Professor Nancy still looked down at the table. “You think any  of the foreigners don’t breach?” Buidze said, and leaned in towards us, spreading his fingers. “All we can get from them’s a bit of politeness, right? And when you get a bunch of young people together, they’re going to push it. Maybe it’s not just looks. Did you always do what you’re told? But these are smart kids.”

He sketched maps on the table with his fingertips. “Bol Ye’an crosshatches here, here , and the park it’s in here  and here . And yeah, over at the edges in this direction, it even creeps into Besźel total. So when this lot get drunk or whatever, don’t they egg each other on to go stand in a crosshatch bit of the park? And then, who knows if they don’t, maybe standing still there, without a single word, without even moving, cross over into Besźel, then back again? You don’t have to take a step to do that, not if you’re in a crosshatch. All here.” Tapped his forehead. “No one can prove shit. Then maybe next time when they’re doing that they reach down, grab a souvenir, straighten back up into Ul Qoma with a rock from Besźel or something. If that’s where they were when they picked it up, that’s where it’s from, right? Who knows? Who could prove it?

“So long as they don’t flaunt it, what can you do? Even Breach can’t watch for breach all the time. Come on. If they did, not a single one of this foreign lot would still be here. Isn’t that right, Professor?” He looked at her not unkindly. She said nothing but looked at me in embarrassment. “None of them mentioned Breach, SD Dhatt, because they’re all guilty as hell.” Buidze smiled. “Hey, don’t get me wrong: they’re only human, I like them. But don’t make this more than it is.”

As we ushered them out, Dhatt got a call that had him scribbling notes and muttering. I closed the door.

“That was one of the uniforms we sent to get Bowden. He’s gone. They got to his apartment and no one’s answering. He’s not there.”

“They told him they were coming?”

“Yeah, and he knew about the bomb. But he’s gone.”

Chapter Eighteen

“I WANT TO GO BACK AND TALK to that kid again,” Dhatt said.

“The unificationist?”

“Yeah, Jaris. I know, I know, ‘It wasn’t him.’ Right. You said. Well, whatever, he knows something and I want to talk to him.”

“You won’t find him.”

“What?”

“Good luck. He’s gone.”

He fell behind me a few steps and made a phone call.

“You’re right. Jaris is nowhere. How did you know? What the fuck are you playing at?”

“Let’s go to your office.”

“Fuck the office. The office can wait. Repeat, how the fuck did you know about Jaris?”

“Look …”

“I’m getting a bit spooked by your occult abilities, Borlú. I didn’t sit on my arse—when I heard I’d be babysitting you, I looked you up, so I know a little bit, I know you’re no one to fuck with. I’m sure you did the same, so you know the same.” I should have done. “So I was geared up to be working with a detective. Even some hot shit. I wasn’t expecting this lugubrious tutting bugger. How the fuck did you know about Jaris, and why are you protecting  that little shit?”

“Okay. He phoned me last night from a car or I think from the train and told me he was going.”

He stared at me. “Why the fuck did he call you?  And why the fuck did you not tell me? Are we working together or not, Borlú?”

“Why did he call me? Maybe he wasn’t bananas about your interrogation style, Dhatt. And are we working together? I thought the reason I was here was to obediently give you everything I’ve got, then watch TV in my hotel room while you find the bad guy. When did Bowden get burgled? When were you going to tell me that? I didn’t see you rushing to spill whatever shit you found out from UlHuan at the dig, and he should have the choicest info—he is  the bloody government mole, isn’t he? Come on, it’s no big deal, all public works have them. What I object to is you cutting me out then coming the ‘How could you?’”

We stared at each other. After a long moment he turned and walked to the kerb.

“Put out a warrant for Jaris,” I said to his back. “Put a stop on his passports, inform the airports, stations. But he only called me because he was en route, to tell me what he thinks happened. His phone’s probably smashed up by the tracks in the middle of Cucinis Pass, halfway to the Balkans by now.”

“So what is it he thinks happened?”

“Orciny.”

He turned in disgust and waved the word away.

“Were you even going to fucking tell me this?” he said.

“I told you, didn’t I?”

“He’s just done a runner. Doesn’t that tell you anything? The goddamn guilty  run.”

“What, you talking about Mahalia? Come on, what’s his motive?” I said that but remembered some of what Jaris had told me. She had not been one of their party. They had driven her out. I hesitated a little. “Or you mean Bowden? Why the hell and how  the hell would Jaris organise something like that?”

“I don’t know, both. Who knows what makes these fuckers do what they do?” Dhatt said. “There’ll be some fucked-up justification or other, some conspiracy thing.”

“Doesn’t make sense,” I said carefully, after a minute. “It was … Okay, it was him who called me from here in the first place.”

“I knew  it. You fucking covered  for him …”

“I didn’t know. I couldn’t tell. When he called last night he told me. Wait, wait, listen, Dhatt: why would he call me in the first place if it was him who killed her?”

He stared at me. After a minute he turned and hailed a cab. He opened its door. I watched. The cab had halted skew-whiff on the road: Ul Qoman cars sounded their horns as they went past, Besź drivers cut quietly around the protub, the law-abiding not even whispering cusses.

Dhatt stood there half-in, half-out, and the cabbie made some remonstrance. Dhatt snapped something and showed him his ID.

“I don’t know why,” he said to me. “Something to find out. But it’s a bit fucking much, isn’t it? That he’s gone?”

“If he was in on it there’s no sense him drawing my attention to anything . And how’s he supposed to have got her to Besźel?”

“Called his friends over there; they did it …”

I shrugged a doubting maybe . “It was the Besź unifs who gave us our first lead on all this, guy called Drodin. I’ve heard of misdirection, but we didn’t have anything to misdirect. They don’t have the smarts or contacts to know which van to steal—not the ones I’ve met. Plus there’s more policzai  agents than members on their books anyway. If this was unifs it was some secret hardcore we’ve not seen.

“I spoke to Jaris … He’s scared,” I said. “Not guilty: scared and sad. He was into her, I think.”

“Alright,” Dhatt said after a while. He looked at me, motioned me into the cab. He stayed standing outside for several seconds, giving orders into his phone too quiet and quick for me to follow. “Alright. Let’s change the record.” He spoke slowly as the cab drove.

“Who gives a fuck what’s gone down between Besźel and Ul Qoma, right? Who gives a fuck what my boss is telling me or what yours is telling you? You’re police. I’m police. Let’s fix this. Are we working together, Borlú? I could do with some help on a case that’s getting more fucked by the minute, how about you? UlHuan doesn’t know fuck, by the way.”

Where he took me, a place very close to his office, was not as dark as a cop bar in Besźel would have been. It was more salubrious. I still would not have booked a wedding reception there. It was, if only just, during working hours, but the room was more than half-full. It cannot have all been local militsya , but I recognised many of the faces from Dhatt’s office. They recognised me, too. Dhatt entered to greetings, and I followed him past whispers and those so-charmingly frank Ul Qoman stares.