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

The damned dough was under her fingernails. ‘What is it?’

Anton put the roses next to the bottle then went to the hallway to retrieve the small rucksack he seemed to live out of – he revelled in his status as a nomad.

‘I’ve got it here.’ Anton unzipped a side pouch and pulled out a creased envelope then held it an equal distance between them as if to maintain his neutrality.

Mikhail immediately snatched the envelope and tore it open. ‘Shit,’ he said after scanning the letter inside.

‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘Assuming I’m still part of the family.’

Mikhail scowled. ‘It’s from Professor Litovkin, the Head of Admissions.’

He was quiet as he read. ‘To paraphrase, he is informing us that Anton Mikhailovich Ivanov is not academic material.’

Natalya frowned and stared at the pelmeni dumplings that would need another hour of preparation. She took the paper from Mikhail. ‘I thought you had fixed it?’

Anton looked embarrassed. ‘It doesn’t matter Natalya, I can find a job. I don’t have to go university.’

‘I’m talking to your father.’

‘I thought I had done it,’ Mikhail said quietly.

‘What’s this about?’ Anton asked.

‘What do you think?’ She put the paper on a worktop and took a knife from the drawer to scrape under her fingernails. ‘You’re old enough to be conscripted. The only way you can stay out is if you get an exemption certificate; that means you have to be medically unfit or at university. You’ve heard of dedovshchina, right?’

‘Sure, the Rule of Grandfathers, I heard that doesn’t happen any more.’

‘Yes it does. You could be beaten to death, raped, or pimped out by the older soldiers.’

‘It’s not so bad.’ Mikhail put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it affectionately. ‘I did it.’

She shook his hand off. ‘You want to try telling Anton some of your war stories?’ She shook her head in wonderment that he’d even brought up the subject. ‘You were in Chechnya for Christ’s sake, it’s a wonder you came back alive.’

‘It’s different now.’

‘Right? So you can promise me he won’t get sent to Donetsk, South Ossetia, Syria, or some other place we shouldn’t be in. And what if something else starts? Every time the President’s popularity falls—’

‘Natalya, it won’t happen.’ Anton’s head flicked between the two of them.

‘It wasn’t supposed to happen. Your father was meant to be fixing it.’

‘What are you saying?’

She looked at Mikhail and he shrugged – permission to continue. She wiped dough from the knife onto a piece of kitchen roll. ‘Do you remember when you had that fever last year and the doctor saw you straight away?’

Anton ran a hand over his semi-shaved hair. ‘Yeah, but what’s this got to do with—’

Mikhail jumped in. ‘Natalya paid that dried-up bitch of a receptionist eight hundred roubles to jump the queue, that’s what.’

‘Nice language,’ she said.

‘Sorry, Angel.’ He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.

‘So you’re taking driving lessons now.’ Mikhail swigged on the Ochakovo. ‘If I don’t pay the examiner he’ll fail you no matter how many times you take it. But if I slip him ten thousand, he’ll pass you even if you’ve never been inside a car.’

‘Yeah I know this.’

She scraped the knife under another fingernail. ‘And you can be as smart as Andrei Sakharov but you won’t get into university without your father opening his wallet.’

‘So?’

‘So’ – she glared at Mikhail – ‘your letter means someone forgot to pay them. Incidentally, you ought to be more grateful. Your father bought your entrance exam results too. It cost him fifteen thousand roubles. Your real grades wouldn’t get you into a state orphanage.’

Anton looked dejected. ‘I told you, it doesn’t matter. I’ll get a job.’

‘Then you’ll end up in the army. At least they won’t have to cut your hair.’

‘They won’t find me.’

Mikhail’s fist gripped the edge of the table. ‘Are you going to hide until you’re twenty-nine? Don’t be stupid.’

Anton looked stung. ‘All right, then there are other ways.’

Natalya looked at the dumpling dough. It was getting warm; soon it would stick to the mould then turn to mush when she dropped the pelmeni in boiling water.

Mikhail opened the fridge and reached for a second bottle of Ochakovo. ‘No son of mine is going into a lunatic asylum. People will think you’re crazy.’ He picked up the creased letter and waved it. ‘I’m sure this Professor Litovkin is just telling us we’re late with the payment.’ He frowned, showing uncertainty. ‘And if not, there are places.’

‘We’re not going through that again, Misha.’ She finished scraping dough from under her nails and dropped the knife in the sink. ‘It took us weeks to set up a meeting with Litovkin.’

‘OK, OK. Leave it with me, I’ll check my accounts but I’m sure I paid the money-grabbing bastard.’

Natalya picked up the pelmeni mould and strode towards the pedal bin; she pressed the foot lever to open the lid then tipped the dough inside. She let the lid fall with a clang. Mikhail and Anton looked relieved and she hated them for it.

She awoke to Mikhail’s crushing weight; his armpit hairs irritating her nose. He was stretched over her diagonally, talking to someone on her mobile.

‘No, this is Major Ivanov. Just give me the address, I’ll pass it on. She’ll be there.’

He hung up. ‘For Christ’s sake, Natalya, answer your goddam phone next time.’

She pushed her hands underneath his girth to prise him off. ‘Misha, you’re squashing me.’

His crushing weight lifted as he rolled back; the tang of his armpit lingering in her nostrils. She checked the clock radio, it showed “07:08”. For a second she wondered why her alarm hadn’t gone off then she remembered, with a sinking feeling, that it was Saturday and she was on call.

‘Who was it?’

He turned his back on her. ‘Domestic. Some teenager in uniform from Vasilyevsky District; he’s waiting for you. The address is on the table.’

Mikhail had always been a lighter sleeper than her. She blamed it on his constant, low level drinking that made him get up several times in the night to urinate and left him tired until midday; yet another reason to stay childless – he would struggle with the demands of a newborn.

From the living room, the day looked bright and she decided on a peach blouse over dark blue jeans; something informal and feminine to narrow the distance between an official and a victim of domestic violence. As an afterthought she grabbed a brown leather jacket from her wardrobe. Whatever she chose, it seemed the city’s maritime climate always had other plans.

She climbed in her ancient Volvo and left Tsentralny – one of the four districts that formed the historic heart of the city. As she crossed the Palace Bridge to Vasilyevsky Island she had an unpleasant memory of being eighteen and getting permission to go out drinking with her friends for the first time. The bar had been on the island and she had decided to walk home, forgetting that all the bridges to the mainland transformed into drawbridges in the early hours of the morning. She had spent the night shivering in a doorway, shooing away drunks who tried to pick her up. It was almost seven when she made it home, her mother adding to her misery by grounding her for a fortnight. Every kitchen noticeboard in the city had the bridge timetable pinned to it but after a few drinks it was easy enough to forget.

It was a little before 8 a.m. when she parked on Sredny Prospekt. The sky was still clear and she locked her jacket in the car boot before checking the address on the slip of paper Mikhail had given her. She hadn’t needed to: a uniformed ment was waiting conspicuously outside the entrance to an apartment block. On closer inspection, he looked a year or two older than Anton except he had a hardness in his eyes and she wondered momentarily if it had come from military service, a tough childhood, or more likely, both. The policeman had been smoking a cigarette; he tossed it to the pavement and ground it out with his shoe when she stopped at the main door.