Pak walked into my office and sat on the only chair not piled with papers.
"I scrounged you a filing cabinet. Why don't you use it?" This was always his opening line, and he no longer expected an answer. He knew the first drawer held my vase, the one with the flying cranes, and the second drawer my collection of sandpaper. In the third drawer were the pieces of a simple bookshelf I kept hoping to build.
"We are near a dead end on this case. The hospital says it can't justify the refrigeration and is going to have to dump the corpse. The Minister says it's time to file this in the Unsolved drawer and let it be." Pak looked over at the file cabinet. "Where do you put the unsolved stuff, in the drawer with your bookshelf plans?" He put his feet on my desk and then pulled them off again. "Sorry, rude of me. I was trying to think."
When he walked in, I'd been making another rough sketch of a bookshelf on the back of another Ministry memo. We both knew there might never be time or materials enough to build anything. I put the sketch to the side and found my notepad. "We both know the Minister wants us to solve this case," I said. "The fact that the vice minister doesn't think we can do it makes it doubly important to the old man."
Pak made a noncommittal noise. "And we both know who has ordered the Minister to close the file. My brother. My former brother."
Pak stared off into space. He didn't blink, and for a while I thought he had stopped breathing.
"Not much we can do, Inspector," he said finally. "We're spending our time shuffling a pretty pile of facts that don't add up, and I can't justify keeping you on this much longer."
I didn't have to reply, because my phone rang. It was the local security man, Li, who handled the countryside district south of Pyongyang.
One of the farmers had found something, he said, and he wanted me to take a look before he made a formal report. I thanked him, said I would be right there, and hung up.
Pak had heard only my half of the conversation, but he didn't ask any questions. "Use my car again," he said. "Get back here by noon, though. Kang and I are having lunch. Noodles. He's paying. About damn time."