The City & the City - China Mieville [107]
“God damn.” For seconds I could only look down. “Do her family know?”
“They know.”
“Was anyone else hit?”
“No. Tyador Borlú, you breached.”
“He killed her. You don’t know what else he’s—”
The man sat back. I was already nodding an apology, a hopelessness, when he said, “Yorjavic didn’t breach, Borlú. He shot over the border, in Copula Hall. He never breached. Lawyers might have an argument: was the crime committed in Besźel where he pulled the trigger, or Ul Qoma where the bullets hit? Or both?” He held out his hands in an elegant who cares? “He never breached. You did. So you are here, now, in the Breach.”
WHEN THEY LEFT, food came. Bread, meat, fruit, cheese, water. When I had eaten I pushed and pulled at the door, but there was no way I could move it. I fingertipped its paint, but it was only splitting paint or its messages were in a more arcane code than I could decrypt.
Yorjavic was not the first man I had shot, nor even the first I had killed, but I had not killed many. I had never before shot someone not raising a gun at me. I waited for shakes. My heart was slamming but it was with where I was, not guilt.
I was alone a long time. I walked the room every way, watched the globe-hidden camera. I pulled myself up to stare out of the window at the roofs again. When the door opened again, it was twilight looking down. The same trio entered.
“Yorjavic,” the older man said, in Besź again. “He did breach in one way. When you shot him you made him. Victims of breach always breach. He interacted hard with Ul Qoma. So we know about him. He had instructions from somewhere. Not from the True Citizens. Here’s how it is,” he said. “You breached, so you’re ours.”
“What happens now?”
“Whatever we want. Breach, and you belong to us.”
They could disappear me without difficulty. There were only rumours about what that would mean. No one ever heard even stories about those who had been taken by Breach and—what?—served their time. Such people must be impressively secretive, or never released.
“Because you may not see the justice of what we do doesn’t mean it’s unjust, Borlú. Think of this, if you want, as your trial.
“Tell us what you did and why, and we might see ways to perform actions. We have to fix a breach. There are investigations to be carried out: we can talk to those who haven’t breached, if it’s relevant and we prove it. Understand? There are less and more severe sanctions. We have your record. You’re police.”
What was he saying? Does that make us colleagues? I did not speak.
“Why did you do this? Tell us. Tell us about Yolanda Rodriguez, and tell us about Mahalia Geary.”
I said nothing for a long time but had no plan. “You know? What do you know?”
“Borlú.”
“What’s out there?” I pointed at the door. They had left it a little open.
“You know where you are,” he said. “What’s out there you’ll see. Under what conditions depends on what you say and do now. Tell us what got you here. This fool’s conspiracy that’s recurred, for the first time in a long time. Borlú, tell us about Orciny.”
THE SEPIA ILLUMINATION from the corridor was all they let light me, in a wedge, a slice of inadequate glow that kept my interrogator in shade. It took hours to tell them the case. I did not dissemble because they must already know everything.
“Why did you breach?” the man said.
“I hadn’t meant to. I wanted to see where the shooter went.”
“That was breach then. He was in Besźel.”
“Yes, but you know. You know that happens all the time. When he smiled, the look he had, I just… I was thinking about Mahalia and Yolanda …” I paced closer to the door.
“How did he know you’d be there?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “He’s a nat, and a crazy one, but he’s obviously got contacts.”
“Where is Orciny supposed to be in this?”
We looked at each other. “I’ve told you everything I know,” I said. I held my face in my hands, looked over my fingertips. It looked as if the man and woman in the doorway weren’t paying attention. I ran hard at them, I thought without any warning.