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

She held the bag up to eye level, then twisted the clasp and opened it by the corner of a flap. It was empty inside.

‘Rogov, get a van. We need witness statements from everyone except him’ – she pointed at the man with the bloody nose – ‘He gets charged.’

‘Can’t immigration deal with this?’

‘No, and don’t involve them. I’ve already checked their papers.’

‘You want me to help?’

She studied Mikhail’s face for evidence of condescension but he seemed genuine. ‘No, you go home.’ She thought of the keylogging software. ‘Can you make sure you pay the Admissions Head tonight? We’ll talk later.’ She decided needing answers mattered more than paying some official twice, especially if it got Anton into university.

‘Sure.’

She unclipped her handcuffs from her belt. ‘Hold your hands out,’ she said to Aliyev. ‘I’m arresting you for theft and Article 294: Interfering in the Activities of an Investigator.’ She turned to Rogov. ‘Get his fingerprints on AFIS,’ she said, referring to the automated fingerprint identification system. ‘Do it as soon as you can and arrange for him to see a doctor and a lawyer – if you can find one on a Sunday. And Rogov, if he looks any worse in the station I’ll hold you personally responsible.’

‘Wait, Captain,’ said Gorokhov, ‘it’s still my jurisdiction.’

‘Not any more.’ She held up the pale blue handbag on a latex-covered index finger. ‘This is a Hermès Sellier Kelly worth at least a million roubles. More to the point, my missing person had one the night she disappeared.’

She flicked through the address book on her mobile, then dialled the station. It rang three times, then was answered as the voicemail was about to cut in.

‘Colonel,’ she said before he could speak, ‘it’s Captain Ivanova. I think we’ve found her.’

‘Is she…?’

‘Dead? Yes, and murdered.’

The evening was clear and the late sun cast long shadows in the park. The coroner had arrived and was directing Gorokhov’s men to remove the logs and place them next to a plastic sheet. At the base of the pit where pale ash swirled in eddies, Zena Dahl’s body lay exposed. The muscles of her glistening, charcoal limbs had contracted into an exaggerated foetal position. Strands of hair, now carbon filaments, disintegrated into dust as the light breeze touched them. Primakov, who had arrived before the coroner, was standing over the pit taking photographs of her body.

Natalya stepped into the first clearing where the immigrants and the OMON officer had been. They were all gone now: the contractors taken away by a prisoner transport vehicle, and the Cosmonaut was on the main path, supporting his colleague to keep a meagre crowd away. She took out Dahl’s business card and called his private line; it was answered immediately.

‘Captain Ivanova?’

The line was bad but serviceable enough for her to recognise Anatoly Lagunov’s voice. She remembered asking him to screen Dahl’s calls in case of a ransom demand.

‘Will you be able to stay with Mister Dahl this evening?’

‘Can you repeat,’ she heard through the static.

‘Are you staying with him tonight?’

‘No,’ he enunciated each word carefully, ‘I’m driving. His calls have been routed to my phone. I am not sure where he is. Do you have news?’

‘Will you ask him to call me?’

The line went dead and she had no way of knowing if he had heard her. The phone was a poor way to break bad news and she preferred to do it in person or have the Swedish police visit Dahl; unfortunately reporters would pick up the story soon and it was better to hear it from her than see it on television.

Through the clearing she watched the Senior Lieutenant’s men. They were making karate chop movements with their hands and she realised they were playing rock-paper-scissors. The loser received a pat on the back from Primakov before lowering himself into the pit.

Her phone rang.

‘Misha?’ she felt a twinge of guilt that she was snooping into his private affairs even if his secretive behaviour had driven her to it.

‘Hi Angel, how’s it looking?’

The uniform in the pit was tugging the plastic sheet underneath the body. The other policemen laughed in horror as Zena’s rigid arm tapped his face in a ghoulish slap; even Gorokhov smiled.

‘Just waiting. Leo Primakov is here and the men from Petrogradsky are getting her body out. It was fun earlier, we must do it again sometime.’

‘You shouldn’t be too hard on Stepan.’ Hearing Rogov’s first name was always a shock, almost as much as knowing he had a mother.

‘I’m not. I’m being as hard as he deserves.’

There was silence and she could feel Mikhail’s smile through the phone.

‘He shouldn’t have done it but you’re too sensitive about these things. Your Mister Aliyev will get much worse in prison.’

She shook her head lightly. ‘I’m surprised Rogov hasn’t made him confess to murdering her.’

‘Oh, he will. Stepan’s threatening to bite Aliyev’s balls off as we speak. I think he might actually do it.’

‘Misha!’ she shouted in horror. The men in the second clearing turned their heads.

‘It’s a joke, Natasha, the doctor is there, fixing the stupid bastard’s nose.’

‘What has Aliyev admitted to?’

‘He was first in the clearing and found the handbag resting against the woodshed door. He was planning to give it to the park authorities but when the body was discovered he panicked because his fingerprints were all over it and Aliyev knew he’d be in the shit if he told anyone.’

‘You believe him?’

‘Some of it. Stepan reckons the guy knew it was a real Hermès because all the immigrants sell fake handbags to tourists.’

‘Rogov is a liability.’ She watched another uniform climb into the pit then both men pushed their hands underneath the plastic to lift the body. She was glad her uniform days were behind her.

‘You underestimate him. He got Aliyev to admit he’s got a wife in Tashkent and a mistress in Piter . He said his girlfriend would be sucking his khui out of gratitude when he gave her the handbag.’

‘That still sounds like Rogov.’

‘What about you?’

She wondered for a moment what he meant. ‘A blowjob for a Hermès?’ She looked around to make sure no one was listening. ‘I’m cheaper than that – try a weekend in Tallinn. Have they recovered any prints?’

‘Covered in them. Popovich is staying late to record them on AFIS. We’ll know by tomorrow if there’s anything.’

‘Thanks.’ She was unconvinced. The other expert criminalist in the department, Pavel Popovich, may have had the same name as a famous Cosmonaut but he was a red-faced alcoholic whose work was shoddy. Given the choice, she preferred Primakov to handle the fingerprints after finishing at the site, even if it meant delaying the results.

‘I’m checking out, Angel. I’ll see you at home. We still need to speak about last night.’

He hung up and she watched the uniforms carry a black body-bag on a stretcher to the coroner’s van.

There had been plenty to find in the first clearing: broken glass from a smashed bottle of Privet vodka, a dozen gold cans of Zhigulevskoye beer crushed flat, greaseproof wrappers and Cellophane from packed lunches; though she suspected by their state of decomposition that they would yield no useful clues. She ducked under the police tape taking the thing she would have been most glad to leave behind – the smell of sweet, burnt flesh that lingered in her nostrils as she crossed the gravel path.

There were a few teenagers loitering near the grass, now being monitored by some fresh-faced recruits she recognised from headquarters. In the night air, the sound of distorted music and shrieks drifted from the amusement park. Her eyes adjusted to the metallic light of the evening and she saw the flying chairs of Divo Ostrov , Miracle Island. She checked her watch; it was after nine and she was tired.