The Orientalist and the Ghost by Susan Barker

the atmosphere of a pressure cooker. I was convinced he was going to wallop me. I’d never been in a drunken brawl before (except the time I restrained a wild Max Montgomery from attacking Freddy St Clair at the Fencing Society ball) and had no desire to make up for this lack of experience. I was about to announce that I was off to bed, when there was a knocking at the door. The knocks came in staccato bursts, spaced at intervals.
    ‘Ah ha! I know who that is!’ cried Charles. ‘Yes, yes, you may enter!’
    The door opened and a young Chinese man slipped in like a quick-moving shadow. He wore the latex-splattered uniform of a rubber tapper.
    ‘Detective Pang, welcome!’ cried Charles.
    ‘ ’Evening, Detective,’ said Spencer, hostility cast aside as he greeted the newcomer.
    The man came and sat at the table.
    ‘My loving Bolshevik salutes to you, Lieutenant Spencer, Resettlement Officer Dulwich.’
    The man’s locution was indistinguishable from that of an Englishman. To hear such refinement from a Chinese squatter was as strange as being spoken to by a cat.
    ‘Ha, ha, ha, I’ll give you a Bolshevik salute, yer cheeky sod,’ said Spencer, laughing.
    ‘Assistant Resettlement Officer Milnar, how do you do? I’m Detective Pang.’
    The detective and I shook hands.
    ‘How do you do?’ I said. ‘Crikey. You look nothing like a detective.’
    ‘Detective Pang is the head of a thirty-strong network of undercover spies in the village,’ said Charles.
    ‘Thirty-strong!’ I echoed.
    ‘Whisky, Detective?’
    ‘Oh, yes. Splendid.’
    Detective Pang was as nondescript as the hundreds of other tappers in the village, and I’d no memory of having seen him before. With the bullish Spencer and the barrel-chested Charles either side of him, the detective seemed fragile and bird-boned, as if an enthusiastic bear hug would crush him. His cheekbones were high and feline and the low droopy folds of his eyelids made him seem half asleep (the opposite of vigilant; possibly integral to his success as a secret agent). As Charles ransacked the drinks cabinet for more booze, Detective Pang took a bag of sunflower seeds out of his trouser pocket. He nibbled the seeds as he sipped his nightcap, splitting them open with his teeth and discarding the striped husks on the table.
    ‘How’s the old intelligence gathering going?’ asked Charles. ‘What have the Min Yuen been up to lately? Spill the beans!’
    ‘Up to their usual tricks, I’m afraid. We’ve had a successful week, though, and have passed on the names of several Min Yuen suspects to Sergeant Abdullah.’
    ‘Terrific result. Well done!’
    ‘Ah, we have my wife to thank. The sewing circle she has joined has proved to be a goldmine of enemy information. The wives of the Min Yuen have lips as loose as their morals and are forever bragging of their husbands’ criminal activities.’
    The Chinese detective was so well-spoken and refined, I asked him if it was difficult to assume the identity of a common squatter.
    ‘No, it’s very easy,’ he replied. ‘I chew the betel nut and keep a hog and four geese. I talk with my mouth full and beat my wife. I have built my hovel from the same scavenged rubbish as the other squatters and have cut down on washing. No one here knows us from before, but they assume we’re just random unfortunates caught up in the government resettlement scheme. I only visit the police hut and Resettlement Officer Dulwich in the dead of night. I am rude to the village police, and Sergeant Abdullah has had his men pretend to arrest me on two occasions to place me above suspicion. When you see me in the village, you must never approach me or talk to me, even though you are known for your friendliness, Mr Milnar. If anyone discovers that my wife and I are spies, the Communists will murder us.’
    ‘What sacrifices you have made in order to pass yourself off as an ignorant squatter!’ marvelled Charles. ‘Sacrifices of the spirit, as well as in