A Killing Winter (18 page)

Back
at my apartment, there was no sign of Saltanat, no note, nothing to show she’d ever been there, apart from rumpled sheets, a damp towel on the bathroom floor, a scattering of poetry books on the table. As I picked up the towel, I realised I didn’t have her number. I wasn’t sure if I wanted it. I didn’t even know if Saltanat was her real name. I wondered what Chinara would have made of it; the evening before her final trip to the hospital, she’d talked about me finding someone else, but I didn’t imagine she had someone like Saltanat in mind.

I opened one of the poetry books,
Collected Poems
by Osip Mandelstam, and read the inscription I’d written there what felt like a million years ago.

I flipped through the pages, as if they held the solution to the murders, to my confusion, to my life. But the words blurred before my eyes, refusing to give up their understanding of the world. I gathered the books together and replaced them on the shelf, a kind of order whose secrets I couldn’t unlock.

‘
Terror and confusion, terror and confusion
.’

The
pakhan
’s words kept going through my head, like an awkward knot refusing to come untied. The phrase clung inside my mind, a quotation from somewhere in my past, just
out of reach. I decided to think about something else, hoping my subconscious would sneak up on the problem and solve the mystery while my back was turned.

My mobile rang, a number I didn’t recognise. Wondering if it might be Saltanat, perhaps even hoping it was, I answered it.

The voice on the other end was male, abrupt, direct. Russian.

‘Barabanov here.’

The Colonel from the airbase. What shit was the Kremlin in its wisdom throwing my way?

‘Colonel?
Privyet
. What can I do for you?’

‘A matter of protocol, Inspector.’

When I didn’t answer, he continued, clipped, emotionless. As if discussing missing supplies rather than the murder of the mother of his unborn child.

‘The incident involving Nurse Gurchenko has been resolved. The culprit was arrested earlier today, no other further suspects are being sought at this time.’

‘Really, Colonel? I have to congratulate you. When will it be possible for me to interview your suspect?’

The Colonel paused, and I knew he was about to lie to me.

‘I regret to say that will not be possible. En route to further questioning in Moscow, the suspect managed to disarm one of his guards and was shot dead trying to escape.’

I felt the anger rising, but I kept my voice calm.

‘Why was your “suspect” being taken to Moscow? As you know, I am investigating a series of brutal murders across Kyrgyzstan, murders that share several of the same characteristics. It’s very doubtful that the Minister for State Security would grant you permission to extradite a Kyrgyz citizen without my having interviewed him first.’

The Colonel’s tone was back to being flat and unemotional.

‘My apologies, Inspector, I should have made myself clear. The man my military police arrested was a serving Russian officer here on the base. Our
zampolit
, to be precise.’

If there’s one thing I know about the Russian Armed Forces, it’s that the political commissars they select to spy on their comrades and work up appropriate revolutionary fervour are some of the most unemotional thugs you’d find anywhere. A
zampolit
is about as likely to commit a sex murder as Lenin is to get up from his glass case and run naked around Red Square.

This time, I didn’t bother to hide the incredulity in my voice.

‘A crime of passion, I suppose, Colonel? A jealous lover driven insane by the thought of his beloved carrying another man’s child? Or perhaps enraged by being rejected in favour of a better catch?’

Barabanov didn’t rise to the bait.

‘I’m sure that with one of those motives you’ve hit the nail upon the head, Inspector. A pity we will never know the exact reason behind this terrible tragedy.’

I wanted to ask more, but the high-pitched tone told me he’d broken the connection.

‘Cheers,’ I muttered, wondering if a single word of what I’d just heard bore any passing resemblance to the truth.

I put the kettle on for
chai
, and while the water started to boil I debated just what truth was mixed in with Barabanov’s lies. No way of knowing if the ‘suspect’ had butchered Marina Gurchenko, if he was dead. If he ever even existed. I stirred a spoonful of plum jam into my tea, and thought back to the sight of her, splayed out like a deer gutted during hunting season. It would have taken tremendous strength, and time, to complete such butchery, and all the political officers I’d
ever encountered had been weasel-faced weaklings, light flashing off rimless glasses to hide the deceit in their eyes.

The tea was hot and sweet, and I was grateful for the kick it gave. I stared at my phone and wondered if Saltanat would call me, but it remained obstinately silent.

I decided to forget about Marina Gurchenko. Had her death been a personal matter, or part of the bigger picture? I knew that was one murder I would never solve. And if I ever tracked down her killer, it would probably be for something else, and I wouldn’t even realise I’d caught him. The Kremlin keeps its secrets locked away in basements that make Sverdlovsky look like a luxury sanatorium on the north shore of Lake Issyk-Kul.

As I sipped my tea, I made connections. Terror and confusion was the instruction given by the Circle of Brothers. But that went against every rule they normally followed.

Vorovskoe blago
, the thieves’ code, is all about maximising profits without drawing unnecessary attention to yourself, working in the shadows, preying on the weak and paying off the powerful. If you need to make a statement, you make it with a Makarov; you don’t slaughter and mutilate pregnant women.

So this wasn’t an ordinary criminal enterprise. There had to be big money involved, enough to jeopardise the international heroin trade, the corrupt taxation kickbacks, the bribes, even the regular daily extortion that feeds the Circle.

When one hand is washing the other, it takes an awful lot of cash to make you throw the towel away.

My thoughts were disturbed by a knock on the door.

When I opened it, Saltanat was standing there, frowning, a look on her face I didn’t recognise. I stepped out on to the
landing and opened my mouth, but before I could speak, a fist the size of a small horse slammed into the side of my head.

The world stopped and twisted with a dazzling firework display that blinded me to everything, and then I was falling into blackness as deep and dark as Chinara’s grave.

I
didn’t know how long I’d been out when eventually I resurfaced, but I was no longer in my apartment. For the second time in less than twenty-four hours, I was in an unheated empty building, in another dismal basement, but this time I was chained by my ankle to the wall, both my hands cuffed to a table. No sign of Saltanat, but three stocky men standing in front of me made up for her absence.

The thug who seemed to be the leader of this mini gang leant forward and pinched my cheek, with just enough force to show he could do a lot worse if he decided to.

‘Well, sweetheart, good to have you back. I was afraid Azad here might have hit you a little too hard. Before we got some answers out of you. And then where would we be, Inspector?’

He grinned, revealing an uneven row of gold teeth. Underneath his leather jacket, I could see the bulge of a shoulder holster, and I didn’t think it was for carrying a water bottle.

‘On the run, I would think?’

All three men laughed as if I’d told the planet’s funniest joke. Leather Jacket patted my cheek, not too gently.

‘You think your colleagues give a fuck about a pussy like you? Mister Cleanest Arse on the Planet? Every greased palm who’s found his throat dry and his pocket light at the end of the month, thanks to a self-righteous cop like you? Every uniform who enjoys a little taste of the girls behind Panfilov Park but hasn’t had a free mouth? There’ll be a dozen of them claiming credit when your body turns up; not for
solving the crime but for personally giving you the big headache.’

He cocked his fingers, aimed at my head and then spat in my face to emphasise his contempt for police, honest and bent alike. I ignored the thick phlegm trickling down my face, and flexed my shoulders to ease out some of the stiffness. The chain tugged at my leg like a demanding child.

‘So that’s your big plan? Kill a Murder Squad? That’s really going to please whichever boss has the misfortune to lead a troupe of clowns like you. You’ll bring down heat on yourselves like you can’t imagine.’

‘Heat you won’t know anything about, once Syrgak has finished with you. You wouldn’t think to look at him that he’d had three years’ medical training, would you? Very talented with a scalpel. But then you saw some of his handiwork, didn’t you? A master craftsman; he’ll keep you in agony for hours.’

The trio gave that peculiar mirthless cackle low-grade thugs use to terrify the cell bitches on to their knees when they’re behind bars. It wasn’t too hard for me to appear unimpressed.

‘Heat you won’t know anything about,’ he repeated, nudging his comrades, who dutifully responded as if they’d never heard anything so witty in their lives.

‘Circle of Brothers? Circle of Idiots, more like,’ I said, with a confidence I was far from feeling.

‘So you know who we are?’

‘Well, I know who your boss’s bosses are,’ I answered, ‘and even they aren’t big enough to be Circle. As for who you work for, well, you don’t any more, do you? Unless the evil old lizard’s giving orders from the slab.’

The blow hurled me back against the wall, where my feet
got all tangled up in the chain. Leather Jacket rubbed at his knuckles; obviously he was no expert, but I could see he was planning on some serious practice.

He took off his jacket, under which he was wearing a stained and torn T-shirt. His bare arms were pitted with track marks, some already turning black and green. He’d been bitten by the
krokodil
, and the sweet stink of gangrene hung in the air.

‘No wonder your
pakhan
’s in the morgue, if he can’t even stop his people shooting up that shit.’

The flurry of blows that followed hurt, but the
krokodil
had obviously sapped a lot of his strength. After a couple of minutes, Leather Jacket stopped for breath and I inspected myself for damage. Nothing that a week in an Issyk-Kul sanatorium with a stockpile of the good stuff couldn’t cure.

‘Now I know how tough you’re not, why have you brought me here? And where’s Saltanat?’

‘The bitch? She’s upstairs, in the master boudoir, waiting for Azad and Syrgak to show her what real men are like. Answer my questions and you can have what’s left, if you like. Mind you, after Azad,’ and he held his hands a foot apart, ‘I don’t know if there’ll be much left worth having.’

‘I don’t care what you do to the bitch,’ I lied, ‘she led you to me. She deserves all she gets.’

‘We caught her on the road outside your apartment. We were coming for you already, and we guessed you’d open the door to her. Kicking down doors gets old very fast.’

Leather Jacket jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

‘Don’t keep the bride waiting, guys.’

Azad and Syrgak headed out of the room, leaving me alone with Leather Jacket.

‘You can manage me without backup?’

He smiled.

‘Good chain, that. Strong. Shouldn’t be a problem. I’ve got a few questions, and your answers aren’t necessarily for everyone’s ears.’

‘Those two? They wouldn’t understand if you drew them pictures.’

Leather Jacket considered that, and nodded. The trio obviously didn’t sit around discussing the novels of Chingiz Aitmatov when they weren’t terrorising
babushki
out of their pensions. He walked over to a wall cupboard, and paused, his hand on the door.

‘The last events, you remember them?’

He meant the riots that burnt down a good part of central Bishkek in anger about the government, with the department stores looted as a sideline. Who says protest doesn’t pay?

I nodded.

‘I was in Beta Stores, thinking I could pick a few things up. Saw this and thought it could come in handy. For when I met people like you.’

I listened, wondering where this was going, as he opened the cupboard. I was beginning to get a very bad feeling.

‘But you know what they say: get mare’s milk, make
kymyz
.’

He produced a bottle of cooking oil and a hinged metal contraption. He lifted the lid to show two non-stick enamelled and grooved surfaces. An electrical cable ran from the machine and I watched as he connected it to a portable generator near the door. He pulled the starter cord, and the engine grumbled into a slow pulse.

‘It’s called a health grill, must be an American thing. These plates here,’ and he waggled the jaws of the grill as if it was a small steel crocodile, ‘they’re slightly tilted so the fat runs
out. But both the plates get good and hot; you just put the meat in between, close it, and it cooks in half the time.’

He held his hand above the metal, testing for heat, poured a little oil on to the lower surface. We listened to the oil hiss and spit as it hit the metal.

‘Supposed to be good for cooking steaks, that sort of thing, but I haven’t tried it out yet. Well, not for cooking anything I want to eat.’

I looked at the metal surfaces. There were fragments of what looked like charred meat, and black stains dribbling down the centre grooves. The knot in my stomach got tighter.

Leather Jacket took hold of my chin and forced me to stare into his eyes. I could smell the
krokodil
sweat on him, the rot of flesh. He looked at me, unblinking, hoping to see fear in my face.

‘I’ll tell you what it does cook to perfection. Fingers. And the occasional cock, if someone’s deciding to be a hero.’

And with that, he forced my left hand between the metal plates and slammed them shut.