The City & the City - China Mieville [62]
“Actually I think I’m his you.” The phrase was not best chosen but she laughed.
“What’s their office like?”
“Like ours with better stationery. They took my gun.”
In fact the police station had been rather different from our own. It did have better fittings, but it was large and open-plan, full of whiteboards and cubicles over which neighbouring officers debated and bickered. Though I am sure most of the local militsya must have been informed that I was coming, I left a wake of unabashed curiosity as I followed Dhatt past his own office—he was ranked enough to get a little room—to his boss’s. Colonel Muasi had greeted me boredly with something about what a good sign of the changing relationships between our countries, herald of future cooperation, any help at all I needed, and had made me surrender my weapon. That had not been agreed beforehand, and I had tried to argue it but had given in quickly rather than sour things so early.
When we had left it had been to another roomful of not-very-friendly stares. “Dhatt,” someone had greeted him in passing, in a pointed way. “Ruffling feathers, am I?” I had asked, and Dhatt had said, “Touchy touchy. You’re Besź, what did you expect?”
“Fuckers!” said Corwi. “They did not.”
“No valid Ul Qoman licence, here in advisory role, et cetera.” I went through the bedside cupboard. There was not even a Gideon Bible. I did not know whether that was because Ul Qoma is secular, or because of lobbying by its disestablished but respected Lux Templars.
“Fuckers. So nothing to report?”
“I’ll let you know.” I glanced over the list of code phrases we had agreed to, but none of them—I miss Besź dumplings = am in trouble, Working on a theory = know who did it—were remotely germane. “I feel fucking stupid,” she had said as we came up with them. “I agree,” I had said. “I do too. Still.” Still, we could not assume that our communications would not be listened to, by whatever power it was that had outmanoeuvred us in Besźel. Is it more foolish and childish to assume there is a conspiracy, or that there is not?
“Same weather over here as back home,” I said. She laughed. That cliché witticism we had arranged meant nothing to report.
“What next?” she said.
“We’re going to Bol Ye’an.”
“What, now?”
“No. Sadly. I wanted to go earlier today, but they didn’t get it together and it’s too late now.” After I had showered and eaten, and wandered around the drab little room, wondering if I would recognise a listening device if I saw one, I had called the number Dhatt gave me three times before getting through to him.
“Tyador,” he had said. “Sorry, did you try to call? Been flat out, got caught tying up some stuff here. What can I do for you?”
“It’s getting on. I wanted to check about the dig site …”
“Oh, shit, yeah. Listen, Tyador, it’s not going to happen tonight.”
“Didn’t you tell people to expect us?”
“I told them to probably expect us. Look, they’ll be glad to go home, and we’ll go first thing in the morning.”
“What about What’s-her-name Rodriguez?”
“I’m still not convinced she’s actually … no, I’m not allowed to say that, am I? I’m not convinced that the fact that she’s missing is suspicious, how’s that? It’s hardly been very long. But if she’s still gone tomorrow, and not answering her email or her messages or anything, then it’s looking worse, I grant you. We’ll get Missing Persons on it.” So …
“So look. I’m not going to get a chance to come over tonight. Can you …? You’ve got stuff you can do, right? I’m sorry about this. I’m couriering over a bunch of stuff, copies of our notes, and that info you wanted, about Bol Ye’an and the university campuses and all that. Do you have a computer? Can you go online?”
“… Yeah.” A departmental laptop, a hotel Ethernet connection at ten dinar a night.
“Alright then. And I’m sure they’ve got video-on-demand. So you won’t be lonely.” He laughed.
I READ Between the City and the City for a while, but stalled. The combination of textual and historic minutiae and tendentious therefores was wearing. I watched Ul Qoman