Michael Walters - The Shadow Walker

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?”