The City & the City (25 page)

“A spy? A nat Qoman in Besźel?”

“Sure. Don’t look like that—it’s not so hard to believe. They’d send it from over there to cover their tracks.”

Dhatt wagged his head noncommittally. “Okay …” he said. “Still a hell of a thing to organize, and you’re not—”

“They never liked Bowden. Maybe they figure if he’s got wind that they’re after him he might have alarm bells, but
not
with a package from Besźel,” I said.

“I get the idea,” he said.

“Where’s Qoma First hang out?” I said. “That’s what they’re called, right? Maybe we should visit—”

“That’s what I keep trying to tell you,” he said. “There’s nowhere
to go. There is no ‘Qoma First,’ not like that. I don’t know how it is in Besźel, but here …”

“In Besźel I know exactly where our own versions of these characters hang out. Me and my constable went round there recently.”

“Well congratulations but it doesn’t work that way here. There’s not like a fucking
gang
with little membership cards and a house they all live in; they’re not unifs and they’re not The Monkees.”

“You’re not saying you’ve got no ultranationalists …”

“Right, I’m
not
saying that, we’ve got plenty, but I’m saying I don’t know who they are or where they live, very sensibly they keep it that way, and I’m saying Qoma First’s just a term some press guy came up with.”

“How come the unificationists congregate but this lot don’t? Or can’t?”

“Because the unifs are clowns. Dangerous clowns sometimes, alright, but still. The sort of people you’re talking about now are serious. Old soldiers, that sort of thing. I mean you got to … respect that…”

No wonder they could not be allowed to gather visibly. Their hard nationalism might rebuke the People’s National Party on its own terms, which the rulers would not permit. The unifs, by contrast, were free or free-ish to unite the locals in loathing.

“What can you tell us about him?” Dhatt said, raising his voice to the others who watched us.

“Aikam?” Buidze said. “Nothing. Good worker. Dumb as a brick. Okay look, I’d have said that until today, but given what he just did, scratch that. Not nearly as tough as he looks. All pecs and no teeth, that one. Likes the kids, makes him feel good to hobnob with clever foreigners. Why? Tell me you’re not eye-balling him, SD. That parcel came from
Besźel
. How the hell would he—”

“Absolutely it did,” Dhatt said. “No one here’s accusing anyone, least of all the hero of the hour. Standard questions.”

“Tsueh got on with the students, you said?” Unlike Tairo, Buidze did not look for permission to answer me. He met my eye
and nodded. “Anyone in particular? Good friends with Mahalia Geary?”

“Geary? Hell no. Geary probably never even knew his name. Rest her.” He made the Sign of Long Sleep with his hand. “Aikam’s friends with some of them, but not Geary. He hangs out with Jacobs, Smith, Rodriguez, Browning …”

“Just that he asked us—”

“He was very keen to know about any leads in the Geary case,” Dhatt said.

“Yeah?” Buidze shrugged. “Well that got everyone really upset. Of course he wants to know about it.”

“I’m wondering …” I said. “This is a complicated site, and I notice that even though it’s mostly total, there’s a couple of places where it crosshatches a bit. And that’s got to be a nightmare to watch. Mr. Buidze, when we spoke to the students, not a single one of them mentioned Breach. At all. Didn’t bring it up. A group of foreign kids? You know how much foreigners are obsessed with that stuff. One of their friends is disappeared and they’re not even mentioning the most notorious bogeyman of Ul Qoma and Besźel, which is even
real
, and they don’t mention it? Which couldn’t help but make us wonder what are they afraid of?”

Buidze stared at me. He glanced at Nancy. He looked around the room. After long seconds he laughed.

“You’re joking. Okay then. Alright then, Officers. Yeah they’re scared alright, but not that someone’s breaching from fuck knows where to mess with them. Is that what you’re thinking?” He shook his head. “They’re scared because they don’t want to get caught.” He held up his hands in surrender. “You’ve got me, Officers. There
is
breaching going on that we’re not able to stop. These little sods breach all the damn time.”

He met our stares. Not defensive. He was matter-of-fact. Did I look as shocked as Dhatt? Professor Nancy’s expression was if anything embarrassed.

“You’re right, of course,” Buidze said. “You can’t avoid all breach, not in a place like this, and not with kids like these. These aren’t locals, and I don’t care how much training you give them, they’ve
never seen anything like this before. Don’t tell me it’s not the same back in your place, Borlú. You think they’re going to play loyal? You think while they wander around town they’re
really
unseeing Besźel? Come on. Best any of us can hope for’s they’ve got the sense not to make a big thing of it, but of
course
they’re seeing across the border. No we can’t prove it, which is why Breach wouldn’t come unless they really fuck up. Oh it’s happened. But much rarer than you think. Not for a long time.”

Professor Nancy still looked down at the table. “You think
any
of the foreigners don’t breach?” Buidze said, and leaned in towards us, spreading his fingers. “All we can get from them’s a bit of politeness, right? And when you get a bunch of young people together, they’re going to push it. Maybe it’s not just looks. Did you always do what you’re told? But these are smart kids.”

He sketched maps on the table with his fingertips. “Bol Ye’an crosshatches
here, here
, and the park it’s in
here
and
here
. And yeah, over at the edges in this direction, it even creeps into Besźel total. So when this lot get drunk or whatever, don’t they egg each other on to go stand in a crosshatch bit of the park? And then, who knows if they don’t, maybe standing still there, without a single word, without even moving, cross over into Besźel, then back again? You don’t have to take a step to do that, not if you’re in a crosshatch. All here.” Tapped his forehead. “No one can prove shit. Then maybe next time when they’re doing that they reach down, grab a souvenir, straighten back up into Ul Qoma with a rock from Besźel or something. If that’s where they were when they picked it up, that’s where it’s from, right? Who knows? Who could prove it?

“So long as they don’t flaunt it, what can you do? Even Breach can’t watch for breach all the time. Come on. If they did, not a single one of this foreign lot would still be here. Isn’t that right, Professor?” He looked at her not unkindly. She said nothing but looked at me in embarrassment. “None of them mentioned Breach, SD Dhatt, because they’re all guilty as hell.” Buidze smiled. “Hey, don’t get me wrong: they’re only human, I like them. But don’t make this more than it is.”

As we ushered them out, Dhatt got a call that had him scribbling notes and muttering. I closed the door.

“That was one of the uniforms we sent to get Bowden. He’s gone. They got to his apartment and no one’s answering. He’s not there.”

“They told him they were coming?”

“Yeah, and he knew about the bomb. But he’s gone.”

Chapter Eighteen

“
I WANT TO GO BACK AND TALK
to that kid again,” Dhatt said.

“The unificationist?”

“Yeah, Jaris. I know, I know, ‘It wasn’t him.’ Right. You said. Well, whatever, he knows something and I want to talk to him.”

“You won’t find him.”

“What?”

“Good luck. He’s gone.”

He fell behind me a few steps and made a phone call.

“You’re right. Jaris is nowhere. How did you know? What the fuck are you playing at?”

“Let’s go to your office.”

“Fuck the office. The office can wait. Repeat, how the fuck did you know about Jaris?”

“Look …”

“I’m getting a bit spooked by your occult abilities, Borlú. I didn’t sit on my arse—when I heard I’d be babysitting you, I looked you up, so I know a little bit, I know you’re no one to fuck with. I’m sure you did the same, so you know the same.” I should have done. “So I was geared up to be working with a detective. Even some hot shit. I wasn’t expecting this lugubrious tutting bugger. How the fuck did you know about Jaris, and why are you
protecting
that little shit?”

“Okay. He phoned me last night from a car or I think from the train and told me he was going.”

He stared at me. “Why the fuck did he call
you?
And why the fuck did you not tell me? Are we working together or not, Borlú?”

“Why did he call me? Maybe he wasn’t bananas about your interrogation style, Dhatt. And are we working together? I thought the reason I was here was to obediently give you everything I’ve got, then watch TV in my hotel room while you find the bad guy. When did Bowden get burgled? When were you going to tell me that? I didn’t see you rushing to spill whatever shit you found out from UlHuan at the dig, and he should have the choicest info—he
is
the bloody government mole, isn’t he? Come on, it’s no big deal, all public works have them. What I object to is you cutting me out then coming the ‘How could you?’”

We stared at each other. After a long moment he turned and walked to the kerb.

“Put out a warrant for Jaris,” I said to his back. “Put a stop on his passports, inform the airports, stations. But he only called me because he was en route, to tell me what he thinks happened. His phone’s probably smashed up by the tracks in the middle of Cucinis Pass, halfway to the Balkans by now.”

“So what is it he
thinks happened?”

“Orciny.”

He turned in disgust and waved the word away.

“Were you even going to fucking tell me this?” he said.

“I told you, didn’t I?”

“He’s just done a runner. Doesn’t that tell you anything? The goddamn
guilty
run.”

“What, you talking about Mahalia? Come on, what’s his motive?” I said that but remembered some of what Jaris had told me. She had not been one of their party. They had driven her out. I hesitated a little. “Or you mean Bowden? Why the hell and
how
the hell would Jaris organise something like that?”

“I don’t know, both. Who knows what makes these fuckers do what they do?” Dhatt said. “There’ll be some fucked-up justification or other, some conspiracy thing.”

“Doesn’t make sense,” I said carefully, after a minute. “It was … Okay, it was him who called me from here in the first place.”

“I
knew
it. You fucking
covered
for him …”

“I didn’t know. I couldn’t tell. When he called last night he told me. Wait, wait, listen, Dhatt: why would he call me in the first place if it was him who killed her?”

He stared at me. After a minute he turned and hailed a cab. He opened its door. I watched. The cab had halted skew-whiff on the road: Ul Qoman cars sounded their horns as they went past, Besź drivers cut quietly around the protub, the law-abiding not even whispering cusses.

Dhatt stood there half-in, half-out, and the cabbie made some remonstrance. Dhatt snapped something and showed him his ID.

“I don’t know why,” he said to me. “Something to find out. But it’s a bit fucking much, isn’t it? That he’s gone?”

“If he was in on it there’s no sense him drawing my attention to
anything
. And how’s he supposed to have got her to Besźel?”

“Called his friends over there; they did it …”

I shrugged a doubting
maybe
. “It was the Besź unifs who gave us our first lead on all this, guy called Drodin. I’ve heard of misdirection, but we didn’t have anything to misdirect. They don’t have the smarts or contacts to know which van to steal—not the ones I’ve met. Plus there’s more
policzai
agents than members on their books anyway. If this was unifs it was some secret hardcore we’ve not seen.

“I spoke to Jaris … He’s scared,” I said. “Not guilty: scared and sad. He was into her, I think.”

“Alright,” Dhatt said after a while. He looked at me, motioned me into the cab. He stayed standing outside for several seconds, giving orders into his phone too quiet and quick for me to follow. “Alright. Let’s change the record.” He spoke slowly as the cab drove.

“Who gives a fuck what’s gone down between Besźel and Ul Qoma, right? Who gives a fuck what my boss is telling me or what yours is telling you? You’re police. I’m police. Let’s fix this. Are we
working together, Borlú? I could do with some help on a case that’s getting more fucked by the minute, how about you? UlHuan doesn’t know fuck, by the way.”

Where he took me, a place very close to his office, was not as dark as a cop bar in Besźel would have been. It was more salubrious. I still would not have booked a wedding reception there. It was, if only just, during working hours, but the room was more than half-full. It cannot have all been local
militsya
, but I recognised many of the faces from Dhatt’s office. They recognised me, too. Dhatt entered to greetings, and I followed him past whispers and those so-charmingly frank Ul Qoman stares.

“One definite murder and now two disappearances,” I said. I watched him very carefully. “All people who are known to have looked at this stuff.”

“There is no fucking Orciny.”

“Dhatt, I’m not saying that. You said yourself there are such things as cults and lunatics.”

“Seriously fuck off. The most culty lunatic we’ve met just fled the scene of the crime, and you gave him a free pass.”

“I should have said first thing this morning, I apologise.”

“You should’ve called last night.”

“Even if we could find him I thought we didn’t have enough to hold him. But I apologise.” Held my hands open.

I stared at him some time. He was overcoming something. “I want to solve this,” he said. The pleasant burr of Illitan from the customers. I heard the clucks as one or two saw my visitor’s mark. Dhatt bought me a beer. Ul Qoman, flavoured with all kinds of whatnot. It would not be winter for weeks, and though it was no colder in Ul Qoma than in Besźel, it felt colder to me. “What do you say? If you won’t even fucking trust me …”