Li was getting at Kai through his wife. Many men would think it shameful to attack a man by threatening his family, but the Chinese secret service had never hesitated. And it was effective. Kai could withstand an assault on himself, but he could not bear to see Ting suffer on his account.
Li went on: ‘There have been conversations critical of the Party.’
Kai tried not to let his distress show. ‘I see,’ he said in a neutral voice.
‘I’m sorry to say that your wife, Tao Ting, participated in some of them.’
Kai directed a look of hatred and contempt at Li, who was clearly not sorry in the least. In fact, he was delighted to bring a charge against Ting.
This could have been handled differently. The comradely thing would have been for Li to tell Kai about the problem quietly, in private. But instead he had chosen to go to the minister, maximizing the damage. It was an act of naked hostility.
Kai told himself that such underhand tactics were the weapons of a man who knew he could not rise by merit. But this was small consolation. He was sick at heart.
Fu said: ‘This is serious. Tao Ting could be influential. She is probably more well known than I am!’
Of course she is, you fool, Kai thought. She’s a star, and you’re a narrow-minded old bureaucrat. Women want to emulate her. No one wants to be like you.
Fu went on: ‘My wife watches every episode of Love in the Palace. She seems to pay it more attention than the news.’ He was clearly disgruntled about this.
Kai was not surprised. His mother watched the show, but only if his father was out of the house.
Kai pulled himself together. With an effort he remained courteous and unruffled. ‘Thank you, Li,’ he said. ‘I’m glad you informed me about these allegations.’ He gave a distinct emphasis to the word allegations. Without directly denying what Li said, he was reminding Fu that such reports were not always true.
Li looked resentful at the implication, but said nothing.
‘Tell me,’ Kai went on, ‘who made this report?’
‘The senior Communist Party official at the studio,’ said Li promptly.
This was an evasive answer. All such reports came from Communist officials. Kai wanted to know the original source. But he did not challenge Li. Instead, he turned to Fu. ‘Would you like me to talk to Ting about this, quietly, before the might of the ministry is officially brought to bear?’
Li bristled. ‘Subversion is investigated by the Domestic Department, not by the families of accused persons,’ he said in a tone of wounded dignity.
But the minister hesitated. ‘A degree of latitude is normal in such cases,’ he said. ‘We don’t want prominent people brought into disrepute unnecessarily. It does the Party no good.’ He turned to Kai. ‘Find out what you can.’
‘Thank you.’
‘But be quick. Report to me within twenty-four hours.’
‘Yes, minister.’
Kai stood up and walked briskly to the door. Li did not follow him. He would stay behind and whisper more poison to the minister, no doubt. There was nothing Kai could do about that now. He went out.
He needed to talk to Ting as soon as possible, but to his frustration he had to put her out of his mind for now. First he had to deal with the UN problem. Back in his own suite he spoke to his principal secretary, Peng Yawen, a lively middle-aged woman with short grey hair and glasses. ‘Call the foreign minister’s office,’ he said. ‘Say I would like to meet him to convey some urgent security information. Any time today that suits his convenience.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Kai could not move until he knew when that would happen. The Beautiful Films studio was not far from the Guoanbu headquarters, but the Foreign Ministry was miles across town in the Chaoyang District, where many embassies and foreign businesses had their premises. If traffic was bad, the journey could take an hour or more.
Fretting, he looked out of the window, across the assorted roofs with their satellite dishes and radio transmitters, to the highway that curved around the Guoanbu campus. The traffic appeared normal, but that could change quickly.
Happily, the Foreign Office responded promptly to his message. ‘He’ll see you at twelve noon,’ said Peng Yawen. Kai looked at his watch: he could make it comfortably. Yawen added: ‘I’ve called Monk. He should be outside by the time you reach the ground floor.’ Kai’s driver had gone bald at a young age and had been nicknamed Heshang, Monk.
Kai stuffed the messages from embassies into a folder and went down in the lift.