That evening I stayed in my office for a while after Huang Yiyi had left, putting the documents and letters I had amassed in Russia into some sort of order, then I set out for home alone. I bumped into Chen just as I turned into the housing compound; it looked as if he had been waiting for me. I thought that he wanted to talk to me about some new ideas for how to crack RECOVERY, so I said I was feeling a bit tired and whatever it was would have to wait until tomorrow. Chen stared at me, but he didn’t say anything. We walked on together in silence, and in the distance I could see the light shining from Huang Yiyi’s windows. I sighed and said, ‘She was working in her office until past eight o’clock. It’s really late now and look, she still hasn’t gone to bed. I guess she is working.’

Chen sniffed and said disdainfully, ‘She’ll be waiting for everyone else to go to sleep, because then she can go out.’

‘Go out? Go where?’

‘To the training centre.’

‘Why on earth would she go to the training centre?’

‘You don’t know?’

I asked what was going on, and he said that it was to do with Comrade Wang, the head of the training centre. I asked what the two of them were up to, but he said nothing.

‘Tell me what is going on, Chen, please!’

‘No one has told you?’

‘If someone had told me, I wouldn’t be asking you.’

‘Find someone else; I really don’t like to say.’

I was getting angry. ‘I am asking you, and I expect you to tell me!’

He said unwillingly, ‘What do you think – they’re having an affair.’ After a short pause he added, ‘Going by what people say, she goes to the training centre every evening and comes back at dawn.’

To get from the cryptography division to the training centre you would have to cross two mountain ridges. If you walked along the main road it would be about eight kilometres, while if you went along the paths you could cut it down to maybe four, but it would still take over an hour. The regulations said that people from the cryptography division could go to the training centre, but not the other way round. So if the two of them were having an affair, it would be Huang Yiyi who had to go to him. But I really found it hard to believe, first because Wang was married and certainly wouldn’t dare do something like that, and secondly Huang Yiyi was so young and so pretty, how on earth could she fall for someone like him?

There was no point speculating. If I wanted to know the truth I would have to call Comrade Wang in and ask him.