Tom Callaghan - An Autumn Hunting

Inside, massive windows light up the floor, while overhead, intricate paintings weave an elaborate design around a single silver six-pointed star. The walls are splendid with painted bas-relief plasterwork, as if modelled upon Tsarskoe Selo, the Catherine Palace outside St Petersburg. In another life, the room could have been a grand ballroom, a string quartet high above in the gallery, aristocratic ladies and gentlemen dancing a minuet. Now, in place of violins and violas, the gallery houses a neon timetable board showing the times of the few trains that visit here.

The grandeur of the interior is rather let down by rows of those uncomfortable metal seats you find in airports everywhere if you can’t afford to visit the business lounge. Under the high interior, the benches are grouped together in one corner, huddled together as if for warmth. Like so many of the buildings of that era, it looks impressive at first sight, before you notice the peeling paint, the half-hearted repair jobs, the corners where decades of dirt and dust lurk.

It wasn’t the starting point of a great journey. But I knew it was Saltanat’s best hope of getting out of Kyrgyzstan, with Aliyev’s men watching the airport and the border crossings into Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.

I gave her the last of the roubles from my lock-up so she had enough to bribe any border guards that showed too great an interest, held her hand as Usupov pulled up by the little park opposite the station entrance.

I kissed her on the cheek, felt her breast against my arm.

‘I booked you a four-berth compartment,’ I said, ‘so you’ll have all the privacy you want.’

I knew people would try to push their way into her compartment, pitied anyone foolish enough to try it. I wanted to catch Saltanat’s eye, but she looked away, unwilling to show her feelings.

‘Here’s to meeting in Moscow. I’ll text you when I’m on my way. Pay my respects to Vladimir.’

Saltanat got out of the car without saying anything, walked across the road to the ornate entrance. She didn’t look back. Right then, I wondered if I was making a catastrophic mistake, whether I should have been on the train with her, travelling towards a new future.

I watched her disappear into the entrance, tapped Usupov on the shoulder. He turned around to stare at me, puzzlement and pity plain in his face.

‘You’re letting her leave? Just like that?’

‘Just like that,’ I said. ‘Safer for her.’

Usupov shook his head, disbelieving. ‘You need your head examining.’

‘You’ll have to wait until I’m dead before you get the chance,’ I said as he drove back towards the city centre. But being on Usupov’s slab in the near future seemed a distinct possibility.

He dropped me at the top end of Ibraimova, near the Blonder pub. I could walk back to my apartment from there, check if anyone was watching the building, maybe even manage a couple of hours’ sleep before contacting Aliyev. I had a very vague plan sketched out in my head, but plans have a habit of falling apart when bullets start slicing the air.

I crossed the footbridge near where I’d found the butchered body of Tynaliev’s daughter, his beloved Yekaterina. That felt like decades ago. No sign anything had ever happened there, the trees as indifferent to human suffering and death as always. Only a few faded scraps of police crime tape fluttered from the branches. As a rule, the murdered dead aren’t commemorated with a plaque; perhaps to do so would be to show the world how vile we are to each other. But I remember them, if that’s worth anything.

I passed a battered trash can, the sort that swivel over and turn upside down so they can be easily emptied. Someone had emptied it all right; the ground was patterned with crushed beer cans and an empty vodka bottle like a drunk’s carpet on a Sunday morning. Someone’s idea of an al fresco party, or a wake. I reached into my jacket and dropped the train ticket with my name on it into the trash can. I knew I wasn’t going to be travelling to Moscow.

And I was pretty sure I’d never see Saltanat again.

The one good thing about Bishkek apartments are the front doors. Solid steel, impregnable unless you can squeeze a battle tank up the narrow stairs. They’re fitted to keep burglars and other undesirables out; your apartment might be bare of everything but a bed and a kettle, but no one else can get inside unless you invite them.

Somehow I doubted Aliyev, with all his resources, could get hold of a T-90, so I could sleep for a while, drink tea and smoke while deciding what to do next.

The afternoon drifted towards dusk, grey skies holding back all but a little light that slithered in through the kitchen window. Elbows on the Formica table, I watched my cigarette smoke bloom in the air, surprised by the meaning and intensity my familiar surroundings took on with the approach of death.

I stubbed out my cigarette, shook the empty pack. It was time to make the call. The voice that answered showed no emotion at my request, merely ordered a time to meet. I put my phone down, remembered what Leonid Yurtaev, the Kyrgyz chess grand master had counselled: ‘When you reach the endgame, remember your opponent is looking to kill you. If your defence is poor, or your attack is weak, he will do so.’ I knew I was a mere pawn, but even a pawn can topple a king if the moment is right.

Tynaliev’s house was as imposing as ever, the security just as strict, the guards surly as always. I wondered if they were that way when the president made an unexpected visit, decided they probably were.

My Makarov locked away, I was led to the front of the house, where a guard tapped in the lock code and I was admitted into Tynaliev’s lair. The house was ferociously overheated, and I could feel sweat begin to form at my hairline. I told myself it was the heat, not fear.

After ten minutes of perspiration, the door to Tynaliev’s study opened and the minister appeared. He put out a hand, massive and calloused. I knew Tynaliev had killed people with his bare hands, but I took it just the same. It felt like trapping my hand under a steam hammer.

‘What?’

Tynaliev had never been a man to stand on ceremony, but this was terse, even for him.

‘I’m sorry to intrude, Minister, but there are just a couple of things to clear up with you. Then I’ll leave you in peace, I swear.’

Tynaliev took two steps forward, so we were face to face. I could smell the vodka and pickled cucumbers on his breath. His face was borscht-red and I wondered how long it would be before a stroke or a heart attack made his government post vacant. I couldn’t say the prospect depressed me, but perhaps better the corrupt, hard-liner psycho you know…

‘Get on with it,’ Tynaliev half-snarled, sitting down at his desk. I noticed the conveniently placed pistol, wondered how sharp the letter opener was if it came down to it.

‘I’d like to clarify my return to the police force,’ I said. ‘I’ve gone through a lot of shit, risked being shot by anyone and everyone, including my own side. Now it’s time for my rehabilitation, don’t you think?’

Tynaliev sat back in his chair.

‘If you think I’m going into a dark alley one night wondering whether I’m going to get shot in the front by a criminal or in the back by a cop who thinks I’m dirty, you don’t know me very well, Minister,’ I said.

‘So what do you want?’

‘A statement that says I was acting on your orders to help break a major crime syndicate, and I’ve been restored to my former post of Inspector, Murder Squad. Further details to follow in due course.’

‘Which, of course, they never will,’ Tynaliev said.

‘Which they never will,’ I agreed.