The City & the City

The posters go up. Borlú himself lives southeast of Old Town, the city center, near the top of a small tower block. There is a fish market nearby, plus a raised railway line that runs past his window, although this is not in his city. He could look out his window and at the “foreign travelers” going past, but he does not. Borlú is in “early middle age” and is usually in his apartment alone, although he has casual relationships with two women, one a professor of economic history and the other an art critic. As he leaves his apartment, he sees one of the posters, which features a photo of Fulana and a request to call the Extreme Crime Squad with any information.

While Borlú is walking to work, he gets a call from Yaszek informing him that they have found the van. He gets a taxi to the spot where his colleagues are already examining the van, which is in “very bad condition.” In the back of the van there is a strong smell of “mould” and “piled-up junk.” Yaszek tells Borlú that a smear was found on the van’s floor, believed to be Fulana’s blood. Corwi arrives, and Borlú postulates that Fulana was already dead or unconscious by the time she was placed inside the van. Before long, the police acquire the name and address of the van’s owner, and by the next day the lab confirms that the smear is indeed Fulana’s blood.   

The van owner is named Mikyael Khurusch; he has a criminal record for theft and soliciting prostitution. By this point, many people have called the hotline from the posters with information about Fulana, although most of this information clearly nonsense. The two plausible leads are that Fulana is a legal assistant who was recently reported missing, or a “tart” called Rosyn who is nicknamed “The Pout.” Gadlem gives Borlú permission to visit Khurusch and try to get him to voluntarily give fingerprints and saliva samples. When Borlú finds him, Khurusch expresses joy that his van has been found, explaining it was stolen three days before. Borlú responds that it’s strange that Khurusch didn’t report the van missing, considering he needs it for his job.

Khurusch says that he didn’t have time to report the van as missing because he was “busy.” Borlú shows him a photo of Fulana, asking if he knows her, and Khurusch, distressed, asks if she was killed by the van in a hit and run. Khurusch then explains that the night Fulana was killed, he was at a Gamblers Anonymous meeting, after which he and a group of the GA attendees went to a bar. Borlú follows this up, and finds seven witnesses who confirm it. Yaszek notes that although Khurusch didn’t report the van missing officially, he had been complaining about it to people he knew for days.

Yaszek also learned that Khurusch makes money by going abroad, to Varna, Bucharest, Turkey, or Ul Qoma, picking up items like “cheap clothes [and] dodgy CDS” to sell back in Besźel. When Borlú speaks to Khurusch again, Khurusch says that some of the junk in the van—including a “ripped-up cord”—do not belong to him. Back at the office, Borlú expresses his frustration to Corwi that, so far, none of the pieces of the story are adding up.