Chapter Two

My head was heavy, but I lifted it anyway. The darkness of the room made me instantly alert. Somewhere, just beyond where I could see, the man in the brown suit was watching.

“Welcome back, Inspector. I saw a movie once in the West; the actress said, ‘We’ve got to stop meeting like this,’ and everyone in the theater laughed. I didn’t find it funny then, but I think I see the point.” He took one of his measured steps forward and clicked on the lamp. The tips of his shoes shone. “In all the world, you and I must meet to talk again. Here. I find that depressing, actually.” He jangled some coins in his pocket. “Let’s begin.”

“What if you and I have nothing to say to each other?”

The club nuzzled against my neck, pressing my head to the side.

“Last time was only a warning, Inspector. This time you might be crippled.”

I tried a more positive tack. “You said you had decided I was the wrong man.”

“That was then.”

“Does my ministry know I’m here?”

“Why should it matter?”

“So, they don’t know.”

“No, actually, we don’t ring up employers, although I know of a few instances where next of kin were notified. Or lovers.”

“Why am I here?”

“Good, straight to the point. I was getting there myself. What is this with you and the British? First in Prague, now here, in your own capital?”

“I already told you about Prague. Check the files; that’s why people keep them, isn’t it? The Scotsman was dropped in my lap by the Ministry. I never saw him before, I had nothing to do with his showing up, and I’ll be happier than anyone when he leaves.”

“Perhaps, Inspector. That isn’t what this file says, however.” A paper appeared out of the gloom, then disappeared again.

“It could be wrong; some files are less reliable than others. I should know.”

“We’ll see.” He paused, and I heard pages being ruffled. I would have thought that he had the file marked exactly where he wanted the questioning to go, but he must have lost his place. “Let’s spend a moment on your professional life.” Another page or two turned; they sounded like dry leaves.

I thought of Yang and licked my lips. “How about another glass of water?” I needed a moment to lock all the doors to my memory.

“No, no water, Inspector, until we finish. Then you can have as much as you want.” I didn’t like the way he said that. There was a low laugh from behind me. I didn’t like that, either.

“Alright, what do you want to know?”

“The file says you come from a troubled office. Your former chief inspector was a good friend of yours. He died under suspicious circumstances, is that right?”

“You know exactly how he died, but I wasn’t there, so I can’t add anything.”

“He was shot by Military Security. Not a deserving end for a loyal Ministry of People’s Security official, would you say?”

“I told you, I wasn’t there.” I didn’t want to talk about Pak.

“It must have made you bitter. Thoughts of revenge ever cross your mind?”

“You want me to say yes? Will that make it easier?”

The club tapped on the floor a couple of times behind me, but otherwise it was quiet.

Finally, the man in brown crumpled a piece of paper and threw it between us. “We’ll leave Pak alone for a moment, Inspector. Let’s start with a clean sheet. Your new chief inspector, Min. Just between us, would you say he is competent at what he does?”

“I don’t rate his competence. He rates mine. We get along pretty well; he gives orders, I follow them.”

“Much of the time I suppose you do, though some might disagree. But I’m not really interested in the particulars of your ministry’s operations. I’m interested in people. Do people interest you, Inspector?”

Here we go, I thought. I knew what was coming next.

“Your colleague, Yang. He is an interesting case, I’d say. The sort of person who attracts the attention of anyone concerned about security. The poor man was practically paralyzed with grief when he lost his family. Yet he was kept on in the capital. His transfer orders out to the countryside were revised; by whom and for what reason was a mystery. Who do you think did that?”

“I was as surprised as everyone else. But he’s getting better.” I remembered what I had told Min. “It just takes a little time, that’s all.” That was the extent of my wiggle; if the subject of the Blue Paper came up, I had no idea what I was going to say.

“You often entertain women in your apartment?”

“Entertain who?” Having the subject changed so abruptly was a surprise. I thought for sure he would want to dig some more about Yang. “No. The old lady who guards the building would find out, and then I’d be in trouble. Everyone would talk.”

“Even foreign women?”

“None, of no description. Who is peddling this stuff?”

“Not even from Kazakhstan?”

I sat back in the chair and closed my eyes. “This is a waste of time, you realize that.”

The club hit my right arm, just below the shoulder. It made my fingers ache, then my wrist, then the pain shot up the back of my head. I took a breath and exhaled slowly.

The man in the brown suit moved forward into the light so I could almost see his face. His mouth was contorted. “Damn you, Inspector, just answer my questions, just do that.” He worked to gain his composure, shook his head, then stepped back into the darkness.

“What did you discover up at the shrine?” His voice had returned to normal, but there was an edge to it that hadn’t been there before. He was interested in the shrine.

“Not much. You spend your days following me around?”

The club tapped the floor, but the man in the brown suit held up his hand. “How old is that shrine?”

“How should I know?”

“Let me put it another way. When was it last reconstructed?”

“Not long ago.” That was what had been bothering me about the place. It was too new.

“When?”

“Recently.”

“What makes you think so?”

“The lumber.”

“Go on.”

“The boards were warped, they weren’t dried long enough, and they weren’t milled. The Japanese had mills, older lumber came from better trees, and there was time to season it.”

“Conclusion.”

“I’m going to say this carefully, because I haven’t had a chance to think about it. Alright with you?”

“Go ahead.”

“There aren’t a lot of mills around these days, for whatever reason. And most lumber isn’t seasoned; the logs are cut up and the wood is used before anyone has a chance to give it a look.”

“Conclusion.”

“Could have been a few years ago, but I’d say more recently.”

There was a silence. The man in the brown suit shifted his feet, a sign that the questioning was going to take a new direction.

“What do you know about Kazakhstan, Inspector?”

“Nothing. No, really, nothing. I hadn’t even thought about it until a few weeks ago. Of course, you mentioned those trees.”

“Did you know that Trotsky was exiled there?”

“Is that a fact?”

I didn’t even feel the club, not then. Maybe I heard the swish it made, but probably not. That might just be part of a broken memory. I couldn’t tell. I don’t remember any more questions. Or how I got back to my own room.

2

Min was there when I woke up. His round face was creased with worry, and I saw a twitch at the corner of his mouth. He stared at me with dull eyes.

“Did you miss me?” I started to sit up, but Min pushed me back down. I didn’t have the strength to resist. I didn’t want to sit up anyway.

“No, certainly not. I hadn’t realized you were gone for another two days, Inspector.” There was only a feeble irony in Min’s voice. “Were you gone that long? I just figured, what the hell, O has probably gone on a vacation and neglected to mention it. So I came over to your place, and you were here, not in very good shape, actually. Did you know that you moan in a rich baritone, Inspector? You should take up singing, once your jaw heals, I mean.” Min’s twitch had moved from the corner of his mouth up to his cheek. He looked like he was in a gray pain. “What have you gotten into? What have we gotten into? Don’t answer; don’t say anything, just rest. Do me a favor, rest. I’m going out to find you something to eat. Don’t go anywhere. Tell me you won’t get up. No, on second thought, don’t say anything. Just nod. You won’t get up, am I right?”

I nodded, and the motion moved something in my head against something else, so I didn’t want to go anywhere or say anything. Maybe some water would be good, a drink of water. But there was none. When Min had closed the door behind him, I blinked against the darkness and fell through a loose board in my consciousness.

3

Boswell was frowning when I woke up. To hell with him, I thought. What does he have to frown about?

“Well, at least you’re alive.”

I couldn’t tell if this was supposed to be an expression of sympathy. But he stopped frowning after he said it.

“How long have you been here?”

“A day.” He started to put out a cigarette. “You want a puff?” I shook my head, nothing vigorous. “Less, it just seems like a day. Min was hanging around, biting his nails, but he said he had to check something. He asked me to stay. You want something to eat?”

“Even if I did, there isn’t anything.”

There was the rustle of paper. “Don’t be so sure of everything, Inspector. I have here rice, soup, no longer piping hot, alas, and some vegetables. Roots maybe. I can’t tell.”

“Soup. Just a sip. Help me sit up.”

Boswell did as he was asked for once. “Jesus, Inspector, you looked like death when I got here. Min was in shock, sitting here looking at you. So was the restaurant lady.”

“What restaurant lady?”

“Where do you think the soup came from? I didn’t cook it myself. There’s no stove, no hot plate, nothing in here. You live like a caveman.”

“It’s my home, Boswell, don’t be so critical. What is it, “ ‘Home is the hunter, home from the hill . . . ’”

“ ‘And the sailor home from the sea.’ ” Boswell sat back and laughed. “Sweet Sisters of the Glen, Inspector, you are something. Finish your soup before it gets cold.”

“It is cold. Who let Miss Pyon in here? Keep her away, or she’ll get herself in trouble.”

“Pyon? Is that the restaurant lady? I don’t think you have to worry about her, Inspector. She seems to know her way around.”

I put the soup aside. “Any other visitors?”

“Now who could you be thinking of?”

My head hurt like hell. It made no sense fencing with him, I didn’t have the strength. The only thing left was to ask the question straight out. “What do you know about Miss Chon?”

There was a soft knock, and a piece of paper appeared under the door. Boswell sprang up and wrenched open the door, but the hallway was empty. He went out and walked from one end to the other; I heard him cursing under his breath about the lack of light. “Gone, never here, what a place!” He reached down and scooped up the paper. “Here, it’s in Korean.”

“You speak the language, I believe.”

“I do. That I do. But I don’t read it. Speaking isn’t so difficult, but reading takes effort. Especially if you have to learn a whole new alphabet. I never had time to memorize strange alphabets. What the hell difference does it make? The note’s for you, anyway.”

“Maybe, maybe not. Everyone knows you’re here, Superintendent. From the moment you got out of the car, everyone knew. They listened to you climb the stairs. Maybe it’s a love note; maybe some heartsick lass wants to be swept away to some loch or another, to sit over the fire and boil your oatmeal while you’re out in the damp fog.”

“Very amusing, Inspector. I like that in a man who has just had the piss beaten out of him by his own authorities.” He dropped the paper on my chest. “Read it and then try standing up. I’ll be downstairs, if I can find the stairs in the gloom.”

The note was typed. It said, “Native to Korea is one venomous snake, whose bite is lethal but which is not aggressive. The tigers left long ago. New bears have been seen.” Snakes. I had to get back to the temple to see the old man.

4

Across the table, she lit another cigarette, puffed nervously, put it down, then picked it up again, just held it. It quivered as her fingers shook for an instant, then was still. “I have a child. A son.”

Just like that. It was a plea for forgiveness. She looked at me as if she had made a horrible admission, as if she had broken a favorite vase of mine. I never knew a more painful silence. It didn’t last more than a second, but I thought it had swallowed me up and left me in some other place on the other side of the world, so I didn’t know who she was or what language she was speaking. It wasn’t the fact that shook me, not that she had a child, but the anguish it caused her to say the thing out loud. I couldn’t see what there was to forgive.

We were sitting in her apartment. It made mine look like a closet. She had said she needed to talk to me, only this time I could tell she meant it. That was good, because I needed to talk to her. I was still wobbly from my last meeting with the man in the brown suit, but I couldn’t lie in bed forever. She came over to my apartment house to pick me up just past noon. A group from the apartment was sitting on the ground near the bushes, arguing about whose fault it was that the garden plot hadn’t been weeded. They pretended to ignore me when I passed them, but as I climbed into her car, a lot of necks were craning. She drove fast, with a nervous foot on the gas and not much attention to lanes. I closed my eyes and relaxed; after what I’d been through, there wasn’t any sense in worrying about my fate. When we got to her apartment, she pulled around the back. A guard checked her license plate, flicked his eyes at me, then waved her into a space reserved for six or seven cars. There was another guard at the door, but unlike the old lady in my apartment house, he didn’t say anything as we passed by.

The apartment was on the tenth floor. The elevator worked, which I was glad of because I didn’t want to climb stairs. There were lights in the hallway, and the gray-white paint on the walls was only just beginning to peel from the moisture. She had a few framed photographs on a low table in the main room; they looked like they might be family. One had her posed in front of a mountain that came down to a rough and foggy beach. She wasn’t smiling in the picture.

“I can see it in your eyes, Inspector. You’ve already begun to look at me differently. You are one of those who can’t forget anything, aren’t you? Forgetting is a coin you can spend anytime you want, but you are a miser. You have no memories.” She wasn’t speaking to me now, not exactly, but off into the distance at someone else I couldn’t see. “An inability to forget is not memory. It’s a form of cowardice. Like pulling yourself back from sleep at the last moment. You remember too much, you forget too little. You know why? Because you are afraid if you forget often enough, it will become an addiction.”

I knew she wasn’t expecting me to say anything, not yet. My silence seemed to bring her back from wherever she had been. Her voice was calmer. “Is there something here”—she gestured not around the room but as if we were on a hill and she was pointing out the city and the fields and the solitude beyond—“something here you would choose to remember? Better forget it, or is there nothing else for you to hold?”

She was wrong. I had forgotten something; why had I come, what did I want to ask her? It was as if she had taken an eraser to my memory. I couldn’t remember anything except her face, and how close it was to mine. “That’s fine,” I said finally, but hearing the words I knew they were wrong, wrong words, wrong voice. I sat back. “What I mean is, it’s a fine thing, bringing children into the world.” I paused. What was that supposed to mean?

“He’s with my relatives in our village in Kazakhstan.” The cast of her features became impassive, like ancient rock, but her eyes were filled with fury. “No, he isn’t part Scottish. He’s all Kazakh.” Her voice trailed off. She turned away, so I took a breath, nothing too deep because I was afraid it would sound like a sigh.

“A son is a good thing.” Not what I meant to say, not at all what I meant. My voice sounded strange in my ears. “All children, they’re good.” That sounded worse. She turned back and looked at me with such ferocity that I began to squint.

“Shut up! You bastard, can’t you hear me? I told you I have a son, Kazakh, he’s fifteen, do you know what that means?”

I started running through the list of possibilities in my head. That put her at least at thirty, maybe a little younger, but I was doubtful. It meant she’d been with a Kazakh man when she was just a girl. I sighed without thinking. Maybe an arranged marriage. I could feel the pulse pounding in my temples.

“You have nothing to say? You don’t care? You despise me?” At this rate, the volcano inside her would explode just as the headache broke across the top of my skull. I looked at her dumbly, more dumbly than I intended.

I shook myself into speech. “No, why should I despise you? You have a child. I’m glad of it.” I brightened at the sound of that thought. “Yes, I am, I’m glad of it. It makes you, I don’t know”—I held up my hands in hopes that the gesture would release me, but it only made me look like I was holding a watermelon—“it makes you fuller, more complete, even more beautiful.” Was that what I meant to say? It was, I think it was, or close to it. But it wasn’t why I had come over, or was it? I couldn’t remember. Such a horrible moment, when everything hung in the balance, maybe this was like being in front of a firing squad. I’d seen a prisoner shot, once. He had held his breath, waiting. I decided to breathe, chanced another breath, a small one. Unless she was listening closely, she wouldn’t know it was a sigh. She put her head down on the table and began to sob. “Yes,” I said, not knowing what to do, “a son is good, and I know he must be a fine boy.” This was an impossible conversation. I had never had a conversation like this, sat so close to a beautiful woman, a woman who was sobbing, her body convulsed with sobs, and I didn’t understand why, I couldn’t have told anyone why. It escaped me utterly, what I was to do. I felt diminished, unequal, drowning. It was a relief when the sobbing stopped, when she lifted her head and looked at me, straight into my eyes, and I shivered at knowing, in that instant, who I was.

5

The next day, as soon as my head cleared, I went into the office. If I stayed in my place, I’d only think about Miss Chon, and I didn’t want to do that. If she knocked on my door again, this time I might not ask her to leave. And I still didn’t have any chairs. Even worse, letting another day go by without any progress in figuring out a rational way to arrange the pieces of this case simply increased the chances of another session with the ash club. Case? What case? I didn’t even know what this was about anymore. Or maybe I did. Maybe the man in the brown suit was trying to motivate me to find out what he couldn’t discover on his own. If so, it was effective technique, up to a point. Other than avoiding Miss Chon, there was nothing else on my mind except not seeing him again, either. I needed to solve the problem, but I couldn’t do that unless I defined it first.

“This is a simple bookshelf problem,” I said to Boswell.

“Textbook case, you mean.” Boswell’s eyes were closed. He was resting his head against the wall, the far wall where the bookshelf belonged.

“No, Superintendent, I mean bookshelf. As in, building a shelf to hold books. A box, basically, four ninety-degree angles. A plain board in the middle, maybe two, depending on your sense of symmetry and the number of books you own.”

Boswell opened his eyes. “We are not amused, as royalty used to say. What is the point, exactly?”

“Every problem is reducible to essential elements. Pull off the finials, the decoration, the brass fittings. There has to be a basic structure, something that holds the problem upright, keeps it unified.”

“And this structure, this problem we are dealing with, this is a bookshelf?”

“Apparently. It seems to have four ninety-degree angles.”

“Such as.”

“The two Germans did not enter the country legally. Neither did the robbers from Kazakhstan. Ninety degrees. Clear and crisp.”

“What does it mean?”

“It doesn’t mean anything, necessarily. I’m just describing what is; in carpentry, you have to start with reality. Ninety degrees is just an angle, after all.”

“Well, what if the Germans had come in legally, but not the Kazakhs?” An interesting question. The answer might not be important, but the question was.

“Forty-five degrees,” I said.

“You can’t build a bookshelf with that angle?”

“No. Not even Scandinavians do that.”

“Go on, Inspector.”

“The Germans have both been associated with, or at least in close proximity to, banks that were robbed in the past in various countries. The man hit by the bus, one of the robbers, was Kazakh.”

“How do you know?”

“I know.”

“That’s ninety degrees?”

“It is.”

“Pretty thin gruel.”

“You’re thinking oatmeal, Superintendent. Don’t.”

“What if you’re wrong, Inspector?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time. It’s no different with a bookshelf. If the angles aren’t right, you’ll know it soon enough. No use trying to force anything. It won’t work. You can’t force boards together any more than you can hammer facts into fitting.”

“But you shave boards, don’t you?”

“No, you plane them. But only to get at the truth. You can’t plane a board to do something it won’t. If you have a twisted board, that’s all there is. It’s twisted.”

“I suppose.”

“You’re a skeptic, that’s good. But in the end, you still need somewhere to put your books. I’m going to build you a shelf.”

“Life isn’t like carpentry, Inspector.”

“Says you. Look, German radicals, a bank robbery, and a threat to a foreign dignitary.”

“Coincidence.”

“Maybe somewhere else on the planet. Not here. Here, it’s a ninety-degree coincidence.”

“What’s left?”

“I don’t know.”

“You only have three corners.”

“That’s right.”

“So you don’t have anything, really. The thing wouldn’t stand by itself.”

“Correct.”

“You need another angle.”

“Ninety degrees more, Superintendent, and we’re in business. Without that, we have a pile of lumber.”

“What do you think you’re missing?” He had been uninterested in the first part of the conversation, but I could tell he was suddenly paying attention.

“You are a foreigner, Superintendent, no offense. You work for a foreign service, in a country hostile to mine. Your government is allied with a government that is seeking the downfall of my own.”

Boswell said nothing. His fingers tapped on his knee. Then he pointed at me. “Politics. Don’t mix politics with police work, Inspector.”

I smiled. “Strange thing to say.” I turned to the window. “Pretty day. It’s the first of May, wonderful month to be alive, don’t you think?”

“Already the first of May? Time slips by in your country, doesn’t it, Inspector.” He was on the verge of saying more but pulled back.

“Have I showed you the trees along the riverside, Superintendent?”

Boswell stood up and stretched his arms over his head. “Do those trees have anything to do with bookshelves?”

“Unlikely, Superintendent, they’re mulberries.”

“So?”

“No good for shelves. A wood with too much of a mind of its own.”

“I’m surprised such trees grow here.” He paused and waited half a beat. “I mean, cold weather and all.”

Neither of us spoke on the walk to the park. It was hard to ignore the SSD checkpoints along the way. A woman with a black bag over her shoulder loitered on the corner at the end of the block. She moved away as we passed, walking in the other direction. A car drove up and parked across the street when we stood for a moment in the shade. Two old men waited, smoking cigarettes under a tree fifteen meters away, not talking to each other. These were just static posts. It would take a few minutes for the mobile team to arrive. Before that happened, I needed to get things clear with Boswell. We sat on a bench facing the river. The sun was hot and the breeze was cool; the sky was brilliantly clear in all directions except for two small clouds drifting side by side. In a few weeks, on this sort of day all the new leaves would dance gently, in complete silence, still too young to give off the rustling that sits on the edge of summer, or that dry chorus six months away that sings of winter and death. I remembered the man in the brown suit asking me about Prague and felt my shoulder ache.

“You and the Irishman work together, do you?” I asked.

Boswell turned to me with a quizzical look. “Here? Now? You ready?”

“Ready?” I couldn’t arrest him; my meeting in Prague would be confirmed. I couldn’t smash his face or roar at him or break his thumbs. “No, I’m not interested in taking that road. I told Molloy I’m not working for your damned queen, and I’m not.” My shoulder flared again. “I don’t like you people setting me up. You’ll tell Molloy that, won’t you? Tell him my shoulder is not good anymore, and it’s his fault. Is that why they sent you, to see if I’m ready to bolt? Or is there something more? Why are you here, Boswell? And don’t tell me it’s on a security detail for your visitor. You don’t know the first thing about security.” I glanced around. The mobile team was taking its time moving into place. Boswell shifted uncomfortably. “Just listen,” I said.

He looked down at the grass. “If I can hear you, so can others out here.”

“No, not yet. Another few minutes, maybe.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out the small piece of persimmon I had been carrying around. “See this wood? It’s very complicated. Difficult to understand. You have to look at it for a while; even then you might not be able to figure out what it’s trying to say. That’s why furniture made out of persimmon can go wrong so easily.”

“Now you’ve lost me, Inspector.”

“Whatever this is, this German-Kazakh-British connection, it isn’t what it seems. It’s internal. I’m convinced of it. Someone on the inside has set it up. The body of the bank robber disappeared from the morgue, and they have orders not to talk.”

“Could be coincidence.”

“Again, you opt for coincidence. Is that a Scottish trait? Things just happen? Not here, Superintendent. Nothing just happens here. Not even close. The man in the restaurant, the dead one, his friend was sprung by people with influence. Then he falls over with a knife in his back. Not coincidence; a knife in the back is not a coincidence, especially when it happens outside Club Blue.” Boswell frowned. I continued. “The owner of Club Blue was sleeping with Miss Chon.” Boswell had stopped frowning; the blood had drained from his face. “Not important,” I said. “Anyway, he drowned, but a big man like him wouldn’t drown in a shallow pool of water without some help and, apparently, several days of torture. Just to add the final touch, I was hauled into a room with a man who is trying to find out something from me I don’t know. No coincidence. For the rest of my life, if it threatens rain, my left shoulder stops working. What do we call that?”

Boswell said nothing. I didn’t think he was paying attention anymore; his thoughts were somewhere off in the distance. Finally, he shook his head. “Rotten luck. Rotten all around.” He stood up and looked both ways down the path. “This man who was trying to find out something from you, do you know who he was?”

“What do you care? He won’t touch a foreigner, don’t worry.”

Boswell sat down again. “Are we getting any closer to your final ninety degrees?”

“A lot,” I said. “Someone on the inside set up the robbery. They used outsiders. Why? Do they want the foreign currency so badly? Not a chance. They could get it without stocking masks. All they have to do is to dip their hands into the cash bag. Easy to do. No, this has nothing to do with a bundle of small euro notes.” Something occurred to me, out of nowhere. “Funny, the person spreading the stories about the bank robbery was an Englishman.”

“So?”

“Next, someone wants to stage the assassination of a visiting dignitary. Who isn’t the issue, I suppose, it’s where. They want it here.”

“Why?”

“A pretense. An excuse. Doesn’t matter if they kill him or not. Just the event, just a whiff of the event is enough.”

Boswell took an uneasy look around the horizon. “For what?”

“A coup, Superintendent.” This time the word didn’t just slip out. I had thought about it ahead of time, and that’s the word I wanted. “If there is such loss of control that a foreign visitor is threatened, that’s enough to galvanize support for a move by those who want to yank back hard on the reins, stop this foolishness with ideas about economic loosening. Moral laxness, that’s what they’ll say.”

“Can they do it?” He tried as hard as he could to make it an idle question. He did everything but yawn. It was almost funny. With that one question, it was obvious he had never done this before.

“Reassert control?” I waited half a beat. He half turned to me, then realized how anxious that seemed so turned away again and sat back. “Maybe. Probably. But there are winners and losers in that sort of crackdown. Unhappiness, grudges, egos.”

“So, who is on our side? Who helps us protect my man? You may not like my security technique, but he is my man.”

I saw the mobile team turn the corner and amble down the path toward us. A man and a woman. Terrible choice, typical of SSD. No one in his right mind would think this couple had anything in common. Couples who belong together walk in a kind of a rhyme, even if they’re mad at each other. There was nothing between these two; they probably didn’t even share the same office building. Probably only met five minutes ago. Hopeless, SSD was hopeless. No wonder the British sent such an amateur; they didn’t think we were much of a target. I’d mention something to Min, if I ever saw him again.

I turned back to Boswell. “Those trees”—I pointed at a line of gingko trees along the path—“they were planted soon after the war. Not many trees were left. What the bombs didn’t blast apart was used for fuel. Someone decided to plant replacements. They’ve grown to full height now. They make a kind of statement. Very calm place, right here, wouldn’t you say?”

Boswell stood up and walked a few steps. “I don’t know what I’d say, Inspector, not here, not now.” The woman on the mobile team moved her head slightly when he passed. Her companion looked up at the treetops and tried to adjust the microphone wire that was under his coat.

6

Boswell didn’t appear back at the office, so I sat at my desk and sketched a bookcase with three shelves. I put a door on it. I put on brass fittings. It didn’t matter what I did. The thought was stuck in my mind, and it wouldn’t shake loose. Boswell should have canceled the visit; as soon as I gave him my crazy theory, he should have demanded to be driven to the British embassy to have the whole thing shut down. He didn’t do that. Yesterday, he’d been adamant that he was going to call off the trip. Today, he didn’t even mention it. But why would he want it to happen? I must be wrong about the assassination attempt. Nothing fit. Or everything did. In that case, I’d cancel the visit myself. I’d just call the Ministry and say the bank robbery had raised enough questions to make it a bad time for us to entertain a foreign guest. If there were complaints, I’d say the visit would interfere with the investigation. I’d call the Ministry directly; I wouldn’t even tell Min.

There was a knock on the door. It was Min.

“We have to talk.”

“Shall we go to your office?”

“No, here.”

I stood up. Min gestured. “Sit, Inspector.”

“Something I did wrong?”

“What did you discover about the site where the Club Blue manager was found?”

“Funny place. Whoever did it must have scouted it beforehand.”

“The club manager was a former special service officer. I just found out.”

“What? Well, that explains the shoulders.” It explained the long gap between when he disappeared and when he showed up dead. They had to take their time squeezing as much information out of him as they could and, when they thought they had it all, go back and squeeze some more, every drop. Make him reveal who was under surveillance, who had been turned around, which plans had been compromised.

“He was called back and put on assignment.”

“Oh.” Threads began tightening. Even before we had been given the robbery case, someone had been on the inside.

“Something happened to his cover. It cracked.”

“He had me fooled.” Me, but not everyone.

“You really didn’t know?”

“No one tells me anything; sometimes I think it’s better that way.”

“Well, like I said, I just found out. They were thinking you might have done something to finger him.”

“Tell them to go somewhere else, will you? My shoulder won’t ever be the same.”

“What do you know about Boswell?”

“Meaning what?”

“A question, Inspector, nothing more. Question-answer, a good sequence, wouldn’t you agree? Otherwise, a conversation would have no end.” He sounded like the man in the brown suit. My hip flared up. I gaped in pain and grabbed the desk. I should stop complaining just about my shoulder.

“You alright?”

“Fine,” I said. “Boswell says he is here to check security for a British dignitary. He has an inordinate interest in shadows.”

“You believe him?”

I was silent.

“I take it you don’t believe him.”

“What has prompted this, Min? If it’s a big secret, don’t tell me. Just let me drift in the normal fog of ignorance that covers my days.”

“I realize, Inspector, to you it sometimes seems that I am not paying attention. I know you don’t think I measure up to all of your expectations. And perhaps sometimes I don’t. Other things crowd in on me. My mind becomes occupied, overoccupied you might say. But this case, this robbery, has captured my attention as nothing else has for a long time. You don’t think it’s just a robbery. I agree. I think about it day and night. Nothing like it has troubled me to this extent. It is taking us someplace very bad; I feel it, and you do, too.”

“You think the robbery and the appearance of a tall, broad Scotsman is not a coincidence. Well, neither do I. I think he’s here for something else. If I had to guess, I’d guess he’s not here to cooperate. I’d say he’s up to no good. Worse than no good.”

“Thank you, Inspector, for that.” Min reached down and unplugged my phone from the wall. “A Ministry team was here last night to sweep the building. I’m led to believe that all is well, but I’m also reliably informed that they left these in place.” He twirled the phone line in the air and then let it drop to the floor.

I looked at the wire for a moment. “I’m going to recommend that the visit by the British VIP not take place. As soon as we’re done, I’m going over to the Ministry and personally putting in the recommendation.”

“Too late. Too late. Too ever fucking late, Inspector.”

“Why?”

“He’s already here. Special aircraft. Arrived yesterday evening.”

“That can’t be. Why would they allow him in early?”

“How should I know? Do I look like an airline reservation clerk? He’s here. Though exactly where he is right now I couldn’t say.” He held up his hand. “No, I’m not keeping it from you, Inspector. No one has told me. I’m in charge of security for this delegation, but I have no idea where the visitor is at the moment. And if something happens to him in the meantime, you know who gets blamed, don’t you?”

I jumped out of my chair. “Where’s Boswell?”

“He’s your responsibility, not mine. You’re supposed to be babysitting.”

“Where are the Germans?”

“Probably at their hotel.”

“They’re supposed to be on the east coast. It was arranged.”

“Countermanded. Little Li complained all morning long that he thought he was finally going to get a vacation, trailing after them.”

“This is a disaster. It’s a setup. Boswell and those Germans are in this together, but they’re not leading the parade. We’re being led to slaughter, Min. But by whom? Who is going to cut our throats?”

“Let me tell you what I think, Inspector. I think that I am being carried in the jaws of death. Lightly, gently, like a lioness carries her cub. But she will not drop me this time.”

“Lovely imagery.”

“Coming from you, Inspector, that could be funny. We both know what is going on. From the moment they assigned us that bank robbery, something wasn’t right.”

“That’s what I said weeks ago.”

“Then you disappeared.”

“Twice.”

“Twice.” Min spoke the word carefully, as if he were stepping over a hole in time. He pulled on his ear and looked at nothing. “Fate, I suppose. The whole road, leading to this.”

“Well, you may be ready to bow your head and accept what comes. I am not, not yet, anyway. We didn’t do anything wrong, and we’re not going to be anyone’s excuse. That’s for sure.”

“Better to go limp, Inspector. It might not hurt as much when the blow comes.”

“Don’t talk to me about blows, I know all about blows. Want to see my bruises?”

“Some other time.”

“Give me the keys to your car. I’m going up to that old man’s hut again. There’s something there. Why would they set so many dogs to watch my behind if someone wasn’t worried I’d find something?”

“You just figured that out?” Min tossed me the keys. “There’s enough gas in the tank of the duty car for you to go and get back. If the gauge is to be trusted. Are you going to take the Scots bear?”

“You want me to?”

Min smiled, so that I knew fate had slipped a tiny bit in his calculations.

“Okay, then.” I fished in my pockets for some wood and came up with a piece of walnut. I held it up with what must have been a look of surprise on my face.

“Something wrong, Inspector?”

“This is walnut.”

“If you say so.”

“I don’t know why I’m even carrying it around. There’s a certain smugness to walnut that you can feel.”

“I hadn’t realized.”

“My grandfather used to look at a piece of walnut and say, ‘Ugly.’ He claimed walnut needed discipline. Too many people say, ‘Oh, how beautiful,’ every time they see walnut burl, and they ended up spoiling the wood, that’s what he thought.” It was clear Min didn’t know what to say, so I put the wood in my pocket and stepped out the door. “If Boswell calls looking for me”—I turned back to Min—“you heard me say I was going toward Sinuiju to collect on a bet.”

“I did hear you say that.” The phone rang. Min let it ring twice, then waved for me to get going. As I went down the stairs, I heard him say in convincing tones, “Superintendent, I don’t put bells on my people. How should I know where he is at this moment?”