Tom Callaghan - A Summer Revenge

He gave a smile that told me he’d witnessed women being interrogated before. A cigarette burn on the breast perhaps, the threat of rape or the kiss of a razor down both cheeks. The smile also told me he’d enjoyed it, maybe carried out the torture himself.

I didn’t speak, stared at him, gaze unwavering, waited for my silence to unnerve him. Kulayev looked puzzled, then uncertain. It’s the oldest technique in the Murder Squad handbook, but it almost always produces results.

“She won’t be coming back to Kyrgyzstan with me,” I said finally, “if you understand what I mean.”

I waited to see if he’d take the bait I’d offered him. Sometimes misdirection can set you in the right direction.

“She’s dead? You’ve killed her?” Kulayev asked and rolled his eyes in despair at my stupidity. “A murder in Dubai, with CCTV cameras everywhere? Are you crazy? A diplomatic passport won’t get you out of shit like that.”

“Why’s it so important to you that she’s alive?” I asked.

“Well, no reason… but why bring down the heat on us? On me? I live here, remember?”

“I’ll ask again. Why do you need her alive and talking, rather than dumped under a sand dune ten kilometers into the desert?”

I could see the wheels behind his eyes spinning. He was good, but I’m better.

He finally said, “The minister asked me to find out some other information from her. Not part of your brief, so no need for you to know.”

“Shame,” I said. “Tynaliev doesn’t take kindly to people letting him down. But you probably already know that.”

It was time to give Kulayev a glimpse of the gun, a quick flash just to show him the future. A very uncertain future, and a short one.

I watch his face go pale as the small black eye of death stared at his face. I was beginning to enjoy myself.

“Maybe you can come back with me to Bishkek, explain to Tynaliev yourself.”

“He’ll be pissed off at both of us. You know that,” Kulayev said, a new whining tone in his voice.

I shook my head. “I’ve got what he wanted,” I said and tapped my shirt pocket. “Mission accomplished for me.”

Kulayev slumped in his chair, already foreseeing a painful and probably final meeting. His hand shook as he tried and failed to raise his coffee cup to his mouth. I gave him an encouraging smile. The sort a wolf might give to its prey.

“Relax. You’re not having a quiet discussion in the cellar at Sverdlovsky station. Yet. Maybe I can figure out a way to help you.”

I didn’t realize quite how wrong I could be.

It made sense to question Kulayev somewhere quiet, away from prying eyes, where an occasional yell or moan wouldn’t attract any attention. So I decided to head for the room I’d kept on at the Denver.

“We’re going to get in a taxi, close, like two long-lost brothers suddenly reunited,” I said, “just so we can have a little fact-sharing without being disturbed. But I should tell you that if you try anything that concerns me or makes me feel threatened, I’ll blow a hole in your spinal column you could put your fist through.”

Kulayev nodded so rapidly I thought his head would fall off.

“Ask for the bill. Politely.”

When the bill finally arrived, we made our way outside into the heat. The glare was dazzling, almost enough to blind you, and I was worried Kulayev might use that to make a move. But the memory of my gun pointed at him seemed to have dampened down any thoughts of escape.

At the Denver reception was manned by the same surly clerk who’d checked me in, and he paid just as much attention as before. My room hadn’t become any bigger either. I handcuffed Kulayev to the bed. Strangely, that seemed to reassure him, as if I was going to question him and then let him go, instead of just providing him with a bullet in the side of the head.

“Look, Inspector, there’s no need for all this. If that stupid bitch is dead, then you just get on a plane—I’ll even pay for business class. You wake up looking at Bishkek from thirty-five thousand feet, drop off the stuff and then go have a few vodkas to celebrate. That’s OK, right?”

I said nothing, just took out a fork that I’d liberated while waiting at the Dôme. I was sure they’d have a replacement.

It’s nothing short of amazing how quickly a simple household object like an iron or a toothpick or a fork can get you the information you want. Most of the time, the threat is enough to loosen the tightest tongue. Eyes, gums, nails, they all take on a terrible significance when the anticipation of pain becomes real enough.

I’ve been tortured myself: the scars on my hand I acquired during the Ekaterina Tynalieva case are always there to remind me, especially when the weather turns cold, which is about six months of the year in Bishkek. So I know about the helplessness, the urge to piss, the knowledge that nothing has ever felt this bad before. Now I wanted to share that knowledge with Kulayev.

I held up my hand in front of Kulayev’s face, the parallel scars vivid as if I’d drawn on my palm in reddish-brown ink, raised and hard as electrical wiring.

“You see this, Salman? I got this hunting down the killers of Ekaterina Tynalieva, the minister’s only daughter. So I know what it’s like to endure pain in the service of a cause. But I’m an inspector in the Murder Squad; I have to expect a few cuts and bruises on the job. But you…?”

I pushed one of the tines of the fork against his thumb, working the point under the nail, just so he could feel it pressing against the tender flesh.

“It sounds like a joke, doesn’t it? ‘He threatened me with a fork!’ But if you’ve felt cold sharp metal pressed against your eyeball while strong fingers hold your eyelid open, you don’t laugh, believe me.”

“I don’t know anything, believe me,” Kulayev said. I watched fat beads of greasy sweat trickle down his face, and I knew it wasn’t all due to the Denver’s atrocious air conditioning.

“How can you know that when you don’t know what I’m asking?” I said. I pushed a little harder with the fork.

“For God’s sake, you’re a cop!”

“Not in Dubai, I’m not, I’m just someone sent here to be played like an idiot, to get his nose rubbed in the shit. What do you want from Natasha Sulonbekova? Believe me, Salman, I’m not enjoying this, but I know someone who will.”

Maybe my hand slipped, or perhaps Kulayev moved. The whimper in his throat turned into a scream, and we both watched a red rose bloom under his fingernail.

“It’s to do with the money, isn’t it?” I asked, encouraging him to get started with his story.

“Only an idiot would believe Tynaliev’s bullshit about state secrets being stolen. Of course it’s about money. And when he told me to nursemaid you, it was obvious you were sent to hunt for it.”

“So what’s your plan for the money? New face, new passport, maybe sunning yourself on a beach somewhere warm?”

Kulayev nodded. Too eagerly, too soon. It’s the big mistake all liars make under questioning: give the answer they want to hear, and maybe they’ll stop.

I could feel the sweat pouring down my back, sluggish and warm. I knew I couldn’t keep the pressure up for much longer. Some people are born torturers; I can only pretend. I’ve never known whether that’s a disadvantage in my job, but it’s a personality flaw I’m happy to have.

“It’s strange to hear you say that, Salman. I hadn’t got you down as the live-in-luxury type. Certainly not when it comes to the whores you pick up in bars here. I had you as the idealistic type, a man who finds meaning in a crusade.”

I tapped the times of the fork against Kulayev’s right cheekbone, close enough to his eye to make him flinch. The handcuffs rattled against the bedpost like teeth chattering.