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

Rogov stopped to roll up the long sleeves of his tent-like shirt and peered at a window display of amber jewellery in one of the Gostiny Dvor arcades.

‘Something for the mistress, perhaps?’

He scowled. ‘It’s Oksana’s birthday on Thursday.’

‘What about an amber necklace?’

‘Not here… not on my salary.’

‘Really?’ she arched an eyebrow.

‘I know what you think of me, Natalya.’

Her hands shifted and settled on her hips. ‘Well, while we’re being honest, I think you’re a bigot.’ She raised one arm to point at an amber teardrop on a silver chain. ‘There… that one matches Oksana’s eyes don’t you think?’

‘I’m a bigot? Christ, boss, where did that come from?’

‘For a start you kept calling Aliyev “Mohammed.”’

He lit a Winston and puffed on it thoughtfully. Somewhere in the universe Mikhail would be feeling an unconquerable urge to smoke too.

‘You know Oksana’s a Muslim, don’t you?’

At the back of her mind, she did know. Rogov’s wife didn’t drink; there again, Oksana didn’t wear a veil either and swore like a priest on a sabbatical.

‘But you’re not.’

He sighed unhappily, sending a plume of smoke into the face of a passing schoolgirl. ‘I’m supposed to be. Oksana’s family are from Kazan, her brothers are menti too… they made me convert – I had to recite the Shahada in front of an imam.’

She laughed out loud. ‘This is such shit, Rogov, if you’re a Muslim, you’re the worst example I’ve ever seen. Next you’ll say you didn’t break Aliyev’s nose.’

‘He ran into a tree, I swear.’ Rogov pushed the Winston in between his lips to hide the twitch on them.

‘Sure.’

‘You have to believe me.’

‘No I don’t. This isn’t one of those films where you play the racist, sexist, drunk and I get to be the one with a rod up my zhopa . When this is over we won’t be slapping each other on the back and celebrating.’

She strode ahead, taking the stairs to an underpass. It was full of stalls: a newsagents, a downmarket amber shop, an obligatory display of matryoshka dolls, a Teremok selling blinis and salads. There was more life in the subway than above it.

‘OK, OK… wait up.’

She slowed.

‘I admit, I did give Aliyev a few slaps but he withheld important evidence. Now we’ll get the little shit who killed her because I got him to talk.’ He sucked on his Winston. ‘Honestly, I would have done it to anyone.’

A woman was dragging her pushchair up the subway steps. She nodded a thank you as Natalya bent down to grab a strap between the wheels to lift the front. Rogov walked alongside them, puffing on his cigarette.

‘That’s magnanimous,’ she said. ‘Don’t you think I would have got the truth out of him?’

‘Not by playing by your nice EU rules. We had a dead girl three metres away.’

The woman holding the rear of the pushchair stared at the top of her child’s head, anxious not to make eye contact with Rogov.

‘My EU rules?’ she began. ‘A murdered Sven… a German boss… Mohammed the contractor… but, oh no, you’re not a bigot.’

They reached the top and Natalya let go of the strap. The mother walked away briskly, then looked over her shoulder at them.

‘Next you’ll say I’m not a feminist, boss. That hurts.’

Instead of answering, she flicked her eyes at a store front where, in place of a name, were hundreds of twenty-centimetre-high “O”s and “X”s acid-etched in rows. ‘Tuck your shirt in, Rogov, we’re here.’

Inside Noughts & Kisses , a woman in her early twenties with perfectly straight blonde hair stood less than a metre from them but she could have been a mile away so assiduously was she ignoring them. She had a button nose, a BMI in single figures, and was staring at a single handbag on a wooden rhomboid floor display with the intense focus of an artist arranging pieces for an exhibition. Another shop assistant stood behind the counter, appearing like a clone of the first with her adolescent boy body and perfect face, except her hair was a luminous white and cut in a Sixties bob.

Rogov picked up a knitted thong from a rail and twirled it on his index finger ‘Hey, how much are these things? There’s no price tag.’ The blonde didn’t turn her head and he frowned, disappointed not to see a look of disgust on her face.

Natalya went to the counter. ‘Are you the manager?’

The woman was friendly enough if she focused on the mouth; the eyes, however, were as vacant as a salmon’s at Kuznechny market.

‘No, I’m Maya, the senior sales assistant.’

‘You’ll do.’ She held up her ID card. ‘I’m looking for Yulia Federova.’

‘Oh,’ the woman spoke with effortless cool. ‘We’re really, really not sure. She might be sick. She was supposed to be in today but we haven’t seen her.’

Rogov joined in, ‘Hey, what’s with your hair?’

‘Oh,’ Maya spoke again and her eyes did a little roll as if he’d asked a more thought-provoking question. ‘Well, it’s obviously a dye, but you can get this shampoo that makes it glow.’ She scrutinised Rogov’s pepper-and-salt hair. ‘I think it’ll work on yours.’

‘Did Yulia call in sick?’ Natalya asked.

‘Oh no, she didn’t say anything at all. She just didn’t come in.’

‘Is that normal?’

Maya’s head tilted to one side as if considering the upcoming presidential election. ‘I haven’t been here long enough to say.’ She looked over Natalya’s shoulder and called to the blonde. ‘Olesia, is it normal, you know… for Yulia?’

The blonde turned then frowned; her concentration on the rhomboid broken forever. She shook her head then spoke in a voice barely above a whisper. ‘No, not normal.’

‘Sure?’ asked Natalya.

‘Oh yes,’ said Olesia, ‘I think so.’

‘Fuck,’ Rogov sighed when they left the boutique. ‘Where do they find these people?’ He lit another Winston. ‘So what’s the plan now, boss?’

‘Primorsky District. Let’s get personal.’

She parked in the same spot outside Yulia Federova’s apartment block and under the shadow of the crane. Rogov worked his way through all the buzzers on the intercom calling “Police! Open the door!” until finally someone relented and there was a rasping sound as an anonymous inhabitant pressed a button to release the lock. They started climbing the stairs and Natalya soon found herself on her own. By the sixth floor she stopped to catch her breath.

‘Rogov,’ she called below, ‘are you alright?’

She heard a retching cough followed by a scuffing of shoes. A minute later he appeared, red-faced, his translucent shirt stuck to his body by sweat. He sat on the landing, his feet on the lower steps, and put his head in his hands. ‘Boss… Natalya, I’m going to shit my lungs if you don’t stop.’

‘Then stay here. I’m not carrying you down if you have a heart attack.’

She left him and started walking again… seven… eight… nine… ten. With each floor, the smell of tarry tobacco became more pungent and she found herself holding her breath until she couldn’t keep it in any longer.

At Yulia Federova’s apartment she rang the bell, keeping her finger on it longer than necessary. She stepped back and smoothed her hair. Far below, she could hear Rogov’s slow shuffle on a landing then his heavy, lumbering steps as he mounted another set of stairs. The smell brought bile in her throat and for a second she wondered if she might be pregnant before dismissing the idea – that would only happen if Mikhail had been switching her pills.

Rogov’s footsteps had stopped. ‘Are you OK?’ she called down, her voice echoing in the stairwell.