Tom Callaghan - An Autumn Hunting

‘Don’t fuck me about,’ the ment snarled. In that moment of clarity, I noticed one of his eye-teeth was missing; it gave him the look of an unpredictable dog debating whether or not to bite. ‘If we were going to do you, you’d have been roadkill an hour ago.’ His smile didn’t reassure. ‘No one’s going to hurt you,’ he added. ‘Unless we have to.’

He pushed the hotel door open, and I was thrust inside with all the dignity of a sack of winter coal being delivered.

The lobby was dark, the lights turned off, the hotel obviously commandeered for the day. Even the clock behind the reception desk had downed tools and gone to sleep. Tynaliev sat at a long low table, flanked by two more guards whose hands never strayed far from their weapons. He sipped at a cup of coffee, pulled a face at its bitterness, added three more sugar cubes. I stood there, waiting for him to speak, to shout, to give the order to hurt me.

‘You’re an arsehole, Inspector. But you already know that.’

Tynaliev never let anger and disappointment creep into his voice; he instilled so much fear he didn’t need to. The Kyrgyz people learnt that lesson during Stalin’s time, when people ‘disappeared’ and ended up tumbled together in a burial pit in Ata-Beyit. But there are times when you have to speak out, even if it costs you everything. And this was one of those times.

‘Minister, I respectfully suggest your bodyguards withdraw out of earshot. After all, it’s not as if I can do you any harm.’

I held up my handcuffed wrists, to prove my point. Tynaliev stared at me, assessing how much of a threat I could pose, before nodding at his guards. After a brisk yet thorough frisking, the guards walked outside, leaving the senior ment far enough away not to hear but still able to watch my every move.

‘You say I’m an arsehole, Minister. Very possibly – no, almost certainly – you’re right.’

Tynaliev said nothing, simply stared.

‘But then that makes two of us,’ I said. I knew the risk I was taking in insulting the minister, but I didn’t see any other way out of my situation. Buckle under, cave in, and I knew I wouldn’t be returning to Bishkek, unless it was to check into Hotel Usupov, rooms always available.

‘A rather dangerous conclusion to reach, wouldn’t you say?’ Tynaliev said, the menace in his voice silken and smooth.

I shrugged, gave a half-smile.

‘You’re not a man who lets his heart rule his head, Minister. I’ve been useful to you in the past, and from where I’m standing, I still am. But all this handcuffs and back of the van stuff, it doesn’t scare me or impress me. You either had me brought here to kill me or to brief me. And I can’t see you going to all this trouble just to put one in the back of my head.’

I paused, tried to control the shaking in my legs, the shaking in my voice. Tynaliev stared, shrugged in his turn.

‘You’re not important enough to kill, Inspector,’ he said, ‘but you’re what Lenin called a useful idiot. You have a certain number of skills I can use. After that…?’

It was his turn to shrug, then gesture to the guy who’d brought me in, made an unlocking motion with his fingers.

The ment wasn’t too happy with that, but no one profits from arguing with the Minister for State Security. He did as he was told, making sure he wrenched my arms as he took off the cuffs. I smiled at him, gave him one of those winks that hints at meeting in a dark alley when there’s no one around and time for payback. His scowl got a little darker as he stomped back to the door.

Tynaliev gestured at a nearby chair, watched as I dragged it over, a curious smile on his face.

‘You’ve got balls, Inspector, I’ll grant you that,’ he said. ‘There aren’t many people who’ve had the nerve to call me an arsehole.’ He paused, stared up at the ceiling. ‘In fact, I think you may be the only one. Still alive, that is.’

Tynaliev lit a cigarette, blew smoke over his shoulder, pushed the packet towards me as an afterthought. I shook my head, not wanting my hands to betray me.

‘I had you brought here so we can avoid inquisitive ears. I have my enemies, as you know. This is a secure place to brief you on your next mission.’

He paused, gave me the death stare.

‘If it leaks to anyone – the press, your friends, the man in the number 122 marshrutka , you can sleep easy, knowing that if the people I’m sending you up against don’t kill you, I will. Not quickly or painlessly either.’

He stubbed out his cigarette on the table top. I could smell the acrid fumes of the burnt varnish. I knew Tynaliev was serious as death.

For the next two hours, I listened as Tynaliev worked his way through a pack of cigarettes and most of a bottle of Kyrgyz Aragi. He knew me well enough not to offer me a shot. By the end, he was twenty-five per cent drunk and I was a hundred per cent horrified. The odds against me surviving even a couple of weeks under his plan were so slender I would have been better off walking down Chui Prospekt and jumping off the top of the Tsum shopping mall. Painful, but at least quick.

Finally, Tynaliev screwed up the empty cigarette pack and threw it over his shoulder, not caring where it landed as long as it was nowhere near him. Probably the same attitude he had towards me.

‘Well. What do you think?’ he asked.

‘Frankly?’ I said.

Tynaliev nodded.

‘It would be easier to shoot me now, save some time and a lot of money.’

‘That’s not the answer I want, Inspector,’ he said. ‘And…’

‘And it’s not as if I have a choice,’ I said, finishing his sentence. ‘Because you have the evidence that links me to the death of that paedo, Morton Graves.’

‘The murder of that wealthy, foreign, well-connected businessman, Morton Graves,’ Tynaliev corrected.

‘And if I don’t do what you want…’

Tynaliev nodded, gave another of his wolfish smiles.

‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘I’ll see Penitentiary One has a special welcoming committee for you.’

Tynaliev then surprised me by standing up and extending his hand towards me. I took it, felt my bones squeeze together under his grip. Middle-age and a desk hadn’t softened him any. They hadn’t softened his attitude either.

‘Look at it this way,’ he said. ‘You’re a widower, and no woman is going to take on an obvious candidate for a burial shroud. You get laid only when your Uzbek lady friend – probably an enemy of the Kyrgyz people, in case it had escaped your notice – decides she wants a quickie and can’t be bothered to find a real man. You live in a shitty apartment, you’ve got no friends, you’re broke. What have you got to live for that’s so special?’

Tynaliev let go of my hand and cracked his knuckles, the sound oddly loud in the room. I wondered how they would sound against my face.

‘This way, you have a bit of fun, spend some money, maybe even come back in one piece,’ he continued. ‘What’s a career in Bishkek Murder Squad compared to that?’

I could only nod my agreement, but couldn’t help wondering what Saltanat would make of my latest capitulation, for that was how she would see it.

‘Let’s head back into town,’ Tynaliev said. ‘Time you loosened up, moved on from mourning your wife. You should go and eat, even have a few drinks. I’ll introduce you to some very entertaining girls, if you like. Even you can’t live like a monk for ever.’

Eat, drink and fuck, I thought, for tomorrow I turn into fertiliser. It seemed a pathetic ending to a life where I’d at least tried to make a difference, to help the dead find some sort of peace in their graves, brought those responsible to justice, however flawed.