A Killing Winter

by Tom Callaghan

  ‘You believed that stuff about a family chat over a few beers? He’ll have spilt everything he knew for a backhander,’ she said. ‘Illya told someone where Gulbara was, and this is the result. And if we don’t leave now, we’re in the frame for her murder, and now his. You think her butchers aren’t coming back?’

  I listened, suddenly attentive, for a car engine approaching, the stamp of feet outside. Nothing but a silence made ominous by the stink of fresh blood.

  ‘We have a joke in Uzbekistan,’ Saltanat said. ‘We send Security forces out in threes: one who can read, one who can write, and one to watch the dangerous intellectuals. We don’t even trust ourselves, let alone each other. I knew Illya would be reporting back on me; I just don’t know who else he was whispering to.’

  Even as she spoke, she stepped over Illya’s corpse and headed for the door. Kursan and I looked at each other. He shrugged, and I followed her. Kursan gestured for me to carry on, before heading back into the kitchen. Saltanat got behind the wheel, and I slid into the back of the car, just as Kursan emerged and clambered into the passenger seat. We moved off back down the rutted track, the village as deserted as when we arrived.

  ‘Nobody heard the shots?’ I asked.

  ‘No one who’ll do anything about it,’ Saltanat said, and the look on her face discouraged me from asking any more stupid questions.

  ‘Where now?’

  ‘Back to Osh, to the airport,’ she replied. ‘Better we get out of here before they find the bodies.’

  ‘I took care of that,’ Kursan announced, and didn’t even flinch as the dull crump of an exploding gas cylinder boomed behind us. ‘Hard to tell what’s what when everything’s been cooked to a crisp.’

  Behind us, a watery spiral of smoke twisted upwards. I told myself it was my imagination, but I wondered if the roast meat I could smell on the air came from the bodies we’d left back there. I felt like an amateur in the company of two hardened criminals, but I told myself to focus on what really mattered. The dead women, the dead children, snowflakes settling on cold faces, bellies ripped into a confusion. Saltanat could take care of the politics, the intrigue, the corruption; I simply wanted to stop seeing Yekaterina Tynalieva’s eyes staring into the dark.

  Just for a fucking change, it was starting to snow; light at first, but I’d been caught in too many blizzards to expect it to stay that way. Sure enough, the weather got worse until, by the time we reached the outskirts of Osh, it was hard to see more than the length of the car bonnet ahead. There weren’t going to be any flights out that day.

  Saltanat’s mobile rang, and she pulled over to the nearest snowdrift. I watched as she nodded, her face grim, listening, not answering. She rang off, and put the car into gear.

  ‘Problems?’ I asked, expecting and getting no reply, watching her profile as she stared ahead into the falling snow.

  I consoled myself with the thought that anyone following us had to put up with the same whiteout, and the traffic boys were all safely tucked up in the station house counting their breakfast money. I figured we’d head back to the guesthouse off Ak-Burinskya Street, so I was surprised when Saltanat took the road that leads out to the airport. The car skittered and slid across the ice, but that didn’t stop her putting the metal to the floor.

  ‘There won’t be any flights out, not in this,’ I said, but she ignored me, and took a slip road away from the main terminal.

  ‘You’ve missed the turn-off. The terminal’s back there,’ I added, not sure whether I wanted to be helpful or irritating. From the look on her face, I had a pretty good idea which one she’d settled for.

  She sighed, as if dealing with a slightly dim child.

  ‘We’re not taking a commercial flight,’ she said, spinning the wheel hard right and into the lee of a low building with a corrugated roof.

  My heart sank; if there is one thing worse than trusting body and soul to an airline pilot, it is being flown in some rusting heap by an exile from the Kazakh air force over some of the highest mountains in Central Asia during the winter’s most ferocious blizzard.

  I looked over at Kursan for moral support, but he was slumped in his seat, eyes closed.

  The snow battered against me as I got out of the car, and followed the others towards the hangar. I wasn’t happy with what I found inside.

  ‘We’re going up in that?’ I asked, shouting above the noise of the wind.

  In front of me, pilot already in place, was a krokodil. Not a dead junkie, but a Mil Mi-24, an old Russian helicopter gunship, known as a krokodil because of its camouflage patterning. The Soviets used to call the gunship ‘the flying tank’, not because of its protection but because of its wallowing lack of manoeuvrability. As we clambered aboard, I couldn’t help noticing that the metal of the door was scarred and torn, pocked and pitted with what looked like small-arms fire. Maybe the beast was a veteran of Afghanistan, one that had ended up being pensioned off cheaply to us. Or, more likely, at considerable expense, once the necessary viziatka had been slipped into the appropriate hands.

  We sat down against the bare metal sides of the gunship, clutching at webbing straps as the pilot edged us forward out of the hangar and into the storm. The helicopter rocked from side to side as the winds started to buffet it, almost managing to drown out the belch and snarl of the engine. In weather like this, it was going to be a good four hours before we got back to Bishkek, and I needed a believable story to tell the Chief. Unapproved leave of absence was probably the least of my crimes, and the Torugart Pass looked ever more likely as my final posting.

  The weather and the screams of the engine made it impossible to talk, even at the volume Kursan operated at, so we concentrated on getting as warm and comfortable as we could in a flying fridge. Kursan staggered to his feet and rummaged at the back, dragging out some canvas sheets and throwing one to each of us. I wrapped myself up, ignoring the smell of sweat and oil, and shut my eyes. And despite the noise and the endless shaking, I managed to doze off.

  And dream.

  *

  Chinara’s last few days were a flood of despair on my part and pain on hers. Morphine kept her asleep for most of the time, and when she was awake she often didn’t recognise me. All her energies were concentrated on breathing, on hauling in the last few cubic centimetres of air, that final flailing to keep the flame alight. At times, her struggles would knock her embroidered cushion to the floor, and her hand would scrabble for it, her eyes frantic until she felt the familiar material under her fingertips.

  Our hospitals aren’t the best equipped, to say the least. Unwashed floors, broken windows, filthy bathrooms, even dirty operating theatres. Most families bring in a more comfortable mattress, favourite meals, home remedies to supplement the out-of-date fake medicines that the administrators buy from China. It’s not always negligence or corruption; more often than not, it’s just lack of money.

  I took a month’s unpaid leave of absence, although I knew I wouldn’t need that long. Or rather, Chinara wouldn’t. I spent all my time by her bedside, catnapping in the chair I’d bullied out of a ward attendant by flashing my police card, going home only to shower, shave and change when the stink of me got too much.

  The days seemed to hurtle by; no sooner was it light outside than the sun was falling out of the sky. But the nights, they seemed endless, as if the same implacable force that had sown the tumours deep in her breast was determined to drag out the agony for as long as she could still gasp and scream when the morphine wore off.

  Her hair had started to grow back, in some sick fucking parody of recovery, but the flesh was drawing back from the bones of her face, morphing into a shrunken head wearing a wig, eyes still glittering against skin worn sallow and smooth with exhaustion.

  All I could do was hold her hand, smile when she surfaced from wherever the drugs had taken her, whisper to her over and over again that I loved her, that I’d never forget her, that I wished that it was me instead of her sliding towards the dark. The words becam
e a tattoo on my tongue and I knew that, once she was gone, ‘love’ was a word I would never use again.

  I would think of her on the shore of Lake Issyk-Kul, beyond the holiday towns like Bosteri, where we’d find some rocky spot, and clamber down to the shore to swim in its glass-clear water. In the darkest parts of the night, I would picture her, slipping away from my embrace, down deep under the surface, hair spread out around her, astonished eyes fixed on mine as she sank out of sight.

  In one of her rare moments of lucidity, just a couple of days before she died, she repeated something she’d said to me over and over as we got past the initial diagnosis, the operations, the drugs, always hopeful of success.

  ‘Only two things matter; the way you live your life, and the manner in which you leave it.’

  I kept telling myself about her bravery, her stoicism, the way she never complained, even when the pain bit deep or when she saw the scar where her breast had been. And that just reminded me of my own self-pity, my own concerns about my future. She lived her life well, if for too short a time. And death stood in the corner of the room, ready to devour her.

  She died just after sunrise, ten days after going into hospital for the last time. There were no final words, no parting glance, just the winding down of a machine worn beyond repair. I don’t believe she knew I was there.

  I drew the sheet over her face, found the duty nurse to tell her that it was finished, then walked home through the bright sunlight that burnt off the snow, finally facing the terror of being alone.

  Chapter 28

  I was woken up by a toe digging into my ribs. Somehow I’d managed to sleep through most of the flight and, judging by the look on Kursan’s face, it hadn’t been something I’d regret missing. I grunted and then snarled as another kick jabbed at me. The vividness of dreaming about Chinara was still with me, and I was reluctant to let go of anything that brought her back to me, however temporarily.

  ‘We’re fifteen minutes from Bishkek. The Russian airbase,’ Saltanat told me.

  ‘Why are we landing there?’ I said, struggling to sit up.

  From the look on her face, it was another stupid question.

  ‘Who knows what sort of landing committee is waiting at the international airport?’ she said. ‘Who they might want to arrest?’

  I nodded, although I still had no idea who had killed Gulbara or, indeed, any of the other women. In fact, my only murder suspect was crouched down facing me, checking her speed loader was prepared.

  ‘There’s one more reason,’ she added, replacing her gun and buttoning up her coat.

  My ears were ready to snap off with the cold, and I reached for my ushanka.

  ‘There’s been another murder, a bad one, over at Kant. The airbase there is the obvious place to land.’

  I considered this for a moment. That explained the earlier call en route to the airport. Saltanat clearly had the sort of connections that reached right to the top. Yet another reason to be wary of her.

  ‘We’re still in Kyrgyzstan,’ I said. ‘You have no jurisdiction here. Shit, I don’t even know if I have any more. You’ll have to drop me off at the crime scene, and then you and Kursan disappear.’

  ‘That won’t be necessary. We’re not going to Kyrgyzstan.’

  I looked at her, puzzled, then over at Kursan, who simply shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘The victim is Russian. And she was killed on the base. Russian diplomatic territory. So you’ve got no more right to investigate a murder there than I have.’

  The krokodil gave a final lurch and bounced as we touched down. I fastened up my coat, checked the Yarygin was secure on my hip, and wondered – again – in what shit I’d found myself. Then the doors were flung open, and the full blast of a Kyrgyz winter descended upon us.

  It wasn’t snowing, but a bone-shattering wind hurtled down off the mountains and along the flat expanse of the runway. An open-topped military jeep was waiting for us, silhouetted against the landing lights. As we stumbled out of the gunship, headlights flared and the jeep raced towards us. A stony-faced driver in military garb sat behind the wheel and, in the front passenger seat, a Spetsnaz Special Forces soldier, dressed in black and with a woollen balaclava concealing his face, cradled a Kalashnikov AK-74 assault rifle lying ready across his lap. Once we were aboard, the jeep zigzagged across the tarmac and screeched to a halt outside a low-slung, drab and windowless building. As we clambered down, we looked like prisoners under guard. And perhaps we were.

  The Spetsnaz pointed with his rifle towards a metal entrance door, and the three of us headed towards it to get out of the wind’s howl. Inside, the noise dropped to a slightly more bearable shriek. We were inside a hangar, with half a dozen assault helicopters lined up. There was a stink of aviation fuel and machine oil in the air, a sharp smell that made my eyes water and burnt the back of my throat. But I wasn’t surprised to find that a richer, familiar odour lay like an unsubtle perfume beneath that. My old friends: blood, raw meat and shit.

  The woman’s body lay face down in front of the sliding hangar door, as if she’d been trying to burrow underneath it in an attempt to escape. The corpse had been carefully arranged after death; I could tell that much, even as we walked over towards it. Her knees had been tucked under her stomach, pushing her buttocks up into the air. She was naked from the waist down, and I saw that she’d been sliced open from vagina to anus, as if her killer swung an axe with the kind of power that splits wood for a winter fire. One quick blow, blade raised high, from someone who knows what they’re doing. A pool of blood mixed with cement dust from the concrete floor spewed out of her and down past her feet.

  I reached for my cigarettes, remembered how much inflammable stuff there was all around me, and put them back in my pocket. The memory of the sheep we had slaughtered at Chinara’s commemoration flashed through my mind.

  We stood around the body, like medical students watching a difficult birth, until the door slammed open and a Russian officer marched in. I knew he was a colonel, from the triple stars on each shoulder, and the look on his face told me he was a tough bastard as well. Kyrgyzstan may be a better posting than Chechnya, but the Russians know we have long memories for decades of humiliation, and there are plenty of Kyrgyz who welcome any opportunity for a little retrospective discussion in a dark alleyway.

  He walked over to us, his polished shoes echoing off the concrete floor.

  ‘Barabanov,’ he stated. ‘Which one of you is the Kyrgyz investigator?’

  From his accent, he was from the Urals, maybe Ufa, far enough from Moscow to know we did things very differently here. Saltanat jerked her head towards me. Barabanov extended his hand. After a second’s hesitation, I took it.

  ‘I’m informed that you’re a specialist in this sort of crime?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that, Colonel, but I’m Murder Squad, currently investigating a series of murders . . .’ I paused, before adding, ‘which may or may not be linked to this woman’s death.’

  My qualified answer didn’t satisfy Barabanov, and his eyes narrowed as he stared at me. Terrifying if I’d been a nineteen-year-old recruit. But I wasn’t, so I gave the stare right back.

  ‘And what “may” link them, Inspector?’

  ‘I really am not at liberty to discuss a matter of Kyrgyz State Security.’

  Barabanov said nothing but reached inside his immaculately pressed jacket, covered with a row of service medals, and took out a sheet of paper, handing it to me.

  I read the fax to myself:

  You will give Colonel Barabanov your complete cooperation in every particular, and answer any questions he may have regarding your investigation, holding nothing back.

  Tynaliev

  Minister for State Security

  I decided to return a little friendly fire of my own.

  ‘Colonel, the quickest way to work out what is and isn’t relevant is for me to find out all the facts first.’

  I could see he was reluctant to share information, s
o I decided to coax the answers out of him.

  ‘The victim, who was she?’

  ‘Marina Gurchenko, one of the health personnel on the base. Seconded here a year ago.’

  ‘A jealous boyfriend? Enemies that you know of?’

  ‘She was well liked by her colleagues, I know of no reason why anyone would wish to do . . . this.’

  Barabanov looked over at the mound of flesh against the door, but his face showed no emotion. Not a man to face across a chessboard.

  ‘A question. Was she pregnant?’

  For the first time, Barabanov betrayed some emotion. He looked at me warily, as if I’d just produced a switchblade but wasn’t quite sure how to use it. When he answered, I could sense the caution in his voice.

  ‘Why do you ask? Is that relevant?’

  ‘It’s a common factor in the murders I’m investigating,’ I stated. ‘And I don’t want to disturb the body before a Crime Scene team arrives.’

  ‘This is a Russian airbase. Considered Russian territory. We will handle this matter ourselves. Your presence here is only due to the influence of your superiors.’

  He tapped the fax to reinforce his point. But I could scent something else besides the bouquet of death.

  ‘I ask again, was she pregnant?’

  Barabanov paused before answering.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That may well be a motive, Colonel. A married colleague, having a fling? Worried about what his wife and children back home would think, what they might do?’

  ‘That would hardly justify this ferocity, would it?’

  Now we were on my turf, and I sensed his authority diminish.

  ‘Colonel, I’ve seen people hacked into fragments over a bottle of samogon, cocks and breasts sliced off, brains blown out of both ears over a thousand-som loan. There’s nothing humans won’t do to each other, believe me.’