Tom Callaghan - A Killing Winter

‘Enough, Inspector,’ the voice said, unmoved by the sudden violence. ‘Yuri might be no opposition for you, but you know what I’ll have to do if you kill him.’

‘Out of the car, fucker,’ I said.

I didn’t give a shit how old he was, I wouldn’t have cared if he died shrieking from cancer in front of me. He knew something, and I’d kick it out of him if I had to, until he bled from every hole.

The door locks clicked open, and the boss slowly dismounted.

‘Gun on the floor, now,’ I ordered, taking the gun barrel out of the muscle’s ear and rapping it against his pakhan ’s jaw. He held his hands up, showing he was unarmed.

‘You think this is a good idea?’ he said. ‘Just as well you have no living relatives.’

‘I’ve fucked around too long on this,’ I said, resisting the urge to hammer his crooked stained teeth out of his face.

The pakhan looked around, slightly puzzled, wondering where the rest of his crew were. I let Yuri slump to the floor, and gave him a little steel-toed kiss just to keep him quiet for a while. Then I focused on the pakhan .

Maksat Aydaraliev. Seventy years old, deadly as distilled snake venom. He’d ruled the heroin trade through Chui province since before independence. He’d survived the KGB, the State Police, the Anti-Corruption Police, the Drug Squad, two revolutions and anyone in the underworld stupid enough to take him on. His mobile had the private numbers of anyone who was anyone in the White House. He owned sanatoria for Russian oligarchs on the shores of Lake Issyk-Kul, and a dozen restaurants and clubs around Bishkek. He was decisive and pitiless. I knew for a fact that he’d beheaded two undercover law officers and sent his trophies to their wives. He was a man ready to kick over the table any time, and fuck the consequences.

All this in a man who only hit 160cm on tiptoe, who looked as if a strong wind would hurl him as far as the Pamir Mountains, and who had never been seen in anything other than a hand-tailored suit.

He stared at me, then spat.

‘You underestimated me, pakhan .’

I gave Yuri another peck, this time somewhere between his navel and his balls, and a little more piss stained the snow.

‘Is that why you didn’t bring any more brothers along? You thought I’d be easy? Or you know Tynaliev will slice you from arse to armpit if I die before I’ve found his daughter’s killer?’

Aydaraliev reached into his pocket, and I tensed. He brought out his mobile, and offered it to me, raising his eyebrows.

‘Want to call him now and ask?’

It might have been a bluff – anything was possible with Aydaraliev – but right then, I preferred not to tell the Minister that I was no nearer solving his daughter’s murder.

Aydaraliev’s smile was as brutal as one of our mountain wolves as he put away his phone. Then he looked off to his right, gestured for someone unseen to join us. I was pretty sure Aydaraliev wouldn’t shit in his home territory by killing a Murder Squad, but I tensed myself for what looked like an inevitable bruising.

We waited for a moment, and then he beckoned again, impatient this time.

‘Can’t get the staff?’ I asked. If I was in for a beating, I decided to get a few cheap gibes in first.

He looked around, ever so slightly thrown off balance. For the first time in who knows how long, things weren’t going according to his very precise and explicit engineering.

‘Don’t worry, they’re out there,’ he said. ‘And if they’re not, well, heads will roll.’

Remembering what he did to the two undercover law officers, I had no reason to disbelieve him. He laughed, the low rustle on the night air like death creeping up on tiptoe.

‘So what now, Murder Squad? A tango together in the Sverdlovsky basement? Hope I shit myself with fear? Tell me if I sing like a bird, I’ll live in a cage with wider bars.’

Suddenly, he was in my face, flecks of spittle landing on my cheeks.

‘Listen, Comrade Cunt, all-important Comrade Prick Inspector, when I was twenty-three, they came to my village, took me away. I was just a yearling, years away from becoming top guy, bratski krug . I didn’t have clout, no one to look out for me, no one asking for a little sweetener in their pocket in exchange for me strolling down Chui watching the pretty girls in their summer dresses.’

He paused and wiped his hand across his mouth.

‘You know what happened, Comrade? When I went waltzing in your basement?’

He waved his hand in my face, and I saw the deformed fingers, missing nails, ancient scars trailing across his palm like albino slugs.

‘I didn’t just dance, I was taught how to play the xylophone. Not with a mallet, with a ball hammer. One knuckle, one bone, one joint at a time. And the next day, the next finger. Never knowing which one it would be. And as soon as they started to heal, all twisted and splintered, curved like an eagle’s claws, well, it happened all over again. Nine months before I danced the polka out of that basement. And you know what? I never sang a single note.’

The same mirthless laugh.

‘Those shit-suckers, they broke my right hand in twenty-eight places. Just as well I write with my left hand, eh, Comrade? And once I got out, that wasn’t all I did with it.’

He shaped his hand in a parody of a gun, jerked the finger, and then blew imaginary smoke from the tip.

‘You won’t find any of the uniforms who waltzed with me then walking around today. All in the line of duty, obviously. At least, that’s what the grieving widows and children were told. A tough career, but at least it’s a short one, right?’

He looked up at me, and grinned, nothing but evil and death in his eyes.

‘What can you do to me, bitch, that the real experts couldn’t manage?’

I heard the crunch of snow behind me, but I never took my eyes off Aydaraliev. My finger tugged back the trigger, up to the pulling point; if I got hit, then he’d be coming with me.

‘The Inspector may not be a real expert, Maksat. But don’t worry; I am.’

A voice I recognised. A voice like honey over ice cream.

Saltanat walked into the SUV’s twin circles of light, cradling a Kalashnikov.

Aydaraliev looked puzzled for a few seconds, then nodded in recognition.

‘I suppose I’ve got Otkur to thank for you being here?’ I asked. ‘No secrets from you, eh?’

‘Just as well for you, Inspector,’ Saltanat said, her eyes never leaving Aydaraliev. ‘Our friend here always travels with precautions.’

Aydaraliev jerked his head towards the darkness from which she’d just stepped, then raised an eyebrow. Saltanat nodded in return.

‘One of them will wake up tomorrow feeling like Mount Lenina fell on him. The other?’ She shrugged. ‘He won’t be waking up at all.’

‘No loss, if they didn’t have the balls to handle a whore like you.’

Saltanat’s face didn’t register the insult, but she took a quick step forward and rammed the muzzle of the Kalash against his hip. He grunted in pain and put one hand out against the side of the SUV to support himself, staying upright.

‘You’re the Uzbek bitch?’ he said, and contempt dripped from every word. Contempt for her as an enemy, a cop and a woman, all three.

‘Think of it as warming up, Maksat, some light snacks before we get down to the main course,’ she said, and smiled without warmth.

‘It’s fucking freezing, let’s go and discuss this in the warm, over a bottle, pretend we’re friends.’

‘Sure,’ Saltanat agreed. ‘I want you to be my guest.’

She reached down, never taking her eyes or aim off the pakhan , and patted Yuri’s pockets, finding the car keys, tossing them to me.