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

‘Please.’

The man pulled out a key fob and pressed a button. Ten metres away, orange indicators flashed on a black Range Rover Sport and the interior lit up to show pale green leather seats. She headed for his car, willing herself to walk in a straight line. After a few strides, she noticed he wasn’t with her. Putting a hand on the wall to steady herself, she turned to watch him stoop, then grab the half-empty bottle of Putinka from the pavement.

He jogged up to her. ‘You must be a foreigner to leave good drink behind.’

She ignored his hint of a question. Last Thursday, she’d watched the end of a debate on TV about the consequences if Sweden joined NATO. The planted audience were vile; they spoke of squashing, destroying, and nuking. She could almost taste their hatred.

At least the man was making a show of being chivalrous, stepping past her to pull the door open. She gave him a tight-lipped smile as she climbed in to let him know she appreciated the gesture. Getting into a car with a stranger at this time of the morning wasn’t stupid, it was fucking stupid, she knew that, but it wasn’t any worse than wandering the streets alone.

He tossed the vodka bottle onto the seat behind her then went to the driver’s side. Her hands were shaking as she fumbled with the seatbelt.

‘Here,’ he said, leaning over to get the strap into the buckle. Their fingers touched and she pulled her hand away.

‘Fuck,’ she muttered under her breath as he started the car.

They drove in silence for a moment then she turned to him. ‘Thank you,’ she said, thinking of how close she had come to being raped.

‘That’s alright, Zena,’ he replied.

Natalya Ivanova was sure the woman in the white and purple checked headscarf was holding out. She watched her carefully with the eyes of a practised interrogator. ‘What do you mean?’

The woman shrugged, giving little away. ‘I mean gone.’

‘All gone?’

‘Yes.’

‘The Parmesan? The real stuff from Italy? I heard you had some.’

Natalya stared at her assembled vegetables and tin cans bunched up at the end of the tiny conveyor belt, wondering if she should make borscht instead of white bean soup, or perhaps she could use another cheese but she wasn’t a cook and liked to stick close to recipes. It was a special occasion too – giving up and ordering pizza wasn’t an option.

‘Still gone.’

Natalya pulled out her wallet, unintentionally revealing her ID card.

‘You menti ?’

She nodded, unoffended by the slang for the police that wasn’t exactly respectful but everyone used.

‘What type?’ the woman asked. ‘Militia?’

Natalya caught sight of her tired face in a reflection off the meat counter. The whole afternoon had been wasted on Bolshoi Prospekt interviewing a Svetlana Alkhimovich who had been admitted to Pokrovskaya City hospital with fractures of the left cheek and eye socket. Her husband and likely assailant, Arkady, radiated hostility when she made him stand beyond the perimeter of his wife’s bed. Through a gap in the plastic curtain, Natalya saw him eyeing up a nurse as he leant against the cradle of an oxygen cylinder; an unlit cigarette perched in his orange-stained fingers. She was tempted to step out and light it for him just to see if he combusted, but the brute wasn’t worth dying for. Instead, she gave Svetlana Alkhimovich the addresses of the few women’s refuges that served the city. In her experience, the poor woman had a fight or two left in her before the violence reached a climax and she saved herself – if it wasn’t too late then.

It was also clear from the outset that the injuries weren’t bad enough for her to intervene. Arresting Mrs Alkhimovich’s husband was a joke when her superiors insisted on releasing domestic violence suspects after the statutory three hours’ administrative detention – the woman had to be seriously hurt or dead before a criminal case was created. The experience had left her feeling depressed.

‘The militia became the regular police five years ago. They are the ones you see with stations in each district.’

The woman scanned her groceries. ‘And that’s what you do?’

Natalya stifled a yawn. ‘No, I work for the Criminal Investigations Directorate, we cover the whole of Piter and only deal with serious crimes.’

‘How interesting.’

‘I used to think so, now I’m just trying to make bean soup before the government bans beans.’

The woman laughed nervously then addressed a rough-bearded man in a foreign language that Natalya figured was Uzbek or Kyrgyz. He left the small shop through a bead-curtained back door then re-emerged clutching a wheel of Parmesan the shape of a small millstone. She saw ‘Parmigiano-Reggiano’ stencilled on the rind of the cheese and a less convincing ‘Made in Belarus’ sticker applied to its plastic cover.

‘How much do you want?’ the woman asked.

‘How much is it?’

‘Eight thousand a kilo.’

Natalya let out a low whistle. ‘I’m not that type of police either.’

The woman shook her head at the bearded man, and he retreated with a rattle of the bead curtain.

Her husband Mikhail, who was also a senior detective in the Criminal Investigations Directorate, was frequently amused by her idealism. Undoubtedly, he would have seized the Parmesan as a contraband item then presented it to her. She thought, ruefully, that his approach made a lot more sense sometimes; judging by the snoring, his conscience didn’t bother him too much either.

Inside her apartment block, she dumped her shopping on the lift’s mosaic tiles then pressed a button to send it to the third floor; getting out before the doors closed. Like many in the city’s pre-Revolution buildings, the lift had been added as an afterthought and couldn’t be trusted to transport anything that wanted to stay alive.

As she climbed the marble stairs, she thought of her grand, high-ceilinged apartment with its view of the stone lions on Lviny Bridge. It wasn’t the type of place two detectives on meagre salaries could afford, but it had been made possible by Mikhail’s mother, Violka, who died of pneumonia brought on by early-onset Alzheimer’s. The money had come as a shock considering the old bird had a reputation for being as tight as a tree sparrow; nevertheless, her fifteen million roubles had bought the three-bedroom apartment, and thanks to the property bubble, its value was increasing by more than their combined incomes.

One bedroom was reserved for her stepson, Anton. The arrangement with Mikhail’s ex-wife, Dinara, had been for alternate weekends but he had just turned eighteen and was as constant as a cat, often arriving late when he fancied a change of scene. The third bedroom had been kept clear. With the low life expectancy of the average Russian male, Mikhail knew his biological clock was ticking and wanted a child with her before it was too late. At thirty-eight, she was also approaching the age where having a baby could be difficult. Being childless didn’t bother her particularly when, after nearly two decades in the police, she had learnt to smother her maternal instincts. Nevertheless, she had been surprised by the ease and speed with which Anton had broken through her natural reserves. No doubt there were explanations that a therapist could uncover but sometimes a cigar was just a cigar, and Anton was just a bright, sweet, funny, boy who she had grown to love.

She dumped her shopping on the kitchen floor then went into the bathroom to take a quick shower. Naked, she appraised herself using the mirrored back of the door and saw more grey hairs in the reddish-brown that she’d need to address soon by dyeing or denial. She put her hands on her hips and tried to tense her stomach only to see faint lines appear. Her body was still slim, though it was more due to neglect than the gym that cost nineteen thousand roubles a year for her non-attendance. She pulled off her underwear then climbed into the shower.