China Wife

by Hedley Harrison

  Susie, being a relatively tidy-minded and organised person, had formed a great liking for the administrative area of the city and continued to be fascinated by the new Parliament which she recognised as one of the iconic buildings of the world. Settling herself into a double room in a motel in the Forrest area, she took time on the Sunday of her arrival to orient herself before her first appointment of the Monday morning.

  The walk to the British High Commission took her longer than she had expected; one thing that had changed since she was last there was the increase in the quantity and speed of the traffic. But the bustle of Canberra was more relaxed, more easy-going, than that of London, or even of Melbourne.

  ‘Susie. Welcome to Canberra.’

  She’d had met Tristram Booth in Brazil; they were much of an age. Like Susie, he was another Foreign Office high-flyer. He was definitely a welcome face for her in Australia. He was immensely tall but neat and economic of movement, and Susie had been attracted to him at their first meeting. He had a friendly face that was very hard to describe but that was easy to read among friends and impossible among the diplomatic milieu in which he and Susie lived.

  ‘Tristram.’

  She had also met his wife and his then-small twin daughters in Brazil, so her interest was very much as a colleague. And now with David occupying her mind as well as her bed, Tristram’s diplomatic capabilities were more what she was interested in.

  Well briefed on the labour and women trafficking activities that were the basis of Susie’s current interest, he dispensed coffee and biscuits while she admired the view of Lake Burley Griffin and they awaited the arrival of a colleague. A colleague who, Susie was quick to note, was neither named nor otherwise identified.

  When Alan arrived, she might have easily seen why Julie Kershawe had likened him to a Greek god. His clean-cut good looks were striking but had a pallidness about them that Susie found less attractive than David’s rugged, suntanned and expressive face. Alan, as Julie had also noted, was the perfect spy – competent, self-effacing and forgettable.

  ‘I have just spoken to your associate.’ Alan, as usual, didn’t waste words on small talk. ‘I have to say there’s been some reluctance to talk to an investigative journalist back in the office, and the Federal and Victorian Police have asked for certain guarantees, as prosecutions could be pending related to what they are investigating.’

  Susie wasn’t surprised.

  Tristram Booth gave her a reassuring smile. He seriously doubted whether the first Hutchinson report would ever get into the public domain, let alone one on a subject that might cast light on the inner workings of the Chinese political system. Susie’s recent conversations with her Permanent Secretary largely confirmed this. Burying his reports was the outcome that David was well aware was always going to be the most likely. A significant amount of what he wrote and photographed ended up that way; but he still got paid!

  ‘The only loose ends that he seems to have are around the trafficking of educated Chinese women,’ Alan continued. ‘That’s the area where we definitely don’t want to go public but where we can still be of some help.’

  It was a careful understatement.

  Neither of the diplomats was privy to the detail of the latest activities that Julie Kershawe/Li was involved in and the danger that she was exposed to. And Alan had been very careful and selective in what he had told David Hutchinson. He knew, however, that in present company he was going to have to say something more.

  Again, it was Tristram Booth who responded to him.

  ‘Don’t want to upset our neighbours,’ he said, gesturing over his shoulder at the adjacent Embassy of the People’s Republic.

  In fact, the Chinese were anything but upset. David Hutchinson represented an opportunity to the tortuous official Chinese mind. The suggestion to formalise his role so that he could operate in China by commissioning him to further investigate and report on some of the outstanding aspects of what he had been following up in the UK and Australia was instigated by the Chinese themselves, or at least by the Chinese Embassy in Canberra. The proposal was well received by the faceless Beijing bureaucrats. There was considerable sensitivity to the importation of educated and professional women into the Chinese business and political world. Although it was minute in scale, some of the top people in Beijing hierarchy were thought to have a connection to it. A bit of transparency, albeit maybe limited, provided by a reputable outsider was obviously desirable in the circumstances.

  It was an outcome that would utterly amaze the Foreign Office China specialists when the arrangement with David and Susie eventually became known.

  Both Susie and Alan knew that there was active cooperation with the Chinese on a range of people trafficking issues. They certainly didn’t want to disturb the partnership either. But they had concerns about the reliability of certain individuals among the Chinese authorities, political and official, but they also knew that this was too complex a topic for the British or Australians to get drawn into at the present time.

  ‘Hutchinson has gone to Bendigo in Victoria to talk to the Victorian Police about a young Chinese woman.’

  The way that Alan said ‘young Chinese woman’ immediately focused Susie’s attention.

  ‘Julie Kershawe – late of the UK Border Agency?’

  Susie hadn’t expected Tristram to be so fully informed about Julie.

  ‘I believe that she is also being sought by the Victoria Police,’ he added.

  Perhaps, thought Susie, he isn’t so well informed as he is making out.

  Julie’s cover story had been circulated to the areas of the bureaucracies of the UK and Australia that might need to know. The High Commission’s inclusion was routine.

  ‘I believe Hutchinson knows where she is, or rather where she was.’

  Alan gave Susie a rather sour look that suggested that she shouldn’t pursue the topic.

  ‘As I understand it, after going to Bendigo, Hutchinson is coming here before he heads off again to Brisbane.’

  Again, Alan didn’t make any attempt to explain the purpose of these movements.

  Tristram Booth’s part in the conversation that ensued as Alan updated Susie on what they knew of the movements of Julie Kershawe, now calling herself Julie Li, and the prime target of their interest, Kim Lee Sung or Joe Kim, was minimal. His was a listening brief. The description of the events at Lake Mulwala took some time to discuss; Alan was both irritated and concerned by the fact that the car fitted with the tracking device had been destroyed and, as a consequence, Julie and Kim and the kidnapped girls had effectively gone off the radar.

  ‘Julie is pretty resourceful. The Federal Police have briefed both their New South Wales and Queensland colleagues, since the only way they can really go is north.’

  Neither Alan nor Susie voiced their common thought that, while they needed to know where the fugitives were, they needed them to be free to make their way to their final destination, wherever that was.

  Susie was quick to note that the labour trafficking issues were no longer a topic of interest to either Alan or Tristram Booth any more than they were to her. The fate of a small number of educated Chinese women, however, was assuming far greater importance. The unspoken but accurate assumption within the Australian Security Services that it was the freedom of movement of the women that was key would have accorded with the thoughts beginning to form in Susie’s mind.

  The last twist in the conversation came from Tristram Booth.

  ‘I’ve been asked to introduce Susie to my opposite number at the Chinese Embassy. Or rather to take a stroll on the Parliament building roof garden. Knowing him, we might even get treated to coffee!’

  The roof of the Parliament building proved to be a simple area of lawn with very little privacy or shade. But the view over Canberra was spectacular and one of the best urban vistas that Susie had ever seen.

  The actual building was cleverly built into the hill so that the roof garden seemed almost to form a natural part o
f the landscape.

  ‘So the public can look down on the politicians rather than the politicians look down on the public; or some such story.’

  It was a piece of democratic subtlety that Tristram, as he made the comment, realised would perhaps have been lost on their visitor.

  Mr Luo, who for reasons that were never explained liked to be called Julius even if it wasn’t his given name, was the First Secretary at the Chinese People’s Republic Embassy, which stood with the British and other Commonwealth high commissions on Commonwealth Avenue. A student of British colonial history. Mr Luo had spent some of his early career in Hong Kong working for the administration-in-waiting and then in the Chief Secretary’s office. Although very much the voice of Beijing, he was known for his grasp of the British administrative system and for his understanding of what the Chinese would have regarded as the oddities of the British character.

  ‘Julius never refers to us as the English, always the British; I even heard him correct some pompous US Senator on the point. He’d be just as at home in Oxford as here.’

  Tristram’s briefing to Susie as they sat in the winter sun waiting for Mr Luo to arrive suggested anything but that of the traditional background of a diplomat. He clearly liked his Chinese colleague. Susie pulled her long coat over her skirt, leaving only a part of her legs on show. Something in Booth’s description made her instinctively move to modesty.

  Mr Luo arrived on time. Susie immediately felt like Tristram that she would like him. The Chinese diplomat nodded to acknowledge the presence of his two counterparts. Then, as Susie watched in some surprise, he walked to the edge of the lawn facing down the hill overlooking Canberra’s main shopping and residential areas and, aligning himself with the building, paused and bowed to the distant War Memorial.

  It was clearly something that he always did.

  ‘Julius – Susie Peveral, from London.’

  Mr Luo had already been briefed so he knew who Susie was. His bow this time was altogether more personal.

  ‘Miss Peveral’ – Julius Luo was never going to call her Susie – ‘I understand that you are responsible for the high level of cooperation that is going on over this nasty business of people trafficking.’

  Susie nodded her agreement.

  ‘The cooperation is about to move into a more complicated phase. We believe that your government and those of Canada, the United States and the European Union are about to introduce much clearer and much tougher regulations on the legitimate movements and resettlement of labour. We believe that the trafficking of working people for profit has to be stopped but not the opportunities for people to move around the world to improve their own economic conditions.’

  It was only as the diplomat paused to draw breath that Susie recognised the quality of his English and the absence of the American accent so common among Chinese officials when they spoke English. His last sentiment however, rather surprised her; it didn’t quite fit with the often xenophobic pronouncements of his government.

  ‘This problem we can set aside,’ Luo continued. ‘And the trafficking of women for the sex trade, this is not something that we recognise as a problem. Very few Chinese women are involved.’

  The quick pulling together of his eyebrows by Tristram Booth froze Susie’s rejoinder. Whatever she knew to the contrary, this was an area that they weren’t going to discuss. The rather old-fashioned Chinese sensibilities had to be respected.

  ‘The trafficking of educated and what you would call middle-class young women into China, however, is something different.’

  There was heavy emphasis on ‘into China’.

  More work with Tristram’s eyebrows again forestalled any comment from Susie. The Chinese Government were very wary of people from the West coming into their country and bringing in views that would not be acceptable to the Communist rulers. Susie knew this, but it seemed rather simplistic reasoning as a motivation for trying to stop the traffic.

  ‘We are aware that as many as nine women may have already arrived in China. One has been repatriated to Argentina after being arrested in Hong Kong and our Australian colleagues tell us that they have identified four more, one of whom has been arrested. The whereabouts of the other eight is being investigated.’

  This Susie already knew, but with the ever present risk of Tristram’s frown she said nothing.

  ‘Actually,’ Booth said, ‘six more. Two more young Chinese women have been intercepted in Queensland.’

  Neither Susie nor Mr Luo was aware of this.

  The trafficking of educated young women had unravelled further that very morning. Booth had no details, just the basic information and a casualty report.

  Wreckage and the body of a middle-aged man had been sighted offshore a few kilometres north of Cairns, in an area that although popular with tourists was largely uninhabited in the winter. The Queensland Police had immediately recognised the wreckage as part of a large ocean-going cruiser. A search for the rest of the vessel and its crew had started immediately. Since there had been at least two violent storms in the area within the last week, the emergency services went into overdrive.

  The breakthrough had been as unexpected as it had been welcome.

  It was the excited barking of an ageing Labrador being walked along the beach five kilometres north of Cairns, again in an area abandoned for the winter, that alerted the owner. Snakes, even crocodiles, weren’t unknown, especially after the sort of rainfall that they had just had. The dog owner was a retired rancher. The noise the dog was making told him that he had indeed encountered a snake. If it had been a crocodile, the animal would have retreated.

  ‘Couldn’t believe it,’ Walt Wood told the police. ‘Crouched under a tree were two Chinese women, girls, hugging each other. Petrified. The dog was barking at a large snake, making runs at it, but it didn’t move. I called the dog off.’

  Walt could see that the snake would have long made its escape if the dog hadn’t kept cutting off its retreat. He wasn’t sure whether he knew what sort it was, probably a Tiger snake, but it wasn’t an aggressive Taipan.

  ‘Since there’s no mobile phone coverage out there I gathered the two girls up and took them back home,’

  Their story had been soon told. They had been a part of another shipment of young women, this time from the UK, via Canada and the ocean cruiser to Queensland. Once the local policeman had got the hang of their Geordie accent, the whole story came out.

  Four crew members and one other young woman were apparently still unaccounted for and there was not much hope for them.

  Mr Luo expressed his regrets at the loss of life in a rather mechanistic way.

  ‘No doubt the Australian Police will learn more from the two young women when they have recovered.’

  ‘OK,’ said Susie, recognising that the Chinese official wasn’t really interested in the incident.

  It wasn’t her priority either and she didn’t want to waste valuable time with Luo on an un-investigated incident.

  ‘We have still got two women here in Australia heading for or being taken somewhere, we presume up north, but we don’t know where, or what the traffickers are planning to do with them when they get wherever it is.’

  ‘Ship them to China,’ Julius Luo said.

  ‘Of course,’ said Susie, ‘but how, where and why?’

  ‘The woman we arrested in Hong Kong, who was being met by a banker, came on a regular Qantas flight from Melbourne. She’d been given a drug that took several days to wear off and which left her with very little memory. The people accompanying her panicked, as did the airport police, so we ended up only with dead bodies. The banker is being tried for other crimes and the judge has given us the chance to find out more by not allowing the trafficking offence to be brought to court for the moment.’

  ‘Are you saying that somehow, somewhere, the two women that the Australian Police are chasing are going to be flown to China on a scheduled flight?’

  Susie knew of the Hong Kong incident but she was
no less incredulous now even with the greater knowledge that she had.

  ‘It’s the only information,’ Mr Luo said, ‘that any of us has got.’

  ‘But why?’ muttered Susie; as always it was the key unanswered question.

  Somewhere in her brain she would have probably thought that she knew. What with China’s careful control over its own citizens, women with Western passports, if they could have been manipulated to follow the wishes of the corrupt politicians, officials and businessmen, would have been immensely valuable.

  But as the three of them drifted by common consent to the Parliament coffee shop, it was a question that remained unaddressed and unanswered.

  Susie and David were, however, offered the resources of the Chinese Government in Hong Kong if she felt that a British presence there would help in bringing the trafficking issues to a head. With the sort of remit that she had, she felt that her involvement would be beneficial to the Chinese and the Australians as well as the British. As she was an acknowledged UK diplomat but not part of the Beijing Embassy, basing herself in Hong Kong was thought to be the best option. It also allowed the Chinese authorities to monitor her activities more easily. Mr Luo was careful not to impose any obvious restrictions on David Hutchinson, though Susie was well aware of the sort of oversight of foreign journalists that existed in China.

  *

  Back at the motel in Forrest the question left hanging at the Parliament building wasn’t going to get an answer there either.

  ‘David!’

  Susie’s delight at the sight of the reclining bulk of David Hutchinson on the bed swept any thoughts of women trafficking, Chinese diplomats and the like straight out of her mind.

  It had been mid-afternoon by the time Susie, Tristram Booth and Mr Luo had agreed on how to communicate with the Chinese authorities when she was in Hong Kong; notwithstanding the realities of the situation it was, Mr Luo stressed, to be strictly on an information only basis. Whereupon the diplomat had returned to his Embassy.