When we walked into the analysis room, Comrade Jin and a couple of his people were autopsying a radio intercept and they had already picked out a couple of words from the message in front of them: PLA, recover, exercise … They had already autopsied twenty-seven messages, but there were nearly a thousand waiting for them. When I was chatting with Comrade Jin, I happened to mention that Huang Yiyi was already a professor, and that she had transferred in at senior level, so she was actually earning more than I was. When Comrade Jin heard that he was amazed, and staring at Huang Yiyi he asked, ‘How old are you?’

‘Pretty ancient,’ she said.

‘You look very young to me.’

She laughed. ‘Really? Do you know why I look so young?’ Comrade Jin was just about to say something, but she didn’t wait for him to speak. ‘That’s my secret, and I’m not telling you!’ Then she walked away shaking her head, leaving Comrade Jin standing there, not knowing what to do.

When I came out she said mysteriously to me, ‘Do you want to know why I look so young? I can tell you.’

I glanced at her sideways. ‘Or you could not tell me.’

‘Oh, I want to tell you. It’s because I have love. You know, women need to experience love, because if they don’t have it they get old.’

‘Right now,’ I said, ‘you need to love your cipher – because if you can’t crack it, your hair is going to turn white!’

‘What’s the hurry? You’ve only got twenty-seven corpses for me to look at, and if you want me to love my cipher right at this minute, it would be rather like asking me to make love to an under-age boy, which is a crime.’

She was like that – always putting things in such a peculiar way – though actually she did have a point. I remembered that Anderov had said very much the same thing to me: if you’re dealing with a high-level cipher, it’s better to think about it rather than try to lift the cover too early.

‘Can you please be a little more careful about your choice of words!’ I said. ‘You shouldn’t always be joking around and speaking in such a peculiar way, particularly not with your subordinates. You need to think of the effect that your words are going to have, and not crack all these jokes.’

‘But I want to make them laugh, so that they feel I’m easy to get on with.’

‘You’re devious; not at all easy to get on with.’

‘And you’re a moron.’

‘Listen to me! If you keep talking to them in this free and easy way, they’re going to think you’re stupid and frivolous.’