Chapter 28: The Report

The detachment was a brick bungalow behind the post office, with a flag and a bench outside.

Hyunjin walked in at nine in the morning with his hood down.

Chan was on his left and I was on his right, and neither of us was holding his hand.

We didn't need to. He held his own head up.

All night one line from the forum had run in my head. I heard her. I'm so close now.

I looked at the three fans on the bench and wondered if one of them had typed it.

Three fans sat on the bench outside, with a thermos and a sign that said WE'RE HERE.

Hyunjin stopped on the step and looked at them.

"They won't follow you in," I said.

"I know." He swallowed. "I'm going to wave."

He waved. One of them dropped her thermos.

Inside, the constable had cleared her desk and put out three chairs and a box of tissues she pretended was for somebody else.

"This is the sergeant's office," she said. "He's in Halifax, so you've got me."

Hyunjin sat down.

She turned on a small recorder and read out the date.

"In your own words," she said. "From the start."

"It started two years ago," Hyunjin said. "In Seoul. There was a card in my dressing room."

He told it plainly, in English, with Chan quietly supplying a word now and then.

The card, and the photos, and the one he hid for a year.

The hotel room in Vancouver, and the pictures of him asleep.

He said "asleep" evenly, and under the desk Chan's knee pressed against his.

I sat with my hands flat on my thighs and listened to all of it, and kept my face still, because it was his.

When he reached the envelope on Rory's boat he took it out of his jacket.

He laid it on the desk in its clear bag, with the photograph of the kitchen and the blue looping letter.

"I've read it," the constable said. "Mara gave me a copy last night."

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