The City & the City - China Mieville [54]
“Who did you give your van to, Mikyael?”
“I swear to Christ, Inspector, no one. I don’t know who took it. I seriously do not know.”
“Are you saying that it was total coincidence? That someone who needed to pick up a body from Ul Qoma just happened to steal a van with pass papers still in it, waiting? How handy.”
“On my life, Inspector, I don’t know. Maybe whoever nicked the van found the papers and sold them to someone else …”
“They found someone who needed trans-city transport the same night they stole it? These are the luckiest thieves ever.”
Khurusch slumped. “Please,” he said. “Go through my bank accounts. Check my wallet. No one’s paying me dick. Since the van got taken I’ve not been able to do fucking anything, no business at all. I don’t know what to do …”
“You’re going to make me cry,” said Corwi. He looked at her with a ragged expression.
“On my life,” he said.
“We’ve looked up your record, Mikyael,” I said. “I don’t mean your police record—that’s what we checked last time. I mean your record with the Besźel border patrol. You got random audited a few months after you first got a pass. A few years ago. We saw First Warning marks on several things, but the biggest by far was that you’d left the papers in the car. It was a car at the time, right? You’d left it in the glove compartment. How’d you get away with that one? I’m surprised they didn’t revoke it there and then.”
“First offence,” he said. “I begged them. One of the guys who found it said he’d have a word with his mate and get it commuted to an official warning.”
“Did you bribe him?”
“Sure. I mean, something. I can’t remember how much.”
“Why not? I mean, that’s how you got it in the first place, right? Why even bother?”
A long silence. AQD vehicle passes are generally advertised as for businesses with a few more employees than Khurusch’s sketchy concern, but it is not uncommon for small traders to help their applications with a few dollars—Besźmarques being unlikely to move the Besź middlemen or issuing clerks at the Ul Qoman embassy.
“In case,” he said hopelessly, “I ever needed help picking stuff up. My nephew’s done the test, couple of mates, could’ve driven it, helped me out. You never know.”
“Inspector?” Corwi was looking at me. She’d said it more than once, I realised. “Inspector?” She glanced at Khurusch, What are we doing?
“Sorry,” I said to her. “Just thinking.” I motioned her to follow me to the corner of the room, warning Khurusch with a pointed finger to stay put.
“I’m going to take him in,” I said quietly, “but something’s … Look at him. I’m trying to work something out. Look, I want you to chase something up. As quick as you can, because tomorrow I’m going to have to go to this damn orientation, so I think tonight’s going to be a long night. Are you okay with that? What I want is a list of all the vans reported stolen in Besźel that night, and I want to know what happened in each case.”
“All of them …?”
“Don’t panic. It’ll be a lot for all vehicles, but factor out everything but vans round about this size, and it’s only for one night. Bring me everything you can on each of them. Including all paperwork associated, okay? Quick as possible.”
“What are you going to do?”
“See if I can make this sleazy sod tell the truth.”
COEWI, through cajoling, persuasion and computer expertise, got hold of the information within a few hours. To be able to do that, so quickly, to speed up official channels, is voodoo.
For the first couple of hours as she went through things, I sat with Khurusch in a cell, and asked him in various ways and in several different formulations Who took your