I found my clothes and Su-May said, 'Leave your coat off. I will give you shiatsu.' She'd pulled the bed away from the corner so that she could move around it. 'Cold now, but you will soon be warm."

There were hours before dark came, and I lay down and she began working on me.

'You're an air hostess, an interpreter, and you practice shiatsu. You're very accomplished.'

'I have a license as therapist. Must understand, many people in China do two or three different jobs if they can, to afford anywhere nice to live, nice food. I earned more than my father, and he is university professor.' Her fingers moved over the tsubo points. 'Tell me where there is pain.'

'All right. The message will have reached him by now, the one I told you I'd send.'

Her hands paused. 'So quick?'

'By telephone.'

'From here?'

She meant from Lhasa. It worried her. 'From here to London,' I said, 'and from there to Beijing.' I'd asked Pepperidge, told him she'd been helpful to me at the PSB station.

My eyes were closed, but I felt her attention in the stillness of her hands. If I could reach Beijing so easily, who was I, what other powers did I have? 'Thank you,' she said at last. 'It means very much to me. My mother is dead; I have only my father. My brother was killed in Tiananmen Square. My father will have worried about me; I vanished from out of his life when I came here. Now there is the message.' She cupped her hands against my, face for a moment, very gently, then went on with her work. 'Please relax. Your muscles are so tight everywhere.' In a moment: 'It hurts just there?'

'Yes.'

'Very well.' She worked on the tsubo point, and warmth flowed, and hope flowed with it. I would have, yes, to go to ground, but the Jeifang, the big green truck, would offer me safety, and there might still be a last chance of getting Xingyu to the airport, some time in the night.

'And there,' I said.

'Very well. Your head is in pain, because of this?'

'Bit sore, yes. I tripped and fell, hit the edge of a door."

Even the partial truth is uttered seldom in our trade; I felt saintly.

The dung in the stove was glowing now; I could see it at the edges of my lids. It seemed less freezing in here, because of the stove and her hands and what they were doing to me, easing away some of the fear that always dogs the foot steps of a creature that knows it's hunted.

'You have pain also in your heart,' she said.

'No.'

'I do not mean in your heart, exactly. In your spirit. There is a ghost there.'

Immediate gooseflesh: I felt the hair lifting on my arms. It's always haunted me, this business of taking a life in the course of a mission. It's nothing to do with guilt: the man in the temple would have taken mine if it had suited him. It's that the closeness to death, your own or another's, brings you to the edge of the unknown, where quantum forces play among the infinite reaches of the universe, and souls drift like leaves on the cosmic wind, seeking their new incarnation. It awes me, in a word, but then of course there's the physical thing, the sweat and the muscle burn and the mechanics of force and leverage as one body tears the life out of another, there's that too, and it leaves a taste in the mouth, and in the heart a feeling of despair. Post mortem, also, animal triste est.

I said to her, 'I've got quite a few ghosts. One more won't hurt.'

Her hands moved over me, tracing the meridians, and in the stove a pocket of trapped air popped.

'Did you kill him?'

That thing,' I said, 'on the wall. What is it?' The skull of the dog, set in a pattern of straw and coloured wool.

Bloody thing had been worrying me ever since I'd come into the room.

'It is a spirit trap. When enough bad spirits have been caught in it, someone will take it down for burning.'

'How will they know when it's full?'

'I think they just leave it for a time, knowing what it will do.'

Spiritual Airwick, traps bad karma, replace as necessary, so forth. I'd given her an answer, in any case, by not answering; she knew anyway: she could feel his ghost in my spirit.

'Why a dog?'

'Because they are sacred. Please turn over, and relax more if you can.'

'Did you go into that cafe for something to eat?"

'Yes.' Her fingers moved along my spine, seeking the knotted tsubo points, pressing.

'You're still hungry, then.'

'No. It was for comfort. The world is very frightening.'

In a moment I said, 'It won't be long before they change the regime in Beijing, and then your father's going to be safe, and a hero. It happened all over Europe.'

'Yes, I very much hope. But until it is real, I am frightened. If the Public Service Bureau here in Lhasa finds my name in the records and sees who my father is, they will send me straight to Beijing, and use me as a hostage to bring him from hiding. So I am afraid every hour, every minute. Hurt here?'

'No.'

'Here?'

'Yes.'

Her finger pressed, kneading. Against my closed lids the light was fading over the minutes; before long now it would be dark, and I would have a cloak for my clandestine purposes.

'There's nowhere else," I asked her, 'that you can stay? Where they can't find you?'

She pressed again, and a nerve flared. 'I have one or two friends in Lhasa, yes, but I cannot go to them. It would mean danger for them. I know some other people, but not well. They might turn me over to the police; it happens a lot. Everyone is frightened. Everyone.'

'It won't last long,' I said. 'The leaders are old, and the people are enraged.'

I turned my wrist and looked at my new watch, a cheap digital thing, the best I could find; I'd bought it from a stall on my way to the cafe. The time was now 5.41, and we lacked nineteen minutes to the rendezvous.

'The people are enraged,' Su-May said, 'yes, but the soldiers have guns. It is always the same.' She worked in silence for a time, and I watched the shadows darken across the floor, and heard the sounds from the street below diminishing; a man shouted and a dog yelped; bells had begun tolling, two, then three, then many, their carillon summoning the night.

'That is all,' Su-May said, and took her hands away. I didn't move for a minute or two; my whole body was tingling.

'You're gifted,' I said. 'I feel well again.'

'I am glad.'

I got off the bed and found my coat. 'How much do I owe you?'

'Nothing. I earn a little here and there, translating for the tourists, acting as a guide.' In the shadowed room the expression in her long dark eyes was hidden. 'What happened in the temple has great value for us, for the Chinese people. We rejoice in the downfall of even one of the enemy.' The glow from the stove touched her face on one side, bringing a spark of light into her eye. 'You are going now?'

'Yes.'

'But where? You are like me; everywhere is dangerous for you."

A siren had started up somewhere, its undulating sound threading through the tolling of the bells.

'If the police are looking for me,' I said, 'I can't stay here.' I wanted to check my watch again, but couldn't now; I didn't want her to know I had any kind of appointment. The rendezvous must be close, but the timing wasn't critical. Chong was Bureau, Pepperidge had said; I could therefore expect routine procedures from him: if I weren't down there in the street at 1800 hours he'd wait for me to make circuits.

Su-May moved closer to me in the shadows. I think she wanted to say something important; I could feel it. The siren was louder, coming toward the building.

'Think of a friend,' I said, 'someone you can trust, and shelter there. It might not be for long.'

In a moment she put her hand on my arm. 'It is difficult. Everything is very difficult for me to understand. There are things I would like to tell you, but I cannot.' I waited, not interrupting. There was no warmth from her hand on my arm; she was still cold, still frightened. Then she said quietly, 'You must be careful. When you go down to the street, make sure you are not followed.'