Hidden Moon

7

I took another route, not too much out of the way, but I didn’t want to go by the steam shovel again. Partway back into the city, we passed through a village. It was covered with coal dust from a factory set behind the fields, and even in the bright sunshine the houses and the inhabitants carried a grimness that made me wish Boswell had stayed in his hotel room. His eyes were closed, and I thought he might be asleep, but then he opened them and said, “Looks like an old town I used to patrol at home. Not even the rain could make it clean.”

“What did your embassy say?” I asked casually.

“About what?” He turned to look out the window.

“About the threat. You’ve told them already, so they could send an alert back, I assume.”

“No, Inspector, I told no one, least of all the embassy. I don’t want anyone to know, not yet.” He rolled down the window and put his hand on top of the car. “I’m the person on the scene. That’s how it’s done.”

“Sure,” I said. “Makes sense.” It didn’t make sense. Unless he had his own communication system, how was he going to get the information back to his capital? Carrier pigeon? The embassy was the only place he had for secure communications, unless he had something in his luggage that was exceptionally well concealed. News like this couldn’t go back over an open phone line. I thought about it. Maybe his security service didn’t trust the embassy people. No reason it should; I’d never heard of a security service anywhere that didn’t consider its foreign ministry personnel as anything but a running wound.

As the road turned north, we drove toward a clump of forsythia bushes, a brilliant explosion of yellow, next to a group of three or four plum trees in blossom. “Now that,” Boswell said, “is what I like to see in the spring, don’t you, Inspector? Some signs of life. Very thoughtful how they plant these things, to give some color this time of year. Wait, it looks like a monument just up that hill. Let’s see what it is. Maybe I can take a picture.”

“I know what it is. You don’t need a picture of that.”

“It’s a park or something.”

“No, it’s a marker. It commemorates a visit.”

“Historical?”

“I suppose, if you care to count the past fifty years as history.”

I sped up to get past so he wouldn’t ask to stop.

“Well, it’s nice anyway, the trees and all.”

I pressed down harder on the accelerator. The car jumped.

“What’s the matter?” Boswell reached for the dashboard to steady himself. “You don’t like a bit of color in April for these poor folk?”

“I do. I just don’t think it should be all banged together this way. People should appreciate nature for itself.” I stared straight ahead. “Not connect it with… other things.”

Boswell looked at me, then turned back to concentrate on the scenery. Finally, he shook his head. “Did you say something?” he said quietly. “I didn’t hear a word.”

“No, nothing.” My eyes never left the road. “Must have been the wind.”