Tom Callaghan - A Killing Winter

‘Wouldn’t make any difference. We’re Murder Squad. Ends up on our desk one way or another.’

‘Your desk.’

I shrugged.

‘Get one of the uniforms to drive you. And be discreet. No flashing lights, sirens, any of that crap.’

He looked at me, at the crumpled suit, the wrinkled shirt, the snow-sodden boots.

‘Could you look any less like a cop?’

Personally, I thought that’s exactly what I did look like, but it wasn’t the time to say so.

‘You want me to go home and change?’

My one good suit, unworn since I threw a handful of dirt on to Chinara’s shroud. Appropriate, maybe, for another grieving family, another woman dead before her time.

‘No. Better get it done with. He won’t appreciate you putting on a tie to bring him this shit.’

‘If he wants to know the details? Do I tell him about the cutting, the mutilation? The foetus?’

‘If you had any discretion, I’d say use it. But we’ll get more shit pissing him off by hiding stuff. If he doesn’t ask, he doesn’t need to know. We don’t need to make this pizdets any fucking worse.’

I nodded.

The Chief looked slightly more relaxed, knowing the burden was sitting good and square on me. I knew he was already working out how to minimise his exposure to the shit storm.

‘He’s not going to want to wait until morning. Get Usupov to open the morgue.’

He poured another drink, then looked surprised to see me still standing there.

‘Now fuck off. And for fuck’s sake, tread softly.’

I shut the door behind me, and walked back towards the entrance, wondering just how exactly I was going to break the news that his daughter had been murdered to the Minister for State Security.

The State Service for National Security plays by its own rules. Its people are never photographed, quoted in newspapers, hauled before Parliament. Think of them as smoke, or morning mist on the water of Lake Issyk-Kul, drifting, intangible, impossible to pin down. They’re the elite, the Kyrgyz equivalent of the Russian Spetsnaz , hand-picked and trained to eliminate any threat to the welfare and security of the state. The problem is that, all too often, the welfare of the state means the welfare of the top men. So anything that’s bad for them is bad for the country. And Mikhail Tynaliev was the kind of man who refuses to let anything bad happen on his watch. He would take the news I was going to bring him very badly indeed.

As we pulled up outside his town house, motion-controlled lights flashed on while we parked. An armed guard in a secure sentry gatehouse kept a close watch on the street; the blue flickering light across his face told me that the cameras around the grounds weren’t just for show. This was one of Bishkek’s smartest roads, private houses set back, secure, regularly patrolled.

I got out of the car slowly, my hands well away from my body, my ID card already in my hand. This was not the time or place for any sudden moves. From the other side of the glass, the guard beckoned me further forward. I smiled, doing my best to look harmless, my boots skidding on the packed ice.

‘How’s tricks, comrade?’ I said, holding up my card.

The guard didn’t take his eyes off me, but pushed a sliding tray from his side of the glass. I dropped my card in, and waited while the guard scrutinised it. Obviously, I wasn’t his comrade. Eventually, I passed muster.

‘What are you here for?’ he asked, his voice mechanical and hoarse through the loudspeaker set into the window.

‘I’m here to see the Minister. Police business, official.’

‘Does he know you’re coming?’

‘ Nyet .’

This was where it could all go to shit. Maybe the guard wouldn’t admit me, in which case Tynaliev wouldn’t find out about his daughter until the morning, which wouldn’t please him. And if I told the guard my reason for coming, it would be all over the city in an hour.

The guard pondered his options, then made a call. A couple of moments of conversation, his face turned away so I couldn’t lip-read, then the decision was made.

‘Someone will be down from the house.’

‘Can you open the gate? We’ll park outside.’

The guard shook his head. No matter that this was a police car, that he’d seen my ID; the risk of a suicide car bomb was too great. I stamped my feet to keep warm, until a side door in the main gate opened. Two more guards waved me forward towards a scanner, but I stopped, held my jacket open to show the Yarygin. No point in giving anyone an excuse to show how fast and decisive he could be when guarding the boss.

They took my gun away, walked me through the scanner a couple of times, and then the senior of the two guards led me towards the house.

‘This had better be important,’ he said. ‘No guarantee he’ll see you.’

‘My Chief sent me personally. It’s to do with a case.’

The guard looked at me, curious, but I wasn’t about to volunteer any more information.

‘You’d better hope he thinks so.’

I trudged down the path, my boots crunching in the newly fallen snow. A wave of tiredness drifted over me at the thought of another death to announce, another person’s grief to observe. The door swung open as I arrived, and I was shepherded into the hall by yet another guard. He patted me down again, clinically and thoroughly, and then took me through into a study to wait for the great man. I could feel sweat starting on my forehead, so I removed my fur hat and stood bareheaded. The room was stiflingly overheated, but that wasn’t the only reason I was sweating. I knew my career could end right there.

‘Inspector.’

I turned round to see Mikhail Tynaliev standing in the doorway. Shorter than I’d imagined from his pictures, but with the typical Kyrgyz build: broad shoulders, a bull neck, powerful hands. Easy to imagine him interrogating a prisoner in the basement of his headquarters, standing too close, the casual punch, the backhanded slap that loosens teeth and lashes blood across the floor.

‘Minister.’

‘It’s very late for an unscheduled visit.’

‘My apologies. I wouldn’t have come at this time of night had it not been a matter of the utmost urgency.’

I stood to attention, spoke formally, tried not to let a tremor enter my voice. Because this man had seen and heard the sounds of fear a thousand times, knew them all.

‘Which is why I’m seeing you now.’

The Minister crossed over to one of the leather sofas that stood against the far wall and sat down. He didn’t invite me to join him.

‘I find it hard to imagine that there’s a threat to the state that the police would know about before my people.’

‘It’s not a political matter, Minister.’

‘No?’

I saw that I’d caught his attention. Not terrorism, not organised crime. Then what? His eyes were on my face now, cold and black as the ice outside.

‘A personal matter. A family matter.’

His voice, when he spoke, was harsh, flat.

‘Go on.’

‘Early yesterday morning, the body of a young woman was found off Ibraimova Street. We were unable to make a preliminary identification at first; there was no ID on the body. But further information came into our possession within the last couple of hours.’

I paused, but the Minister simply stared at me, his face unreadable.

‘I very much regret to tell you that our inquiries suggest that the young woman may be your daughter, Yekaterina Tynalieva.’

The Minister looked at me.

‘On what basis do you suggest it’s her?’

‘We recovered an ID card in her name, in a handbag taken from the scene of the crime.’

‘So it is a crime, then? Not an accident?’