A Killing Winter (7 page)

It
was a long drive back to Bishkek the next day, but the snow had stopped, and the light was dazzlingly bright, splashing off the Celestial Mountains over on the far side of Lake Issyk-Kul. I’d spent the night dozing on a
shyrdak
carpet while Kursan drove some elderly lady to vocal heights of delight in the room across the hall. The daylight might have been clear, about the only thing in this case that was. For a moment, I wondered why I put myself through the shit of trying to improve a world beyond redemption or relief. Then I remembered Yekaterina Mikhailovna, forever without a child of her own, snowflakes settling on her upturned face, her belly opened to an indifferent world. Her father, sitting behind a walnut desk that no longer had any grandeur, nor the power to bring his daughter back, cognac after cognac failing to blur the memory of her frozen face on the morgue slab. And fast following, like an autumn storm battling across the Tien Shan Mountains, I thought of Chinara and her last dreadful days in hospital, soiling the bed linen I carried in to replace the hospital’s threadbare sheets, recalling the soup and
lepeshka
flat bread I took every day that she was too weak to eat.

Towards the end, as she asked, I brought the embroidered cushion that her grandmother had made as a wedding gift for us, the vivid colours and traditional pattern a dramatic splash against the white sheets and Chinara’s equally pale face. She would run her fingers over the intricate needlework, as
if tracing our history together, tentative, the way a child or a blind man touches an unfamiliar face. It seemed to offer a comfort I was unable to provide.

Every day of her final week, I held her hand, hoping she would squeeze mine, show that she knew I was there, that she recognised me.

That she loved me, remembered me, even as she slid from her life into my memory.

It crossed my mind to find the killer, watch his brains turn to fine red mist from a bullet in the back of his head, then turn the gun on myself, put an end to all this. But there’ll be other Yekaterinas, other Chinaras, other unnamed children. And if I’m dead, who is there left to speak for them, to fight for them?

‘You need to find yourself a woman,’ Kursan announced, unexpectedly, after an hour of silent driving. ‘It’s not good to be alone for too long.’

‘And what would you know about that? Half the children in Tokmok are probably yours.’

Kursan grinned at this compliment to his virility, then turned serious.

‘Chinara wouldn’t have wanted you to stay single. A man needs a woman, more than a woman needs a man.’

‘Enough.’

‘I’m only saying.’

‘OK, and now you’ve said.’

My temper wasn’t improved by the landscape we were passing through. On our right, empty fields stretching towards the Kazakh border; on our left, the cold slab of the lake. Dotted every few miles were the graveyards that served long-abandoned villages, the memorial stones and brick arches slowly crumbling under the assault of summer heat
and winter cold. Sepia photos of
babushki
in headscarves and old men in black and white felt
kalpaks
fading under glass roundels, thin strips of weather-faded cloth flapping in the wind. Most of the graves were surrounded by railings, a small metal crescent moon at each corner. Chinara was buried in just such a place, on the outskirts of her village, on a stony outcrop overlooking the river below and the valley that stretches out before rising into the mountains separating Kyrgyzstan and China.

A peaceful place, if you chose to see it like that.

*

Kursan dropped me off at Sverdlovsky Station, but it was well after nine, so the Chief wouldn’t be in his office, and I’d nothing much to report anyway. A dead daughter of one of the top
nomenklatura
trumps a dead peasant girl from Oblast Issyk-Kul any day. The Chief wasn’t a bad cop in his time but, at his level, the only thing that counts is politics. I didn’t want a drink, but I also didn’t want to be alone. The Metro Bar was too far, and I didn’t want to go to the Kulturny, in case I met Vasily and his crew, and gave them a couple of smacks. But tiredness kicked in and I decided it was time for home, then bed. One thing about the winters here: everything stays preserved, not just the corpses. I knew that, in the morning, I’d drag myself out of bed, hope there was enough hot water for a shower and a shave, reluctantly pull on all the layers of clothing I could find, and set out once more. Or I would if I knew where to go.

I was halfway along Chui Prospekt, walking in the road, when the black BMW pulled up. That kind of car, that time of night, I knew it wouldn’t be a
myrki
lost in the big city and looking for directions. My Yarygin was hopelessly inaccessible, under two layers of tightly buttoned clothes, so I didn’t
even think of making a move for it. Instead, I took two quick paces back and threw myself over the piled-up snow at the roadside. At least, that was the plan, but my foot skidded and, instead of an acrobatic leap, I tumbled and lurched into the slush by the pavement. The snow softened my fall, but not by much, and a massive flash of white light burst inside my head. For a split second, I wondered if I’d been shot, if I was dead, but the icy dampness against my face reassured me.

What was less reassuring was the diplomatic corps number plate about three feet from my head. Or the slam of the car door and the big black boots that halted next to me. Expensive boots, thick military soles, steel-capped footwear that could administer a terminal kicking. I shut my eyes and screwed my face up against the blow that would smash my nose and cheekbones into a bloody mass.

‘Not much of an ice-skater,’ a voice said from somewhere above me. ‘Not much of an inspector, either.’

I cautiously opened one eye and looked up. The legs went on for ever, and they were wearing army camouflage. Summer pattern, though, so they stood out like an accident in a paint factory. Or brains on snow.

I levered myself up on to one elbow, shook some sense into my head and the snow out of my hair. No damage done, not yet. I was halfway to my feet when Army Camouflage stepped closer and pushed me back down.

‘Not planning anything foolish, I hope, Inspector? I hear that Yarygin of yours has a very light trigger.’

The previous year, I’d had an unfortunate exchange of words with a murder suspect, followed by a fortunate exchange of bullets. Fortunate in that he missed and I didn’t. He was fortunate too; my bullet only clipped his spine. So now he’s spending the next fifteen years lying in the bottom
bunk of a communal cell in Bishkek Number One, a cell bitch waiting for the block boss to choose the evening’s hole.

I raised my hands to show that my intentions were pure. A meaty paw grabbed my arm, hoisted me to my feet, pulled me towards the car. It was the second time in twenty-four hours that I’d had to deal with a stranger in an expensive car, and I was beginning to dislike the experience.

‘Turn round, face away from the car.’

I was reluctant to do so, but Army Camouflage twisted my arm around and the rest of me followed. The window hissed down, and I braced myself for an execution bullet.

‘You’d be well advised to take some compassionate leave, Inspector. It’s been, what, three months since your wife died? And not a day off since then? The mind needs time to rest, to forget about the everyday stresses of work, and to focus on healing, repair, recovery.’

I’d been expecting threats, bribes, pain, not advice and consolation. Or a voice like honey poured over ice cream.

A woman’s voice.

‘No,
don’t turn round,’ the voice continued. ‘I wouldn’t want to see you get hurt.’

‘Well, if you don’t want to hurt me, and you don’t want to show me your face, what do you want?’

‘For you to take the advice I’ve just given you.’

Army Camouflage tightened his grip on my arm. It was a very persuasive argument.

‘Everyone gets depressed this time of year. The cold, the snow, the dark. And of course, in your case, your unbearable loss. You should get some sunshine.’

I could recognise a hint, but that didn’t mean I would take it.

‘No fun going away on your own. And anyway, I can’t afford it.’

‘You should consider it. Head for the sun. Bangkok is very pleasant at this time of year.’

‘I’ve got sensitive skin. Ten minutes in the sun here and I burn. Thailand would fry me to a crisp.’

The voice took on an edge of steel.

‘There are worse ways to go. As you know.’

I decided it was time to remember I was an Inspector, Murder Squad.

‘I don’t know why you care so much, but you know I can’t come off this case. And maybe I should make it my business to find out why someone riding in an Uzbek Diplomatic Corps car is so concerned about my welfare.’

‘Inspector,’ the voice said, and this time there was a note of world-weary impatience, as if explaining to a toddler for the tenth time why he can’t have a biscuit, ‘you’re a shitty little cop who solves shitty little murders, nobodies killing each other over a half bottle of cheap home-made vodka, or who fucked who. You are so far out of your depth in this one. Believe me, you don’t want to solve this case.’

The voice paused, and I stiffened, thinking maybe the last sound I would hear was the snap of a trigger. Army Camouflage gripped my arm a little tighter, and kicked my feet further apart. He pushed his hand deep inside my coat pocket, took out my apartment keys, threw them into the snow.

‘Think about it, Inspector, how many more enemies do you need?’

Army Camouflage kicked my right leg from under me and, even as I tried to regain my balance, shoved me sprawling back into the slush. The car window whispered shut, the engine started up – a smooth purr that said money, and lots of it – followed by the crunch of tyres on snow as the car pulled away. Only then did I start hunting for my keys.

*

Back in my apartment, I fished what Kursan had left of my vodka from the window ledge and looked at the bottle for a long time. Harsh electric light reflected off the edges, reminding me of my decision not to drink, a test to overcome, like everything else in my life.

There’s no love lost between the Kyrgyz and the Uzbeks; we’ve had too many riots and too much killing over the last hundred years for that. But here in the north, we’re a long way from the Fergana Valley and Osh, where most of the Kyrgyz Uzbeks live. Blame Stalin; he wanted to keep everybody at
each other’s throats, divide and rule, so he carved up Central Asia like a blind man cutting up a sheep. Everybody got a bit that they didn’t want, and somebody else got the slice that they did. And before independence, the Russians were top dogs anyway, so it didn’t matter what we ethnics thought. Once we got independence, it was all up for grabs, and you fought your way to the top of your particular pile any way you could. And like all wars, if there isn’t very much to fight over to begin with, the battles are all the bloodier.

The apartment wasn’t just warm, but hot; in the winter, all the old apartments are heated by an elaborate system of giant hot-water pipes a metre in diameter that criss-cross the city. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, and if you’ve fallen out with the
babushka
who manages your block, you might find your heating turned off, whether you’ve paid your bill or not.

I dug my hands deep into my coat pocket and found an unfamiliar shape, slim, cylindrical, evidently put there by Army Camouflage. I took it out: a bullet for a Makarov, wrapped in paper. These were not subtle people. I read the note scrawled in pencil.

At least it wasn’t signed ‘from a friend’.

I tossed the note on to the table, and weighed the bullet in my hand. A Makarov is the terminator of choice in our part of the world; light, reliable and virtually untraceable. I’d have more luck chasing snowflakes than ever tracking one down.

There was no point in having the bullet checked for prints;
in weather like ours, you wear gloves all the time, and the people I was dealing with weren’t amateurs.

I walked towards the wall unit, to drop the bullet into a drawer, then paused. Something was wrong, out of place, missing. For a few seconds, I couldn’t tell what, then I saw the gap on the shelf, the thin dust-free mark. Chinara’s photo, the one taken on the Ferris wheel, laughing, carefree, wind in her hair.

Gone.

Someone had obviously managed to pick both locks without me noticing anything out of the ordinary. As I said, not amateurs.

I stood the bullet upright in the place where the photo had been, and stared at the glint of light shining off the brass. Whatever was going on, one thing was now very clear.

Someone, somewhere down the line, was going to pay.

I
woke up to find two messages on my mobile. One from the Chief, one from Tynaliev. Both asking the same thing: where the fuck have you been, and what the fuck have you found out? Hard to know who to call first, so I decided to ring neither of them. Instead, I hunted down a contact in Motor Vehicle Registration and, for the promise of a couple of bottles of the good stuff, he agreed to check on the BMW. He got a bit twitchy when I told him about the diplomatic plates, but he finally agreed to get back to me in a couple of hours. I decided to pass the time by wandering over to the Uzbek Embassy on Tynystanov Street, just round the corner from Fatboys. If nothing else, I could get a decent breakfast, and then loiter outside the embassy to see what that stirred up.

An hour later, I was stamping my feet outside the embassy and thinking about getting fed and watered. I’d had a less than discreet word with the uniforms we keep parked outside, and made sure the security cameras on the gate got a long look at me. For good measure, I went and peered through the railings a couple of times. After half an hour or so, I got called over to the police car; there’d been an official complaint from the embassy. I waved my arms about a bit, in case I hadn’t attracted enough attention, then sauntered back towards Chui Prospekt. I didn’t know if the BMW would come by, but the Yarygin was in my coat pocket, nice and tight in my hand. I tried to look casual, but I listened hard for the sound of a car engine behind me.

I turned into Chui Prospekt and took a seat on the decking outside Fatboys. It was too cold to sit out there for long, but I was interested to see who might come round the corner after me. I pulled a copy of today’s
Achyk Sayasat
out of my pocket, and pretended to be engrossed in the lead article. A close observer might have noticed that the newspaper didn’t quite lie flush with the table top, might have speculated about what the bulky metal object underneath could be, wondered why my hand was out of sight.

Coffee and a full horse sausage and egg breakfast arrived, together with a complimentary hundred-gram shot of vodka, which I pushed to one side. I was keeping an eye on the corner, sipping my coffee with my left hand, so I was caught off guard when I heard a familiar and unwelcome voice behind me.

‘Inspector. The vodka’s on me, please, I insist.’

I sighed and twisted round in my seat.

‘Vasily, I hope for your sake that this is a coincidence. You’re my least favourite whoreson.’

Vasily Tyulev smiled, my insult of no consequence to him. Anything that didn’t cost him pain or money, it was merely snow melt slipping into a raging mountain stream.

‘Inspector, there’s no such thing as coincidence. Not in your line of work or mine.’

‘Vasily, the only time our paths ever cross is when you’re up to some shitty little scam, or selling some underage pussy, and I find out about it and come after you. If you’re fucking me around, we’ll go for a little dance in the basement at Sverdlovsky. I catch you giving me grief? We’ll waltz the evening away, my little bitch.’

‘I may be your bitch, Inspector, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be useful.’

‘Talk.’

‘About money? Sure, I help you, you help me, a few
som
changes hands, maybe, or a file gets mislaid. Lots of ways for mutual help, right?’

I sighed. Vasily’s roundabout tango always took time, but he’d delivered in the past. I needed to keep him balanced between knowing who was the boss and making sure he talked to me before anyone else.

‘No mislaid files, Vasily. You know I don’t work that way.’

He held his hands up in surrender.

‘The folding stuff is always good.’

The waitress looked out of the door to see if the two madmen sitting outside in the cold needed anything else. Vasily jerked his thumb towards his mouth, and she nodded and disappeared back inside.

Once the glasses were in front of us, Vasily raised his as a toast, and knocked it back. I left mine where it was.

‘I’ll come to the point, Inspector. I sort things out for a lot of people around town, a middleman, you might say. I do them a favour, I do you a favour, easier to get someone else to scratch your back, then you do the same in return, right? I got a call this morning from someone asking me to have a quiet word with you.’

‘That someone being?’

‘Well, right now, that’s a confidential matter,’ he smiled, rubbing thumb and forefinger together, ‘but it doesn’t have to remain that way.’

‘No name, no green.’

‘Hear me out,’ Vasily said, looking hard at his empty glass. I pushed my untouched drink towards him and made a point of looking at my watch.

‘I have a friend who works for a neighbouring country –’

‘Uzbek,’ I said, cutting him short, showing him he wasn’t the only one with a clue or two.

‘I couldn’t say,’ Vasily countered, taking a gulp at his vodka, ‘but they know you’ve got a strong interest in the case of Tynaliev’s daughter. They feel there may be certain international implications that it might be better to keep in perspective, to avoid unnecessary tensions.’

I gave Vasily my hardest stare, the one I wear in Sverdlovsky basement.

‘You’re saying an Uzbek murdered two Kyrgyz women, carved the foetus out of one of them, and dumped it in the belly of the daughter of our Minister for State Security? And you want me to keep quiet about it?’

Vasily paled; this wasn’t going to plan.

‘Not at all, Inspector. No one knows who did this terrible crime, right? You just shouldn’t leap to any hasty conclusions that might spark trouble in the wider community. That’s all my friend is saying,
da
?’

The next bit was easy.

‘What’s in it for me?’

Vasily recovered himself, touched the thickest of the gold chains around his neck.

‘My friend believes that good . . . no, great police work should always be rewarded. Where else would we honest citizens be without your finest endeavours? In shit creek, that’s where.’

‘Vasily, you know what I want? More than anything else?’

He smiled; he thought he had me, the hook firmly through my lips.

‘I’m sure any sum within reason –’

He grunted as I threw a punch. Without much force, because I was sitting down, but enough to smack him in the belly and wind him.

‘What I want, whoreson, is the name of whoever sent you. And of whoever they think killed those women. And why.’

Vasily opened his mouth, first to get his breath back, then to speak. But he didn’t manage either, because his right cheekbone disappeared into a spray of thick crimson gobbets that splashed across the table. He gave a thin, high-pitched squeal as fragments of his teeth danced and chattered through the air, and the pressure from the bullet burst his left eyeball. A thin red drizzle hung behind his head.

As his body slammed backwards and down against the wall, blood splashing on the dirty snow, I’d already stood up and got the Yarygin out from under the newspaper, double-handed, looking out on to Chui.

Vasily’s bodyguard, Mikhail Lubashov, was there, about four metres away, by the bus stop, holding a Makarov in that stupid sideways grip that wannabes learn from American films. The recoil can snap the bones in your wrist, it’s awkward to sight and it makes a usually accurate handgun unreliable.

One of the surest ways to waste ammunition is to fire on the move, so I didn’t hurl myself through the air, firing backwards over my shoulder in the hope of hitting someone. Instead, I locked my knees, crouched slightly, fixed my shoulders behind the line of the barrel. I looked down the gun’s muzzle, centred on to Lubashov’s chest, where diagonal lines from each shoulder to the opposing elbow would meet.

His next shot smashed chips out of the brick wall to my right, and I watched as the recoil pulled his arm to one side. Before he could regain his balance, I squeezed the trigger
once, resighted, fired again, and then a third time, each shot hitting Lubashov in the sternum, driving spear-shaped fragments of bone tissue into both lungs. Never go for head shots or fancy ‘shoot in the leg and watch him go down’ tricks.

Centre chest, triple tap, each time.

Lubashov’s mouth opened and a look of hesitation came into his eyes, as if he’d been asked a question to which he didn’t know the answer. Each bullet punched him back half a step, until he hit the low fence separating the pavement and the road, and simply flipped backwards, his legs sticking up in the air like an abandoned shop mannequin.

I took a quick look around, saw no further threat. Then suddenly my knees abandoned me, and I sat back down heavily. With the clarity of adrenaline vision, I noticed that the splatter pattern of Vasily’s blood fanned out in a triangle of splashes across the table, and the shoulders of my jacket were covered in dandruff. But when I tried to brush it away, I discovered that I was covered in fragments of Vasily’s teeth and jaw.

That’s when I started to vomit up my breakfast, thick mealy ropes of half-digested food, head down between my knees, while the whine and howl of sirens grew ever nearer.