The City & the City (12 page)

“Goddammit, who the fuck are First Qoma?” Mr. Geary said. “You haven’t even asked us who we think did this. You haven’t even asked us. You think we don’t know?”

“What did she say?” I said. Thacker was standing now and patting the air,
Calm down everybody
.

“Some little bastard at a conference tells her her work was goddamn treason. Someone’d been gunning for her since the first time she came here.”

“John, stop, you’re mixing it up. That first time, when that man said that, she was here,
here
here, Besźel-here, not in Ul Qoma, and that wasn’t First Qoma, that was the other ones, here, nationalists or True Citizens, something, you remember …”

“Wait, what?” I said. “First Qoma? And—someone said something to her when she was in Besźel? When?”

“Hold on boss, it’s …” Corwi spoke quickly in Besź.

“I think we all need to take a minute,” Thacker said.

He placated the Gearys as if they had been wronged, and I apologised as if I had wronged them. They knew that they were expected to stay in their hotel. We had two officers stationed downstairs to ensure compliance. We told them that we would tell them as soon as we had news that their paperwork for travel had come through, and that we would be back the following day. In the meantime, if they needed anything or any information—I left them my numbers.

“He will be found,” Corwi said to them as we took leave. “Breach will take who did this. I promise you that.” To me outside she said, “Qoma First, not First Qoma, by the way. Like the True Citizens, only for Ul Qoma. As pleasant as our lot, by all accounts, but a lot more secretive and thank fuck not our headache.”

More radical in their Besźel-love even than Syedr’s National Bloc, True Citizens were marchers in quasi-uniform and makers of frightening speeches. Legal but not by much. We had not succeeded in proving their responsibility for attacks on Besźel’s Ul Qomatown, the Ul Qoman embassy, mosques and synagogues and leftist bookshops, on our small immigrant population. We—by which I mean we
policzai
, of course—had more than once found the perpetrators and that they were members of TC, but the organisation itself disavowed the attacks, just, just, and no judge had yet banned them.

“And Mahalia annoyed both lots.”

“So her Dad says. He doesn’t know …”

“We know she certainly managed to get the unificationists here mad, ages ago. And then she did the same to the nats over there? Any extremists she hasn’t made angry?” We drove. “You know,” I said, “that meeting, of the Oversight Committee … it was pretty strange. Some of the things some people were saying …”

“Syedr?”

“Syedr, sure, among others, some of what they were saying didn’t make much sense to me at the time. Maybe if I followed politics more carefully. Maybe I’ll do that.” After a silence I said, “Maybe we should ask around a bit.”

“The fuck, boss?” Corwi twisted in her seat. She did not look angry but confused. “Why were you even grilling them like that? The muckamucks are invoking fucking
Breach
in a day or two to deal with this shit, and woe betide whoever did Mahalia then. You know? Even if we do find any leads now, we’re going to be off the case any minute; this is just biding time.”

“Yeah,” I said. I swerved a little to avoid an Ul Qoman taxi, unseeing it as much as possible. “Yeah. But still. I’m impressed with anyone who can piss off so many nutters. All of whom are at
each other’s throats as well. Besź Nats, Ul Qoman Nats, anti-Nats …”

“Let Breach deal. You were right. She deserves Breach, boss, like you said. What they can do.”

“She does deserve them. And she’ll get them.” I pointed, drove on.
“Avanti
. For the next little while she’s got us.”

Chapter Eight

EITHER HIS TIMING WAS PRETERNATURAL
or Commissar Gadlem had had some techie rig up a cheat on his system—whenever I came into the office, any emails from him were invariably top of my inbox.

Fine
, his latest said.
I gather Mr. & Mrs. G ensconced in hotel. Don’t particularly want you tied up for days in paperwork (sure you agree) so polite chaperoning
only
please till formalities complete. Job done
.

Whatever information we had I would have to hand over when the time came. No point making work for myself, Gadlem was saying, nor costing the department my time, so take my foot off the accelerator. I made and read notes that would be illegible to everyone else, and to me in an hour’s time, though I kept and filed them all carefully—my usual methodology. I reread Gadlem’s message several times, rolling my eyes. I probably muttered something out loud to myself.

I spent some time tracking down numbers—online and through a real live operator on the end of the phone—and placed a call that made clucking noises as it ran through various international exchanges. “Bol Ye’an offices.” I’d called twice before but previously had gone through a kind of automated system: this was the first time
I’d had anyone pick up. His Illitan was good, but the accent was North American; so in English I said: “Good afternoon, I’m trying to reach Professor Nancy. I’ve left messages on her voicemail, but—”

“Who’s calling please?”

“This is Inspector Tyador Borlú of the Besźel Extreme Crime Squad.”

“Oh.
Oh.”
The voice was quite different now. “This is about Mahalia, isn’t it? Inspector, I’m … Hold on I’m going to try to track down Izzy.” A long hollow-acousticked pause. “This is Isabelle Nancy.” Anxious-sounding, American I’d have guessed if I hadn’t known she was from Toronto. Not much like her voicemail voice.

“Professor Nancy, I’m Tyador Borlú of the Besźel
Policzai
, ECS. I think you have spoken to my colleague Officer Corwi? You got my messages maybe?”

“Inspector, yes, I’m … Please accept my apologies. I’d meant to call you back but it’s been, everything’s been, I’m very sorry …” She shifted between English and good Besź.

“I understand, Professor. I am sorry too about Miss Geary. I know this must be a very bad time for all of you and your colleagues.”

“I, we, we’re all in shock here, Inspector. Real shock. I don’t know what to tell you. Mahalia was a great young woman and—”

“Of course.”

“Where are you? Are you … local? Would you like to meet?”

“I’m afraid I’m calling internationally, Professor; I’m still in Besźel.”

“I see. So … how can I help you, Inspector? Is there any problem? I mean any problem other than, than
all
of this, I mean …” I heard her breath. “I’m expecting Mahalia’s parents any day now.”

“Yes, I just was with them actually. The embassy here is putting in paperwork for them, and they should come to you soon. No, I am calling you because I want to know more about Mahalia and what she was doing.”

“Forgive me, Inspector Borlú, but I was under the impression … this crime … will you not be invoking Breach, I thought…?” She had calmed and was speaking only Besź now, so what the hell I gave up on my English, which was no better than her Besź.

“Yes. The Oversight Committee … excuse me, Professor I don’t know how much you know about how these matters go. But yes, responsibility for this will be passed over. You understand how that will work, then?”

“I think so.”

“Alright. I’m just doing some last work. I’m curious, is all. We hear interesting things about Mahalia. I want to know some things about her work. Can you help me? You were her advisor, yes? Do you have time to speak to me about that for a few minutes?”

“Of course, Inspector, you’ve waited long enough. I don’t know quite what—”

“I want to know what she was working on. And about her history with you and with the program. And tell me about Bol Ye’an, too. She was studying Orciny, I understand.”

“What?” Isabelle Nancy was shocked. “Orciny? Absolutely not. This is an archaeology department.”

“Forgive me, I’d been under the impression … What do you mean, this is archaeology?”

“I mean that if she were studying Orciny, and there might be excellent reasons to do so, she’d be doing her doctorate in Folklore or Anthropology or maybe Comp Lit. Granted, the edges of disciplines are getting vague. Also that Mahalia is one of a number of young archaeologists more interested in Foucault and Baudrillard than in Gordon Childe or in trowels.” She did not sound angry but sad and amused. “But we wouldn’t have accepted her unless her PhD was real archaeology.”

“So what was it?”

“Bol Ye’an’s an old dig, Inspector.”

“Please tell me.”

“I’m sure you’re aware of all the controversy around early artefacts in this region, Inspector. Bol Ye’an’s uncovering pieces that are a good couple of millennia old. Whichever theory you subscribe to on Cleavage, split or convergence, what we’re looking for predates it, predates Ul Qoma and Besźel. It’s
root
stuff.”

“It must be extraordinary.”

“Of course. Also pretty incomprehensible. You understand we know next to nothing about the culture that produced all this?”

“I think so. That’s why all the interest, yes?”

“Well … yes. That and the
kind
of things you have here. What Mahalia was doing was trying to decode what the title of her project called ‘A Hermeneutics of Identity’ from the layouts of gears and so on.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“Then she did a good job. The aim of a PhD’s to ensure that no one, including your advisor, understands what you’re doing after the first couple of years. I’m joking, you understand. What she’s doing would have had ramifications for theories of the two cities. Where they came from, you know. She played her cards pretty close, so I was never sure month to month where she stood exactly on the issue, but she still had a couple of years to make up her mind. Or to just make something up.”

“So she was helping with the actual dig.”

“Absolutely. Most of our research students are. Some for primary research, some as part of their stipend deal, some a bit of both, some to suck up to us. Mahalia was paid a little bit, but mostly she needed to get her hands on the artefacts for her work.”

“I see. I’m sorry, Professor, I’d been under the impression that she’d been working on Orciny …”

“She used to be interested in that. She first went to Besźel for a conference, some years ago.”

“Yes, I think I heard about that.”

“Right. Well, it caused a little stink because at that time she
was
very into Orciny, totally—she was a little Bowdenite, and the paper she gave didn’t go down very well. Led to some remonstrations. I admired her guts, but she was on a hiding to nothing with all that stuff. When she applied to do her PhD—to be honest I was pretty surprised it was with me—I had to make sure she knew what would and wouldn’t be … acceptable. But… I mean, I don’t know what she was reading in her spare time, but what she was writing, when I got the updates on her PhD, they were, they were fine.”

“Fine?” I said. “You don’t sound …”

She hesitated.

“Well … Honestly I was a little, a little bit disappointed. She was
smart. I know she was smart, because, you know, in seminars and so on she was terrific. And she worked superhard. She was a ‘grind,’ we’d say”—the word in English—“always in the library. But her chapters …”

“Not good?”

“Fine. Really, they were okay. She’d pass her doctorate, no problem, but it wasn’t going to set the world on fire. It was kind of lacklustre, you know? And given the number of hours she was working, it was a bit
thin
. References and so on. I’d spoken to her about it, though, and she promised that she was, you know. Working on it.”

“Could I see it?”

“Sure.” She was taken aback. “I mean, I suppose. I don’t know. I have to work out what the ethics of that are. I’ve got the chapters she gave me, but they’re very unfinished; she wanted to work on them more. If she’d finished it it would be public access, and no problem, but as it is … Can I get back to you? She probably should have been publishing some of them as papers in journals—that’s kind of the done thing—but she wasn’t. We’d talked about that too; she said she was going to do something about it.”

“What’s a Bowdenite, Professor?”

“Oh.” She laughed. “Sorry. It’s the source of this Orciny stuff. Poor David wouldn’t thank me for using the term. It’s someone inspired by the early work of David Bowden. Do you know his work?”

“… No.”

“He wrote a book, years ago.
Between the City and the City
. Ring any bells? It was a huge thing for the later flower children. The first time for a generation anyone had taken Orciny seriously. I guess it’s not a surprise you haven’t seen it; it’s still illegal. In Besźel and in Ul Qoma. You won’t find it even in the university libraries. In some ways it was a brilliant piece of work—he did some fantastic archival investigations, and saw some analogies and connections that are … well, still pretty remarkable. But it was pretty crackpot ramblings.”

“How so?”

“Because he believed in it! He collated all these references, found new ones, put them together into a kind of ur-myth, then
reinterpreted it as a secret and a cover-up. He … Okay I need to be a little bit careful here, Inspector, because honestly I never really, not
really
, thought he
did
believe it—I always thought it was kind of a game—but the book
said
he believed it. He came to Ul Qoma, from where he went to Besźel, managed I do not know how to go between the two of them—legally I assure you—several times, and he claimed to have found traces of Orciny itself. And he went further-said that Orciny wasn’t just somewhere that had existed in the gaps between Qoma and Besźel since their foundings or coming together or splitting (I can’t remember where he stood on the Cleavage issue): he said it was still here.”

“Orciny?”

“Exactly. A secret colony. A city between the cities, its inhabitants living in plain sight.”

“What? Doing what? How?”

“Unseen, like Ul Qomans to Besź and vice versa. Walking the streets unseen but overlooking the two. Beyond the Breach. And doing, who knows? Secret agendas. They’re still debating that, I don’t doubt, on the conspiracy theory websites. David said he was going to go into it and disappear.”