I had been surprised at the news about my new job, but what he told me next about my wife, Xiaoyu, was a shock – a dreadful shock! Director Tie informed me that a memorial ceremony would be held the following day at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for Xiaoyu, and that he would be attending as one of her former instructors.

‘What are you talking about?’ I said.

‘Don’t you think that Xiaoyu was a wonderful assistant? If you hadn’t had Xiaoyu’s help, would you have found it quite so easy to pass the intelligence that you gathered from Anderov to Comrade Aeroplane?’

Of course not – a student can’t be forever rushing off to meet a much older woman without giving rise to comment. It was perfectly true that the vast majority of the information was passed to Comrade Aeroplane by Xiaoyu. She was doing secretarial work at the embassy and Comrade Aeroplane was married to her boss; the two of them got on well and met up regularly, so it was easy for her to transmit information. The thing is that I could have sworn that Xiaoyu didn’t know my real job, or that Comrade Aeroplane and I were in contact. But in fact … there was another, even bigger secret. Director Tie told me that Xiaoyu knew all about it, that she too had been a special agent, but that she kept quiet about it so as not to add to the pressure I was under, and because her own work demanded absolute secrecy. I understood this to mean that Xiaoyu had even higher security clearance than I did! He was going to attend Xiaoyu’s memorial ceremony in a private capacity, though in fact he would be representing headquarters, because she had been one of our people. Her job at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was just a cover story; it was all a lie.

This was the most terrible shock, and I immediately realized that there was much that I didn’t know about the circumstances of Xiaoyu’s death.

‘There is a lot you don’t know,’ Director Tie said, ‘not just about the way in which she died.’