The Shadow Walker (9 page)

“And nobody from there witnessed anything?” he said, gesturing at the tower block. Rows of blank windows stared down at them.

“It seems not,” Doripalam said, arriving behind them. “We have had officers going door to door, of course, but so far nobody saw or heard anything. It may just be true. This street is not lit at night. The streetlighting only goes as far as there.” Doripalam pointed to the larger road they had just left. “So if the body was dumped in the hours of darkness, there is no reason why anyone should necessarily have witnessed anything.”

“What's this place?” Drew asked, nodding toward the commercial building on the other side.

“Nothing now,” Doripalam said. “It used to be a clothing factory. A state run place. Made suits—like this one.” Doripalam gestured ironically at his own cheap-looking blue outfit, visible beneath his heavy overcoat. “Not exactly your Savile Row, but the best we can get. But when the government pulled out of this one, it closed. So now the place is empty.”

“And no sign of any activity inside?”

Doripalam shook his head. “We searched the place, of course. But no sign that it has been disturbed for months.”

There was nothing else to be seen here. Drew and Doripalam followed Nergui as he strode swiftly back through Sukh Bataar Square, past the edifice of the Post Office building and down Lenin Avenue. Nergui pointed to the square tower of the Bayangol Hotel. “The second body was found by the hotel there,” he said. “We concluded that the victim had fallen from the roof.”

Drew looked up as they approached the looming shadow of the hotel. The building itself was another example of undistinguished Soviet-style architecture, through the hotel had obviously been extensively renovated in recent years to cater to an international market. Nergui led him into the alley at the rear where the body had been found.

“You said he was killed at night?” Drew said. “So how did he get into the hotel?”

Nergui shrugged. “We're still trying to find out. There are various possibilities. It's possible that the killers actually took a room there, and somehow brought him in during the day. We've been following up with all the guests who were booked in that day, which is taking a long time—a lot of them are international visitors. But I'm not optimistic. More likely they just bribed someone to let them in. We've interviewed the staff, but nobody's saying anything. Hotel staff are used to being discreet.”

“Even in a murder case?”

“Especially in a murder case, I think. They don't want to get involved. They may even have been threatened.”

“It just seems incredible that someone could be drugged and then taken up to the roof and, well, thrown off, and nobody saw anything.”

“Not that incredible, really,” Doripalam said. “It was a Saturday night. There are few places to drink in the city, especially if you are an expatriate. There would have been a lot of drunken people in the hotel. Who notices one more person being half carried along the corridor?”

Drew nodded. “And the third body? You said that was found in one of the
ger
camps?”

“I'll get a car to take us out there,” Nergui said. “It is a little way from here, at the edge of the city.”

The car arrived in minutes in response to Nergui's call, and they were driven a mile or so from the city center to the
ger
encampment in the suburbs. For the first time, Drew found himself in an environment that seemed genuinely alien. The center of the city had been distinctive, but the pervading atmosphere and architecture were reminiscent of those in much of the former Soviet Union. For Drew, who had traveled only a little in Eastern Europe, the city had recalled nothing more than the anonymous settings of 1960s spy films.

This, though, was very different. The car pulled up at the point
where the paved road gave way to a rougher track, and the three men climbed out. Ahead of them were rows of the traditional
gers,
forming what appeared to be an exceptionally neat and well-cared-for shanty town. A few men, women and children were visible between the constructions, chatting together like neighbors in any suburb, all dressed in the herdsmen's costumes, the thick felt pulled tight against the chill of the morning. There were tethered horses, dogs, even a goat. Further along, there was a chicken run, the scraggy birds scratching at the dusty ground. As they emerged from the car, Drew was struck by the richness of the atmosphere, the mix of smells—the scent of wood smoke, the musky aroma of goats and horses, somewhere the acrid stench of burning oil or gasoline, all interlaced with the enticing smells of cooking.

The camp was an extraordinary sight. To Drew, it appeared different in kind from the type of encampment which one might find in a Third World country or amongst displaced or refugee peoples. These people were living in this way apparently through choice, maintaining a lifestyle balanced between their nomadic roots and the increasingly urban demands of the twenty-first century. There was a sense that, for all the concrete and glass monoliths of the city center, this community could, if it wished, simply pack up and move on.

“It is very different from Manchester, no?” Nergui smiled.

“It's different from—well, anywhere I've ever been,” Drew said.

“For most people here, this is simply the natural way to live. They may be compelled to work in the city for economic reasons, but they retain their links to the steppes, to the traditional ways of living. They prefer to live here rather than in a bleak tower block in the city.”

“Probably a sane decision,” Drew said.

“Definitely. But, having lived in the West, I'm not sure I quite understand this lifestyle anymore.” Nergui laughed. “I like having my creature comforts too much.”

“Where was the body found?”

“There.” Nergui pointed to the ravine that lay beyond the rows of
gers.
“Come.” He led them along the track until they were standing on the edge of the ravine. A line of
gers
stood immediately behind them.

“There was no attempt to hide the body?” Drew asked, recalling with a shudder the graphic photographs he had viewed of the exposed and mutilated corpse.

“It seems not,” Doripalam said. “We think they drove a truck or van over to that point,” Doripalam gestured to the paved road that ran along the far side of the ravine. “And then they just tipped the body over. It would probably have simply rolled till it hit those bushes.”

“But why leave it here?”

“I think it is the same as the first body. They probably wanted to take it somewhere where it could be disposed of quickly and easily, but where it would be found. The road over there does not run close to the
gers,
so no one would take any notice of a truck passing in the night. They probably barely stopped. As it happened, the body was not visible from this side, as the bushes shielded it. Otherwise, it would have been spotted an hour or two earlier.”

Nergui began to lead them back past the
gers
to the waiting car. Although the summer was over now, the sky was clear and the day was growing warmer. Nergui had told him that the autumn weather could be changeable. There had been a few flurries of snow earlier in the week, the first signs of the approaching winter. They passed an old woman, wrapped in the now-familiar dark robes and sash, carrying a bucket of water. She smiled and nodded a greeting.

Drew had opened his mouth to make some comment about the
gers,
but at the same moment Nergui uttered an incomprehensible cry and flung himself backward toward Drew. Drew stumbled, taken aback, and lost his footing, finding himself rolling on to the hard earth. Nergui flung himself across Drew, and then Drew felt the other man pulling hard on his jacket.

“What are you—?”

“This way!” Nergui said sharply, tugging harder. Drew rolled over, and ended up lying beside Nergui, who was rapidly shuffling back behind one of the
gers.
“Come!” he snapped, gesturing urgently at Drew. Drew crawled after him until they were both shaded by the tent. Doripalam had dropped to his knees at Nergui's shouted warning, and was now scrambling around beside them. Behind them, chickens clucked loudly, alarmed by the disturbance.

“What is it?” he said.

Nergui was breathing heavily. “There,” he said, gesturing up at the front of the
ger.
“But keep your head down.”

Drew peered tentatively around at the front of the
ger.
There, embedded neatly in the thick felt, was a crossbow bolt still vibrating from the force of impact.

It seemed ridiculous. More a scene from an old Hollywood Western than any kind of real threat. At the same time, Drew recognized rationally that the arrow was a lethal weapon. If there was someone out there shooting at them, their lives were in danger, as surely as if they were facing a sniper with a rifle.

“Where did it come from?” he whispered.

Nergui pointed to an apparently disused factory building that lay across a patch of empty ground. “Up there, I think. Somewhere on the first floor.”

“Do you think they're still there?”

“I don't know. My guess is not. Too risky, even if they'd hit one of us. I think they'd have taken one shot then made a run for it.” “What if you're wrong?”

“I'm not planning to bet my life on it.” Nergui carefully pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, and dialed the number of the police officer driving the car. “He can get the car along this dirt track,” Nergui said. He spoke briefly to the officer in Mongolian, and a moment later the car came bumping along the track toward them. As it stopped, Nergui pulled open the rear door, and he and Drew bundled inside. Doripalam clambered into the front
passenger seat. The driver rapidly reversed toward the main road, and then pulled out in the direction of the factory.

Drew realized he was shaking. “Thanks,” he said. “I thought you'd gone mad. How did you manage to see the bolt?”

“I don't know. Instinct, I think. I saw a movement in the air out of the corner of my eye, and somehow registered that it was something more dangerous than a bird. I wasn't sure where it was headed, but I threw myself back without really thinking.” He laughed, humorlessly. “Mind you, if my instinct had been wrong, I might have thrown you into its path, so you shouldn't be too profuse with your thanks.”

“Or worse still, you'd have messed up my suit for nothing,” Drew smiled. Both of them were playing this down, but he suspected that Nergui's instincts were more finely honed than he was letting on.

“There is nothing worse that one could do to an Englishman,” Nergui agreed.

The car pulled to a halt in front of the factory building. The ground floor windows were boarded up, and there was no sign of life. Above, the windows had been left uncovered and most of the glass had been smashed. Presumably it was from one of those that the arrow had been fired. They pulled the car up close to the doors to minimize the risk of being shot at from above.

“What are you planning to do?” Drew asked, peering through the car window at the concrete building. “We can't risk going in there on our own.”

Nergui shook his head. “Certainly not. It's bad enough that your life has been placed in danger once. The ambassador would never forgive me if I allowed it to happen a second time.” Nergui remained blank faced, and it took Drew a moment to realize that the Mongolian was joking. “I've sent for backup,” he said. “They will be here in a few minutes. We're risking allowing whoever it is to escape—I don't know if there's a rear entrance to this place, but I've asked for a car to go to the back. But we don't know what we might be facing here. If this is just some
joker taking a pot shot at the police, then he'll be long gone anyway. But if it's our killer, and he's still in there, then we don't know what he might want.”

The moments ticked by. This wasn't the first time that Drew had faced the prospect of entering a building with a potentially dangerous suspect inside, but here he felt absurdly vulnerable, because he had no idea what to expect, what the norms were. He had never, even in his most paranoiac policing moments, expected to have an arrow shot at him. And he had never faced a killer capable of mutilating his victims' bodies.

“What's your guess?” he asked to break the silence. “Do you think it's our killer?”

Nergui looked back from the window. “My guess is not. My guess is some joker.”

“But why shoot at us?”

“You will be surprised to learn,” Doripalam interjected, “that the police are not always popular here. I know that this is difficult for a British policeman to understand.”

Drew regarded the young man's blank expression. “And you share our sense of irony, too,” he said. “But how would he know you were from the police?”

“Probably recognized the car,” Doripalam said. “Cars like this usually mean either police or politicians. A good target in either case. If it is just some idiot, he probably didn't mean to kill us anyway. Perhaps just to give us a fright.”

“He achieved that objective, anyway. Speaking for myself, you understand.”

“It was a good shot. He knew what he was doing. But we have many skilled archers in this country.”

“You need to get yourselves some cowboys.”

“Some would say,” Doripalam said, “that the police are precisely that.”

Behind them, two more official cars drew up. Nergui signaled for their occupants to remain in their cars for the moment, then he and Doripalam carefully opened their own doors. Nergui
pressed himself against the concrete wall, edging back toward the other cars, protected by the building from any attempted assault from above, Doripalam following closely behind. Drew started to follow, but Nergui gestured him back. “As I say, the ambassador would not forgive me.”

Nergui motioned to the other police officers to join them. The other cars had also been parked by the walls, and four officers climbed from each, pressing themselves against the walls by Nergui and Doripalam. Drew heard the sound of other cars, presumably lining up against the rear of the building.