Tom Callaghan - An Autumn Hunting

Sovetskaya was already busy, cars, trolleybuses and marshrutki minibuses battling it out for space on the roads. The pavements were beginning to fill with young women taking advantage of the last of the summer to show off their figures in short dresses and knee-length boots. But the bright summer days were turning to the muted shades of autumn, and the air would soon be as cold and heartless as the corpses in Usupov’s morgue.

There was something off about the woman’s death, a hint that didn’t tally with the average overdose. It nagged at me, something glimpsed in the corner of my eye for a split second. But it wasn’t my case any more, and I had other problems to obsess over, namely my career translation into drug dealer, mafia hood and common criminal.

Maybe this was Tynaliev’s way of dealing with the troublesome problem called Akyl Borubaev. No one would investigate if a corrupt police inspector didn’t survive a prison sentence locked up with the people he’d put there.

I had no illusions about how long I’d last in Penitentiary One. If I made it until the gruel and stale bread they call dinner, I’d be very surprised. Even if some all-powerful pakhan boss inside was looking out for me and providing protection, a torpedo , a killer looking to make a name for themselves, would have been paid enough to melt a toothbrush handle, embed a razorblade into the plastic. A single slash across my neck and I’d bleed out before help could arrive.

I walked virtually the length of Sovetskaya, turned right onto Toktogul. This close to the city centre, the shops were smarter, a lot more expensive. Many of them even wore English names to show their sophistication and elegance of style. I didn’t bother window-shopping; there was nothing I wanted to buy, even if I could have afforded it.

Finally I reached Ibraimova, known as Pravda during Soviet times. It had always amused Chinara that a Murder Squad inspector had found himself living on a street named Truth. She’d claimed it was wishful thinking on my part. Privately, I’d always hoped it was true.

Down the street, I could see the two circular hemispheres of the municipal banya , the bathhouse where you could get everything from a scalding shower and a choice of steam rooms to a brutal massage and a vigorous beating with birch twigs to help the circulation.

I’d avoided the banya ever since I’d drowned an assassin sent there to kill me. It hadn’t exactly been a fair fight because he wore a plaster cast on his hand, thanks to the earlier encounter we’d enjoyed. That had evened things up a little. I’d watched his body sink to the bottom of the ice-cold pool, thankful he was dead, guilty I’d done nothing to help him in the moment when his anger turned to terror as the water flooded his lungs.

I may be paranoid but it made sense to stay away from the scene of the crime, in case my presence triggered someone’s memory and they ran through the exterior CCTV tapes once more.

I didn’t think it was likely. So it came as a surprise when they picked me up as I was outside the entrance to my apartment building, activating the electronic door chip.

They were good; they had me bundled into an unmarked, windowless van before I’d had time to protest or throw a punch. No uniforms, but you can’t disguise that flat-faced impassive stare. It wasn’t the first time I’d ridden in a police wagon, but never wearing handcuffs before, one cuff on my wrist, the other locked onto a steel D-ring set into the bare metal seat. I didn’t know either of the officers who sat on my right and left; the senior ment sat opposite and practised his most terrifying stare. I was meant to feel intimidated.

The air was thick with the sweet perfume of piss and sweat, with an underlying note of puke inadequately hosed out at the end of each shift. Perhaps it got the passengers prepared for the stink of the cells.

I fumbled for my cigarettes, awkwardly reaching over for my pocket because of the handcuff on my wrist. The ment opposite shook his head. ‘ Ne kurit ,’ he said, and emphasised the point by lighting up himself and blowing the smoke in my face. I wasn’t sure which smelt worse – the cheap nicotine or his sour breath. Sometimes the clichés are so great you have to smile, but you keep the grin to yourself in case the arresting officer decides you’re laughing at him, takes offence. That’s usually when all grinning stops.

‘Sverdlovsky, I suppose?’ I said, not expecting an answer. Sverdlovsky station is where the soundproof basement works wonders in solving cases, usually with the guilty party confessing to whatever’s on the table. It’s not always easy to understand what they’re saying, due to splintered teeth, split lips, dislocated jaws. Broken fingers don’t make it easy to sign statements either. But everyone agrees it’s a very effective way of bringing down the crime rate.

I glanced at my watch, which had rather inconveniently stopped. I’d been in the van for three or four hours, yet the watch lied and said less than ten minutes. But even ten minutes should have been more than enough time to get to Sverdlovsky station; we were going somewhere else. I shut my mind to the possibility we going to pull up in a side road between Bishkek and Tokmok, where an unploughed field would have an Akyl-sized hole waiting to be filled. Better to assume I was currently too useful to be disposed of.

Either we’d left a main road or the potholes had got a great deal deeper, because the van began to bounce and veer from side to side. With my wrist held tight by the cuffs, and with no way of bracing myself against the shocks, my back would look as if I’d been worked over by experts. Assuming that wasn’t about to happen anyway.

Finally, the van stopped, the driver’s door opened, a fist pounded against the back. The sunlight dazzled me for a few seconds, as the cuff attached to the D-ring was opened, snapped on my other wrist. At least my hands were in front of me, so I was able to balance myself as I was pushed into the open air.

I recognised where we were straight away: in Ala-Archa National Park, up in the start of the Tien Shan mountains, some forty kilometres south of Bishkek. We were at the point of the gorge where the road runs out and the backpacking trails begin, parked outside the area’s only hotel, a curious building shaped like an inverted V. Whoever built it obviously liked the look of the Alpine hotels in Switzerland and had tried to replicate them without spending any money. The exterior looked worn and shabby, with an air of having tried and given up. I felt pretty much the same.

At this altitude, the air felt thin and crisp, even though the sun burnt down on us, the metal of the van’s sides warm to the touch. Two months later, and the first snows would have already started to make the journey longer and more difficult, and by the end of the year, the hotel would have closed until the spring, its staff back in their home villages.

I was relieved we weren’t parked outside the back entrance to Sverdlovsky station, but that didn’t mean my troubles were over. You can torture someone anywhere, and it doesn’t take much equipment to get results. A pair of pliers, a sliver of wood, a plastic bucket half-full of water: use those and you’ll get the answers you want. It only depends on what you’re prepared to do to get them. And permanently disposing of a problem is even easier. The only hard bit is getting rid of the body.

The senior ment jerked his head towards the hotel. His two sidekicks each seized an arm, led me to the front door. I wondered about trying to break free and head for the treeline, dismissed the idea. You can’t outrun a bullet. It struck me that perhaps these weren’t policemen at all, that I was stumbling towards my execution. A wave of fear tugged at my belly – no one wants to be shot with their trousers full of shit and terror. I must have tried to pull back, because the two men tightened their grip, started to drag me forward. Once I would have welcomed the prospect of dying, ending the grief caused by Chinara’s cancer. But you move on, live with loss the way you survive with a missing limb, the absence of an eye. And at that moment, nothing had ever smelt as fresh and sweet and alive as the cold air sweeping down from the mountain.