'You are more than excused, Dr Xingyu.' Pepperidge was looking down, not wanting the Chinese to find his eyes on him when he raised his head again. 'You've got a lot to worry about, I know that. Now, I can't tell you as much as I'd like to, because if the KCCPC find you and take you back to Beijing by force, we don't want you to have any information about us that they might try to extract from you. But if all goes well, we might be able to send you back to Beijing to greet the leaders of a new and democratic government. This — '

'It would take years. Years.'

'If you were ready to cooperate with us, Dr Xingyu, it might take only a few days."

'That is out of the question! You do not realize — '

'Dr Xingyu. You must be prepared to listen to me.'

It took another ten minutes for him to get the message across and he didn't tell Xingyu any more about the setup for Bamboo than he had to know, which was simply that when he went back to Beijing it could be to help his people work out the structuring of a new China. What he did tell him in great detail was more to the point.

'You mustn't think, then, Doctor, that you're in any way our captive, or under any kind of duress. You can part company with us at any time you like — but I want you to understand that my government has put a very great deal of work into this operation, at the highest level, and we don't feel that a person of your intelligence would allow an impulse to destroy our efforts on your behalf, and incidentally on the behalf of the People's Republic of China.'

Pepperidge has a quiet voice, and when he's talking about something important he measures his tone to catch your thoughts up in its rhythm; this is why Xingyu Baibing was listening carefully now, and not interrupting as he'd done before. I watched him as he listened, because it was necessary to get an idea of his character, the cut of his jib; later it would help me, and help him, and perhaps save his life, or mine.

'We cannot expect from you,' Pepperidge went on, 'any assurance, at this stage, that you won't decide to leave the protection we offer you and go it alone.' A beat, while he considered whether Xingyu's grasp of idiom was adequate. 'To leave our protection and rely on your own resources.'

Headlights.

'But I'd like your assurance, at least, that you'll give us warning if at any time you feel you must go back to Beijing, which will always be a temptation for you.' He waited, watching Xingyu, his eyes a degree more open, alerted: he'd seen the headlights too, through the cabin windows.

'I tried twice to leave the embassy,' Xingyu said, hunched forward a little now, his hands clasped and the fingers working, the whispering of their dry skin audible below the beat of the rain on the cabin roof. 'I tried twice.'

'That's what I'm talking about.' Pepperidge said. 'You're worried about your wife. But I want you to understand, you see, that if you put your trust in us, you may hope to be back with your wife much sooner, perhaps in a matter of days.'

Silence for a moment, then the big dry hands flew apart. 'You talk of a few days. But they have a stranglehold now, the party. A stranglehold on the people, through the army.'

The headlights weren't moving now; they'd swept their beam through the rain, silvering the images out there on the quay, and now the beam rested and only the rain moved, slanting through it.

I looked at Pepperidge. 'Did you order anyone in?' I meant support.

'No.'

I watched the headlights again.

'You must put your trust, you see, in whatever we tell you.' Pepperidge waited for it to sink in. 'That isn't easy, but it's got to be done. We know much, much more than you do, Dr Xingyu, about this operation.' He leaned forward across the table, and his voice was quieter still. 'You remember what they did to the Berlin Wall. We're going to do something like that in China.'

I looked at Xingyu. It had got his attention. Behind him on the varnished timbers the gloss darkened as the headlights went out.

'Don't worry,' Pepperidge told me.

It practically amounted to instructions. The executive in the field had brought the objective under protection but the mission was only two days old and there'd been three people killed and we still had to get this man out of Hong Kong and into deep shelter and the risk was extremely high and the above-mentioned executive was ready to get his nerve endings into an uproar at the sight of a pair of headlights, point taken, don't worry, just as you say, there are fifty boats tied up here and their owners come down to the quay by car and at night of course they have to switch their headlights on.

'I'm not worrying.'

'That's good.'

But he'd noticed them, the headlights. I'd seen the reaction in his eyes.

'I do not think you realize,' Xingyu was saying, 'the power of the people you have to deal with.'

'We realize it very well.' Pepperidge leaned back again, away from the good doctor, and told him that we have our powers too, told him that the planning of this operation had been made by some of the most brilliant men in British intelligence, laid it on a bit thick, I thought, but we'd got to convince the little bugger somehow to listen to Pepperidge. I listened to Pepperidge while the blood from the ambassador crept its way to the curb and the snake spread its hood and the wheel went across the skull with the sound, I suppose, of a cracking coconut, a coconut splitting open, listened to Pepperidge and watched another car come down to the quay and the ghost-white shape of a jet go sloping down to Kaitak with the strobes making white hazy explosions through the rain while he went on talking, Pepperidge, and at last got an undertaking from Xingyu, for what it was worth.

'Then I will give you warning, if I decide to go back to Beijing. I will give you warning.'

Pepperidge slid his rump along the bench to the far end and stood up. 'Calls for a spot of tea, I'd say, what about you chaps?' Filling the kettle, plugging it in, it had been a lot of work getting even that much out of the Chinese. 'So we'll be leaving Hong Kong some time tomorrow, can't say exactly when, but the thing is, we'd rather like to put you on a plane for London, naturally, and look after you there while events develop in Beijing. Would that suit?'

'London?'

He seemed surprised, Xingyu, though I couldn't think why: it was the obvious place to keep him holed up, a nice long way from the People's Republic of China and the merry boys of the Kuo Chi Ching Pao Chu with their little trapdoors in the ceiling, a safe haven, I would have thought, London, placed under honourable house arrest in one of the discreet Mayfair flats where even one young bobby would be enough to keep people away.

'That's right,' Pepperidge said, and dropped two Earl Grey teabags into the pot. 'Just for a few days.'

'No,' the feet planted together, the hands resting squarely on the black-trousered knees. 'I want to go to Tibet.'

The rain drummed on the cabin roof like a light rattle of shots.

Tibet.

This bodes ill, my friend, this bodes ill indeed.

A car door slammed, somewhere along the quay.

'A few sardines?'

'No,' Xingyu said.

Pepperidge held the tin aslant under the small reproduction binnacle lamp, peering at the trademark. 'Crown Prince. Rich in Natural Fish Oil, No Salt Added. They're very good.'

'I wish to eat nothing.'

I don't think Xingyu was sulking, although he was just sitting there hunched up with his forearms on the table now, the big hands open, empty, empty of hope for the wife and the friends he believed he'd deserted, and that was it, not sulking but despairing, because Pepperidge hadn't sounded too charmed by the idea of putting this man back into China, which getting him to Tibet would mean.