Tom Callaghan - A Killing Winter

A taxi was heading up Tureshbekov with its light on, a real worthless heap with every panel clearly from a different vehicle, maybe even a different decade. But it was bitterly cold, and I’d no intention of walking. I flagged him down, badged him, made him wait while I told the hotel desk clerk to go home and keep his rot firmly shut. When I came out, the taxi was still there, to my amazement, all three of the working windows wound up, the driver creating a cancer cloud that spilt out into the night air.

As we drove down Chui Prospekt, just before we got to the White House – where some of my country’s biggest criminals work out new ways of prising money out of the people – I told the driver to stop and wait.

The avenue was empty as I walked towards the monument commemorating the people massacred here during our last revolution, shot down as they demonstrated against the president. At the time, they were described as anti-social forces of lawlessness. Now, they’re martyrs in the name of democracy. It’s a see-saw; who knows who will get to write the final word?

I stood out of the wind, looked past the marble slabs attached to the White House railings, bearing the names of the dead, and up at the monument. A giant block of a wall, split into two halves, one white, one black, with three men in between them, pushing the black slab away and over on to its side. It’s a little old-fashioned – three heroic Stakhanovite sons of toil overthrowing dark repression – but it never fails to move me. Maybe it’s the simple division of the world into a good half and a dark half, the belief that people have the power, and can unite to overcome greed and tyranny, terror and confusion. It’s a belief I wish I could share, that things can be made better, people whole again, not just slithering around in endless shit and blood and death, the way I do.

The snow was an ermine ushanka on the heads of the bronze figures, while the street lights turned the white block a half-glimpsed ghostly grey, floating against the night. And that was a more accurate reflection of the world I inhabit, neither black nor white. I pictured Chinara’s grave, under a blanket of ice and snow until the spring thaw, and wondered how soundly I’d sleep when my time came.

I lit a cigarette, smoked that down to the last half-inch, extinguished it in the snow and put the butt in my pocket. It seemed disrespectful to litter this place, where dreams fell and the gutters had carried away the blood.

I sifted through all the evidence again, for patterns, trying to attach motives to actions. Maybe I should have brought a couple of hundred grams away from the Dragon’s Den.

Patterns, shapes, epitaphs and reasons.

One by one, they dropped into place, like five- som coins into a beggar’s grimy hand.

Finally I called Usupov, watching the soft and faithless snow flurry and shimmer in the moonlight, before it buried everything and everyone.

The driver sounded his horn, impatient for bed, and I got back in the taxi. We headed towards Sverdlovsky, the traffic thin, our bald tyres sliding and slipping on the packed snow. The driver parked outside the station gates, knowing driving out could be a lot harder than driving in. I thrust some notes at him and hauled myself out. The guard on duty at the door nodded as I passed, watched as I signed in, scribbled a short note, then headed to the Chief’s office. I’d planned to slide the note under his door, but as I approached, I saw that his light was on.

I swore softly; now I’d signed in, I couldn’t just tiptoe away and out of the door. Resigning myself to a whirlwind of abuse, I bruised my knuckles on the door. The Chief looked very pleased with himself; the two brimming glasses on his desk suggested he’d been celebrating.

‘Inspector!’ he announced, ‘at last, an end to this heap of shit.’

He waved at the glass nearest to me, and picked his own up as encouragement.

‘The mastermind behind bars, and the Minister off our back, this deserves a drink or two, da ?’

I waited until the Chief was halfway through his glass before I picked up mine and made a show of raising it to my lips.

‘So what’s the story? You’ve lost me,’ I said, holding up my cigarettes for permission.

For answer, he pushed an already overflowing ashtray towards me. Stubbed-out papiroshi , I noticed, not the Chief’s brand.

‘It’s a triumph of community spirit,’ he said, topping up his glass again. ‘A public-minded citizen gave us the location of our prime suspect, I personally sent a team down there to facilitate the arrest, and I expect a full confession by morning.’

‘Skilled questioning under the gentle hands of Urmat Sariev, I suppose?’

The Chief looked slightly affronted by my tone of voice.

‘The officer is one of our most skilled interrogators,’ he said.

‘Then I’d like to sit in on the gentle interrogation, if I may,’ I replied.

The Chief smiled, and waved the half-empty bottle in my direction.

‘Inspector, let me be frank. You haven’t exactly covered yourself in glory with this case. I can’t write to the Minister and commend your efforts.’

He held a hand up, to forestall a protest from me that wasn’t in fact forthcoming.

‘I wouldn’t want to dilute Officer Sariev’s efforts in the pursuit of justice. He’s quite capable of explaining the benefits of confession on his own. And besides, when the Umarova trial begins, your involvement might be seen as a conflict of interest, what with you having slept with her.’

Umarova.

So now I didn’t just know who was about to be asked the hard questions, I also knew Saltanat’s family name.

‘It might be best for all concerned, and certainly for your career, if you take a back seat on this one, Inspector. Not that your work hasn’t been noted and recognised, but why put unnecessary confusion and doubt before the public?’

‘Chief, I know that Saltanat Umarova is Uzbek Security. What does she have to do with the killings? Plenty of Uzbek women have died as well. And you’re not suggesting that she killed them?’

‘Of course not,’ the Chief agreed, ‘but something as complex as this, it needs a ringleader, a mastermind, someone who can pull the right strings.’

‘But her motive?’ I persisted. ‘Why would she do all this?’

‘Land. Territory.’

I looked at him, saying nothing.

‘Let me explain. Umarova is a loyal Uzbek citizen, as well as a senior investigator in Uzbek Security. Diplomatic status, comes and goes as she pleases.’

I nodded.

‘The Uzbeks have always considered Osh to be their city; the fact it’s in the Kyrgyz Republic is neither here nor there. They want it. Have done ever since Uncle Joe said it was Kyrgyz back in the thirties. So this is how they set out to do it, through terror and confusion. Cause enough trouble, the Kyrgyz in Osh riot against the Uzbeks, the Uzbeks fight back, and the Uzbek army comes in over the border “to protect fellow Uzbeks”. And once they’re in the city, they won’t be leaving any time soon. The Russians advise both sides “to keep calm”, and you’ve got a stalemate, with us Kyrgyz getting fucked in the arse.’

‘It’s an interesting theory,’ I said, and took out another cigarette.

‘One you’d have spotted straight away if you hadn’t been looking at the world with your little eye,’ he said, pointing at my groin, ‘and fallen for that whore.’

He saw I wasn’t amused, tried another approach.

‘Look, it’s only been a few months since your wife died. No one could expect you to be your usual self, not with sorrow blurring your eyes. A pretty girl comes along, life starts to stir again, spring following on from winter. Natural. But not a good idea if you’re Murder Squad.’