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

He frowned. ‘I implemented western standards of governance on companies that were being driven into the ground by petty thieving and inefficiency.’

‘That would do it. I bet there’s a long list of people that bear a grudge against you. We should go back, Lyudmila has made dinner and she’ll be offended if we take any longer.’

‘There’s a line in Corinthians, if I remember my Bible,’ he said. ‘“Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we may die.”’

‘I’d prefer to survive another day with indigestion and a hangover.’

He looked around the apartment. ‘May I have some time alone? What you say makes sense, Zena could be alive, but I can’t allow myself the possibility. And what if they hurt her or do something worse? I will have lost her again.’

She left him with his thoughts and returned to Lyudmila Kuznetsova’s apartment. Leo Primakov had already charmed the old woman into letting him mute her television, and the dining table had more plates of food as well as an open bottle of vodka with two crystal glasses. She dumped her jacket and Makarov on the armchair then followed the sound of low conversation to the kitchen where Leo and Lyudmila were sat together on a kitchen top, alternately flicking ash out of an open window. She smiled watching them, glad of the distraction.

Primakov looked up in surprise like a naughty boy caught smoking. ‘Natalya, Lyudmila here was telling me she was nominated by her school to give a bouquet to Nikita Khrushchev.’

‘It was 1958,’ the old woman picked up the prompt, ‘and my mother made this blue and cream dress for the occasion. She woke me up at five to braid my hair. In the assembly hall, these big, fat, old men were sitting behind a row of tables on the stage. I had to walk past them when the whole school was watching… they made me so nervous.’ She shook her head at the memory. ‘As I curtseyed, I broke wind in front of Premier Khrushchev. I died of shame. I gave him the flowers and ran away to the sound of him laughing. Khrushchev was a peasant.’

Natalya pushed her lips together in mock sympathy then waited for them to finish their cigarettes. At the table, Thorsten Dahl joined them and she made a toast to Zena’s safe return. The potato cakes were good and the vodka was better. For the first time in days she found herself relaxing. Lyudmila Kuznetsova proposed a new toast, this time to her youthful intestines. They all tapped their glasses and drank before Natalya was forced to translate to a bemused Dahl about the old woman meeting Khrushchev.

An hour later, just as she thought her stomach would tear open, Lyudmila brought out a Lomonosov porcelain ashtray for the cigarettes that were now permitted at the table. Natalya looked at the old woman’s pink cheeks and smiled. Even Dahl, despite the uncertainty over Zena’s fate, was transformed by the atmosphere. He opened a sealed bottle of whisky – the same type he had been drinking on the plane – and passed it around. Lyudmila sniffed it gingerly then poured some in her tea, earning a horrified look from Primakov. More glasses were filled. Natalya raised hers. ‘To Yulia Federova.’

Dahl followed with a toast for Felix Axelsson’s family. Primakov, she noticed, had become silent.

Lyudmila Kuznetsova thumped the near-empty bottle of vodka on the table, spilling her tea. ‘Ah come on, I thought we were having a party.’

‘Someone’s here,’ Primakov spoke in a low voice.

Natalya turned to see a man in a leather jacket blocking the open door. It was the one built like a weightlifter from the airport.

‘Hey! Get out!’ Lyudmila shouted.

He took two steps in and raised his Grach, pointing it at Natalya’s head. ‘Captain Ivanova, put your gun on the table.’

‘I’m raising my hands.’ She lifted them slowly with the palms facing out; they were shaking. ‘Now I’m going to stand so you can see I’m not armed.’

She stood and turned slowly to show the waistband of her jeans.

‘Anyone else?’

‘No one,’ she said.

He focused his gun on Dahl, then Primakov, watching them flinch in turn. The arc of his arm continuing until it returned to her.

‘Clear,’ he called out.

A lean man in his early twenties squeezed past the weightlifter, pocketing his sunglasses at the same time. She recognised him as the driver of the BMW X5. Behind him followed a woman with a bleached blonde bob and a voice sharp enough to pickle a salted cucumber: ‘Detective Ivanova, place your hands flat on the table. Move them and he will shoot without hesitation.’

Natalya did as she was ordered. Dahl, she noticed, was sweating.

‘She’s FSB… the one who came to my apartment,’ Primakov whispered.

‘Nahodkin, check for weapons.’

The stocky man frisked her thoroughly. Scanning the room, he found her Makarov on Kuznetsova’s armchair. He removed its clip and dropped it in his jacket pocket then waddled up to her. He pulled his hand back under the pretext of reaching for his jacket pocket then drove a fist into the side of her ribs.

‘Natalya,’ yelled Dahl.

She dropped to the floor, pain searing through her body. There were voices around but she couldn’t hear them. After a few breaths she dragged herself onto her hands and knees then grabbed the edge of the table for support.

‘That was unnecessary,’ she gasped, pulling herself to standing.

‘Give him cause and he’ll put you on a liver transplant list,’ the blonde woman said. ‘Now sit and have a drink.’

Natalya took a sip of the malt. Its sweet, peaty taste filled her mouth, leaving a pleasant heat behind. It was easily the best whisky she had ever tasted. Fine as it was, it did little to calm her nerves or take the edge off Nahodkin’s punch.

‘Who are you?’ demanded Dahl. ‘You try anything, you’d better be prepared to shoot me.’

‘That won’t be a problem. My name is Major Belikova and I work for the FSB’s Economic Crimes Directorate, in Moscow.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Licensed thieves,’ Natalya said under her breath.

Dahl nodded solemnly but Nahodkin heard her and edged closer.

Natalya scowled at him. ‘What? Are you going to hit me again for that?’

Nahodkin shrugged his massive shoulders.

‘He’s gone soft on you,’ said Belikova.

‘Are you ours, or theirs?’ Nahodkin asked.

Natalya shook her head hearing the same question the KGB used on dissidents. You were on their side or you were an enemy; no other option was permitted. ‘I’m a patriot. Can you say that?’

Major Belikova shook her head. ‘Children, please.’ She approached the lean agent. ‘Demutsky, take the babushka next door. Let our homosexual friend go home.’

Primakov stared at the grain on the table, his cheeks burning with indignation. ‘You told me you wouldn’t tell anyone.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry, was it a secret? Don’t worry, the Captain here will keep it to herself. I understand she has liberal attitudes. Now she knows you’re a homo she’ll want to go out dancing with you and your boyfriends.’

Primakov stood; he looked glum as if his world had collapsed. ‘Please don’t say anything Captain,’ he begged, ‘they’ll destroy me at headquarters.’

‘Don’t worry, Leo. I think I’ve always known; it’s hardly a surprise.’ He didn’t look any less relieved and a thought occurred to her, a bad one. ‘Leo, how did she know we were here?’ A new thought followed on the last: ‘You were the last to come in. How did they get past the door?’

‘And I heard a rumour you were a decent detective,’ Major Belikova said. ‘Hey, Demutsky, hurry up.’

‘Leo, you led them here, didn’t you? You left the door unlocked.’