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

by G. D. Abson

  ‘You think she’s implicated.’

  ‘No, this happened an hour before smoke was seen.’ She spoke carefully, ‘I must tell you some of my colleagues have a different opinion but I have reason to believe it was Yulia Federova who was killed, not Zena.’

  Dahl’s eye’s performed a little roll as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. ‘You mean Zena’s alive? What about the two boys who admitted killing her?’

  ‘There were coerced into confessing.’ She held out her palms to temper his enthusiasm. ‘There’s no guarantee I’m right, but if someone went to the effort of making us think Zena is dead, then it’s a good indication that she isn’t.’

  ‘Why do that?’ He ran his hand through his hair. ‘It’s sick.’

  ‘I only have theories, Thorsten. Perhaps, Zena’s abductor got nervous and gave us a body to stop the police investigation.’

  ‘Why not pick any girl off the street and kill her? Why her friend?’

  ‘Perhaps Yulia knew Zena’s kidnapper without realising it? When I spoke to Yulia she told me she didn’t know what Zena had been doing at a ZAGS office. Later I found out she had gone there with your daughter. When I asked you and Anatoly Lagunov about the same subject, you were uncomfortable too.’

  Dahl waved his hand dismissively. ‘Do we have to go over that again?’

  ‘I think so.’

  He sighed. ‘Her adoption wasn’t completely legal. There wasn’t time to get the paperwork arranged. I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t know if I could trust you.’

  ‘If that’s all there is, I won’t mention it to my superiors.’ She stared at Dahl, wondering if he was telling the truth.

  ‘So you think a kidnapper has been holding her all this time? The man who spoke to Anatoly, was that him?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I think it might have been genuine.’

  ‘Does he still have her?’

  ‘It’s possible.’

  ‘And he killed Felix Axelsson?’

  ‘That’s another thing I don’t understand. Why did the kidnapper kill Axelsson unless he made them nervous?’

  ‘Felix was a professional—’

  ‘I wasn’t criticising,’ she said, though she was. ‘When I saw his body’ – she pointed at a spot between Dahl’s cheek and jaw – ‘there was the imprint of a gun barrel. His killer had jammed a pistol in his face then fired. That was rage. Didn’t you tell me they asked for you personally?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then I think the kidnapper intended to kill you at the handover. When Axelsson showed up he was angry because he had been cheated.’

  ‘Why? Were they afraid I was going to report the loss of the documents?’

  ‘No,’ she mused. ‘That doesn’t account for the rage; it was too personal. Did you upset someone when you were here in the nineties?’

  He frowned. ‘I implemented western standards of governance on companies that were being driven into the ground by petty thieving and inefficiency.’

  ‘That would do it. I bet there’s a long list of people that bear a grudge against you. We should go back, Lyudmila has made dinner and she’ll be offended if we take any longer.’

  ‘There’s a line in Corinthians, if I remember my Bible,’ he said. ‘“Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we may die.”’

  ‘I’d prefer to survive another day with indigestion and a hangover.’

  He looked around the apartment. ‘May I have some time alone? What you say makes sense, Zena could be alive, but I can’t allow myself the possibility. And what if they hurt her or do something worse? I will have lost her again.’

  She left him with his thoughts and returned to Lyudmila Kuznetsova’s apartment. Leo Primakov had already charmed the old woman into letting him mute her television, and the dining table had more plates of food as well as an open bottle of vodka with two crystal glasses. She dumped her jacket and Makarov on the armchair then followed the sound of low conversation to the kitchen where Leo and Lyudmila were sat together on a kitchen top, alternately flicking ash out of an open window. She smiled watching them, glad of the distraction.

  Primakov looked up in surprise like a naughty boy caught smoking. ‘Natalya, Lyudmila here was telling me she was nominated by her school to give a bouquet to Nikita Khrushchev.’

  ‘It was 1958,’ the old woman picked up the prompt, ‘and my mother made this blue and cream dress for the occasion. She woke me up at five to braid my hair. In the assembly hall, these big, fat, old men were sitting behind a row of tables on the stage. I had to walk past them when the whole school was watching…they made me so nervous.’ She shook her head at the memory. ‘As I curtseyed, I broke wind in front of Premier Khrushchev. I died of shame. I gave him the flowers and ran away to the sound of him laughing. Khrushchev was a peasant.’

  Natalya pushed her lips together in mock sympathy then waited for them to finish their cigarettes. At the table, Thorsten Dahl joined them and she made a toast to Zena’s safe return. The potato cakes were good and the vodka was better. For the first time in days she found herself relaxing. Lyudmila Kuznetsova proposed a new toast, this time to her youthful intestines. They all tapped their glasses and drank before Natalya was forced to translate to a bemused Dahl about the old woman meeting Khrushchev.

  An hour later, just as she thought her stomach would tear open, Lyudmila brought out a Lomonosov porcelain ashtray for the cigarettes that were now permitted at the table. Natalya looked at the old woman’s pink cheeks and smiled. Even Dahl, despite the uncertainty over Zena’s fate, was transformed by the atmosphere. He opened a sealed bottle of whisky – the same type he had been drinking on the plane – and passed it around. Lyudmila sniffed it gingerly then poured some in her tea, earning a horrified look from Primakov. More glasses were filled. Natalya raised hers. ‘To Yulia Federova.’

  Dahl followed with a toast for Felix Axelsson’s family. Primakov, she noticed, had become silent.

  Chapter 34

  Lyudmila Kuznetsova thumped the near-empty bottle of vodka on the table, spilling her tea. ‘Ah come on, I thought we were having a party.’

  ‘Someone’s here,’ Primakov spoke in a low voice.

  Natalya turned to see a man in a leather jacket blocking the open door. It was the one built like a weightlifter from the airport.

  ‘Hey! Get out!’ Lyudmila shouted.

  He took two steps in and raised his Grach, pointing it at Natalya’s head. ‘Captain Ivanova, put your gun on the table.’

  ‘I’m raising my hands.’ She lifted them slowly with the palms facing out; they were shaking. ‘Now I’m going to stand so you can see I’m not armed.’

  She stood and turned slowly to show the waistband of her jeans.

  ‘Anyone else?’

  ‘No one,’ she said.

  He focused his gun on Dahl, then Primakov, watching them flinch in turn. The arc of his arm continuing until it returned to her.

  ‘Clear,’ he called out.

  A lean man in his early twenties squeezed past the weightlifter, pocketing his sunglasses at the same time. She recognised him as the driver of the BMW X5. Behind him followed a woman with a bleached blonde bob and a voice sharp enough to pickle a salted cucumber: ‘Detective Ivanova, place your hands flat on the table. Move them and he will shoot without hesitation.’

  Natalya did as she was ordered. Dahl, she noticed, was sweating.

  ‘She’s FSB…the one who came to my apartment,’ Primakov whispered.

  ‘Nahodkin, check for weapons.’

  The stocky man frisked her thoroughly. Scanning the room, he found her Makarov on Kuznetsova’s armchair. He removed its clip and dropped it in his jacket pocket then waddled up to her. He pulled his hand back under the pretext of reaching for his jacket pocket then drove a fist into the side of her ribs.

  ‘Natalya,’ yelled Dahl.

  She dropped to the floor, pain searing through her body. There were voices around but she couldn’t hear them. After a few breaths sh
e dragged herself onto her hands and knees then grabbed the edge of the table for support.

  ‘That was unnecessary,’ she gasped, pulling herself to standing.

  ‘Give him cause and he’ll put you on a liver transplant list,’ the blonde woman said. ‘Now sit and have a drink.’

  Natalya took a sip of the malt. Its sweet, peaty taste filled her mouth, leaving a pleasant heat behind. It was easily the best whisky she had ever tasted. Fine as it was, it did little to calm her nerves or take the edge off Nahodkin’s punch.

  ‘Who are you?’ demanded Dahl. ‘You try anything, you’d better be prepared to shoot me.’

  ‘That won’t be a problem. My name is Major Belikova and I work for the FSB’s Economic Crimes Directorate, in Moscow.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Licensed thieves,’ Natalya said under her breath.

  Dahl nodded solemnly but Nahodkin heard her and edged closer.

  Natalya scowled at him. ‘What? Are you going to hit me again for that?’

  Nahodkin shrugged his massive shoulders.

  ‘He’s gone soft on you,’ said Belikova.

  ‘Are you ours, or theirs?’ Nahodkin asked.

  Natalya shook her head hearing the same question the KGB used on dissidents. You were on their side or you were an enemy; no other option was permitted. ‘I’m a patriot. Can you say that?’

  Major Belikova shook her head. ‘Children, please.’ She approached the lean agent. ‘Demutsky, take the babushka next door. Let our homosexual friend go home.’

  Primakov stared at the grain on the table, his cheeks burning with indignation. ‘You told me you wouldn’t tell anyone.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, was it a secret? Don’t worry, the Captain here will keep it to herself. I understand she has liberal attitudes. Now she knows you’re a homo she’ll want to go out dancing with you and your boyfriends.’

  Primakov stood; he looked glum as if his world had collapsed. ‘Please don’t say anything Captain,’ he begged, ‘they’ll destroy me at headquarters.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Leo. I think I’ve always known; it’s hardly a surprise.’ He didn’t look any less relieved and a thought occurred to her, a bad one. ‘Leo, how did she know we were here?’ A new thought followed on the last: ‘You were the last to come in. How did they get past the door?’

  ‘And I heard a rumour you were a decent detective,’ Major Belikova said. ‘Hey, Demutsky, hurry up.’

  ‘Leo, you led them here, didn’t you? You left the door unlocked.’

  Primakov put his hands over his eyes as if trying to blot out what he had done. ‘I’m so sorry, Captain. She made me do it. She told me they only wanted to talk.’

  ‘You should know homos can’t be trusted,’ said Belikova. ‘One threat to tell Papa and’ – she snapped an imaginary biscuit between her fingers – ‘this one turned into Tula gingerbread.’

  ‘Hey, Demutsky, get moving.’

  ‘Major.’ The young agent helped Kuznetsova to stand then escorted her and Primakov out. Nahodkin closed the door behind them.

  ‘I need to try this.’ The Major leaned over the table to examine Dahl’s whisky. ‘Nahodkin, get me a glass. While I remember, Detective, here’s your phone. You don’t want to hear what Nahodkin said when he found it on the elektrichka.’

  Natalya took it. ‘You charged it.’

  ‘All part of the service. I dare you to lose it again.’

  Nahodkin returned with two glasses.

  The Major poured a shot of whisky and sipped it. ‘Yeah,’ she sniffed, ‘I don’t like this foreign shit. You say potato, I say pass me the fucking Stolichnaya.’ She tilted her head back to finish the glass.

  ‘Hey, Nahodkin, I didn’t ask for vodka. It was a figure of—’

  Major Belikova froze in mid-sentence and stared past Natalya. ‘Sweet sinless fucking Mary, was that...’

  Natalya followed her line of sight. On the television screen, a reporter was outside a white-walled clinic with a luminous red cross on the side; he was interviewing a stocky man with grey, bristly hair. There was light scarring on the man’s face and he had the cocksure swagger of a gangster. A woman was in the background, her head twisted away from the camera. The man beckoned her to join him, then, when she resisted, he grabbed her by the arm and pulled her into view.

  ‘Someone turn the sound on. Now!’ shouted Belikova.

  Nahodkin’s gun tracked Natalya as she dashed for the remote control on the armchair. She fumbled it, dislodging a battery that had been held in place by sticky tape. The battery dropped to the floor.

  ‘Hey, ment? Get out the way!’ Nahodkin shouted.

  ‘What’s going on?’ demanded Dahl.

  ‘Quiet everyone,’ ordered the Major, though the volume was muted.

  The girl on the television was approximately twenty years old, had thick, blonde hair and looked dazed. Natalya saw her mumble something in reply.

  ‘Hey, isn’t that your daughter?’ asked the Major. ‘I have to say, for a corpse she looks fresh.’

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ muttered Natalya.

  The outside broadcast cut to the studio where a balding news reader raised his eyebrows to emphasise a joke that was lost on the people in the room. Behind him, on a brilliant blue background, a photograph of Thorsten Dahl appeared; he was standing on a dais in an auditorium and looked a decade younger.

  ‘You must be famous. Can I have your autograph?’ Nahodkin asked.

  Along with the time, there was a news ticker at the bottom of the screen, and Natalya read a bulletin as it drifted past:

  Dead Swedish Student Is Alive! Local businessman taking paternity test.

  Dahl’s mouth was gaping, showing white, capped teeth. ‘Volkov,’ he uttered, finally.

  The Major took Primakov’s chair then clapped her hands in delight. ‘I can’t wait to hear this. It’s going to be fantastic.’

  ‘Thorsten, what the fuck is going on?’ Natalya asked.

  Dahl’s voice was distant. ‘Natalya,’ he managed, ‘I haven’t told you the truth.’

  ‘Wait. I need to get comfortable.’ Belikova helped herself to one of Lyudmila’s cigarettes before pouring a vodka. She had a malicious grin. ‘I’m ready.’

  Natalya slumped in her chair, anger and fear turning to despair. She was used to being lied to but Zena wasn’t a runaway being abused by her father. Thorsten had no excuse to hide anything from her. ‘Tell me the truth now,’ she said in a controlled voice.

  Thorsten Dahl held his glass in one hand and stared at it morosely as if the crystal had revealed his destiny. ‘We missed someone out.’ He held his drink up in an outstretched arm. ‘To Kristina, and what might have been.’

  He brought his arm back and finished his whisky alone.

  ‘Who the hell is Kristina?’ asked Natalya.

  He exhaled heavily. ‘She was a receptionist at the Astoria hotel. I had a suite there for most of 1999. One evening she found a pretext to come to my room. She was married, I’m not proud of it.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘We saw each other until the end of September then she left. At first I thought she had gone on holiday then one of the chambermaids told me she had quit.’

  The Major rolled her sleeves back and stuck her elbows on the table. ‘Did you know Hitler planned to have his victory celebration in the Astoria? I heard they had menus printed.’

  ‘Maybe now’s a good time to dust them off,’ said Natalya.

  The comment riled Belikova. ‘You call us fascists but do you see any camps?’ She took out her Grach and laid it on the table.

  Dahl took another breath and puffed out his cheeks as he exhaled: ‘Have you ever been in love, Natalya?’

  She bristled at the question. He may be drunk but it was still damned insulting. ‘It’s a psychosis brought on by hormones.’

  Belikova lifted a glass of vodka to her. ‘Bravo!’

  Natalya took one of Lyudmila’s cigarettes, holding it in two hands to stop it shaking
. Dahl leant across the table to light it. He seemed calm, presumably thanks to all the vodka and whisky.

  Belikova cracked her knuckles. ‘So when do we get to the part where you tell us this hotel receptionist is Zena’s mother?’

  Dahl ran an index finger along the rim of his glass.

  ‘Thorsten?’

  ‘The Major is right.’

  ‘You said she was an orphan,’ Natalya said, barely suppressing her anger. ‘Was Kristina the real reason Zena came here?’

  ‘No, it can’t be – I told Zena both her parents were dead.’

  Belikova inspected her fingernails. ‘Nice story to tell a little girl, considering you pulled it from a chicken’s arse.’

  Natalya puffed on the cigarette, feeling disgusted with herself for smoking again. ‘So you let her come here without any security?’

  ‘I forgot Dahl’s a billionaire? How much are you really worth?’ Belikova tapped her cigarette again.

  Natalya gave the Swede a warning glance not to say too much. Nahodkin saw it and he swiped her face with the back of his hand knocking her to the floor. Her chair clattered against the tiles. She got up, glaring angrily at him as she righted the chair and sat down.

  ‘You want to take on someone your own size?’ growled Dahl.

  A smile twitched on Nahodkin’s lips. ‘Anytime.’

  She rubbed her cheek. ‘Why did you let Zena come here without any security?’

  ‘It wasn’t a risk. She hated being in the public eye so no one outside of a few small circles knew who she was.’ Dahl topped up his glass with whisky.’

  ‘You need to stop drinking.’

  He laughed to himself and prodded his chest with the glass. ‘It doesn’t matter. He’s going to kill me.’

  Major Belikova sucked deeply on her cigarette then tapped off the ash. ‘This is going to be interesting.’

  Natalya leaned forwards in her seat. ‘Who?’

  Dahl held his glass in the air as if expecting someone to appear at his elbow and refill it for him. He withdrew it awkwardly. ‘The man you saw on television. I’ve never met him but I saw his picture a long time ago. His name is Yuri Volkov.’