“Have you read Between the City and the City?”  I said.

“When I was an undergrad, sure. My cam-cover was The Wealth of Nations.”  During the 1960s and ’70s, some banned literature could be bought bound in the stripped covers of legal paperbacks. “What about it?”

“What did you think?”

“At the time, that it was amazing, man. Plus that I was unspeakably brave to be reading it. Subsequently that it was ridiculous. Are you finally going through adolescence, Tyador?”

“Could be. No one understands me. I didn’t ask  to be born.” She had no memories of the book, in particular.

“I cannot fucking believe this,” Corwi said when I called her and told her. She kept repeating it.

“I know. That’s what I told Gadlem.”

“They’re taking me off the case?”

“I don’t think there’s a ‘they.’ But unfortunately, yes, no, you can’t come.”

“So that’s it? I’m just dropped off?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Son of a bitch . The question,” she said after a minute we’d spent without saying anything, only listening to each other’s silence and breath, like teenagers in love, “is who would have released that footage. No, the question is how did they find  that footage? Why? How many fucking hours of tape are there, how many cameras? Since when do they have the time to go through that shit? Why this one time?”

“I don’t have to leave immediately. I’m just thinking … I’ve got my orientation the day after tomorrow …”

“So?”

“Well.”

“So?”

“Sorry, I’ve been thinking this through. About this footage that’s just slapped us upside the head. Do you want to do a last little investigating? Couple of phone calls and a visit or two. There’s one thing in particular I have to sort out before my visa and whatnot comes through—I’ve been thinking about that van swanning over to foreign lands. This could get you in trouble.” I said this last jokingly, as if it were something appealing. “Of course you’re off the case, now, so it’s a bit unauthorised.” That wasn’t true. She was in no danger—I could okay anything she did. I might get in trouble but she would not.

“Fuck, yes, then,” she said. “If authority’s stiffing you, unauthorised is all you’ve got.”

Chapter Eleven

“YES?” Mikyael Khurusch looked at me more closely from behind the door to his shabby office. “Inspector. It’s you. What… Hello?”

“Mr. Khurusch. Small point.”

“Let us in, please, sir,” Corwi said. He opened the door wider to see her, too, sighed and opened to us.

“How can I help you?” He clasped, unclasped his hands.

“Doing okay without your van?” Corwi said.

“It’s a pain in the arse, but a friend’s helping me out.”

“Good of him.”

“Isn’t it?” Khurusch said.

“When did you get an AQD visa for your van, Mr. Khurusch?” I said.

“I, what, what?” he said. “I don’t, I have no—”

“Interesting that you stall like that,” I said. His response verified the guess. “You’re not so stupid as to out-and-out deny it, because, hey, passes are matters of record. But then what are we asking for? And why aren’t you just answering? What’s the trouble with that question?”

“Can we see your pass, please, Mr. Khurusch?”

He looked at Corwi several seconds.

“It’s not here. It’s at my house. Or—”

“Shall we not?” I said. “You’re lying. That was a little last chance for you, courtesy of us, and oh, you pissed it up a wall. You don’t have your pass. A visa, Any Qualified Driver, for multiple entry-reentry into and out of Ul Qoma. Right? And you don’t have it because it’s been stolen. It was stolen when your van was stolen. It was, in fact, in your van when your van was stolen, along with your antique street map.”

“Look,” he said, “I’ve told you, I wasn’t there, I don’t have  a street map, I have GPS on my phone. I don’t know anything—”

“Not true, but true that your alibi checks out. Understand, no one here thinks you committed this murder, or even dumped the body. That’s not why we’re ticked off.”

“Our concern,” Corwi said, “is that you never told us about the pass. The question is who took it, and what you got for it.” Colour left his face.

“Oh God,” he said. His mouth worked several times and he sat down hard. “Oh God, wait. I had nothing to do with anything, I didn’t get anything  …”

I had watched the CCTV footage repeatedly. There had been no hesitation in the van’s passage, on that guarded and official route through Copula Hall. Far from breaching, slipping along a crosshatched street, or changing plates to match some counterfeit permission, the driver had had to show the border guards papers that raised no eyebrows. There was one kind of pass in particular that might have expedited so uncomplicated a journey.

“Doing someone a favour?” I said. “An offer you couldn’t refuse? Blackmail? Leave the papers in the glove compartment. Better for them if you don’t know anything.”

“Why else would you not tell us you’d lost your papers?” Corwi said.

“One and only chance,” I said. “So. What’s the score?”

“Oh God, look.” Khurusch looked longingly around. “Please, look. I know I should’ve taken the papers in from the van. I do normally, I swear to you, I swear. I must have forgotten this one time, and that’s the time the van gets stolen.”

“That’s why you never told us about the theft, wasn’t it?” I said. “You never told us the van was stolen because you knew you’d have to tell us eventually about the papers, and so you just hoped the whole situation would sort itself out.”

“Oh God.”

Visiting Ul Qoman cars are generally easy to identify as visitors with rights of passage, with their licence plates, window stickers and modern designs: as are Besź cars in Ul Qoma, from their passes and their, to our neighbours, antiquated lines. Vehicular passes, particularly AQD multiple-entry, are neither cheap nor effortless to get hold of, and come hedged with conditions and rules. One of which is that a visa for a particular vehicle is never left unguarded in that vehicle. There’s no point making smuggling easier than it is. It is, though, a not-uncommon oversight, or crime, to leave such papers in glove compartments or under seats. Khurusch knew he was facing at the very least a large fine and the revocation of any travel rights to Ul Qoma forever.

“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.”