The prisoner was at the far end. The apparatus that held him resembled nothing Karim had ever seen or heard of. It was a cage with widely spaced bars, in which the man was standing upright. His head emerged through the top of the contraption, and his feet were supported on wooden boards that were covered in faeces and urine. He was naked and dirty, and his hair and beard were long and unkempt, straggling across the top of the cage like a weed that threatened to choke him. His features were masked, but Karim could see nevertheless that he was not Han Chinese.
‘We have been questioning him for a very long time,’ said Huang Zhengmei. ‘We want to find out what he knows.’
‘Does it matter?’ asked Karim. ‘He’s hardly in a position to tell anyone.’
‘He has not always been in this position,’ said Chang Zhangyi. ‘He may have told others before he came here. I need to know what sort of information they might possess.’
‘Information about what?’
‘About your project. Our joint project.’ Huang Zhengmei walked up to the cage and stood in front of it, staring at the trapped man as if he was an exhibit at the regional museum in Urumchi. ‘That’s what he was being paid to ask about. He was a professional, he did a very good job before Colonel Chang Zhangyi’s men found him. If we know what he has passed on, we may be able to do something to limit the damage.’
Karim took a closer look at the man. He was clearly in a lot of pain. The cage was stretching his neck, forcing him to stand on tiptoe to hold himself high enough to go on breathing.
‘Can he talk? He seems…’
‘He can tell us “yes” and “no”. If we need anything more detailed than that, we can raise him.’
‘I don’t understand what the cage is for.’ Chang Zhangyi reached out a stubby-fingered hand and took one of the bars.
‘It’s an old punishment,’ he said. ‘The name for it is kapas. Our old masters had great ingenuity. To cut a man’s head off takes no more than seconds. Even to flog him to death is a matter of hours at the most. But this cage is exquisite, don’t you see? It will take about eight days to kill a man. Sometimes longer if the victim is strong. The neck is stretched, but as long as he can keep himself upright, he will not completely choke. Each day one of these thin boards is removed, and he is forced to stretch a little more. He can never sleep, he can never move. All his energy must go into standing and breathing.’ He shook the cage gently, and the man inside moaned. ‘It’s a form of execution, really,’ said Huang Zhengmei, ‘but we’ve found it useful as a means of extracting information. A few days in the cage does wonders for someone’s vocal powers. Dull pheasants become songbirds almost overnight. They understand what is happening, and they know that, if they talk, they can stop it. They will either be sent back to their cells, or given a swift end. The penalty for not talking is an eternity in the cage.’
‘And this one has not talked?’ Karim tried to look into the man’s eyes, but they were glazed over with pain. He wondered if the man knew they were there. He wished he could do something to put him out of his misery. Get him to talk, at least.
‘He’s told us nothing of any value.’
‘Then why do you think he’ll talk to me?’
‘He probably won’t. But you know better than I what questions to ask.’ Chang Zhangyi tried to inflect his voice with flattery, but it came out more like a threat: Ask the right questions, or else.
‘I’ll do what I can. What are you most concerned about?’
‘The M80 and M90 stages of the project. I don’t understand it, but I’m told that information about these aspects might make it possible for the British or the Americans to develop counter-measures. Is that so?’
Karim nodded. There were elements in both those stages, and in a few others, that would suggest useful neutralization techniques to a scientist of the proper calibre. He turned to the man.
‘Can you hear me?’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Huang Zhengmei, ‘he can hear you. Just ask your questions.’
‘Did you know that the M80 experimental stage of the weapons project had five protocols?’
No answer.
‘Did you know that only three of those were followed?’
No answer.
‘Did you know that M80 was a multiple-level stage within a much larger experiment called Hsiao Ch’u, within a project known as Hong Cha?’
No answer. He turned to Huang Zhengmei.
‘He’s not responding,’ he said. ‘I think he’s too far gone to answer, maybe even to understand.’
‘Tell him that, if he answers, we will let him out of the cage. Tell him death will be very slow and very painful it he refuses to reply to your questions. He can be given drugs to keep him alert for as long as it takes to die. But if he answers, I will see to it that he suffers no longer. Tell him that.’
Karim felt the bile rise in his throat, and grew afraid he would throw up in front of them. This was unfair.
He’d been brought here as a scientist, not an interrogator. He succeeded in fighting the acid back, and told the prisoner everything Huang Zhengmei had said. He would have risked telling the prisoner just to nod, whatever the question; but he wasn’t sure how much Uighur Chang Zhangyi understood. Or the woman.
‘Please, try to answer this as well as you can. It will help us both. Hsiao Ch’u refers to sub-atomic particles. I think you must know that. But do you know what sort of particles were involved in the experiment?’ No answer.
Huang Zhengmei pushed him aside. She snapped at the prisoner in Chinese, but there was no response. Again she shouted at him, still there was no response. The man was breathing stertorously, and when Karim looked into his eyes he saw more than a flicker of recognition. He looked at the woman’s face and saw it changed. He’d been wrong to think that nothing terrible could happen in her presence. Very wrong indeed.
‘Send him out of here!’ she snapped at Chang Zhangyi, indicating the guard, who stood a few yards away, watching impassively. Chang Zhangyi grunted, and the guard walked back down the room and through the door.
‘You,’ she said, looking at Karim. 'I want you to stay here. But I want you to understand that this is not for your pleasure.’ To Karim’s surprise and confusion, she started to unbutton her jacket. Carefully and methodically, she undid the buttons from top to bottom, then unfastened the sleeves and removed the jacket, handing it to Chang Zhangyi. Next came her boots, then her trousers. Underneath, she wore an army-issue bra and pants, but not even the tired green underwear of the People’s Liberation Army could conceal the perfection of her body. Karim did not know which way to look. He wanted to close his eyes, but try as he might, he could not tear them from Huang Zhengmei. As though stripping in the shower-room among a hundred other women, she removed her bra and pants and passed them to Chang Zhangyi.
‘He can see me,’ she said. ‘Somewhere in his mind, he finds me attractive. He can’t help that. Beneath all the filth he’s still a man. Watch.’
She took a step forward and put her hand inside the cage. Softly, she began to stroke the prisoner’s thigh, then his genitals. It was the most grotesque thing Karim had ever witnessed. He looked at her face, the pretty face he had so much admired when he first caught sight of her, and found it ugly. To his horror, the man’s penis began to stiffen.
‘He may be nearly dead,’ she said, ‘but his nerve-endings still have life in them. Instinct takes over. He becomes excited, in spite of everything. The heart begins to beat faster. The lungs pull in more air. It gets harder to keep still, harder to conserve energy. Watch.’
And her fingers moved cunningly back and forth, bringing the man’s organ slowly and painfully to new life. Karim could hear the laboured breathing grow harder and tighter. There was a moan, and as he looked the man struggled to keep what little control he had. Huang Zhengmei stroked and feathered and tickled his swelling penis, like a cheap prostitute hurrying her John to climax.
‘Ask him again,’ she said. ‘From the beginning. If he giv
es straight answers, I’ll stop. If not, I’ll make him come.’
She remained intent on what she was doing. Karim looked at her, at her small breasts and perfectly rounded backside, at her thin arms and well-toned legs. He should have felt desire, he should have felt his own genitals urging him; but all he could feel was revulsion.
‘The M80 stage of the weapons project had five protocols. Did you know that?’
The prisoner turned his eyes full on Karim. And for a moment Karim was sure he smiled at him. Then, with an effort of will that later seemed to Karim past belief, he pushed himself back and his feet forward, knocking the top board out of position. All his weight was taken suddenly by his neck.
Chang Zhangyi shouted and tried to get the cage open in order to stop his victim slipping out of his clutches. But by the time he had him upright again, it was too late. Swearing, Chang Zhangyi released the bolt that held the upper part of the cage in place, and the body swung forward, collapsing on the floor.
Huang Zhengmei had already started to dress again. She saw Karim eyeing her.
‘You will not talk about this to anyone,’ she said. ‘Do you understand?’
He nodded.
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I’m not a fool.’
‘Some of the biggest fools here are the scientists. Try not to be like them. You are not at home. You are not in a safe place.’
He nodded and turned to Chang Zhangyi.
‘Did he have a name?’ he asked. It seemed important to him to know.
‘Why do you want to know?’
‘I watched him die. I would like to know what he called himself.’
Huang Zhengmei’s voice broke in.
‘Hyde,’ she said. ‘His name was Matthew Hyde. He was a British agent. Now do you understand why it was so important to find out what he knew?’
Part II
RADIANT BLACK SKY
CHAPTER NINE
Elizabeth Laing took a long sip from her gin and tonic, and made a face only she could see, reflected back from the long mirror facing her. She felt friendless and at odds with the world. Sex always made her feel disrupted. Her drink tasted foul. She’d stepped up the gin recently, and was finding excuses to imbibe at the most inappropriate times. ‘Maybe I’m developing an alcohol problem,’ she thought, and as usual scolded herself for being a baby. Her need for booze was nothing more than a reaction to having broken free from her husband of twenty-six years.
She still didn’t know why she’d stayed with David so long. After all, she told herself, nobody could describe her as clinging, and she wasn’t exactly the loyal type. Anthony wasn’t her first affair, and wouldn’t be her last. She looked herself up and down in the cheval glass and almost smirked.
Not bad for forty-six, she thought. A bit of cellulite on the bum, a spot of sagging in the chest, but nothing to worry about yet. Maybe the menopause would change everything, but she was convinced she had quite a few years yet before it came. And when it did, she had her programme worked out: daily doses of HRT, silicone in bucketfuls, plastic surgery as and when, yoga with Vimla and Jerry at the Harbour, and five years’ supply of the funny little yellow pills Dr Ramesh had given Sarah. And she’d stay off the booze. No problem. She took another sip.
‘Admiring yourself again?’
Anthony’s lazy voice pulled her back to the room and the afternoon. A scarf of sunlight had worked its way through the blinds and across her breasts. She didn’t move. If he wanted her again, he could bloody well get off the bed and come over. The curtains lent the sunlight their weave. The scarf lay on her like real silk, so warm she could believe she felt it lie against her skin. She would not move, not even an inch.
'That’s the third drink you’ve had since lunch,’ he murmured. Not interfering, not even concerned. Just stating a bald fact.
She took another sip and rotated the glass so that the ice chinked gently inside.
‘I feel like it. Sex and gin go very well together.’
‘Do they?’
‘Sex gets me worked up, gin calms me down. Don’t know where I’d be without it.’
He said nothing, knowing that any remark, however carefully put, would lead to a massive over-reaction. She was defensive about her drinking. And what did he care anyway? He hadn’t started his affair with her for love, after all. He looked round the vast hotel room. It was soulless and dreary, just a tired room that held too many secrets. They’d been coming here for years, furtively at first, and openly since she left David. There wasn’t much need for it any more, but it was convenient when he wanted sex in the afternoon. The hotel was just a ten-minute walk from the office. Outside the window, a heavy boat made its way doggedly up the Thames. She still kept her back to him.
‘Your ex-husband’s been trying to get me all afternoon,’ he said.
‘Don’t call him my ex-husband. That won’t be official for absolutely ages, if it ever is.’
‘You aren’t thinking of going back to him, are you?’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Anthony. Don’t be so bloody bourgeois.’
He looked at her naked back, at the sunlight inching over it like silk, and felt the beginnings of another erection. It had been the same with Penelope at first. They’d been married for almost twenty years, had two lovely daughters, pursued separate careers, but sex had never been the problem for them it became for most people.
He wondered why on earth it was that thoughts of his beloved Penelope always seemed to come at the most inappropriate moments, as though he harboured guilty thoughts. And yet, he mused, guilty thoughts of what, exactly? He’d loved Penelope, more than it’s given to most people to love someone. He hadn’t had so much as a whiff of an affair while they lived together. And even afterwards, well, there’d been a long gap before he’d started his relationship with Elizabeth.
Was it easier if you split up first? he wondered. With Penelope there hadn’t been the slightest lessening of affection. It had made it seem all the more unfair at the time.
They’d owned a place in France, and flew out there several times a year. There was enough money to mean they didn’t have to rent it, which meant in turn that any of them could go over at a moment’s notice for a weekend or a week or longer.
One weekend in spring, when the girls had a little time before school restarted, Penelope had made a last-minute reservation with a small airline operating out of Gatwick.
They’d taken off in high winds - ‘well within the limits of operating safety’, according to the subsequent inquiry -and flown up into a storm much too violent for such a tiny plane. The pilot had done his best to get back down again, but he’d lost control at two thousand feet, and the craft, a Shorts 360, had gone into a long nosedive that ended in the face of a cliff. No one on board had survived. The girls had been called Emma and Suzie. They’d been sixteen and fourteen.
He’d never recovered, never expected to. In some ways, never needed to. All feelings of tenderness and joy had been swallowed up in him by darker emotions, sometimes visible, mostly well concealed. Out of private tragedy, he’d made himself what he now was. It wasn’t Penelope’s death that disfigured him; he’d never had a chance to grow out of love with her, to experience the disenchantment that allowed hope of something different. He was that rare thing, a man who kept his mistress in the public eye without caring about scandal or notoriety, yet who maintained his wife as a well-hidden secret, a phantom in the truest sense.
With her long back and sloping buttocks and God knows what other spurs to desire, Elizabeth seemed to think men owed her a living. She was keen on sex, but controlled herself, and knew how to turn it to her advantage.
Which suited him down to the ground, since he had his own reasons for making her his mistress, which he was sure never to reveal to her or anyone else.
‘He’s going to be a very busy man soon.’
‘Really?’ Her voice had a bored edge to it. He felt himself go limp again. Bored was dangerous. Bored was tantrums and tears and spend
ing sprees and drinking till well after midnight. She was a child, he thought, an expensive, lustful, angry child. But she could use him as cunningly as he used her, for her own ends, in her own ways.
‘Elizabeth, turn round. I can’t talk to the back of your head.’
She spun to face him, and for a moment he thought he’d angered her, but instead she smiled, a huge, disarming smile that put her beyond any criticism. It was a tactic, of course, he knew that even as he felt relief not to have to cope with another outburst; but it was at least a familiar tactic.
‘What I’m saying ...’ He paused, asking himself exactly what it was he was saying. He couldn’t tell her everything, but he wanted to protect her. Not because he loved her, but because she was of more use to him now than ever. ‘I’m saying that you should keep away from him at the moment. He may be tied up. I just don’t think you should be around him, that’s all.’
‘I’d no intention to. Why would you think I had?’
‘I didn’t mean that. Just that it’s … not entirely safe.’
‘It was never safe, Anthony. You know that as well as I do. Nothing’s changed.’
‘Then why did you leave him? If nothing’s changed.’
‘He was too nice, Tony dear. A poppet. A sweetie-pie. He doted on me, did you know that? He’d have done anything for me. Or Maddie.’
‘How is Maddie?’
‘I’m not entirely sure, to tell you the truth. There was a bit of a scene after I told her I was leaving her precious father. Bit of an upset. You know how bloody unstable she is.’
‘She is your daughter.’
‘You don’t have to remind me.’
‘I see nothing particularly wrong with her. A bit woolly-headed, bit lefty in her politics.’
‘She never got over that awful Chinese boy. But for that she’d be all right.’
‘But for that ... Indeed. That’s what undoes us all, isn’t it?’
INCARNATION Page 6