Stephan Collishaw - Amber

‘Things went wrong when we crossed the brook, coming down from Ghazis. The mine was supposed to be detonated as the last two vehicles entered the water. That way there would be the least casualties. Hashim promised that any of our soldiers captured would be released without harm. But then things fucked up. The mine detonated too early. It all got confused.

‘And then there you were, racing back across the brook into the thick of the fight. Vassily and I were trying to organise a retreat, Zhuralev had taken a bullet and you were heading back into the shooting.

‘What a mess,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘When we had regained control of the situation, you were missing. Vassily went off looking for you. They found you at the side of the road, a little girl in your arms. Ten were killed, and fifteen wounded. Vassily brought you back raving. Physically you weren’t in bad shape although your arms were burnt, but you were a fucking mess up here.’ He tapped his skull.

‘An investigation was launched into the whole fuckup. Intelligence wouldn’t have come up with anything if Kolya hadn’t squealed. We were convicted for trading Soviet army goods.

‘We were taken to the Pol-e-Tcharkhi prison. It was a fortress◦– the walls were so thick you could drive a car along the top of them.’ Kirov nodded at Kolya. ‘This little shit paid someone inside to finish me off. It wasn’t difficult. There were continual fights inside◦– knives, boiling water. There were killers who would do it for a dollar or two.

‘But he did a bad job and I went after him. For that I was given another five years on my sentence and transferred to a maximum-security prison.

‘When I got out six months ago, I wrote to Zinotis and he let me know the bracelet hadn’t been sold. Vassily, it seems, went a little crazy too, after Ghazis. Flagellating himself like some fucking Catholic monk. He was looking after you and refused to talk about the bracelet. Zinotis had stayed in touch with Vassily, but had heard nothing of Kolya. I tracked down some old vets, but nobody had heard anything about him. Somebody thought they’d heard he’d died of an overdose, years back. Then a few weeks ago Zinotis wrote to say he had seen Kolya in Vilnius.

‘When I got here last week, I couldn’t trace him. I went to see Vassily, but he told me fuck all. He was dying, of course, so when I threatened to kill him, he just laughed.’

Kirov grinned, as if amused by Vassily’s attitude.

‘I kept an eye on you, after I visited you at the workshop. Zinotis got very excited after you visited him, so I kept my eye on him too. When I caught up with him a couple of hours ago, he was at an apartment up behind the railway station. He seemed to think Vassily had sent Kolya instructions on how to find the bracelet. He could find nothing in the apartment.’

‘It was Zinotis?’ I exclaimed, astonished. ‘I don’t believe it. You’re telling me he trashed Kolya’s apartment? Beat the woman? Professor Zinotis?’

Kirov nodded and chuckled. ‘You didn’t think he was capable?’

‘I don’t believe any of this, Kirov. I knew Vassily, I talked to Zinotis… I know what they were capable of.’

‘Do you?’ he asked pleasantly. ‘And you, Antanas? Did you know what you were capable of? Did you know you were able to do what you did? Does your wife know what happened to those children? Will you tell your child when she is older? None of us are the people we seem, Antanas, you should know that. Afghanistan did that to us.’

An icy tremor ran down my spine. Your child. She. Had Kirov been watching Laura? What did he know?

‘We are capable of anything,’ Kirov continued. ‘We hide it from the world, pretend we are like normal people, but slowly the knowledge of our history poisons us. Zinotis was just better at hiding it than most. He was a slippery bastard.’

‘Kirov,’ I said, my voice tight with fear and fury. ‘If you should do anything…’

Kirov brushed my words aside with a flick of his hand and a nod. He had not finished.

‘Zinotis wanted to do a deal with me, but as he hadn’t bothered to tell me what you had told him about the bracelet, I could see he wasn’t to be trusted.’

He raised his right thumb to his lips and licked it. His tongue was fatly red, disgusting. I noticed the thin cut down the soft pad of his thumb. Remembered it.

‘When I slit his throat, he moaned like a girl.’ Kirov spat out into the darkness, as if repelled by Zinotis’s fear in the face of death.

‘Back in Afghanistan not one muj I killed showed any fear◦– not even the boys.’ He laughed then. ‘When you come back to the apartment, you almost tripped over his body in the darkness. What? Don’t look so disgusted◦– we are all the same, you, Vassily, me◦– we are no different.’

I opened my mouth, but found that no words would come out. I gaped, the blackened little bodies of the children twisting in the darkness before me. The thought of Laura.

Kirov paused for a moment, as if appreciating the effect his words had on me, playing with me, then he turned and addressed Kolya. ‘And now, at last, I have found you,’ he said. ‘And the bracelet.’

His voice was quiet, but menacing. He moved towards Kolya. A single, sharp retort cracked open the night. The sound echoed from the walls of the houses on the hill, waking the dogs, and hummed down the metal rails of the bridge. Kirov gasped and stepped backwards. Trembling, Kolya raised the pistol and fired a second shot that sent Kirov tumbling. His head hit the railings and bounced off. As he lay sprawled across the concrete, his arms flailed in a puddle.

‘Fuck,’ I gasped. ‘Kolya!’

Kolya said nothing. He stood shaking, the Makarov hanging loosely in his hand by his side. The metal box had fallen from his grip and opened on the bridge, disgorging its contents.

For some few seconds after he had fallen, Kirov’s arms splashed feebly in the dirty puddle. I knelt beside him. The two shots had both entered his chest. He had been dead in a matter of moments. As the juddering subsided, the slight breeze lifted his hair, giving him an air of animation still. His neck was twisted awkwardly against the rusted metal railings.

Along with the sharp retort of the Makarov, his words echoed in my head, ‘We are all the same… no different.’ I shuddered. We are the same. No, I thought, no, Kirov, not the same.

Instinctively my fingers reached out to feel for his pulse, but I drew them back, unable to touch him. ‘Not the same,’ I whispered. And I thought of Laura and how much I loved her and needed her. The horror that had stopped my heart, as the bullets flung him back, dissipated then, leaving me suddenly calm. He’s gone, I thought, and felt no pity.

‘He’s gone,’ I said to Kolya. ‘You killed him.’ Kolya knelt beside me. In the light of the street lamp his face looked pale and waxy.

‘We’ll push him over the railings,’ he said. ‘Into the river.’

Kirov was heavy and awkward to handle. As we hoisted him up, his head lolled backwards and cracked hard against the top of the railings. Ridiculously, I winced and lifted him more carefully. The dogs continued to bark in the houses on the hill and I was afraid somebody would come out to investigate.

We settled the body on the waist-high railing. For a moment he teetered there, the look of surprise frozen on his face. And then gravity did its work, dragging his body down. It broke through the surface with a heavy splash but in the poor light it seemed for a moment that he had not submerged. His dark shape hung on the water, moving fast with the strong downriver current. As it passed across the glittering discs of reflected street lamps, though, it became evident that it was his coat which was sailing away towards the city. Of Kirov there was no sign.