The Outcast

by Michael Walters

  But Nergui had been promoted to bigger, and supposedly better, things. Much of his life these days seemed to be glorified pen-pushing, preparing endless reports to the ministry or to the committees of the Great Hural on organised crime, drug trafficking, international terrorism. All interesting and important stuff, but not activity likely to keep him engaged for very long.

  The two men had met occasionally over the past year, as Doripalam struggled with the corruption uncovered by the Muunokhoi case. His investigations had identified an increasing number of officers, in the Serious Crimes Team and other parts of the service, who had been tainted by Muunokhoi’s operations. In a few cases, there was definitive proof of corruption, but more commonly, there was only uncertainty. With Muunokhoi dead, his entourage had largely melted back into the underworld from which it had briefly emerged.

  In the end, only five officers were prosecuted, and one prosecution was subsequently dropped due to insufficient evidence. Doripalam believed that at least another ten officers had been on Muunokhoi’s payroll. But there was no way of proving it, even to his own satisfaction. The best that Doripalam had been able to do was arrange for them to be transferred back into operational roles where the impact of any future corruption would be limited. In his darker moments, he wondered whether he had unjustly ruined some poor innocent’s career, but he could see little alternative.

  It had been an unpleasant period, and Nergui’s support had been invaluable in accessing the required resources and political clout. Doripalam had restructured the Serious Crimes Team, working with the small number of senior officers that he could still trust. They had brought in a raft of new recruits—most from outside the service, with thorough vetting of their background and circumstances—and ensured that they were properly trained and resourced. The basic stuff that should have been done years ago.

  In the meantime, Nergui had forged a wary, but mutually respectful, relationship with Bakei, the security minister. Bakei had been a senior officer in the security services under the old regime—a born survivor who had moved into political office, and progressed, often against the odds, through a succession of political and operational crises. Over the past six months, as the prime minister had struggled to hold the ruling coalition together, Bakei had played a key role in negotiating between the competing factions, keeping the show on the road. And much of that, Doripalam guessed, would have been down to Nergui’s astuteness. The minister’s stock was on the rise, and Nergui’s influence was rising with it. But what he was planning to do with that influence was anyone’s guess.

  By the time he reached the Khanbrau Bar, Doripalam’s anger was mellowing, replaced by a growing curiosity about Nergui’s actions. There would be no personal animosity behind any of this, that wasn’t the way Nergui worked. If he thought he was doing the right thing, nothing else would matter.

  The tables outside the Khanbrau were crowded on yet another warm evening. Doripalam preferred to sit inside, in the shadows, enjoying the cold dark beer while the world went on with its business outside.

  This place had become something of a habit with him. He had started coming here months before, initially as a useful place to meet with Nergui, conveniently located near the central square. The bar was attractive, too, because few of their ministry or police colleagues drank here, most preferring the German beer in the Chinggis Club. The Khanbrau attracted more of a tourist crowd, particularly as the summer approached.

  Doripalam’s visits to the Khanbrau with Nergui were his first experience of drinking regularly in the same venue, and he found that he rather liked it. It was a place of respite—a brief buffer zones between the challenges of work and the demands of domesticity. He could feel the temptation to stay in here, have just one more drink, to stave off the real world just that bit longer.

  He had taken to coming here more often, sometimes with one of the team, but often, as tonight, by himself. He enjoyed sitting with a newspaper or book, sipping one of the dark beers, watching the couples and the groups and the other lone drinkers. It was peaceful, quiet, and no one made any demands on him.

  Solongo didn’t approve. It was another part of his life that lay outside her control, that didn’t fit in with the neat plans she had mapped out for them both. In any case, her attitude to alcohol had always verged on the puritanical. Although he’d seen no evidence himself, he’d heard rumours that her father, Battulga, a senior Party official, had had a drink problem towards the end. She talked a lot about her father—usually with the unspoken implication that, in most respects, he had been everything that Doripalam wasn’t—but she never discussed this.

  But she had other things on her mind right now. She was doing what she enjoyed, battling against the odds. She looked tired but also as if she was enjoying life again—as if she was finally engaging with something real, rather than living vicariously through her father’s past or Doripalam’s present. And, he thought with mild satisfaction as he ordered a beer at the bar, the fact that she had taken up smoking again at least meant she couldn’t occupy quite her usual altitude of moral high ground.

  He took the beer carefully across to a table in one of the darker corners and sipped the drink slowly, enjoying the first cold bitter taste after the dry heat of the afternoon. It was turning into an unusually hot summer—days of baking heat, clear blue empty skies. It would be good, he thought, to be somewhere other than here. Somewhere outside the city. Somewhere among the trees, where there was shelter, cooler air. He wanted more than anything simply to get away.

  He was beginning to reflect on the possibility of taking a few days’ leave—unlikely, with the deadlines that Solongo was facing—when he felt his cell phone vibrate in his pocket. He pulled it out and glanced idly at the number. Batzorig, who was rapidly taking on the mantle of his unofficial deputy. He sighed and thumbed the call button, wondering why he was needed now. “Hello?”

  “Doripalam? Wanted to check where you were. I tried the hospital first, but they said you’d left. I just tried your home number.”

  Doripalam paused, wondering what to say about his visit to Tunjin. “I was just on my way back,” he said. “Called in for a beer.”

  “It’s just—well, we have an incident.”

  “What sort of incident?” Batzorig was, like most of the team, young and inexperienced, promoted too quickly and struggling with the challenges that were thrown at him. But he was bright and honest and enthusiastic—none of which were particularly common characteristics in the service.

  “We have a body,” he said. There was a moment’s pause before he added: “It looks like murder.”

  “Where is it?” Doripalam swilled the beer in his glass, watching the pale foam against the dark liquid. He could see his evening disappearing.

  “It’s at the city museum.” Doripalam could hear his breathing down the line. His own mind was already making the obvious connection.

  “There’s one other thing.” Batzorig went on.

  “What?” Doripalam could see the evening sky through the large windows at the far end of the bar.

  “The person who reported it,” Batzorig continued hurriedly. “It was your wife. It was Solongo.”

  WINTER 1988

  The museum was as good a first rendezvous as any. He could spend hours wandering through its largely deserted halls, staring at the exhibits, a notebook in his hand. From the walls, the images of Genghis Khan stared down, grimacing as though to express disapproval.

  He was slightly surprised that the museum had survived through the more stringent days of this regime. But the Party had always had ambiguous views about places like this, just as in his own country and in the USSR. They talked about erasing history, but they were keen to foster national pride and identity, and they recognised where that identity had its roots.

  So the museum had survived, even though its exhibits had seen better days. Labels had become detached, items were missing, the glass itself was stained to the point where it was almost opaque. He suspected that
the more valuable items had been looted or misappropriated years before.

  Nevertheless, people were beginning to visit the museum again, a sign of how things were changing. Even now, on this freezing winter’s afternoon, light already draining from the streets outside, there were some visitors wandering purposefully about the dim corridors.

  The contact was standing in one of the galleries on the ground floor, staring fixedly into a glass case filled with what looked like random trinkets from the later empire. He glanced up, his face betraying no emotion or sign of recognition.

  This was it. The moment that had been planned for. The point from which they could start to build their future.

  CHAPTER THREE

  SUMMER

  Nergui was at the window, gazing down at the street below. It was nearly six, and Peace Avenue was still busy with traffic, the usual mix of clapped-out Russian vehicles and newer Korean models, moving slowly and decorously out of the city. The western sky was deep red, a few thin clouds straggled against the setting sun.

  “How is he?” he asked, not looking back.

  The doctor looked up from his examination of Tunjin. “Who exactly are you, anyway?” he said. He looked untroubled either by Nergui or by the presence of the two suited men who were sitting, impressively upright on hard-backed chairs at the far end of the room.

  Nergui turned back towards the doctor, smiling broadly. “I showed you my ID,” he said. “I trust you found it satisfactory?”

  The doctor shrugged. “I’ve honestly no idea,” he said. “You’re from the ministry of security, that’s all I know. I haven’t a clue whether you have the authority to be here.”

  Nergui’s smile widened even further. “I have the authority. Don’t worry about that.”

  “I’ll try not to,” the doctor said. “So I presume you outrank the one who was here before?”

  Nergui looked puzzled for a moment, until the doctor prompted: “The policeman. The one who left. I had the impression he was something senior.”

  Nergui nodded. “Very senior,” he said. “But, yes, I suppose I outrank him, if you want to put in that way.”

  “I don’t want to put it any way. Not really any of my business.” The doctor watched Nergui closely. “But, then, I’m not sure that the condition of my patient is any of your business.”

  “He’s a friend,” Nergui said.

  “Do you often put your friends under arrest?” the doctor said.

  “Not exactly arrest. And only when I need to.” Nergui stepped away from the window towards the bed. Tunjin was breathing steadily, apparently asleep, and the monitors were sounding with comforting regularity. “How is he?”

  “Remarkably well. We’re doing more tests. But at the moment he seems to be as fit as you’d expect someone in his physical condition to be. Nothing abnormal. He’s just sleeping now.”

  “So what was wrong with him?”

  “I don’t know. That’s the main reason I’m doing the tests. If you’d asked me a few hours ago, I’d have guessed that he’d had a stroke. But that wasn’t much more than a guess, largely based on the fact that he looks like a stroke waiting to happen. He was unconscious, appeared partly paralysed. From what his colleagues said, it happened very suddenly, with no obvious prior symptoms, so it was a logical starting point. But then he woke up, and seemed pretty much to have recovered.”

  “Doesn’t that usually happen with strokes?”

  “Well, a stroke can be many things, sometimes the patient barely notices. But, no, it wasn’t a stroke.”

  “So what was it?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out. But my guess is that he was drugged.”

  Nergui nodded, as if the doctor was only confirming what he had assumed. “What sort of drug?”

  “Could be various things. Could be something like Rohypnol or Ketamine. What they call the ‘date rape’ drugs.” He glanced across at Tunjin’s massive prone body. “Perhaps not the most appropriate description in this case.”

  Nergui stared at him for a moment. The doctor held his gaze momentarily, then was forced to look away. “We’ll find out what it was,” he said.

  “And how long before it’s safe to wake him?”

  “You could wake him now, but I’d rather let him sleep on for a while. This must have been traumatic for him. It would be traumatic for someone in a much better physical condition than his. If you’re planning to question him, I think you should wait a couple of hours.”

  “No sooner?”

  “I can’t stop you waking him. But he’s my patient and you claim he’s your friend. Leave it for a couple more hours.”

  Nergui nodded. “You’re the doctor,” he said. “I just hope you appreciate the implications.”

  “Only the medical ones,” the doctor said. “But that’s my job. I can’t speak for any other implications. Maybe you can. Maybe that’s your job.”

  “This way, sir. You can come around the back. It’s quicker.”

  Doripalam blinked up into the shadow. Batzorig was at the top of the stone steps above him. He had been there for some time, awaiting Doripalam’s arrival.

  “Where is it?”

  “It’s at the back. It’s a kind of delivery area. A loading bay. I’ll show you.” Batzorig bounded down the steps with his usual slightly uncontrolled enthusiasm, and jumped past Doripalam into the street. Doripalam hesitated for a moment, wondering whether Batzorig was going to tumble backwards into the passing traffic.

  “This way.” Batzorig turned and disappeared around the corner, down the side of the museum’s imposing entrance. Doripalam stepped after him, finding himself in a narrow passageway. Batzorig was a few steps ahead, looking back. “Down here.”

  “Where’s Solongo?” Doripalam asked, walking with some nervousness into the shadowy alley.

  “She’s upstairs with a museum director,” Batzorig said. “I think she’s okay. It was a bit of a shock for her. But she seemed to be coping all right when I saw her.”

  In any other officer, Doripalam might have suspected an undertone of irony, but the concept was alien to Batzorig. “She’s not easily fazed. But it might have been more of a shock than she’s realised. I’ll go up and see how she is once you’ve filled me in.” It suddenly occurred to him that he hadn’t stopped to think about what the impact might have been on Solongo. He was accustomed to assuming that she could handle anything, but perhaps some things were beyond even her capabilities.

  “I think anyone would have been disturbed,” Batzorig said. “It isn’t a pretty sight.”

  They were too much alike, Doripalam thought, he and Batzorig. It probably wasn’t a good idea to have as your putative deputy someone who thought and acted pretty much as you would have done. He could recognise in Batzorig the same combination of naïve enthusiasm and considered thinking that had characterised his own early days in the service. It was a potentially powerful combination, he thought, but then he would, wouldn’t he? Perhaps he needed something different, a different set of traits, to challenge his own preconceptions. Doripalam thought back to his previous deputy, Luvsan—a different kind of enthusiasm there, certainly. A loose cannon. Far looser than they could have imagined. Pointing in entirely the wrong direction, in fact.

  “In here, sir.” Batzorig was standing in a doorway. He ducked back, and Doripalam followed him into a courtyard surrounded on three sides by the internal walls of the museum, with rows of blank windows. The fourth wall opened on to one of the main streets leading to the central square. In the wall opposite the street, there was a loading bay, designed to accept large-scale deliveries.

  “This is the place.”

  Doripalam stopped and looked around. There was sufficient space for large delivery trucks to back into here to offload exhibits or other materials.

  Batzorig had jumped up on to the loading bay. “The body’s still here. The scene of crime people haven’t gotten here yet. They said about forty minutes.”

  Always keep them waiting
, Doripalam thought. He was never entirely clear what the scene of crime team treated as a priority but he knew it was never his own assignments. He followed Batzorig up on to the loading bay, choosing the more dignified option of the steps.

  It took a moment for his eyes to grow accustomed to the shade. The delivery area was typical of the kind of facility found in any large-scale commercial or public operation. It was a broad space, with a concrete floor and bare walls—a contrast to the marble-faced splendour of the public areas of the museum. There was little clutter, just a few crates and boxes stacked at the far end of the room, a large roll of heavy-duty wrapping paper, a workbench neatly arrayed with packaging materials. In one corner, there was a cubicle, presumably used as an office, with a shabby desk topped by the ancient-looking computer. The room was lit, not particularly effectively, by strips of bare fluorescent bulbs. Two uniformed officers stood by the door at the rear of the bay, positioned to prevent anyone from entering.

  Apart from the packaging materials, the only item visible was the large dark bulk of a clumsily rolled carpet, set a few yards back from the edge of the bay.

  Batzorig gestured to it. “That’s it.”

  “It’s not been touched since the body was found?” Doripalam hoped it was an unnecessary question, but it never paid to take anything for granted.

  Batzorig shook his head. “No, one of the assistants here found the body first. Then they went to fetch Solongo.”

  Doripalam nodded. Of course, they had. If it had been anyone else in charge here, the first action would have been to call the police. But nobody would have been willing to take that step without consulting with Solongo first. He couldn’t say that he blamed them.

  He took a step forward and caught sight of the body, half-hidden in the folds of the carpet. “So what’s the story?”