Motherland: A gripping crime thriller set in the dark heart of Putin's Russia

by G. D. Abson

  Then she saw it, half-covered in ash and curled grotesquely, the head almost touching the knees. She shifted position to get a better view of the face, of muscles and sinews shrunk against a black skull like a mummy’s. The fat in the lips was gone leaving a macabre grin on an eyeless skull. She turned away sharply.

  ‘There you go,’ he added, drily.

  ‘Any idea of gender?’ she asked, warming to the Lieutenant.

  ‘We’re waiting for the pathologist. Apparently you can tell by the hips. Women are designed for childbirth.’ He stopped and looked at her awkwardly. ‘I didn’t mean—’

  ‘That’s OK, and you’re right, it is how they tell if the victim is female. That, and the larger brain capacity.’

  Gorokhov grinned.

  She stepped back. ‘Did anyone see or hear anything?’

  He pulled on his jacket. ‘Potentially hundreds. The few we spoke to saw smoke around 5 p.m. We’re in a designated area for park wardens so no one cared to investigate.’ He pointed to a green metal shed with a smashed padlock. ‘Normally they use the pit to burn off excess foliage and lock up anything decent for seasoning in there.’

  ‘So no witnesses?’

  ‘None I found, but my instructions were to secure the scene.’

  ‘Who are the men sitting on their hands?’

  ‘Contractors building the new stadium. Got here an hour after the fire started. There’s a dispute over pay so they’ve been kicking their heels, refusing to work until their boss sorts the mess out. They brought food and drink for a picnic then saw the smoke and thought they’d take a look.’

  ‘What about the sign telling them it was off limits?’

  ‘Their supervisor said none of them read Russian. I doubt it though, they all learn it at school.’

  ‘What did they see?’

  The sound of two men sharing a joke carried on the air; she recognised Rogov’s voice and hoped Mikhail was there too.

  Gorokhov was nonplussed, ‘They smelled burning meat. One of them is a medical school dropout; he took a closer look and told them it was human. They put out the fire with water bottles while their supervisor called the police. The despatch operator told them to stay here, so that’s what they did…and wiped out the crime scene.’

  ‘Who called in the Cosmonauts?’

  ‘Despatch. Someone heard the word “immigrant” and prematurely ejaculated.’

  She found herself warming to Gorokhov. ‘Mind if I speak to the contractors?’

  ‘Be my guest.’

  She went back to the first clearing and saw Mikhail and Rogov sharing cigarettes with the Cosmonaut. Mikhail cupped his hands around a flame as Rogov offered him a light. He tilted his head in her direction and exhaled smoke. ‘Is it her?’

  She shrugged. ‘Too early to say. Can’t even tell if it’s male or female.’

  Rogov rubbed the stubble on his chin. ‘Surprised this lot came running in when they smelled pork’. He pulled his foot back as if to kick one of the men on the ground. His intended target was around the same age as Anton; he screwed up his eyes in anticipation of an impact which never came. Rogov chuckled to himself.

  ‘Sergeant,’ Mikhail said sharply, ‘behave yourself.’

  Rogov looked crestfallen at being reprimanded by his friend.

  She addressed the contractors, ‘Who reported the body?’

  A man in a worn, red Zenit T-shirt raised his hand. ‘We have papers. Not illegals.’

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘you wouldn’t have called the police if you were.’ Though the sensible course of action had been for them to run away and leave the body for someone else to find.

  The Cosmonaut grunted and spat on the floor, mistaking her comment for a criticism of the worker.

  She squared up to the OMON cop and glanced at the two stripes on his shoulder lapel, ‘Junior Sergeant,’ she said, emphasising the junior, ‘have you examined their papers?’

  ‘No...Captain.’

  ‘Then where are they?’

  ‘They were playing football earlier and took everything out of their pockets.’ He tilted his head to indicate a group of small rucksacks assembled at the base of a linden tree.

  ‘OK, let’s get this over with.’ She stepped over to the pile of bags and picked up one at random. ‘Whose is this?’

  Mikhail puffed on his cigarette. ‘Come on…Captain, I don’t think this is your job.’

  She glared at Mikhail and he shut up.

  ‘Come on, whose is it?’

  A boy wearing a sports vest glanced at the OMON cop before pulling his hands from underneath his buttocks. He raised an arm and she tossed the bag to him. ‘OK. Next?’ She worked through them until none were left.

  ‘Now please remove your work permits and passports.’

  She took the foreman’s first and barely glanced at his documents before handing them back. The boy of Anton’s age was visibly shaking and she saw his permit had expired in April. ‘That’s all in order,’ she said, returning it to him with a pointed look.

  A man with a muscle-etched face flashed a gold incisor as he spoke. ‘I forget my bag.’

  The Zenit-shirted foreman spoke to him rapidly with building anger.

  Natalya waited for him to finish then addressed the supervisor, ‘Thank you for reporting the body. I’m sorry for the trouble here. Was it worth it?’

  ‘Worth what?’

  ‘Coming to Russia and being treated like this?’

  ‘We send money home,’ he shrugged. ‘Most of time it’s OK.’

  ‘Can you tell me what you just said to this man?’

  He eyed the other contractor. ‘I told him he makes everything worse.’

  ‘Because he forgot his papers.’

  ‘No, because he has papers. I checked them this morning.’

  ‘Where are they?’

  ‘In his bag.’

  ‘Where is it?’

  He raised his palms in another shrug.

  Mikhail turned to her. ‘Natasha, can you show me the body.’

  ‘Can’t it wait? I’m nearly done.’

  ‘Five minutes, then perhaps we can all go home.’

  She led him through the path to the second clearing where Ilya Gorokhov, the Senior Lieutenant, was sitting on a tree stump smoking a cigarette and collecting the ash in a cupped hand. His two men were sitting on grass a metre away from the clearing, their backs resting against tree boughs.’

  ‘This is Major Ivanov.’ Natalya explained to the group and the three stood smartly. ‘Lieutenant Gorokhov, please show him the body.’

  Mikhail peered into the fire pit while Gorokhov stood next to him, tracing an outline in the air as he had done for her.

  There was a cry from the first clearing and she rushed back with Gorokhov and Mikhail. The contractors were still under the shade of the Linden, most had lowered their heads. She scanned the clearing. She couldn’t see Rogov and the gold-toothed man without papers was gone too.

  ‘Where are they?’ she demanded of the Cosmonaut.

  ‘I didn’t see anything.’ He smirked, delivering his thug’s answer.

  There was another cry, this time muffled. Rogov appeared at the edge of the clearing dragging the missing worker by his shirt collar; blood was dripping from the man’s nose and staining his shirt-front.

  ‘Sergeant Rogov!’ she yelled. ‘Do you want to explain yourself?’

  ‘He ran into a tree. Isn’t that right, Mohammed, or whatever the fuck your name is?’

  ‘Let him go, Stepan,’ ordered Mikhail.

  Rogov dragged the man into the clearing and pushed his face down in the dirt. ‘Shall I show the nice captain, Mohammed?’

  She noticed, then, that Rogov had a holdall in his other fist. ‘I saw him run away. His bag was hidden under a bush. I saw him take it and keep running. When I caught him I thought he was about to yell “Allahu Akbar” and send us both to paradise.’ He tossed the bag on the floor near the contractor’s head, then spat on his knuckles and wiped away a blo
ody smear. ‘But no, it’s because Mohammed here doesn’t trust the menti. He thought we were going to steal his things.’

  She knelt beside the man with the bloody nose. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘I am Kanat Aliyev,’ he looked at her defiantly, ‘not Mohammed.’

  ‘Show me your papers, Mister Aliyev.’

  He unzipped a side compartment on the bag and pulled them out. She scanned the dates of the permit and checked the name against the one in the passport, then studied his bloodied face against the photograph: everything was in order.

  The papers shook in his hand after she gave them back and she noticed he had shifted the bag under his knees. ‘What did you buy? Nothing will be stolen, I assure you.’

  Rogov lit a new cigarette then pointed at the man on the ground. ‘Don’t bother. I looked myself. Mohammed got himself a fucking handbag, didn’t he. Some knock-off piece of shit for his wife.’

  ‘Show me.’

  Aliyev was still, barely breathing.

  Her voice hardened, ‘Show me. Now.’

  The Cosmonaut raised his baton and she stepped into his path. ‘Put that down, Junior Sergeant, we’re not fascists – at least, not yet.’ The OMON cop looked to Mikhail as the ranking officer, expecting him to overrule her. ‘This is my case and he’s my fucking husband,’ she added.

  Mikhail nodded. ‘She makes two sound points.’

  The Cosmonaut lowered his baton and she bent down to the man. ‘Let me see inside.’

  Aliyev gave up the bag and she unzipped the main compartment. There was an empty drinks container and a pair of hard-wearing gloves; underneath them her fingers touched a leather strap. She snapped on a pair of latex gloves then opened it fully, careful to avoid rubbing the exterior of the handbag as she pulled it free.

  Rogov leaned forward, blowing smoke in her face as he did. ‘It’s a fake,’ he announced to the men standing in the clearing, ‘I got one for Oksana last year from an Arab in a subway; cost me eight hundred roubles and the piece of shit fell apart after two months.’

  She held the bag up to eye level, then twisted the clasp and opened it by the corner of a flap. It was empty inside.

  ‘Rogov, get a van. We need witness statements from everyone except him’ – she pointed at the man with the bloody nose – ‘He gets charged.’

  ‘Can’t immigration deal with this?’

  ‘No, and don’t involve them. I’ve already checked their papers.’

  ‘You want me to help?’

  She studied Mikhail’s face for evidence of condescension but he seemed genuine. ‘No, you go home.’ She thought of the keylogging software. ‘Can you make sure you pay the Admissions Head tonight? We’ll talk later.’ She decided needing answers mattered more than paying some official twice, especially if it got Anton into university.

  ‘Sure.’

  She unclipped her handcuffs from her belt. ‘Hold your hands out,’ she said to Aliyev. ‘I’m arresting you for theft and Article 294: Interfering in the Activities of an Investigator.’ She turned to Rogov. ‘Get his fingerprints on AFIS,’ she said, referring to the automated fingerprint identification system. ‘Do it as soon as you can and arrange for him to see a doctor and a lawyer – if you can find one on a Sunday. And Rogov, if he looks any worse in the station I’ll hold you personally responsible.’

  ‘Wait, Captain,’ said Gorokhov, ‘it’s still my jurisdiction.’

  ‘Not any more.’ She held up the pale blue handbag on a latex-covered index finger. ‘This is a Hermès Sellier Kelly worth at least a million roubles. More to the point, my missing person had one the night she disappeared.’

  She flicked through the address book on her mobile, then dialled the station. It rang three times, then was answered as the voicemail was about to cut in.

  ‘Colonel,’ she said before he could speak, ‘it’s Captain Ivanova. I think we’ve found her.’

  ‘Is she…?’

  ‘Dead? Yes, and murdered.’

  Chapter 16

  The evening was clear and the late sun cast long shadows in the park. The coroner had arrived and was directing Gorokhov’s men to remove the logs and place them next to a plastic sheet. At the base of the pit where pale ash swirled in eddies, Zena Dahl’s body lay exposed. The muscles of her glistening, charcoal limbs had contracted into an exaggerated foetal position. Strands of hair, now carbon filaments, disintegrated into dust as the light breeze touched them. Primakov, who had arrived before the coroner, was standing over the pit taking photographs of her body.

  Natalya stepped into the first clearing where the immigrants and the OMON officer had been. They were all gone now: the contractors taken away by a prisoner transport vehicle, and the Cosmonaut was on the main path, supporting his colleague to keep a meagre crowd away. She took out Dahl’s business card and called his private line; it was answered immediately.

  ‘Captain Ivanova?’

  The line was bad but serviceable enough for her to recognise Anatoly Lagunov’s voice. She remembered asking him to screen Dahl’s calls in case of a ransom demand.

  ‘Will you be able to stay with Mister Dahl this evening?’

  ‘Can you repeat,’ she heard through the static.

  ‘Are you staying with him tonight?’

  ‘No,’ he enunciated each word carefully, ‘I’m driving. His calls have been routed to my phone. I am not sure where he is. Do you have news?’

  ‘Will you ask him to call me?’

  The line went dead and she had no way of knowing if he had heard her. The phone was a poor way to break bad news and she preferred to do it in person or have the Swedish police visit Dahl; unfortunately reporters would pick up the story soon and it was better to hear it from her than see it on television.

  Through the clearing she watched the Senior Lieutenant’s men. They were making karate chop movements with their hands and she realised they were playing rock-paper-scissors. The loser received a pat on the back from Primakov before lowering himself into the pit.

  Her phone rang.

  ‘Misha?’ she felt a twinge of guilt that she was snooping into his private affairs even if his secretive behaviour had driven her to it.

  ‘Hi Angel, how’s it looking?’

  The uniform in the pit was tugging the plastic sheet underneath the body. The other policemen laughed in horror as Zena’s rigid arm tapped his face in a ghoulish slap; even Gorokhov smiled.

  ‘Just waiting. Leo Primakov is here and the men from Petrogradsky are getting her body out. It was fun earlier, we must do it again sometime.’

  ‘You shouldn’t be too hard on Stepan.’ Hearing Rogov’s first name was always a shock, almost as much as knowing he had a mother.

  ‘I’m not. I’m being as hard as he deserves.’

  There was silence and she could feel Mikhail’s smile through the phone.

  ‘He shouldn’t have done it but you’re too sensitive about these things. Your Mister Aliyev will get much worse in prison.’

  She shook her head lightly. ‘I’m surprised Rogov hasn’t made him confess to murdering her.’

  ‘Oh, he will. Stepan’s threatening to bite Aliyev’s balls off as we speak. I think he might actually do it.’

  ‘Misha!’ she shouted in horror. The men in the second clearing turned their heads.

  ‘It’s a joke, Natasha, the doctor is there, fixing the stupid bastard’s nose.’

  ‘What has Aliyev admitted to?’

  ‘He was first in the clearing and found the handbag resting against the woodshed door. He was planning to give it to the park authorities but when the body was discovered he panicked because his fingerprints were all over it and Aliyev knew he’d be in the shit if he told anyone.’

  ‘You believe him?’

  ‘Some of it. Stepan reckons the guy knew it was a real Hermès because all the immigrants sell fake handbags to tourists.’

  ‘Rogov is a liability.’ She watched another uniform climb into the pit then both men pushed their hands under
neath the plastic to lift the body. She was glad her uniform days were behind her.

  ‘You underestimate him. He got Aliyev to admit he’s got a wife in Tashkent and a mistress in Piter. He said his girlfriend would be sucking his khui out of gratitude when he gave her the handbag.’

  ‘That still sounds like Rogov.’

  ‘What about you?’

  She wondered for a moment what he meant. ‘A blowjob for a Hermès?’ She looked around to make sure no one was listening. ‘I’m cheaper than that – try a weekend in Tallinn. Have they recovered any prints?’

  ‘Covered in them. Popovich is staying late to record them on AFIS. We’ll know by tomorrow if there’s anything.’

  ‘Thanks.’ She was unconvinced. The other expert criminalist in the department, Pavel Popovich, may have had the same name as a famous Cosmonaut but he was a red-faced alcoholic whose work was shoddy. Given the choice, she preferred Primakov to handle the fingerprints after finishing at the site, even if it meant delaying the results.

  ‘I’m checking out, Angel. I’ll see you at home. We still need to speak about last night.’

  He hung up and she watched the uniforms carry a black body-bag on a stretcher to the coroner’s van.

  There had been plenty to find in the first clearing: broken glass from a smashed bottle of Privet vodka, a dozen gold cans of Zhigulevskoye beer crushed flat, greaseproof wrappers and Cellophane from packed lunches; though she suspected by their state of decomposition that they would yield no useful clues. She ducked under the police tape taking the thing she would have been most glad to leave behind – the smell of sweet, burnt flesh that lingered in her nostrils as she crossed the gravel path.

  There were a few teenagers loitering near the grass, now being monitored by some fresh-faced recruits she recognised from headquarters. In the night air, the sound of distorted music and shrieks drifted from the amusement park. Her eyes adjusted to the metallic light of the evening and she saw the flying chairs of Divo Ostrov, Miracle Island. She checked her watch; it was after nine and she was tired.

  Behind her she heard footsteps and turned to see Primakov clutching his silver case. ‘You want a drink? I need one,’ he asked.

  ‘Did you drive here?’