‘What is it?’ Elle asks.
‘It’s official government shit. Chinese government.’
Em asks, ‘Which bit of the government, Jonny?’
‘Unclear. Lots of terms my correspondent didn’t recognise. But he thinks it’s an espionage thing.’
‘Oh,great.’
I still haven’t quite adjusted. ‘Sorry, but it sounds like we’re saying I broke into Chinese government property today. Are we saying that?’
‘In mitigation, you didn’t know it at the time.’
‘I’m sure they’ll take that into account when they catch up with me.’
‘I read something about this,’ says Em. She taps on her phone. ‘Yes. That’s it. Look.’ She holds it out. Elle and I read it together.
‘What the hell is a dark police station?’
‘It’s basically an unofficial embassy overseas,’ says Jonny. ‘You base a few of your people there, but you don’t register them the same way you do an embassy or a consulate or whatever. And once those people are installed, they can do various things on your behalf without being acknowledged by the host government.’
‘What are they for?’
‘It’s all in the piece, Al.’
I read on. ‘Pressuring dissidents to return … secretive bases overseas … Oh, wow. We’re talking proper George Smiley stuff here.’
‘I don’t think they would get the reference, but yes.’
‘Says here we asked them to shut them all down.’
‘Guess they must have forgotten this one.’
Em gets up and walks the length of the room and back, kicking the treadmill as she passes it.
‘This is what Davy started doing three years ago,’ I say. ‘He was setting up these secret police stations for the Chinese government. Bad places, places you wouldn’t think to look for them. Near Chinese communities too, I suppose.’
‘It won’t just be China,’ says Em. ‘There will be lots of countries running similar things.’
‘This is what he wanted to confess,’ I say. ‘He got too uncomfortable with it, wanted to get out, contacted the police … then someone he was working with found out he’d made the appointment and whacked him.’
‘Who?’
‘Whoever’s in his shared inbox. Whoever he has this UAE account with.’
‘It doesn’t feel veryespionage, turning up at someone’s door and blowing them away,’ says Em. ‘It feels more gangland. I still think it was one of his colleagues from his end of the operation.’
‘But either way,’ says Elle slowly, ‘this is what Davy was up to.’
‘Yeah.’
‘So now we have potentially caught the interest of agents from dozens of hostile foreign powers.’
‘Itoldyou it wasn’t good,’ says Jonny. He’s back on his laptop.
‘And we still don’t know who Davy told about his appointment with the police. It was in his diary in code, and he didn’t make the booking through Mrs P from his office. Even that Kate woman didn’t know what he was going to confess. He was beingcareful.’
‘Not careful enough,’ says Em. ‘What are you typing, Jonny?’
