Michael Walters - The Shadow Walker

“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.”