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

Rogov wound down his window then tapped out a cigarette from a soft pack.

‘Wait a minute.’ She tapped Rogov on the shoulder again, then narrowed her eyes and flicked the back of her hand imperiously in the direction of the car door. He took the hint and she watched him dash out into the rain then huddle under the gated archway of the ZAGS building. Soon, smoke billowed out, lending him a demonic aura.

‘Tasha, are you there?’ asked Mikhail.

‘Yes.’ She stared through the water-mottled window of the Primera. ‘I was thinking… on Saturday we all thought Zena had been kidnapped, not murdered. What would you do if someone abducted Anton?’

There was the sound of footsteps over the earpiece and she presumed Mikhail was moving somewhere safer to talk. ‘I’d use a low powered bullet to ricochet inside the skull and turn the brain into soup.’

She felt a chill from his answer. ‘Wrong question. I meant, what if you were Thorsten?’

Mikhail exhaled deeply and she wondered if he and Rogov were subconsciously in tune with their cigarette breaks the same way women aligned their menstrual cycles.

‘OK, Dahl won’t trust us. All those nice Sven newspapers will tell him the menti are no better than crooks.’

She almost gasped at Mikhail’s hypocrisy. ‘So… if you were Thorsten?’

‘I’d hire a Sven to sniff around, or maybe that Russian lawyer of his, Lagunov. Someone who knew how to keep his mouth shut. You’d do the same so why the phone call?’

‘I want to know when Dahl applied for a visa.’

‘The FSB look after immigration now. Ask Dostoynov to check with his old buddies.’

‘He only wants me to get an identification for the body.’

‘It’s sensible. Unless he’s certain of getting the killer he’ll try to ditch the case. If you start digging and bigger dogs get involved, they’ll be able to blame you for fucking it up if they don’t find her killer.’

She snorted. ‘Doesn’t anyone care about Zena?’

‘I didn’t say I agree. I’m just saying Dostoynov will be too used to the FSB’s Machiavellian ways to think like a real policeman.’

She heard him laugh and wasn’t sure if something had happened in the office. ‘I don’t care about getting blamed, I want to make sure we get the bastard who killed her before he does it to someone else. The right bastard too.’

He sighed. ‘OK. I know someone in the Big House: Viktor. He’s FSB but doesn’t stink like the rest of them. We studied law together. I’ll do it on one condition.’

Mikhail did favours the same way cats left pigeons on doorsteps. ‘What?’

‘We’ll stay in tonight and talk. I love you, Angel, I don’t want anything coming between us.’

She glanced at Rogov who was still huddled under the ZAGS archway.

‘Of course… me too.’

Mikhail hung up and she called Rogov over. He tossed the cigarette then pulled the corners of his light blue suit jacket over his head as he walked up to her.

‘If I remember, ZAGS have a centralised booking system. See if you can find out which one Zena went to on June 6th. The appointment was for 9:30 a.m.’

‘Me?’

‘Yes, I’ve got a call to make. Oh, and Rogov’ – she smiled at him – ‘you need to make lots of noise, I don’t think they open on Mondays.’

Rogov rang the bell, the interior of his jacket already stained dark by the rain. After ten seconds he started banging on the door with a fist. There was no answer and he jogged down the street to find a rear entrance, moving surprisingly nimbly for an overweight man.

She stared out of the window, not focusing on anything in particular. Certainly, Mikhail preferred her to be a loyal wife and ignore his dirty money; that wasn’t an option when he’d chosen to make her an accomplice by buying their apartment with it. There was still a hundred thousand euros in the account. All told, that was too much for the occasional bribe. It was the kind of money that put innocent people away in the hell-holes that passed for prisons, and let the guilty go free to rob or kill again.

After ten minutes the door of the ZAGS building was opened by an earnest young man and a sodden Rogov stepped out of it without acknowledgement then paced to the car. He pulled on the Nissan’s door huffily and sat down, his brow streaked by rainwater. She waited for his laboured breathing to calm. ‘What did you find out?’

‘It’s an hour’s drive away,’ he mumbled. ‘The appointment was in fucking Sestroretsk.’

‘The seaside, Rogov. That’s just what you need for a hangover.’

‘You’re not coming?’

‘No, drop me off at Krestovsky Metro. I’ll meet you at the station in two hours – call me if you find anything interesting.’

‘Are you going to be like this all the time?’

‘Like what?’ she smiled.

The spray turned to heavier rain as she started the car and followed the road alongside the tree-lined gardens of Tauride Palace.

‘How about I smoke with the window open?’ he asked.

‘No.’

Rogov was brooding for a few minutes before he spoke again. ‘What will you do?’

She scrutinised him to see if it was more than a casual question but his expression gave nothing away. ‘There’s nothing more I can do. I told you I’ve already asked Dahl for Zena’s dental records. She was adopted so DNA is no good.’

‘What about the Sven menti ?’

She shook her head. ‘There’s been little cooperation since last year.’

He gave her a malicious grin. ‘I guess we threatened to melt their little snow kingdom one time too many.’

Rogov scratched his foot and she saw the bottom of an ankle holster. Most likely it held an OSA, a traumatic pistol that fired a steel–core rubber bullet and was completely legal for any citizen to own. She hoped it was anyway, and nothing deadlier.

‘Natalya?’ Rogov looked to the floor. ‘I was talking with Misha last night.’

‘That’s it!’ Her eyes flashed to the mirror then she stamped on the brakes. The car pitched Rogov forward.

‘What the fuck was that for?’ He rolled back in his seat.

‘We need rules.’ She glared at him, and she could tell he was trying very hard not to smirk. ‘You take the litter out of my house and I’ll return the favour. Don’t talk to me about my personal shit and we won’t discuss yours.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like Oksana married a racist, chauvinist arsehole who screws around.’

He blustered, ‘I—’

‘Come on, Rogov, everybody knows. That brothel you go to… The Depot, isn’t it? You’ve got a Chinese girl there. Good luck to her if she’s not being coerced, but whatever you’re paying her isn’t enough.’

The smirk had frozen on his face.

‘Oksana is my friend, but I won’t say anything because you’ve got your personal shit and I’ve got mine. Ready?’

‘For what?’

‘Another rule. I’ve earned the right to be called “Captain”. When the shift is over, I don’t care. In the car like this, I don’t care – unless you’re being an arsehole, which is most of the time. But in public, or at the station, it’s “Captain”. Got it?’

He nodded. ‘She’s called Duckweed.’

‘Who is?’

‘The girl. That’s what her name means in Chinese.’

She shook her head, then indicated to rejoin the traffic. ‘Rogov, did you hear anything I said?’

‘You know, you can be meaner than Oksana when she’s waving the red flag.’

They took a right then a left and followed the grey Neva. Rogov lapsed into a silence that soon became awkward, but not as awkward as maintaining a conversation with him.

At Gorkovskaya station she pulled over, leaving the keys in the ignition.