Free Night Heron by Adam Brookes Page B

ten thousand characters in length, had circulated privately among Party stalwarts. It discussed, in florid terms, the challenges facing the Party: corruption, corruption and corruption in that order. A “disease,” it said, a “betrayal.” The author of the letter was an octogenarian, well past his prime but still an inhabitant of the higher reaches of the political atmosphere. He bore a burnished, bloodied history that lent him authority. The letter was meant only for the Party’s upper ranks, a warning, a plea, a final testament from a calloused old revolutionary. But word of its existence had leaked and the search for a copy became sport for the foreign correspondents.
    Over lunch, the officer, fulminating at corrupt officialdom, the limousines, the perfumed whores, had agreed to give Mangan a copy. Mangan had returned to the bureau to find Ting, white-faced and tense, holding out a handwritten note.
The colonel called. There’s a problem.
    The officer, it transpired, had faxed the thing. Only to find, forty minutes later, two representatives of State Security on his doorstep, asking: why, Colonel, are we faxing such material to foreigners? Why? The old man avoided arrest only by arguing that the letter itself had no secret designation, no
baomi
, no
juemi
. How was he to know? It had been a close-run thing. But then he’d called the bureau and insisted on telling Ting, overthe bureau’s utterly insecure phone, about the visit from State Security. Mangan had not written a story, instead burned the fax in the bathroom. Ting was frightened.
    They really did listen. The fax really was unsafe. It really was.
    And tonight, God, he’d almost forgotten, he was to meet Charteris. He left Ting in the bureau sorting through receipts and went from the compound in a dark, freezing drizzle. Jianwai Avenue was jammed, long lines of buses packed with office workers and shop girls, lumbering stop-start through the rain, the wet petroleum smell.
    They met—it had become a reassuring habit—at Hot and Prickly, a small, clattering Sichuan place with plastic tablecloths and crackling red chilies strewn on the dishes. The legend in the window in red, haphazard English lettering read, “Hot and Prickly Cuisine of West China,” and the name had stuck.
    Charteris was already there, still in his work suit, one arm draped across the back of the chair next to him, frowning at the menu.
    “Tea-smoked duck, I think, Philip. And the
lazi ji ding.
” The diced chicken, in a sea of glistening chilies to shatter the sinuses. “And the pea sprouts in garlic, yes?”
    Mangan ordered cold mugs of beer, and they sat, quiet for a moment. The late autumn evening had people bustling into the restaurant blowing on their hands.
    Charteris began.
    “So, the Jiangxi trip a triumph?”
    Mangan thought for a moment.
    “On balance, yes. But we’ve used up some capital.”
    “Ting okay? She’s handling the flak, I assume.”
    “She’s handling it. I do worry.”
    “You’re right to. She’s quite, exposed.”
    “I know, I know. And she knows, too. But she sticks with it.”
    “Why, do you think? Why does she stick with it?”
    “Because she cares. Because she’s too cautious to dissentopenly, but she won’t buy into the system. So working for me, well, she has distance, and perhaps it isn’t entirely pointless. She feels she’s finding things out and telling about them.”
    Charteris paused, and the duck arrived. He stuffed a napkin in his collar to protect what looked to be a very good silk tie, and seemed suddenly Edwardian. Mangan smiled, and Charteris raised his eyebrows and clicked his chopsticks together. They ate, picking out the soft, pink flesh, the crispy, aromatic skin.
    “I’m not trying to tell you how to run things, Philip, but they could use her to get at you.”
    “That’s true, but she can make her own decisions. Don’t patronize her.”
    “Patronize her? I think I’m in love with her.” Charteris put the back of