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

‘Now you can drive. Get to the ZAGS in Sestroretsk before you get caught in the lunchtime traffic.’

‘Yes, boss,’ he replied.

On the Metro she changed at Sadovaya for Krestovsky Ostrov then took the escalator to the glass-fronted exit. Outside, a group of four conscript catchers were questioning a boy in cut-off jeans clutching a skateboard. The youth was scared, and whatever documents he possessed hadn’t convinced them he was exempt from military service. One in an ill-fitting army uniform grabbed him by the neck of his T-shirt, wrapping it round his fist to stop him running. The boy tried to yank the hand away, letting out a cry as his arm was forced up his back to the point of dislocation. She glared at the one clutching the boy’s T-shirt until he noticed her, but she was powerless to intervene.

At the only populated ticket booth she flashed her ID. ‘Where’s the security office?’

The matronly woman picked up a phone and she waited. A man in an ill-fitting uniform appeared. He picked at rotten teeth and wiped the resulting issue on his trouser leg. ‘Nina, you stay here, I’ll take her.’

The station guard escorted her past the row of empty ticket booths and pushed on a door to the left of them. Inside, a man in a grey camouflage uniform was slouching in a leather chair, he was puffing on a cigarette and eyeing a bank of screens. He looked at his watch, then at the guard.

‘Thanks,’ he said to the ill-fitting uniform. ‘Have you searched her?’

Her phone started ringing. ‘Ivanova, Captain,’ she answered, not recognising the number. There was a wry smile on her lips as she saw the security guard in the chair straighten up.

‘It’s Pavel, Captain,’ she heard and had to think for a moment before recognising the voice of Popovich, the other expert criminalist.

‘What is it?’

The line went quiet and she could hear Colonel Vasiliev talking in the background. While waiting, she waved her ID at the man in the grey uniform then pressed the mute button on the call. ‘I’d like the footage between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. yesterday.’

‘Is this about the girl in the fire?’

She shrugged noncommittally, then pointed at the security cameras. ‘How do you store the images? A hard drive?’

‘DVDs. There might be a camera on the train too. If you come back with an exact time I can get the train number for you, but you’ll have to go through central admin to get the footage.’

‘Thanks.’

There was distortion over the phone that sounded like a cheer.

She passed her identification card for him to copy her details. It was rare for anyone to insist on a search warrant for camera footage since its specific purpose was to prevent crime. The guard flicked through a DVD holder mounted on the wall, then removed four disks. He slipped them into a plastic wallet and passed them to her. She tucked it in her handbag and nodded a thanks.

The phone was still pressed to her ear as she left, nodding again at the young man with the unfortunate teeth. The noise of the station increased and she clicked the mute button again to enable the sound. When she returned the mobile to her ear, the applause in the station had gone and Popovich was asking if she was there.

‘Yes, it’s me.’

‘You’d better get back. The Major was asking where you and Rogov had gone.’

‘Rogov’s on a job. What’s happening?’

‘Captain,’ Popovich said, barely able to contain his excitement. ‘Zena Dahl’s handbag. We got a hit on AFIS.’

Her clothes were soaked. The walk from the Ploshchad Vosstaniya Metro to Suvorovsky Prospekt had taken fifteen minutes, and it had been fifteen minutes of unrelenting rain that stuck her cotton trousers to her legs and turned her white blouse indecent. Her arms were folded to cover her breasts as she stood at the back of a crowd of local and national press who were gathering outside the Ministry of the Interior building.

She ducked under the umbrella of a photographer who was wiping a lens with a lint cloth. ‘Hey, what’s going on?’

His hand poised over the camera. ‘Press conference. That Swedish girl.’ He assessed her, taking in the handcuffs and gun, and his manner became less gruff. ‘You’re a detective, are you working on it?’

She shook her head, ‘They don’t let me do anything serious like that. I only saw what was on television.’

‘Well, if you don’t mind…?’ He lifted the lens to inspect it.

She walked away and cut through the small crowd. Ahead, she saw Major Dostoynov in dress uniform at the top of the steps and Colonel Vasiliev standing beside him like a benevolent uncle – albeit one with an ageing Teddy Boy quiff. Mikhail was nowhere to be seen and she guessed it had been deliberate to send a signal that he wasn’t going to compete with Dostoynov for the top job. She felt a pang of guilt as a camera team clambered out of a Channel One News van parked on the pavement and cut to the front of the assembled press.

When the microphones and cameras were in position, Dostoynov descended, the wide brim of his peaked cap keeping the rain off his stubble length pate. He stared into the middle-distance as he spoke: ‘Following the discovery of a deceased female at the Maritime Victory Park on Krestovsky Island yesterday at approximately 6 p.m., we have identified a suspect.’

Dostoynov held up a picture and a blond, broad man with a Channel One camera on his shoulder edged forwards, blocking her view. ‘Dmitry Dmitrievich Bezzubtsev,’ continued the Major, ‘is twenty-one years old, slim, and has brown hair. He should not be approached. A reward has been offered of one million Roubles for information leading to his arrest.’

She rushed away from the conference and took the Suvorovsky entrance. Inside, she saw Mikhail instructing a group of young men with shaved heads and grey-blue uniforms who had gathered in a meeting room where desks were being hastily pushed together.

‘Get the numbers for this room and have the switchboard route them,’ he directed to a uniform.

‘Mikhail?’ she called.

He waved at a sergeant. ‘Here take over.’ He stepped outside the room and closed the door behind him. ‘Tasha, are you entering a wet T-shirt competition?

She folded her arms self-consciously. ‘Misha, what the hell is going on?’

‘Popovich got a match on AFIS: some missed abortion called Bezzubtsev who did eighteen months for a string of street robberies. He’s not at his registered address so Dostoynov suggested Dahl offer a reward.’

‘I thought Dostoynov wanted someone else to take the case?’

‘Not now there’s a target in his crosshairs.’

‘So instead of finding him ourselves, we’ve given out a hotline to every chancer in Piter .’ She shook her head in disbelief at the idiocy of the move.

Mikhail sniffed. ‘An inferior mind might imagine Dostoynov was doing it to boost his profile.’

She flicked her thumb at the room. ‘And who are they?’

‘Conscripts on loan from an army engineering unit.’

‘That’s great.’

‘Did anyone speak to Dahl?’

Mikhail shrugged. ‘No, the request went through his lawyer, Lagunov. You got a change of clothes in your locker?’

‘Just gym gear.’

‘Well, you’d better find something before you give Rogov a hard-on. Let’s go to my office first, while Dostoynov’s out.’ He grimaced. ‘I hate sharing it with the uptight prick.’

She followed him into a plain, grey room with a wall-mounted safe and a filing cabinet. At the far side was a dirt-streaked window with an air conditioning unit fixed to the outside. There were two swivel-chairs at opposite ends of a table. ‘This half is mine,’ he said, unlocking a desk drawer. He took out a torn page from a notepad and handed it to her.