And, of course, there was no shortage of homegrown corruption. It was only a few years since the Mon-Macau Casino scandal had resulted in the trial and imprisonment of a prominent group of politicians on bribery charges. And that case had been just one high profile example of what was becoming an endemic problem-a seeping corruption evident in all parts of public life. Even, as he knew only too well, among the police themselves.
The police would make a show of investigating, but they would probably make little progress. For all its horror, this was the kind of crime that wouldn’t justify much investigative time; the chances of resolving it were too small and it was in nobody’s interest to dig too deeply. And even the most honest policemen might think that the victim, whoever he might be, probably deserved his fate. Which, Nergui conceded, could well be the case.
So, after a small flurry in the press, the case aroused little interest. Nergui had the details logged in the Ministry files on the off chance there was some connection to any of the fraud or other cases they were already investigating, but he didn’t seriously expect any link, he had already dismissed the murder as just another manifestation of the criminal underclass that infested this city.
And then, a week later, they found the second body.
“You are something of an expert in this field, I understand?” Nergui said. Outside, the night and guttering lights rolled past them as the car entered the city outskirts. The heavy industrial sites gave way to row after row of featureless low-rise apartment buildings, a familiar testament to ugly Soviet pragmatism. Most looked neglected, paint peeling, the occasional window smashed. But virtually all seemed to be inhabited-there were lights at the windows, occasional lines of washing hanging limply in the cold evening.
Then, unexpectedly, in an open space between the tightly packed apartment blocks, there was another clustering of gers, a nomadic camp somehow lost in the urban anonymity. Drew stared out at the neat lines of identical round gray tents, the smoke rising steadily from their central chimneys. There were ranks of old-fashioned, brightly polished Russian motorbikes and a lone tethered horse, its breath clouding the night in the pale orange of the streetlights. As if to compound the incongruity, a group of denim-clad teenagers stood chatting around a single streetlight in the heart of the camp, cigarettes glowing in their hands, as though transported there from some Western inner city.
He looked back at Nergui. The Mongolian was watching him closely, as though his response might be significant. Nergui’s face remained expressionless, his flat features and dark skin looking almost as if they might be carved from wood.
“That would be an exaggeration,” Drew said. “But I’ve had to deal with a lot of violent crime. Including murder.”
“Serial killings?”
“It depends what you mean. I handled one case where we had a genuine psychopath. He killed twice before we got him, but if we hadn’t I don’t doubt that he’d have killed more. And I’ve handled several multiple killings, but those were mostly professional hits.”
Nergui nodded. “Which may be what we have here.”
“I wouldn’t like to speculate,” Drew said. “From what I’ve read, the whole thing is just-well, bizarre. It doesn’t sound like the random killings of a psychopath, but it’s a strange way to organize any kind of professional hit.”
“Yes, indeed,” Nergui said. “Well, we welcome your help. And we will do all we can to reciprocate. We understand that this matter is a concern to both our countries.”
In truth, it wasn’t clear why Drew had been sent here. It was not unusual, when a serious crime had been committed against a British subject, for an investigating officer to be sent to work with the local police. Often, it was little more than a token gesture, a demonstration to the public that the matter was being taken seriously. This was probably the case here. The brutal murder of a British businessman in a remote and largely unknown country was always going to create a stir in the tabloids, even though the full details of the murder had not been released.
The victim had been a Manchester resident, and Drew, as one of the more experienced investigating officers, had been offered the opportunity to make the trip. It was a difficult offer to refuse, although Drew could see little that he could bring to this particular party. Investigating any crime, even murder-especially murder-was generally a matter of routine, of systematically exploring every avenue, sifting each bit of information, until you began to make the connections. There was little doubt that Nergui and Doripalam would be organizing that side of things very efficiently. Drew might facilitate some contacts in the UK, if there turned out to be any significance in the last victim’s identity, but that was probably about it.
They had now entered the city center. The road widened into a brightly lit avenue, lined with a mix of official-looking buildings, many studded with communist emblems, and newer commercial offices, some with Korean, Japanese or even American business names that Drew recognized. This could be any Eastern European city struggling to come to grips with life after the Soviet Union-the first shoots of Western capitalism alongside drab weathered concrete, poorly maintained roads and streetlights, shabby squares and inner-city parks. Familiar logos, neon lit on the summits of office buildings, competed with stylized images of soldiers and stars-the fading murals of communism. And then, off to the right, there was a sudden glimpse of a very different building, the monastery of Choijin Lama, palely illuminated against the dark sky-a jumble of curving gilded rooflines, copper and crimson colorings, towers and short golden spires.
It was not late, but the streets were largely deserted, except for an occasional passing truck or car-mostly old-fashioned former Soviet or Eastern European models. Nergui pointed to an imposing building on the right. “The British Embassy,” he said.
Drew nodded. “The ambassador wants to see me. I’ve an appointment for tomorrow.”
“For lunch?”
Drew laughed. “I don’t think so. I’m due there at ten. I’m probably not important enough to merit lunch.”
“A pity,” Nergui said, as if he really meant it. “He gives a good lunch.”
Drew was vaguely wondering how often this senior policeman had cause to lunch with the British ambassador when the car pulled to a halt outside the hotel Chinggis Khaan.
Nergui gestured toward the extraordinary towering pink and black glass monolith, set incongruously among the featureless Soviet-style architecture that otherwise dominated much of the city center. “I hope you don’t mind staying here,” he said. “I was unsure whether it was tactful to place you so near the scene of the crime.”
Drew shrugged. “At least I’ll be on hand for the next one,” he said. Even as he spoke, he felt that his words were glib and inappropriate.
But Nergui gazed at him impassively, as if taking his statement seriously. “Let us hope,” he said, “that your help will not be needed.”
CHAPTER 2
At first, the second killing changed little. The circumstances were different, and nobody connected the two deaths. The body was found in the early morning, sprawled in a narrow alley at the rear of the Hotel Bayangol, by a hotel cleaner heading in to work. She had nearly walked past, mistaking the corpse for one of the huddled homeless drunks commonly found sleeping in the meager warmth of the hotel’s rear entrance or scavenging in its kitchen bins. But as she got closer, she realized that the distorted angle of the limbs and the surrounding splashes of blood indicated a fall from a much greater height than street level. Her screams were loud enough to bring out a group of the hotel’s kitchen staff who had been smoking by the rear exit.
By the time Doripalam arrived an hour later, the body had already been removed. One of the local officers was standing within the police cordon, apparently directing activities. Doripalam hoped, without much confidence, that everything had been done by the book. More likely, the priority had just been to clear up the mess.
“What’s the story?” he asked.
The local man shrugged, looking m
ildly irritated at Doripalam’s arrival. Doripalam was growing accustomed to this. He had once naively assumed that local forces-with their limited resources always stretched to the limit-would welcome the involvement of the Serious Crimes Team. Now he realized that as far as the locals were concerned, his arrival simply heralded more complications and more work.
“Who knows?” the man said. “Suicide, probably, or a drunk trying to close his bedroom window. We’re checking the hotel guest list. Shouldn’t take long.” He turned away, the sense of dismissal almost palpable.
But, by the end of the morning, when the case remained unresolved, the local team had itself been dismissed and Doripalam’s men had taken over. Doripalam established a temporary base in the hotel manager’s office, and sat with Batzorig, one of his junior officers, working through the data that had been collected. They were no closer to identifying the victim or to determining the circumstances of the death. Batzorig, with his usual blend of enthusiasm and rigor, was working painstakingly through his notes. “It looks as if we’ve accounted for all the guests and hotel staff. We thought at first that one of the night porters was missing but he was just sleeping off a hangover.”
Doripalam looked up and raised an eyebrow. “A hangover? Was he on duty?”
“Supposedly. I don’t think our investigation has done his employment prospects a lot of good.”
Doripalam nodded. It was this kind of thing that made his team so unpopular. Solving serious crimes usually meant uncovering a raft of more trivial misdemeanors along the way. “So what do we know, then?”
“Well, we know that the victim didn’t fall through a bedroom window-all the rooms on that side of the hotel were either occupied or locked, and there’s no sign of any disturbance. It looks as if the body must have fallen from the hotel roof.”
“Is the roof accessible?”
“Not easily, but you can get up there through a maintenance area on the top floor. You’d have to know about the access, though-it’s not the sort of thing you’d just stumble across.”
“So this isn’t just some drunk who went up to look at the stars and took one step too many?”
“It doesn’t look like it. And, since he wasn’t staying at the hotel, we don’t know how or when he got in. But security wasn’t particularly tight. They usually lock the doors at midnight, but if he’d come in before that he wouldn’t necessarily have been spotted. We’re checking the security cameras, but I’m not hopeful. We’re still waiting for confirmation of the time of death-it’s not easy to be precise because it was so cold out overnight-but it could have been midnight or even earlier.”
“And nobody saw anything?”
“We’re interviewing all the guests and the staff. But so far nothing.”
“But this still could just be a suicide?” Doripalam was playing devil’s advocate, but everything had to be checked. After all, suicide was not exactly unknown in the city, or indeed anywhere else in the country. Unemployment had been running at forty percent or more in the post-Soviet era. Poverty levels were similar, although less severe in the urban areas. Many people were living at barely more than subsistence levels.
Batzorig shrugged. “Well, yes, it could be. But the puzzle is the anonymity. We’ve got a body dressed in cheap, mass-produced clothing-empty pockets, no documentation, no identifying labels. Why would a suicide bother to clear his pockets? For that matter, why would he bother to break into a hotel to kill himself? I can think of plenty of easier ways to do it. It doesn’t feel right to me.”
Batzorig’s instinct proved correct; the body remained anonymous. The fingerprints matched nothing in the police records. The dental records provided no clues. The victim was confirmed as a male, in his late thirties, medium height, heavily built, and appeared to be a Mongolian national. Beyond that, there was no information. The story was reported in the media, and the police hoped that someone would come forward to identify him, but there was little else they could do.
The postmortem revealed that the victim had died from the massive trauma caused by the impact of hitting the hard concrete. But, although the state of the body prevented a definitive judgment, the victim appeared to have been involved in some sort of violent struggle prior to death, and there were traces of a strong sedative in the victim’s blood. There seemed little doubt that the man had been murdered.
To his surprise, Nergui had found that a copy of the scene of crime report arrived on his desk in the Ministry, this time unrequested. Clearly his authority was now such that his arbitrary demands were immediately interpreted as essential departmental routines. After all these years, he was finally beginning to understand the attractions of power.
Nevertheless, the coincidence of the two unexplained deaths sparked his interest. Murders happened in the city more frequently than most people liked to admit; but this was still a relatively stable society. Most killings were sordid and straightforward-crimes of passion, drunken brawling, domestic violence. Even the unexplained murders could usually be categorized fairly easily. If a small-time local hoodlum was found murdered, it might be difficult to identify the individual perpetrator, but the police would generally have a good idea why the killing had happened and what sorts of people were involved.
But this was different. His curiosity aroused, Nergui took the opportunity to set up an informal meeting with his former deputy, Doripalam. Doripalam was young and relatively inexperienced, at least compared with his predecessor, but Nergui respected his intelligence and judgment. He had tried to keep some distance since Doripalam’s promotion, anxious not to be seen as interfering, but offering support and advice when requested.
For his part, Doripalam seemed happy still to treat Nergui as a mentor, and was keen to draw on the older man’s experience. They had developed a routine of meeting once a month, in one of the new American-style coffee houses that were beginning to spring up around the city center. Nergui was intrigued that, despite the chaotic state of the economy, money was still available to spend in places like this.
They had arranged to meet early, but the place was already busy with a mix of young people-students, for the most part, chatting and smoking between lectures-and serious-looking businessmen in dark suits, earnestly discussing business deals or making apparently urgent calls on cell phones. There was a rich smell of coffee and the cloying scent of baking pasties.
Outside the sun was shining and the sky was an unsullied blue. Across the street, at the edge of the square, crowds of men clustered around tables, playing chess or checkers, taking advantage of what might turn out to be one of the last temperate days of the year. Some of the older ones were dressed in traditional robes, but most were in heavy overcoats, with berets or American-style baseball caps pulled down over their eyes against the glare of the midmorning sun. The fug of countless cigarettes hung around them like a localized cloud.
Nergui looked with some displeasure at the large foaming cup that Doripalam placed in front of him. “This isn’t coffee,” he said. “It’s a nursery drink.”
Doripalam shrugged. “It’s what the Americans drink. Apparently.”
“So we must get used to it.” Nergui took a mouthful and grimaced. “Though that may take some time, I think. But thank you anyway.”
Doripalam sat down opposite and sipped at his own drink. “So how are you finding life in the corridors of power?”
“I think the power must be in another corridor. All I do is attend meetings and sign forms. While you get all the good fortune.”
“Do I? Remind me.”
“Two homicide cases in a week. And both of them more interesting than anything I had to deal with in the last five years.”
“Oh, yes, that good fortune. How could I forget?”
“What’s your view? Do you think they’re linked?”
Doripalam looked at Nergui for a second, then he smiled. “This is a fishing expedition?” he said. “Surely the Minister isn’t interested in anything as trivial as murder?” He was still smiling, and
his wide-eyed features seemed innocent of anything more than mild curiosity, but Nergui knew better than to underestimate him.
“This is purely on my own account,” Nergui said. “I’d like to be able to claim some official justification, but it’s just idle curiosity. Wishing I was back in the old routine.” He stared gloomily down at the absurd coffee, and, for a moment, Doripalam felt some sympathy for his former boss. Sitting here, his austere dark gray suit offset by a characteristically garish orange tie, his large body hunched awkwardly over the table, Nergui looked uncomfortably like a man who no longer had a purpose in life.
Nergui’s detachment to the Ministry of Justice and Internal Affairs had been a substantial promotion, requested by the Minister himself. Nergui had always been an aloof figure in the police department, well respected but not widely liked among the team. There had been too many rumors about his past, too much suspicion about his real motives. And, of course, Nergui had always made very clear his intolerance for the incompetence and petty corruption that was endemic in the civil police.
For many in the team, Nergui’s transfer to the Ministry had been a confirmation of their long-held assumptions-that all along he had been an authority lackey, delegated to strip away the few meager perks associated with their thankless job. Or, worse, that he was simply another opportunist, adept at riding the waves of political change, with no loyalty except to his current paymaster.
But Doripalam hadn’t shared these views. He had no doubt about Nergui’s professional commitment or dedication, and he shared the older man’s distaste at the endless petty corruption that seemed to be taken for granted by most of his colleagues. On a personal level, he had always found Nergui straightforward and trustworthy, if enigmatic, and he had been grateful when Nergui had actively endorsed his own promotion to head of department.
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