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

She edged forwards, thinking of the driver. In the van, Volkov had admitted sending the Gosha Kutsenko lookalike to kill Yulia Federova. It left more questions than answers but there was no time to consider them. On the driver’s side she glimpsed a leather cap protruding through the open window. The cab smelled of cigarettes and the acrid odour of a bullet’s propellant. She crept lower, praying he was too distracted to notice her.

She had the element of surprise, but it was hardly a comfort when he had his gun as well as hers. One more step then she checked again. He hadn’t moved. She pressed herself against the door. The wind caught Mikhail’s raincoat making it flap noisily like a canvas sail. The leather cap was still. She shifted position to see his face in the wing mirror – he was slumped forwards. She stood up.

An “O” of frozen surprise was on the driver’s mouth. On the side of his head, a bullet had left a neat black hole in his leather cap. The relief made her want to laugh out loud. She opened the door and prised a gun from the dead man’s hand. It had a full clip and “CZ 75 P-01” etched along the barrel. It was a well-made Czech pistol that had worked its way from the police force and onto the black market. She ripped off Mikhail’s raincoat and threw it to the floor, then fixed the dead man’s gun to the holster on her belt.

Her teeth chattered and she shivered although it was warm enough. A fresh spray of rain caught her as she started walking. Tall grasses gave way to a deserted beach, and with the beach came the houses; the first one she passed had an ornamental fountain and a Maybach on the drive, but where had Volkov gone?

An ancient vagrant wearing a blazer with a nautical badge was hiding from the squally showers under a decaying bus shelter that hadn’t been used in years.

‘Police – have you seen anyone come this way?’

He didn’t react and she touched him lightly on the shoulder, making him jump.

‘Please, where did he go?’

He turned to show a weathered face and patches of grey hair through burnt skin, then dismissed her with a flick of his finger towards the end of the street where the beach turned back to grass and the houses stopped. Even in the mist she could see little cover for someone of Volkov’s size. She nodded a thanks, realising the old man was unreliable.

A phone started ringing. She recognised the tone and started running to the van, guessing it had come from there. Flares exploded in her head with each footfall. A few seconds later the ringtone was drowned out by a howl of wind.

On the passenger side, the window was stained red and when she pulled open the door, drips of coagulated blood shook free of the dashboard. She heard her mobile beep to alert her to a new text message and she reached for the glove compartment. Inside she discovered her iPhone. A text on the screen alerted her to a missed call from Mikhail. At the side of the van she sheltered from the rain and called him.

‘Misha? Is it important?’

‘Hey Angel. I did what you asked. That crazy woman cost me my wallet and balls… she’s going.’

It took her a moment to realise he was speaking of Dinara. She was leaving the country with Anton and a pile of Mikhail’s money.

‘Thank God,’ she said.

He paused. ‘Have you found the documents?’

‘I’m not even close.’ The van door slammed with the wind. ‘Volkov found me.’

‘Jesus… are you OK?’

‘Yeah,’ she looked at the dead man through the window, ‘I had a guardian angel. Actually, he might be an Angel of Death, it’s unclear.’

‘Anton’s safe, just get away.’

‘From the FSB? He’ll never be safe if I don’t do this.’

‘Wait for me.’ She heard echoes of footsteps and guessed he was racing down the stairs. ‘Tell me where you are.’

‘Go north on the E18 – I’ll text you the address when I find it. Where’s Rogov?’

‘I don’t know, he’s not answering. I’m worried Tasha, everything’s fucked.’

‘Bring Primakov – just the two of you. Don’t involve Dostoynov.’

‘Angel, stay where you are.’

‘I can’t. Something’s happening.’

She ended the call.

Before Volkov had hit her, there had been a text on her phone. She opened her messages to find her most recent conversation with Rogov:

The sixty-year-old virgin is putting out.

That was his adolescent way of saying the woman at the ZAGS office was being helpful. In the van, she had deliberately referred to Rogov as “Stepan”. Volkov had copied her, not realising she never called her sergeant by his first name. That must have given Rogov a clue that something was wrong. Volkov’s second text had then asked “Stepan” for Dahl’s whereabouts when she had already told him the Swede was in Zena’s apartment. That wasn’t a clue so much as a hammer blow to Rogov’s forehead that she had been compromised.

She checked Rogov’s reply and allowed herself a smile. The address he’d given to Volkov was in Sestroretsk, where Zena had gone to the ZAGS office with Yulia. She guessed he’d got it from his sixty-year-old virgin. It made perfect sense too, because Dahl was just about brave and stupid enough to go there looking for Zena – it was Volkov’s own house. She forwarded the address to Mikhail as a gunshot rang out from one of the properties, then two more followed in rapid succession.

Heavy gates blocked the entrance and the steel fence surrounding the property had spikes that were meant to look decorative to a casual observer yet lethal to anyone thinking seriously of climbing it. She noticed a broken branch on the ground and looked up to see a security camera knocked out of alignment so that it focused away from the main gates and out to the Baltic. She tried the gates and was relieved to find them unlocked.

Her feet crunched on gravel and she quickly moved onto the grass verge, seeking out cover among the trees that skirted the driveway. She ducked from one to another holding the Czech pistol outstretched in both hands and angled towards the ground. The house, as she approached it, was three storeys with a light blue wooden façade and white shuttered windows. It looked more like a holiday home than a permanent residence and she wondered if that accounted for the silence in the rest of the street. At the entrance was a solid oak door with steps leading up to it and a pair of sculpted, stone tigers on either side – it was ajar.

As she entered the house, a squall brought a spray inside, soaking her shirt. The hallway was wide and tiled, with a staircase to the right. She saw three open doors: two to the left and one ahead. She jerked her head inside the first, seeing a Persian rug over stained floorboards and a black leather corner unit. There was no one there and she moved to the next, finding an empty dining room. Straight ahead, she saw wet footsteps on the floor and followed them to a kitchen: it was handmade and centred around a stove that was old and spotless. A large pan lay on a work surface filled with vinegar next to a row of empty pickling jars.

The kitchen led to an external door which was clattering in the wind. A woman lay face down on the garden path outside. She had tan tights and moccasin-style slippers, and wore yellow, rubber kitchen gloves on her hands. Natalya stopped to feel for the woman’s carotid pulse and observed a thick line of red, cauterised skin where a bullet had grazed her neck. Another two had left glistening holes in her sea-green cashmere top; they were three centimetres apart and had hit her from behind, the shooter targeting her heart. Natalya removed her fingers from the neck. The body was warm; there was no pulse.

Volkov cried out from one of the floors above her, his voice raging and anguished. She ran to the hallway, taking the stairs two at a time. At the first landing, she counted six rooms and stopped to listen. There was laboured breathing coming from the left and she drew closer to an open door. Next to the jamb, she saw an upturned wicker chair.