Diplomatic Immunity by Grant Sutherland Page A

Patrick O’Conner.
    “Hmph” is all Mike says. Then his finger moves on to Toshio’s final appointment yesterday. Moriko. Seven-thirty P.M.
    “Toshio’s sister,” I tell Mike.
    Mei Tan confirms that Toshio kept the appointment with Patrick, but about the one with Moriko she’s not sure. “I went home just after he went up to see Mr. O’Conner. Anyway, that’s personal, his family.” She is becoming distinctly uncomfortable now. And when Mike asks her to fetch us the most recent editions of some obscure journal from down in the Dag Hammarskjöld Library, it is hard to tell if Mei Tan is more surprised or relieved by the request.
    The moment she’s gone, Mike hands me the calendar and slips the Geneva ticket stub into his pocket. Then he reaches into one of the desk drawers and produces a bunch of keys. Toshio’s keys, which Mike must have noticed during his earlier search. He pockets them.
    “Sound to you like she was lying?”
    I shake my head.
    “Me neither.” He lays a blank sheet of paper on the desk and writes. Large letters, black felt pen. DO NOT OPEN. LOCKED BY ORDER — UN SECURITY. Then his name and signature. Next, he finds some Scotch tape, and while he tears off a piece, I ask him what he makes of the trip to Geneva.
    “Nothing yet. Don’t even know if he went.” He takes his sign over to the door and tapes it up. He nods to the calendar in my hands. “Bring that.”
    After locking the door, he leads the way to the elevators. “Let’s see if that pink file’s anywhere in the basement. I wanna make sure the body’s secure in the coolroom too.”
    “Then what?”
    “His apartment.” Mike gives me a sideways look. “I’m guessing Patrick told you to get over there to search for the suicide note. I figure while you’re wasting your time with that, I can take a look around the place, maybe get some clue why the guy was murdered.”

6
    T HE JOURNALISTS HAVE DESCENDED. NORMALLY IT ’ S JUST THE UN regulars idling around the corridors singly or in pairs, looking hangdog, complaining about lack of access to delegates and wondering when their editors will recall them from this journalistic wasteland. Young hacks shunted here into the slow lane of advancement. Old hacks wearing their stints of salaried idleness at Turtle Bay like lusterless crowns to inglorious careers. But for these few days each year, even the terminally embittered among them come to life, galvanized by the alluring possibility that they might actually find something here to report that their editors back home will call news.
    Add to these regulars the incestuous packs that swarm around the presidents, the heads of state, and foreign ministers, and what you get is what Mike and I meet when we hit the concourse outside the General Assembly Hall: indecorous shoving, microphones and cameras being brandished like weapons, and people swearing at one another in about twenty different languages.
    Mike adds his voice to the chorus. “Assholes,” he says, shouldering his way into the pack as I slide right along in his wake.
    We have almost made it to the escalators, when I feel a hand on my shoulder. Turning, I find Lady Nicola Edgeworth looking up at me; she asks if she might please have a word. “Just one minute,” she adds, sensing my reluctance. When I look back, I see that Mike has plowed on; he is waiting for me at the head of the escalators. I signal him on. I will have to catch up later.
    “A very quick word,” I tell Lady Nicola, unable to conceal my impatience.
    “Somewhere a little more private,” she suggests.
    The private place we enter is a small room off the Delegates’ Lounge. The room is hung with collages and oil paintings, social realism from the fifties, framed in pine.
    “Special Envoy Hatanaka,” Lady Nicola says the moment we’re alone.
    I cannot pretend to be surprised. Lady Nicola, the British ambassador, one of the Security Council’s Big Five, is also the president of the Security Council this