Tom Callaghan - A Killing Winter

‘I’ve told you what I want.’

The Chief looked at me over the edge of the glass.

‘I don’t think so, Inspector. I’ve got something you might well want to swap for that cassette.’

I had a sickening notion I knew what he was going to say, but I kept quiet. The Chief chuckled quietly, tapped on his desk.

‘You think she’s down in the basement, while Sariev explains to her about how she organised the whole thing, to stir up trouble between the two countries.’

I kept my face impassive, waiting for him to continue.

‘Well, Ms Umarova’s currently in one of my safe houses. Not so safe for her, of course.’

He paused for effect.

‘In fact, I’d be very surprised if she came out of it undamaged. Or even alive.’

He lit a cigarette, contemplated the glowing end, pressed it against a piece of paper on his desk. We both watched as the small brown charring started to smoulder and turn black, before he tipped a little vodka to extinguish it.

‘So tell me, Inspector, you still think we’ve got nothing to exchange? Or would you rather bury your girlfriend next to your wife?’

His threat hung over the room like a grey cloud. But if there’s one thing we Kyrgyz are good at, it’s not betraying our feelings. My hands didn’t tremble as I lit yet another cigarette, threw the empty pack on the floor. Call it contempt, if you like.

‘The tape? It’s the only one, I hope?’ he asked.

I nodded.

‘So a straightforward deal, then? Your evidence or your girl. Which will it be?’

‘I’ll want proof she’s alive,’ I said. ‘Not that I don’t trust you, but I don’t trust you.’

The Chief did his best to look offended.

‘We have to trust each other, da ? Otherwise we sit here for the next six months.’

‘There’s a couple of things I’d like to know first,’ I said.

‘Anything I can do to oblige, Inspector,’ the Chief said, taking a small sip from his glass. I noticed that he was no longer slurring his words, a good card player.

‘Whose idea was it to kill Yekaterina Tynalieva?’ I asked.

‘Let me ask you something,’ he replied, ‘what would have been the consequences of killing the daughter of, say, the head man of a small village up in the mountains? Nothing. Now the daughter of the Minister for State Security, that’s a different bowl of plov . Show how vulnerable he is, and you send out a message to everyone; we can fuck whoever we want.’

He sat back, narrowing his eyes.

‘So, da , my choice. The guys picked her up near her apartment. Too independent, that was her problem, we’d have had a much harder job if she’d been living in Daddy’s compound.’

‘And the mutilations? The other woman’s foetus?’

For the first time since my arrival, a genuine look of anger slid over the Chief’s face.

‘Inspector, whatever you think of me, I’m not a barbarian. But my orders were to create terror. You don’t do that with a discreet ice pick. The mutilated babies? I give credit for that particular touch to our friend here.’

I’d almost forgotten about Kursan, but now I turned to him, not hiding the disgust I felt.

‘I got offered those stamina-boosters, fuck knows if they work,’ he said, his eyes never drifting away from my face, ‘but I can make a lot of money from them. Will people believe they’re made from human flesh? Not unless we can give them a backup story. We sell what we claim are dead Uzbek children to the Kyrgyz, and Otkur does the same in reverse. “Are they real?” “Didn’t you see the reports in the paper?” And the money piles high.’

‘And the krokodil ?’ I asked.

Kursan pulled a face.

‘It’s not a good way to die. But then, what is? Those addicts all have a suicide wish, I just help speed it up.’

I thought of how Chinara died, unconscious, her body ravaged by tumours and the surgeon’s scalpel. I pictured the mound of frozen earth above her grave. I remembered the terrified sheep, seconds before its blood geysered from the slash in its throat. And more than I’d ever wanted anything else, I wanted to watch Kursan screaming in agony, begging me to end the pain.

And me refusing.

‘My wife would have been sickened to have been born into a family that had you as a member,’ I said, as calmly as I could manage. ‘If she’d thought she could pass on any of your genes, she’d have had herself sterilised first.’

‘She’s dead; I’m alive. That’s what counts. Everything else is just a scruple that only the rich can afford. If it was her or you under the soil, which would you choose?’

‘It’s a cheap philosophy, Kursan. And worse than that, it’s half right. Sure, Chinara is dead. Nothing can bring her back, and I’ve got nothing but a collection of memories and out-of-focus photographs. But you say you’re alive. Really?’

Realisation slammed into his eyes like a flare exploding on a moonless night. He was already scrabbling in his pocket for his gun when the first two shots from my Yarygin punched into his shoulder and belly. The heavy-calibre bullets hurled him backwards, so that the arterial spray splashed in a long arc across the ceiling, and his gun tumbled to the floor. His grunt of pain mirrored the bleating of the sheep as the knife severed its throat.

Kursan tried to pull himself upright but the damage to his arm was too great to support his weight. He thrashed on the floor, cursing me, trying to reach his gun. I took three steps towards him, waited until his fingers had almost reached the grip, and then stamped down hard on his hand. I wanted to hear the bones grind into powder. I could tell from the smell that I’d punctured his gut, and he’d pissed himself.

I looked over at the Chief, and wagged a finger at him, telling him not to do anything stupid. But he sat in shock, unable to make a move. Too many years behind a desk will do that to you.

Kursan spat at me, the gobbets of spittle falling before they reached me. I took my foot off his hand, and watched him scrabble for the gun. I remembered how firmly his hand had gripped mine in congratulation when Chinara told him of our engagement, had raised a toast at my wedding, had squeezed my shoulder at the graveside.

And as his fingers touched the gun, I pressed the barrel of my Yarygin to his forehead and blew his life out on to the floor.

The Chief recovered his composure with remarkable speed.

‘This won’t be a problem for you,’ he assured me. ‘A notorious criminal attempts to kill two senior police officers, pays the price, thanks to your speed and vigilance.’

I looked down at the corpse, saw the blowback from my final shot covering my hand, the sleeve and chest of my shirt, lukewarm and sticky on my bare skin, and I wanted to scrape and scour until no trace remained.

‘No need for an investigation,’ the Chief continued, ‘not with me as a witness. As long as we have our deal. Self-defence or a brutal killing, it’s your call.’

I nodded, as the adrenaline started to ebb, and the nausea kicked in. The room went dizzy for a few seconds, and I wondered if I was going to faint.

‘And the drugs?’ I asked.

‘A two-way split is better than a three-way, wouldn’t you say? Yours if you want, no problem. And plenty more in the future. It’s a repeat business.’

I started to wipe the worst of Kursan’s blood, brains and skull fragments off my hand, then gave it up as a bad job.

‘Not like dying, then,’ I said.

I put the Yarygin down on the desk. The Chief reached over, very slowly, and with one finger turned the barrel so that it was no longer pointing at his heart. I made a grab at the desk, before my legs decided they no longer belonged to me, and sat down.