Tom Callaghan - A Summer Revenge

Being unable to raise my hand, I raised an eyebrow instead.

“That’s not what my boss says.”

Natasha gave me a look that said, You have no idea what you’re talking about.

“What have I stolen from Mikhail? Nothing but a few code numbers. You can’t arrest me—you’ve got no jurisdiction here. And I can’t imagine you want to talk to the Dubai police, particularly not when you’re in possession of a firearm. You can’t put me on trial in Bishkek because that would reveal how much Mikhail has salted away. And best of all, you can’t kill me because then he loses everything.”

It’s always hard to argue with a woman, especially if she’s holding a Makarov. I made a pathetic attempt at a reassuring smile and rattled the handcuffs against the bed frame.

“Why don’t we discuss this like grown-ups? Over coffee and aspirin next door?”

Natasha thought it over, gave a reluctant nod, fished the key out of her pocket, threw it to me. I caught it with my free hand, fumbled with the lock. Her eyes never left my face.

Natasha stood up and moved toward the door as I swung my legs off the mattress. I felt my muscles pull tight as I started to stand, heard my bones creak, my joints protest. I had to put my hand against the wall to steady myself, and the beating in my skull started a fresh rhythm, frantic, almost crazed. I knew I was in no shape to rush Natasha, get the gun from her, turn the tables. And besides, I wanted to know what exactly was going on.

I lurched into the other room, stumbled across the floor, flopped down on the ugly leather sofa.

“I don’t want you to think I’m a difficult guest,” I said, my eyes squinting at the glare from the balcony, “but I really need some water.”

“Wait there,” she said, went into the kitchen. I heard the fridge door open, the gurgle of bottled water, the clatter of ice. She placed the glass just out of my reach, sat down on a chair, held the gun on me. A cautious woman. I picked up the glass, sniffed the contents, looked over at her.

“Just water.”

“I should trust you?”

Natasha answered with a shrug, but the gun never left my face.

I took a sip, tasted nothing unusual, drained the glass, the cold stabbing at the backs of my eyes. My headache didn’t decide to go on holiday, but at least my tongue was no longer glued to my teeth.

“Tell me about Tynaliev’s memory stick.”

I could see the distrust in Natasha’s eyes, didn’t blame her. Dealing with the Minister for State Security made everyone cautious. Some people it made dead.

“Maybe I can broker some kind of deal between the two of you,” I said. “Get everyone out of this mess without too much blood.” I paused, trying to work out what was happening behind those impenetrable eyes, black opals flashing splinters of light.

“What have you got to lose?”

Natasha spoke, her voice as cold as the ice in my glass.

“Better you should ask yourself what you have to lose, Inspector. Winding up dead in a Dubai doorway isn’t going to advance your career. And you won’t be my first.”

I didn’t bother to tell her I was no longer on the police force, that I was now strictly little people. Any leverage you can get comes in useful at some point, and I didn’t want her to think no one would give a fuck if my brains were soaking into desert sand.

“Marko Atanasov, the Bulgarian guy, right?”

Natasha nodded. “Scum.”

“You really went to work on him. Who would have thought it of a shy young thing like you, cutting him that way?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Natasha said, and I could see she was puzzled, perhaps a little afraid.

“He was sliced and diced like a sausage. His room had more bits and pieces of flesh on the floor than a Tajik butcher’s shop. No eyes, so he couldn’t see. No ears, so he couldn’t hear. No tongue… Well, you get the idea.”

Natasha stared at me, a mix of anger and bewilderment apparent on her face.

“I shot him, yes—he deserved it, you don’t know the way he treated his girls—but I wouldn’t touch his body, let alone mutilate it; why would I?”

“I suppose you didn’t write SVINYA on the wall either? In glorious scarlet letters?”

“Not a bad description. And a pretty fitting epitaph. But no, I went to see him in his pigsty of an apartment, told him what a shit he was, put two shots into him, then went home and slept like a baby.”

I didn’t believe the last part; taking a human life is a different kind of lullaby. The faces of the dead, of the people I’ve killed, come and visit me in the night, watching from the foot of the bed as I sweat and toss and moan. You never stop seeing them—in the patterns of leaves against a sky, in the reflection of a shop window, in the ripples spreading out on a river. I was sure that Natasha hadn’t enjoyed her beauty sleep that night. But I admire bravado, even when I can see through it. And when people start to brag and boast, they usually let slip more than they intend.

“How did Atanasov get mixed up in all this? I’m sure you weren’t auditioning for a place in his stable. The chance to be a purse or a punchbag, depending on the night’s takings.”

Natasha looked at me, obviously wondering how I’d risen to the dizzying heights of inspector.

“You may not believe it, but even prostitutes stick together and look out for each other when they’re in trouble and in a foreign country.”

“The sisterhood of sin?” I suggested and got a sour look in reply.

“When I arrived in Dubai, I knew that the best place to hide would be with other Kyrgyz women. And where is that likely to be? In a bar with a bunch of working girls who don’t trust men and who close ranks whenever one comes asking questions.”

She paused, tapped a manicured nail on the handcuffs.

“If you men only knew how much we hate you, despise you. Much more than we fear you. If we had our way, you’d all be wearing chains around your necks.”

I wasn’t going to enter into a debate; there wasn’t time to discuss something that wasn’t going to change very soon.

“So you weren’t in the bar to earn—” I began.

“I was a minister’s mistress, not some piece of street meat. Mikhail gave me an allowance every month that was more than you earn in a decade. Why would I want to haggle with a curry-stinking drunk over three hundred dirhams? No, it was a disguise.”

“Staying hidden by being in plain sight?”

“I hoped that if I waited long enough, you might say something intelligent, Inspector. Perhaps that was it.”

I couldn’t be bothered to start a duel of snappy one-liners; we weren’t in some hard-boiled movie with an unhappy ending guaranteed. It was time to move on.

“So why did you bring me back here, if you’re not on the game?”

“I’m not a whore. But that doesn’t mean I don’t need money. You’ll have discovered for yourself that Dubai’s expensive.”

“So why did you kill Atanasov?”

Natasha paused, set fire to another cigarette, blew smoke at the ceiling.

“One thing you don’t realize when you decide to go on the run is, you never know who to trust.”

I said nothing, watched gray ash lengthen.

“I had the memory stick, but I needed to get the information from it. And I’m no computer expert. I needed to dump the information—the account numbers, the passwords, the access codes—somewhere it couldn’t be found by anyone else.”

“And you asked Atanasov to help?”

Natasha heard the disbelief in my voice, shook her head, stubbed out the cigarette.

“Bulgarians are some of the best hackers in the world, Inspector. They can strip every secret of your life and put it out on the net for the world to discover. And I met a young Bulgarian guy the second time I went into the Vista Bar.”