Tom Callaghan - An Autumn Hunting

‘You know who I’ll hurt if I don’t talk to him,’ I said, gave him the hard stare.

Using his body to hide the number he dialled, the barman listened for a moment, looked increasingly worried as the ringtone continued, finally whispered into the mouthpiece for a couple of moments, handed the phone to me.

‘Inspector.’

Aliyev’s voice was measured, precise, perhaps even a little amused.

‘ Pakhan ,’ I replied. We were obviously going to be formal.

‘Time to meet.’

‘Better sooner than later, don’t you think?’ I said, listened to the silence for thirty seconds.

‘You know Mr Quang is no longer in police custody?’ Aliyev asked.

‘Locks everywhere have a habit of springing open when you pick them with a big enough banknote.’

‘Of course, there are situations where no amount of money buys you a way out,’ Aliyev said. There it was. No veiled threats, no suggested alternatives. I knew he meant to kill me. And he knew I was intent on killing him.

‘One of my representatives in Bangkok has already discussed your visit with Quang. I regret to say he holds you responsible for the temporary loss of his liberty. Not to mention the damage to his villa, the kilos of product that were seized and then “disappeared”. The death of his “friend” whose reappearance in a basket at a Bangkok laundry created quite a stir. Oh, and he seemed particularly angry that the Cambodian government is taking steps to recover a sculpture stolen from Angkor Wat. They’re also threatening to extradite his father for the theft.’

‘No point in telling him I’m not to blame,’ I said.

‘No point at all,’ Aliyev agreed. ‘In fact, he’s offered me a substantial reward if I can manage your return to Bangkok.’

‘Drugged and in a packing case, I suppose.’

‘It may have to be something uncomfortable and disagreeable like that,’ Aliyev said, ‘but then again, not as disagreeable as you staying here.’

I looked around the bar in all its cheap, shabby decay. Chipped Formica tables decorated with beer rings and scarred by cigarette burns. Mysterious stains on the threadbare carpeting. A subtle hint of vomit mingling with the scent of piss from the toilets. I didn’t think I’d miss the Kulturny, except it was a place I’d known for many years, and the familiar becomes more significant when you sense you’re approaching your death.

‘Inspector, are you still there?’

‘Yes,’ I replied, feeling the solid weight of the gun at my belt, the vodka bottle in my pocket, ‘I’m still here.’

‘Then I suggest we meet at—’

‘No, I’ll say where and when,’ I interrupted. ‘And I don’t want you bringing that troupe of badly trained halfwits you call your men along.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ Aliyev said, and I could almost believe he felt affronted. ‘Where do you suggest, Inspector? Somewhere public, I imagine. Of course, your Uzbek lady friend isn’t invited; I’m sure you understand.’

‘She’s left the country,’ I said.

‘Really? Well, a woman like that, she was never going to hitch her wagon to a loser like you, was she?’

‘That sounds pretty accurate,’ I said, left it at that, wondered for a moment if he might be right.

‘You always think you know who your friends are, Inspector, until you look around and discover you don’t have any.’

‘That’s a terrible thought, pakhan .’

‘It’s the way of the world. A lesson I learnt very early on.’

‘You went to the wrong kind of school,’ I said. Aliyev merely laughed.

‘I’m the one with several million dollars in my bank account, Inspector. I’m not even sure you can afford to pay for the bottle of vodka you’ve just bought. Tell the barman to put it on my bill.’

‘Maybe we’ll share a toast. To old friends. If we had any,’ I said.

‘Where do you propose we meet?’

Voice smooth as Thai silk, a shark homing in for the kill.

‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ I said. ‘Not in the city, too many people, we don’t want anyone to get hurt.’

‘The furthest thing from my mind,’ Aliyev lied.

‘Late afternoon, say four o’clock.’

‘ Da , but where?’

‘I’ll meet you tomorrow, at the grave of our fathers,’ I said and put down the phone.

I spent the early part of the morning at the lock-up I keep on the city outskirts, away from prying eyes, people who might disapprove of a serving police officer having a stash of fake passports, unauthorised weaponry, dollars, euros and roubles. Nothing unusual; I’d be surprised if most of my colleagues didn’t have a similar arrangement. Governments change or are overthrown, politicians rise and fall, and it’s always best to be prepared for a sudden change in your circumstances.

I filled a black plastic carry-all, the sort gym freaks like to be seen with, locked up, looked around for a car to borrow. Technically, I was going to steal it, but since I had no intention of joyriding it to destruction or torching it for kicks, I preferred to think of it as a temporary loan.

I wanted an older model, something unmemorable and reliable. Newer cars are much harder to hot-wire, expensive cars get noticed. After several blocks I found it, a four-door Lada 1200 sedan that looked as if it had been driven three times around the world. The doors were locked, of course – no one in Kyrgyzstan is stupid enough to leave anything unlocked unless it’s been nailed down – but it wasn’t hard to smash the quarter light. Two minutes later, I was on my way, looking in the rear-view mirror to make sure I hadn’t been spotted.

In the summer, driving up to Chong-Tash is very pleasant once you’re out of the city. Fresh air drifting down from the mountains, passing through villages where excited dogs chase after your car and the local babushki sell buckets of plums, apples and cherries by the roadside. But that’s in the summer.

By autumn, the mist clings to the hillsides and haunts the fields, the day darkens earlier, and the mountains take on a menacing look. The villages are empty with only an occasional light shining through net curtains to show the place is inhabited. We’re Kyrgyz; we know winter is creeping up on us, stalking us as if we were its prey. Perhaps we are.

Ata-Beyit, Grave of our Fathers in Kyrgyz, is a memorial ground thirty kilometres south of Bishkek, near Chong-Tash. Every few months I go there, listen to the wind blowing from across nearby fields, watch tree branches shiver and their leaves tremble.

In the 1930s, almost a hundred and forty political figures and intellectuals were ‘purged’ by the Soviet NKVD as ‘enemies of the people’, shot at night, bodies dumped in a brick kiln. Shamefully, the massacre only came to light when the USSR collapsed and the bodies were moved to a mass grave by Chingiz Aitmatov, our most famous author and diplomat. His father was amongst the victims.

If that was all, Ata-Beyit would still be a melancholy place. But in 2010, during our second revolution since independence, waves of protests and demonstrations against corruption and nepotism flooded the country. Over forty protesters, mainly young men, were shot dead by government forces in Ala-Too Square.

It’s a day I would love to forget but cannot. Bullets tearing into flesh, blood from the dead a scarlet flood spilt on the road, the screams of the wounded, smoke from burning cars throwing a black pall over everything. Seeing the bodies stacked in the morgue like so much firewood as their families wept and begged for news was the worst day of my career, the day I realised the dead must always be avenged.

Many of those who died on that day are buried at Ata-Beyit, a reminder of the price we’ve paid for democracy. They lie in a separate graveyard, two rows of identical black marble stones, each one showing a name, dates and sometimes an engraved likeness of a face.