Tom Callaghan - A Killing Winter

‘Even if your scheme works, and the old crew come back, the Circle have you by the balls, don’t they?’

The Chief looked amused.

‘Not with a hard man at the top; we can wipe them out for good.’

I shook my head, my ears still ringing. The smell of Kursan’s guts and brains filled the room.

‘They’ve got too much on you, and once the krokodil starts biting, you’ll have no control. This won’t be a country any more, just somewhere to be robbed and raped and screwed for everything it has. And if it gets bad enough, maybe the Russians will come back. Then you and your bosses will be first up against the wall. Or maybe the Chinese will come over the Tien Shan Mountains, and you’ll find yourself kneeling in some sports stadium in Urumchi, screwing your face up against cold steel kissing the back of your neck.’

‘You’re too pessimistic, Inspector,’ the Chief said. ‘I can put you in touch with a very reliable and discreet company in the Middle East. Everything laundered better than your mother used to do your shirts. Five years from now, sunshine, a penthouse, a yacht, all the girls you can fuck, and no six-month winter. Works for me.’

‘Aren’t you forgetting one thing?’ I asked. ‘Saltanat?’

‘So there’s only one girl you want to fuck, well, I admire true love. Give me the tape, and I’ll give you the address.’

I shook my head, and took the tape out of my pocket again.

‘Call Sariev and call him off. I’m not giving this up for a dead woman.’

He took his mobile off his desk and dialled a number. He spoke for a couple of minutes, and then broke the connection.

‘I’ve told him to do nothing, to wait for us. She’s all right, a little bruised maybe from a couple of taps, but nothing that a few million dollars can’t cure.’

He reached out for the tape, and I handed it to him.

‘The address?’

‘First things first, we’re partners and that means we have to trust each other, da ?’

I watched as he slid the unlabelled cassette from its case, broke the plastic shell open. He spooled the tape into the ashtray, and set fire to it. The shiny brown tape twisted and coiled and melted, the plastic stink overlaying the scent of blood.

‘Truth? Lies? A confession? Look where it all ends up, Inspector,’ he said, prodding at the charred remains, ‘Smoke on the air, uncatchable, untraceable.’

He sat back, reached for the bottle, saw that it was empty, and smiled.

‘I would have liked to make a toast to our new friendship,’ he said. ‘Maybe tonight, once that piece of shit on the floor has been scooped up and dealt with.’

I nodded.

‘You’ve made an interesting choice, Inspector,’ he continued, ‘the country you love or the girl you love. And you know, I don’t even think the money played a part in your decision. Maybe you’re a romantic, after all.’

‘Maybe,’ I said, ‘but Murder Squad isn’t just about solving killings. It’s about preventing them in the future. You had Yekaterina Tynalieva turned into something from an abattoir. I didn’t want Saltanat to join her on one of Usupov’s trays.’

‘I did what was necessary. Perhaps one day, you’ll come to believe that too. Especially when you look at your bank statement.’

I took my mobile out of my pocket and laid it on the table, next to the Yarygin.

‘I don’t think I’ll ever be rich, Chief,’ I said, ‘and somehow, I don’t think you will be either.’

And that’s when three armed men came into the room, followed by the Minister for State Security, Mikhail Tynaliev.

‘It’s amazing what you can hear when one of these is left on,’ I said, tapping my mobile, ‘and you never know who might be listening.’

The Chief’s face was as grey as the start of the dawn outside.

‘Minister, this is obviously some kind of misunderstanding, a plot, a conspiracy. If you’ll allow me to explain?’

Tynaliev said nothing, but watched, impassive, as the three bodyguards hauled the Chief up by his arms.

‘Everything you heard, it was just speculation. The Inspector, he lost his wife just a few weeks ago, he isn’t well. I told him to take some leave, sort himself out, clear his head of all these delusions, just ask him yourself.’

His voice rose in pitch as he was bustled round towards the door. Saliva dribbled from the corner of his mouth.

‘There’s no evidence to back up these claims, Minister, maybe I’ve been foolish in giving the Inspector his head, nothing more than that, nothing any court would convict me for in a trial.’

We all looked down at the tape still smouldering in the ashtray.

‘You’d have enjoyed hearing that,’ I said, ‘if you like traditional Kyrgyz folk music, that is. By the Bishkek Manas Ensemble. Very good, I’m told, by those who know.’

The Chief’s eyes closed for a moment. He struggled to break free, but only half-heartedly, as if resigning himself to what was to come.

‘This is all circumstantial. No court’s going to convict me,’ he said.

When Tynaliev spoke, his voice was calm, measured, final.

‘You really think there’s going to be a trial?’

He reached into his jacket and took out a photograph. A girl in her late teens, taken in summer, sprawled out on the grass outside a dacha , her face turned up to revel in sunshine and the joy of being young and alive.

Yekaterina.

Tynaliev nodded at the bodyguards, and they dragged the Chief out of his office. His shoes trailed toes down, leaving faint scuff marks on the wooden floor. I listened to them go along the corridor, and down to a painful, lingering and solitary death, in a snow-white field or some soundproofed basement.

The Minister began to follow them, turned and, after a second, held out his hand.

I stood there, looking into his eyes, my arms by my side.

He frowned, before a kind of understanding crossed his face. Even if this was the only justice the men behind his daughter’s murder would ever face, I was still Murder Squad.

Finally, he nodded, left the room, never looking back.

I was in the passenger seat of one of the station’s few decent cars, an enthusiastic ment at the wheel, ignoring red lights, pedestrians and anyone else foolish enough to be out of bed at this hour.

Tynaliev’s team had tracked the Chief’s call, and we were heading out past the giant water purifiers to the east of the city. I’d no reason to think that Sariev would disobey his orders, but I still kept my foot pressed hard against the floor of the car, as if I was doing the driving myself.

We pulled up outside a villa on the outskirts, a high wall guarding its privacy, a good place where neighbours wouldn’t be disturbed by the occasional scream of agony or a single shot. My burnt hand gnawed at me under makeshift bandages. I checked the load in the Yarygin, and opened the car door. I’d already unscrewed the overhead light. Sariev was expecting the Chief and a big bonus, but I’d seen enough consequences of over-confidence not to put money on his compliance.

The uniform started to speak, but I put my fingers to my lips, walked towards the gates. They were the usual cheap metal affair, spray-painted green with gold detailing, already starting to streak with rust after all the Kyrgyz winter had thrown at them.

I tugged at the left-hand side and, to my surprise, the gate swung open for a couple of feet, before being stopped by a drift of snow. I don’t like surprises at any time, particularly when someone might be holding a gun. So I kept still and listened for a couple of moments, hoping anyone inside would think that the wind had blown the gate open.