The City & the City - China Mieville [47]
Corwi was staring at him literally with her mouth open. “Damn, boss, you were right,” she said without lowering her voice. “They’re batshit.” He looked at her coldly.
“How would you know all that, Mr. Gosz?” I said. “About her work?”
“Her research? Please. Even without the newspapers ferreting around, PhD topics and conference papers aren’t state secrets, Borlú. There’s a thing called the internet. You should try it.”
“And …”
“Just go,” he said. “Tell Gadlem I sent my regards. Do you want a job, Inspector? No, not a threat, it’s a question. Would you like a job? Would you like to keep the one you have? Are you for real, Inspector How-Do-I-Know-Your-Name?” He laughed. “Do you think this”—a point at the building—“is where things end?”
“Oh no,” I said. “You got a call from someone.”
“Now go.”
“Which paper did you read?” I said with raised voice. I kept my eyes on Gosz but turned my head enough to show I was talking to the men in the doorway. “Big man? Haircut? Which paper?”
“That’s enough, now,” the crop-haired one said, as Muscles said to me, “What?”
“You said you read it in the paper about her. Which one? Far as I know no one’s mentioned her real name yet. She was still a Fulana Detail when I saw it. I’m obviously not reading the best press. So what should I be reading?” A mutter, a laugh.
“I pick things up.” Gosz did not tell the man to shut up. “Who knows where I heard it?” I could not make too much of this. Information leaked fast, including from supposedly secure committees, and it was possible her name had got out and even been published somewhere, though I hadn’t seen it—and if it had not, it would soon. “And what should you be reading? Cry of the Spear, of course!” He waved a copy of the TC newspaper.
“Well this is all very exciting,” I said. “You’re all so informed. Poor fuddled me, I suppose it’ll be a relief to hand this over. I can’t possibly keep hold of it. Like you say, I haven’t got the right papers to ask the right questions. Of course Breach don’t need any papers. They can ask anything they want, of anyone.”
That quietened them. I looked at them—at Muscles, Mullet, the telephoner and the lawyer—seconds more, before I walked, Corwi behind me.
***
“WHAT AN UNPLEASANT BUNCH OF FUCKERS.”
“Ah well,” I said. “We were fishing. A bit cheeky. Though I wasn’t expecting to be spanked like quite such a naughty boy.”
“What was all that stuff…? How did he know who you are? And all that business about threatening you …”
“I don’t know. Maybe it was real. Maybe he could make life hard if I pushed this. Not my problem very long.”
“I guess I have heard,” she said. “About links, I mean. Everyone knows the TC are the street soldiers of the NatBloc, so he must know Syedr. Like you said that’s probably the chain: they call Syedr, who calls him.” I said nothing. “Probably is. Might be who they heard about Mahalia from, too. But would Syedr really be so dumb as to feed us to the TC?”
“You said yourself he is pretty dumb.”
“Okay, yeah, but why would he?”
“He’s a bully.”
“True. They all are—that’s how the politics work, you know? So maybe, yeah, that’s what’s going on, bluster to scare you off.”
“Scare me off what?”
“Scare you, I mean. Not ‘off’ anything. They’re congenital thugs, those guys.”
“Who knows? Maybe he’s got something to keep to himself, maybe he hasn’t. I admit I like the idea of the Breach hunting him and his. When the invocation finally comes.”
“Yeah. I just thought you seemed … We’re still chasing stuff, I wondered if you