The memory gave Tunjin half an idea. He had nowhere else to go, and if he stayed on the streets much longer Nergui’s people were bound to track him down. Although he was still inclined to trust Nergui, he was reluctant to be drawn into the labyrinths of the security services without some notion of what was going on. That had been his unease in the hospital. Whatever his motives, Nergui had chosen not to play by the book. Tunjin was an expert at not playing by the book, and he knew that its major advantage—or disadvantage, if you were on the receiving end—was that your actions were unaccountable. He trusted Nergui—just—but he didn’t know who or what else might be behind this.
So the answer was to throw himself on Doripalam’s mercy. Of course, Doripalam, being Doripalam, would feel duty bound to turn him in, whatever he might privately think about Nergui’s behaviour. But equally Doripalam would play everything strictly by the book. That would afford Tunjin some protection—he was confident that his actions in the square could be defended. And it might also buy him time to work out what was going on.
The first step, though, was to track down Doripalam’s apartment. He stopped on the street corner and looked at the endless faceless blocks. This is the street, he thought, though there was little to distinguish it from those immediately adjacent. But the road opened on to a small area of parkland that he recalled, a small oasis of green in the urban anonymity.
He identified the block easily enough, halfway down the street. He had no idea of the number of the apartment but there was an array of named buzzers beside the intercom. He found Doripalam’s name and pressed.
There was a lengthy pause before a voice answered, unrecognisable through the speaker. “Yes?” Female. Presumably Solongo, and sounding as irritable as he might have expected, so early in the morning.
“It’s Tunjin,” he said. “I need to see Doripalam. It’s something of an emergency.”
There was a protracted silence which somehow managed eloquently to express Solongo’s likely response. Tunjin glanced over his shoulder, but the street was still deserted. At last, the speaker crackled back into life. “He’s not here,” Solongo said, bluntly. “I don’t know where he is.” Stripped of its intonation, her voice gave no clue as to her feelings.
Tunjin cursed silently. Not only was Doripalam not here, it looked as if Tunjin had wandered into a domestic dispute. “I’m sorry,” he said into the microphone. “Look, I’d better …” He had no way of completing the sentence. He had better what exactly?
Unexpectedly, the main doors suddenly buzzed open. “You’d better come up,” Solongo’s voice said. “Maybe you can give me some idea where he is.”
Tunjin stared at the speaker for a moment, and then grabbed frantically at the handle of the door, thinking that he should get in there before she changed her mind. At least it would buy some time.
He crossed the polished marble of the lobby to the waiting elevator. Like everything else here, it was impressive but not quite impressive enough. He imagined that Solongo saw this as a stepping stone to something better. He wondered whether she would ever achieve it.
When the elevator doors opened, she was standing in the corridor waiting for him, an unlit cigarette in her hand. Not for the first time, looking at Solongo, Tunjin thought that Doripalam was both a lucky man and also possibly playing dangerously outside his league. She was a remarkable woman. Not just beautiful, though she was certainly that. It was something about her air of unquestioned superiority. She was better than you, and it had never occurred to her to doubt it.
“This way,” she said. She turned on her heel and strode down the corridor, not looking back to check whether Tunjin was following.
It was a decent apartment, no question. And it looked even more impressive now than when Tunijn had first seen it. Then, the couple had only recently moved in and the apartment had seemed tasteful but anonymous, its walls largely blank, its furniture betraying nothing of its new owners.
It was still tasteful but now someone’s tastes—Tunjin assumed Solongo’s—were much more visible. Much of the content reflected her role at the museum—replica artefacts from the founding of the Mongol empire, statuettes, the familiar ubiquitous image of Genghis Khan, rendered distinctive by some contemporary artist whose name Tunjin should probably have known.
“Nice place,” Tunjin said, nodding appreciatively.
“You’ve been here before,” she said, with a touch of accusation. There was little she missed. “Doripalam mentioned it.”
He nodded, as though acknowledging the truth of an unlikely proposition. “It looked different then,” he said. “You’d not been here long.”
“I’m glad you like it.” The note of irony was barely discernible.
“I need to get in touch with Doripalam,” he said. There was only so much small talk he could take. Especially when he was the one left feeling small.
“That makes two of us,” she said. “I thought you might know where he was.”
“I assumed he’d be here.”
“He’s at work,” she said. “At least, as far as I know. But then I thought you’d be aware of that.” She raised her eyebrows.
Tunjin gazed back at her, wondering how to take this. Did she really think Doripalam was lying to her, that he was—what? Having an affair, claiming in the most clichéd manner to be working late? Tunjin’s relationship with Doripalam had never been the easiest, but he thought he knew his boss well enough to discount that possibility. More likely, it had just not occurred to Doripalam to phone home.
“I saw him yesterday afternoon,” he said. “Not since then. I don’t know where he is.”
“I’ve seen him since then,” she said. “Late afternoon. At the museum.” For the first time, as he listened to Solongo’s precise intonation, it occurred to Tunjin that she might have been drinking. It wasn’t that she sounded drunk. It was more that she sounded excessively sober, a condition that Tunjin knew only too well.
“But he didn’t come back with you?”
She shook her head. “He had to go off somewhere else, with … ?” She stopped, frowning. “The young one.”
“Batzorig.”
“That’s the one. Chip off the old block.”
“Something like that,” he agreed. “Are you all right?”
She appeared to consider the question, then said, “I’m fine.” She paused. “I found a dead body yesterday, you know.”
He looked up at her, startled. “A dead body?” Perhaps she hadn’t been drinking, perhaps she was going quietly mad.
“I know,” she said. “Amazing, isn’t it? Not what you expect in a job like mine. Would you like a coffee?”
He was struggling to keep pace with this. “Coffee? Yes. That would be good.”
She turned and walked through to the kitchen, Tunjin following close behind. There was a half-empty bottle of vodka sitting on the kitchen table, he noticed. She hadn’t drunk all that this morning. But maybe she had drunk it last night.
He watched as she made coffee. She had a cast-iron percolator, and she seemed to be concentrating painstakingly as she unscrewed it, filled the base with ground coffee, filled the top with water and placed it carefully on the cooker.
“Do you know where Doripalam went?” he said. “After he left you at the museum?” He decided not to pursue the matter of the dead body for the moment.
She nodded. “There was a bomb.”
“A bomb?” She really has lost it, he thought. “At the museum?”
She peered at him as though suspecting some kind of irony. “No, of course not at the museum. Somewhere else. Some hotel, I think. He was with …”
“Batzorig,” he said again. “You mean there was some kind of bombing in the city last night.”
“Apparently.” She sat herself slowly down at the kitchen table, tapping the coffee spoon against the polished surface. “But you must know about this,” she said. “You’re one of his team.” The accusatory note was back, as if she thought he had been lying to her.
<
br /> He shook his head. “We weren’t in touch yesterday. Not later. It’s a long story.” At that moment, something in his mind snapped, sick of being silently patronised. “I’m on the run, actually,” he added. “Or something like that. Possibly suspected of murder.”
To his slight disappointment, she seemed unperturbed by this information. “That thing in the square? That seems a little harsh. From what Doripalam said, I thought you were a hero.”
Maybe she had been drinking, he thought. But she was still several steps ahead of him. “So did I,” he agreed. “But maybe not. Anyway, Nergui didn’t think so.”
“Nergui?” She sat up, looking interested for the first time. “Where does he come into this?”
“Who knows? Where does Nergui ever come in?”
She appeared to consider the question seriously. “When it matters, in my experience.” She smiled. “Though I’m not Nergui’s biggest fan.”
“I don’t imagine Nergui’s too troubled by that.”
She laughed, apparently relaxing slightly for the first time. “I don’t imagine he is. But it was Nergui who arrested you?”
“Well, not arrested exactly,” he said. “But, yes, it was Nergui.” He was suddenly very weary, as much by this tense bantering as by his experiences over the last twenty-four hours. He pulled out one of the kitchen chairs and sat down, feeling the wood creaking under his weight.
She frowned. “I’m probably being a little slow,” she said. “But if you’re on the run, what are you doing here?”
“I didn’t know where else to go.”
“Right. I see. So I’m an accessory after the fact?”
“I suppose so. I’m sorry. It’s nothing personal. I was hoping for Doripalam.”
“Fair enough,” she said. “We were all hoping for Doripalam.”
“Have you tried the office?”
She nodded. “Funnily enough, it was the first thing that occurred to me. They said he’d come back there—sometime in the small hours. But he’d been called out again, with …”
“Batzorig. A busy night for him.” But busy with what? The news of an apparent bombing, combined with the previous day’s incident in the square, made Tunjin feel uneasy. If Doripalam had been out all night, that suggested something serious.
“What was all this about a dead body?” he asked, casually. He glanced across at the vodka bottle. No, she hadn’t drunk all that this morning.
“I found one. Yesterday,” she said, simply. “At the museum.”
“Had it been dead long?” It was an inane question, but thoughts of mummies were running through his mind.
“I’ve no idea,” she said. “Not really my field. But not more than, well, a day, I’d assume.”
He nodded. Not a mummy, then. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I think I’m the one being slow now. Where exactly did you find this body?”
“In the loading bay,” she said. “I mean, strictly speaking, it wasn’t me that found it.”
“No?”
“No. It was one of the students. But they all panicked. So one of them came to fetch me because I’m the person in charge.”
“Of course.” He had little doubt that Solongo was always the one in charge. “So one of them found a body and came to tell you?”
She nodded, impatiently. “That’s what I said.”
“So whose was this body?” He was uncomfortably aware that he sounded as if he was humouring her. He didn’t imagine that Solongo appreciated being humoured.
“How would I know?” She frowned, as if seriously considering the question. “Not Mongolian, apparently. That’s all they told me.”
“And how did this person die?”
She was staring at him, as if finally beginning to suspect that he might not be taking this entirely seriously. “Well, he was murdered, of course. At least, I assume so.”
“Why do you assume so?” Tunjin’s tone was as light as ever, but his mind had reverted to his police training, gathering evidence, questioning, challenging assumptions.
“Well, you don’t get kicked to death by accident, do you? Or kick yourself to death?”
It was Tunjin’s turn to stare. His face was pale, his eyes now lacking any trace of humour. “He was kicked to death?” he repeated.
“Exactly. And wrapped in a carpet.”
Tunjin half rose from the table, then sank back down again.
“Not very well wrapped, actually. Just covered up, really, so there was no chance that we wouldn’t spot it as soon as the carpet was moved.”
“But you’re sure? I mean, wrapped in a carpet?”
“Of course I’m sure. It’s not the kind of thing you could easily mistake.”
“But—wrapped in a carpet? And kicked to death? You mean like the Hulagu story? In Baghdad?”
She laughed, and rose to get the coffee pot from the cooker. “I’m impressed,” she said. “You’re obviously more educated than you look.”
He shook his head, ignoring the implied insult. “Not educated,” he said, “just experienced. Painfully experienced.” He pulled himself slowly to his feet and stepped across to the kitchen window. The vodka bottle was in front of him, and he thought how attractive it looked. He could drink all that in maybe four or five large mouthfuls. It wouldn’t be enough, but it would be a start.
He pushed the bottle determinedly away from him and gazed out of the window. It opened on to the broad street below, golden in the risen sun, the dense green of the parkland visible beyond the line of apartments. A figure in a dark suit stood at the far end of the street, apparently talking on a cell phone. Perhaps one of the Nergui’s people. But it hardly mattered now.
He looked back at Solongo, who was carefully pouring the coffee. “Painfully experienced,” he repeated. “A painful experience.” He paused. “And I think it might be coming back to haunt me.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“It’s a long story,” Nergui said. They were in Sarangarel’s kitchen, bunched around the marble-topped table. He looked around. Doripalam was watching him, serious as ever, his pen poised over the virgin page of a notebook, ready to follow in detail wherever this might lead. Sarangarel had been pouring coffee, playing the attentive hostess, but no doubt taking in every word. Batzorig was leaning back on his chair, his head tipped back, his eyes fixed blankly on the ceiling. But, from everything he had seen of the young officer, Nergui had no doubt that he was also registering everything being said. And would be able to repeat it back, more or less verbatim, if required.
Only Gundalai seemed distracted, his body hunched into the chair, away from the rest of them, rocking gently backwards and forwards, his hands clutched around his stomach as though he was feeling nauseous. Nergui half-expected that at any moment he might explode in anger and demand an end to all this talking.
“This was nearly twenty years ago,” Nergui said. “I was new to the police service, just out of my intelligence role. Tunjin was working with me. It was a difficult time. The late 1980s. Russia struggling with reform, not far from collapsing into chaos. We’d lost our Soviet banker, but we didn’t know what that might mean.” He looked across at Doripalam, catching his eye for the first time that morning. “It wasn’t like it is now,” he said. “I didn’t really even know what my job was.”
Doripalam returned his gaze, unblinking. “You’ve always known what your job is, Nergui.” It was hard to tell if there was any undertone of bitterness.
Nergui smiled. “Okay,” he said. “But at that point we were just trying to hold things together.” He stopped. “If it doesn’t sound too pompous, we were trying to hold the nation together.”
“Trust me,” Sarangarel said. “It sounds too pompous.”
“Russia was in turmoil, and we knew how dependent we were on her. We were moving towards democracy but too slowly. And there were plenty out there who didn’t wish us so well.”
“China,” Gundalai said, unexpectedly.
Nergui glanced at the young man. “Among others,”
he said. “But, yes, China has rarely wished us well. China still thinks that, rightly, we should be her colony.” He smiled. “Whereas, of course, for most of the last century, Russia has known that was her prerogative.” Gundalai was still gazing fixedly at the floor, showing no sign of taking in what Nergui was saying.
“But Gundalai is right,” Nergui went on. “It was China we were most concerned about. The country was full of observers. From everywhere. Plenty from the USSR. But they had other things on their minds. And a presence from the West. Mostly interested in our mineral reserves. They didn’t much care what happened to us, so long as they were in pole position to stake their claims to whatever assets we might have.”
“Observers?” Batzorig said, suddenly, as if he had just woken up to the conversation. “You mean spies?”
“Spies,” Nergui agreed. “Or close enough. Most were here legitimately. Or semi-legitimately: government representatives; diplomats; attachés; the odd academic, conducting some sanctioned research.” He took a sip of the coffee that had grown cold in front of him. “The one we’re talking about was one of those. A very odd academic. Chinese. Wu Sam.”
“You allowed academics in?” Doripalam said.
“If they had legitimate reasons to visit. This one was an expert on Mongol history. An enthusiast for the great Mongol empire. A bit of an eccentric. Buried in his books, supposedly. He wanted to conduct some original research, to delve among whatever artefacts he could find.”
“And you trusted him to do that?” Sarangarel said.
“Up to a point. We consulted with our own experts and they confirmed that his track record was legitimate.”
“But you said he was a spy?”
“We expected it. It went with the territory. The Chinese wouldn’t have wanted him to come here if they didn’t think that he might be able to feed something back. But it wasn’t likely to be anything of great significance.”
“It sounds like a perfect arrangement,” Doripalam said. “So what was the problem?”
“The problem,” Nergui said, “was that Wu Sam was a genuinely odd academic. We thought he was a homosexual.”
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