Motherland

by G. D. Abson

  ‘Something for the mistress, perhaps?’

  He scowled. ‘It’s Oksana’s birthday on Thursday.’

  ‘What about an amber necklace?’

  ‘Not here…not on my salary.’

  ‘Really?’ she arched an eyebrow.

  ‘I know what you think of me, Natalya.’

  Her hands shifted and settled on her hips. ‘Well, while we’re being honest, I think you’re a bigot.’ She raised one arm to point at an amber teardrop on a silver chain. ‘There…that one matches Oksana’s eyes don’t you think?’

  ‘I’m a bigot? Christ, boss, where did that come from?’

  ‘For a start you kept calling Aliyev “Mohammed.”’

  He lit a Winston and puffed on it thoughtfully. Somewhere in the universe Mikhail would be feeling an unconquerable urge to smoke too.

  ‘You know Oksana’s a Muslim, don’t you?’

  At the back of her mind, she did know. Rogov’s wife didn’t drink; there again, Oksana didn’t wear a veil either and swore like a priest on a sabbatical.

  ‘But you’re not.’

  He sighed unhappily, sending a plume of smoke into the face of a passing schoolgirl. ‘I’m supposed to be. Oksana’s family are from Kazan, her brothers are menti too…they made me convert – I had to recite the Shahada in front of an imam.’

  She laughed out loud. ‘This is such shit, Rogov, if you’re a Muslim, you’re the worst example I’ve ever seen. Next you’ll say you didn’t break Aliyev’s nose.’

  ‘He ran into a tree, I swear.’ Rogov pushed the Winston in between his lips to hide the twitch on them.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘You have to believe me.’

  ‘No I don’t. This isn’t one of those films where you play the racist, sexist, drunk and I get to be the one with a rod up my zhopa. When this is over we won’t be slapping each other on the back and celebrating.’

  She strode ahead, taking the stairs to an underpass. It was full of stalls: a newsagents, a downmarket amber shop, an obligatory display of matryoshka dolls, a Teremok selling blinis and salads. There was more life in the subway than above it.

  ‘OK, OK…wait up.’

  She slowed.

  ‘I admit, I did give Aliyev a few slaps but he withheld important evidence. Now we’ll get the little shit who killed her because I got him to talk.’ He sucked on his Winston. ‘Honestly, I would have done it to anyone.’

  A woman was dragging her pushchair up the subway steps. She nodded a thank you as Natalya bent down to grab a strap between the wheels to lift the front. Rogov walked alongside them, puffing on his cigarette.

  ‘That’s magnanimous,’ she said. ‘Don’t you think I would have got the truth out of him?’

  ‘Not by playing by your nice EU rules. We had a dead girl three metres away.’

  The woman holding the rear of the pushchair stared at the top of her child’s head, anxious not to make eye contact with Rogov.

  ‘My EU rules?’ she began. ‘A murdered Sven… a German boss… Mohammed the contractor… but, oh no, you’re not a bigot.’

  They reached the top and Natalya let go of the strap. The mother walked away briskly, then looked over her shoulder at them.

  ‘Next you’ll say I’m not a feminist, boss. That hurts.’

  Instead of answering, she flicked her eyes at a store front where, in place of a name, were hundreds of twenty-centimetre-high “O”s and “X”s acid-etched in rows. ‘Tuck your shirt in, Rogov, we’re here.’

  Inside Noughts & Kisses, a woman in her early twenties with perfectly straight blonde hair stood less than a metre from them but she could have been a mile away so assiduously was she ignoring them. She had a button nose, a BMI in single figures, and was staring at a single handbag on a wooden rhomboid floor display with the intense focus of an artist arranging pieces for an exhibition. Another shop assistant stood behind the counter, appearing like a clone of the first with her adolescent boy body and perfect face, except her hair was a luminous white and cut in a Sixties bob.

  Rogov picked up a knitted thong from a rail and twirled it on his index finger ‘Hey, how much are these things? There’s no price tag.’ The blonde didn’t turn her head and he frowned, disappointed not to see a look of disgust on her face.

  Natalya went to the counter. ‘Are you the manager?’

  The woman was friendly enough if she focused on the mouth; the eyes, however, were as vacant as a salmon’s at Kuznechny market.

  ‘No, I’m Maya, the senior sales assistant.’

  ‘You’ll do.’ She held up her ID card. ‘I’m looking for Yulia Federova.’

  ‘Oh,’ the woman spoke with effortless cool. ‘We’re really, really not sure. She might be sick. She was supposed to be in today but we haven’t seen her.’

  Rogov joined in, ‘Hey, what’s with your hair?’

  ‘Oh,’ Maya spoke again and her eyes did a little roll as if he’d asked a more thought-provoking question. ‘Well, it’s obviously a dye, but you can get this shampoo that makes it glow.’ She scrutinised Rogov’s pepper-and-salt hair. ‘I think it’ll work on yours.’

  ‘Did Yulia call in sick?’ Natalya asked.

  ‘Oh no, she didn’t say anything at all. She just didn’t come in.’

  ‘Is that normal?’

  Maya’s head tilted to one side as if considering the upcoming presidential election. ‘I haven’t been here long enough to say.’ She looked over Natalya’s shoulder and called to the blonde. ‘Olesia, is it normal, you know…for Yulia?’

  The blonde turned then frowned; her concentration on the rhomboid broken forever. She shook her head then spoke in a voice barely above a whisper. ‘No, not normal.’

  ‘Sure?’ asked Natalya.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Olesia, ‘I think so.’

  ‘Fuck,’ Rogov sighed when they left the boutique. ‘Where do they find these people?’ He lit another Winston. ‘So what’s the plan now, boss?’

  ‘Primorsky District. Let’s get personal.’

  She parked in the same spot outside Yulia Federova’s apartment block and under the shadow of the crane. Rogov worked his way through all the buzzers on the intercom calling “Police! Open the door!” until finally someone relented and there was a rasping sound as an anonymous inhabitant pressed a button to release the lock. They started climbing the stairs and Natalya soon found herself on her own. By the sixth floor she stopped to catch her breath.

  ‘Rogov,’ she called below, ‘are you alright?’

  She heard a retching cough followed by a scuffing of shoes. A minute later he appeared, red-faced, his translucent shirt stuck to his body by sweat. He sat on the landing, his feet on the lower steps, and put his head in his hands. ‘Boss…Natalya, I’m going to shit my lungs if you don’t stop.’

  ‘Then stay here. I’m not carrying you down if you have a heart attack.’

  She left him and started walking again…seven…eight…nine…ten. With each floor, the smell of tarry tobacco became more pungent and she found herself holding her breath until she couldn’t keep it in any longer.

  At Yulia Federova’s apartment she rang the bell, keeping her finger on it longer than necessary. She stepped back and smoothed her hair. Far below, she could hear Rogov’s slow shuffle on a landing then his heavy, lumbering steps as he mounted another set of stairs. The smell brought bile in her throat and for a second she wondered if she might be pregnant before dismissing the idea – that would only happen if Mikhail had been switching her pills.

  Rogov’s footsteps had stopped. ‘Are you OK?’ she called down, her voice echoing in the stairwell.

  She heard another retching cough.

  The wallet with the four DVDs from the Krestovsky Island Metro was still in her handbag and she reached past it for her notebook. She flicked through the pages to find the entry with Yulia Federova’s number and entered it into her mobile. The phone in the apartment rang three times then stopped. In her ear she heard the girl explaining that she was out a
nd to leave a message. Natalya hung up and banged on the door with her fist.

  ‘Yulia! Open up!’

  A short, squat man appeared in the door opposite. He was wearing a white vest and smelled of fresh sweat that was at least an improvement on the cloying stench of tobacco in the hallway. She felt for her ID and held it out. ‘Police – have you seen your neighbour, Yulia Federova?’

  ‘Not for a few days,’ he scratched an armpit. ‘Last weekend…Saturday morning.’

  The neighbour scratched his armpit again then surreptitiously sniffed at his fingers. ‘Seven forty-five; that’s when I get my Sport Express.’ He ran the same hand through the grey strands of his thinning hair. ‘She leaves for her dance class at the same time,’ he added, and Natalya had an image of him spying through his peephole then emerging to “accidentally” bump into his pretty neighbour on the way to buy his paper.

  Natalya nodded thoughtfully and wrote the details in her notepad though there was little reason to when she had seen Yulia herself after the dance class had finished.

  ‘Is she in trouble?’

  She gave him a tight smile to avoid the question. ‘Have you got some water?’

  He left in a haze of sweat and she inserted her ID card between the jamb and door of Yulia’s apartment. It stopped at the strike plate and she pushed it firmly with the heel of her hand, feeling the lock part.

  The neighbour appeared and held out a beer glass with a double-headed eagle logo.

  She put her notepad away then took it from him. ‘Thanks, it’s not for me.’

  After a minute, Rogov appeared, wheezing. He leaned heavily on the metal railing and she handed the water to him. ‘Here, drink this.’

  His jowls shook as he nodded gravely, then poured the water down his neck in one swallow.

  ‘You want another? You don’t look too good.’ The neighbour asked.

  ‘Nah, I’m fine.’ Rogov returned the glass, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘You know who her landlord is?’ he wheezed.

  The neighbour shook his head.

  ‘Alright, you can go now. Thanks for your cooperation.’ Natalya said.

  Rogov waited for the man’s door to close. ‘I take it Federova isn’t in?’

  ‘She is, but I thought I’d wait in case you wanted to beat a confession out of her.’

  He grinned, then wheezed as he exhaled. ‘Seriously, what are we doing here? Every policeman in Piter is out searching for that Bezzubtsev piece of shit. You know, the one who actually killed the girl.’

  ‘Yulia lied to me, Rogov, that’s why. I asked her about Zena’s trip to ZAGS and she said she didn’t know anything about it.’

  ‘So? Federova’s got a record and doesn’t like talking to the menti. I bet the hairs on Misha’s balls, she’ll show up once we have Bezzubtsev in a pair of bracelets.’

  Rogov’s cheeks were turning to their normal pasty colour. ‘Unless,’ he added, ‘Federova was stealing from Zena. Is that what you think? Did she hire Bezzubtsev to stop Zena turning her in? Someone with a taste of prison would do anything not to go back.’

  ‘No, Yulia reported Zena missing. If she had her friend killed that’s the last thing she’d do. When I spoke to her she was genuinely worried.’

  Rogov scuffed the floor with his shoe. ‘Well, fuck this. She’s not here…shall we join the search for Bezzubtsev?’

  ‘Rogov, she was hiding something.’

  His eyes took in the ID card sticking out of the door and shook his head. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Taking a look. Keep it quiet?’

  ‘Sure, boss.’

  ‘If anyone asks, we thought the girl was in danger.’ She twisted the handle and her ID card fell to the floor as the door swung open.

  Chapter 22

  A kitchen drawer was wide open, scattering cutlery to the floor; assorted clothes were spilled over the bed. Natalya snapped on a pair of latex gloves and told Rogov to do the same.

  ‘I left mine,’ he said and stuffed his hands in his pockets.

  The framed picture of Natalia Makarova performing a grand jeté was on the floor, smashed. To avoid the broken glass, she placed her feet carefully then flicked through the clothes on the bed.

  ‘Christ!’ Rogov ran a hand over his damp brow. ‘Looks like she left in a hurry.’

  He stepped to the kitchen side of the bedsit. ‘There’s a knife-holder here with a gap where the big one is missing.’ He looked in the sink then squatted on the floor, nudging the cutlery with his foot. ‘Yeah. Can’t see it.’

  She picked through the clothes. ‘When I was here before she had a navy blue trouser suit and a pair of sunglasses, both Ulyana Sergeenko.’

  Rogov shrugged. ‘Who?’

  ‘Fashion designer. Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Kim Kardashian …they all wear her stuff. The sunglasses were in a pink box.’

  He pulled open the wardrobe. ‘Nothing here. She emptied everything.’

  ‘OK.’ She watched Rogov lower himself to examine a cabinet, nudging the door open with an elbow to avoid leaving fingerprints. Leo Primakov would not have been impressed.

  ‘Anything there?’

  ‘No. Just old magazines.’

  Sun broke through a cloud, sending a column of light through the balcony and illuminating motes of dust.

  He asked, ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Let me think.’

  There was an obvious narrative: A fight had occurred and Yulia Federova had fled, grabbing what she could. Except, Natalya had seen the aftermaths of too many violent confrontations to believe it. There was nothing she could swear to but the spilt cutlery was scattered in too neat an area and rooms were usually in a worse state by the time they reached the picture smashing stage.

  ‘She believes her father was sent to prison on false charges.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘She staged it.’

  ‘Why?’

  Natalya shrugged. ‘Maybe she was worried we were going to blame her for Zena’s murder and decided to disappear.’

  ‘Did you say anything to make her nervous?’

  She didn’t like his insinuation. ‘That’s enough, Rogov. She made me a coffee and we spoke about Zena, I didn’t give her any indication the menti were taking a hard look at her. At that stage we didn’t know anything.’

  ‘And the way I see it, she didn’t need to run. With those bazookas, even Dostoynov would believe her – she could be a serial killer and get away with it.’ He held his hands out, palms facing her. ‘I’m only telling the truth.’

  ‘Rogov, I worry what’s in your head.’

  ‘You should, it’s disgusting in there…Natalya, do you trust the new major?’

  ‘Dostoynov?’ She shook her head instinctively. ‘If we tell him Yulia staged her own disappearance he’ll insist we charge her for wasting our time. For a murder case she’ll go to prison. It’s ridiculous, she didn’t need to run. If anything I was trying to protect her.’

  ‘Then we won’t say anything.’

  ‘No, we have to report it.’

  ‘Boss, it’s nearly five. I’m going back to HQ, where – with your permission – I will take a leisurely shit, then go home.’

  She checked the time on her phone and heaved a sigh. ‘You’re right, Rogov, let’s get out of here.’

  At Suvorovsky Prospekt, she remembered the Krestovsky Island Metro footage and checked it in as evidence, leaving Rogov walking in the direction of the toilet block. In the meeting room six desks had been pushed together; a conscript sat at each, looking almost identical with stubble for hair. She approached the one she had spoken to before, though she wasn’t sure it was him until she took a furtive look at his jug ears.

  ‘They came back from lunch?’

  He looked puzzled for a moment. ‘There was a colonel’ – he dropped his voice – ‘the one with hair.’

  ‘Colonel Vasiliev?’

  ‘Maybe…I don’t know. He had a word with our CO.’

  In the mi
ddle of the desks were the piles of telephone response categories she had started. She flicked through them, adding most to a new discard pile.

  ‘You want to do some overtime?’

  Three of the conscripts looked at her as if she was being wilfully stupid. She understood immediately: what was the point of volunteering when their commanding officer would take their money – they did as they were ordered, no more.

  Looking through an internal window, she saw Mikhail in the office he shared with Dostoynov; both men were sitting on opposite lengths of the same desk. They looked uncomfortable, like Siberian tigers in a zoo who had resolved to ignore each other because the constant aggression was wearisome. Both were typing on laptops. Walking over, she knocked then waited.

  ‘Come in,’ they said together.

  The air conditioning was fierce although Mikhail didn’t like to use it; she wondered if it was Dostoynov’s revenge for making the room smell of cigarette smoke.

  ‘The conscripts, Major. Will they be working late?’

  Dostoynov turned. ‘It’s already arranged, Captain, thank you. I was hoping to see you supervise them today. You are supposed to be in charge of this case.’

  Mikhail scowled at the Major; expressing unhappiness that his wife was being criticised. It made her wonder if his dislike of Dostoynov ran deeper than the fact that the man was ex-FSB. Was the real reason closer to home? Mikhail was giving up his chance to run the department for her but she couldn’t be blamed so he heaped it all on Dostoynov. Only, the new major didn’t look like the type of man to put up with abuse for long. Would she be humiliated in front of Mikhail as a casualty in their cold war?

  ‘I was following up a lead.’

  ‘Was it to speak to the girl’s father? Because I made that call.’ Dostoynov waited for her to fill in the silence; she waited for him too, badly wanting to know what Thorsten Dahl had said. Mikhail ducked behind his laptop screen.

  She gave in first: ‘What did he say, Major?’

  Dostoynov checked the document on his screen and she realised he was writing up a report. ‘Dahl was unavailable. I spoke with the lawyer – Anatoly Lagunov – he said it will take at least a week for the dental records.’