Charlie’s Apprentice

by Brian Freemantle

  ‘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.

&nb
sp; ‘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.

  Natalia still tried, because it was the most obvious way and she couldn’t think of anything else. She demanded every surveillance report and photograph obtained in the previous three months and spent every spare moment for four days looking through them all, straining for the slightest indication or sight of Charlie. And found nothing.

  She even thought, briefly, of ordering a positive surveillance operation until she realized she was considering precisely what Berenkov had done and by so doing brought about his own downfall. Charlie had to be found another way, Natalia accepted.

  But which way? Dear God she wished she knew.

  Eighteen

  The underlying tension that had always existed between Snow and Father Robertson came even closer to the surface in the days following Li’s visit, frequently erupting into open argument. Both priests were stretched in opposite directions by conflicting emotions, Father Robertson seemingly racked with even greater fear than ever, Snow even angrier than before at his frustrating isolation from any contact with London. They even ceased, without discussion, taking each other’s confession: for his part Snow was relieved, spared the hypocricy.

  The dissent between them was exacerbated by Father Robertson’s constant insistence – usually in the evening, after he’d been drinking – that both the embassy and the Vatican Curia of the Jesuits had to be warned, until finally Snow’s patience snapped with his demanding why the older man didn’t just do something instead of talking about it.

  So Father Robertson did. Three days after their uneasy encounter with the Chinese, he broke his daily schedule of always being around the complex in the morning by announcing he was going out – without saying where – and being absent for three hours. When he returned the head of mission made the further announcement that he’d sent to Italy through the diplomatic mail a full account of what had happened and had an hour-long discussion at the embassy with the political officer, Peter Samuels.

  ‘He agreed with me that there’s a potential difficulty,’ concluded Father Robertson.

  ‘I should talk with him as well,’ insisted Snow.

  ‘I suggested that. Samuels said for you to visit, so closely after me, would be a mistake.’ His words were slightly slurred.

  ‘Why?’ demanded Snow.

  ‘The embassy is watched. If I go, then you follow almost immediately after, it could suggest that we have something to be frightened about: that we are conducting services – preaching religion – from the mission.’

  ‘But we’re not! If the Chinese suspect that we are, they will have been watching us here, as well. And we know they won’t have found anything because there’s nothing to find!’

  ‘You’re being insubordinate.’

  ‘I’m being truthful and factual and objective. You’re building this into something far greater and far more important than it is!’

  ‘That is not for you to decide. Or me.’

  ‘It’s an opinion that will be reached from how the facts are presented. Yours have been. Mine haven’t. I want the opportunity to put my assessment forward.’

  ‘You’ll be given it, if it’s thought necessary.’

  ‘I think it’s necessary.’

  ‘You serve. You don’t demand.’

  Snow’s breathing started to become difficult. ‘What have you told the Curia?’

  ‘Precisely what happened.’

  ‘With what recommendation?’

  ‘None. I also serve, not demand. Any decision has to be theirs, uninfluenced by any opinion of mine.’

  ‘What will you recommend, if you are asked?’

  ‘That you are withdrawn. This mission can’t be endangered.’

  ‘How is it any less endangered with only you here? You can conduct religious services just as easily as me.’

  ‘Before your appointment, when I worked here by myself, there was never any official interest.’

  Because you’re their hollow totem, thought Snow, contemptuously. Just as quickly he confronted the reality. His primary function, as a Jesuit, was to serve: so he would have to leave, permitted no opposing argument, if he were ordered out of the country by the Vatican. So why did the prospect make him so unsettled? Surely his unofficial activities had not assumed greater importance than his avowed vocation? Of course not, he assured himself: a ridiculous doubt. Snow said: ‘When do you expect to hear back from Rome?’

  ‘I don’t impose time-limits,’ avoided the older man.

  Snow sighed, but shallowly because his chest was still tight. With strained patience he said: ‘In normal circumstances how long does it take to get a reply from Rome?’

  ‘There is no formula,’ said the mission chief, almost as if determined to be difficult. ‘Sometimes weeks. Sometimes months.’

  In fairness he should be allowed to give his calmly reasoned side of the issue, despite Father Robertson’s pedantic reminder of humility. If he were allowed to state his case, Snow wondered if it would not be the most
opportune time to suggest that Father Robertson be the one to be withdrawn, a burned out man obsessed by imagined demons, doing little if any good remaining here on station, too prone always to sound alarms where none were justified. He said, with minimal sincerity: ‘I am sorry you don’t think this a happy ministry.’

  Father Robertson moved at once towards conciliation. ‘It hasn’t been easy for either of us. Me, from what happened before: you, from it being your first posting. Because circumstances here – and I don’t mean this current situation – aren’t normal. God knows when they ever will be.’

  Snow realized, surprised, that Father Robertson was no longer prevaricating but arguing forcefully and positively expressing an opinion. Moving towards conciliation himself, he said: ‘Possibly more difficult for you than me, because of what happened in the past.’

  Father Robertson physically shuddered. ‘Now in the past, thank God.’

  Gentle-voiced, no longer having any anger, he said: ‘Have you ever thought of leaving China? Going home, perhaps?’

  Father Robertson frowned across his desk, a look of total bewilderment on his face. ‘This is my home. Here.’

  ‘This is your posting,’ insisted Snow, but gently now.

  ‘Home,’ said Father Robertson, even more insistent, although his voice was oddly remote. ‘There is nowhere else. It’s important work, being here.’

  Snow judged, at that moment, that the older man was completely lost, his mind full of confused images. Which Snow decided gave even more reason for suggesting the transfer, if he got the opportunity. And for no other reason than simple Christianity: Father Robertson had served and suffered dreadfully during a devoted lifetime in their special priesthood. Now he deserved peace and contentment and hopefully relief from the terrors that constantly gripped him. There were caring Retreats throughout the world – in Rome particularly – where the old man could live out the rest of his life in prayer and meditation. ‘Don’t you feel you have done enough?’ Snow asked, still gentle.

  ‘No one has ever done enough,’ smiled Father Robertson. ‘There’s always so much more to be done.’