Bamboo and blood

4

After I was back in my hotel room, I mulled over what Jeno had told me during dinner. "This shouldn't be so difficult, Inspector." He'd had several glasses of wine and was about to pour himself another. "It's straightforward, but your people keep dodging and wriggling. I argued that we should deal with you differently than we do with the Arabs, but maybe I was wrong."

"You want to give me a clue, even a little one? Because otherwise, I don't know what you're talking about." I could have pretended to go along, nodded when he said that people were wriggling. But I preferred to know who was wriggling, and why. At home I could live with ambiguity. Not here, not in this tidy country where every hedge was clipped and not a single sunbeam bounced in the wrong direction. There wasn't room for ambiguity here.

"Now that your heart rate is normal, tell me. What do you think of Dilara?" he asked. "More wine?"

"Beautiful girl," I said. "No more for me." Jeno?s expression changed. His eyebrows looked about to leap onto the table and do something with castanets. "Something wrong?" I asked. "Was that the wrong answer? You don't think she's beautiful?"

"These salted bread sticks are delicious, Inspector. Why don't you take some back to your room? They're from a wonderful bakery. Do you like baked goods?"