Bamboo and blood

4

"Tell me the truth, Inspector, do you prefer New York to Geneva? You have been to New York, haven't you?" M. Beret and I were standing in a tiny park. I didn't like being there. It was a small piece of land sandwiched between the lake and the street, the sort of thing city architects like because it meets their quota for green space. There were lots of trees-a circle of maples around a fountain, lindens along the path, a couple of big beeches off by themselves. The beeches looked like they felt crowded and wished they were somewhere else.

"Can't we find another spot?" The more I looked around the little park, the more I didn't like what I saw.

"How about the airport? I can have your bags shipped later." M. Beret sat down on a bench facing the water. I especially didn't like that. It put our backs to the street.

"What makes you think I've been to New York?"

"A friend of a friend of a friend. A very long chain of friends. They met someone who talked to someone who saw you walking down a hill to Third Avenue. You looked lost, they said."

"Small world. I had no idea you had orthodox friends."

"Given your thought patterns, I'll take that for a yes. But how am I to interpret such information? A mere police inspector, going here and there, there and here, all in the space of two or three months? It's very odd, is it not?"

"I thought so." I hadn't been walking down the hill, I'd been walking up. The other man had been walking down, the friendly man who had stopped. A friendly old man with distant connections to M. Beret?

"Again I ask, what am I to make of your frequent travels? More to the point, why is your passport so light on visas if you travel so much? Do you just slip across borders like the March wind?"

"My passport? Can we walk a bit? It's getting cold on this bench." The wind was whipping the lake into frantic wavelets that smacked against each other. In the sunlight they might have sparkled, but not under the leaden gray of the early morning clouds. When I passed by Ahmet's place on the way to meet M. Beret, it had been closed; no sign in the window, but the shades were down and the door was locked. Maybe Ahmet was out getting his knife sharpened. That meant Dilara was alone, in her bedroom upstairs. Or was she not alone? It was an interesting question, but not as interesting as the one occupying my mind at the moment. When could I get something to eat? I waited for M. Beret to produce a roll from his pocket. This was how dogs were trained, and I could see why it was so effective.

"Obviously, you've checked," I said. "Funny, I examine other people's passports with some care, but I never look at my own very closely, and it's not something I keep at home in a drawer. Surely you know that much about my country. I am handed a passport, it has my name and picture in it, a birth date. That's good enough for me. Is it the same one as last time? Who cares? Maybe they lost the last one after I handed it in. Maybe they revised the covers and had to reissue new documents to everyone. How should I know? Believe it or not, I have other things to worry about. If you want the truth, I didn't really want to come here, to this polished place under these friendless mountains. It was an order."

It took only a few minutes to walk around the edge of the park. His roll-hand stayed in his pocket the whole time. When we got back to where we started, M. Beret rested his arms on the railing that ran alongside the path. "What do you think, Inspector?" He pointed across the river.

"I've been wondering. Are those political slogans on the tops of those buildings?"

"Political slogans? No, we don't do that. They're advertisements. That one on the end is for watches."

"Then they're slogans for the rich. Ours exhort the people. Yours exhort the rich. We say, 'Victory!' You say, 'Buy!' Not a world of difference, is there?"

"Which one do you prefer?"

I was disappointed, somehow. He hadn't struck me as the type to ask that sort of question. We'd finally established good working relations, I thought. I didn't expect him to spoil things by dragging in politics. "Have you seen the trees on the street that runs alongside the lake? The street with the woman with the rump."

"Quai Gustave-Ador?"

"Is that her name?"

"The street."

"Well, those are plane trees along that street. When plane trees are free to grow, they grow tall, and the shade they produce is sweet all summer long. Those trees of yours, an entire line of them, have been butchered."

"You mean cut down?"

"They might wish they were dead. No, they have been mangled. Their tops have been hacked off. They are maimed."

"Pity the trees."

It was too snide to pass over. I went over to the bench and sat down. I wanted to be sitting when I put this knife between his ribs. "I happened to be out walking the other night. No doubt you noticed."

"I'm behind on my reports, but I'll take your word for it. Good, exercise is what you need. It helps with any lingering jet lag. Clarifies the senses." He sat down beside me. "I might wish for better weather, though. It's a bit windy. You must forgive me." There it was again-snide. That wasn't his normal style. Maybe he'd caught his fingers in a door.

"Yes, it is a bit windy, and a little chilly in the evenings. That's what I wanted to ask you about. I noticed that you seem to have an organization very similar to the Young Pioneers in my country. It seems to function after sundown."

"Is that so?" M. Beret looked at me warily. "What do you mean?"

"I happened upon several young girls. They all had on the same uniform, more or less. White boots. Long white boots."

I see.

"Coats with fur collars."

"Yes."

"I would have thought the skirts were too short for this weather. Maybe there is a shortage of cloth in Switzerland? Or problems with distribution?"

"And did you approach one of them?"

I ignored him. "The blue light. That's what got me curious. Does it signify the headquarters of this organization for young girls?"

"You would like to investigate?"

"Some of them seemed very young."

"They do."

"I also saw a man, very short, walking behind an African woman of proportions I never even imagined."

"Indeed."

"Isn't it dangerous, that sort of thing? Do you have ambulances standing by?"

He laughed. "He visits her once a month, sometimes more."

"I saw a Korean girl, too."

"Korean? No, she is Thai."

"Thai? M. Beret, give me the benefit of the doubt, please. She may sit in a Thai cafe wearing those long white boots, but that does not make her Thai."

He pondered this. I could see him mentally rearranging his tidy filing system. "We shall see," he said. "Thank you. It's always good to have an informed point of view." He adjusted the belt on his coat. It was a gesture of unease, grooming behavior that police of all backgrounds lapse into when they are unsure of their footing. "We don't claim perfection. Or won't that do for an excuse?"

He might have been apologizing for mislabeling the girl. It was something I was not prepared to leave ambiguous. "I am simply observing your wide world, M. Beret. I hope you didn't think I was casting the first stone."

He smiled grimly, the way a man who has gotten the point might do. "You never really answered my original question. Out of curiosity, if you don't mind, what were you doing in New York?"

"I can't believe you of all people are asking me that." He still hadn't produced the roll, and I was beginning to think I would have to buy one for myself once I got out of this cramped park. "Is it a requirement in the West that a person must account for his movements to every police department and intelligence agency in every country he visits?"

"This isn't an interrogation, Inspector." He stood up. "I'm simply curious, and I thought you would find it a novel experience to answer a harmless question." I pretended not to notice that he had put his hand in his pocket. Dogs do that sometimes, look away when they're interested. "Your friend, the one who arrived yesterday, is in the morgue. He has a broken neck. Someone has to identify him, and your mission refuses to do it. I thought you might do the honors, seeing as how you were in a bar with him yesterday." He held out half a roll. "Please, be my guest."

That explained why Sohn didn't make the appointment at the Sunflower. The question was, when did he send me that note? Or did he send it at all? "When did you find the body?"

"I can't very well cooperate with you, Inspector, if you don't cooperate with me."

"I don't need your cooperation."

"Yes, you do. If you don't want to end up like him."

"You going to break my neck?"

M. Beret looked offended. "No, but there is someone in the neighborhood who doesn't like you, that's the impression we're getting." He paused. "Don't ask me how I know." He paused again. "I don't want anything to happen to you, not here. Having one of you in the freezer is enough."

"He had plenty of enemies."

"Then we'll have to make a list, won't we? I'll find a thick pad of paper." He dropped both halves of the roll in my lap. "Two o'clock, I'll be at the bar, the one where you met him. If you hurry, you can make the start of the morning negotiating session. It's at your mission this time, is it not? Don't worry, you won't have an afternoon session today."