Tom Callaghan - A Spring Betrayal

“Thirty minutes. Don’t be late.”

She ended the call, placed her phone back in her bag, turned to me.

“I know it’s very rude of me to leave you, the sign of a poor hostess. But that was your delightful friend, Ms. Umarova. She wants to meet with me, maybe reminisce about when we worked together. And wants to make a trade for you. True love, Inspector?”

She stared at me, at her handiwork. I stared back.

Kurmanalieva shook her head at Saltanat’s taste in men, smiled, waggled her fingers in farewell. There was something I had to know before she left the room.

“Why haven’t you killed me?”

She stared at me, one foot on the stairs, before giving a slow smile that highlighted the crow’s feet around her eyes.

“Because you’re not top of my list. Yet.”

Then she switched off the light.

I don’t know how long I was in Graves’s cellar, moving between a state of dazed half-consciousness and moments of simple terror. Pain gnawed at my foot, as if rats had emerged into the darkness to chew on my flesh. I never knew fear had a scent until then; a woman’s perfume strong with the ripeness of lilacs, the tang of rusting steel, the singe of burned meat.

The leather straps binding me to the table made movement impossible, and cramps tore at my shoulders, back and legs. As my muscles spasmed, the straps bit deeper into me, reminding me of my helplessness.

The darkness was endless; my eyes saw nothing but the splashes and stains of pure color caused by the pain that consumed me. I was going to die in that cellar, swallowed up in blackness. And part of me welcomed that.

I heard death fumbling with the door at the top of the stairs, his key twisting in the lock, the tumblers falling into place. Presumably using a skeleton key. Heavy boots clumped down the wooden stairs. I didn’t know any prayers; that time was long past for me. I remembered my dream, falling into Chinara’s open grave, joining her in the long waltz, realized it wasn’t a dream but a prophecy.

The brutality of the light dazzled me, but the room slowly swam back into focus. A burly man stood in front of me, a scowl tattooed on his face. We’d never met, but I knew his name.

Morton Graves.

“You’ve caused me a lot of trouble, Inspector.”

“I’m pleased to hear it,” I said, the words raw from my dry throat.

“Trouble is perhaps an exaggeration,” Graves said. “I probably shouldn’t rank it higher than an inconvenience, a nuisance.”

Graves’s face was oddly asymmetrical, as if steel plates had been inserted under his skin and badly welded together. His eyes were the dark blue of a winter dusk, with all the warmth and compassion of an ice cube. His left eye had a slight cast, as if even he was unable to look at his handiwork without squinting.

“Albina give you a hard time? Make you all sorts of promises and nonsense about how this hurts me more than it hurts you? We’re all in this together?”

I would have shrugged, if I’d been able to.

“I’ve had worse,” I said, thinking back to that other cellar, where my hand had been sandwiched between the hotplates of a portable grill.

“Heard you were old-school tough, told Albina her usual methods would be wasted on you.”

“You should have whispered it louder,” I said. “She might have heard you,” then winced as a fresh bolt of pain shot through my foot. I knew it would be worse later on, when the throb of infection kicked in, but right now it was just about bearable.

Graves looked down at my bare foot. His expression didn’t change as he saw the burn.

“If you’re going to stub out your cigarettes on the floor, best keep your shoes on next time,” he said, gave a mirthless smile at his own humor.

He reached out toward my forehead, and I shut my eyes in preparation for the slap or punch. But instead, I felt his fingers working at the buckle of the strap around my head. Graves swore under his breath, but continued to pull at the strap until suddenly I could move my head.

“Easier, eh?” he asked, and turned my head from side to side. I felt the muscles and tendons pull and stretch, heard my neck bones creak. For a moment, I wondered if he was going to snap my neck, but he seemed to have other plans.

A few moments later, he’d undone all the restraints, held me up by my armpits, helped me slide down to the floor when my legs gave way. I slumped there for a while, gingerly flexing my arms and legs. The burn on my foot throbbed like a bad toothache. My shoes were on the floor beside me, and Graves gestured at me to put them on. That made the throbbing considerably worse.

“I don’t understand,” I said, and I didn’t. “Why are you letting me go?”

“Who said I was doing that?” he asked.

“Then what are you going to do with me?”

“Kill you, of course. Stamp on you like an insect. One not worth wasting shoe leather on.”

My hands were still numb, but my knife pressed against the small of my back. Maybe I’d be flexible enough to show Morton Graves just how skilled a Uighur craftsman can be.

“So why untie me?” I asked. Graves leaned forward, crouching so his face was almost level with mine. I smelled mint toothpaste on his breath, expensive cologne on his skin. I knew I smelled like an outside long-drop shithole, with an undernote of charred meat.

He looked at me, his gaze intense, unblinking. It suddenly occurred to me this must be how madness looks at the world, distorted, invincible.

“You’re a Muslim, right?”

I shook my head. I wasn’t anything. I’d given up on faith and belief and salvation with the first murder scene I attended, an old man beaten to death by his nephew, smashed on vodka, arguing over some forgotten nonsense.

“Well, you’ve been in a mosque? Or a church? Somewhere sacred?”

I nodded, to break the monotony of shaking my head.

“Well, this place is my church, if you like. This is where I do the things that matter to me. The rites, you might say. These walls,” and his arm swept in a grand gesture, “these walls hold the essence of everything that’s important to me.”

I watched his mouth move, noticed how spittle gathered in the corners, saw a rivulet of sweat worm its way down his cheek.

He stood up; his knees didn’t creak, the way mine would.

“I wouldn’t taint them with your blood, with your death. You see, what I do here protects the young, the innocent, by keeping them innocent, forever young. After I’ve finished with them, no one can rob them of that. I’m not a hunter, but a savior. And I get to fuck them as well. You understand?”

I looked up at his eyes, realized he was quite mad, as he gave a smile that was almost angelic. Listening to this drivel, I decided enough was enough, and fuck the consequences.

“If you could hear yourself mouth off, Graves: ‘keeping the innocent innocent.’ By terrifying them, by raping them, by killing them? You’ve got a very odd idea of protecting the young. And I don’t suppose the money hurts either, when you sell your shit on to other lunatic perverts.”

He scowled again, one corner of his mouth turning up in a sneer. His contempt was like a blow to my chest.

“Inspector, I’m a very rich man. Richer than you could imagine. I don’t do this for the money. Small minds like yours always think it’s about money; that’s because you don’t have any, and you envy anyone who does. I could buy this shitty little country with the change I’ve got in my pocket. I own the police, politicians, lawyers, I can do whatever or whoever I want, with no one to stop me. Especially not a minor policeman from the sticks who’s about to meet with an accident.”

“All part of your master plan, is it? Power, terror, and a few free fucks thrown in?”