Tom Callaghan - A Killing Winter

‘You take anything else besides the money?’

Gulbara shook her head and watched me open the bag. BlackBerry, keys, lipstick, a pair of gold hoop earrings and, tucked into a zipped pocket, the thing I’d hoped to find. An ID card.

The face I found under the trees stared back at me. The same calm, the same detachment. The face lying in a drawer waiting to be claimed.

I read the name.

And realised that I was in a world of shit.

I was in a patrol car, on my way back to Sverdlovsky Station, the windscreen wipers struggling against the snow with a dull, relentless screech. Pretty much what I expected to hear once I saw the Chief. I’d put in the call before I organised a ride, knowing that he’d been overjoyed at being woken up and asked to meet me at the station. No one could ever mistake a Tatar for a sunny day, but my boss lived in an almost permanent state of rage.

The cop at the wheel swore almost constantly as the car slithered and slid through the snow: at the weather, at the authorities for failing to clear the roads and, under his breath, at me for hauling him halfway across the city. As we passed the memorial to the dead killed in the last revolution, the floral tributes were almost invisible under fresh snowdrifts, just as Chinara’s grave up in the mountains – and the grave someone would dig for the girl under the birch trees – would be hidden. I considered asking the ment to stop so I could get a hundred grams of vodka to warm me up. But then we were pulling into the forecourt, waved in by the officer on guard, stamping his feet for warmth, gun slung over his shoulder.

It was no warmer inside the building than it was outside, one more thing that wasn’t going to endear me to the Chief. I made my way up the chipped and cracked concrete steps and along the corridor to his office. I passed Urmat Sariev, one of the old guard, famous for being the clumsiest cop in Bishkek: at least, more prisoners had accidents while in his care than anyone else’s. We’d never been openly hostile to each other, but Sariev knew I thought he was a shit-sucker. And when he wasn’t doing that, he was pouring it on the heads of everyone else. Being better at politics than policing gave him the inside track on what was going on.

He gave me a gold-toothed grin.

‘It’s the Clever Wolf, come to teach us all how to catch the bad guys!’

I should explain: my given name is Akyl, which means ‘clever’, and my family name contains the word ‘boru’, Kyrgyz for a wolf. So Clever Wolf is the joking name I’ve carried around with me ever since rookie days at the academy. Pretty much a job description, I suppose, if you’re planning to survive in a job where even the people on your side might be enemies.

Sariev smiled again and drew a finger across his throat, so I knew it wasn’t good news. I gave him a wink of confidence that I was far from feeling, and rapped on the wooden door.

The rest of the station may have been a shithole, but no one could have accused my boss of lacking civic pride. He knew that he had the spotless reputation of the police to uphold. That explained the colourful shyrdak felt rug on the wall, the polished wooden floor, the car-sized desk with a bronze half-size hunting eagle perched on one edge. Of course, it helped that it was all paid for out of the police budget, probably with a little extra commission in place for him.

As I walked in, the Chief was pouring himself a drink. I noticed that there was only one glass. He threw it back, poured another one.

‘ Zatknis’ na hui! ’

Told to shut the fuck up, before I’d even opened my mouth. Not a good sign. The Chief sat back in his chair and looked at me disapprovingly with red-rimmed eyes. A big man, a champion wrestler once, running slightly to fat after too much plov stew and Kyrgyz-brewed pivo . The round moon face of a Tatar, black eyes impassive, unwilling to give anything away. But he was shrewd, a tough bastard and a good cop. He wasn’t a political appointment either, so his tongue wasn’t lodged up any politico’s arse.

He’d seen out both revolutions since independence, even managed to get promotion after the second one. He knew where the bodies were buried, had probably put a few there himself. He was a survivor. But I didn’t know whether I would be, once I told him what I knew.

‘Two o’ fucking clock in the fucking morning, this had better be important. Otherwise, they’re looking for traffic cops up on the Torugart Pass.’

Torugart. Four thousand metres up in the Tien Shan Mountains down in the south, the border pass into China, impassible in the winter, through snow or avalanches or both. The arse end of nowhere, with nothing to do but watch lorries crawl past, laden down with cheap Chinese furniture. With the Chief, it wasn’t an empty threat. It never was with him. He always made sure to get his retaliation in first; it was what made him a force to be reckoned with.

‘Illya Sergeyevich,’ I began, hoping to appease him by using his patronymic, ‘we’ve had some major developments in the Ibraimova case and, since you’re the most senior and experienced officer we have here, I considered it best to keep you informed at all times.’

He grunted, and took a sip of vodka.

‘I have some good news: we’ve managed to make a tentative identification, and I’ll go to the morgue in the morning for further confirmation.’

I poured some water into a glass and raised it in a toast.

‘ Na zdrovia .’

I wondered how healthy I’d be once the Chief heard what I had to say.

We emptied our glasses and set them down.

‘And the bad news?’

‘As I said, we’ve managed a tentative identification.’

He nodded, impatient. But I wasn’t about to rush into some indiscretion that could land me up in the mountains. And for all I knew, the Chief’s office might be bugged, either with or without his knowledge.

‘After extensive inquiries among various sources, I managed to recover the deceased’s handbag.’

The Chief gestured, impatient, but I picked my words carefully, all too aware of their potential to come back and kick my arse later on. I didn’t want any misunderstandings, misinterpretations. A shit-sucker like Sariev would be all too ready to pour poison in people’s ears, and there are always people ready to listen. I explained about meeting with Vasily, about encountering Shairkul and Gulbara, about retrieving the bag.

‘You want the slapper brought in? A couple of minutes in a cell with Sariev and she’ll be begging to talk. Maybe a turf war between working girls?’

The Chief looked hopeful; low-life deaths don’t make headlines or waves.

‘I think our victim was in a different league. And she wasn’t a hooker – at least, not as far as I know.’

‘And this Gulbara ending up with the bag? That doesn’t set alarm bells ringing?’

I braced myself; now was the time to come clean.

‘I have no reason to think that the handbag was anything other than an opportunistic theft on her part, unconnected to the murder.’

The Chief looked up, picking up on my words.

‘You’ve established a motive? Inspector.’

Reminding me just how thin was the ice on which I stood. I shook my head and quickly added, ‘But we do know who she is. Was.’

‘Will you for fuck’s sake just tell me?’

‘Yekaterina Mikhailovna Tynalieva.’

I paused, and waited for the news to sink in.

The Chief reached for the bottle and poured another shot, a big one, and without waiting, threw it back. His face was serious, worried.

‘Whore! Why couldn’t the bitch get herself sliced in someone else’s district?’ he snarled.