“You have good instincts.”

“Thank you.”

“Did you think about opening it?”

“No! It wasn’t to me.”

“Who was it to?”

“It wasn’t to anyone.” That outer envelope had named no recipient, only the dig. “That’s another reason, that’s why I looked at it, maybe, because I thought that was weird.”

We conferred. “Okay, Aikam,” Dhatt said. “You gave your address to the other officer, in case we need to get hold of you again? When you go out would you send in your boss and Professor Nancy, please?”

He hesitated in the doorway. “Do you have any information about Geary yet? Do you know what happened yet? Who killed her?” We told him no.

Kai Buidze, the chief guard, a muscular fifty-year-old, ex-army I’d guess, came in with Isabelle Nancy. She, not Rochambeaux, had offered her help in any way she could. She was rubbing her eyes. “Where’s Bowden?” I said to Dhatt. “Does he know?”

“She called him when the bomb squad opened the outer envelope and there was his name.” He nodded at Nancy. “She heard one of them reading it out. Someone’s gone to get him. Professor Nancy.” She looked up. “Does Bowden get a lot of mail here?”

“Not so much. He doesn’t even have an office. But a bit. Quite a lot from foreigners, a few from prospective students, people who don’t know where he lives or who assume he’s based here.”

“Do you send it on?”

“No, he comes in to check it every few days. Throws most of it away.”

“Someone’s really …” I said quietly to Dhatt. Hesitated. “Trying to outrun us, know what we’re doing.” With everything that was happening, Bowden might be wary now of any packages to his home. With the outer envelope and its foreign postmark discarded, he might even have thought something with only his name written on it an internal communication, something from one of his colleagues, and torn the strip. “Like someone knew he’d been warned to be careful.” After a moment I said, “They’re bringing him in?” Dhatt nodded.

“Mr. Buidze,” Dhatt said. “You had any trouble like this before?”

“Not like this. Sure, we get, you know, we had some letters from fuckups. Excuse me.” A glance at an unruffled Nancy. “But you know, we get warnings from Leave-the-Past-Alone types, people who say we’re betraying Ul Qoma, all that shit, UFO watchers and junkies. But an actual … but this?  A bomb?” He shook his head.

“That’s not true,” Nancy said. We stared at her. “This happened before. Not here. But to him. Bowden’s been targeted before.”

“Who by?” I said.

“They never proved anything, but he got a lot of people angry when his book came out. The right. People who thought he was disrespectful.”

“Nats,” Dhatt said.

“I don’t even remember which city it was from. Both lots had it in for him. Probably the only thing they agreed on. But this was years  ago.”

“Someone’s remembered him,” I said. Dhatt and I stared at each other and he pulled me aside.

“From Besźel,”  he said. “With a little Illitan  fuck-you on it.” He threw up his hands: Any ideas?

“What’s the name of those people?” I said after a silence. “Qoma First.”

He stared. “What? Qoma First?” he said. “It came from Besźel.”

“Maybe a contact there.”

“A spy? A nat Qoman in Besźel?”

“Sure. Don’t look like that—it’s not so hard to believe. They’d send it from over there to cover their tracks.”

Dhatt wagged his head noncommittally. “Okay …” he said. “Still a hell of a thing to organize, and you’re not—”

“They never liked Bowden. Maybe they figure if he’s got wind that they’re after him he might have alarm bells, but not  with a package from Besźel,” I said.

“I get the idea,” he said.

“Where’s Qoma First hang out?” I said. “That’s what they’re called, right? Maybe we should visit—”

“That’s what I keep trying to tell you,” he said. “There’s nowhere to go. There is no ‘Qoma First,’ not like that. I don’t know how it is in Besźel, but here …”

“In Besźel I know exactly where our own versions of these characters hang out. Me and my constable went round there recently.”

“Well congratulations but it doesn’t work that way here. There’s not like a fucking gang  with little membership cards and a house they all live in; they’re not unifs and they’re not The Monkees.”

“You’re not saying you’ve got no ultranationalists …”

“Right, I’m not  saying that, we’ve got plenty, but I’m saying I don’t know who they are or where they live, very sensibly they keep it that way, and I’m saying Qoma First’s just a term some press guy came up with.”

“How come the unificationists congregate but this lot don’t? Or can’t?”

“Because the unifs are clowns. Dangerous clowns sometimes, alright, but still. The sort of people you’re talking about now are serious. Old soldiers, that sort of thing. I mean you got to … respect that…”

No wonder they could not be allowed to gather visibly. Their hard nationalism might rebuke the People’s National Party on its own terms, which the rulers would not permit. The unifs, by contrast, were free or free-ish to unite the locals in loathing.

“What can you tell us about him?” Dhatt said, raising his voice to the others who watched us.

“Aikam?” Buidze said. “Nothing. Good worker. Dumb as a brick. Okay look, I’d have said that until today, but given what he just did, scratch that. Not nearly as tough as he looks. All pecs and no teeth, that one. Likes the kids, makes him feel good to hobnob with clever foreigners. Why? Tell me you’re not eye-balling him, SD. That parcel came from Besźel . How the hell would he—”

“Absolutely it did,” Dhatt said. “No one here’s accusing anyone, least of all the hero of the hour. Standard questions.”

“Tsueh got on with the students, you said?” Unlike Tairo, Buidze did not look for permission to answer me. He met my eye and nodded. “Anyone in particular? Good friends with Mahalia Geary?”

“Geary? Hell no. Geary probably never even knew his name. Rest her.” He made the Sign of Long Sleep with his hand. “Aikam’s friends with some of them, but not Geary. He hangs out with Jacobs, Smith, Rodriguez, Browning …”

“Just that he asked us—”

“He was very keen to know about any leads in the Geary case,” Dhatt said.

“Yeah?” Buidze shrugged. “Well that got everyone really upset. Of course he wants to know about it.”

“I’m wondering …” I said. “This is a complicated site, and I notice that even though it’s mostly total, there’s a couple of places where it crosshatches a bit. And that’s got to be a nightmare to watch. Mr. Buidze, when we spoke to the students, not a single one of them mentioned Breach. At all. Didn’t bring it up. A group of foreign kids? You know how much foreigners are obsessed with that stuff. One of their friends is disappeared and they’re not even mentioning the most notorious bogeyman of Ul Qoma and Besźel, which is even real , and they don’t mention it? Which couldn’t help but make us wonder what are they afraid of?”

Buidze stared at me. He glanced at Nancy. He looked around the room. After long seconds he laughed.

“You’re joking. Okay then. Alright then, Officers. Yeah they’re scared alright, but not that someone’s breaching from fuck knows where to mess with them. Is that what you’re thinking?” He shook his head. “They’re scared because they don’t want to get caught.” He held up his hands in surrender. “You’ve got me, Officers. There is breaching going on that we’re not able to stop. These little sods breach all the damn time.”

He met our stares. Not defensive. He was matter-of-fact. Did I look as shocked as Dhatt? Professor Nancy’s expression was if anything embarrassed.

“You’re right, of course,” Buidze said. “You can’t avoid all breach, not in a place like this, and not with kids like these. These aren’t locals, and I don’t care how much training you give them, they’ve never seen anything like this before. Don’t tell me it’s not the same back in your place, Borlú. You think they’re going to play loyal? You think while they wander around town they’re really  unseeing Besźel? Come on. Best any of us can hope for’s they’ve got the sense not to make a big thing of it, but ofcourse  they’re seeing across the border. No we can’t prove it, which is why Breach wouldn’t come unless they really fuck up. Oh it’s happened. But much rarer than you think. Not for a long time.”