Treacherous Women - Sex, temptation and betrayal (True Crime) by Gordon Kerr Read Free Book Online Page A

was too frightened to knock at the door and returned to his hotel. Eventually, he disguised himself in a Mao jacket and a worker’s cap, borrowed a bike and cycled there.
    When he finally met Shi again, she told him how difficult life had been and that it was dangerous for the Frenchman to be there. She told him that she had had a son who looked a lot like him. But the boy had been sent to be looked after away from the city where it would have been too dangerous to keep him. Boursicot returned a few days later, but during this second visit there were problems when the neighbours in the block of flats where Shi was living, appeared at the door shouting about the foreigner who was inside. Some men in uniform also turned up and Boursicot told them he was a ‘friend of the Chinese people’, and was learning from Shi Pei-Pu about the Cultural Revolution.
    Frightened of what might happen to Shi, he stopped visiting her, but cycled around her neighbourhood in his disguise several times a week hoping to see her. Eventually, he saw her out walking and Shi managed to whisper to him that she would meet him on the corner of Wangfujing and Changan Avenue every Thursday at two o’clock.
    Unable to meet and talk, the two began to arrive there every Thursday. They could not even sit at the same bench and so would sit looking longingly at each other from different seats. Shi eventually broke their silence by obtaining permission, through her unit boss at the Writers’ Association, for them to meet officially to discuss the Thoughts of Chairman Mao twice a week at her apartment.
    They continued in this way for several months until Shi informed him that a man from the government was going to continue with the lessons. Two men arrived on his next visit and proceeded to teach him about the glories of Chairman Mao’s China. Before long, they told him, however, that if he was to continue to see Shi, he was going to have to provide them with information from the embassy.
    And so, Boursicot’s career as a spy began. He had no access to military information, but did see all the mail that entered the embassy. He provided reports from the French Embassies in Moscow and Washington, useful material for the Chinese. He justified his actions by telling himself that he was doing no harm to his own country; the information was all about China’s great enemy – the USSR.
    Meanwhile, his relationship with Shi entered a tricky phase. She complained constantly and their sex life was still far from satisfactory. They made love rarely and when they did it seemed to Boursicot to be rushed. He was barely allowed to touch his partner and Shi merely satisfied him with her hands and her mouth.
    In spring 1972, Boursicot’s contract ended and he left China. He returned briefly in November 1973, however, and on this visit, finally met his son. But, he was there only for a few weeks before returning to France.
    Back home, Boursicot struck up a relationship with a twenty-three-year-old man called Thierry. They moved in together and were very happy. In 1975 the two relocated to New Orleans in the United States, Boursicot having rejoined the diplomatic service. When he was not working in the passport section of the French Consulate, he accompanied Thierry on cruises of the city’s gay bars and bathhouses.
    However, back in China, things were changing. The Chinese Premier, Zhou Enlai had died and the old leadership was beginning to fail. The Cultural Revolution, too, was coming to an end. Boursicot decided he wanted to go back and bring Shi and Betrand back to Paris. However, the only diplomatic opening he could find was in Ulan Bator, the capital of Mongolia. It would be cold and miserable, but it was only thirty-six hours by train from Beijing and he would have to make that journey on a regular basis to take documents to the embassy in the capital.
    The work in the embassy in Ulan Bator was all-encompassing. He was accountant, mail clerk as well as secretary to the