It was late enough when I left the morgue that I decided to take the duty car home with me. If I got it back early in the morning, Pak wouldn't care. My apartment was surprisingly cool when I stepped inside.
There was nothing to eat, so I drank the rest of the vodka and tried to think of Finland, what it would be like to walk with Lena around a lake in the stillness of twilight. I fell asleep remembering her perfume, but all I dreamed about was bread and jam.
The sun was shining full in my window when I woke with a start, past 8:00 a.m. My headache was gone, but I could tell it hadn't wandered far. The woman next door was complaining loudly that their flowers would all be dead by noon if her husband didn't go downstairs for some water, because the tap in their apartment wasn't working again. I should have been at the office by now. I yawned. Pak would cover for me if someone else needed the car, but I knew he was going to make me feel guilty when he found out how little I'd learned at the morgue. "Never mind, Inspector," he'd say, and turn his chair to the window. "We have plenty of clues already, mountains of clues. Who could possibly need an autopsy in a case like this? Glad you went to the morgue. Good use of the office vehicle. That almost makes up for the fact that you didn't bother to sign for it."
I was already late; Pak was only going to be unpleasant; I might as well get some more sleep. If the man next door had gone downstairs to get the water like his wife asked, that might have been possible, but the two of them started arguing about one thing, and one thing led to another.
At least I could get some tea at work.
Driving to the office, I yawned and went over what the doctor had said the night before. "Ethnicity is not an identification." It wasn't much of an excuse, but it was worth a try with Pak. As I pulled into the gate at our compound, I saw a military jeep in one of the parking spots.
I decided it was the wrong moment to put in an appearance, backed out, and turned onto the road leading toward the place where I'd been on photo-watch, waiting for the black car. I didn't know what I'd find when I got there; maybe driving over the same route would show me something I didn't know I had seen. I rolled down both front windows.
If I drove fast enough, maybe the breeze would blow away my headache, which was back.
The day was bright and getting hot, but you could tell autumn was coming on. The sky was higher, bluer, without the flatness of summer.
Farmers stood in small groups on the side of the road, staring at the fields, as if willing themselves to begin the work of harvesting the corn.
The countryside was ripe. Back from the road, farmhouses sat like dwellings lost in a Central American jungle. Roofs were overgrown with squash vines; a wall of corn towered over the pathways that wound between the buildings. Here and there, a few women squatted on the edge of the fields, enjoying the clarity of the August morning.
I was focused on a couple of goats strolling across the road from the opposite shoulder when, out of nowhere, an oxcart lumbered onto the highway. In a split second it emerged from a dirt path in the field to my right, where it had been hidden by the corn. I slammed on the brakes, barely missed the goats and the back of the cart, and then began a skid that, after a few anxious moments, put me in a ditch about ten meters down the road. The oxcart continued plodding across the highway and disappeared into the cornfield on the other side. Two men ran over to the car. One of them, the older of the two, put his head in the open passenger window. "You all right? This is a damned unlucky stretch of road. People drive like crazy. We lose an ox a month. In July we lost three. We can't afford that."
I shoved the door open, climbed out, and made a quick check of the car. If I could get it out of the ditch, it would get me back to the office.
Pak would murder me over the repairs. He wouldn't let us drive a car that was banged up, said it undermined our dignity. Worse, when it went to the repair shop, they would check the log, and he would have to explain why I had the car overnight and hadn't signed it in. Hell, I hadn't even signed it out.
"You people have to drive so reckless?" The younger of the two men was angry. The older man put a restraining hand on his shoulder.
"What's your problem? Your ox is fine, my car is wounded, and I think I strained my back. I'd say your side came out on top." I didn't want any trouble. If a co-op farm manager wrote a letter of complaint to the Ministry, it would be referred to a discipline committee and I would find myself in endless meetings. I would also have to help with the harvest. This would entail days, maybe weeks, of bending under a hot sun.
The older man tightened his grip on the younger man's shoulder, then let his hand drop free. "We had an accident a couple of weeks ago.
Car came flying across the road and killed his nephew."
"Cars don't fly." I had a sudden feeling that the ox I almost hit had not put me in a ditch but rather on the road to a solution. "What did you say about last month?"
"Three oxen hit by crazy drivers. Never seen anything like it."
"How come? More traffic?"
"Only in the morning. We like to move the carts across the road early. That way the ox gets to browse for a few hours before we get to work. For a long time, there was no problem, never any traffic that early. A couple or three years ago, a car came out of nowhere and killed an ox, must have been about six in the morning. It was a Thursday. Local security man came around and told us to keep away from the road every other Thursday morning."
"He tell you why?"
"I don't care. I'm not curious. Twice a month I sleep late, that's all."
"So, what happened last month? Couldn't sleep?"
"It was a Monday. Not me, one of the other men, it was his turn to move the carts. Ox stepped into the road. Wham. Dead ox, and the driver of the car almost killed."
"Did you see the driver?"
"No, I told you, it wasn't my day to move the carts. I was somewhere else."
"Alright, you were somewhere else. What about the other two accidents?"
"Following week, we stayed off the road on Monday, figured Tuesday was alright. It was my day for the cart. Same thing. About six in the morning. Ox stepped in the road. This time the driver tried to stop, sort of like you did. Only he was going faster than you were. He lost control.
The car spun around and the back end hit the ox. Killed the beast, but it saved the driver."
"What did he look like?"
"Small guy, skinny, mad as hell."
"Was he in any sort of uniform?"
"Nah."
"The car?"
"Back end was caved in. Too bad, nice car."
"Black?"
"Yup. Clean as you'd want to see, except for the gore all over the back."
"Didn't anyone from Pyongyang come out to question you?"
"Funny thing, no one did. I kept thinking the party committee would chew us out, even though it wasn't our fault. They always blame us."
"You sure no one came to see you?"
The older man crossed his eyes and looked at the sky. "Well, no one except the local security man."
"And?"
"He told us he was sorry about the ox."
"And?"
"He gave us a little money to keep quiet. Wasn't much."
"Wasn't much. Alright. Third time. Must have been a Wednesday or a Friday."
"Wednesday. The youngster here had the lead. I was just walking alongside." The older man nodded at the younger one. "He looked both ways, didn't see anything, though there was a little mist. The ox got halfway across when it stopped. Must have felt the vibrations on the road. Wouldn't move. Sure enough, there was a car, almost stopped this time, but almost wasn't good enough for the ox. Not much damage to the car, though the driver howled that he'd have us all shot."
"Skinny guy again?"
"No, this one was military of some sort. Muscular, short hair. Gray uniform, nothing like I've seen before. Banged his fist into the top of the car, he was so mad."
"Still no investigation?"
"Not a thing. And no compensation for the three oxen, either. Just some hush money. Not very much. How are we supposed to explain losing three animals?"
"But last week it was worse-it wasn't an ox, was it, it was a child.
You know what happened?"
Both men stood quietly, as if an invisible hand had pulled a string attached to their jaws.
"Okay, let me tell you what happened." I let my imagination spin out a reasonable scenario, based on what I knew. I liked to hear myself say these things out loud. When I just had a conversation in my head, it was always brilliant, but when it got fashioned into words, my ears could spot the weak points and tell my brain to take a walk. "The car took off after its side window, the driver's side window, was shot out.
The driver, wounded or dead, lost control. The car was going at high speed, hit a bump on this lousy highway, blew a tire, spun around, and landed in a ditch. Almost where I am now. Your nephew, who saw it all happen from that hill over there, was naturally curious and came to investigate.
He saw someone going through the driver's wallet. He turned to go, but the person, more likely two men, saw him, ran him down, and killed him. They told you later he'd been hit by the car, but they never let you see his body. All you got was an urn of ashes, which was buried the same night." It sounded plausible, not brilliant but plausible, though I made up the fact about the car landing on its left side and omitted that the boy's throat had been cut.
The two of them stared at me. The younger one trembled until I thought he would fall over. The older one shook his head slowly. "We don't want trouble."
"Well, trouble is what you've got, and you'll have even worse if you tell anyone, anyone at all, what I just said to you." I let that sink in. "Now help me get this car out of the ditch." Neither of them moved. "I'll put it another way for you. I'm your only hope of finding out who killed that boy, believe me. Or don't. If I were you, I wouldn't believe me. If I were you, I'd get to a phone and call the local security man, Li Min Sung. He and I were in the army together.
We stayed in touch." I could see from the face of the younger man that this made an impression. The locals liked Li; they trusted him.
He had been around here a long time and was always fair with them, didn't give them a lot of trouble over minor regulations. If Li and I were friends, then maybe they could trust me, too. "Tell him Inspector O says hello."
The older one spit on his hands. "Let's get this car back on the road."