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

‘Nice try,’ he replied in Russian, twisting his head past her to look Yulia up and down. He shook his head slightly and flicked his eyes to dismiss them.

Zena reached into her purse for her Swedish ID card but the doorman’s attention had already shifted to a black Porsche Cayenne. An impassive driver-cum-bodyguard emerged and opened its doors. Two men climbed out, looking decades older than the rest of the clientele.

‘Biznismen,’ Yulia muttered in distaste as they sloped to the back of the queue.

Zena smiled but the doorman’s insinuation had stung; it reminded her of the flea market at Udelnaya where a woman in a tie-dyed shirt had tried to sell her an old propaganda poster.

‘It’s you,’ the woman had said, pulling out a framed picture of a rosy-cheeked girl with straw hair driving a tractor.

She hadn’t bought the poster although the likeness had been uncanny – it wasn’t flattering and besides, she didn’t need a reminder of her own thick hair and broad body.

They made it inside the Cheka bar after thirty minutes of queueing. Yulia ordered vodka and when the bottle arrived, the waiter, dressed in the khakis of a Second World War soldier, turned it around so Zena could read the label. He enunciated his words carefully, realising he was speaking to a foreigner.

‘Putin-ka,’ he announced, ‘it’s a joke. An alcoholic drink in honour of our teetotal president.’ He smiled good-naturedly. ‘Where are you girls from?’

‘Here, and she is from Sweden.’ Yulia flirted a little.

‘Which part?’

Zena watched in silence as he filled their glasses, feeling sorry for the waiter. Usually on their nights out, Yulia was only friendly to the ones she intended to humiliate.

‘My friend is from a little town, I don’t think you know it.’

‘I might do,’ he asked.

And then there was the kick in the balls when Yulia would say “It’s called Get Back To Work”, or if she wanted to pull his wings off first: “Buy me a drink and I might tell you.” It wasn’t one of her more appealing traits.

‘Why don’t you—’

‘Östermalm,’ Zena butted in, ‘it’s a district in Stockholm. I’m Zena.’ She held out her hand and instantly regretted the move as a stuffy habit she’d picked up from her father.

The waiter smiled and shook it. ‘I’m Gavril, just ask for me if you need anything. Nice to meet you, Zena.’

Yulia’s expression was that of a cat denied the pleasure of torturing a small rodent. ‘She’s rich,’ she said, trying to wrestle the conversation back, ‘her father knows the Queen of Sweden.’

‘She’s joking of course,’ Zena said unnecessarily as the waiter was smiling.

‘Well, have a good evening.’ He tapped his heels together and made a mock salute.

‘What a loser,’ said Yulia when he had gone.

‘I thought he was nice.’

Yulia tilted her head and held out her glass. ‘Anyway… To health.’

They tipped the vodka back then Zena stood, feeling the blood drain from her face. ‘I need the bathroom.’

When she returned after more queueing, their table was empty but it wasn’t hard to find Yulia. She was dancing on the stage and her long, slim arms were raised high in the air; it had the effect, no doubt intended, of pulling up her red mini-dress to reveal a few centimetres of skinny thigh above stay-up stockings. Next to Yulia was a boy, though with chiselled cheekbones and narrow Slavic eyes he was more godlike than human. He wore a brilliant white shirt with the top buttons undone and was throwing his arms around like a bear conducting an invisible orchestra. Zena felt the acid burn in her stomach.

Yulia still hadn’t seen her as she climbed on to the stage, and Zena forced her way through a group of five or six drunken men with shaved heads. They laughed and formed a circle around her, then began clapping in time. One of the men entered the circle and squatted on the stage.

‘The huge country is rising,’ they half-sang, half-shouted over the wailing of the DJ’s power ballad.

The one squatting put his hands on his hips and began performing Cossack kicks with some skill. She bumped into his outstretched leg causing him to fall on his back.

‘Rising for the deathly battle.’

Zena went to help him from the floor. She realised then, that he’d been looking up her dress. She broke out of the circle and slipped, putting an arm out to stop herself.

‘Against the dark fascist force.’

‘Fuck, I’m so drunk,’ she muttered.

The boy in the white shirt was staring at her, an amused expression on his face. She realised with a shock that her hand was resting on his chest; the tips of her fingers slipping through the sheer material of his shirt onto bare skin. There was no sign of Yulia. They stood there, frozen in time. She tilted her head and smiled.

‘Let our noble wrath,’ the men shouted, abandoning any attempt to follow the melody of their song.

The boy must be drunk, she thought. Her fingers lingered, then she pulled at a loose thread. ‘You’ve lost a button.’

He smiled back, and in a moment of insanity she pressed her mouth against his chest. He tasted salty and his skin felt smooth, like plastic. The boy’s hand tightened on her waist.

‘Against the cursed hordes.’

The arm was gone. He stepped back to increase the distance between them.

Yulia’s voice was close and shrill, ‘Zena, what were you doing?’

‘Seethe like waves.’

She cut through the circle of conscripts. Their singing stopped and she caught a cheer behind her as she climbed off the stage. At the table she grabbed the bottle of Putinka by the neck then ran out into the luminous night, brushing past the tourists milling around Ligovsky Prospekt.

‘Hey!’

The doorman with the stupid uniform chased after her. She pushed a hand into her purse and tossed some bank notes on the ground.

‘Bitch,’ he called out in English.

She waited a safe distance before turning, and caught him pulling at the creases of his jodhpurs before crouching to pick up the notes and tuck them in his wallet.

There were goose pimples on her arms now. She’d been wandering for hours, most of it spent burning off the anger she had directed at herself for behaving like a slut. After that, self-pity had taken hold at losing the only decent friend she’d made after nine months in St. Petersburg. She checked her iPhone then remembered the battery had died somewhere between the tall office blocks that took up both sides of the street. Taking another step, she felt a pull on her left leg.

‘Damn it.’ She stared at the heel wedged between two pavement slabs.

Easing her foot out of the six hundred dollar velvet pump, she teetered on the remaining heel, then lost her balance.

A grey wall lurched towards her. ‘Oh shit.’

She twisted her body in time to take the impact on her shoulder. The Putinka fell from her hand and bounced on the pavement with a chink. It rolled then came to rest a metre from her wedged heel. Putting her back to the wall, she slid down, not thinking of the dress until it crackled with the sound of static. She’d had it less than a day and it was ruined. All those little silk spiders working away for nothing. She squatted on the asphalt and twisted her heel from the grate, then slipped the pump back onto her foot and reached for the bottle. Unscrewing the cap, she put the mouth of the Putinka to her lips.

She heard a blast reverberate through the city and thought it was the cannon from the Peter and Paul Fortress before remembering it was only fired at midday. Craning her neck to see above the office buildings, she saw globes of pink and white fireworks, then watched them fade, leaving clouds of white smoke behind in the pale sky. The air carried the sound of a distant crowd cheering followed by the mournful blast of a ship’s foghorn that drowned out their voices. She sipped the vodka more carefully now, seeing the colours of fresh fireworks play on the glass.