A Spring Betrayal (32 page)
Authors: Tom Callaghan
Tags: #Political, #Spies & Politics, #Thriller & Suspense, #FIC030000 Fiction / Thrillers / Suspense, #Police Procedurals, #Thrillers & Suspense, #International Mystery & Crime, #Mystery, #Crime, #Suspense, #Travel
And then I turned filmmaker.
The picture was grainy, amateur, shot on a handheld phone. But it showed Graves’s villa, late at night, the walls lit by floodlights,
making blurred puddles on the road. The side door opened, and a man emerged, walking toward the car parked outside. The camera zoomed in, and it was Zhenbekov, checking the coast was clear. He was followed by Graves, his height and shaven head unmistakable. Zhenbekov unlocked the car, climbed behind the wheel, while Graves took the passenger seat. The headlights flicked on and the car started to move.
Then the image turned pure white, dazzling, before slowly coming back into focus. The car was a heap of fragments, twisted metal, splinters. The passenger door hung open, crooked on one hinge. A figure staggered out of the wreckage, twisting and whirling around. Graves, but most changed. His clothes were on fire, and burns scarred his head like patches of red and black paint. He had lost a hand, or rather was holding it with the one still attached. The film was silent, but it was easy to imagine the scream coming out of his mouth, shocked by the impossibility of what was happening to him.
He fell to the ground, rolling in an ecstasy of pain, blood splashing from his severed wrist onto the pavement, the way blood flows from a sacrificial sheep at a forty-day
toi
. Perhaps he remembered the screams and cries in his cellar, relived the pleasures of the knife and whip. Possibly he thought of the wealth and power he was leaving behind. Or maybe he just died, in pain and alone.
I attached the file to another e-mail, a one-off address in another country, and pressed send.
I remembered Saltanat walking away, never hesitating, never looking back.
We create rules to live by, to tell us how to act, to help us sleep at night. And when life shreds them into fragments thrown to the wind, all we can do is carry on.
But there’s always a price, because betrayal comes in many disguises.
First we betray our friends. Then we betray those who love us.
And finally, inevitably, we betray ourselves.
Maybe it’s love that redeems us. Or when we do what we know is right, whatever the consequences.
After a few moments, a reply to my e-mail arrived in my inbox. I opened it, my palms sweaty with anticipation, hope, fear. It was from the foreign address where I’d sent the film.
There were no words, only a short video clip.
A young boy, maybe eight years old, stood in front of the Sher-Dor Madrasah in Samarkand, dwarfed by the towering minarets and the ornate tiger mosaics. Otabek stared into the camera, his hair still cut in that odd lopsided fashion, clothes slightly too big, those of an older boy, but he looked healthy, well-fed. He clutched a woman’s hand, as if for protection, or reassurance. The woman was visible only from the waist down, slim long legs in black jeans tucked into shin-high lace-up combat boots.
He wasn’t smiling, looked guarded, but I could sense some of the fear had left his eyes, that he was no longer consumed by a terror that could pounce at any moment. He raised his free hand to give a tentative wave to the camera, then the screen went dark.
I watched the clip, over and over, until the café attendant tapped my shoulder and told me I’d run out of time.
As with my previous Akyl Borubaev novel,
A Killing Winter
, I owe a great deal to many people, whose continued help and encouragement is already acknowledged there.
To that list must be added:
In Germany: Sebastian Fitzek.
In Kyrgyzstan: Oksana Itikeeva and Umai Sultanova.
In the UAE: Isobel Abulhoul, Annabelle Corton, Baron Elliot, Michael Judd, Yvette Judge, Maryann Miranda, Meerim Morrison, Nyugen Ngoc, and Martin Tyler.
In the UK: Stefanie Bierwerth and her team at Quercus, especially Kathryn Taussig and Matthew Cowdery; Jakob Tanner at Waterstones; Marcus Wilson-Smith, whose Kyrgyz photos are the redeeming feature of my Facebook page (
www.facebook.com/tomcallaghanwriter
).
As before, I owe huge thanks to Tanja Howarth, friend and agent extraordinaire, and my old pal Simon Peters, for criticism, encouragement, and a killing eye for typos.
My biggest debt, of course, is to everyone who read
A Killing Winter
, and who I hope will enjoy
A Spring Betrayal
as well.
All the characters and events in this book are entirely fictitious, and any errors, misinterpretations, or distortions of actual events are mine. Kyrgyzstan is a beautiful country with friendly people, and I hope no one will be put off visiting it by reading what is, after all, a crime novel.
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