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

She stabbed at the off button. ‘We could always split up.’

Mikhail was bluff, ‘That will make it even worse. They definitely won’t let me supervise you.’

‘You really want this, don’t you?’

‘I want you more.’

‘Listen, Dostoynov’s ahead after that press conference. This will make you even.’ She peered again at his suits on the back seat. ‘If you’re trying to upstage him wear the blue one, it’s more assertive; grey is too corporate.’

He tapped his fingers nervously on the steering wheel. ‘Why are you doing this?’

His tone softened, ‘Angel, what’s got into you?’

The procession turned right and the car began to shake as the road deteriorated. She saw a huge slab of concrete, cracked and deformed by tree roots.

‘Christ!’ he shouted, swerving around it. He looked at her, his face humourless. ‘Want to hear a joke.’

‘Sure.’

‘Did you know the Russians invented time travel?’

She gave him a mock disparaging look.

‘Sure you do. If you want to go back to the time of the tsars just drive an hour out of Moscow or Piter .’ He had a pull on his cigarette. ‘Jesus, will you look at this place?’

They were passing two houses on the right with neat vegetable gardens. As the procession drew level, she saw their pretty red roofs transmute into corrugated iron coated in rust treatment paint. The walls were bare concrete and half-timbers that offered little protection from the swarms of mosquitoes in summer or the ravaging winds in winter. A horse waited on the lane outside while its wizened owner fixed a tarpaulin to the cart. The man looked up briefly, then pulled on a rope, unbothered by the sight of the convoy.

‘I can’t be your boss. If I take it you’ll be re-assigned to a district station and coming home smelling of puke and piss each day. Is that what you want?’

She needed more time to decide. She needed to find out if Mikhail was still the person she had married. If he wasn’t, well… she hadn’t got that far in her thinking but it didn’t look good. Divorce felt inconceivable – she didn’t want to be with anyone else – but if he was corrupt, how could she stay? ‘I’m not saying that, but if you don’t put yourself forward he’ll win for certain.’

‘But you don’t want me to win.’

He risked another look at her then pulled his eyes back to the road. ‘Natashenka, you can’t quit just so I can chase a promotion.’

‘I’m not.’ She took a deep breath and exhaled. ‘I’m just saying let’s not decide now.’

The OMON truck caught dried mud on the road and sprayed a cloud of dust behind it. Visibility dropped to a few metres. Mikhail pressed a button to close his window then stubbed out the Sobranie. ‘What’s going on?’

Red lights leapt out of the gloom. Mikhail stamped on the brakes then manoeuvred around them. She looked over her shoulder to see a police car merge into the dust.

‘Flat tyre I bet,’ he said. ‘Should have watched the road.’

Her heart fluttered like a trapped bird. ‘You’re dirty, Misha.’

‘Angel, what the hell are you talking about?’

Now the bird was thrashing, snapping its wings. ‘Tell me about your secret bank account. Tell me about Misha Buratino .’

‘How—’

‘Mikhail!’

The car in front swerved but he was too slow. The Mercedes buckled as it hit a pothole, then righted itself.

‘Are you trying to kill us?’

He slowed and craned his neck, she assumed to listen for the rumble of a burst tyre. There was nothing above the heavy diesel engine of the OMON truck ahead, and he accelerated to catch up with the convoy.

Mikhail was calmer than she had expected: ‘What makes you think I’m dirty?’

‘I found your secret account when I checked to see if you’d paid Anton’s university bribe.’

His chest shook as he chuckled to himself. ‘Then you’ll be amused to hear Professor Litovkin called this afternoon… he has the money and is adamant the rejection letter was no more than a clerical error. He sounded very appreciative.’

No wonder, she thought, Mikhail had paid the man twice. ‘My congratulations.’

‘So tell me, Natalya, how did you find out about Misha Buratino ?’

‘I put a keylogger on our computer; it captured your passwords.’ She felt her voice rise in pitch, ‘You bought our apartment with dirty money, Misha.’

They passed a sign indicating the village of Novvy Svet was two kilometres away and the Mercedes gathered speed as the road became smooth tarmac. On the right was a drainage ditch; she thought about ripping the steering wheel from his hands and dragging the car into it so the rest of her body could experience the jagged, visceral pain in her gut.

Mikhail was frustratingly calm, he pressed another preset and “Radio Zenit” displayed on the dashboard. The airwaves filled with the sound of a crowd cheering.

‘Turn it off. Football is caveman shit.’

He touched the button and twisted the volume control by mistake. Suddenly the roar of the crowd was personal. They weren’t cheering for points on some league table, they were cheering him on; it was his victory over her. She stabbed at the button again to switch it off.

‘Talk to me, Misha. What did you do, get someone off murder?’

He pressed his lips together. ‘You’ve got it wrong, Angel. It wasn’t me.’

‘You control the account, don’t be ridiculous.’

He went to speak and she rolled her eyes in anticipation of the lies that were going to come. ‘There’s nothing you can say.’

‘Oh I think there is,’ he spoke urbanely, smoothing his collar. ‘My mother.’

She let out a short laugh. ‘What did Violka do?’

‘I told you before. She left me her money.’

‘Don’t lie, I deserve better than that.’

‘If you’d just listen!’ He took a breath. ‘Didn’t you ever see The Adventures of Buratino ?’

She unlocked her arms and waved a hand. ‘Of course, who hasn’t?’ It still appeared on the listings for the cable channels that sold nostalgia.

‘Well, it came out just before I was born. When I was six or seven, I had these stupid blond curls like Dima Iosifov, the boy who played Buratino – I couldn’t wait to have the fucking things cut off – I was always getting into trouble too. Before my mother started losing her mind, she set up the account and transferred her assets to me; it was her idea of a joke: Misha Buratino was my childhood nickname.’

‘Then how was it you never told me?’

‘Because, my darling, it is illegal for an official to have a foreign bank account. More importantly, I was hiding it from those felons in the Federal Tax Service who are in league with the mafia.’

‘So why didn’t you tell me?’ she asked again.

He let out a weary sigh. ‘Because you’re too honest and I didn’t need the shit.’

She looked out of the windscreen at the OMON truck; it was pulling over. Mikhail parked behind the remaining police car, almost dropping the Mercedes into a hole in the tarmac so perfectly spherical it could have been made by the impact of a meteorite.

Already, Cosmonauts wearing blue and grey uniforms, black belts and boots, were climbing out. Mikhail stopped the engine and pulled on his door handle.

‘Definitely the blue jacket.’ She flicked her head in the direction of the men assembling outside the six-wheeled OMON vehicle. Dostoynov stood with them, affecting their easy, masculine stance. ‘I bet he warned the press.’

She climbed out and pointed her Makarov at the ground as she racked the slide. To anyone else, she was sure Mikhail’s explanation sounded reasonable – all the money had come from his mother and the foreign account was to protect his inheritance – but it didn’t sound right. There was no reason to conceal the fact it was held offshore. Sure, tax evasion was illegal, but so was bribery, and hadn’t they done just that to get Anton into college? Mikhail was lying: he hadn’t told her about the account because it was stuffed with dirty money. Buratino was the boy who told lies.