The Mandarin Cypher

'Listen, I'm going to tell you the whole thing again and you make sure you get it all down on that tape. Then if you ask me just one more question again I swear I'll throw you straight through that fucking door. Okay?'

I didn't expect an answer because that one's in the book. The interrogator has to keep up the theme of repetition, and anything else he says will ease the monotony and he doesn't want to do that.

'Right. My — '

'What is your name?'

He wanted it his way: if I told him 'the whole thing again' the ball was going to stop in my court. It had to be question, answer, question, answer, wearing you down.

'Harry Cox.'

'Why did you come to Hong Kong?'

'To do some diving.'

'Why?'

'Some people gave me a job.'

'What job?'

'Look for a wreck.'

'What wreck?'

'Now don't start asking me that one again. I've told you, a boat went down with a private collection of gold coins on board, and my present employers — '

'Who are your employers?'

Question 9.

'I gave them my word I wouldn't reveal their names. Listen, you let a thing like this get around and you'll have the whole of the Hong Kong fishing fleet out here looking for that boat, it stands to reason.'

'What is the boat's position?'

What depth, did it Wow up, was there a collision, so forth. I gave him the answers again, there wasn't any problem. But now and then I told him he was a stupid clot and asked him if he'd gone off his rocker, routine cover approach but helpful to relieve the tension in me. He could throw me this stuff till he had to bring in a relief and it wouldn't worry me but it was what they were doing outside this cabin that was starting to give me the shakes because I was a bit farther inside the tunnel at this stage and going deeper and I didn't want to go on.

The man they were going to give me in Pekin would be different from this one. For the first few days I'd respect his skin and admire his techniques and then he'd start getting close and I'd have to fight back till he blew me and when he'd blown me he'd begin on the real stuff: the Bureau.

He would be a top professional. A brain surgeon.

'Where is the yacht?'

'Which one?' Just a gag: this was the thirtieth time.

'The one that dropped you over the wreck.'

'Somewhere in the South China Sea. They didn't say where they were going. Now listen, I've given you the whole thing again, as I said I would. Now if you ask me one more question I'm going to smash you up and you'll wish to Christ you'd never set eyes on me. Now do you understand that?'

I put a lot of spleen into it but he went on staring into my face with his pink-rimmed eyes while he thought out the next question. His feet were still in the stance he'd taken up when I'd talked about throwing him through the door: he'd quietly slid them there and I hadn't looked down but I didn't have to because he was a belt and it would be the first defensive position. You can't interrogate anyone alone in a small room unless you can stop him when he comes at you: intensive questioning can drive a man into a psychic trap and an explosion on the subconscious level can be murderous.

'You are lying,' he said and slapped down my photograph.

Phase two.

He'd taken my cover story and gone over it exhaustively and couldn't break it so now he was going to watch my eyes while he threw facts at me. Facts like the photograph.

'Christ,' I said, 'if I thought I looked like that I'd go and shoot myself!'

'This is your photograph. We know it is.'

'Bloody insulting!'

It was the same one.

'One of our agents managed to swim clear,' he said, 'from the car in the harbour.'

Frown. Three-second pause. Then: 'What the hell are you-'

'He says this is your photograph.'

Prolong mystification. 'Car in the harbour? What on earth,' so forth, till he cut in again.

Your photograph.

Your photograph.

Your photograph.

Till I blew up and began shouting, I tell you you're making a stupid mistake, I demand to phone the governor of Hong Kong, you can't do this to a subject of the United Kingdom, storming up and down, could've been an actor if I didn't have a face like a hyena's arse.

Your photograph.

I let him go on.

Very hot in here now.

Damned if I'm going to ask him to open the door.

Photograph.

Told him to screw himself, then he pulled the towel off the thing on the bed and watched my eyes closely.

'Hell's that?'

'Your radio. We found it.'

Feeble laugh. 'Listen, if I had a radio like that I'd get a bomb for it in Kowloon! What is it — Hammerlund?' I looked at it, very keen radio man.

'This is your radio.'

'Well, I must say that's very generous of you.'

I timed it at fifteen minutes: he gave it all he knew how.

Your radio.

Your radio.

Your radio.

Told him he was out of his cotton-pickin' mind, told him to belt up. Bloody light was in my eyes, starting to worry me. I still wasn't completely out of the narcosis thing and I hadn't slept since eight-o'clock last night and it was now six-thirty and he was still pitching it at me.

'Where was your base? The Hong Kong Cathay?'

'I don't know what you're — '

'The Mauritius? You stayed at both those places.'

'Will you bloody well listen to me a minute? I tell you-'

You're mistaken.

Where was your base?

He threw me the other places on my travel pattern, watching my eyes, trying to pick his way in, the Orient Club, the Golden Sands Hotel, telling me he knew I'd been there, telling i me he knew so much about me that there wasn't any point in my denying his accusations.

'You were there when Flower died.'

'What flower?'

'The man Flower. You were there when he died.'

'What the hell's a man flower?'

I looked at him obliquely again, worried about his mental state.

'Flower was an agent. He was your agent.'

'Oh Jesus wept, are you back on that agent thing?'

Flower.

Flower.

Hot and the light blinding.

Flower.

One stage I thought all right we'll have a go, he's in the first defensive position but that doesn't matter I'll start with a full yoharka, give him no time.

Have to watch it. No emotions. Start emoting and you'll end up right in his hands because the gut-think'll get in the way of the brain-think. Steady.

Tired, that's all. Went down too deep, too long.

'You were there when he — '

'Go and shit.'

'You were — '

'Shuddup.'

'You went to Jade Imperial Mansion.'

'Someone else. Bloke in the snap.'

'Shall we tell Mr Tewson about your woman friend?'

'Moira? What's she got to do with — '

'Not Moira. Nora.'

'I haven't got a woman called Nora. She any good?'

'You went to Jade Imperial Mansion.'

Six times in six minutes.

Poor old Tewson, wonder what he's thinking now. Bit of a shaker for him. But it was pick-proof, that was all I cared. Just her name alone had given it credibility and he couldn't phone her to ask her about it because her line was bugged and they'd monitor his call this end and he'd know that. And he couldn't tell his Chinese fellow-workers because they'd shove him in shackles in case he believed me and tried to dive overboard. There wasn't anything he could do except worry, while the fuse went on burning in his head.

'So you have been lying!'