She looked at me tearfully. Her husband was, I thought for a second, asleep on the bunk. I saw how very motionless he was and revised my opinion.

“Inspector,” Ceczoria said.

“What’s happened to him?”

“He’s … Breach did it, sir. He’ll probably be okay, wake up in a bit. I don’t know. I don’t know what the hell they did to him.”

Mrs. Geary said, “You’ve poisoned  my husband  …”

“Mrs. Geary, please.” Ceczoria rose and came closer to me, lowered his voice though he was talking now in Besź. “We didn’t know anything about it, sir. There was a little bit of a commotion outside and someone came into the lobby where we were.” Mrs. Geary was crying and talking to her unconscious husband. “Geary kind of lurches in and passes out. The hotel security go at them, and they just look at this shape, someone behind Geary in the hallway, and the guards stop and wait. I hear this voice: ‘You know what I represent. Mr. Geary breached. Remove him.’” Ceczoria shook his head, helpless. “Then, and I still can’t see anything properly, whoever’s speaking’s gone.”

“How …?”

“Inspector, I don’t fucking know. I … I take responsibility, sir. Geary must have got past us.”

I stared at him. “Do you want a bloody biscuit? Of course it’s your responsibility. What did he do?”

“Don’t know. Breach were gone before I could say a word.”

“What about…” I nodded at Mrs. Geary.

“She wasn’t deported: she didn’t do anything.” He was whispering. “But when I told her we had to take her husband, she said she’d go with him. She doesn’t want to stick around on her own.”

“Inspector Borlú.” Mrs. Geary was trying to sound controlled. “If you’re talking about me you should talk to  me. Do you see what’s been done  to my husband?”

“Mrs. Geary, I’m terribly sorry.”

“You should  be …”

“Mrs. Geary, I didn’t do this. Neither did Ceczoria. Neither did any of my officers. Do you understand?”

“Oh Breach Breach Breach  …”

“Mrs. Geary, your husband just did something very serious. Very serious.” She was quiet but for heavy breaths. “Do you understand me? Has there been some mistake here? Were we less than clear in our explanations of the system of checks and balances between Besźel and Ul Qoma? Do you understand that this deportation is nothing to do with us , but that we have absolutely no power to do anything about it, and that he is, listen to me, he is incredibly lucky  that’s all he’s got?” She said nothing. “In the car I got the impression that your husband wasn’t quite so clear on how it works here, so you tell me, Mrs. Geary, did something go wrong? Did he misunderstand our… advice? How did my men not see him leave? Where was he going?”

She looked still as if she might cry; then she glanced at her supine husband and her stance changed. She stood straighter and whispered something to him that I did not catch. Mrs. Geary looked at me.

“He was in the air force,” she said. “You think you’re looking at some fat old man?” She touched him. “You never asked us who might have done this, Inspector. I don’t know what to make of you, I really don’t. Like my husband said, you think we don’t know who did this ?” She clutched and folded and unfolded a piece of paper, without looking at it, took it out of a side pocket of her bag, put it in again. “You think our daughter didn’t talk to us? First Qoma, True Citizens, Nat Bloc … Mahalia wasafraid , Inspector.

“We haven’t figured out exactly who did what, and we don’t know why, but where was he going, you say? He was going to find out. I told him it wouldn’t work—he didn’t speak the language, he didn’t read it—but he had addresses we got from the internet and a phrase book and, what, was I going to tell him not  to go? Not to go? I’m so proud of him. Those people hated Mahalia for years, since she first came here.”

“Printed out from the internet?”

“And I mean here , Besźel. When she came to the conference. Then the same thing with others, in Ul Qoma. Are you going to tell me there’s no connection? She knew she’d made enemies, she told  us she’d made enemies. When she went looking into Orciny she made enemies. When she looked deeper she made more. They all hated her, because of what she was doing. What she knew.”

“Who hated her?”

“All of them.”

“What did she know?”

She shook her head and sagged. “My husband was going to investigate.”

He had climbed out of a ground-floor bathroom window, to avoid my watching officers. A few steps across the road, what could have merely been a breaking of the rules we had set him, but he had blundered out of a crosshatching and into an alter area, a yard that existed only in Ul Qoma; and Breach, who must have watched him all the time, had come for him. I hoped they hadn’t hurt him too badly. If they had I was pretty sure there wouldn’t be any doctor back home who would be able to identify the agent of his injury. What could I say?

“I’m sorry for what happened, Mrs. Geary. Your husband shouldn’t have tried to evade Breach. I … We are on the same side.” She looked at me carefully.

She whispered to me eventually, “Let us go, then. Go on. We can walk back to the city. We have money. We … my husband’s going crazy . He needs to be looking. He’ll just come back. We’ll come through Hungary and, or, we’ll come up via Turkey or Armenia-there are ways we can get in, you know … We’re going to find out who did this …”

“Mrs. Geary, Breach are watching us now. Now .” I raised my open hands slowly and filled them with air. “You wouldn’t get ten metres. What is it you think you can do? You don’t speak Besź, Illitan. I … Let me , Mrs. Geary. Let me do my job for you.”

MR. GEARY WAS STILL UNCONSCIOUS when the plane boarded. Mrs. Geary looked at me with reproach and hope, and I tried to tell her again that there was nothing I could do, that Mr. Geary had done this himself.

There were not many other passengers. I wondered where Breach was. Our remit would end when the plane doors were sealed. Mrs. Geary cushioned her husband’s head as he lolled in the stretcher in which we carried him. In the plane doorway, as they took the Gearys to their seats, I showed my badge to one of the attendants.

“Be good to them.”

“The deportees?”

“Yeah. Seriously.” He raised his brows but nodded.

I went to where the Gearys were seated. Mrs. Geary stared at me. I squatted.

“Mrs. Geary. Please pass my apologies to your husband. He shouldn’t have done what he did, but I understand why.” I hesitated. “You know … if he’d known Besźel better, he could probably have avoided falling into Ul Qoma, and Breach couldn’t have stopped him.” She just stared. “Let me get that.” I stood, took her bag and put it overhead. “Of course when we know what’s happening, if we get any leads at all, any information, I’ll tell you.” Still she didn’t say anything. Her mouth was moving: she was trying to decide whether to plead with me or accuse me of something. I bowed a little, old-fashioned, turned and left the plane and the two of them.

Back in the airport building, I took out the paper I had taken from the side pocket of her bag and looked at it. The name of an organisation, True Citizens, copied from the internet. That his daughter must have told him hated her, and where Mr. Geary had been going with his own dissident investigations. An address.