The Shadow Walker in-1

by Michael Walters

  Nergui nodded. He wondered whether the caller had known he was out, had seen him leave with Doripalam. Had, perhaps, also seen him return.

  He looked up at Batzorig. “Go and fetch the man I brought in. He’ll be with Doripalam, either in my office or down in the rest room.”

  Batzorig hurried to do Nergui’s bidding. Nergui sat, staring in silence at the tape machine. Then he leaned forward and pressed the play button again. He heard the same words: “-Have something that might interest you. It may be possible to arrange its safe return. But this will require cooperation. I will call again at nine a.m. tomorrow.”

  It could be a hoax, of course. It was likely to be a hoax, in fact. Drew’s disappearance had now been reported in the media, so they could expect their fair share of lunatic calls over the coming days. But something told Nergui that it was, at least, worth taking seriously. It didn’t sound like a crank call-too short, too deliberate, too little desire to make an impression. There was something about the tone that unnerved him, a sense of emptiness, of uncaring.

  The door opened and Batzorig returned, followed by Doripalam and Cholon. Nergui gestured Cholon to sit. The others hesitated, unsure whether they were part of this, but then came in and closed the door behind them.

  “Listen to this,” Nergui said. “Do you recognize the voice?” He had no desire to lead Cholon, but his question could mean only one thing.

  He played the tape again, listening intently himself to the repeated words.

  “-Have something that might interest you. It may be possible to arrange its safe return. But this will require cooperation. I will call again at nine a.m. tomorrow.”

  Cholon looked at the tape machine. “You mean is it Badzar?”

  Nergui nodded, watching Cholon closely. He was still unsure how far Cholon could be trusted to give an honest response about his brother.

  “Can you play it again?”

  Nergui pressed the play button once more. He could recite the words verbatim by now, but they were still telling him nothing.

  Cholon shook his head. “I don’t know. It could be. It could well be. But I can’t be sure.”

  Nergui played the tape yet again. The voice was obviously being disguised in some way-the deep timbre, the odd sibilance. But it did not sound as if it was being artificially distorted, other than by the phone itself.

  “There’s not much to go on,” Nergui conceded.

  Cholon stared at the tape player, as if the answer would emerge from the machine itself. “It’s no good,” he said. “I can’t be sure. It doesn’t sound like him, but there’s something about it. Maybe I just don’t want to believe it’s him.”

  “Well, all we can do is wait until the morning. See if they call again.” Nergui looked up at Doripalam and Batzorig. “We shouldn’t make too much of this. It could well be a hoax.”

  He looked back at Cholon. “If your brother is in the city, we need to find him. Do you have any idea where he might go if he came back here?”

  “There are a few people he might go to, at least to try to get somewhere to stay. Old friends from university days.”

  “Are they contactable by phone?”

  “Most of them, yes, though I’ve only got the numbers of a few. They’re generally working for the government, these days.” He smiled wryly. “I’m not sure whether that’s selling out or not.”

  Nergui looked at his watch. “It’s late, but we can’t waste time. Can you start calling around? We’ll probably get a better response if you do it, rather than making it an official police call.”

  “I’m not sure you’ll get a particularly good response to any call at this time of night.”

  “We can’t afford to wait till morning. We’ll work with you. Maybe if you tell them that your brother’s gone missing, that you’re afraid he might be ill-”

  “He has. I am,” Cholon said. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”

  Doripalam led Cholon into another office where they could begin the process of telephoning. Nergui didn’t have high hopes of any result, but it was the only place to start. Batzorig excused himself with an offer to fetch the coffee that was presumably still waiting for Nergui downstairs.

  Nergui looked at his watch. Nearly two. He couldn’t put off ringing the Minister any longer. He had a suspicion that the Minister genuinely didn’t sleep. No matter what time Nergui called, there was never any sense that he had been woken or disturbed by the call.

  Nergui dialed the number, wondering what further ways he could find of articulating that, no, there was still nothing of any substance to report. The Minister’s phone rang at the other end of the line, but there was no answer. In Nergui’s experience, this was almost unprecedented. The Minister usually turned his phone off in the presence of the President, but there were few other exceptions to his rule of constant availability. After a few seconds, the voicemail cut in and he heard the Minister requesting him to leave his message after the tone. Nergui simply gave his name, noted the time, and invited the Minister to call back when he was free. He ended the call, feeling an absurd mixture of relief that he hadn’t had to ensure yet another content-free discussion with the Minister, and concern about what the Minister might actually be doing.

  Before Nergui could allow himself the luxury of worrying further, Doripalam stuck his head around the door. “We’ve got something,” he said.

  “Really?” Nergui had not been expecting any serious results from the calls, let alone so quickly.

  Doripalam nodded. “Cholon started with the most likely candidates. The real old friends. Struck lucky almost straightaway.”

  “What’s the story?”

  “Couple who were at university with Cholon and Badzar. Same year as Badzar. He’s a civil servant, she works for the tourist agency. They’ve got a small apartment near the center. Badzar just turned up, a few days ago, apparently, out of the blue, said he needed somewhere to stay until he was able to rent somewhere. They hadn’t seen him for years, but put him up. Stayed a couple of nights, then disappeared.”

  “I presume their night has been well and truly disturbed by now,” Nergui said. “Let’s get over there and see if there’s anything more they can tell us.”

  “Do you want Cholon?”

  Nergui hesitated. “Might be as well,” he said. “They might speak more openly with him there.”

  Nergui grabbed his coat and hurried back down the stairs. Doripalam went to fetch Cholon, and the three of them met at the entrance to the parking lot. The snow was coming down thicker than ever, the sky lost in the swirl of flakes. Already, since their return, an inch or two had settled on the truck.

  “I carried on calling,” Cholon said. “Managed to lose a few friends in the process, probably. But no one else had seen him. Most hadn’t seen him for years.”

  “But we know he’s here now,” Doripalam said. “We know he’s in the city.”

  Nergui shivered, telling himself it was due only to the blast of cold air that hit him as he stepped out into the night. The snow was coming down heavily, and the concrete underfoot was already becoming hazardous.

  They climbed into the truck, Doripalam driving, and pulled back out into the city streets.

  “Take it carefully,” Nergui said. “We don’t want to write off a police vehicle on top of all our other problems.”

  The roads were icy but Doripalam drove skillfully. Snow was a familiar problem and there were already snowplows and salt trucks out in the city, so the main roads were relatively accessible. By morning, much of the worst of the snow would have been cleared. The biggest problem was the lack of visibility. Doripalam peered forward into the drifting snow, trying to spot any other vehicles that might be on the road. But, apart from the occasional snowplow, the streets were deserted.

  The apartment was just a few minutes’ drive away. It was part of a long, low-rise tenement, built of looming gray concrete overlooking a small park. Most of the building was in darkness, apart from two or three windows, one of which,
Nergui assumed, was their destination.

  They parked by the roadside, and Nergui led the way into the dimly lit entrance lobby, which to his surprise was unlocked with no sign of any security staff or concierge.

  “Apartment 23,” Cholon said, from behind.

  They made their way up the stairs to the first floor and along the dark corridor till they found Apartment 23. Nergui knocked loudly. After a few moments, the door opened and a short, harassed-looking man peered out. He looked at them carefully for a few minutes as though deciding whether to welcome them or not. They he recognized Cholon and nodded, with a half smile.

  “Come in,” he said. “But please be quiet. The baby is asleep. She is easily disturbed.”

  They followed the man into a small, neatly furnished living room. A woman, presumably his wife, was sitting on the sofa, looking nervous. Nergui stepped forward, his presence filling the small room. “Thank you, Mr.-”

  “Oyon,” the man said. “And my wife, Odyal.”

  “I am sorry that we have to disturb you. Please be assured that we would not unless it was very important.”

  “I don’t understand,” Oyon said. “I thought that Cholon was looking for his brother-”

  “That is correct,” Nergui said.

  “But I don’t understand why the police-”

  Nergui held up his hand. “It’s a long story, and we don’t need to bother you with most of it. But Badzar has gone missing and we have reason to believe that he may be very ill. We are trying to trace him as a matter of urgency.”

  Oyon frowned, as though trying to make sense of this information. It was clear that he realized that more lay behind this simple statement, but he also recognized that there was little point in pursuing it. “I don’t know if I can help you very much,” he said at last.

  “When did you last see Badzar?”

  Oyon looked across at his wife. “Just the other day. He turned up unexpectedly. Out of the blue.”

  “You had seen him before that? Recently, I mean?”

  Oyon shook his head. “Not for years. I mean, we spent some time with Badzar and Cholon after university, when we were all working here. But we lost touch when-” He looked up at Cholon, suddenly embarrassed.

  Cholon smiled. “We lost touch with everyone then. We were closer to you than to most. At least we exchanged the occasional letter. I kept meaning to visit you, but I never came back to the city.”

  “So it was a surprise when he turned up?” Nergui said.

  “A complete surprise. A bit of a shock really. I mean, it was good to see him. Or at least it would have been-”

  Odyal intervened: “He seemed like a different person. I would not have believed that it was the Badzar we used to know.”

  “Different in what way?”

  “Well-” She looked awkwardly at Cholon. “I don’t know when you last saw your brother, Cholon-”

  “Only a short while before he came here. A few weeks ago.”

  “Perhaps he had changed over the years. Perhaps it would not have been evident to you?”

  Cholon shook his head. “No. It was obvious to me, too. These changes had come about only in recent months. When I saw him again, he was… very different.”

  “At first, I was not even sure that it was really him,” Oyon said. “He had aged-I mean, we have all aged but he looked much older than he should. He looked… disturbed in some way. I wondered about drugs. I was worried about his health so I am not surprised that you say he is ill-”

  “His illness is not a physical one, I think,” Cholon said softly.

  “You mean that he is-” Oyon glanced at his wife, and then at the door leading into the baby’s bedroom. It was clear that he was wondering just what sort of person they had been harboring, why the police should now be interested in Badzar’s whereabouts.

  “We believe that Badzar may have had some sort of breakdown,” Nergui said, smoothly. “We are concerned for his welfare. It would help us if you could tell us as much as you can about his visit here. Anything he said. Any indication of where he might be going.”

  Oyon sat back in his chair. “Well, let me think. He turned up the other night, Tuesday it must have been. Quite late, about nine. As I say, completely out of the blue. The doorbell rang, and when I answered it, there he was. He was dressed in clothes that looked… well, unsuitable for the time of year. A thin shirt, a jacket, no coat. He was carrying a small bag, a carryall. That was all. I suppose I must have stared at him at first, wondering who he was, because he said: ‘It’s me. Don’t you remember? Badzar.’ And, of course, as soon as he said that, I knew who he was, though I could still hardly recognize him. He looked so different from the person I knew.”

  “And what did he say?” Nergui prompted.

  “He said he’d returned to the city on some business. I mean, we knew the story, how you-” He nodded toward Cholon. “-how you had returned to the steppes with your father. But we knew very little else. He didn’t explain what his business was, and, well, I didn’t like to inquire.”

  “You thought it was something criminal?”

  “Well, no, not really criminal. But I knew that he had had to make ends meet as best he could, so it would not have surprised me if he had been involved in some things that were… dubious. As a government employee, I thought it was best not to know.”

  “What else did he say?”

  “Not much. He said he’d arranged to stay in the city for a few weeks and had organized some lodgings. But there’d been some sort of administrative mix up and they wouldn’t be available for a day or two. So he was throwing himself on our mercy, as it were.”

  “Did you believe him?”

  Oyon frowned. “I’m not sure. I mean, it was a plausible enough story as far as it went. It seemed a bit odd that he should have made these arrangements but then had nowhere else to go other than to people he’d not seen for ten years. But Badzar was never the most conventional of individuals.”

  “So you let him stay?”

  “Of course. What else could we have done? I mean, as you can see, we’ve hardly any room here, so all we could do was offer him the sofa, but that was okay for a day or two. We brought him in-gave him a meal, shared a few glasses of vodka. He relaxed a bit after that, seemed more his old self. We talked a bit about the old days. He was happy enough talking about university, but I had the impression that he didn’t want to talk about what had happened after that.”

  “And he didn’t give you any clues as to his business in town?”

  “Not at all. I mean, he wasn’t obviously secretive about it. But it never came up, and, as I say, I didn’t want to inquire.”

  “And how long did he stay?”

  “Just two nights. We didn’t see much of him, to be honest. We saw him on Wednesday morning, as we went off to work. The baby goes to Odyal’s mother when she’s working. We gave him a key, and I had the impression he was out most of the day. We got back around six. He reappeared a bit later than that. We had another meal. He’d brought a bottle of vodka, so we had a bit more of that, and that was really it. He didn’t give us the impression he was going to be going the next day, but again he was around till we’d gone off to work. When we got back, he wasn’t here and the key had been left on the table there. We weren’t sure whether to expect him back, but he never reappeared. To be honest, we were slightly annoyed that he hadn’t bothered to come back to say goodbye. But, as I say, Badzar was always unpredictable.”

  Nergui nodded. “And he gave you no clues about where he was going?”

  Oyon frowned. “Nothing very clear. I had the impression that it was somewhere nearby.”

  Nergui leaned forward. “Why do you say that?”

  “I’m not sure.” Oyon looked across to his wife for assistance. “It was something about the way he talked on that second night. We’d had a few drinks. It was all a bit more relaxed than it had been, though Badzar still seemed pretty tense. He was saying something about his journey here. He hitched a li
ft with some truck driver part of the way. Had everything set up here but then-what were his words? — there had been developments. I think that was how he described it. So he couldn’t immediately move in where he’d planned. And he found himself on our doorstep-”

  “That was it,” Odyal said. “It was the way he said it. Almost, well, insulting. The impression he gave was that it wasn’t so much that he’d been keen to see us after ten years, but that he didn’t know where else to go and we were the nearest people he knew. We’d drunk a bit so I didn’t really take it in, but I can remember feeling a bit irritated by the way he spoke.”

  “I think he realized what he’d said,” Oyon said. “He’d drunk more than we had-was on the way to being drunk, really. He apologized a bit, said he’d not meant it to sound like that-that he’d actually come out of his way specially to see us. But I don’t think I really believed him.”

  It was an interesting question, Nergui thought. Had Badzar started apologizing because he was concerned he’d insulted old friends, or was it because he was worried he’d given something away about his proposed whereabouts?

  “Is there anything else you can think of?” Nergui said. “Anything else he might have said? Any other impressions you formed? Even the most fleeting thought or idea might be useful to us.”

  “I don’t think so,” Oyon said. “As I say, he didn’t talk at all about why he was here or what his business was. It was obviously something that was… I don’t know, urgent, important to him. He seemed keyed up the whole time he was here. As if he was keen to be getting on with whatever it was he was having to delay.”

  “Did he seem threatened?” Doripalam said. “I mean, was there any sense that he was being pursued or that someone was looking for him?”

  Oyon looked blankly at Doripalam. “I don’t know. Is that why you’re looking for him?”

  Nergui shook his head. “We’ve no reason to believe he’s in trouble. But we don’t know why he’s come to the city in this way. We don’t know what he might be involved with. We’re just trying to piece the picture together.”

  Oyon and Odyal were looking at each other, both clearly wondering what it was they had become entangled with. “I don’t know,” Oyon said. “I mean, he looked tense, as I’ve said, and unwell. But I didn’t really get the impression that he was afraid. It was more that he was-I don’t know-involved in some task that was proving challenging or demanding, maybe more than he’d expected. I can’t put it any better than that.”