak English?” he then said, and she nodded. She did not ask them to sit nor did they look as if they were waiting to be offered chairs: this was not going to be a cosy chat. The fat man wore rimless glasses that seemed to make his smooth round face as blank as a plate; he appeared to speak without moving his lips. “Madame Cholon, whom are you working for?”

  “Tell me first, whom are you working for?” Her voice was tart: she was going to let them know she was not accustomed to being questioned in her own house, even a rented one.

  The two Chinese exchanged glances and the thin one smiled. He was young, hardly more than a boy, and in the lapel of his ill-fitting grey suit he wore a charity badge: St. Francis’ Home for Disabled Dogs of Gentlefolk. The English had extracted toll from him: it was a small price for the jokes he would tell about them when he returned to Peking. “There is only one government that honourable Chinese work for,” he said, and did not seem aware that he sounded like a parody of all the Chinese Madame Cholon had seen in American movies. “We trust you do not work for the Kuomintang?”

  It was Madame Cholon’s turn to smile. “No. I am working for no one.”

  “We do not choose to believe that.” The fat man held his hat in front of his belly like a small grey felt shield; he would never trust anyone here in the West. “Why were you at the reception the night before last at—” He named the African Embassy. “And why did you go after the reception to the gambling club with the American, Jamaica?”

  Madame Cholon looked at Pham Chinh. “Would you show the gentlemen to the door?”

  She turned her back, took two paces towards the window, then stopped. She heard Pham Chinh hiss, but she did not hear him move. She turned her head and saw the thin Chinese was holding a small pistol aimed directly at Pham Chinh’s belly. She recognised the pistol, a Beretta; she had once had one herself and had twice used it on men. She had no feeling at all for Pham Chinh and would not miss nor even remember him when he was gone. But she did not want him dead just yet. A live employee, while he was still useful, was better than a dead one.

  “Put the gun away,” she said, and motioned to the thick-cushioned couch nearby. “Won’t you sit down?”

  Pham Chinh let out another hiss, then relaxed, leaning back now against the wall. Madame Cholon sat down in a chair, tensed inside but outwardly calm, and waited for the two Chinese to sit down. The fat man sat stiffly on the edge of the couch, his hat still held like a shield in front of him; but the thin man lounged back in the rich comfort of the cushions, one leg propped up on the other and the pistol held loosely in his lap. The chat was still not going to be cosy, but an understanding had been arrived at. This was Madame Cholon’s house, but the Chinese held the mortgage.

  “Why are you concerned about Mr. Jamaica?” Madame Cholon asked.

  The two Chinese glanced at each other, then the fat man said, “What do you know about him?”

  “Nothing very much. He says he is a silk exporter from Bangkok, but I suspect he is more than that.”

  “He works for the American Central Intelligence Agency,” said the thin man, and smiled when he saw Madame Cholon bite her lip. He looked up at Pham Chinh, who had suddenly stiffened and straightened up. “You did not know that?”

  “No,” said Madame Cholon.

  “I believe you are telling the truth.” The thin man shook his head wonderingly at his companion, as if amazed at such ignorance on the part of Madame Cholon. Then his face tightened and he looked back at Madame Cholon. “If you are not working with the Americans, whom are you working with?”

  “Do I have to be working with anyone? I am here on holiday. It is just coincidental that other people from our part of the world should also be here in London.”

  “We do not accept the coincidence, madame.” The fat man wore a stiff collar and a waistcoat and he was feeling the heat in the unventilated room. He took out a handkerchief and wiped his face and looked meaningly at the unopened windows, but Madame Cholon spitefully did not take the hint “We know who you are, that you have not been in Europe for three years, that you have never been in London before. Such coincidences do not occur, Madame Cholon. We think you – we know you have had something to do with the attempts to kill the Australian High Commissioner.”

  Madame Cholon bit her lip again and glanced quickly at Pham Chinh. Shock and puzzlement had reduced him to an idiot stare; he was still leaning against the wall but limply now. He was really afraid, certain that all their luck had run out: the omens had been correct. Then he blinked and saw the accusing look in Madame Cholon’s hard eyes. He shook his head desperately, suddenly even more frightened.

  “No, I’ve told no one! I don’t know anyone—” He was babbling in his native tongue; fear made him dumb in French. “Someone else must have told them!”

  “Who?” The fury was taking hold of her again. “Jean-Pierre?” Then she looked at the Chinese again. “Or was it Mr. Jamaica?”

  The young thin Chinese shook his head and smiled. “If ever we were going to employ a double
agent, madame, we should not have an American. One cannot trust them. No, we have our source. It is no one you know.”

  “The conference is going the way we want it to go,” said the fat man, wiping his face again. He took off his glasses and his whole face seemed to become featureless; words issued from a blank mask. “We are achieving what we want without your help.” He wiped the glasses, put them back on again. “You are a nuisance.”

  “Why are you so interested in me?” Outwardly she was calm again, but she was still quivering inside; her voice grated, she coughed to clear it. “There are others with something to lose if the conference goes wrong.”

  “You are spoiling our plans, ones we have taken great care and trouble with! Your stupid, crude methods are ruining everything we have arranged! Shooting, bombing, trying to kill the security man with a car—” The fat man also was furious; his whole body quivered, his glasses flashed as his head bobbed. The young man looked at him and appeared to smile, but he said nothing. “You will have to stop, Madame Cholon!”

  “You know what happened in the garage?” She could not contain her surprise: her small voice cracked like a schoolgirl’s.

  “We know,” said the young Chinese and looked at Pham Chinh. “Was it you who drove the car? What made you try something as stupid as that? Don’t you know that you could have killed yourself?” He shook his head again; he just could not believe that so much stupidity existed. Thank Mao the New China did not have morons like this working for it.

  Pham Chinh looked to Madame Cholon to answer him. She hesitated, but for the moment she was defeated: these Chinese seemed to hold all the cards. The gun did not frighten her, only their knowledge: till she found out exactly how much they knew and who was their informant, she could not plan her own next move. For the time being she had to buy cards of her own: “We hadn’t planned to kill the security man.”

  “One should not kill a man without making plans,” said the thin man, and Madame Cholon heard the echo of her own advice. Both Chinese shook their heads. “That was stupid, madame. Really stupid.” The young man spoke like an honours graduate in political assassination. “Murder should never be done on the spur of the moment. You should always allow for the consequences.”

  Madame Cholon stared hard at the men: if she had the gun that the young man held, she would kill them both and to hell with the consequences. “As you say, it was done on the spur of the moment. And perhaps that was stupid. But I thought the security man was proving dangerous, he kept getting in my way. And this was an excellent opportunity. Doesn’t Mao Tse-tung in his excellent book on guerrilla warfare advocate some opportunism?”

  The Chinese were not going to be caught out in criticism of their leader. “Go on, madame. Tell us how you got yourself into this awkward situation.”

  She hesitated again; then she went on to describe what had happened last night. Pham Chinh had been driving her to Fothergill’s in a rented Mini-Minor – “What’s the matter?”

  “A loss of face for you, wasn’t it, madame?” said the young man. “One can’t see you in a Mini-Minor.”

  She was not going to be drawn by the bait: this young Chinese would dearly love to see her erupt into a storm of temper. He was her real enemy; she was beginning to forget the older, fat man. “One indulges oneself at times. In this country one can be ostentatious by being unostentatious.”

  “Strange people, the English,” said the fat man.

  “It was just sheer chance that I saw Malone, the security man, and the girl who works for the High Commissioner. They were in an open car and they passed us at Hyde Park Corner. That, too, was sheer chance. Pham Chinh missed the gambling club as we went down Park Lane and we had to go right down – it is one-way – and come back up round Hyde Park Corner.”

  “Luck seems to play a large part in your life, madame. We hope you do not rely too much on it.”

  “I am a gambler,” she said. “When luck presents itself, you don’t turn your back on it.”

  “What happened when you saw Mr. Malone and the girl?”

  “We followed them up to the garage. I stayed in the car while Chinh followed them on foot. He came back and told me they had gone to Fothergill’s. I was to meet Mr. Jamaica there. I at once thought Jamaica had got in touch with Malone, was trying – how do they say? – to cook something up.”

  “And so you lost your temper and decided to kill one or both of them?” The young Chinese shook his head again; too many amateurs were at large.

  Madame Cholon smiled thinly. “I am not as crude as all that. I got a taxi and came back here. I left Pham Chinh in the garage. He was only to kill Malone if he got him alone. I left the method up to him. As it happened, he chose the wrong one.” She looked at Pham Chinh and he dropped his eyes; he had already felt the lash of her tongue for the bungled job. “Next time I shall name the method.”

  “There won’t be a next time.” The young man looked at the fat man and both of them stood up. “We think you should catch the first plane back to Saigon, madame. How soon can you be ready?”

  “I shall be ready in my own time!” The fury began to come to the surface; he had scratched deeply. “I am not leaving here—”

  The fat older man put his hat carefully on his head with both hands, as if crowning himself. The young man put his own hat on carelessly, but he was not careless about the way he held the gun. He brought it up and pointed it with emphasis at Madame Cholon. “We shall even pay your fare, madame, yours and your servant’s. Can you be ready to leave to-morrow?”

  “No! I tell you I am not leaving here till—”

  “Saturday, then. In the meantime you will not go near the Australian High Commissioner, near his residence, Australia House nor Lancaster House. Neither you nor any one you may hire, including this stupid man here.” The young man hadn’t raised or hardened his voice; he might have been arranging a holiday flight for Madame Cholon and Pham Chinh, a packaged tour for amateur assassins. “There is a Qantas plane leaving at half past five Saturday afternoon. You can change at Singapore. Your tickets will be here at lunch-time today. First class for yourself and tourist class for your servant. Will that be all right?”

  “You are making a mistake—”

  “We make mistakes occasionally, madame,” the thin young man conceded. It was evident now that, though he was the younger of the two Chinese by almost thirty years, he was the one with the senior authority. The veterans had won the revolution, had slogged through the Long March, fought the Nationalists; but the young men, educated by propaganda, injected with hatred, were taking over. Madame Cholon knew that was the frightening thing about China: the young people were even more fanatical than the old. “But we are not making a mistake in this case. You will be on Saturday’s plane.”

  “And if I’m not?” For once she had no prepared retreat to fall back on; but she did not feel her defiance was hollow. Resignation had never been one of her weaknesses; fatalism was for fools. She would fight them, all seven hundred million of them.

  “Then I am afraid something crude may happen to you,” said the young Chinese. “The tickets will be here at lunch-time. Good morning, madame.”

  They both bowed, raised their hats and backed out of the room, the young man still holding the gun in front of him like a badge of office. Madame Cholon heard the front door close, then she looked at Pham Chinh. “We don’t have much time, Chinh.”

  “Do we catch the plane on Saturday?” Pham Chinh’s voice was hopeful, relieved: other crimes, other murders, lay ahead for him, but in Saigon, where the climate was better and the chances of being caught were much, much slimmer.

  “We shall be on the plane. But our work will be finished by then.” She had no plans, but her confidence had begun to return. But first, certain obstructions had to be done away with. “When Mr. Jamaica arrives, show him in.”

  “But if he is working for the Americans—?” Pham Chinh wanted no more mistakes. Let them play it safe, get on the plane and go home. He had alre
ady forgotten his ambition to be rich: a dead man could not drive a Lincoln Continental.

  “Mr. Jamaica has finished working for the Americans. Or anyone else.” The doorbell rang. “There he is now.”

  Chapter Nine

  Malone lay on his bed. He had taken off his shoes and every now and again he would wriggle his toes, easing the soreness of them. He was still stiff from last night’s bruising and the cut on his chin had begun to itch under its Band-aid. But he was hardly aware of any of his discomfort except as irritations on the periphery of his mind. He was no Stoic, nor had he ever been one to indulge himself in the contemplation of pain. He had discovered that it was best cured by being ignored; the system might not work with everyone but it did with him. And if the mind had its own pain, the body in any case was forgotten.

  The curtains were open and the early evening sky outside the window was the colour of a kingfisher’s breast: a highflying jet pierced it like a tiny dart. There was a distant hum of traffic, the breathing, sighing, occasional shrieking of the city; but it was not disturbing. Dead silence would have been worse, would have made him more aware of the people in the house. One of whom had tried to open his brief-case in which was locked the file on Quentin and the warrant for his arrest

  It had been a long day and not a good one. The conference, he knew, had gone badly again. He had become concerned for its success, a little to his own surprise. He was not a political nor like so many of his fellow countrymen, completely uninterested in what went on in the conference halls of the world. He knew that Australia, culturally and socially, was still isolated from the rest of the world; he had once helped arrest a drunken English actor who had described it as the arse-end of civilisation, and he had stood by while his fellow officer, cut to his patriotic quick, had dreamed up other charges to lay against the offending actor. The slur on his country had not worried him, because he was well aware of the fact that he was not himself culturally and socially minded. But he had never ignored the fact that, politically, Australia was no longer isolated. No matter what eleven million white Australians thought, their country was now part of Asia. And what went on in Viet Nam, Indonesia, China, in any country to the north of them, concerned them as much as the problems close at home, the traffic toll, the rising cost of living, the possible winner of the next Melbourne Cup. But while he had been back home in Australia, surrounded by an environment that looked upon an Asia-oriented foreign policy as some sort of treason, it had been easy to become one of the mob, one of those who buried their heads in the sand of Bondi beach and thought the price of beer more important than the price of freedom. He had been guilty of the same apathy.