The Shadow Walker (7 page)

As he made his way along the corridor, he was surprised to see that the lights were already on in one of the other offices. The night shift would have been on duty, of course, but they were unlikely to have ventured up to the management offices. Then he realized. Even now, it seemed, Nergui couldn't resist demonstrating that he was always one step ahead of everyone else. Knowing Nergui's domestic circumstances, though, Doripalam wasn't sure whether to feel irritated or pitying.

He tapped lightly on Nergui's door and poked his head around. “Good morning, Nergui. See you haven't changed your habits.”

Nergui looked up from the mass of paperwork. “Usual story about old dogs and new tricks, I'm afraid.”

Actually, Nergui was sorry that Doripalam had found him here so early in the morning. He had always had a reputation for working absurdly long hours, which others found intimidating and which he knew wasn't particularly justified. There was nothing
wrong with intimidating people now and again, but Nergui didn't want Doripalam to think he was engaged in some egotistical game. There was enough tension between the two men already.

The truth was that Nergui needed little sleep. He had a suspicion that he could probably survive with virtually no sleep at all. But over the years he'd gradually settled for around four hours a night, generally between around one and five a.m.

This morning, he had thought it worth getting in early. Although he had been through the case papers countless times, he wanted to reread them before they met Drew again later in the morning. Nergui had no illusions as to why Drew had been sent here. He knew it was a token gesture aimed largely toward the victim's family and the UK media. He also recognized that there was probably little that Drew could add to the investigation in the limited time he was here.

However, his years of working in this environment had taught Nergui that it was worth making best use of whatever resources were thrown in his direction. At the very least, Drew would bring another perspective to the case—and a fairly astute one, as far as Nergui could judge—which might complement his own experience and Doripalam's perspicacity. More importantly, Drew was an experienced investigating officer, of a kind all too rare in this country. Nergui wanted to extract whatever value he could from his brief presence.

Since arriving in the office at five thirty, he had read painstakingly through the case documents, highlighting apparently important points, making detailed notes, producing short English translations of anything he felt might be of interest to Drew, and reviewing again the innumerable, largely unpleasant photographs.

Doripalam gestured to the mounds of papers and files in front of Nergui. “Surprised you managed to keep awake,” he said. “Find anything new?”

“What do you think?” At least Nergui now felt that he was thoroughly up to speed with everything in the notes. Nevertheless, the
overwhelming impression that he was left with was an absence of any serious leads, nothing they could pursue with any feeling of confidence. “Apart from the usual routine stuff, which you've clearly got well in hand, I can't see anywhere else to go.”

Doripalam nodded. “Well, I'm disappointed to hear you say that, but I wouldn't have been pleased if you'd found something I'd missed.”

“I'd have been astonished. I didn't see it in the notes, but I take it we've done DNA testing on the victims' clothes?”

Doripalam raised an eyebrow in mock reproach, though he accepted that Nergui was only checking that all avenues had been covered. “Official reports aren't back yet,” he said, “but unofficially they've told me there's nothing. There is some extraneous matter on the clothes but nothing that's consistent between the victims or that matches any of our records.”

Nergui nodded and sat back in his chair, looking vaguely around the office as though seeking inspiration. His temporary office here was smaller and more functional than his room in the Ministry, but only marginally so. He was not a man who sought comfort or domesticity in the workplace, or, for that matter, even in his home life, but just for a moment he was struck by the bleakness of the room—the cheap functional desk, the pale green Ministry-issue paint on the walls, an old metal filing cabinet, a two-year-old calendar on the wall. Suddenly he felt as if the state of this room simply demonstrated how thin their resources were, how pitifully ill equipped they were to face whatever it was that lay out there.

Nergui did not underestimate his own capability, he knew he was ideally suited to the role to which he had, for the moment, returned. He hadn't always been successful. But where he had failed he was confident that few could have done more.

So normally, even in these circumstances, he would be approaching this job with relish and optimism, particularly after the deadening experience of recent months. He knew the pressures he was under; he knew that the Minister's job—and
therefore his own—might depend on the outcome of this case. That didn't worry him. It was the price of entry to this level of the game.

But what did worry him, as he sat here looking at Doripalam's tired but still enthusiastic face, were the implications of this case for the city, maybe for the country. This was a fledgling nation in its current form, struggling to find an identity. It was still a primitive state in many ways—its people fearful after decades, even centuries of repression and hardship, where for generations life had been scraped daily from the bare earth, where nothing lay between man and heaven except a thin protection of wood and felt.

There was something about these killings that stirred a primordial unease in Nergui. It was not simply that the streets of the city might be stalked by a psychopath, killing randomly and brutally, Nergui could deal with that. Such a killer would eventually make an error, and might even choose to reveal himself. But what really disturbed Nergui about the killings was the sense of purpose. The sense of deliberate, planned savagery. The sense of some narrative, moving slowly toward its dark resolution.

He slammed shut the file in front of him. “Come on,” he said. “Let's get some coffee. I think we both need it.”

“I'm a United man myself, I'm afraid.”

“Oh, well, we all have our crosses to bear.” Drew wasn't surprised. Like all City fans, he believed that Manchester United had been invented for people who didn't really like soccer.

The ambassador laughed. “I thought it was you lot who bore the stigmata.” Which, Drew noted, was exactly the kind of thing you would expect a United fan to say. Upper class private school preppies who had never even visited Manchester, except maybe for a champagne dinner in the executive box at Old Trafford.

“Takes me back,” the ambassador mused. “I was brought up in Wythenshawe, you know. Seems a long way away now.”

I bet, thought Drew, who had grown up in the neighboring but substantially more upmarket suburb of Hale. Wasn't that
just typical? You couldn't even be confident in your prejudices these days.

“Coffee?”

And it was true that the ambassador did seem to have left Wythenshawe a long way behind, as they sat in apparently antique armchairs in this oak paneled room, a silver tray of fine china set out on the low coffee table between them. Drew wondered vaguely where Mongolia sat on the hierarchy of ambassadorial assignments. He couldn't imagine it was one that they were all clamoring for at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. On the other hand, it was an interesting enough place, and pretty stable compared with some of the options on offer. It was probably the kind of posting they gave to the bright young things on the rise, or to the loyal servants on the way to retirement. Judging from his white hair and tweed-jacketed manner, it was safe to assume that the ambassador fell into the latter category.

“Thank you.” Not only was the china very fine, the coffee was also predictably excellent.

“Well, Chief Inspector, thank you very much for sparing the time to see me this morning.”

As if I had a choice, Drew thought. “Not at all. I was very keen to seek your opinion in any case, so thank you for the invitation.”

“I'll be happy to share whatever insights I can with you. I've been here for a few years now, and this region has always been one of my areas of interest. Wrote a dissertation on it at Oxford, as a matter of fact. It's an extraordinary place in many ways. One of the few substantial countries that's still relatively untouched by the forces of globalization.”

“That must be changing, I imagine?”

“It is but still relatively slowly. It's very remote here. There are still comparatively few tourists. Not that many nationals have traveled outside the country. Your man Nergui is something of an exception there.”

“He seems to have traveled remarkably widely,” Drew said. He
had the sense that the ambassador was keen to impart information, presumably in the hope of receiving some back.

“So I understand,” the ambassador said, in a tone that implied a fairly comprehensive knowledge. “Lived in the States for a couple of years, and in the UK, and he seems to have spent time in Europe, Asia—well, you name it.”

“Seems a little odd for a policeman,” Drew commented. “Even a senior one. No one's offered to send me on my travels. Except here, of course.”

The ambassador laughed. “Well, yes, I think it is a little odd for a policeman, especially here where they generally seem keen to ensure that the police are as insular as they can make them. But there's more to Nergui than meets the eye.”

It was clearly a prompt, but Drew decided just to take a slow sip of coffee and let the ambassador approach this on his own. He knew from endless hours of interviewing suspects that there was nothing more effective than prolonged silence for encouraging others to speak.

“He's an interesting man is Nergui,” the ambassador said finally, “and I'm not sure I've got anywhere close to fathoming him. But there are certain things you should be aware of.”

Drew raised an eyebrow and reached out to take a biscuit. There was no point in making this easy for the ambassador, or in giving him any sense that Drew owed him any information in return.

“The first thing you should know is that he doesn't work for the police. Not formally.”

“He doesn't? But I thought he was in charge of the investigation here—”

The ambassador nodded. “Oh, he's certainly in charge of the investigation. He has his remit from the Minister of Justice himself.”

“Then—”

“But Nergui himself now works for the State Security Administration. Another arm, as it were, of the Ministry of Justice and Internal Affairs.”

“And the State Security Administration is what?” Drew asked, already having a good idea of the answer.

“Essentially counterintelligence, as I understand it,” the ambassador said. “As a department, it deals with anything that potentially comprises a threat to the state. Terrorism. Espionage. Sabotage. All that.”

“Like MI5?”

“As you say.”

“So Nergui's a spy?”

The ambassador shrugged. “Well, I'm not sure that that's necessarily the terminology they'd use. But, yes, Nergui is a senior officer in the intelligence service.”

“What's his background?” Drew asked, wondering what he'd got himself into here.

The ambassador frowned. “Well, that's one of the odd things about our friend Nergui,” he said. “No one seems to know too much about him. Or at least no one's telling us.” Drew was momentarily amused by the conceit that, since no one had told the ambassador, it must follow that nobody else knew either. “He's a mysterious fellow. Something of a state hero, for reasons that aren't entirely clear. He rose through the ranks of the government in the days when it was essentially an oppressive arm of the Communist Party, but seems to have avoided getting too tainted by all that. Mind you, the rise of democracy and the fall of the Soviet Union haven't prevented the Party from retaining a large majority here over most of the past decade. We now have a reformed Communist Party promising to govern like New Labour.”

Drew resisted the temptation to ask whether this ambassador thought this was a good thing. “So what's he doing dealing with this case?”

“Well, when the civilian police was formed in the 1990s, he moved from the old militia to become head of the new serious crimes team. Then some months ago he moved back into the Ministry in what appears to be an intelligence role. He seems to
have an awful lot of authority across all parts of the Ministry, and across the government in general. He appears to be trusted to get on with things in the interests of the government and the state—assuming that those are congruent, which isn't always the case. The Minister in particular uses him as a kind of right hand man to deal with problems as they arise.”

“You make it sound slightly sinister,” Drew said. “As if he were a Mafia hitman.”

The ambassador smiled, faintly. “Do I? I'm sorry, that's not intentional. I don't think there's anything particularly sinister about Nergui's role, though of course we always have to bear in mind that he's an agent of the state.”

“And therefore not to be trusted?”

“Well, no, I wouldn't say that. But, as the Gospels say, no man can be the servant of two masters. If there were a conflict of interest, it's clear where Nergui's duty would lie.”

“Is there likely to be conflict of interest?” Drew asked, finding himself repeating his question from the previous evening. “In this case, I mean?”

“I shouldn't think so for a minute, Chief Inspector,” the ambassador said. “I'm talking generalities here.”

“Of course. So what kinds of cases does Nergui get involved in? From what you've said, it seems a little odd to find him caught up in a murder case, even one on this scale.”

“Well, I think this is where you have to recognize that priorities here are probably different from those you're used to. As I understand it, Nergui's remit covers anything that's a potential threat to the state. In the UK that would mean things like terrorism, subversion and so on. Lesser crimes—if I can call them that—although serious would not be construed as a threat to the state, and so would be handled by the police.”