The City & the City - China Mieville [114]
HE TOOK US BY THAT AWESOME SUCCESSION of breaching transport, worming through the two cities, leaving a tunnel of Breach in the shape of our journey. I wondered where he carried what weapon. The guard at the gate of Bol Ye’an recognised me and smiled a smile that quickly faltered. He had perhaps heard I had disappeared.
“We’re not approaching the academics, we’re not questioning the students,” Ashil said. “You understand we’re here to investigate the background to and terms of your breach.” I was police on my own crime.
“It would be easier if we could talk to Nancy.”
“None of the academics, none of the students. Begin. You know who I am?” This to the guard.
We went to Buidze, who stood with his back to the wall of his office, stared at us, at Ashil in great and straightforward fear, at me in fear that was more bewildered: Can I speak of what we spoke of before? I saw him think, Who is he? Ashil manoeuvred me with him to the back of the room, found a shaft of shadow.
“I haven’t breached,” Buidze kept whispering.
“Do you invite investigation?” Ashil said.
“Your job’s to stop smuggling,” I said. Buidze nodded. What was I? Neither he nor I knew. “How’s that going?”
“Holy Light… Please. The only way any of these kids could do it would be to slip a memento straight in their pockets from the ground, so it never gets catalogued, and they can’t because everyone’s searched when they leave the site. No one could sell this stuff anyway. Like I said, the kids go for walks around the site, and they might be breaching when they stand still. What can you do? Can’t prove it. Doesn’t mean they’re thieves.”
“She told Yolanda you could be a thief without knowing it,” I said to Ashil. “At the end. What have you lost?” I asked Buidze.
“Nothing!”
He took us to the artefact warehouse, stumbling eager to help us. On the way two students I somewhat recognised saw us, stopped still—something about Ashil’s gait, that I was mimicking—backed away. There were the cabinets where the finds were, in which the latest dusted-off things born from the ground were stored. Lockers full of the impossible variety of Precursor Age debris, a miraculous and obstinately opaque rubble of bottles, orreries, axe heads, parchment scraps.
“Goes in, whoever’s in charge that night makes sure everyone puts whatever’s been found away, locks up, leaves the key. Doesn’t get out the grounds without we search them. They don’t even give us shit about that; they know that’s how it is.”
I motioned Buidze to open the cabinet. I looked into the collection, each piece nestled in its little house, its segment of polystyrene, in the drawer. The topmost drawers had not yet been filled. Those below were full. Some of the fragile pieces were wrapped in lint-free cloth, swaddled from view. I opened the drawers one below the other, examining the ranked findings. Ashil came to stand beside me and looked down into the last as if it were a teacup, as if the artefacts were leaves with which one could divine.
“Who has the keys each night?” Ashil said.
“I, I, it depends.” Buidze’s fear of us was wearing, but I did not believe he would lie. “Whoever. It’s not important. They all do it sometimes. Whoever’s working late. There’s a schedule, but they’re always ignoring it…”
“After they’ve given the keys back to security, they leave?”
“Yeah.”
“Straightaway?”
“Yeah. Usually. They might go to their office a bit, walk in the grounds, but they don’t usually stick around.”
“The grounds?”
“It’s a park. It’s … nice.” He shrugged helpless. “There’s no way out, though; its alter a few metres in, they have to come back through here. They don’t leave without being searched.”
“When did Mahalia last lock up?”
“Loads of times. I don’t know …”
“Last time.”
“… The night she disappeared,” he said at last.
“Give me a list of who did it when.”
“I can’t! They keep one, but like I say half the time they just do each other favours …”
I opened the lowest drawers. Between the tiny crude figures, the intricate Precursor lingams and ancient pipettes, there were deli-cats wrapped. I touched the shapes