THE BUDDHA OF BREWER STREET

MICHAEL DOBBS

To Naljorma ’ö-Sel Nyima Chèdröl Khandro.

May we never forget how to laugh and to love.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

PROLOGUE

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

POSTSCRIPT

About the Author

Also by the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

PROLOGUE

Tibet, 1959

Death arrived in the hour before dawn, but if it counted on an element of surprise it had reckoned without Kunga Tashi. And the geese.

Kunga Tashi was attending to the first daily duty of many young monks. He was helping prepare a churn of butter tea for his elders. It wasn’t yet sunrise and spring had still to find its way through the thick monastery walls, yet Kunga was happy. The kitchen was welcoming and warm, heated by the constant fires and filled with encouraging aromas. Far better than being told to fetch the water, which was usually hiding beneath a thick layer of ice at the bottom of the well, or being sent directly to the draughty memorizing class where he would have to squat for endless hours reciting scripture and fighting the temptation to fall back to sleep. Anyway, kitchen duties meant he got his tea first.

He dropped into the steaming churn another scoop of the pungent butter that gave the tea its characteristic kick, enough to spark the enthusiasm of the drowsiest of monks, and threw a pat of yak dung on the fire. These moments were special for Kunga. Barely fourteen and with a sense of mischief as unbalanced as that of any boy of his age, nevertheless he had an anticipation of life that stretched considerably beyond his years and dawn was the most precious moment of his day. As the early light began to burn across the mountain peaks he ran to the unglazed window from where he could look down upon the Lake of Four Winds. The lake was the colour of deepest lapis, its water still and brooding. Mystical spirits were supposed to live in its depths, although Kunga had never seen them. He never lost hope that some day he might catch one by surprise, hiding in the mists or creeping back through the shadows of early morning. But all he could see was a scattered flock of sheep grazing stubbornly on its banks and the reflection of the mighty Himalayas, covered in perpetual snow that steamed and caught fire in the early sun.

It was because he had his head stuck out of the window that Kunga was the first to hear the approach of Death and its workmen. Sound carries great distances in the emaciated air of Tibet and they were still three miles down the valley, just entering the village. The startled cries of old Wangmo’s geese gave the alarm. At first Kunga could see only dust, a cloud that rose above the low rooftops, but it was drawing closer. Shouts echoed through the bazaar. Followed by a single shot. Then silence, except for dogs and geese. And the tramp of boots. Not Tibetans, these. Not in metal-tipped boots.

Chinese.

They had come the previous week. A bomb had gone off in the provincial capital, Nagormo, and they suspected the monks. They always suspected the monks. If the sun didn’t shine, if the barley ran short, if the roads turned to mud, it was always the fault of the monks. Superstitious lot, these Communists. And sickly, too. They couldn’t take the altitude; many of them got sick, frothed pink at the mouth and fell over. Some died. Those that didn’t blamed the monks. For everything, particularly the bombs.

A week ago they had gathered all the monks in the monastery’s main courtyard and issued a warning. Any more trouble ‘from splittists and insurrectionists’, as they called them, and retribution would be swift. While the officer threatened, the troops had trashed the living quarters and dormitories. But, strangely enough, not the temple or the burial chortens. Yes, superstitious lot, these Communists. Kunga had made up a song about them, about how all Chinese soldiers fell over, defeated by the effects of heavy Tibetan alcohol and thin Tibetan air. The other boy monks had laughed. Now, as he saw the column approaching, he wished it were true.

More shots. Kunga jumped in alarm and ran through the corridors shouting at the top of his voice. Soon others were joining in and their cries cascaded down the long stone passages, the noise dragging the abbot from his bed. The head of the monastery was elderly, rheumy-eyed and still dishevelled with sleep, his wits dulled by declining years, and he danced in anxiety as he sought to discover the reason for the disturbance. When he was told, he danced some more while he tried to decide what he should do about it. All around him monks were gesticulating and offering him every sort of advice. This served only to confuse him further, and it was several minutes before he was able to come to a decision. He gave one hop, then another, like a crane balancing on one foot, then ordered the gates to be shut.

The only entrance to the monastery was by way of a narrow bridge across a precipitous ravine. Security, of sorts. Particularly with the gates locked. But although he had given his orders, the abbot continued his inelegant dance, wary of the Chinese and fearful of the consequences of defying them. They could be so short of temper. A fresh hop. A wail of indecision. A line of mantra seeking protection. Then he turned a full circle, his monk’s shawl streaming out behind him, and changed his mind. The gates should be left open after all.

More confusion. Raised voices. Even the ancient hinges joined in with screeches of complaint. It took the combined efforts of several senior monks to turn the abbot yet again, by which time the Chinese had drawn much closer, but at last he was persuaded. The heavy wooden gates were barred tight.

While his elders argued, Kunga climbed the outer wall of the monastery. From here he could see the Chinese troops clearly, ragged in dress but tight in formation, their faces and uniforms smeared in the eternal dust blown up from the dry Tibetan plains. The officer rode a mule, the rest were on foot. No vehicles, none of the great grinding tanks Kunga had heard about. And no way through the gates. The monastery was safe, for a while. The monks had food for weeks, and they had the well. A few old rifles, too. Kunga desperately hoped the weapons would be used. To a Buddhist all life is sacrosanct – flies, worms, even Chinese – but there is a bit of cowboy in every fourteen-year-old. It would be like hitting a mad dog. Why, it was almost a public duty, he told himself.

Boys are creatures of wild imagination, and suddenly Kunga wondered if the troops had come to look for him, to punish him for his ribald song. He felt sure that somehow they had found out. He grew afraid, and the butter tea turned to stone in his stomach. Cautiously he peered over the parapet of the monastery wall as the Chinese assembled on the other side of the bridge. There were more than two hundred, he reckoned, many more than had come last week. He wasn’t to know that another bomb had gone off, inside the town hall at Nagormo, killing the Chinese administrator who had recently taken up residence. After that there weren’t going to be any more warnings.

The officer sat on his mule on the far side of the bridge and through an interpreter demanded to speak to the abbot. In the name of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Tibetan Autonomous Region, open the gates! Hesitantly, the abbot raised his head above the parapet. Who was this Central Committee of the Communist Party of whatever it was? he responded. He’d never heard of such a thing. The officer shouted back that the abbot was speaking like an agent of imperialism. Even through an interpreter there was no hiding the anger. I owe allegiance to no one other than His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the abbot answered, growing emboldened, his head held higher – he always enjoyed a good debate. Your Lama, the monk-king, is gone, the Chinese replied. Impossible! His Holiness’s position is guaranteed under the Seventeen Point Agreement between Tibet and China along with many other … You’re wasting your breath, old monk. He’s gone. Deserted you. Crawled away to India. Exile. So open your stinking gates.

Kunga had never seen a weapon bigger than a rifle, and most of those he’d seen were ancient, single-shot affairs left behind by Younghusband and the British. Nothing like that could break down the great gates to the monastery, and there was no chance the officer’s scraggy mule could kick them down. It seemed simple, the Chinese could sit outside and stew until the next Losar holiday. So the argument continued with the abbot disputing the point, much as he was accustomed to do in the formalized debates that were held within the courtyard. But the officer appeared to be taking little further interest. Perhaps, thought Kunga, he had accepted that he’d lost the argument and was looking for a means of withdrawing from his position. The officer was gesticulating, but not in the proper manner of courtyard debates. The Chinaman didn’t seem to know the rules, Kunga thought contemptuously.

But in Tibet, the Chinese made up their own rules.

As the boy watched, a soldier knelt on the far side of the bridge and put something to his shoulder that was considerably larger than any rifle. He raised it, seemed to take aim. Then, with a single grenade, the soldier reduced the abbot’s arguments and the great monastery gates to matchwood.

With a ferocious cry the troops threw themselves across the narrow bridge, their boots pounding upon the wooden boards like the clatter of machine guns. They swarmed into the central courtyard, forcing the monks back with rifle butts and impatient boots. But there was no resistance.

High on the monastery wall, Kunga Tashi discovered that his youthful bravado had been left in pieces along with the gates. He found he couldn’t move. His senses had been dragged away in terror while his body was left frozen and far behind. Below him in the courtyard, events were unfolding in what appeared to be a new and altogether different world. It was a world unknown to Kunga, of disharmonies and great dangers, but it was a world through which he would have to pass. He had risen that morning a mere boy, not fully formed, inexperienced. Come the night he would have changed, grown. If he still lived. The great Wheel of Life was turning.

Once the courtyard had been secured the officer, now dismounted, strode into its middle. Behind him was dragged the abbot – quite literally dragged, his arms tied in traditional Chinese style, diagonally behind his back, which made standing very difficult. It required only the lightest prod of the officer’s riding crop to force him to his knees upon the time-sanded stone. A growl of objection rose from the monks, quickly extinguished by a few well-directed rifle butts. The abbot began to recite a mantra, trying to focus his mind elsewhere, but before he could utter more than a few syllables the leather riding crop was under his chin, forcing his head back and exposing his throat like a whipped dog. The officer said not a word, simply allowing the abbot time to contemplate his own extreme vulnerability. For many painful moments the abbot was held there, neck stretched, shuddering, until the whip was removed and his head fell forward in submission.

A rough-hewn wooden bowl was produced, one of the bowls from which the monks normally ate their staple diet of ground barley tsampa, and was placed on the flagstones directly in front of the kneeling abbot. Then, with almost comic arrogance considering his short stature and the action he was taking, the officer unbuttoned his trousers and proceeded to piss into it, allowing the stream of water to rise and fall but never to miss its target, until the bowl bubbled and steamed in the ice air and eventually overflowed.

Two soldiers picked up the bowl and put it to the abbot’s lips.

Kunga wanted to shout at the top of his lungs, to scream his outrage at the wickedness of the Chinese invaders, and he took a deep breath, so sudden that the back of his throat burned. But no sound came. He noticed he was trembling, and not from the cold.

The abbot shook his head in disgust, trying to spill the bowl and its contents, but both the bowl and its contents came back. A second time he wriggled, trying to thrust the foulness away from him, but once more it was brought back to his lips and this time the crop was beneath his chin, forcing his head back again, stretching the vulnerable neck, until his eyes stared directly to the heavens with his lips prised apart.

And they poured until the liquid spilled down his chin and stained his robes.

Still the officer said nothing. He was bored with debate, with words. He didn’t need words to put a Tibetan in his place, only a mule crop and a bowlful of Chinese piss.

The abbot slumped forward, retching. The officer strode around behind him. He had not been long in this uncomfortable world of Tibet and he didn’t care for it, this frozen, relentless land, full of strange disease. And a very long way from his family in Chungking. He had no particular dislike for the ordinary Tibetans, even though they were stubborn, with their strange superstitions and miserable food. But their monks were worthless. They contributed nothing, parasites who lived off the labour of others. And now far, far worse. They had started killing Chinese. They had left the administrator in Nagormo in so many pieces that his wife wouldn’t be able to bury anything other than scraps. So it must be brought to an end, all this bloodshed, before it spread like rats through a harvest. Otherwise he and his troops would never get back to Chungking.

As the sun rose above the monastery walls, the officer’s shadow scythed across the bowed figure of the abbot. The Tibetan was an old man, shaven headed with skin like the husk of a walnut. Harmless, in his own way, the soldier thought, and perhaps even innocent. But what did innocence matter? It was his very existence that posed the threat. No, all this had to stop, right here.

The officer cleared his throat. It was the only sound he had made since entering the monastery. His mind was made up. For the peace of the community, the good of the many. The Chinaman raised his arm, which he stretched out stiff before him, pointing. Then he put a bullet through the back of the abbot’s head.

The two worlds between which Kunga had floated, the one inside him and the one that was laid out before him in the courtyard, suddenly collided and broke into a million fragments. All around him there were screams, cries of pain and fear, the sounds of destruction. And shots. The narrow stone alleyways of the monastery filled with the frantic slipping and scraping of the monks’ soft leather sandals as they tried to flee, pursued by the pounding of steel-tipped boots. Wherever there was resistance, and particularly the pernicious resistance of prayer, a single monk was set upon by three, four, sometimes six soldiers, breaking him with boots and blows from their rifles. Then they moved on to the next.

Nothing was to remain. Brocade-mounted thanka paintings were ripped from walls they had adorned for generations, precious buddha images were broken, every one of the monastery’s effigies of compassion was crushed underfoot. This was not simply punishment, it was to be persecution.

Behind one door the soldiers discovered a hall filled with endless shelves laden with leather-bound books and parchment scrolls and ancient wooden printing blocks. The library. It contained nearly a thousand years of learning and memories. It was destroyed in as many seconds.

As the library was put to the torch a spiral of glowing ashes and smoke rose from the flames and spread across the sun. Beneath its wrathful shadow the soldiers began herding the monks who could still walk across the narrow bridge. An ancient librarian-monk, a rifle butt at his back, cried in anguish and fell to his knees, his toothless mouth praying for strength. The guards swore at him. They were about to set upon him when he rose unsteadily to his feet and with stubborn care began brushing the dust from his robes. They shouted at him to move on, but he shook his head. ‘Everything is impermanence,’ he said, uttering the last words of the Great Buddha himself. For one lingering moment he looked back to the monastery that had been his world for a lifetime, perhaps several lifetimes. His old eyes brimmed with gratitude. Then he walked to the side of the bridge and stepped off into eternity.

He fell for what seemed like forever, and as he plunged, the buttercup and claret of the monk’s robes opened and fluttered like the wings of a gentle butterfly. Until, in the darkness that clung to the very bottom of the ravine, the wings broke and lay still.

The soldiers shouted in anger, sensing they had been cheated. Older monks chanted in sorrow, while the younger ones hustled forward with a renewed sense of urgency.

Kunga watched all this from his vantage point. He was too insignificant to be a prime target for the soldiers, too frozen with fear to move. And high on that wall, surrounded by death and the destruction of so much that he loved, Kunga passed into manhood. He began to hate. He knew it was a passion he should not feel, but there it was, undeniable, embracing, and empowering.

Hate!

He’d have to deal with its karmic consequences later, but later could take care of itself. For now it warmed his blood, unfroze him, drove him on, running. Amidst the ruination that was spreading around him, he knew there was one thing he must save, one treasure that must be kept from the hateful Chinese even at the risk of his life.

His route to the great prayer hall was blocked by many soldiers, but he was small and too deft for them, ducking beneath their outstretched arms and rifles. Up close they looked so much less fearsome, their uniforms ragged and patched, their faces all but obliterated by crustings of dirt that gave them the appearance of lizards. Many seemed only a few years older than Kunga. Some seemed almost as scared. At the head of the broad stone steps that led to the prayer hall a group of monks had gathered to try to block the way of the troops, but they had nothing with which to resist other than their own bodies. Resistance became sacrifice as the Army of Liberation fell greedily upon its prey. Mao was right. The power of the human spirit was no match for the butt end of a gun. In every corner claret robes flapped and fell. More broken butterfly wings.

Kunga was quick, but not quick enough. As he rushed through the midst of the clubbing and systematic dislocation of bones, a single blow struck him on the shoulder. It sent him sprawling through the entrance to the prayer hall, where he lay stunned on the floor, defenceless. But the soldiers were like foxes in the chicken pen, distracted by too much choice. The boy could wait, until later.

The great hall at first seemed dark. Most of the butter lamps had not been lit that morning. But from all around came the sounds of the Chinese troops at their work, tearing at the magnificent hangings of satin and silk, smashing every piece of glass. Delicate wood carvings were reduced to splinters, tall stucco statues as old as the monastery itself were toppled and turned to dust beneath their boots. Along one wall ran shelves on which were set out sacred images of the Buddha, fashioned by monks from wood and bronze and plaster and even pressed butter. These were works of devotion and skill. Of many different sizes. Numbering in all more than a thousand. The work of countless lifetimes. A laughing soldier ran along the shelves with the barrel of his rifle and swept away every trace.

Spreadeagled on the cold stone floor, Kunga slowly revived, his wits restored by the heavy aroma of incense which stung his nostrils and irritated his deadened senses. He could smell something else, too, something new. His own fear. He crawled forward. He could see more clearly now, for they had started a fire at the foot of one of the great carved wooden columns that soared towards the timber roof, and onto the flames they were piling anything that might burn. The flickering light fell upon the statue of Padmasambhava, the ancient who had first brought Buddhist teachings to Tibet from the sweltering plains of India, a figure almost fifteen feet tall that filled the far end of the prayer hall. Padmasambhava appeared awesome, red eyed, his gilded skin afire, the dancing shadows lending him an expression of the most intense wrath. He held a trident in his hand, decorated with a skull and other fearsome symbols that Kunga didn’t yet fully understand, and for a moment Kunga prayed that the great Buddha himself might materialize to overwhelm the enemy and add a few more skulls to his tally.

But it was only a statue. Two soldiers began attacking it with bayonets, hacking away at the riches of precious stones and inlays that decorated its base. They were too busy with their ransacking to notice Kunga as he stole past in the shadows.

At last he was there, before a glazed shrine cabinet on the wall behind the statue. A single butter lamp flickered at the foot of a small clay Buddha, a cracked and age-brushed figure that had been made by Lama Chogyal Lumpo himself, the teacher who had founded this monastery more than a thousand years before. Kunga had always felt a special tie to Lama Chogyal. Perhaps in a previous life Kunga had been a close friend or assistant, maybe even the Lama himself. And perhaps one day Kunga would be recognized as the Lama’s reincarnation. He didn’t fully comprehend these things, but of one thing he had no doubt – he, Kunga Tashi, had a special role to play in protecting the memory of the Lama, and in particular in protecting this clay figure, the only relic of the master to survive all the accidents and indignities of time and to have passed unscathed through the ages.

It was as he stretched to his full height to open the glass-fronted cabinet that the rifle butt smashed through it. He had been caught unawares. One of the soldiers was upon him. Shards of flying glass cut across Kunga’s face and hands. Blood flowed into one eye. But hope! The figure was still intact. It wasn’t too late.

Desperately Kunga snatched it from its place, even as the soldier pushed him aside. He fell heavily, cracking an elbow, but still he clutched the statue. As he looked up, the soldier was standing above him, rifle raised. Kunga knew he was going to die. But ifhis death could help preserve the memory of the Lama, it would be a sacrifice willingly given …

The rifle butt smashed down. Not on his head, but on the clay statue. He could feel it break, yet still he refused to release it. His crippled fingers struggled to cover the fragments on the stone floor. Again and again the rifle came down, shattering both bone and clay until there was nothing of any form left. Only pain. Savage pain. Excruciating pain. Unlike anything Kunga had ever known. Once more he felt his consciousness leave his body, drifting away as he watched the soldier bring down the rifle butt time after time. Still Kunga would not let go of the statue. He would not, until both his consciousness and the pain had drifted away into darkness.

ONE

Westminster, some forty years later

Perhaps it had something to do with the ley lines, Goodfellowe wondered. Two main sets of them were supposed to converge at Westminster, directly beneath the altar of the Abbey, in fact, where once had stood a Druid temple. The Michael Ley and the Mary Ley, male and female, all options covered and chaos guaranteed. Avenues of prehistoric energy that gave this place its unusual intensity – and that edge of insanity.

He was standing barely a hundred yards from the supposed confluence of the ley lines, in the Cholmondeley Room (pronounced Chumley, sometimes through the nose), which stood at the back of the House of Lords. He’d never had much liking for diplomatic receptions even though they were an inescapable part of the duties required of Her Britannic Majesty’s Minister for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. Sod the lot of ’em. Sod ’em all! Being nice to foreigners didn’t figure prominently on his Christmas shopping list but perhaps that’s why the Prime Minister regarded him so highly. At least until tomorrow afternoon. (He’d have arranged the announcement for the morning, except the Evening Standard had recently done him a disservice and he didn’t fancy giving them an exclusive. A tiny spite, not much of a revenge, but the best he could run to at a time like this.) The letter was already signed and sealed, waiting only to be taken by messenger the few yards that separated the Foreign and Commonwealth Office from the source of power at 10 Downing Street. It would take the messenger less than three minutes in the morning. And that would be that. Close of innings. The end. Like some desperate Indian academic qualification. Thomas Goodfellowe. MP, BA University of Marshwood (Failed).

His feelings of distaste, at first generalized and unfocused, now took on physical form. Lucretia – he didn’t know her real name and didn’t care to know, but the name fitted like a corset – Lucretia had managed to get her elbow into his stomach and was using it like a jemmy to force herself between him and his companion, a fine-featured man in his early forties who possessed the glossiest of ebony faces. Lucretia was of a similar age but the gloss was evidently applied.

‘I am delighted to meet you,’ she offered in a narrow voice that matched her artificially pinched waist, addressing the black man. Dig. She slid in the jemmy a few more inches. ‘I do so enjoy such occasions. The opportunity to meet interesting new people?’

She now had her back fully towards Goodfellowe. He wasn’t used to being ignored, usually he was a centre of attention, but maybe his reclusive body language betrayed him tonight. Anyway, he’d better get used to it. Dig. Her buttock was now brushing against him, forcing him back; he could almost feel what was left of her ovaries rattling. Yes, definitely the ley lines, he concluded.

Her hand was clamped firmly onto the black man’s sleeve in a manner that implied – no, screamed – it would take either a court injunction or unrestrained coitus to effect his release. There was no doubting Lucretia’s preference. ‘And tell me, is it hot back home?’

‘Mild. For the time of year,’ he replied, attempting a noncommittal smile. His words bore only the slightest trace of an accent. Probably an educated African, she decided.

‘I have such a fascination for the Third World.’ Dig. Dig. The parting of the ways between Goodfellowe and his companion was clearly intended to be permanent. ‘And of course for its people. Such fascinating cultures, such tremendous challenges. Tell me, Your Excellency, is there much poverty in your country?’

His eyes widened. They caught Goodfellowe’s only briefly before returning to Lucretia. ‘A crushing issue, where I come from,’ he admitted. His tone implied it was all but a matter of mass starvation. Her fingers made their way from the sleeve to his hand in sympathy. They were very large hands, she noticed, powerful, but soft for a man of his age. Educated hands, she hoped, with just the necessary touch of native roughness.

‘And tell me, where is it that you come from? No, let me guess, do,’ she insisted. ‘But you must give me a clue. Does your country play cricket?’

‘Candidly, not as well as it might. The world does not truly regard us as a great cricketing nation,’ he acknowledged with remorse, as though she was ripping his conscience bare. ‘Although personally I have always taken the sport very seriously.’

‘Then it is definitely not Caribbean,’ she declared in triumph. Her first instincts were right. African. And she was a woman of exceedingly strong instincts. ‘So tell me, you are the High Commissioner for which country? Nigeria? Ghana?’

‘No, Cricklewood.’

‘Where?’

‘I come from Cricklewood, madam. In North London.’

‘But Cricklewood doesn’t have a … You’re not a High Commissioner?’

‘No.’

‘Then you are …?’ She was unable to find the social courage to finish the sentence.

‘Matthew O’Reilly, madam. A government driver. I drive Mr Goodfellowe here. Have done for years.’ Matthew beamed and Lucretia, on the brink of devastation, turned.

‘Mr … Goodfellowe?’ At last, he existed. She withdrew her hand rapidly from Matthew’s and considered offering it to Goodfellowe, but could find no appropriate words and instead waved it in the general direction of the throng. ‘Such interesting people,’ she declaimed, and without a further word launched herself into their midst.

‘I do hope the bloody cricket improves.’ Matthew smiled in her wake.

‘You could have kept up the pretence. She is obviously a serious collector of …’

‘Colonial conquests?’

‘High Commissioners. Men of elevated position.’

‘Then both of us are safe.’ Matthew chuckled. He examined Goodfellowe more critically. ‘You ought to go mix.’

‘Do I look as if I want to mix?’

Matthew shook his head.

‘Then you’ll have to do, O’Reilly.’

‘Sure thing, bwana,’ Matthew joked, but it fell on stone. ‘So, how is it on the western front?’ he enquired, picking up the threads of their conversation.

Goodfellowe considered the point. ‘Splendid,’ he suggested, but the eyes remained cold and untouched.

‘Bad as that, eh?’

The drowning of Goodfellowe’s teenage son Stevie in a holiday accident seven months earlier had been the cause of genuine sympathy in Westminster. Colleagues could see the loneliness in Goodfellowe’s features; those who knew him better could also detect the flecks of guilt. And it had got no better.

‘How’s the family?’ Matthew enquired quietly.

Matthew had driven Goodfellowe and his wife, Elinor, and their daughter Sam to the church, not just as a close work colleague but also as a friend. He had seen the bewilderment in young Sam’s eyes and noted with concern the vacant, almost detached look in Elinor’s, as though the funeral was merely another tedious official obligation that got in the way of all the private joys she would once again share with Stevie as soon as she returned home. When her longest day was over and at last she had walked back through her front door, past his new jacket that still hung on the rack and the polished boots that still waited for the new school term, she had taken herself to bed and hadn’t appeared for a week. Waiting.

‘I thought Elinor was getting a little better, but …’ Goodfellowe shrugged his shoulders. That’s what men do. Shrug. Never admit to pain. ‘And it’s tough on Samantha.’

‘It would be on any twelve-year-old. I’m very sorry, Tom.’

‘Thanks. But we’ll survive.’ Sure they would. At least, that’s what he’d thought. Though now he wasn’t quite so confident. Nor were Elinor’s doctors. There was talk of a nursing home.

Matthew could sense the loneliness. ‘You fancy coming round for a curry one evening? Flo-Jo would love to see you.’ Matthew and Goodfellowe had shared many snatched meals during their time on the Ministerial tour together and Goodfellowe had taken a particular fancy to the food that Matthew’s wife always seemed able to produce at a moment’s notice. Green chicken curry was his favourite. With extra chilli and plenty of plump, sweet sultanas.

Mind-blowing. Flo-Jo wasn’t her real name, but a pet name insisted on by Matthew. ‘From the first night I met her she’s never hung around,’ he once explained; ‘the fastest woman I’ve ever known.’ And Goodfellowe assumed he wasn’t referring simply to her cooking.

‘Be great. Love to.’ And meant it. But not tonight. He wasn’t in the mood to do justice to either the cooking or the company. Lucretia, bloody Lucretia, had offended his manhood, ignored him, and after painful months being denied proper female companionship such insults were especially wounding. He had to leave, before he began to find Lucretia – or someone like her – almost desirable and made a fool of himself. He glanced at his watch. ‘Got places to go.’

Matthew knew this was a lie. He had his own copy of the Ministerial diary. ‘Then I’ll take you.’

‘No, old friend. I need some time on my own.’

‘Then as an old friend I’ve got to tell you that’s the last thing you need.’

‘It’s a big day tomorrow. I’ll see you then.’ And with that Goodfellowe left one of the few reliable friends he had ever found in politics.

Goodfellowe decided to slip out quietly. He hadn’t met the guest of honour, and to leave without exchanging some form of greeting would unquestionably be regarded as rude. But the guest was besieged by admirers and Goodfellowe had had enough of crowds and impatient elbows for one evening. Anyway, an audience was included in Goodfellowe’s diary of official duties towards the end of the week – although by that time it would scarcely matter. Nothing seemed to matter very much any more.

He edged his way around the mass of people to the point where he was passing directly beneath the Second Earl of Cholmondeley (or at least his portrait) when his way was abruptly barred by a man clad in a wine-red shawl, right arm bare to the shoulder and holding his hands together and upright in the traditional Buddhist form of greeting.

It was the Dalai Lama.

Suddenly the room no longer seemed so crowded, so claustrophobic. Others had drawn back a pace, leaving Goodfellowe to effect his own introduction. ‘Thomas Goodfellowe,’ the politician offered.

The Lama laughed, a resonant noise like drums being beaten deep within his breast, and behind his glasses the eyes puckered in humour. ‘Of course you are. Goodfellowe. Goodfellowe!’ The name seemed to cause him considerable mirth and he swiped at the name like a benevolent cat might play with a mouse. The Dalai Lama, exiled leader of the distant Buddhist kingdom of Tibet, advanced and took both of the Minister’s hands eagerly in his own, as if he were greeting a long-lost friend. He continued to chuckle and smile, nodding a head that was scraped almost hairless in monastic style. ‘I am very pleased to meet you, Thomas Goodfellowe.’ The mouth and ears were small, the brown skin weathered by exposure to elements and adversity, the glasses prominent; all the features led Goodfellowe’s attention to the Lama’s eyes, which sparkled and danced, like small crescents of the moon. Some aspect of those eyes, some attribute hidden deep away, seemed somehow familiar, like an elusive memory.

‘I am a considerable admirer of your country,’ Goodfellowe offered, since the Lama showed no indication of wanting to lead the conversation. ‘At home I have a beautiful bronze Buddha’s head.’ He’d picked it up on impulse one Saturday morning a few years ago, from Ormonde’s in the Portobello Road, a piece whose serenity had captivated him. ‘Sadly, I suspect, torn from one of your temples.’

‘Everything of value has been torn from our temples, Thomas Goodfellowe.’

‘I am sorry,’ Goodfellowe offered, taking the Lama’s comment as a rebuke.

But the deep bass drums within the Lama’s chest began to resound with laughter once again. ‘Better you have it and appreciate it, than it lie unnoticed beneath the boots of the Chinese Army. Indeed, perhaps that is the true task of the People’s Liberation Army. To make sure that the message and beauty of Tibetan Buddhism will be spread throughout the world.’ His arm waved expansively. ‘Like bees spreading pollen.’

‘I suppose so,’ Goodfellowe responded cautiously, finding the analogy uncomfortable.

The Lama laid a hand upon Goodfellowe’s shoulder. The gesture brought them still closer together but Goodfellowe felt none of the typical English diffidence at the unexpected intimacy; somehow it felt entirely natural. ‘At last our paths cross. In this life,’ the Lama offered.

At least, that’s what Goodfellowe thought he heard him say. Our paths cross. In this life. With the punctuation between the two thoughts definitive and deliberate. As though their paths might have crossed before.

‘“In this life”?’ Goodfellowe enquired.

‘We Buddhists believe in many lives.’ The voice was remarkably resonant; it seemed to spend an exceptionally long time travelling through the passages of the skull, giving it an unusual and deep timbre.

‘And you believe … we may have met before?’ Goodfellowe asked incredulously. ‘In a previous life?’

‘Who is to know?’ the Lama responded. ‘But the past is no more than a signpost on our way. It is the future that must concern us, Thomas Goodfellowe. You will be important to our future, I think.’

‘Me?’

Someone was at the Lama’s elbow now, trying to guide him on.

‘I wish you well tomorrow, Thomas Goodfellowe.’

‘Tomorrow?’ Goodfellowe was perplexed. How could the Lama know? But surely it was just another ambiguous turn of phrase. Like a fairground fortune teller.

‘And for all your days thereafter. We shall meet again.’

He was turning to leave but Goodfellowe placed a restraining hand on his arm, puzzled by the ambiguities, angered by the almost casual manner in which the Lama pretended to know more, much more, than he obviously could. Or should.

‘When? When shall we meet?’

The Lama took both of his hands once more and stared directly into his eyes. The wrinkles of amusement were gone.

‘Perhaps only after many troubles, Thomas Goodfellowe, my friend. But I want you to remember two things. That whatever it is you do, it is your motivation that matters above all else. Many may misunderstand you, but it matters not, so long as you understand yourself.’

The words struck him like a slap across the face. Understand himself? How could he? Goodfellowe was lost on the great ocean of life. His son drowned. Sails torn. His compass gone. The only thing he understood was that he couldn’t take much more of it. He felt angry again, as though the Lama had penetrated his soul and ransacked his emotions. The guest of honour was turning to leave.

‘What is the second thing?’ Goodfellowe shouted after him.

The Lama half turned. ‘That the future has a Chinese face.’ Then in a sweep of colourful robe he was gone.

Suddenly Goodfellowe felt flushed, bemused. What on earth did this strange-sounding Lama mean? What future? And why a Chinese face? It sounded surprisingly defeatist, coming from a man who had spent a lifetime trying to ensure that the only part of the Chinese anatomy his countrymen saw was the back. Above him George, the second Earl of Cholmondeley, stared down. Three hundred years earlier the good earl had been a groom to the bedchamber, Member of Parliament, lord-lieutenant of half a dozen counties and an excellent marshal who had rallied troops to the cause of four monarchs. That’s what the Dalai Lama was doing, Goodfellowe decided: trying to recruit him for the cause. He’d probably get a letter in a couple of days asking for a donation, or perhaps a subscription to some Himalayan hill-walking society. Well, tough. Money was tight and charity ran out at the door of Elinor’s nursing home.

As he was leaving, for the first time he noticed that he was holding a string of prayer beads, small circular pieces of old sandalwood threaded on silk. The Lama had left them with him; he hadn’t noticed.

That night, Goodfellowe dreamed, more vividly than he had ever dreamed before. He was sitting on a rock at the mouth of a cave. Alone. In the distance he could see mountains more vast than any he had ever known, great slabs of grey-green rock and shadows of deepest purple, leaping up from the land and stretching for the sky. A sky the colour of polished lapis. Before the mountains lay a great plain, filled with snow so intensely white that it must have been many feet thick and perhaps many centuries old. From somewhere nearby, but unseen, came the rushing of meltwater. Then the meltwater came into view, spreading like a stain across the snow. A deep red stain. Like the flowing of a lama’s robe.

The colour of flowing blood.

Goodfellowe woke with sweat trickling down his chest. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get back to sleep that night. And, after he had put in his letter of resignation to the Prime Minister, not for many nights to come.

‘Madame Lin!’ Goodfellowe exclaimed, almost as if in surprise. ‘What a pleasure. Please – come in.’

The expression on the face of the veteran Chinese diplomat made it evident that this was not one of those pleasures to be shared. Hers was an elegant face, not round and androgynous in the manner of many ageing Chinese but with high cheekbones and full lips that, when they smiled, were still very feminine. This morning, however, they were not smiling. The bun that held back the fine silver sixty-something hair seemed to have been tightened an extra turn and the dark-spice eyes, which so often glowed with humour, were narrowed and deliberately inscrutable. Her hand barely brushed the Minister’s palm in greeting.

The Ambassador was followed into Goodfellowe’s Ministerial office by her interpreter. Madame Lin spoke excellent English – with an American undertow picked up at Harvard – but there were rules of engagement to be followed this morning. Diplomatic violence was always to be undertaken in the mother tongue. For a moment Goodfellowe wondered whether he should have greeted her in the Ambassadors’ Waiting Room, a gesture of cordiality, a symbolic willingness to meet her half-way that might help soften the blow. But it could also have been taken as a sign of weakness, and such gestures had the propensity for being horribly misconstrued. There were tales filed away in the private office, and brought out only late at night, of an incident in the waiting room between one of Goodfellowe’s female predecessors and the diminutive Ambassador from the Dominican Republic, although who first laid a hand on whom varied according to the teller and the amount of water in the whisky. The Minister concerned had since gone off to become a cable TV agony aunt at three times her Ministerial salary, leaving a deep sense of loss around the masculine fringes of the Court of St James’s.

Would he be missed? Goodfellowe wondered. The Prime Minister had suggested as much when he had handed in his resignation two days before, and indeed had spent a few minutes trying to argue him out of it. But he’d soon given up. Goodfellowe was adamant, his family truly needed more of his time. Anyway, perhaps Goodfellowe’s talents were just a little too apparent for his leader’s comfort; they all but demanded his inclusion in the Cabinet at the next reshuffle. Prime Ministers like to feel they have a measure of choice in the disposition of favours, which is why they are constantly in search of abilities less evident than their own.

‘You’ll be back,’ the Prime Minister had said, not meaning it.

‘Sure,’ Goodfellowe had replied, not believing it.

But at the Prime Minister’s request Goodfellowe had agreed to stay on until the weekend to allow a decision on his replacement to be taken with deliberation, so for now Goodfellowe was going through the motions. A diplomatic game of charades. One word. Nonentity. And after the news had leaked the whole world knew it. What was still more relevant at this moment, Madame Lin knew it, too.

She refused to make herself comfortable on the sofa, insisting on perching on its edge as though ready to walk out at a moment’s notice. He sat in the easy chair beside her.

‘I have been instructed by the Government of the People’s Republic of China to protest in the strongest possible terms,’ she intoned, reading from a formal statement. The voice was husky from tobacco.

Tonelessly the interpreter translated while Goodfellowe’s private secretary scribbled hurried notes. So what else was new? Complaints from Beijing nowadays fell like apples in autumn and were normally left to rot on the ground. Particularly after Hong Kong. In Goodfellowe’s view, handing over the colony had been a great mistake, but for the Chinese it had proved to be a time of great deception, the euphoria soon draining away into what Goodfellowe described as China’s ‘duckpond of despairs’. The great tiger economy had developed ingrowing toenails. Corruption. Food riots. Then had come the failure of the absurd military adventure to retake a small outlying island off Taiwan. As the world had watched through CNN, America had coughed and the Chinese had caught a very public cold. It was all unravelling in Beijing. So they complained, endlessly and usually without merit.

‘The Dalai Lama is a splittist and a renegade and a tool of imperialism,’ Madame Lin continued, her brow furrowed. Frowning didn’t suit her, thought Goodfellowe; she had remarkably smooth skin for her age, and in her earlier years must have been something of a beauty. Is that how she had prospered? It was an ungallant thought, but Maoism was a peculiarly ungallant creed.

‘The People’s Republic of China has objected most strenuously to his presence in this country,’ she continued, ‘but we were assured that this was an informal visit, with no political overtones. Yet Ministers of the British Government have already met with the Dalai Lama and tonight he is to be a guest at the Foreign Secretary’s official residence in Carlton Gardens.’

A rather frumpy residence, in Goodfellowe’s view, but with some fine Ming blue-and-white expropriated by British troops for safekeeping while they and the French were ransacking the Summer Palace. Not the British Empire’s most laudable episode, just another in a long line of imperial punishments handed out during the last century, which was perhaps why no one had ever bothered to tell the Chinese of the porcelain’s ancestry. Although inevitably, in this brave new and abominably correct world, suggestions had been floated that the porcelain might be handed back, as a gesture of goodwill, an opportunity to creep a little closer to a market of more than a billion wallets. Goodfellowe had dug in his heels so deep he thought there was a chance he might emerge in the Yellow River. He was fed up with apologizing for the past, and with giving things back. So long as he had any say in the matter, they weren’t getting the bloody vases. As he had scrawled on the relevant memo, ‘No. They’ll just have to make do with Hong Kong.’

On the sofa, Madame Lin took a deep breath, trying to draw up her diminutive figure to its full height. The clichés of diplomatic protest were laid before him. ‘Gross interference in China’s internal affairs … my Government’s serious concerns … Britain has turned a deaf ear … Dalai’s lies and slanders … in complete disregard of the major progress on human rights made in Tibet.’

One day, just one day, Goodfellowe promised himself, he’d get to ask a Chinese why, since they claimed to have delivered Tibet from serfdom, so many of these newly liberated serfs still risked their lives trying to escape from this Maoist paradise. They walked for weeks through the Himalayas, across the highest mountains in the world, equipped with nothing more than hope and prayer. Some made it, some didn’t. Many froze. Others starved. Vulture pickings. But still they came, thousands every year. Fleeing from paradise. Yes, one day he’d ask why. But not today.

He raised his eyes. The bookcase behind Madame Lin was laden with the doodles of diplomacy – the boxes of inscribed mementoes, the paperweights and pen sets and other assorted knick-knacks that Foreign Ministers seemed compelled to exchange with each other. Most of it was engraved, over-embellished, and crap. Before every meeting one of his private secretaries would scour the room, ensuring that the gift from the visitor’s country was on prominent display. Rather like pulling the photograph of mother-in-law out of the drawer. In their own turn the Chinese were rather more subtle. Visitors to Beijing were invited to the Pearl Room where a table would be laden with strings of raw pearls, all carefully sized. They were for purchase, but at very generous prices. Yet inevitably in the diplomatic marketplace there was a careful order of things. Goodfellowe had been shown which sizes of pearl had been selected by his French counterpart, and then he had been shown those chosen by his Whitehall superior, and with great Oriental deftness had been encouraged to go a little bit better than the first while not daring to go as far as the second.

Characteristically, Goodfellowe had screwed up the system and bought nothing. Couldn’t afford it, not at any price, not nowadays. Anyway, Elinor no longer had an appreciation of such things. Of anything, come to that, in those weeks when she climbed into her pit of depression and pulled the roof in on herself. It affected Goodfellowe, too. Despair would snap at his heels like a Black Dog, determined to pursue him. He called them Black Dog days – Churchill’s expression, and so apt; the initial effect was like hearing a dog growl, from very close behind on a stormy night. And recently there had been more of them. That’s why he’d had to get out. Before he was pulled down in the same way as Elinor.

He dragged his attention back into the room. Madame Lin was nearing the end of her homily. Something about her Government’s desire to ensure that the contents of this protest be communicated directly to the highest levels of the British Government. A matter of the most considerable significance. Her sadness that the Secretary of State himself was abroad, unavailable. The strong implication that she was deeply dissatisfied at being able to see only Goodfellowe. A mere Minister. Here today, a has-been tomorrow. She didn’t use those words, but the sense hung heavily in her tone.

That hurt. Of course the snub of offering up only him to hear the complaint was deliberate, the British Government getting its retaliation in first, but it served to emphasize that already he was a man of overwhelming unimportance. Thomas Goodfellowe. A sensation when at the Home Office. The rising star of the FCO. A man who with fortune might eventually have gone all the way. But not any more. Politicians never came back. There were too many colleagues to trample on the fallen. It was over. He was nothing. She knew it and was making it part of her official complaint. And he had to sit there and take it.

Then it was over and he was handed a formal copy of the complaint, like an irresponsible driver receiving a speeding ticket. A pity, he thought. She was new in her post and, on the couple of occasions they had met, Goodfellowe had warmed to Madame Lin. Sad to end on such a sour note.

He didn’t waste much time with his official response; they both knew the script by heart; indeed the details had been discussed beforehand by their underlings and advisers. The Dalai Lama was visiting Britain privately, not in any official capacity. Any contact he had with Ministers was in his role as a religious leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner, not as a political figure. And platitudes about there being no intention of Her Majesty’s Government to interfere in China’s internal affairs. After all, thought Goodfellowe, they were making enough of a mess of it on their own; they scarcely needed Britain’s help to add to the chaos.

And then it was over. Madame Lin rose, bowed and made for the door. His last formal visitor as Minister of State was leaving. He thought the occasion should have been marked in some way. A little ceremony, a short speech, a small dedication, even a bottle or two. But already his private office was preparing for a new master. The contents of his red boxes for the last two days had dwindled to nothing but personal matters, letters from colleagues, an invoice from the office for expenses that couldn’t be claimed. He’d get that drink eventually, but on his own. He was drinking too much on his own.

It was as Goodfellowe’s private secretary was showing out the visitors that she turned. Both the private secretary and the interpreter hesitated, wanting to stay, but Madame Lin ushered them onward. The private secretary stood his ground, reluctant to leave his Minister alone with the diplomat, fearful of the damage that might result from an unguided discussion. Yet Goodfellowe didn’t care for his private secretary, Maurice, nor the bureaucratic games he played. Like handing him speaking notes so late that Goodfellowe had no chance of considering them, let alone altering them. Or hiding all the important papers that Maurice didn’t want the Minister to study too carefully in the middle of the pile. And stuffing Goodfellowe’s diary so full he didn’t even have time to break wind. Should have got rid of this wretched man months ago. Now was his very last chance.

‘Don’t you have some papers to shuffle? Or spies to catch, Maurice?’

Maurice smiled, lips parting like the drawer of a well-oiled filing cabinet. ‘Did all that last week, Minister.’

‘Do it again, will you? Can’t be too careful. Not about paper.’

Maurice hesitated. ‘Yes. I’m sure we have a few last items of yours to clear, Minister. Wouldn’t want to miss any.’

The door was closed as though on a lepers’ ward. They were alone.

‘Thank you, Mr Goodfellowe.’ Madame Lin was smiling, the dark eyes open and amused. ‘Now the formalities are over, I wondered: the opportunity for a private word, perhaps?’

‘So long as you have finished chastising me.’

‘It was never my intention to be unkind to you. Nor about you. I wanted to make that clear. I am deeply saddened by your loss of office; it was not my wish to refer to it in the official remarks. But my masters in Beijing insisted.’

‘As we thought they would.’

‘Which, of course, is why you did it.’ She laughed, a throaty, surprisingly masculine sound.

‘It’s kind of you to wish me well,’ he responded, trying to divert the conversation. She was unusually direct for a diplomat, astonishingly so for a Chinese.

‘I have enjoyed our meetings, no matter how brief. We could have done business together. Perhaps we shall in the future.’

‘A pleasant thought. But, as we both know, not very realistic.’

She crossed slowly to the old globe that stood in the corner of his office, by the window that overlooked the great Horse Guards Parade. The globe was an artefact of considerable value, if not of the greatest age. 1910. And about forty grand at auction. Her finger tracked slowly through the continents of Europe and Asia.

‘Life often comes full circle, Mr Goodfellowe. It changes. Then it changes again. Look at this globe. No Soviet Union, just a collection of nation states. As it was then, and as it is once more. Don’t give up hope. Life is a turning wheel.’

‘Funny. The Tibetans agree with you about that. The Wheel of Life turns. Uplifting. Turns again. Crushing. Your point of view depends on whether you are pushing the wheel or strapped beneath it, I suppose.’

‘I did not stay to continue the argument about Tibet.’ The eyes clouded in warning, then relaxed. ‘Merely to express my sincere condolences. To sacrifice office for your family is an act of honour. And of courage.’

‘You are very kind.’

‘I know the power of family, Mr Goodfellowe. I have but one daughter, no sons. Rather like you. And of all the many hopes I have for myself, my greatest ambition is to be a grandmother. I would like many grandchildren.’

Strange, Goodfellowe thought. The Chinese pursued the most ruthless birth-control policies of any power on earth. Compulsory abortions. Enforced sterilization. Infants, particularly daughters, left to die. Literally discarded, thrown away. In China, population control was nothing more than a crude numbers game. Yet undoubtedly she meant what she said.

‘Ah, I read your brow. You are wondering how I as a representative of the Beijing Government can favour large families?’

Extraordinary, thought Goodfellowe. Diplomat. Grandmother. And psychic. ‘May I speak personally?’

She nodded.

‘They’re barbaric, your Government’s policies on birth control. I understand the practice is often to inject the unborn foetus directly in the head to induce a miscarriage. Nothing short of barbaric. If I may speak personally.’

He had expected an animated response, but she remained collected. ‘I do not have to agree with all the acrobatics of my Government’s policies. Not here in my heart. Any more than you do, Mr Goodfellowe. But I hold my office with pride, and office brings with it responsibilities. But also certain … what is the word? Privileges. If one of those privileges is the opportunity to ensure I can have many grandchildren, don’t expect me to apologize or feel shame. Above all, my family comes first. Which is why I understand the sacrifice you have made.’ She turned the globe slowly. ‘I think we are much alike.’

‘Except there is a difference between us, or at least between our systems. We both wish to protect our families. In your system, that means you must retain your office. Yet in my system, it seems, I have to give up my office. A curious contrast.’

Her fingers began to drum in agitation, the sign of a chain-smoker denied her support. ‘I must go. My staff will be getting inquisitive. It does not do in these testing times to be out of step with one’s Government, or out of earshot of others. They become suspicious.’

‘I appreciate your staying on.’

She held out her hand. This time her grip was firm. ‘I hope we shall meet again.’

‘Me too.’

And with that she was gone.

Rain. Brutal. Belligerent. Yet the Dalai Lama left the car window open. He wanted the wind on his face, the same monsoon wind that, once it had poured its heart out on this side of the Himalayas, would climb into Tibet and quarrel its way around the dusty plains. For that reason he envied the wind. And blessed it. The wind spoke to him while he in turn whispered prayers that would be wrapped within its folds and carried all the way to his homeland, slipping clean through the outstretched fingers of the People’s Propaganda Unit.

The rain smothered the landscape in a relentless khaki shroud, turning the world to mud. Crops bent and were borne away, man and his beast stood miserable under dripping trees. The highway that had guided them away from the airport at Delhi was, ten hours later, little more than a track, and in some places not even that. Water rushed down the mountainside in great brown corkscrews, gouging and chafing at everything in its path. It was said in the state capital that at least a quarter of the road leading up into the hills from Kangra was waiting for repair; it was also said that the rest waited only for God.

The car wheels spun before finding their grip and climbing out of yet another pothole, and the Lama sighed wearily, comforting himself that after his long trip to Europe he would soon be home – or at least what passed for home in a life of exile. As the small convoy of cars with its Indian police escort began the last stretch of the journey, the drivers were tired, the road grew more tortuous and the cascade of floodwater swept ever more implacably across their path.

Trouble was inevitable, so they said. Afterwards.

Inevitable.

The Indian Army captain who conducted preliminary forensics at the scene was meticulous, and reported indications that some sort of explosion might have caused the landslide that carried away two of the cars.

His colonel, who was in charge of the investigation and up for promotion, emphasized in his own report that these traces of explosion were indistinct and inevitably ambiguous.

Meanwhile, the general in receipt of the colonel’s report weighed up the carefully worded ambiguities and found them wanting. He took advice on the matter, and as a consequence omitted all mention of explosives in the summary that was laid before the Cabinet.

The advice not to mention any explosion came from the Minister of Defence. His logic was clear. There was only one enemy of the Dalai Lama. China. But China was India’s powerful neighbour and not its enemy, not for the moment at least. And to rush into confrontation with China through uttering accusations they couldn’t support would be distinctly prejudicial, quite possibly to national security, most certainly to the accusers, be they military or Ministerial. Best say nothing, he had suggested. Not even a hint. Not until they were certain. Which, on the rain-soaked road leading up from Kangra, they never could be.

So, for want of an explanation, they simply termed the accident ‘inevitable’. An act of God. And in India they had gods galore on whom to lay the blame.

However, this explanation did not satisfy the Dalai Lama himself, who had an enquiring and almost scientific mind, and who in any event as an atheist did not believe in God.

It was common ground that there had been a landslide. It was also common ground that the landslide had tossed the car carrying his private secretary and interpreter sideways into a ravine two thousand feet deep. There was still more common ground that such a landslide could have been caused by the incessant rain, as the official report suggested.

But rain, no matter how heavy, couldn’t explain why the Lama’s own car was thrown not sideways, but backwards. Neither could rain explain the sharp stench of burning that filled his nostrils for days afterwards, nor the rock that was thrown with great force through the windscreen, striking him high on the right-hand side of his face. And rain would never explain the extraordinary blue-white light that filled his head as a result, blazing with an intensity of a kind he had never experienced before.

And, when the light had finally flickered and died, would never experience again.

The rock had damaged the optic nerve. He was blind.

But what is blindness to a man who had spent a lifetime, indeed a whole succession of lifetimes, seeing beyond this world? At least, that is what the Dalai Lama told those who tried to commiserate with him. He could accept his blindness.

But what he could never accept was that he had now become a target, and as a result of being a target he had become a threat to the lives of all those around him. His own death was something his religion required him to contemplate daily and which he had never feared. Death was an achievement, in its own time. But killing, the taking of life, was as repulsive and as abominable as any act he could imagine. And now his very existence threatened to inflict precisely that on those who were closest to him.

The darkness that fell across his life as a result made blindness the lightest of his burdens.

TWO

Defunct Ministers generate surprising attributes. Such as becoming invisible. The female lobbyist who only a few weeks before had pestered him to the point of exhaustion now passed him in the crush of Parliament Street without even a fleeting sign of recognition, let alone remorse. Goodfellowe had also developed what appeared to be a case of infectious incontinence. Although he noticed no change in his own personal habits, he had become aware of the large number of people who in his presence seemed suddenly to find the need to rush away. This was particularly so in the case of the Whip who informed him that, as he was no longer a Minister, he would have to hand over possession of his large office in the House of Commons and move immediately to less salubrious surroundings. At least the Whip had the decency to appear embarrassed before rushing off. Well, perhaps it was his prostate, thought Goodfellowe kindly. But there were no kind thoughts for Maurice who, to the end, to the very end, remained the complete uncivil servant. As a final gesture Maurice had taken great delight in handing him a small plastic bag that contained all the mementoes Goodfellowe would never have wished to see again. The name card from his Ministerial door. An ashtray from some banana republic engraved with the image of its fat-jowelled president-for-life. Even a half-eaten tube of mints wrapped in a packet of tissues that had been found hiding down the back seat of his Ministerial car. Or rather, his ex-Ministerial car.

Yet perhaps the most distressing circumstance was that concerning his House of Commons secretary, Veronica, a single lady in her early forties who had been a model of efficiency, ambition and detachment. In this instance it was the second quality of ambition that led to the third, detachment, for she basked in the reflected glory of her employers and had no time for lingering in shadows. Within a month of his resignation Veronica had followed suit and thrown in her Tippex. But her prime quality of efficiency was never to be doubted; she had already found alternative employment with a Cabinet Minister.

So it had fallen to Goodfellowe to find a replacement secretary, not the easiest of tasks in the middle of a parliamentary session. They told him he would have to look outside the system and indeed he had, interviewing a succession of spinsters and matrons whom he had found to be ‘just right for the job’ – like Veronica. Yet he was still getting used to the role of the Invisible Man; he was lonely, at times despondent, in need of … well, doing something different for a change. Something unexpected. Unpredictable. Then in walked Mickey Ross. Quite literally.

He had been in the Central Lobby one afternoon chatting to Gladstone. Gladstone was a tramp. He slept in the doorway of a gentleman’s tailor in the Strand and frequently came to the Central Lobby to exercise his democratic right to comfort and a little companionship. He’d become something of a celebrity fixture. Although he was homeless he managed to dress himself in an orderly fashion and possessed a wit as polished as his shoes were scuffed. No one knew his real name but he held court at the foot of the statue of the great nineteenth-century Prime Minister and night stalker, after whom he was affectionately known. One ‘senior backbencher’ – the parliamentary term usually reserved for someone who had achieved very little and had stretched it over a great period of time – had once indulged in the folly of seeking Gladstone’s removal from his place of comfort. A waspish article in that day’s Evening Standard had ensured the request was hastily withdrawn and Gladstone informally offered tenure of the end of his leather bench. And Goodfellowe rather enjoyed his company, for the tramp was a great observer of people and life. It was while they were chatting away contrasting the qualities of Bulgarian Riesling and surgical spirit that he felt a hand on his sleeve.

‘Excuse me. Do you work here?’ It was a young woman, handsome and earnest.

‘I suppose I do.’

‘It’s just that I’m looking for a job. Don’t know if there’s any going, do you?’

He stared hard. She had a raw energy and an almost combative presence that he found immensely appealing. And a touch of East End in her elocution. No nonsense.

‘What sort of job?’

‘Secretary, I guess. Or personal assistant. I’ve got GCSEs.’

‘Happens I might know someone. Care to talk about it over a drink?’

‘Champagne?’

‘No, only tea, I’m afraid.’

‘Then you’re on. My mother told me never to drink champagne with a man until you know his name.’

‘Tom Goodfellowe,’ he offered.

‘I’m sure you are,’ she replied, holding out her hand. ‘Mickey Ross.’

And he had taken her down to the Terrace of the House of Commons, which overlooks the Thames. There was a gentle breeze and the sun played on the bow waves of the tugs and pleasure cruisers that plied back and forth. It also shone on her hair, auburn, which had been brushed to perfection. She was meticulous about her appearance. Women with large breasts such as hers could sometimes look so untidy, but every part of Mickey Ross looked as though it knew what it was about.

‘As it happens, I’m looking for a secretary.’

‘Who are you then, Tom?’

‘The Member of Parliament for Marshwood.’

‘Whoops. Never figured it, not with you talking to that tramp.’

‘That is not a tramp, that is Gladstone.’

‘Gladstone was a randy old sod who spent his days making great moral statements while he spent his evenings wandering around the streets of London picking up women of doubtful virtue. I’ve always wondered if that’s why he didn’t manage to get the relief column to Khartoum in time to rescue General Gordon. You know: too many distractions.’

He bowed his head in deference. ‘You are remarkably well informed.’

‘As I said, I’ve got my GCSEs.’

He chuckled in admiration. Several Members who passed by took note, staring just a little too long. A Whip frowned and raised an eyebrow, rather like a warning flag on a beach. Treacherous Bathing. Do Not Enter These Waters. He was right, of course. She was far too young, lacking in the long years of experience that would allow her to dominate the job. And she was also far, far too obviously feminine for Goodfellowe’s comfort. And Jewish. He had made a mistake.

‘This can be rather a dull job at times,’ Goodfellowe suggested, deciding he should let her down gently.

‘It would be different. I might be willing to give it a go.’

‘A lot of dusty procedure.’

‘That’s no problem. I work extremely hard.’ She smiled, two large dimples appearing on her cheeks. ‘And I pick things up easily.’

Her eyes held a glint of dark mischief which Goodfellowe decided could so easily turn to mayhem. He concentrated on his tea.

‘But why do you want to work in Westminster?’

She paused, considering her reply. ‘I could tell you of my fascination with politics, my respect for the great institutions of state. Or do you want the truth?’

‘This is the House of Commons. But let’s start with the truth.’

‘A bet. I did it for a bet.’

‘You what?’

‘I was bored with my old job in the City. And my boss and I fell out. We had very different ideas about holiday entitlement. He seemed to think he was entitled to take me on his holidays, or at least his weekends away.’

‘You disapprove of such goings-on?’ Goodfellowe nodded in rather avuncular fashion, then despised himself. He knew he’d like nothing better.

‘To Grimsby, sure I do. If he wants the seaside, what’s wrong with Venice? Anyway, it was time for a change. I was at a hen night. A girlfriend bet me I couldn’t get a job in the Palace. I think she meant Buckingham Palace, but I couldn’t work in a place filled with all that museum furniture. And far too many divorced men. So I decided to try the Palace of Westminster.’

‘Doesn’t sound like high motivation, Miss Ross.’ He found himself sounding pompous.

She retaliated. ‘I thought of joining the Army. You know, all that foreign travel. But have you seen the footwear?’ She studied her hands. ‘And what would it do to my manicure?’

‘Sorry. I get the message.’

‘Seriously, I’m twenty-two. I’m not sure what I want to do. Whatever I do is going to be a leap into the unknown. What matters to me is the people I take that leap with. Whether we’re right for each other.’

‘A fair point. You ought to know that my personal circumstances aren’t easy. I’m not flavour of the month. I’ve just resigned from the Government. My family life is difficult, intrusive.’ He sighed. He really must dissuade her. What the hell, he knew he was trying to dissuade himself. She couldn’t possibly work out. This isn’t the most glamorous post in Parliament.’

‘Now I remember. You’re that Goodfellowe. The one who resigned because of his family. I read about you. I admire what you’ve done. Is it all right to say that?’

This was impossible, he decided. Ankles and admiration. He was hiding in his tea again; she resolved to lighten the atmosphere.

‘Anyway, I’m not certain I want the job yet. I need more information about the perks and conditions. Do I get Jewish holidays and my mother’s birthday off? Is there a Face Lift Fund?’

‘A what?’

‘A Face Lift Fund. Insurance. Like a pension plan. A girl’s got to look ahead, Mr Goodfellowe.’

Goodfellowe began wriggling, trying to suppress the laughter, and failed. The Whip turned to stare from his nearby table, the flag hoisted and warning of storms, damn him. It had been such a long time since Goodfellowe had laughed.

He wiped an eye. ‘I needed that. Cheering up.’

‘Hey, then I’m your girl.’

He took a deep breath, felt a touch of vertigo, then dived in. ‘You know, Miss Ross, I think perhaps you are.’

* * *

The mouth of the cave was well concealed. Although the boy thought he knew every boulder and crevice on this side of the mountain, he hadn’t discovered this cave before, and wouldn’t have discovered it now had it not been for the curious old monk. Every day at dawn for almost two weeks Lobsang had watched the monk make his solitary way up the path to the point beyond the shrivelled fir, disappearing behind the great temple-sized slab of granite, from where he didn’t return until last light. Lobsang was rather afraid of this monk with the strange, twisted hands and sad face, who seemed to know more about Lobsang’s playground than the boy did himself, but he was of an age when in the end curiosity inevitably overcame caution. Today Lobsang had followed.

Behind the temple-boulder he discovered a narrow fissure that formed a path of loose rock and slippery lichens. Step by uncertain step, the pathway led him up to a point overlooking the Kangra Valley, from where he could see out to the endless plains of India, a view of mists and soaring snow eagles. Even for young eyes accustomed to such sights, this was special. Beneath him, nestling in forests of sugar pine and oak, was McLeod Ganj and beyond, on top of a ridge, stood the low roofs of Namgyal Monastery. Lobsang had unsound views about the monastery. It was said that when he finished his next year at school he might join his brother there as a novice monk. A great blessing, his grandmother had said, but to Lobsang it seemed a blessing of a particularly well-hidden kind. It would mean rising at four thirty every morning to sit on the cold floor of the memorizing class in order to drum into his brain the texts and scriptures that bound together a monk’s world. And the food, although plentiful, was dull. He had decided – though he hadn’t yet told his grandmother – that he’d rather go to Switzerland and become a banker, like his cousin Trijang. There he could earn enough money to support a hundred monks. Or maybe he would go to America and become an astronaut.

Next to the monastery, almost hidden behind a screen of fruit trees and rhododendron bushes, he could see the low, single-storey residence where the Dalai Lama lived. Every year since he had been born, Lobsang had been taken by his parents to the courtyard outside the monastery to line up with the thousands of others who crammed into the tiny space in order to receive the Lama’s blessing. As the Lama passed by his parents always cried; Lobsang didn’t understand why. But afterwards there would always be a special meal with honey sweets and puppet dancing and stories about life in old Tibet. Lobsang always looked forward to the sweets.

As the boy climbed he could see the monk sitting outside the mouth of the cave, staring into its depths and mouthing silent mantras. Between the crooked fingers of his hands was stretched a string of beads which he manipulated with difficulty, counting off his prayers one by one. Lobsang crept closer. Flat stones had been placed at the entrance to the cave on which flickered butter candles; beside them was an offering of fruit. A holy place, evidently. The air was still, like fresh crystals of ice, and silent. No birds here, no rustling of breeze and leaves. It was as though Nature itself was waiting. But waiting for what?

Lobsang drew closer still, anxious, intruding. He could see something in the dark recesses, but what type of thing he couldn’t quite make out – some figure, some form, almost like a … As he stretched to see his foot found loose scree and he slipped, sending a cascade of stones quarrelling down the mountainside. The monk turned.

His face was almost completely round, wrinkled and carved with time like a bodhi seed. The skull was scraped to the point of being hairless. Lobsang’s first impression was that the monk was as old as Life itself, yet the ears were large and pointed, giving him the appearance of a mischievous sprite. And the eyes brimmed with curiosity. Perhaps he wasn’t as ancient as Lobsang had first thought; the body, like the hands, seemed bowed by adversity as much as by age. The hands were now clasped uneasily together for support and were beckoning.

‘Come, my little friend. Share some fruit. I’m sure the spirits can spare a few mouthfuls.’

Kunga Tashi held out a pomegranate from the offering bowl and Lobsang, more than a little nervous, stepped forward.

‘So you have found my secret place,’ the old monk offered in congratulation, and Lobsang nodded, biting greedily into the sweet-sour flesh of the fruit. The juice dribbled down his chin which he wiped with the back of his hand. Then he froze. He could see it now, in the shadow at the back of the cave. A man, bare-chested, sitting in the lotus position in the manner of a meditating monk. The eyes were closed. Not the smallest sign of movement, not the flicker of an eyelid, not even the shallowest of breaths. It was as though the figure had become part of the rock itself.

‘It is His Holiness,’ Kunga said. ‘The Dalai Lama.’

‘He’s lost his glasses.’

Kunga smiled sadly. ‘He doesn’t need them any more.’

‘Is he meditating?’ Lobsang whispered.

‘No. He is preparing to die.’

Everything was impermanence, of course. Particularly here, in this place, McLeod Ganj, in the mountains just above Dharamsala. The last time Kunga had been here was more than twenty years ago, when it had been little more than a tiny frontier post, a remnant of the British Raj squeezed into that mountainous part of northern India that lay between Kashmir and Tibet. In those days it had been almost unwanted, a sleepy collection of tin huts and a few crumbling masonry buildings that had somehow survived the great earthquake; now it seemed to him that the old village had disappeared beneath a flood of refugees that had turned every piece of pavement into a private emporium. The narrow, muddy streets bustled and sang. Here it seemed you could buy or sell almost anything.

Its crowded central square was awash with the colours of Pathan, of Tibetan, Hindu, holy men and hippie, Kashmiri and Sikh. And, of course, the claret-robed Buddhist monks. A confusion of cultures – which made it an excellent place for him to hide. For when they had summoned him they had told Kunga that he must hide. There was danger here, great danger, and not just for the monk.

They had brought him from his monastery in Tibet in the greatest secrecy. In normal circumstances such trips out of Tibet were difficult and frequently dangerous, the Chinese authorities suspicious of the activities of all monks and particularly those who held senior positions, as Kunga once had. But there was an advantage in being crippled, an anonymity that blinded officialdom and had eased his way through checkpoints and border crossings. He had only to stretch out his withered hands, like the claws of the Devil, and they would retreat in revulsion and confusion, never meeting his eyes. So he had arrived in McLeod Ganj, as he had been instructed, unseen and unannounced.

And he had waited.

They had set aside for him a small hut on the outskirts of the town normally used by monks on solitary retreat. Some of the monks stayed for three years – and what did three years matter in a whole succession of lifetimes? Kunga had waited only three days when, towards dusk, two guides had appeared and taken him onward, down the mountain a little. They hurried past groups of men haggling outside the taxi rank and tea shops. There were bright cafés full of tourists, and video huts where bootleg films were shown. The films were sent up from Delhi, some copied with hand-held cameras from the back of the cinema. You could see the picture shake, even see the audience leaving over the credits. This was McLeod Ganj as Kunga had never known it. He recognised little until they came to the holy way, where aged women walked at last light, wrapped in faded blankets, spinning their prayer wheels as they chanted mantras whose words hadn’t changed in a hundred lifetimes. But the guides lowered their eyes and scurried by. They were nervous and Kunga found their anxiety infectious. What did they have to fear? From old women at prayer?

It was now dark. A rock-strewn track led through the woods, the silence of night broken only by the cracking of pine twigs underfoot and the cry of a startled owl. A difficult passage by moonlight. He stumbled, fell badly, grazed his shin, but found willing hands to help him to his feet. Then at last they came upon a high stone wall, inset with a heavy wooden gate. Not the front way, with its guards and prying eyes, but a rear entrance that Kunga hadn’t known existed, even though once he had known this place well, almost as well as his own home.

And as the gate creaked and swung open, Kunga couldn’t restrain a soft cry of joy. For he was there. Waiting for him. The Dalai Lama. His Dalai Lama. Whom he hadn’t seen in more than twenty years.

Kunga began to prostrate himself on the rocky ground but the Lama reached out for him, ordered him to rise, and with unrestrained emotion they fell into each other’s arms. The Dalai Lama’s hands brushed over Kunga’s head and they touched foreheads, a greeting which did great honour to the monk. His senses were ablaze, Kunga felt as if he had been touched by the sun.

Only when the Lama’s fingers continued to brush around Kunga’s head, as though inspecting it for damage, did the truth dawn upon Kunga.

‘You … are blind?’

‘And you, my old friend, are bald!’ The Lama chuckled, although the customary humour sounded strangely forced. His hands fell to the monk’s lean frame. ‘Tell me, don’t they feed you in that monastery of yours?’

‘Enough. And more than many.’ A note of sorrow chilled their spirits.

‘How is my homeland, Kunga?’

‘Suffering.’

‘That will not last.’

‘Nothing lasts for ever.’

‘No, not for ever. Which is why I have summoned you. And the others – Gompo, and Yeshe. The three I trust most in this world.’ Gompo was the Dalai Lama’s representative in Geneva, and Yeshe his former private secretary who had only recently completed a lengthy solitary retreat at a monastery in the south.

‘These are times of many lies, Kunga. And many enemies,’ the Dalai Lama continued. ‘I am blind and can no longer see into men’s eyes, or tell what is in their hearts. I must be certain of those around me if we are to succeed in the task ahead.’

‘And what task is that?’ Kunga had asked.

‘To help me die …’

Outside the cave, Lobsang grew frightened. ‘Are you sure? That he’s dying?’

‘Oh, yes.’

Lobsang let forth an involuntary sob.

‘Don’t despair, little friend. It was his will. He told me himself. He decided the time had come.’

‘You … knew him?’ Lobsang enquired, embarrassed to use the past tense.

‘Long before you were born. For many years I was his translator and adviser. And also his friend.’

‘But he looks so … alive,’ Lobsang exclaimed. He knew that death was corruption, rotten flesh, decay. Yet the Dalai Lama looked as if he were simply asleep.

‘Great Lamas don’t die like the rest. They pass on. Their spirit leaves their body so gently that the body barely notices. So it doesn’t decay, not for a long time.’

Lobsang was gripping the monk’s hand for comfort, too distressed to notice that it was little more than a formless mass of bone and skin.

‘Remember that in death there is always new life. And new hope. The spirit is reborn in a new body,’ Kunga encouraged – just as the Dalai Lama had encouraged them, the three he had gathered together. He had explained his purpose the following day as they sat in his garden, a garden that he himself had planned and planted, a place where they could be overheard only by the birds and the Lama’s favourite cats.

‘My task is simple, my friends. To die. There is nothing simpler. But your task will be far more hazardous. Your task is to live. If you can. To ensure that my rebirth is safeguarded, to seek out and protect my incarnation.’ His voice tightened in sadness, as though a screw were being turned within. ‘In that search you will encounter many dangers. And great pain. You may come to envy the peace with which I shall pass from this life.’

The Searchers had argued with him, passionately, and with more than a little fear.

‘We want to serve you alive, not dead.’

‘Without you – we’re lost.’

‘And without you Tibet is lost!’

‘More than ever we need you …’

Until at last he had grown exasperated. ‘No more! Enough!’ The Lama raised his voice, a rare event, his passion more than a match for theirs. The cats scattered in alarm.

‘Listen to me. For a thousand years in Tibet we hid behind the great walls of the Himalayas. Untouched – but also untouching.

We guarded our truths selfishly, reluctant to share them. Yet look around. Our world has more wickedness than it has ever known. The people suffer. They need us.’

‘So does Tibet,’ Gompo responded defiantly.

The Lama raised his hand and pointed beyond the mountains, his voice burning with emotion. ‘Our Tibet, that ancient homeland we loved, is no more. It is gone. Perhaps for all time.’

He challenged them to deny it, but no one spoke. What was the point? Hope might spring eternal yet it had no more strength than a summer breeze. And the People’s Liberation Army wasn’t going to be blown away by a puff of wind.

‘We can’t go back, not to the way things were. But Tibet is more than just mountains and monasteries. It is a faith, a way of life.’

‘And of death?’

‘Think of our exile as an opportunity. A chance to send down new roots, to find new strength. And think of my death as a new beginning, not just for me but for all our people.’

‘A new beginning? For that we need an army!’

‘Perhaps there is another way. A way in which Chinese and Tibetan can be brought together, not in confrontation, but in reconciliation.’

‘Reconciliation? How?’ demanded Gompo, as ever sceptical.

‘Reconciliation … through reincarnation!’

The Lama had laughed, a deep booming drum of hope. And cautiously the cats had begun to creep back …

Now, as Kunga stared into the shadows of the cave, where the Dalai Lama had taken himself to meditate and to die, he struggled hard to recapture the Lama’s optimism. Beside him Lobsang began to shiver.

‘Don’t be afraid,’ Kunga encouraged, placing an arm around the boy’s shoulders.

‘It is the end.’ Lobsang’s voice was mournful.

‘It is also a beginning. The body is like a set of clothes. When it gets old, you discard it for a fresh one. That’s all he has done, decided to discard his body. But not the spirit. That lives on. And will find a new body.’

‘When?’

‘Soon.’

‘Where?’

Kunga gave a low sigh. ‘Ah, now that is the mystery.’

The light was fading fast, Kunga trimmed the butter lamps. The last of the gentle breeze had vanished with the light, the flames did not flicker. Everything was still.

‘It is almost over, I sense it. Time for you to go, little friend.’

‘I’d like to stay. Please? To help you.’ A quieter voice. ‘To help him.’

And so they had settled for the night, Kunga sitting before the cave, and Lobsang close before him, wrapped in the monk’s thick robe, waiting for the Dalai Lama to die.

Kunga had been determined to stay awake and vigilant, but he couldn’t help himself. He fell into a deep and dreamless sleep. It was Lobsang who woke first.

‘He’s moved,’ the boy whispered, tugging at the monk’s robe.

Kunga brushed the night from his eyes and stared. The sun was beginning to light the sky, deepening the shade within the cave, and for a moment his tired eyes struggled to adjust.

‘He has moved,’ Lobsang insisted. ‘That must mean he’s still alive, mustn’t it?’

It is given to few in the world of Buddhist mysteries to know when the spirit has finally departed; Kunga was one of the few. He shook his head. ‘No. It is over. He is gone.’

The Dalai Lama was dead.

But the boy was right, the body had moved. In death the face had turned as though looking out across the world below. Towards the west. It was a sign.

And Kunga felt a strange sensation in his hand. When his hands had been pulverized by the rifle butt of the Chinese soldier, a large fragment of the clay statue had buried itself deep into the flesh of his palm, leaving a vivid scar that had never fully healed. On the day the Lama had taken himself to his cave, the scar had begun to burn, the first sensation other than constant pain he had felt in forty years, a sensation that had grown more fierce with every passing day. Now it felt as though it was on fire. He rubbed the palm against his chest, but it burned still more fiercely. The outline of the scar had grown red, like a map drawn on the parchment of his skin. A map of what, he had no idea. But he knew it was another sign.

The book and the black eye arrived in his office together, both being carried by Mickey.

‘What the hell have you been up to?’ Goodfellowe growled, seeing the mark that not even a copious sponging of Clinique concealer had been able to hide. Then, remembering his manners: ‘You all right?’

‘Just a little accident.’

‘Accident? What accident?’

‘The truth?’

‘Of course the bloody truth.’

‘Stage diving.’

His silence betokened utter ignorance.

‘Stage diving,’ she repeated. ‘You know, when you try to get up on stage?’

‘You’ve been auditioning for Pygmalion,’ he announced triumphantly. ‘And you fell off the casting couch?’

She looked at him waspishly, the slight bump above her left eye giving her an uncharacteristic scowl. ‘Bugger off.’

‘Whoops, sorry,’ he said, not meaning it.

‘Stage diving,’ she repeated, trying again. ‘The stage in question was at the LSE. A university bash. Def Leppard were playing.’

‘Deaf who …?’

She rolled her eyes in despair. ‘They’re a band. Heavy metal. The sort of music with megatons of bass that makes your skull vibrate. The sort that needs tight leather pants just to keep you in.’

‘I wonder why I haven’t heard of them,’ he muttered, all sarcasm.

‘So the idea is that you work up a rush of blood, jump up onto the stage and try to grab a piece of them.’

‘What on earth is the point?’

‘Not much. They’re ancient, about your age. Most stage divers wouldn’t have a clue what to do if we actually caught them. But we don’t. The purpose of the exercise is for the roadies – their road crew – to grab hold of you and throw you back into the crowd. Or rather, onto the crowd, since everyone’s packed so tight in front of the stage that all they can do is pass you back over their heads. Which means hundreds and hundreds of deliciously sweaty hands tossing you around and passing all over your body.’

‘But why would people want to do that?’

She groaned. ‘Take a wild guess, Goodfellowe.’

The impression began to form, and he had the grace to look momentarily stunned.

‘But last night they must’ve been down on numbers.’ She shrugged. ‘They dropped me.’

He studied her, studied her body, very closely, imagining the hands. His hands. He gathered his flustered thoughts. ‘Two suggestions. First, don’t spread that around this place. Wouldn’t do you any good. Or me, for that matter. Say you ran into a filing cabinet; that’s the standard parliamentary excuse for a black eye.’

‘And second?’

‘When I say I want the truth …’ He winced. ‘I’m not sure I always mean it.’

She smiled sweetly. ‘I guess you were young once.’

‘Don’t bet on it. Anyway, enough of your off-duty diversions. What work have we got?’

She handed him a book that was floating on top of the usual pile of daily letters. ‘Came this morning. From the Dalai Lama.’

‘You’re not the only one full of surprises,’ he offered as he inspected the book. It was an elderly edition of the writings of Sun Tzu, the Chinese military strategist who had written about the art of warfare more than two thousand years before (although he lived so long ago that scholars debated endlessly about whether he truly wrote the works, or if he even existed). The thick paper was brittle and discoloured with age, the cover of cheap card and scuffed. With great care Goodfellowe opened the book, at random, concerned lest the pages should fall apart in his hands.

‘If you rely on Government to put out the fire, by the time the bucket arrives there is nothing left but ashes,’ he read.

He smiled wryly. ‘Two thousand years and nothing’s changed.’

‘At least in those days the Government could afford a bucket.’

‘But I don’t understand. Why is a Tibetan man of peace passing on the musings of a Chinese warlord?’

‘There’s a letter in the back.’

It was written in a bold hand.

‘My dear Thomas Goodfellowe, I have been interested in military strategy since I played with lead soldiers in the Potala Palace as a child. In those days I always won! We Tibetans were once a warrior race, but now we must fight our battles by other means. Sun Tzu often shows how. I thought he might interest you. Especially since the future has a Chinese face.’

That phrase again. It was dated and signed in Tibetan script that meandered like an ancient river in flood across the page.

‘Bit like the bloody Times crossword, isn’t it?’ Mickey interjected. ‘“The future has a Chinese face.” Does that mean he’s given up?’

Goodfellowe stared at the letter. ‘No, of course he hasn’t given up. Can’t have given up. This is all about continuing to fight the battle, but by other means.’

‘What other means?’

He shook his head. ‘Dunno.’ He placed the book in a desk drawer and turned to the pile of correspondence. ‘And since he’s not a constituent I don’t suppose we’re ever going to have the time to find out. His battles aren’t our battles. They weren’t when I was a Minister, and can’t be now I’ve no more influence than yesterday’s weather forecast.’

Goodfellowe was wrong, of course. He would come to realize that, as soon as he discovered the letter was probably the very last thing the Dalai Lama had written in this life.

Mo could scarcely contain his frustration. He had rushed into the Ambassador’s office, perhaps a trifle enthusiastically but only in order to pass on the good news. Yet he had been forced to stand, humiliated, before her desk while the ancient warrior prattled on about courtesy and youth. It wasn’t as if she had been busy with anything of importance, merely rearranging the clutter of family photographs that dominated her desk.

‘A private secretary should know when privacy is meant to be respected. If they want to remain a private secretary, that is.’

She was constantly changing around those photographs, a daily ritual, like some old woman throwing fortune sticks in the temple. Faded sepia prints of her mother and father, revolutionaries who had met on the Long March, six thousand miles through central China to the caves of Shaanxi. Also one grandmother. Two aunts who had died on that march. Sisters. And of course her only daughter. A sickness her family had, only producing girls. The shame of the Lins.

‘Doors are meant for knocking on, not kicking down,’ Madame Lin lectured.

Mo hung his head, less in respect than in an attempt to hide the flush on his cheek. Listen to her! Kicking down doors? But that’s what the new China was about. The Ambassador was an old woman in an outdated world who had been left behind by the changes that were gripping their country. Sure there was corruption. And chaos. Hadn’t there always been? But now there was also something new. Opportunity. Open doors. Even if occasionally those doors needed a little forcing.

He took a deep breath. ‘Ambassador, I apologize.’

She waved her hand impatiently, leaving Mo unclear as to whether she was waving away his presence or his offence. He seized the moment.

‘But there is wonderful news that I wished you to have.’ His tone grew more eager. ‘The renegade Lama is dead.’

She became thoughtful, then grew unsettled, almost concerned. He had expected her to respond to the news, but not in this manner.

‘I thought you would wish to celebrate,’ he added, suddenly uncertain.

‘Then your presence is even less appropriate than I thought, Private Secretary.’ She always used his formal title when slapping him down. The deep frown was back, creasing her forehead.

‘I don’t understand, Ambassador.’

‘The first perceptive thing you’ve said all day.’

She was unusually brittle this morning. More bowel trouble, perhaps. Best to pacify. He bowed. ‘It would be an honour if you would explain.’

How he hated this vast office at the heart of the Embassy. They might just as well have been back in old Beijing rather than at the centre of a thriving Western capital. When the new Ambassador had arrived it had been an opportunity to bring the place to life with some of the new colour and fashions that were coming out of Shanghai and Hong Kong, but the old woman had turned it into something fit only for the scrapbook of a dowager empress – heavy rosewood chairs complete with antimacassars, dark lacquer screens, heavy rugs, oppressive potted plants. No imagination. All imported from home, even the musty smell, which seemed to have been borrowed from some dank winter’s day in central Beijing.

Madame Lin walked across the room to stand silhouetted against the window, where she lit a cigarette and took the smoke down to the bottom of her lungs.

‘So the Lama is dead,’ she repeated.

‘Gone. Wiped away,’ Mo enthused.

‘No, that’s where you are wrong. Simply because he was an enemy you underestimate him.’

‘But there is nothing left to underestimate.’ He struggled to hide his exasperation, and was not altogether successful.

‘In life he was significant. Yet in death he is a still greater uncertainty. And we have enough uncertainty in China today to satisfy even the keenest sceptic. Which is why young men like you are in such a hurry, Mo.’

Her tone was chiding and he wasn’t entirely sure what she was getting at. Time to get back to the matter in hand. ‘You are suggesting he is more of a threat to us dead?’

‘While he lived we knew where he was, what he was up to. Our eyes were always upon him. But how can we follow him now?’

‘You can’t believe in the absurdity of rebirth?’ Mo was aghast. His training at the Foreign Affairs Institute in Beijing had been most specific on the point.

‘It doesn’t matter what I think. What matters is what millions of Tibetans think, and they believe he will come back to lead them. A new Lama. Like a Messiah. While they are waiting they will make trouble. And when he returns, whoever he may be, they’ll make even more trouble. The wind blows cold from those mountains.’

‘Then we must remain alert, Ambassador.’

She turned on him. ‘The question, Mo, is whether you will remain at all.’

‘Ambassador?’

‘You take me for a fool. That I cannot tolerate.’

He began to protest. She cut him short.

‘You steal antiques and artefacts from the Embassy, Mo. My Embassy.’

Thick cigarette smoke hung in the air, creating an atmosphere that was suddenly clinging and intensely claustrophobic. ‘Ambassador, I can assure you …’

‘You can assure me of nothing. I know, Mo. About how you’ve been moving antiques around the Embassy. To hide them. Sending them off to your cousin in Amsterdam and having them copied. Then selling the original, and returning the fake to the Embassy.’

She was by the fireplace now, with Mo still protesting.

‘Not true. Not true …’

As though to prove her point she picked up an earthenware cocoon vase from the mantelpiece, covered in devils’ eyes and subtle whorls and the encrustations of age. She held it shoulder-high for his inspection. ‘How old would you say, Mo? One thousand? Two thousand? Han dynasty, I think. Yes, two thousand years old.’

Then with remarkable dexterity for a woman of her age she lobbed it across the room in his direction. In alarm Mo reached out and snatched it from the air, juggling desperately with it for a few tangled moments. But he couldn’t hold it. It fell. And smashed to fragments.

‘Not even two thousand days, Mo. But a very effective copy, nonetheless. Your cousin is to be congratulated.’

Across the vast space which seemed to separate them their eyes met and locked, and a change came over Mo. The cringing of previous moments was replaced by something altogether more substantial. If the game was up, he decided, there was little point in continuing to be horsewhipped by a woman. ‘Ambassador, I believe that is the first compliment you have ever paid me or my family.’

She ignored his impudence. ‘Why, Mo? Why all this dishonesty?’

He shrugged. ‘Only three pieces have gone. The first went to pay your predecessor’s gambling debts.’ His tone had an edge of disdain.

‘You never told me he gambled,’ she accused.

‘As you would not expect me to gossip to your successor about you.’

‘And the second piece? What became of that?’

‘It went to pay the outstanding bills on the refurbishment of your Residence.’

‘But why? The budget has been exceeded?’

‘No, simply not paid by the Foreign Ministry. Our budgets are months behind. I thought it wise to pay the bills and fix your leaking roof. And equally prudent not to tell you about it.’

She nodded. The Chinese economy was in chaos and Embassy expenses were beginning to fall ever farther down the list of Foreign Ministry priorities. The Residence was tired, unkempt, in need of refurbishment. What Mo said made sense. Her tone grew more emollient.

‘And the third, Mo? The third piece went for what purpose, please?’

He knew she would come to that. He had carefully dragged his Ambassadors into his little game, paying some of their debts and soiling them by association. But he knew it wouldn’t hide his own activities. Mo was one of the brightest and best-qualified young diplomats of his generation. Fudan University before the Foreign Affairs Institute. Every step of his career accompanied by commendations and acclaim. That’s why many years earlier than he might have expected he’d ended up in London, one of the most prized of foreign postings. But he and the other staff might just as well have been posted to a warehouse in Ulan Bator. Of London itself they knew and saw practically nothing. They weren’t allowed to touch. They lived almost entirely within the Embassy walls. They ate in the Embassy’s canteen, worked beneath the Embassy’s harsh lights and slept in the Embassy’s unwelcoming and lonely beds. The cockroaches here were almost as big as in their old university dorms. And their greatest excitement – oh revolutionary joy! – proved to be a communal bus trip to Brighton. Windy, rain-splattered Brighton. Next year they had been promised Bognor.

Even as the secretaries fluttered at the prospect of Bognor, Mo felt sick with frustration. And his sickness grew. One day he had been permitted (after first reporting to Security) to walk to the Chinese pharmacy in Shaftesbury Avenue so that he might pick up some herbs for the Ambassador. Just down from the pharmacy he had found a young man and his dog, wrapped in a blanket in a doorway. A beggar in the midst of plenty. Proof before his eyes of the Western disease. Except that in his bowl the young man and his dog had made more money in a morning than Mo could spare in a week. A Chinese diplomat, yet he couldn’t even look an English beggar in the eye.

It could have been worse, of course. Mo was already on the ladder of privilege which, as he climbed, would eventually bring him advantage and reward. Yes, eventually. He’d just decided it would make sense to short-circuit the system a little. To grab some of the benefits before he was too old to enjoy them. Certainly before he was as old as Madame Lin. But he wasn’t about to tell her that. So he said nothing, simply returning her stare defiantly. Why should he incriminate himself? But in spite of his silence, she knew.

‘I see. You had touched forbidden fruit and decided to taste it for yourself.’

‘What do you propose to do?’

‘The rules say I should send you back to Beijing.’

He flinched. ‘Where the People’s Republic will show its gratitude by taking me to a football stadium, placing me on my knees in front of the crowd and blowing my brains out through my ears.’

‘You have broken the rules.’

‘As did your predecessor,’ he protested with vehemence. ‘But I doubt that he will be kneeling beside me. There are privileges that accompany rank, even in the People’s Republic.’

‘Perhaps particularly in the People’s Republic.’

Mo started. The prospect of being done to death permitted a measure of cynicism. But he hadn’t expected Madame Lin to reciprocate.

‘Simply because I am an Ambassador does not make me blind, Mo. And simply because I am old does not make me forget.’

‘Forget what?’

‘That I too was once young. A Red Guard. We shot people too, during the terror of the Cultural Revolution. We shot people who had done much less than you. Some who had done nothing at all. We made mistakes far worse than yours.’ She paused. ‘There has been too much shooting.’

His heart stuttered in hope and disbelief. An old woman, an old revolutionary, come to repentance? ‘What do you intend to do with me?’

‘Mo, you are no older than my own daughter. You are a fool in some matters, like politics. But you are adventurous. And adaptable. Such qualities will be necessary in the difficult times ahead.’

‘So … what do you intend?’ he repeated.

She left him hanging for a few pain-filled moments, like a fish impaled on a hook. ‘I intend that you should notice the gap on my mantelpiece, Mo. Where there should be something very old.’ She reeled him in. ‘Perhaps your cousin can fill it for me.’

They came together to remember him in many corners of the globe. Particularly in Tibet, before the baton charges and electric prods of the People’s Armed Police forced them to flee. Around the world they gathered in small groups, and in vast crowds, the high and the humble, monarchs and those who were merely mortal, to give thanks for the life of Tenzin Gyatso, the fourteenth Dalai Lama.

On the mountainside in McLeod Ganj, in front of the steps that led to the temple of the Naingyal Monastery, they built a great brass chorten, a tomb which they covered in gold leaf and decorated with many precious stones. And above it they built a canopy of blue, yellow, white, red and green, the symbolic colours of the sky, the earth, water, fire and air. And the body of the Dalai Lama was taken from its cave and prepared by embalmers in the ancient tradition, washing the eviscerated body in milk and rubbing it with salt. The face and hands were also covered in gold leaf and the body, wrapped in brocade robes, was placed in its position of meditation within the chorten.

A small window was left in the side of the chorten so that the body might never leave his followers’ sight.

The monks, led by the abbot of Namgyal, began to chant the protector rights, praying that his teachings might be preserved and the body might be safeguarded, and also that the reincarnation would be swift. The national flag of Tibet that in normal times flew above the monastery was hauled down and would not be raised again until many weeks of mourning were complete.

And when gifts had been bestowed upon those monks and craftsmen who had laboured to build the chorten, the ordinary people came to offer their own prayers and tears, and to make prostrations, giving thanks for his life and many works. And across his empty throne they placed a mountain of white prayer scarves.

Then they waited for his return.

THREE

More than three years had passed since the death of the Lama. Years of emptiness and anticipation for those who were waiting in the hope, or in the fear, that he would come again.

It was spring. Violent. Unpredictable. The ageing sash windows were locked against the dampness but as always they leaked and rattled. All winter long she had nagged her husband to fix them, concerned that the chill winds would get into the child’s chest. To no avail; he was always so busy. By the time the task had grabbed his attention it would be high summer. ‘There, I told you not to bother,’ he would say, looking up from his tea and laughing at her. ‘I was born in a mud hut up a mountain and you go on about a few draughts. The child needs a bit of fresh air. You worry too much.’ In less defensive moments he had promised that one day they would move into a larger place where she could have room not only for herself but maybe even for another baby, somewhere away from the noise and the traffic. One day, he promised, but for the moment she must be content. The laundry business on the ground floor was still no better than struggling, not a time yet for taking great leaps. She was impatient, at times angry. This was not a part of town to set up a family, and in her opinion it was scarcely a part of town to set up a cleaning business either, not with the condition of some of the clothes and bed linen that were brought in. Only this morning she had repaired one of Sophie’s costumes. It had clearly been slashed with a razor. Yet Sophie had merely given her that bold, brash, sad smile of hers and made some excuse about another day, another downer. Do your best, Sophie had asked, and she had done, but the best in this place, like the windows, was never good enough.

She should have fixed the windows herself. Never too late. It only needed a few twists of paper to be forced into the gaps. So she found a roll of brown wrapping paper in the back of the cupboard and began cutting it into pieces. ‘Paper. Paper,’ she said to the child, encouraging him to repeat the sound, but as yet he had shown no inclination to talk, even at two years of age. He preferred to sit and watch her, as he was doing now, his eyes bright and aware, and exceptionally dark, even for an Oriental. ‘Paper, paper,’ she repeated, but he merely chuckled and tried to bite the head off his Teletubby.

‘You’re stubborn. You get that from your father,’ she chided, opening the window. From the narrow street below came the clatter of the open-air market. Customers complaining. Car horns blaring. Traders tossing argument and optimism back and forth to get themselves through their long days.

It took her back to her own childhood, when some of her first recollections were of wandering with her own mother through the local market in search of fresh meat and vegetables, and sorting out a little of the freshest gossip while they were about it. That was thirty years ago. Now, down below her, the cries of the market had reached such a pitch that a stranger might think a full-blown quarrel was about to erupt, yet it was nothing more than the hard-handed humour of the street. Just like her childhood.

Except the market of her childhood was now many thousands of miles away. It didn’t have hookers like Sophie. And it hadn’t sold King Edwards by the pound.

Beds, beds, and still more beds.

Once he’d had guest beds, granny’s bed, bunk beds, beds to bounce on and crawl under and pretend were Wild West forts or Spanish galleons. He’d even once had a water bed, but Elinor had thought that pretentious. He’d had more than enough of every kind of bed, when he’d lived in Holland Park. Whole tribes of children would arrive and promptly disappear into the wonderland of the attic or the wilderness of the basement, far enough away to let their mothers chat in peace and let Goodfellowe get on with his paperwork. Good days. But now he had nothing but his own bed and all he could stretch to for guests, even for Sam, was that cantankerous pull-out thing which called itself a sofa.

And still she couldn’t be bothered to clear up after herself, the miserable little madam. But what could he expect of a seventeen-year-old daughter?

The path from relative comfort to adversity had been nothing if not swift, forced out of Holland Park by the effects of AFD Syndrome – Acute Financial Dysfunction Syndrome. (He’d actually heard the phrase used, some psycho-babble given as evidence before the Social Services Select Committee; what bollocks.) That hadn’t been his only problem, of course. He’d also failed a breathalyser test which had reduced him to finding living quarters (he couldn’t call it home) within a reasonable bicycle ride of Westminster. He’d chosen Gerrard Street. Or, more accurately, Gerrard Street had chosen him. The rent and other expenses came to a thousand a year less than his parliamentary housing allowance, but the Chinese landlord hadn’t batted an eyelid when he asked for a receipt for the full amount. The additional thousand meant he could keep Elinor in her nursing home. Parliamentary allowances didn’t run to full-time psychiatric care for wives nor, come to that, did they run to a boarding school education for a seventeen-year-old. But what choice did he have? At least without a car he couldn’t fiddle his mileage allowance, unlike others.

Sam hadn’t found it easy. A small garret studio with a platform for the bed stuck up in the open eaves could never pass as a family home and wasn’t particularly comfortable, but at least she found it convenient for the clubs and galleries when she came to London. She’d been coming up more frequently in recent weeks, often with her friend Edwina, and he was always glad to see her. Even if she didn’t clear up after herself.

Goodfellowe started throwing the bedclothes into a slightly less rumpled pile and wrestling with the mattress mechanism. A year ago he and Sam had scarcely been able to talk, their conversations sheathed in the mutual embarrassment and misunderstanding which filled the gap between puberty and parenthood. Nowadays the embarrassment was all his. She was growing fast, almost too fast for Goodfellowe, with a lack of self-consciousness that had him averting his eyes and left her underwear strewn over his floor. As he gathered up the sheets and threw them onto the laundry pile, he found himself hoping that her lack of self-consciousness didn’t also mean a lack of self-restraint. He knew he should offer her paternal advice, even more so as she lacked a mother’s influence, but somehow whenever he ventured onto this particular field his words deserted him and the good intentions froze. His attempts were never less than clumsy and ultimately always proved unsuccessful. ‘Don’t worry, Dad,’ she had once consoled him; ‘fathers are always the last to know.’

Yesterday she had arrived unexpectedly with a bundle of brochures and magazines under her arm. ‘Got to choose my university for next year,’ she had declared. Heavens, was it that time already? Growing up too fast! He wasn’t ready for this. But at least she had wanted his advice – or, if he were honest, his approval of her choice. University of London, by preference. Best history-of-art courses in the country.

‘And it will be near you,’ she had smiled, turning him as soft and as malleable as wax. ‘And Bryan.’

‘Who the hell’s Bryan?’ he had demanded.

‘Oh, just a boy I like. Nothing too serious yet. If it gets serious I’ll introduce you.’

‘What’s “serious”?’ he had enquired.

‘Backpacking in Umbria, maybe. Or at least driving lessons. He’s suggested it. Got a BMW 3-series. Black. Convertible. With a six-stack Kenwood CD.’

He wasn’t sure whether he was being teased. ‘You can’t take driving lessons in a car like that.’

‘Got any better suggestions?’

He had not. He still had several months to go on his ban and had long ago sold his own car. He lapsed into silence, speculating on what other lessons teenagers learnt in a black, 3-series BMW with endless stereo, and whether it made a difference if the soft top was up or down.

She was on the verge of independence and he had no choice but to accept it. University. Separate holidays. Separate lives, for the most part. He could only be grateful that she shared some of her time and came to stay with him, a friend as well as a daughter – even if it did mean him scrabbling around dealing with dirty linen instead of matters of state. Although on reflection perhaps there wasn’t all that much difference.

He threw a bundle of university brochures to one side and tried to fold the bed back into the sofa. But it was stuck, complaining, something in the way. A magazine had become wedged in a spring. It turned out to be a copy of Metropolitan, a publication that, in the language of the shout line, ‘Makes Young Women Turn On and Turn Over’. It made him feel uncomfortable. He’d never read one before, hadn’t realized it carried items like … He sat down – no, sank would be a better description – onto the bed. This was clearly going to be one of those growing-up sessions that fathers had to endure when they discovered what truly took their daughters’ interests. Like ‘Male Lust – Inside the Mind of the Man Inside You’. And ‘Bonking Your Way to Greater Brain Power’. The illustrations for ‘Nifty Ways to Naughty Nights’ were particularly vivid.

He leafed through the pages, becoming involved in it rather more than he had intended. The photographs of the models were about as close as he got to female flesh nowadays, and he found himself making the most of it. Then, to his intense embarrassment, it dawned on him that any one of these full-figured and flawless young women could have been Sam. In pursuit of her interest in art she had posed for life classes, taken her clothes off for strangers, still did for all he knew, and although he had tried to be as dispassionate and as analytical about it as she was, he had failed. He knew what he felt about these young women, their bodies barely covered, their all too evident sexual attractions, and it served only to remind him what other men felt about Sam.

He hurried on. Through the advice of the agony aunt (‘His Wife Doesn’t Understand Me’), past the breast-enlargement advertisements (‘the implant with impact …’), skipping over the tarot readings and astrology charts until finally he was done. Nothing left but the classified ads. He was about to toss the magazine to one side when he noticed she had marked one of the ads. Ringed it in ink.

The Unplanned Pregnancy Advice Clinic.

It took a little time for the thought to take hold. It was almost as if he were standing on the deck of a great liner which at first trembled then, very slowly, started to sink. The deck began to tilt and the familiar furniture to shift. He found himself scrabbling for his footing, his uncertainty turning by stages to confusion and then to fear. Little Sam. Pregnant? Suddenly he saw a life with so much promise, overflowing with such potential, now on the brink of – what?

Ruin. His daughter. Just another social statistic. Of course! That’s why she’d been coming to London so frequently. Not to see him but to attend a bloody … a bloody bun club! He’d been a fool, felt deceived. But he also felt responsible. All those parental conversations he had tried to launch before retreating in embarrassment. That had been his part of the deal and he had failed. He had owed her more than that. Now she was paying the price, not only for her own weakness but for his, too. His fault. More guilt.

And after the guilt came panic. What to do? He didn’t know, had no idea. He’d never been a grandfather before.

And who was the father? Bryan? Bryan! He’d kill bloody Bryan-the-little-bastard. Or whoever. Perhaps it wasn’t Bryan. Still more panic. No, he wanted it to be Bryan, he didn’t want a whole list of suspects.

Little Sam!

He swore, most vividly, but it didn’t help. And outside he thought he could hear a Black Dog braying, waiting for him. So, lacking any other inspiration and ignoring the fact that it was still only eleven o’clock, Goodfellowe rose unsteadily from the bed and fixed himself a drink.

A different bed, still more makeshift than the first. Little more than a mass of complaining springs, no mattress, supported by four short and rusting iron legs. It was to the legs that they had tied her.

Sherab should never have returned to Tibet. Such trips always involved risk. She was only a functionary, not a mighty maker of decisions, no more than a manager of Potala Travel in McLeod Ganj. But she handled all the travel arrangements for the Dalai Lama’s office and anyone with those sort of connections becamea subject of interest to the Chinese. A target. Yet her mother was gravely ill; it might be a final chance for Sherab to see her. She had no choice.

Luck had not travelled with her. Sherab was riding in the back of a vegetable lorry along an ancient Khampa trade route, avoiding the main roads which were heavily patrolled, but every mile took her further east, to where the Chinese presence was most evident and oppressive, drawing her deeper into danger. Her head was covered to protect her from the swirling dust of the high plateau and the stench of burnt diesel, so she did not see the Chinese patrol at the side of the road. They weren’t looking for her and had little interest other than in liberating a few vegetables to accompany the yak broth they were brewing, but they became suspicious when they found Sherab hiding in the back, covered, and grew still more interested when they found the money belt packed tight with the savings she had intended for her mother. This was no ordinary peasant, concealed behind sacks, and with such soft hands. They could read fear in her eyes, and fear spelled guilt. Anyway, if she wasn’t guilty of something they would have to hand back the money pouch. So she had been apprehended, and Sherab’s life was squandered for an armful of vegetables.

She had been taken to Gutsa Gaol to the east of Lhasa, not in the main section but in a wing reserved for the politicals. It was there they unravelled her true identity by matching sex, age, accent and eventually her face to their files. ‘Sherab Chendrol,’ they had said, ‘we believe you wish to be a good citizen. Please co-operate.’ And to encourage her they had put her in a ‘cooperation’ cell fourteen metres square with one overspilling bucket and twenty hideous women, every one of whom was disfigured by some malevolent skin disease that she presumed to be highly contagious. There was no room to hide, no place to wash, and several of the hags had made a point of brushing up against her. When in the morning she had begged to be put in another cell, she was brought down many musty flights of concrete stairs to this new place. It was below ground, dank, with only a single bare light bulb hanging awkwardly from the ceiling and condensation seeping down the walls. But she felt, at first, relief; at least it had a bed. And she was alone, except for the guards, three male and one female, who accompanied her. There seemed to be very little noise down here; it was a long way from any other part of the prison. She wondered why there was no latrine bucket; perhaps that meant she would not be staying here long. It was only then she realized this could be no ordinary cell.

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