Garry Abson - Motherland - A Gripping Crime Thriller Set in the Dark Heart of Putin's Russia

‘And inside?’

‘Above the bar covering the tills.’

‘What was that, Sergeant?’

‘Sorry,’ he grinned. ‘Above the bar, covering the tills, Captain!’

‘That’s better. Mind if I have a look?’

The grin slid from his face. ‘You need to check with the manager.’

‘And?’

‘And Captain?’ he offered.

‘No. And where is he or she?’

‘Sleeping. He comes in around ten in the evening and stays until the takings are checked. You can try Semion, he’s in charge when the boss is away.’

‘Thanks.’ She noticed the gun in his holster, and her gaze hardened as she looked back at him.

He noticed. ‘Replica. It fires water.’

She nodded as he pulled the door open. ‘Excellent, Sergeant.’

He addressed her back, ‘Semion’s usually at the bar. Show him your ID and he’ll give you a drink on the house. Open to anyone above the rank of corporal.’

‘Thank you. Please return to guard duty.’

The interior of the club was dark and humid, and in the corner a man stood over a record deck with a pair of headphones hanging around his neck. She walked towards the bar, thinking of Zena Dahl. If Yulia had told the truth, and there was good reason to doubt it, Zena had left around one a.m. That was early for a St. Petersburg club, when the dancing might be expected to go on until whatever passed for dawn.

She stopped to take in the camouflage net walls and the cockpit of an early MiG jet fixed to the ceiling above the main stage. A waiter approached her; he was wearing Afghanka khaki field dress that she took as a sign the club management were having trouble sourcing Cheka uniforms. There was a bandolier strapped to his chest, modified to hold shot glasses instead of bullets. She held out her identification card as Lyapis Trubetskoy’s “Capital” started playing on the sound system. It was a rock number she loved, but the music made it impossible to maintain a conversation.

‘Have you seen this girl?’ She held up her iPhone to show him the picture of Zena with the glass of red wine from her VKontakte profile.

He shook his head and grimaced to show he hadn’t heard, then twisted his body for her to speak directly into his ear.

‘She was here on Thursday. A Swede,’ Natalya yelled.

He frowned.

‘Another girl was with her. Like a model: skinny, brown hair, good tits.’ She tapped Zena’s friend list and brought up Yulia’s picture. ‘Ignore the hair in this.’

The waiter cupped his hands to her ear which wasn’t necessary. She felt his hot breath. ‘Swedish you say?’ He turned his head again for her to speak.

‘Like Abba and Ikea. Where we park our submarines.’ She turned and caught laughter in her ear.

‘Blonde?’

Now she wasn’t sure if he was trying to help or recording a sexual fantasy. ‘Yes.’

‘Show me the picture again.’

She tapped the screen of her phone to return to Zena’s image and held it up to him. ‘Here,’ she shouted.

‘You got others?’ he mouthed.

She swiped the surface of her phone and another picture appeared of Zena posing with her father in a restaurant.

He studied it, then shook his head. ‘No, haven’t seen her. You want a drink?’ He held up a bottle of Putinka in case she hadn’t heard.

She wrinkled her nose. ‘On duty.’

He performed a one-shouldered shrug. ‘Are you sure you’re police?’

She put her mouth to his ear. ‘A loyal servant.’

The waiter lingered and she left him for the bar; it was made out of sandbags encased in glass and three recent customers were loitering around it. They were being served by a barmaid who wore the same uniform as the doorman except hers necessitated a lower cut shirt to expose the tops of her breasts and her cap was fixed at a jaunty angle.

Natalya held her card above the customers; eventually the woman noticed. ‘Where’s Semion?’ she shouted.

The barmaid finished serving a half-litre of Carlsberg then lifted the counter top. The two remaining customers scowled at Natalya until they took in the handcuffs and gun, then they pretended to be indifferent to her presence.

Up close, the woman had red eyes and Natalya waited for her to pull out a used tissue from the waistband of her jodhpurs and blow her nose.

‘Hay fever. Damned plane trees.’ The barmaid tucked what was left of the tissue in her waistband then she tapped on the keypad of a door marked private and Natalya followed her inside.

‘Semion, the police want to speak to you.’ She addressed a man in another Cheka uniform who was puffing on a cigarette by a barred window.

She closed the door and Lyapis Trubetskoy’s majestic song reached a climax. ‘Senior Detective Ivanova,’ she held out the card to Semion. ‘I’d like to see your security camera footage.’

He turned to acknowledge her. ‘The manager isn’t here,’

She tucked the card back in her wallet. ‘I know.’

‘He’ll be here tonight.’

‘Call him.’

He wiped his brow, knocking his cap askew. ‘At this time? Seriously? He doesn’t get home until 7 a.m.’

She gave him a hard stare. ‘It’s in the Criminal Code. I ask you respectfully, then you, respectfully, do it.’

‘It’s just that… Is it an emergency?’

‘Show me the footage here and I’ll decide?’

He stubbed the cigarette against the wall then flicked it through the bars. ‘The hard drive is here, you’ll have to take the whole thing if you need it.’

She pulled up a plastic chair while he switched a television on.

‘What are you looking for?’

‘I’ll start with the footage over the entrance. Two girls came in last Thursday’ – she extended the times Yulia had given her – ‘sometime between 8 p.m. and 2 a.m.’

Semion shook his head and screwed up his face. ‘No good.’ He winced to convey sympathy. ‘The disk fills after twenty-four hours, then it’s written over.’

‘That’s ridiculous.’

‘We’ve only just started,’ he shrugged. ‘We were meant to get a long record option but the company didn’t—’

She held up a hand to stop him wittering. It was the first time she had led an investigation into a serious crime, albeit one that was likely to be downgraded and thrown back to the local police, and she had made little progress so far.

It was well after midday when she left the bar. She looked through the call history on her phone then tapped on Colonel Vasiliev’s number. Outside, the cacophony of traffic and people shopping was deafening. She heard Vasiliev’s mobile ring three times then his voicemail machine started in.

‘Colonel,’ she began, ‘this is Captain Ivanova, please call me when you get this and I will provide you with an update on the investigation.’

She hung up, pleased that Vasiliev had bought her some time.

Natalya found a space on Veselnaya Ulitsa and zipped up her leather jacket to keep the light rain off her blouse before jogging along the leafy side of the road, using the trees for cover. Outside Zena’s building a curtain twitched on the ground floor apartment. She waved at the window and waited until the door was opened a crack, observing that the old woman had changed her headscarf for a brown and orange one that did little to complement her burgundy-coloured hair and eyebrows.

‘Hey, you didn’t give me her keys back.’

Natalya held up her card as rain spattered her face. ‘Police.’

She hid her impatience while Zena’s elderly neighbour fiddled with her hearing aid to switch it on, then fixed it in place.

‘So, you’re not a friend of her father?’

‘No.’

The old woman pulled open the door and she entered; the stench of old tobacco mingling with the smell of the wet tarmac outside. ‘Can I ask your name?’