Michael Walters - The Shadow Walker

Nergui thought that by now he had laid the politeness on quite thickly enough. “But remember,” he said, turning as he opened the door, “say nothing. To anybody.”

Outside, the day was bright but cold. Nergui hurried across Sukh Bataar Square, pulling his coat tightly around him. As he walked he checked his cell phone which he had switched off while interviewing the porter. There were two messages-one from the ambassador’s secretary to say that he was now free and could Nergui call back, and, inevitably, one from the Minister. The latter was not a conversation he was looking forward to. He procrastinated briefly by calling the ambassador as he walked.

Eventually, he was put through. “What is it, Nergui? The message sounded urgent.”

“It may be. You haven’t seen Chief Inspector McLeish since we left last night?”

“No. I waved you off, saw him start to walk down the street. That’s all. Why? Has something happened?”

“It looks as if he never returned to the hotel.”

There was a long pause at the other end of the line. Nergui heard the vague swish of static, the sound of the ambassador’s breathing. “How do you know?” he said at last.

“I’ve been trying to contact him all morning. Left messages. For some reason, I got worried and went over to the hotel. His bed wasn’t slept in. The night porter on duty has no recollection of letting him in after midnight.”

“It was-what, about twelve fifteen when you left here? But where can he have gone? It’s only five minutes back to the hotel.”

“I know,” Nergui said, feeling an unavoidable sense of personal responsibility. “That’s why we let him walk. I mean, there’s no doubt some straightforward explanation-”

“I don’t know what it could be,” the ambassador said bluntly, echoing Nergui’s own thoughts. “I mean, he doesn’t know anyone here, so if he didn’t come back to the embassy, there’s nowhere else he’s going to go. He was a little drunk-I mean, is it possible that he ended up going to the wrong hotel or something stupid like that?”

Nergui glanced up at the imposing silhouette of the Chinggis Khaan, black against the clear blue of the sky, dominating the city center skyline. “It doesn’t seem likely.”

“He could have collapsed or something.”

“Or slipped and hit his head. I hope that’s not it, given the temperatures overnight.”

“Christ, if we don’t find him, this is going to be a major incident,” the ambassador said. “How is it possible to lose a senior police officer?”

Nergui had no answer. It was an excellent question, and one he suspected the Minister would also be asking in the next few minutes. In his own mind, he was conscious of the political ramifications of the situation, but was growing more aware of his own personal feelings. He had grown to like Drew in the short time they had spent together. Nergui was more than capable of detaching himself from the emotions involved, but he realized that underneath, for the first time in many years, he was feeling genuinely worried about another human being.

“I’ll get back to you as soon as we know anything,” he said. “That’s all I can do.”

He delayed calling the Minister till he was back at the office, partly just to buy a few minutes and partly because he wanted to ensure that he was in as much control of the situation as possible. As it turned out, the conversation was easier than he had feared. The Minister’s famous panic control mechanisms appeared to have kicked in, and he spoke calmly, even pleasantly.

“If you were anyone else, Nergui, I would have assumed that your message was exaggerated.”

“I’m afraid not, Minister. I set it out as clearly as I could.”

“You did indeed. So all you know is that he never returned to the hotel last night?”

“Well, we’re as sure as we can be of that,” Nergui said, trying to remain as objective as he could. “We know he didn’t sleep in his room. The night porter on duty has no recollection of him returning after midnight. And it doesn’t seem likely that he would have been able to enter the hotel any other way.”

“So when did you last see him?”

“Just after midnight. I gave the others a lift back in the car, and Drew-Chief Inspector McLeish, that is-insisted on walking back to the hotel.”

“Pity you didn’t insist on giving him a lift.”

Nergui didn’t need to be told this. But then Drew had been adamant about wanting to walk, the hotel had been literally a few minutes away, the streets were deserted. No one could have predicted that anything would happen. But Nergui knew there was no point in going through all this with the Minister.

“Indeed, Minister.”

“So what do you think could have happened to him? I take it that you’re treating this as in some way linked with the other incidents?”

This seemed to be everyone’s favorite euphemism at the moment, Nergui reflected. “Well, we have to recognize that there could be a link with the killings,” he said. “But there’s no way of knowing at the moment.” He paused. “If there is a link, who knows what the implications might be? It hardly bears thinking about. But there could be a host of more straightforward explanations. People do go missing, and sometimes for the oddest of reasons.”

“But they’re not usually senior policemen on official visits to overseas countries.”

“True enough.”

“And, unless I’m missing something, it’s not easy to come up with an explanation that doesn’t have a potentially negative outcome?”

“Well-” Nergui hesitated. But the Minister was right. Even the simplest explanations-that Drew had fallen and hit his head, that he had collapsed, that he had been mugged-did not bode well for Drew’s well-being. “I suppose you’re right,” he said.

“Which, in turn, doesn’t indicate a particularly positive outcome for you or me, Nergui. Do you have any leads on this at all?”

“On the disappearance?”

“On any of it. This whole sorry mess.” Nergui noted that, despite all his own reservations, the Minister had immediately elided everything into a single case.

“Some, but nothing substantive. Everything that happens seems to take us further away.”

“We need to get somewhere on this, Nergui. And quickly. Especially after this. This is going to be a major incident. The British government will be all over us. The Western media will be all over us.”

“I know.”

The Minister, never one for niceties, ended the call without saying anything more. Nergui looked at the phone and nodded. “Don’t hesitate to pass on any ideas you might have,” he said to the now-dead receiver.

“Nergui?”

He looked up. Doripalam was standing in the doorway.

“I just heard. Is it true?”

Nergui shrugged. “It’s true he’s disappeared. What that means-well, your guess is probably a lot better than mine.”

“I wouldn’t have disturbed you, except-well, this is maybe not the moment, but I’ve got a bit of an idea. It’s probably stupid, but I wanted to check it out with you.”

“What’s your idea?” Nergui said. He knew that anything Doripalam came up with was unlikely to be a waste of time.

“Well, it goes back to Delgerbayar. You remember that he’d been involved the gold prospecting case?”

Nergui nodded, wondering where this was leading. “Some small-time thing, as I understood it. Dispersing one of the illegal camps. He was due to go up there with another officer the day after he went missing.”

“That’s right. Well, I had a check back through the records. I don’t think anybody picked it up, but I think Delgerbayar had already been up to the camp.”

Nergui raised his head and stared at Doripalam. “What do you mean?”