Tom Callaghan - An Autumn Hunting

‘Being impetuous will be the death of me,’ I said, and it was only partly a joke.

Zakir was helped out of the room, hurling me a glare that promised a slow and agonising death at some future meeting.

‘Don’t worry, he’ll be able to play football in a couple of days,’ I said. ‘If I’d really been impetuous, I’d have shattered his kneecap, then kicked his head from between his shoulders.’

‘That’s the problem when you hire people with muscles, not brains,’ Aliyev said. ‘By the time they’ve geared up for action, anyone with quick wits has already removed the problem.’

He stared at me, the sort of look you give when you’re trying to assess just how great a threat someone might be. When he finally spoke, his words came as much of a shock to me as my toecap had come to Zakir.

‘You’ve ended your career in law enforcement. Conclusively, I would have said. How would you feel about coming to work for me?’

When I finally spoke, I was as cautious as I’d ever been with Tynaliev at his most threatening.

‘I’m not good at taking orders. You know what happened to my last boss. I can be rash, impulsive.’

‘I prefer to describe it as decisive,’ Aliyev said. ‘Assessing the situation, making a decision, considering the consequences, carrying it out.’

Praise of a sort, at least if you live without any sense of loyalty or decency, and if your code of ethics is as basic as ‘feed on the weak’.

‘I wanted to ask you,’ Aliyev continued, ‘what made you shoot the minister? You’d worked for him long enough without pulling the trigger. Tired of being his puppet?’

His casual tone was deceptive, but I’d had the ride among the sheep shit in the truck to work out an answer. Now I was about to find out if it was credible.

‘Have you ever considered suicide, pakhan ?’ I asked. The question took Aliyev aback, but he shook his head.

‘If I’m going to die from a bullet – and I almost certainly am – I want it to be from someone else’s gun, not mine,’ Aliyev said.

‘Tynaliev wanted me involved in his crazy scheme, act as his go-between, his bodyguard, his patsy and his fall guy. I figured that gave me a career expectancy where I wouldn’t need to buy new shoes. I’d done a few things for the minister but they didn’t come with a guarantee of getting killed. But turning Tynaliev down wasn’t going to be a live and let live option either, not with what I knew of his plans. Killing him and going on the run seemed my best option. My only option.’

Aliyev nodded, as if what I’d said made sense, rather than the bullshit I knew it was.

‘Still a pretty big call, Inspector.’

‘I think it’s time we dropped my old job title, don’t you?’ I suggested.

‘I’ll keep it if you don’t mind,’ Aliyev said. ‘It will remind me of who you were, and, of course, to never underestimate you.’

I shrugged, as if I didn’t give a fuck one way or another. The past wasn’t going to complain. It was time to turn Aliyev’s attention away from me, give him something else to feel paranoid about.

‘Don’t you think…’ I started, then paused.

Aliyev raised an eyebrow. ‘Think what?’

I did my best to seem reluctant to speak.

‘We escaped the attack on the safe house. Now Zakir and I are never going to be best friends, but isn’t it a little surprising he managed to escape? Considering the amount of lead flying around?’

I let the barb sink in for a moment, knew Aliyev would consider possible scenarios.

‘Did anyone else survive? I haven’t seen anyone.’

‘I dare say Zakir can explain,’ Aliyev said, a flicker of doubt crossing his face.

‘I’m sure you’re right,’ I agreed, ‘but all the same…’

‘You’ll find clean clothes upstairs in your room,’ Aliyev said. ‘Third door on the right. You might want to wash off the sheep shit as well. And now, if you’ll excuse me, Inspector?’

Once Aliyev left the room, I’d done my best to set Zakir up for a beating, at the very least, but I couldn’t bring myself to feel any remorse. He made a lousy cup of tea.

I showered, changed into the army fatigues laid out for me, and lay down in the narrow bed to rest my eyes for a few moments. Resting them took rather longer, because my watch said I’d slept for five hours. I sat up, uncertain for a few seconds as to where I was. Then it came back to me: in the lion’s den.

I didn’t have an escape route; all I could do was wait and react to whatever happened. I wondered about food, decided hunger was preferable to nausea. And while I was putting on my shoes, the screaming started.

If you’ve ever heard an animal caught in a trap, that shriek of pain and fear, you’ll know how primal and terrifying it sounds. What made it worse was I could hear human sobs, a man’s voice begging to die.

I took the stairs two at a time, not because I wanted to join in, but because I wondered if it would be me doing the screaming next time.

I traced the noise to the kitchen, pushed open the door, entered into hell. Zakir knelt by the stove, pinned down by two bodyguards. Aliyev, wearing an oven glove on one hand, was heating a metal spoon in the flame from one of the front gas burners.

He turned and stared at me, gave a welcoming smile.

‘Did we wake you, Inspector? You’re just in time to help me prise the truth out of our friend.’

I looked down at Zakir, his face swollen, bloodied, burnt almost beyond recognition. My stomach lurched as I stared into the empty socket of his left eye, realised the piece of flesh stuck to the spoon in Aliyev’s hand had once been how Zakir saw the world.

‘Don’t worry, Inspector,’ Aliyev said, as if reading my thoughts. ‘He still has the other eye. For the moment. And he’s never been one for watching television anyway.’

I felt the vomit spill out of my throat, burning and unstoppable. I stumbled over to the sink, emptied my stomach, long, shaking, shuddering heaves that left me weak and disoriented.

‘I’m surprised, Inspector,’ Aliyev continued. ‘Surely Sverdlovsky basement hardened you to minor upsets such as this? I thought you might like to join in; after all, you could have died in the safe house along with my other men. Revenge doesn’t always have to be served cold.’

Aliyev held up the spoon to the light, brought it closer to his face, as if to check the heat of the red-hot metal. With a casual, almost careless flick of his wrist, he lightly brushed the spoon across Zakir’s cheek. The howl that followed was empty of any hope, simply begging for a swift end. Zakir’s cheek blossomed with the red of a burn.

‘For fuck’s sake, Aliyev,’ I said.

‘I want to find out how this piece of shit got out alive. It also sets a good example to the others, reminds them how I reward disloyalty.’

Aliyev stared at me, then dipped the spoon back into the flame.

‘You’re in vorovskoi mir now, the thieves’ world. And I’m vor v zakone , the boss. Which means it’s my duty to uphold our rules, just as you upheld those of the world you once belonged in.’

Aliyev brought the spoon close to his mouth, spat. Saliva hissed and bubbled on the metal the way flesh sticks and burns.

‘But you don’t belong there any more, not after shooting your boss,’ he said. ‘You’re in my world now.’

I kept my face impassive. Nothing could help Zakir now.

Aliyev waved away the men holding Zakir, who fell to the floor, barely conscious as I watched a puddle of blood spread beneath his head.

‘Our friend tells me he simply pretended to be dead, lay among the bodies of his comrades, waited until the attackers had gone. Then he made his way to the road, caught a ride, turned up here just before you and I arrived.’