Public Security had been careful to keep Metok’s trial and execution a closely guarded secret. How could she have known he was dead? “A note was smuggled out of his cell,” Shan said. “Your husband asked that the messenger deliver it to someone who lives by the truth.” He realized after he spoke that he had answered his own question. The old janitor Jampa could easily have smuggled out more than one note.

She scrubbed at her eyes then studied Shan with a confused expression, which gradually turned sour. “And that’s supposed to be you? You, in your scuffed shoes and tattered constable’s uniform? You don’t strike me as anyone’s savior.”

“I was there,” he said, switching to Tibetan. She looked up in surprise. “In the official witness gallery. I was forced to watch. He looked at me only for an instant, but it was long enough. In his note your husband said he was being silenced because he saw something, because he knew about a crime at the Five Claws. If that’s true, then what I witnessed wasn’t an execution. It was a carefully orchestrated murder.”

The words triggered a new flood of tears. She picked up one of the photos of Metok and fixed it with a forlorn stare as she spoke. “My husband was a good man. He worked hard, for his family. For the…” she seemed to force herself to say the word, “the motherland.”

“Did he ever say anything to you about archaeologists working at his project? A foreigner and a professor from Chengdu?”

Metok’s widow spoke to the floor again. “Someone who knew about such things could suffer the same punishment as my husband. My daughter has only one parent left. I can’t afford more trouble.”

“I am not Public Security,” he said again. “I am not the military. I can see things that are sometimes not so visible to others.”

“And what are you doing here?” the Tibetan woman asked.

“Following a little spark that might brighten into a spotlight. No one knows I am here. No one need know.”

“They’ve taken our apartment away on one month’s notice. If they suspected I was talking about this, they would take away my job too.”

“Your job?”

“I am an English translator for the travel service. Which means I am mostly a tour guide for Westerners. They watch us closely. Any hint of disloyalty and I would be finished.”

“No one will know,” Shan assured her.

She frowned but gave a curt nod. “My name is Lekshay,” she said, then wiped at a new tear that streamed down her cheek. “You mean my husband died because he knew something that more powerful men couldn’t have him reveal.”

“I think so.”