A Killing Winter

by Tom Callaghan

  The Chief stared at me, his face unreadable.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘The two hookers, well, that’s straightforward. They were sleeping with Gasparian, and who knows what a man might mumble to impress a woman? Making sure they can’t pass on any pillow talk is just an elementary precaution. And if you kill them to make it look like yet two more slayings by some maniac to boost a job, even better.

  ‘The deal with the pakhan, the local salesman for the Circle of Brothers? Well, it was a bonus for the big guys if his tongue didn’t dance once his usefulness was outlived. And having Uzbek Security take care of it made it even more secure.’

  I remembered Saltanat placing a shot into her bodyguard’s head next to Gulbara’s headless corpse, and blinked to erase the image. For a second, I smelt the cordite and tasted the blood.

  ‘Of course, having a turncoat in Uzbek Security was a great way of keeping track of Saltanat’s movements. Until Illya gave himself away. We knew he’d talked, just not who was listening.’

  I made a gesture with my hand, like moving an invisible chess piece.

  ‘All the pieces were on the board, but only one player could see them all.’

  The Chief considered everything, nodded slowly.

  ‘I don’t say I agree, but I can see you’ve got a case to be made.’

  I held my hand up.

  ‘There’s more. The dead Russian woman? Spetsnaz? Nothing more likely to wind up the Russians than the murder of one of their top force. Pride and revenge kick in. Add the chance to regain more control over the region, and get the US airbase at Manas closed down, and their tanks would be rolling down Chui by the end of the month. And, of course, a Russian air-force plane was the ideal way to get the krokodil to all those Russki junkies. But Barabanov found out, and you had his girlfriend slaughtered. Was he paid off by you? A part of it? I don’t suppose I’ll find out. But it doesn’t matter; her death served your purpose.’

  I ticked off yet another finger. I needed more fingers. The way the burn was scouring my nerves, like a dog gnawing at the bones, maybe I’d need a new hand.

  ‘It helped to add to the confusion with that fake police ID, to show that maybe I was involved as well. So if I got too close to anything, they could turn suspicion back on me.

  ‘And the death that kicked all this off? The Minister’s daughter? No one gives a fuck about some dead peasant girl, but take out a top family member and all the nomenklatura start worrying which of their children is going to turn up face down. Government in disarray? Plenty of terror and even more confusion.’

  I paused to let this sink in, then continued.

  ‘Easy enough to get the killings done. Plenty of mindless thugs in the prisons, and anyone with access to records could tell you who the rapist-murderers are, who’s got some surgical skills for dissecting the victims. Even easier to recruit the krokodil crowd and the simply stupid, who don’t mind inflicting a bit of pain and shedding someone else’s blood.’

  I held my hand up to show the little souvenir that Leather Jacket had given me to remember him by. The smell of burnt fat lingered in the air.

  The Chief pushed his chair back, but I raised my hand and he stayed slumped.

  ‘Inspector, as conspiracy theories go, there’s one major flaw in your argument, but you’re probably so blinkered that you’ve overlooked it.’

  He leant forward and waved a finger in the general direction of the vodka bottle.

  ‘Say you’re right, just for the moment, for argument’s sake. The people you claim are behind this, they’re abroad and living very comfortably, thank you. You’ve got murders, shoot-outs, not just here in Bishkek but all over the country, even over the border. How could they control and coordinate it?’

  He settled back with a satisfied smile and poured a short one, tossed it back and poured another.

  ‘You’re right, of course, Chief, but I spotted that flaw as well. You’d need to have someone on the ground, directing traffic, making calls, keeping an eye on things, pushing the pawns forward.’

  I made the gesture of a chess player toppling his opponent’s king.

  ‘And they did have someone. You.’

  Chapter 50

  The Chief looked over at me. My accusation hadn’t thrown him into panic or outrage. Kursan didn’t look too concerned either.

  The Chief drummed his fingers on his desktop, considering everything I’d just said. When he spoke, his tone was reasonable, explaining to a small child.

  ‘All very clever, Inspector, but hypothetical, circumstantial. You don’t have anything to link me to any of this. And without evidence, your career isn’t even going to take you to border duties. Or breathing.’

  I shifted my weight on to one hip, moved my hand closer to the Yarygin.

  ‘I don’t have to prove very much at this stage, Chief, I just have to point the finger.’

  I jerked my thumb at Kursan, who watched the two of us play it back and forth.

  ‘There’ll be questions asked about your relationship with a notorious smuggler.’

  The Chief sat forward, raised an eyebrow.

  ‘A notorious smuggler who’s also an uncle of yours by marriage, da?’

  I continued, wondering what Chinara would have said about giving her uncle up.

  ‘There’s the missing drugs, unaccounted for in the files.’

  Now it was the Chief’s turn to shrug.

  ‘An oversight. Easily rectified.’

  ‘An examination into your finances, bank statements, deposit boxes.’

  The Chief smiled, genuinely amused.

  ‘You’re saying I dipped my beak? If we lock up everyone who’s taken a taste one way or another, Bishkek will be a ghost town.’

  The Chief sat back in his chair.

  ‘I’m not like you, Inspector. I’m a pragmatist, not a “justice at all costs” missionary. You’re good Murder Squad, maybe the best. But solving something as big as this? That’s like picking at Mount Lenina with your fingernails. You end up torn and bloody, and the mountain’s still there.’

  He stared out of the window, at the city. I watched his reflection dance and flicker on the glass.

  ‘We’re a country of nomads; it’s in our blood. Even when we have houses, cars, jobs, we refuse to be held down, to go against our nature. In almost a century, the Russkis never managed to smash that out of us. It’s more than just pride or stubbornness, it’s who we are.’

  ‘So the dacha, the Mercedes, the big house; that’s your idea of being a nomad?’

  ‘Now you’re trying to be cute? You know how easy it would be to leave all that behind? Head up to the high plain and watch the world from a distance?’

  Now it was my turn to smile.

  ‘But you haven’t. The Merc is still parked in your reserved space outside, the house in the compound doesn’t have a For Sale sign on the wall.’

  The Chief rubbed his face, a weary man with the world’s troubles strapped to his back.

  ‘Inspector, I love my country. But as I say, we’re nomads, individuals, tribes, not a people. We need a strong man at the top. Someone to cut through the shit. A modern-day Manas, if you like. Everything for his people, no mercy for his enemies.’

  ‘So you turn the country into chaos, then you and the big man reluctantly climb into the driver’s seat?’

  The Chief said nothing, continued to gaze out into the dark.

  ‘It’s a very clever strategy, to get the Circle of Brothers to do your dirty work for you. Everyone believes it’s just the usual business of stealing everything not nailed down. No one thinks there’s politics behind it all.’

  I reached into my pocket, took out a handful of the capsules from the holdall.

  ‘And how will you pay the Circle, all the bosses and the underbosses and the torpedos and the vory muscle, when they all come with their beaks open, saying “feed me, feed me”? They’re not chicks, they’re sharks, and they bite without mercy.’

  I scattered the c
apsules on to the desk.

  ‘Do you know what these are? I got a call from Usupov earlier, he ran some tests on this shit. Stamina-boosters, from China, that’s what it says on the packet. Each one supposed to be made up of dried and ground human foetal tissue. You’re going to let the Circle make money by turning the Kyrgyz people into cannibals.’

  I swept the capsules off the desk and ground them into the wooden floor.

  ‘Except all that’s in there is baking powder, brick dust and salt. Nothing but a scam, and a diversionary tactic to keep people off your trail.’

  The Chief raised an eyebrow and shrugged.

  ‘And there’s the krokodil, and the heroin, and any other rubbish that turns a profit. The whores, the casino rake-offs, all of it dirty money.’

  I turned to Kursan.

  ‘You always told me you wouldn’t touch this shit. I turned a blind eye, because I thought you had some decency about you.’

  Kursan stared at me, then finally spoke.

  ‘You don’t know what it was before independence. Back when we danced to Moscow’s tune, when we had to pull over to let some Russian boss in a long black Volga speed past us on the way to the lake, when we were supposed to be grateful for any grains of rice that fell from the table.’

  I shrugged.

  ‘Ancient history, Kursan.’

  ‘Not to me. Not to people who suffered, who never knew where their next bowl of plov was coming from. I learnt that nothing comes before survival, not party, not family, nothing. And if that means selling krokodil to the very people that fucked this country for seventy years, that’s a sweet bonus.’

  Kursan paused, picked a fleck of tobacco off his tongue.

  ‘Akyl, you were married to my niece. I like you. But that doesn’t mean you can stand in the way of my business. Sure, I got some small favours from you, an unfair advantage over my competition. But all advantage is unfair, tovarishch, that’s why it’s called advantage. Would you really expect me not to use it? People were happy to work with me, they thought I had protection, whatever we brought in. Despise me, if you like, you know I’m right. Everybody makes money, everybody’s smiling.’

  ‘Not everybody,’ I said, ‘not me. And if she were alive, Chinara wouldn’t be smiling either.’

  ‘You ever see a skull that’s been picked clean by the worms and maggots? Isn’t that smile, at death, the biggest joke of all? And that’s the smile on her face now.’

  Kursan grinned, his teeth bared, but the smile never reached his eyes. In his face, I saw the mountain wolves that come down in the winter and attack the flocks, ripping and tearing, starving and relentless.

  It was time for some creative lying.

  ‘Aydaraliev? The Bishkek pakhan? I’m sorry to say, he didn’t share the same sense of loyalty and “we’re all in this together” attitude. At least, not towards you. He would never have opened his mouth against the Circle, but he was delighted to sing about you.’

  The Chief looked wary, then leant forward and spat into the full ashtray.

  ‘One thing to give the old bastard credit for; he was tough,’ I said. ‘Too tough for us to break. So we told him what we were going to do to his beloved Ayana, his little granddaughter. Not once but over and over again. The scissors, the lighted cigarettes, the video. Payback for the sins of the grandfathers, and all that. He didn’t just sing, I thought I was at the Bolshoi in Moscow.’

  I reached inside my jacket and pulled out a cassette.

  ‘All the times, the places you met, the instructions you gave, the money you paid. He knew about your side deal with Gasparian, by the way, the foreign bank account, all that. He said, “Let him build it up, we’ll take it all back when we’re ready. He can choose between gold and lead.” ’

  I let a sneer scar my face.

  ‘Did you honestly think he was going to take orders from you for ever?’

  The Chief reached over for the cassette, but I slid it out of reach.

  ‘Don’t worry, Chief, it’s safe with me. All that high-minded stuff about nomads needing a strong leader? Just another fucking thief, and a stupid one at that.’

  The Chief held his hands up in mock-surrender.

  ‘I’m not a stupid man, Inspector, and I don’t believe you are either, in spite of your “principles”. This isn’t a yelda-measuring contest. Tell me what you want, we make an accommodation.’

  I shook my head.

  ‘I’m not looking for a deal. I want this over.’

  The Chief smiled.

  ‘You think I’m going to sit here with a litre and a Makarov, and do the “decent thing”? Killed “while cleaning his gun”? You’re not that naive.’

  He filled his glass again, sipped this time. This was business.

  ‘This isn’t a game of kok boru. If all the riders try to grab the headless goat, no one gets a piece worth having. I don’t get what I want, neither do you.’

  ‘I’ve told you what I want.’

  The Chief looked at me over the edge of the glass.

  ‘I don’t think so, Inspector. I’ve got something you might well want to swap for that cassette.’

  I had a sickening notion I knew what he was going to say, but I kept quiet. The Chief chuckled quietly, tapped on his desk.

  ‘You think she’s down in the basement, while Sariev explains to her about how she organised the whole thing, to stir up trouble between the two countries.’

  I kept my face impassive, waiting for him to continue.

  ‘Well, Ms Umarova’s currently in one of my safe houses. Not so safe for her, of course.’

  He paused for effect.

  ‘In fact, I’d be very surprised if she came out of it undamaged. Or even alive.’

  He lit a cigarette, contemplated the glowing end, pressed it against a piece of paper on his desk. We both watched as the small brown charring started to smoulder and turn black, before he tipped a little vodka to extinguish it.

  ‘So tell me, Inspector, you still think we’ve got nothing to exchange? Or would you rather bury your girlfriend next to your wife?’

  Chapter 51

  His threat hung over the room like a grey cloud. But if there’s one thing we Kyrgyz are good at, it’s not betraying our feelings. My hands didn’t tremble as I lit yet another cigarette, threw the empty pack on the floor. Call it contempt, if you like.

  ‘The tape? It’s the only one, I hope?’ he asked.

  I nodded.

  ‘So a straightforward deal, then? Your evidence or your girl. Which will it be?’

  ‘I’ll want proof she’s alive,’ I said. ‘Not that I don’t trust you, but I don’t trust you.’

  The Chief did his best to look offended.

  ‘We have to trust each other, da? Otherwise we sit here for the next six months.’

  ‘There’s a couple of things I’d like to know first,’ I said.

  ‘Anything I can do to oblige, Inspector,’ the Chief said, taking a small sip from his glass. I noticed that he was no longer slurring his words, a good card player.

  ‘Whose idea was it to kill Yekaterina Tynalieva?’ I asked.

  ‘Let me ask you something,’ he replied, ‘what would have been the consequences of killing the daughter of, say, the head man of a small village up in the mountains? Nothing. Now the daughter of the Minister for State Security, that’s a different bowl of plov. Show how vulnerable he is, and you send out a message to everyone; we can fuck whoever we want.’

  He sat back, narrowing his eyes.

  ‘So, da, my choice. The guys picked her up near her apartment. Too independent, that was her problem, we’d have had a much harder job if she’d been living in Daddy’s compound.’

  ‘And the mutilations? The other woman’s foetus?’

  For the first time since my arrival, a genuine look of anger slid over the Chief’s face.

  ‘Inspector, whatever you think of me, I’m not a barbarian. But my orders were to create terror. You don’t do that with a discreet ice pick. The muti
lated babies? I give credit for that particular touch to our friend here.’

  I’d almost forgotten about Kursan, but now I turned to him, not hiding the disgust I felt.

  ‘I got offered those stamina-boosters, fuck knows if they work,’ he said, his eyes never drifting away from my face, ‘but I can make a lot of money from them. Will people believe they’re made from human flesh? Not unless we can give them a backup story. We sell what we claim are dead Uzbek children to the Kyrgyz, and Otkur does the same in reverse. “Are they real?” “Didn’t you see the reports in the paper?” And the money piles high.’

  ‘And the krokodil?’ I asked.

  Kursan pulled a face.

  ‘It’s not a good way to die. But then, what is? Those addicts all have a suicide wish, I just help speed it up.’

  I thought of how Chinara died, unconscious, her body ravaged by tumours and the surgeon’s scalpel. I pictured the mound of frozen earth above her grave. I remembered the terrified sheep, seconds before its blood geysered from the slash in its throat. And more than I’d ever wanted anything else, I wanted to watch Kursan screaming in agony, begging me to end the pain.

  And me refusing.

  ‘My wife would have been sickened to have been born into a family that had you as a member,’ I said, as calmly as I could manage. ‘If she’d thought she could pass on any of your genes, she’d have had herself sterilised first.’

  ‘She’s dead; I’m alive. That’s what counts. Everything else is just a scruple that only the rich can afford. If it was her or you under the soil, which would you choose?’

  ‘It’s a cheap philosophy, Kursan. And worse than that, it’s half right. Sure, Chinara is dead. Nothing can bring her back, and I’ve got nothing but a collection of memories and out-of-focus photographs. But you say you’re alive. Really?’

  Realisation slammed into his eyes like a flare exploding on a moonless night. He was already scrabbling in his pocket for his gun when the first two shots from my Yarygin punched into his shoulder and belly. The heavy-calibre bullets hurled him backwards, so that the arterial spray splashed in a long arc across the ceiling, and his gun tumbled to the floor. His grunt of pain mirrored the bleating of the sheep as the knife severed its throat.