“My hearing is very good,” Nergui said. “I can hear them shaking their heads, and I almost think I can hear the relief in his voice. Or is that my imagination?”
“They’re definitely shaking their heads,” Drew said. “I don’t know about the rest of it.”
“Neither do I. But I think we need to keep an eye on our friend here.”
Nergui turned to thank the manager and staff, smiling pleasantly at the group. Most of them looked excited to be part of some sort of official investigation, and a number wanted to ask more questions. Nergui made what were clearly polite noises, and then led Drew out through the exit into the sunshine.
“What did you tell them?” Drew said, when they were outside.
“Not much. Official investigation. Following up some routine lines of inquiry. The usual.”
A jeep was standing, engine running, in what appeared to be the No Parking area immediately outside the airport building. As they emerged into the daylight, the driver jumped up then hopped out of the vehicle. Without hesitation, Nergui walked over and tossed his bag into the back. Drew followed and did likewise, then they climbed into the truck. Nergui spoke a few words to the driver, and they pulled out into the road.
Drew was struck that, even down here, ninety minutes’ flight from Ulan Baatar, Nergui seemed to be recognized instantly. Drew considered himself lucky to be recognized if he stepped outside his own office.
There was little to Dalanzadgad-a few concrete-built commercial buildings around the airport, some residential blocks, a sprawl of randomly constructed wooden huts, and the inevitable gers. The town was primarily a gateway to the southern Gobi, rather than an entity in its own right.
The jeep quickly left the town behind, racing initially along paved roads, then dirt tracks, and finally hitting the desert itself. They pounded along at high speed, scattering dust and debris. Nergui sat beside the driver, looking relaxed, enjoying the cool sunshine and the open space. For the first time, it struck Drew that this seemed the natural habitat for these peoples-even Nergui, city dweller, international traveler, seemed more at ease out here.
Drew was overwhelmed by the emptiness, the sense of space, the enormous blue spread of the sky. All sense of scale was lost here. Apart from the occasional hut or ger, there was nothing to provide perspective. Looking back, Dalanzadgad already looked both immensely distant and still strangely close. Ahead, there seemed to be nothing, just endless blank miles to the horizon.
The landscape seemed deserted. Once, they saw a distant figure on a motorbike speed by, miles away from them. Otherwise, there were no signs of life. Incongruously, the driver had turned up the volume of the vehicle’s tape deck, so that the jeep was blasting American rock music as they drove.
After half an hour, there were the first signs of an encampment rising above the horizon ahead of them. It was impossible for Drew to tell how far away it was, but he could see a wire fence, a clustering of gers, and some larger wood-built buildings around it.
Nergui pointed. “That’s the place.”
“Plenty of beach,” Drew shouted back, over the noise of the engine and the music. The camp seemed utterly isolated. “How do the tourists get out here?”
“They run buses from the airport. You’ll be surprised how civilized it is when we get there.”
It was a surprisingly long time before the camp drew near. As they approached, Drew saw that there were indeed tourists-a few of them, at least-sitting inside the fenced area. It was a surreal sight. In this deserted spot, apparently miles from any other life, tourists in tee shirts and shorts were lying on sun beds, reading novels, sipping beers, looking like holidaymakers on any beach anywhere.
“Doesn’t look busy,” Drew commented.
“Very late in the year,” Nergui said. “If you’d come in the summer it would have been full. The weather’s too cool now.”
It was true. The sun was still blazing down from an unclouded sky, but the temperature was only mild. The sunbathers were being optimistic, trying to make the most of the sunshine, but it was barely warm enough to be sitting outside.
The jeep pulled up to the gate, and stopped in front of what was clearly a reception area. Nergui jumped out and grabbed his bag from the vehicle, Drew following behind, and then turned and entered the building.
The wooden building was warm and dark inside. It was sparsely furnished, just a reception desk and a couple of low chairs. The man behind the desk looked up as they entered and smiled at Nergui, uttering some words of welcome. Nergui nodded back, and gestured behind him, introducing Drew.
“Mr. McLeish,” the man said, smiling enthusiastically at Drew, “it is good to welcome you here.”
“You speak English?” Drew said.
The man nodded, modestly. “A little,” he said. “We have been receiving tourists from the United Kingdom and from the USA for a long time now-more than ten years. I have been trying to learn some of their-your-language.”
“You speak it well, Mr.-?”
“Batkhuyag. I ask our visitors to correct me when I get it wrong.” He laughed. “They are very happy to do so.”
Nergui said a few more words to him in Mongolian. Batkhuyag nodded, and pointed behind him. “I have arranged a ger for you to use as a base,” he said, speaking English, clearly for Drew’s benefit. “I try to find the most-what do you say? — private one for you to use so that you can speak to anyone you wish to without being disturbed.” He shrugged. “I really do not know if we can help you. The police down here came to ask some questions, but as far I am aware no one here was able to provide any real information. But we will help as much as we can. Please feel free to speak to anyone, to go where you wish.” He paused, as if unsure how to formulate his next sentence. “I would of course ask that you try to disturb our guests as little as possible. I know you may wish to speak to them, but please come to me first so that I can prepare them.”
Nergui nodded. “I do not know that we will need to speak to your guests. Would any of them have been here at the time that Delgerbayar-the officer we are investigating-was supposed to have visited?”
Batkhuyag nodded. “That was a week ago, yes? In that case, some of them would have been, although most are here only this week.”
“Well, we will see how things go. We may wish to speak to some of those who were here last week, but I promise you we will be discreet.”
“Of course,” Batkhuyag said. “I should not have raised the issue. You know your jobs, I’m sure.”
Nergui smiled. “If you’ve had the local police around here asking questions, I can imagine that discretion was not always evident?”
“Well, they are local men. They are doing their best, I’m sure. But I need to do mine, and the tourists are important to us.”
“We want them to see our country at its best,” Nergui agreed.
“I will ensure that they do.”
Batkhuyag led them back out into the open air, then through the cluster of gers toward the back of the camp. He gestured to a tent which lay separated from the others, close to the wooden building which served as a restaurant and meeting place for the camp. “I thought this would be best,” he said. “We use it for staff during the busy part of the season, but it’s empty now. You can use this to interview people and as your accommodation for this evening, if that’s okay.”
It was clear to Drew that Batkhuyag was doing his best to ensure that the hospitality of the camp was not unduly contaminated by the presence of the policemen. The ger was as far as it could be from the remaining tents, and was clearly not of the same standard as the tourist gers. But Drew didn’t blame the man for seeking discretion. Subtlety wasn’t a quality generally found amongst policeman, and he didn’t imagine that the police here were any different.
Batkhuyag opened the door of the ger and showed them inside. The interior was dark but, to Drew’s surprise, there was electric light. The place looked surprisingly comfortable. There was an ornately decorated table in the center
surrounded by rugs. Some hard wooden chairs had been placed, slightly incongruously, around it, but Drew imagined that those had been provided specifically for Nergui and himself. Around the far walls, there were two beds, again ornately painted. Sleeping here would certainly be an experience, but not necessarily an unpleasant one, he thought.
Nergui looked around and nodded, smiling faintly. “It looks fine,” he said. “Most comfortable.” It was difficult to be sure if there was a trace of irony in his tone. He gestured toward one of the seats. “You will join us, Mr. Batkhuyag?”
Batkhuyag looked surprised. “Me? I didn’t really envisage-”
Nergui made a slight bow. “But, of course, Mr. Batkhuyag, you are the first person we wish to see here. I do not believe that anything happens in this camp of which you are unaware, no?”
Batkhuyag looked confused. It was, Drew had to admit, a neat question, a cunning balance of flattery and threat. “Well,” Batkhuyag said, “I’m not sure I would say that-”
“Come now, Mr. Batkhuyag, there is no need for false modesty.
I can see how well run this place is.” Nergui casually lowered himself on to one of the wooden chairs. Batkhuyag had no choice but to follow. Drew pulled back the remaining chair and turned it around so that he could sit leaning on the chair back. He carefully positioned himself slightly away from Nergui and Batkhuyag. As far as he was concerned, this had to be Nergui’s interview. He would intervene only if he thought there was something he could add.
Nergui leaned forward in his chair, his hands together. “Now, Mr. Batkhuyag, how much do you know about why we’re here?”
Batkhuyag shrugged. “Not a great deal. Just what the local police chief told me when they visited.”
“Which was?”
“That you were investigating some internal case involving one of your officers, who you believed had visited the camp a week or so back. They really just wanted to know if he had been here. They showed me his photograph.”
“And had he been here?” Nergui said.
Batkhuyag shook his head. “Not as far as I’m aware. I didn’t recognize the photograph.”
“Is it possible he came without your knowing?”
Batkhuyag shrugged. “Of course it’s possible. The day in question was one of our turnover days-one group of tourists coming, another leaving, some staying put. Things get very busy. We tend to get deliveries on those days, too. There’s laundry being picked up for cleaning, new laundry being dropped off. Food deliveries. All of that. I couldn’t swear that your-”
“Delgerbayar,” Nergui said.
“I couldn’t swear that he wasn’t here for a while in the middle of all that. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t staying here as a guest. Obviously, we had no one of that name, and that photograph didn’t look familiar. Also our guests tend to stay for several days at least-as I understand it, your Mr… Delgerbayar would have come down only the previous day. That would have been unusual, so we would have remembered.”
“Did you ask any of the other staff if they recognized him?”
“A few,” Batkhuyag said. “I mean, we didn’t do it systematically or anything. The police weren’t here long enough for that-I got the impression they were just going through the motions. Routine questions.”
“That would be pretty much it,” Nergui said. Watching the two men, Drew wondered about this. He didn’t know how much the local police had been told. It was difficult to believe that they would be unaware of the brutal murder of a fellow officer. And why would they not have been told officially? Drew still had the sense of operating in an alien environment-superficially it resembled the world he was used to but it left him constantly wrong footed. For Drew the murder of a fellow officer was still one of the most serious and dreadful of crimes. Partly this was because of the inevitable fear that it might be your own life on the line next time. But partly it was the recognition that if you tolerated that kind of assault on the forces of law and order, there was no possibility of holding any other line. It was difficult to believe that, if the police down here were aware of Delgerbayar’s murder, they would have treated it casually.
“And nobody recognized him?”
“No, but that doesn’t necessarily mean too much. We just asked a few of the staff in the restaurant and such like. They’d have been serving people meals, but they wouldn’t necessarily get to know the tourists particularly well. On the other hand, around seventy percent of our visitors are from overseas, so the staff tend to get to know the Mongolian guests better. They speak the same language, for one thing.”
Nergui nodded slowly. “So it looks as if we can assume that Delgerbayar did not stay here as a guest, but it’s quite possible that he did come here without your knowing.”
Batkhuyag shrugged. “That’s right. If he was here for a few hours, maybe meeting another guest, he could easily have come in and out without anybody particularly noticing, I think.”
Nergui rose, and began to pace slowly across the tent. “I’m afraid we probably will have to conduct some more systematic questioning with your staff. And perhaps with some guests also.”
Batkhuyag raised his head. “I am not in a position to prevent you,” he said. “But can I ask you what this is all about?”
Nergui stopped pacing, and turned to look at him. Drew leaned back on his chair, his face studiedly blank.
Batkhuyag was watching Nergui closely now. “I realize that you may well not wish to tell me. I ask because if you are going to cause some disruption in the camp, I feel I have a right to know why.”
Nergui remained silent. It was clear that he was not intending to assist Batkhuyag in taking this issue forward. At the same time, it was not at all clear to Drew how Nergui was going to handle this.
“I would ask only that you don’t treat me as a fool,” Batkhuyag said slowly. “I have lived in Ulan Baatar. I talk to people in the police. I am aware of your reputation. I am also aware that the police would not normally send someone of your… seniority to deal with an internal disciplinary matter. Or, indeed,” he added, turning to face Drew, “an officer from the United Kingdom.”
Nergui laughed suddenly. “Well, I’m very flattered that you think so much of me, Mr. Batkhuyag. And you are quite right that I should not treat you as a fool. I am sorry if my approach has seemed discourteous.” Drew was reminded of the way Nergui had spoken to him as they had traveled back from the airport on the night of his arrival. This was Nergui the diplomat. It was not difficult to imagine him dealing with the British ambassador in the same manner-polite, but giving nothing away.
“We are not trying to deceive you, simply to exercise some discretion.” He paused. Drew wondered if Nergui was trying to work out how to finesse all this, but he continued smoothly enough: “We are, as you rightly surmise, dealing with an extremely serious crime-it’s a sensitive matter, and there are good reasons why I am unable to provide you with any more information at the moment. But, believe me, it is serious enough to warrant both my involvement and-because there are some Western interests at stake too-the involvement of my colleague, Chief Inspector McLeish.” He gestured toward Drew, who noted the use of the rank with some internal amusement. Bullshit with a capital B, he thought, but it seemed to be doing the trick. “We believe there is a possibility that our colleague, Delgerbayar, has been involved in this, but we don’t know precisely what his involvement is. That is why we are so keen to understand his movements down here.”
“My information,” Batkhuyag said, softly, “is that your Mr. Delgerbayar is dead.”
Drew looked up in surprise. He had assumed from Batkhuyag’s earlier words he had no inkling of why they were here.
Nergui’s face remained blank. “And what information would that be, Mr. Batkhuyag?”
Batkhuyag shrugged. “People talk to me.”
Nergui leaned back in his chair, lifting the front legs slightly off the ground. “Really? That’s very interesting. You must be a sociable sort. Why didn’t you mention this ea
rlier?”
“I didn’t think it was up to me. You were spinning me a line. That’s your business. But I think it’s better if we’re straight with each other. I’m more likely to be able to help you if I know what it is you want.”
Batkhuyag was clearly sharper than he appeared, Drew thought. But then you probably didn’t run a place like this without being a little streetwise.
Nergui nodded. “You are no doubt correct, Mr. Batkhuyag. You will appreciate the need for discretion. But, yes, I can confirm that Delgerbayar is dead.”
“Murdered,” Batkhuyag said. It was not a question.
Nergui put his hands behind his head, looking relaxed. “Now, you do realize that your possession of this information raises some interesting questions for me?”
Batkhuyag said nothing. He was, Drew thought, giving nothing away unless he was likely to get back something in return. Funny, he thought, how these types are the same the world over.
Nergui frowned, as though he were working through some particularly abstruse conundrum. “The situation is this,” he said, finally. “The news of our colleague’s demise is not exactly public knowledge. Even the police down here do not know-at least not officially. But somehow the information seems to have reached you. I’m curious as to how that might have happened.”
“As I say, people talk.”
“Not really good enough, I’m afraid, Mr. Batkhuyag. You see, if I were the suspicious sort, I might come to the conclusion that the only way you could know about Delgerbayar’s death would be if you were somehow involved in it.”
“So why would I tell you and put myself under suspicion?”
“You tell me,” Nergui smiled, coldly. “I would hate to have to arrest you while we try to sort that mystery out.”
Batkhuyag did not look particularly troubled by the prospect. “I don’t know what the police down here are supposed to know officially,” he said, putting an ironic emphasis on the last word. “But I listen to what they say. They know about your Mr. Delgerbayar.”
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