Tom Callaghan - A Killing Winter

Leaving five hundred som on the table, I headed out into the cold, regretting leaving my ushanka in the apartment. Halfway across the road, my eyes tearing up against the cold, I heard the first shot. The snow hanging in the air reflected the report, so I couldn’t identify the direction it came from. I tugged the Yarygin from its holster and dropped to one knee, all too aware I was a sitting target, dressed in black against an expanse of white. A second shot, but as far as I could tell, nowhere near me. I heard the smash of a window, broken glass tumbling on to cement. Lurching to my feet, I ran towards the hotel. Another shot, and the snow off to my right kicked up in a powder. I ducked, faked a run to my left, then zigzagged towards the entrance. With no target in sight, there was no point in shooting, but I let off a couple of rounds into the air, hoping to distract the shooter long enough to get cover.

I shouldered the hotel door open, raced through the lobby. The desk clerk was tucked away behind the counter, hoping the cheap plywood would deflect stray bullets. The lift doors next to the stairs gaped open, but I knew better than to get trapped inside a moving box with only one exit and plenty of warning of its approach. I took the stairs two at a time, checking the turn between each floor, moving across to the cover of the lift-shaft walls. My heart punched my chest, and adrenaline in my bloodstream was making my hands shake. Not good if you’re about to face an armed man.

I waited thirty seconds on the landing below the fourth floor, and listened.

Nothing.

The walls in hotels like these won’t stop anything larger than a .22, so the other guests would be in their bathrooms, lying in the tub, if they had any sense.

I flattened myself against the wall to make a smaller target. The door to my room was open, but there was no sign of anyone. I made a quick check, but the room was empty, reeking of cordite and singed bedding. There were two neat bullet holes in the pillow, just where my head would have been if I’d been lying asleep. A glance under the bed, but the holdall with the krokodil was gone.

Saltanat’s door was shut, but I remembered the third shot and breaking glass, and burst into the room. The bed’s thin mattress sprawled on the floor, snow drifting in through the broken window. The frame was one of those that only allows you to open the window so far; I guessed the glass had been punched out to take a shot at me. Apart from that, there was no sign of any disturbance.

Or of Saltanat.

In the lobby, I hauled the terrified desk clerk out from behind his hiding place. He saw the Yarygin in my hand, started crying and telling me about his widowed mother. To get some sensible answers, I put the gun away and showed him my ID.

No, he hadn’t seen anyone come into the lobby, no, nobody had checked in after us, all he knew was he heard some shots from upstairs. Yes, he’d called the police, told them, they were sending a police car straight away. Now, please, could he go home?

I told him to wait to tell his story, walked outside, to the flashing red and blue light that had just arrived.

‘No need for an ambulance,’ I said, holding my ID in one hand and keeping the other well away from my gun. ‘No one on the scene, either. The only thing to report is a broken window.’

I didn’t say anything about the two bullets meant to excavate my skull; I needed to get on with finding Saltanat straight away. I half recognised the uniform who got out of the car, then I placed him. The recruit who’d found Yekaterina’s body. He didn’t look any more sure of himself now than he did then.

‘Inspector,’ he mumbled, ‘the report says shots fired, we have to –’

‘Car backfiring,’ I interrupted, ‘probably a couple fighting over where to eat, and a window got broken. Simple.’

The uniform looked more puzzled than ever, but he took one of the cigarettes I offered him. We both lit up, and I patted him on the shoulder.

‘Smart work, though, getting here so fast, you’ll be taking my job one of these days.’

As expected, the flattery put him at ease, but he still looked confused.

‘Thank you, Inspector, but how is it that you’re here as well?’

I did my best to look slightly sheepish but also secretly boastful.

‘Officer, I have a lady friend,’ I said as I traced an outline in the air with my hands that would make the girls working the strip clubs on Chui look flat-chested. ‘And my lady friend has a husband. A husband who maybe doesn’t understand that old friends can meet to catch up with each other’s news, and to reminisce about the past. I’m sure you appreciate my situation.’

To make sure the message lodged in whatever lurked in his skull, my wink would have looked theatrical from the other side of Bishkek.

He smirked in understanding, and was heading back to the patrol car when a thought struck him.

‘Inspector, the Chief sent a message to all active officers. If we see you, you’re to report in person back at the station. Day or night.’

‘No problem,’ I said, though the news had me more than a little worried. ‘But no need to mention that you’ve seen me tonight. You understand, I haven’t finished talking with my friend? We’ve got a lot of catching up to do.’

He grinned, and retraced the imaginary silhouette in the air with his hands.

‘Exactly, officer, a man can be forgiven much in the name of friendship, da ?’

The uniform touched the peak of his cap.

‘Funny, really, we almost didn’t turn up for the call.’

I was puzzled; trouble at a tourist hotel and officers are always quick to respond, if only to issue on-the-spot fines for ‘irregularities in paperwork and visas’.

‘Why’s that?’

‘Well, two minutes before we got here, there was another patrol car racing away down Frunze, and we wondered if they’d picked up the call first. But we thought we’d better check.’

‘Good thinking,’ I said, ‘keep on like this and there’ll be a commendation in it for you.’

His broad smile split his face, and I felt almost guilty for leading him on. Once the patrol car had disappeared down Frunze and the coast was clear, I walked round to the back of the hotel, to the side overlooked by our rooms, and checked the snow for footprints, tyre tracks, signs of a struggle. I didn’t spot any clues to suggest Saltanat had been abducted by aliens. In fact, I didn’t find anything at all.

My hand throbbed in the cold, and I suspected the burns were getting infected. Back at the Dragon’s Den, I poured vodka over my hand to disinfect it, rather than into my brain to clear it. For the next two hours, I ran through the same facts in my head over and over again, wondering what it all meant, where Saltanat was, and how we had been found so quickly.

And then everything slotted into place.

Two in the morning, and the last remaining waitress had been giving me the moody eye for the last hour. I dumped a couple of thousand- som notes on the table, waved away the half-hearted offer of change. The bar lights immediately dimmed; she was taking no chances on a thirsty customer strolling by for a nightcap.

The snow had stopped falling, as heartless and final as a whore’s kiss. The sky was a delicate tissue of stars, suspended in the stillness and clarity that follows a storm. I checked my mobile; a dozen messages, all from the Chief. I already knew what they contained: a long litany of my various faults, sins and transgressions, ending with an offer of forgiveness, as long as I solved the case.

I remembered the rookie’s words: day or night. But at this hour, the Chief would be snoring his way towards a furred tongue and a rough head in the morning. So it was the ideal time to show that I’d obeyed orders by reporting in, without actually having to see him.