The Adversary

by Michael Walters

“Well, yes, sir, that’s what I told her. But she says she knows you. She’s a judge.”

  “A judge?” The dialogue seemed to be drifting into the realms of the surreal. Nergui had become acquainted with a number of judges in the course of his professional life, but he couldn’t think of any who might actively seek him out for the purposes of reporting a crime.

  “Yes, sir. She says she’s been threatened.”

  Nergui leaned back in his chair. Through the window, between the angles of the surrounding buildings, he could see a rectangle of pure blue sky. “Threatened?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  It sounded like some kind of lunatic. Someone claiming she was a judge, that she’d been threatened, that she knew Nergui. How did she even know he was here? He sighed gently. “And what’s your name, son?”

  There was a pause at the other end of the line. “Sangajav, sir.”

  “Well, Sangajav, I suppose you’d better bring her up. But I hope you’re not wasting my time.”

  There was a second, longer pause. “I’m sorry, sir, but she does claim she knows you.”

  “Bring her up.” Nergui slowly replaced the receiver. He pulled himself upright and walked across to the window. The partial view over the square was not particularly impressive, but at least it was possible to see some real life out there. At the nearest corner of the square there was a cluster of older men, all dressed in traditional robes and sashes, chatting and smoking. Nergui wondered vaguely who they were, and why they were gathered in this way. Beyond there, there was another knot of humanity—this time a group of Japanese tourists, endlessly rearranging themselves to take photograph after photograph of each other standing in front of the government buildings, Sukh Bataar’s statue, the post office building.

  There was a soft knock at the office door behind him. Nergui turned as the door opened, and Sangajav, a short, colorless figure with his head bowed deferentially, ushered in an attractive dark-haired women in a gray, formal-looking suit. “Sir,” he said. “Ms. Radnaa.”

  She was gazing at Nergui with an amused expression on her face. “It is you,” she said. “I hadn’t quite believed it.”

  For a second, Nergui stared at her. He half registered that, somewhere behind her, Sangajav had managed to make a discreet and hurried exit and was closing the door gently behind him. “Sarangarel,” he said, finally.

  She smiled. “Well, I am relieved. For a moment there, I genuinely thought that you didn’t remember me.”

  He shook his head, still trying to reconcile all the information that he had received in the preceding minutes. “I nearly didn’t. It’s been a long time,” he said, aware of how inane his words sounded. Strange, he thought, how shock propels us back into conventionalities. “Ten years.”

  “Twelve, I think,” she said.

  He nodded slowly, gesturing her to take a seat. He lowered himself into the seat behind the desk, still staring at the self-possessed woman in front of him. “How did you know I was here?”

  “I’m glad to see that your ego hasn’t diminished over the years,” she said. “I didn’t know you were here. I just came to report a crime.”

  “You should have gone to the police station.”

  “So I was told by the helpful young man who brought me up here. But I’m glad I didn’t.”

  “Yes,” Nergui said, after perhaps slightly too long a pause. “I’m glad you didn’t.”

  “That sounded almost sincere,” she laughed.

  Nergui shrugged. “No, really, it’s good to see you. A bit of a shock, though.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “You look very different,” he said. “Still terrific, though.”

  “You know, you keep pausing in the wrong places and for just a moment too long.”

  Nergui laughed. “But you haven’t changed, have you? Whereas I think my hearing must be going, because I thought I heard young Sangajav say that you were a judge.”

  “That’s right. I’m a judge. Trying criminal cases. I’m surprised we haven’t run across one another.”

  He stared at her for a moment, as though trying to make sense of a particularly obscure joke. “You really are?” He shook his head. “You always did have a sense of humor.”

  “I always did,” she said. “But I’m deadly serious about this. And I’m good at it.”

  “I don’t doubt it. You’d be good at anything you put your mind to. But why the judiciary?”

  “Well, I think I’d gotten to know the ways of the law quite well, don’t you? Somehow it seemed a natural move.”

  “Not to me,” he said. “And you’ve not encountered any—problems?”

  “As a result of my past, you mean? Why should I? It’s not as if I was the criminal. I couldn’t help who I was married to. I didn’t even know.”

  There was a sense that she was protesting too much. But that wasn’t so surprising, Nergui thought. She’d no doubt had to rehearse these arguments pretty frequently over the years. He couldn’t believe that her past hadn’t at some point returned to haunt her.

  “Of course not,” he agreed. “But people can be unforgiving.”

  She shrugged. “I can’t pretend it’s been easy. After—well, after it all happened, I didn’t know what to do. I was completely lost. There was a point when I thought that maybe you and I—” She trailed off, as though suddenly conscious that she might have said too much.

  Nergui was watching her intently, his dark face giving nothing away. That had been part of it, she realized. She had never known for sure what he was thinking, could never get quite as close to him as she had needed.

  “There was a point when I might have thought the same,” he said, surprising her.

  She looked up at him, smiling. “It’s probably just as well then that neither of us knew what the other was thinking,” she said.

  “Just as well,” he agreed. “But what happened to you? I thought about trying to keep in contact afterward, but it didn’t seem appropriate.”

  No, she thought, it wouldn’t have. And very probably he was right. It wouldn’t have been appropriate. “I floundered for a while. There was nobody. Things could have turned out very badly, I think, if I hadn’t gotten a grip on myself.”

  It was difficult now to imagine her having anything less than a very firm grip on herself, Nergui thought. But he knew that hadn’t always been the case.

  “I managed to get myself a job. Ironically, with the legal firm who’d handled the case—”

  Nergui nodded. He recalled the lawyer who had acted for Sarangarel’s husband and could imagine that his motives for offering her a job after her husband’s death might not have been entirely altruistic. But the lawyer would also have been smart enough to recognize that, whatever else he might or might not get from the arrangement, he would at least get a very capable employee.

  “I started doing clerical work. I did well, got myself promoted, and eventually they offered me the chance to take a law degree with the aim of moving into a professional role in the firm.”

  “Which I’ve no doubt you undertook with consummate ease,” Nergui said.

  “I’m not sure I’d say that,” she said. “But I did it, worked as a criminal lawyer for several years and then got the chance to apply for the judiciary. One of the benefits of a burgeoning democracy—it does create a whole new set of employment opportunities. Did you know that over half our judges are women?”

  “It just confirms what I’ve always assumed about female judgment,” Nergui said. “Considerably more reliable than the male equivalent.”

  “And women tend to be less patronizing, as well,” she said.

  Nergui smiled. “But, as you say, it is ironic. That you should have ended up passing judgment over—”

  “People like my late husband? Well, I suppose you don’t need to delve too deeply into the psychology of that.”

  “In my experience,” Nergui said, “it never pays to delve too deeply into the psychology of anything.”

  “An
d what about you, Nergui?” she said. “I followed your progress for a few years—I suppose I could claim it was a professional interest, as a criminal lawyer. I thought I might bump into you when I was trying the Muunokhoi case. That was one of yours, wasn’t it?”

  He looked up at her sharply, a glint of suspicion evident in his eyes for the first time. “You tried the Muunokhoi case?”

  “Well, in so far as it was tried. If it was one of yours, it wasn’t your finest hour.”

  “It wasn’t one of mine,” he said. “Not directly. I’d already moved on by then. But it’s why I’m back here now. And, no, it wasn’t our finest hour.”

  “What went wrong?” she said. “I’ve never seen the State Prosecutor’s Office look so rattled. Normally they’re the ones rattling everyone else.”

  Nergui absently straightened the pile of files on the desk, acutely conscious that the entire Muunokhoi case history was spread out on the polished surface between them. “Are you sure you’re here entirely by chance?” he said. “One hell of a coincidence.”

  She sat back and gazed at him coolly, a faint smile on her lips. “You really don’t trust anyone, do you, Nergui? I suppose I should have remembered that. You’re always careful to ensure that no-one else is a step ahead of you.”

  “I’m not worried when people are a step ahead of me,” he said. “It’s when they’re a step behind me that I start worrying what they’re up to. I’ve been caught from behind just once or twice too often. Literally and figuratively.”

  She laughed. “But, no, I am here entirely by coincidence. And only because I went to the wrong place.” She paused. “But I suppose that wasn’t entirely accidental. I came here because I’d been interviewed here so often. I’d assumed this was the station.”

  “There’s no question that what your husband was involved in were serious crimes,” Nergui said. “That’s why you came here. But—okay, I won’t be suspicious—why are you here? What is all this about threats?”

  “I don’t honestly know. It may well be nothing. It started not long after the Muunokhoi case, actually. Somebody had gotten hold of my private phone number and I got three or four calls—”

  “Threatening?”

  She shrugged. “Not really. Not at first. Just nothing. But with a sense that there was somebody still there, that the line was open.”

  “Everybody gets these automated marketing calls these days. Even here. We live in a global economy. Or it could just be someone’s cell playing up. The signals are always poor outside the city.”

  “I don’t think it’s someone I know. The number is always concealed.”

  “Marketing calls, then. These predictive dialing machines. The operators can’t keep up with them.”

  “Of course it could have been. But then more recently I’ve had some that do seem more threatening. Always late at night. A voice—sounding metallic, as if it’s been disguised or treated in some way—repeating a name. My husband’s name.”

  Nergui stared at her. “Anything else?”

  “Nothing. Just that, over and over. Till I put the phone down. Sometimes even then the line isn’t cut so if I pick it up again the voice is still there, still repeating.” She paused. “Those are the most unnerving times. When I think I’ll never stop it—that it’ll just keep on and on like that.”

  “Does it sound like a recording?”

  “It might be. I don’t know. Maybe yes. That would explain why it sounds so relentless.”

  “And is there anything explicitly threatening?”

  “No. Just that. That’s why I’ve been so reluctant to do anything about it.”

  “There must be a procedure for you to follow,” Nergui said. “As a judge, I mean. If you receive threats.”

  “I’m sure there is,” she said. “But I felt foolish invoking something like that unless there was a good reason. And I’m not sure there is.”

  “But you were willing to come talk to the police?” Nergui’s blue eyes were watching her intently, and for a moment she realized what it would feel like to be on the wrong end of one of his interrogations.

  “I suppose …” She hesitated. “Well, I suppose that’s why I came here, though it wasn’t particularly conscious. On the whole, I’d been treated well here, in the circumstances. Not least by you. So I thought maybe someone here would listen to me. Just talk it through. See if I’m being ridiculous.”

  “Which is what we’re doing,” Nergui said. He wondered how accidental her appearance here had really been. She had never struck him, even when she was in the middle of those dark days a decade before, as someone who would engage in a fool’s errand. She had thought that Nergui was still in charge here. Maybe she had come intending to have precisely this kind of discussion.

  “And do you think I’m being ridiculous?”

  “No, of course not. If anything, I think you’re probably being too relaxed about the whole thing. It sounds as if this is something specifically designed to unsettle you. It’s obviously someone who knows about your background. How widely known would that be?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve not lied about it, but I don’t particularly go out of my way to publicize it either. But, no, it wouldn’t be widely known.”

  “And I think we can reasonably assume that it’s someone trying to put pressure on you in your judicial role.”

  “But not very effectively?”

  “Not so far, no. But it’s already moved up a gear from the original silent calls, so we can probably assume that they may become more threatening.”

  “I’m glad I came to you for an objective opinion rather than comfort,” she said.

  “I’m much better on the former.”

  “So I recall. But, yes, I suppose you’re right. I should report it.”

  “Report it as you need to with the judiciary. I imagine they need it on the record in case there are any subsequent questions about your impartiality.”

  She looked up at him with a slightly startled expression. “Impartiality? Yes, well, I see what you mean. It’s stupid of me. I should have thought of all this.”

  Nergui watched her carefully. As he recalled, she was anything but stupid, or even absent minded. It was difficult to believe that she hadn’t really thought through all this before turning up, unannounced and unexpected, at the door of police headquarters. “You’re probably feeling anxious about it all—maybe more than you realize. After all, just hearing that name after all these years will have stirred up a lot that you probably thought was long buried.”

  She nodded, as though this idea was also new to her. Nergui thought back to her earlier comment about being patronized. He suspected that she might be someone who tolerated being patronized if this allowed her also to be underestimated.

  “I can deal with the police side of it,” he said, wondering even as he spoke whether this was entirely wise. “We can do some checking on the calls. We might be able to track down the calling number, though I wouldn’t be too hopeful on that front. Might be a good idea if we give you some protection too.”

  She smiled. “Is that really necessary, do you think?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t want to alarm you unnecessarily. Chances are that this is just some half-baked idiot who’s trying to cause a bit of trouble. Maybe someone with a grudge against you. Someone you sent down, maybe?”

  “Well, of course, that’s possible. But do you think there’s any real danger?”

  “I doubt it, to be honest. These people usually just like to stir things up. Those who want to do harm will generally just go ahead and do it. But you can never be sure.”

  “I bow to your superior knowledge,” she said. “I hope you’re right.”

  “So do I,” he said. He paused. “It’s been good to see you again, Sarangarel.”

  She nodded. “It must be fate,” she said. “I came to the wrong place, and you weren’t supposed to be here. Though you never did explain what it is that you are doing here.” She looked around the tiny, sparsely furni
shed office. “And this hardly looks like the head man’s room.”

  “It isn’t,” he said. “I’m not the head man here. Not anymore. And, to be honest, I’m not even entirely sure what it is that I’m doing here.”

  “That’s not like you, Nergui,” she said. “You usually knew exactly what you were doing.”

  “I did, didn’t I?” he said. His blue eyes were unblinking. “And, if I remember rightly, so did you.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Tunjin was slumped on the bed, looking as though someone had just struck him a hefty blow in the stomach.

  He looked again at the open file, the picture of Muunokhoi staring back up at him with its empty smile. If this meant what he thought it did, then he could expect far worse than a blow in the stomach in the near future.

  He tried to find some other interpretation, some other explanation for the presence of this photograph. Perhaps it had been in the file all along, an aid to identifying Muunokhoi. There were, after all, no official police mug shots of Muunokhoi—not until his recent arrest, at any rate. The arrest for which Tunjin had been responsible.

  But he knew that this picture had not been in the file. He had been through the file dozens of times, collating the genuine evidence, checking the confected material, searching for inconsistencies, searching for anything that would reveal the forgeries. He had been convinced that it had all been perfect, foolproof.

  But Muunokhoi had seen through it. And now the only fool here was Tunjin.

  And, in any case, even if the photograph had been there all along, this didn’t explain how the file came to be here, in Tunjin’s apartment. He had been over and over this in his mind in the preceding few minutes. Okay, he remembered little or nothing of the past few nights, but that itself indicated that he had not been in a condition to start stealing files from police headquarters. There was no question—this file had been stolen and placed here by someone in a far more coherent state of mind than Tunjin.

  He needed a drink. He really needed a drink. He thought back to the numerous nearly empty vodka bottles in the other room. There was still plenty of booze left. More than enough.