Tom Callaghan - A Killing Winter

Vasily was a pretty shitty human being, but he kept his ears to the ground, his eyes open and his mouth shut, except when I wanted answers.

Which is what he did then, as he took a final drag of his papirosh , dropped the butt to the floor, ground it out with his heel and spat on the floor. He looked over at me, one bushy eyebrow raised, and jabbed at his mouth with his thumb. I nodded at the unspoken question, and snapped my fingers at the barman as he reached for a particularly dodgy bottle.

‘ Nyet , top-shelf stuff, the Vivat.’

The barman reached for a half-empty square bottle, and I shook my head.

‘Unopened.’

The barman nodded, and put a full bottle in front of me. He didn’t ask for money; there was never any question of me paying in there. In dives like the Kulturny, the house ‘vodka’ is one part petrol, one part piss, two parts poison: with an unopened branded bottle, you stand a slight chance of making it home before cirrhosis or blindness set in.

I picked up the glass before the barman had time to pour, gave it a wipe with my shirt tail, holding it up to the light, checking for smears. I took my time, reminded everyone who was the boss around here. We do things my way, in my time, or we all pay a visit to the tiled and soundproofed room in the basement of the Sverdlovsky Station.

I poured a glass, left it untouched; it’s not been unknown for someone to slip a knockout into a likely punter’s drink, then roll them once they’ve passed out. I ran my finger round the cold rim of the glass and looked over at Vasily. Expensive leather jacket, Versace jeans, spotless white Nikes. But he still looked like a third-rate thug, the ’roid-rash covering his neck, the gold-coin rings rapping on the bar as he raised his glass and put the contents down with one swift, practised swallow.

‘So, Inspector, a social call?’

I rolled my eyes, poured him another shot.

‘I heard about your wife. If you ever need, you know, a spot of physical relaxation, just call me. On the house.’

I winced at the thought of fucking one of Vasily’s skank hookers, and resolved to rip his tongue out with pliers if he ever mentioned my wife again. Vasily mistook my look for one of anguish at my loss, and tried to look sympathetic.

‘It’s about a girl.’

Vasily shrugged.

‘It usually is when you come to see me, Inspector.’

‘Murdered.’

‘If she was strolling down Sovietskaya without a care in the world, you wouldn’t be looking me up, would you?’

A hint of cheek, which I lost no time slapping down.

‘A prick up your arse, Vasily.’

‘The girl on Ibraimova?’

I nodded. Whatever else Vasily was, he was well informed. Maybe from a squealer back at the station, given a bonus every week for a few bites of information here and there.

‘Nasty.’

I nodded again, waiting for Vasily to volunteer more, but he just shrugged again.

‘Not good for your business, a killing like that.’

‘It’s got my girls worried, I can tell you that. I’m giving Mikhail a few extra som to keep an eye on the place.’

‘You’re all heart, Vasily.’

‘A businessman is all, Inspector.’

He paused and looked at me more closely.

‘Not a regular sex killing, then? We don’t usually see the police as concerned as this when a crazy guts a moorzilka .’

‘Someone else been asking?’

‘No.’

But the way he hesitated before speaking made me think that I wasn’t the only one on the trail.

‘The word is that she was cut up bad, real bad. So you’re looking for her killer?’

‘No, not yet.’

‘Then what are you looking for?’

‘The other victim. Another woman.’

Vasily looked knowing. About the woman not being a regular street girl. About her gutted womb. And the foetus dumped inside her. Vasily’s squealer deserved an extra wad of som that month.

‘Who told you?’

I was getting very tired of Vasily’s shrug. Disrespectful. And more important, wasting my time.

‘Word gets about, you know how people gossip.’

I decided it was time to hunt down Vasily’s little blabbermouth, and tweak his tongue. Then Vasily surprised me.

‘Have you thought there may not be another victim? Maybe the baby was newborn, unmarried mother decides to dump the shame, killer finds it and decides it’s time to start cutting?’

I lit another cigarette, gave myself time to consider.

‘Maybe she was his girlfriend, he wants kids, she won’t give him a son, he goes crazy, they fight, it gets out of hand, and she ends up under the birch trees.’

No, I’d already convinced myself that this wasn’t a spontaneous murder, no blood-stained knife thrown away in a panic, no tyre tracks or footprints to give us a clue. There was someone out there who loved the power; the resistance and give when you took the knife that you’ve lovingly whetted and honed and drew it across someone’s flesh. But there was no reason why Vasily needed to know that.

‘Save the detecting for me. You hear anything? Anybody kinky giving your girls a weird feeling?’

Vasily half laughed, revealing a set of teeth that were half grey, half gold.

‘My clientele as killers? It’s the best they can do to get a stiff one most of the time, they’re so drunk. I swear, when they come, it’s not spunk, it’s pivo .’

He paused, remembered and started to reminisce.

‘There was a guy, couple of years back, he had a thing for Irina – you know, the Uzbek from Jalalabad, the one with only one tit? Wanted to bite her remaining nipple off. Total crazy. Offered to pay, took out a roll of notes big enough to stuff a cushion. But I said to him, what use is damaged goods to me? Didn’t like that, tried to cut up rough.’

‘This pork-chewer, you know his name? Where he is?’

‘First question? No idea. Second? You know the runway extension out at Manas Airport? The one for the transport planes at the US base? Couldn’t say where exactly, but he’s under it. Happy digging.’

‘Vasily, you’re as much use as a split condom. But if I hear that you know something, and you decide to keep it all to your shit-rotten self, then zhopu porvu margala vikoliu , understand?’

Vasily nodded, sombre. When an Inspector promises to rip you a new arse and then poke out your eyes, it tends to focus the mind. Vasily slipped another mask on to his face, the one of genuine concern and community duty.

‘It’s terrible, terrible, that murders like these happen,’ he said. ‘That poor girl.’ He shook his head at the iniquity of the world, before the mask slipped. ‘Besides, it’s bad for business.’

‘You’re all heart, Vasily,’ I said, and pinched his cheek, not like a babushka with her favourite grandson, but hard enough to make his eyes water and his head twist forward. For a second, I thought I’d provoked him enough to kick off, and I slipped my hand towards the Yarygin. He saw my move, and settled back, rubbing his cheek.

‘Always a joker, Inspector, always good to see you.’

I gave him the hard stare until his gaze broke, and then walked to the door. My shoulder blades itched, but he didn’t have the balls to try anything. Not that day, at any rate. But I didn’t feel really comfortable until I was up the stairs and out on the street. There was no sign of Lubashov, never a bad thing, and the freezing air tasted sweet and clean.

It had started to snow again, and the tracks I’d made earlier were already half hidden; a couple of hours, and it would be as if I’d never existed. I thought of the young woman under the trees and the soft white flakes that bloomed on her body, of Chinara and the earth that covered her face, and my cheeks were wet with snow, or perhaps tears. For perhaps the thousandth time, I wondered how I could carry on in a world where love always ends. And for the thousandth time, I told myself that no one really dies until there is no one left to remember them. All any of us can do is try to weather each storm, and help the ones we love to do the same.