The Outcast by Michael Walters Page A

which company?”
    She had shrugged. No, she hadn’t registered the name of the company. Was it one of the usual companies, or an unfamiliar name? She didn’t know. So perhaps that meant it was an un-familiar name. Or perhaps it had just been too familiar.
    â€œCould you describe the men who unloaded it?” Batzorig’s hopes were fading now.
    Not really. They had been Mongolian, she thought. Or Asian. At least, one of them had been. Probably average height. Normal build. Dark hair. Dressed in overalls. Or, at any rate, she was sure they were wearing the kind of clothes that the delivery drivers usually wore.
    â€œBut it was definitely early this morning that you saw them?”
    Definitely. Unless it had been yesterday afternoon. But then they’d have noticed the carpet earlier, wouldn’t they? So it must have been this morning. Assuming, that is, that it really was the carpet that she’d seen being off-loaded. Now she thought about it, she couldn’t be absolutely sure.
    It was always like this. It was one of the standard grumbles within the team—just how hopeless most witnesses turned out to be. Even when an incident had occurred right in front of their noses, they generally managed to misremember or misinterpret it. In circumstances like this, with witnesses struggling to remember apparently mundane events, the chances of extracting any reliable data were minimal.
    Resorting to more definitive sources of information, Batzorig had checked the formal documents relating to the ordering and delivery of the museum’s goods. There was no record of the carpet being ordered, and none of the specialist curators had any knowledge of how or why it might have been requested. There had been five recorded deliveries that day, but none of the delivery notes mentioned the carpet. They were in the process of checking with the relevant delivery companies, but Doripalam held out few hopes of any success. It was quite possible that there had been a further unrecorded delivery.
    All in all, they were little further forward. They sat in the relatively luxurious office belonging to the absent director, and leafed morosely through the pages of notes. Artefacts of the Mongolian empire surrounded them on all sides, and an enormous print of the familiar face of Genghis stared down from behind Doripalam’s head.
    â€œAn awful lot of nothing,” Doripalam said, tossing the wedge of papers on to the desk. “So do you have any theories?”
    â€œNothing,” Batozrig said. “We don’t know who the victim is, and I can’t begin to imagine why the body would have been dumped here of all places. It’s not likely to be internecine warfare between archaeologists, I imagine.”
    Doripalam smiled indulgently at the half-hearted attempt at a joke. “Maybe it’s just random; the body had to be dumped somewhere, so why not here?”
    â€œBecause it would have been risky,” Batzorig pointed out. “I mean, much more risky than just dumping it in some waste ground, or outside the city somewhere.”
    Doripalam nodded. “So why here? What significance could this place have?”
    Batzorig looked up. “What do you think about your wife’s idea? About Hulagu, I mean.” He had noted the comment in the transcript of the interview, though Doripalam had not drawn attention to it.
    Doripalam shrugged. “I don’t know. It sounds pretty far-fetched to me. But I suppose that it would explain the carpet. And it would begin to explain why the body was brought here. If you’re going to re-stage an episode from the glory days of the Mongol empire, you’d want to do it where someone will pick up on the reference.”
    â€œAnd where it would have most resonance.”
    â€œExactly.” Doripalam shook his head. “But it’s all speculation. We don’t know who the victim is. We don’t know where he was killed. We don’t