The City and the City Part 14

"All Anglo-Euro-American, then. Let's not kid ourselves-it might seem a bit rude to us, but we both know what outsiders to Besel and Ul Qoma are most fascinated with. You notice what not a single one of them brought up, in any context, as even possibly to do with anything?"

"What do you ..." Dhatt stopped. "Breach."

"None of them mentioned Breach. Like they were nervous. You know as well as I do that normally it's the first and only thing foreigners want to know about. Granted this lot have gone a bit more native than most of their compatriots, but still." We waved thanks to the guards who opened the gate, and we stepped out. Dhatt was nodding carefully. "If someone we knew just disappeared without a single d.a.m.ned trace and out of nowhere like this, it's one of the first things we'd consider, right? However much we might not want to?" I said. "Let alone people who must find it a whole lot harder than us not to breach every minute."

"Officers!" It was one of the security detail, an athletic-looking young man with a mid-period David Beckham Mohican. He was younger than most of his colleagues. "Officers, please?" He jogged towards us.

"I just wanted to know," he said. "You're investigating who killed Mahalia Geary, right? I wanted to know ... I wanted to know if you knew anything. If you got anywhere. Could they have got away?"

"Why?" said Dhatt eventually. "Who are you?"

"I, no one, no one. I just... It's sad, it's terrible, and we all, me and the rest of us, the guards, we feel bad and we want to know if, whoever, if who did this ..."

"I'm Borlu," I said. "What's your name?"

"I'm Aikam. Aikam Tsueh."

"You were a friend of hers?"

"I, sure a little bit. Not really, but you know I knew her. To say h.e.l.lo. I just want to know if you found anything."

"If we did, Aikam, we can't tell you," said Dhatt.

"Not now," I said. Dhatt glanced at me. "Have to work things out first. You understand. But maybe we can ask you a few questions?" He looked alarmed for a moment.

"I don't know anything. But sure, I guess. I was worried if they could get out of the city, past the militsya militsya. If there was a way you could do that. Is there?"

I made him write his phone number in my notebook before he went back to his station. Dhatt and I watched his back.

"Did you question the guards?" I said, watching Tsueh go.

"Of course. Nothing very interesting. They're security guards, but this site's under ministry aegis, so the checks are a bit more stringent than usual. Most of them had alibis for the night of Mahalia's death."

"Did he?"

"I'll check, but I don't remember his name being red-flagged, so he probably did."

Aikam Tsueh turned at the gate and saw us watching. Raised his hand hesitantly in a good-bye.

Chapter Fourteen.

SIT HIM IN A COFFEE SHOP-a teahouse, really, we were in Ul Qoma-and Dhatt's aggressive energy dissipated somewhat. He still drummed his fingers on the edge of the table in a complicated rhythm I could not have mimicked, but he met my eyes, did not shift in his seat. He listened and made serious suggestions for how we might proceed. He twisted his head to read the notes I made. He took messages from his centre. While we sat there he did a gracious job, in truth, of obscuring the fact that he did not like me.

"I think we need to get some protocol protocol in place about questioning," was all he said, when first we sat, "too many cooks," to which I murmured some half apology. in place about questioning," was all he said, when first we sat, "too many cooks," to which I murmured some half apology.

The tea shop staff would not take Dhatt's money: he did not offer it very hard. "Militsya "Militsya discount," the serving woman said. The cafe was full. Dhatt eyed a raised table by the front window until the man who sat there noticed the scrutiny, rose, and we sat. We overlooked a Metro station. Among the many posters on a nearby wall was one I saw then unsaw: I was not sure it was not the poster I had had printed, to identify Mahalia. I did not know if I was right, if the wall was alter to me now, total in Besel, or crosshatched and a close patchwork of information from different cities. discount," the serving woman said. The cafe was full. Dhatt eyed a raised table by the front window until the man who sat there noticed the scrutiny, rose, and we sat. We overlooked a Metro station. Among the many posters on a nearby wall was one I saw then unsaw: I was not sure it was not the poster I had had printed, to identify Mahalia. I did not know if I was right, if the wall was alter to me now, total in Besel, or crosshatched and a close patchwork of information from different cities.

Ul Qomans emerged from below the street and gasped at the temperature, shrank into their fleeces. In Besel, I knew-though I tried to unsee the Bes citizens doubtless descending from Yan-jelus Station of the overland transit, which was by chance a few scores of metres from the submerged Ul Qoman stop-people would be wearing furs. Among the Ul Qoman faces were people I took to be Asian or Arab, even a few Africans. Many more than in Besel.

"Open doors?"

"Hardly," Dhatt said. "Ul Qoma needs people, but everyone you see's been carefully vetted, pa.s.sed the tests, knows the score. Some of them are having kids. Ul Qoman pickaninnies!" His laugh was delighted. "We've got more than you lot, but not because we're lax." He was right. Who wanted to move to Besel?

"What about the ones that don't make it through?"

"Oh, we have our camps, same as you, here and there, round the outskirts. The UN's not happy. Neither's Amnesty. Giving you s.h.i.t about conditions too? Want smokes?" A cigarette kiosk was a few metres from the entrance to our cafe. I had not realised I was staring at it.

"Not really. Yes, I guess. Curiosity. I haven't smoked Ul Qoman I don't think ever."

"Hold on."

"No, don't get up. I don't anymore; I gave up."

"Oh come on, consider it ethnography, you're not at home ... Sorry, I'll stop. I hate people who do that."

"That?"

"Pimping stuff on people who've given up. And I'm not even a smoker." He laughed and sipped. "Then at least it would be some f.u.c.ked-up resentment at your success in quitting. I must just generally resent you. Malicious little b.a.s.t.a.r.d I am." He laughed.

"Look, I'm sorry about, you know, jumping in like that..."

"I just think we need protocols. I don't want you to think-"

"I appreciate that."

"Alright, no worries. How about I handle the next one?" he said. I watched Ul Qoma. It was too cloudy to be so cold.

"You said that guy Tsueh has an alibi?"

"Yeah. They called it in for me. Most of those security guys are married and their wives'll vouch, which okay isn't worth a t.u.r.d, but we couldn't find any link from any of them to Geary except nods in a corridor. That one, Tsueh, actually was out that night with a bunch of the students. He's young enough to fraternise."

"Convenient. And unusual."

"Sure. But he's got no connections between anyone and anything. The kid's nineteen. Tell me about the van." I went over it again. "Light, am I going to have to come back with you?" he said. "Sounds like we're looking for someone Bes."

"Someone in Besel drove the van through the border. But we know Geary was killed in Ul Qoma. So unless the killer murdered her, raced over to Besel, grabbed a van, raced back, grabbed her, raced back again to dump the body, and why, we might add did they dump the body where they dumped it?, we're looking at a cross-border phone call followed by a favour. So two perps."

"Or breach."

I moved.

"Yeah," I said. "Or breach. But from what we know someone's gone to a fair bit of trouble to not not breach. And to let us know that." breach. And to let us know that."

"The notorious footage. Funny how that turned up ..."

I looked at him, but he did not seem to be mocking. "Isn't it?"

"Oh come on, Tyador, what, are you surprised? Whoever's done this, smart enough to know not to f.u.c.k with the borders, gives a friend over your side a call, and now's s.h.i.tting rocks that Breach is going to appear for him. And that would be unfair. So they've got some little helper in Copula Hall or Traffic or something and they've given them a whisper what time they crossed. It isn't as if Bes bureaucrats are irreproachable."

"Hardly."

"There you go, then. See, you look happier."

It would be a smaller conspiracy that way, than some of the other looming possibilities. Someone had known which vans to look for. Pored over a bunch of videos. What else? In that freezing but pretty day, cold muting Ul Qoma's colours to everyday shades, it was hard and felt absurd to see Orciny in any corners.

"Let's retrace," he said. "We're not going to get anywhere hunting for this f.u.c.king van driver. Hopefully your lot are on that. We've got nothing nothing except a description of the van, and who in Ul Qoma's going to admit having even maybe seen a Bes van, with or without permit to be there? So let's go back to square one. What was your break?" I looked at him. I looked at him carefully and thought over the order of events. "When did she stop being Unknown Corpse One? What started it?" except a description of the van, and who in Ul Qoma's going to admit having even maybe seen a Bes van, with or without permit to be there? So let's go back to square one. What was your break?" I looked at him. I looked at him carefully and thought over the order of events. "When did she stop being Unknown Corpse One? What started it?"

In my room at the hotel were the notes I had taken from the Gearys. Her email address and phone number were in my notebook. They did not have their daughter's body nor could they return to collect it. Mahalia Geary lay in the freezer waiting. For me, you could say.

"A phone call."

"Yeah? A snitch?"

"... Sort of. It was his lead got me to Drodin." I saw him remember the dossier, that this was not how it was described there.

"What are you ... Who?"

"Well this is the thing." I paused a long time. Eventually I looked at the table and drew shapes in my spilled tea. "I'm not sure what to ... It was a phone call from here."

"Ul Qoma?" I nodded. "What the f.u.c.k? From who?"

"I don't know."

"Why were they calling?"

"They saw our posters. Yeah. Our posters in Besel." in Besel."

Dhatt leaned in. "The f.u.c.k f.u.c.k they did. Who?" they did. Who?"

"You realise that this puts me in-"

"Of course I do." He was intent, spoke quickly. "Of course I do, but come on, you're police, you think I'm going to f.u.c.k you over? Between us. Who was it?"

It was not a small thing. If I was accessory to breach, he was now accessory to accessory. He did not seem nervous about it. "I think they were unifs. You know, unificationists?"

"They said so?"

"No, but it was what they said and how they said it. Anyway, I know it was totally not-on, but it was that got me on the right track ... What?" Dhatt was sitting back. His fingers drummed faster now, and he was not looking at me.

"f.u.c.k, we've got got something. I cannot f.u.c.king believe you didn't mention this before." something. I cannot f.u.c.king believe you didn't mention this before."

"Hold on, Dhatt."

"Okay, I can really-I can see that this puts you in a bit of a position."

"I don't know anything about who this was."

"We're still in time; we can maybe hand it over and explain that you were just a bit late ..."

"Hand what over? We don't have anything."

"We have a unif b.a.s.t.a.r.d who knows something is what we have. Let's go." He stood and jiggled his car keys.

"Go where?"

"Go f.u.c.king detecting!"

"OF b.l.o.o.d.y COURSE," Dhatt said. He was tearing up Ul Qoma streets, the car's siren gasping. He turned, shouting abuse at scuttling Ul Qoman civilians, swerved wordlessly to avoid Bes pedestrians and cars, accelerating with the expressionless anxiety foreign emergencies occasion. If we hit one of them it would be a bureaucratic disaster. A breach now would not be helpful.

"Yari, it's Dhatt." He shouted into his cell phone. "Any clue if the cc of the unifs are in at the moment? Excellent, thanks." He slapped it shut.

"Looks like at least some of them are. I knew you'd spoken to Bes unifs, of course. Read your report. But what kind of fool am I"-slap slap of his forehead with the heel of his hand-"didn't occur to me to go talk to our own little homegrowns. Even though of course course those f.u.c.kers, those f.u.c.kers more than any other f.u.c.kers-and we have our share of f.u.c.kers, Tyad-are all talking to each other. I know where they hang out." those f.u.c.kers, those f.u.c.kers more than any other f.u.c.kers-and we have our share of f.u.c.kers, Tyad-are all talking to each other. I know where they hang out."

"Is that where we're going?"

"I hate those little sods. I hope ... Goes without saying, I mean, that I've met some great Bes in my time." He glanced at me. "Nothing against the place and I hope I get to visit, and it's great that we're all getting on so well these days, you know, better than it used to be-what was the f.u.c.king point of all that s.h.i.t? But I'm Ul Qoman and I'm f.u.c.ked if I want to be anything else. You imagine unification?" He laughed. "f.u.c.king catastrophe! Unity is strength my Ul Qoman a.r.s.e. I know they say crossbreeding makes animals stronger, but what if we inherited, s.h.i.t, Ul Qoman sense of timing and Bes optimism?"

He made me laugh. We pa.s.sed between ancient age-mottled roadside stone pillars. I recognised them from photographs, remembered too late that the one on the eastern side of the road was the only one I should see-it was in Ul Qoma, the other in Besel. So most people said, anyway: they were one of the cities' controversial disputed loci. The Bes buildings I couldn't help fail to completely unsee were, I glimpsed, sedate and tidy, but in Ul Qoma wherever we were was an area of decay. We pa.s.sed ca.n.a.ls, and for several seconds I did not know which city they were in, or if it was both. By a weed-flecked yard, where nettles poked out from below a long-immobile Citroen like a hovercraft's skirt of air, Dhatt braked hard and got out before I had even undone my seatbelt.

"Time was," Dhatt said, "we'd have locked every one of these f.u.c.kers away." He strode towards a tumbledown door. There are no legal unificationists in Ul Qoma. There are no legal socialist parties, fascist parties, religious parties in Ul Qoma. Since the Silver Renewal almost a century before under the tutelage of General Ilsa, Ul Qoma had had only the People's National Party. Many older establishments and offices still displayed portraits of Ya Ilsa, often above "Ilsa's Brothers" Ataturk and t.i.to. The cliche was that in older offices there was always a faded patch between those two, where erstwhile brother Mao had once beamed.

But this is the twenty-first century, and President Ul Mak (whose portrait you can also see where managers are most obsequious), like President Umbir before him, had announced certainly not a repudiation but a development of the National Road, an end to restrictive thinking, a glasnostroika glasnostroika, as Ul Qoman intellectuals hideously neologised. With the CD-and-DVD shops, the software startups and galleries, the bullish Ul Qoman financial markets, the revalued dinar, came, they said, New Politics, a very vaunted openness to hitherto dangerous dissidence. Not to say that radical groups, let alone parties, were legalised, but their ideas were sometimes acknowledged. So long as they displayed restraint in meetings and proselytisation, they were indulged. So one heard.

"Open!" Dhatt slammed on the door. "This is the unif hangout," he said to me. "They're constantly on the phone to your lot in Besel-that's kind of their deal deal, right?"

"What's their status?"

"You're about to hear them say they're just a group of friends meeting for a chat. No membership cards or anything, they're not stupid. Shouldn't take a f.u.c.king bloodhound for us to track down some contraband, but that's not really what I'm here for."

"What are we here for?" I looked around at decrepit Ul Qoman facades, Illitan graffiti demanding that so-and-so f.u.c.k off and informing that such-and-such person sucked c.o.c.k. Breach must be watching.

He looked at me levelly. "Whoever made that phone call to you did it from here. Or frequents this place. Pretty much guarantee it. Want to find out what our seditionist pals know. Open." Open." That to the door. "Don't be fooled by their whole That to the door. "Don't be fooled by their whole who us? who us? thing; they're perfectly happy to smack s.h.i.t out of anyone quote working against unification unf.u.c.kingquote. thing; they're perfectly happy to smack s.h.i.t out of anyone quote working against unification unf.u.c.kingquote. Open." Open."

The door obeyed this time, a crack onto a small young woman, the sides of her head shaved, showing tattooed fish and a few letters in a very old alphabet.

"Who ...? What do you want?"

Perhaps they had sent her to the door hoping her size would shame anyone out of what Dhatt did next, which was to shove the door hard enough to send her stumbling backwards into the grotty hallways.

"Everyone here now," he shouted, striding through the corridor, past the dishevelled punkess.

After confused moments when the thought of attempting to get out must have crossed their minds and been overruled, the five people in the house gathered in their kitchen, sat on the unstable chairs where Dhatt put them, and did not look at us. Dhatt stood at the head of the table and leaned over them.