An Autumn Hunting Read online

  And some of us are aware of the dead who watch us from the shadows, hoping to see how we avenge them so they can sleep.

  Dead is dead.

  Except when it’s not.

  Chapter 38

  On the drive back to my hotel, I wondered how successful my pitch to Quang had been. Nothing concrete had been decided; Quang was obviously as cautious as Aliyev in his business dealings. But I felt certain we would reach some kind of agreement. The possible legalisation of yaa baa would have a major impact upon his profits and, by extension, on his ability to control law enforcement, the army, rival suppliers. That worked in our favour. On the other hand, removing access to the Russian market might seem like the first step in a takeover bid, which could only lead to war.

  The journey back took for ever, not just because I was impatient to contact Saltanat, but because we’d hit rush-hour traffic. I now realised traffic jams in Bangkok lasted around the clock, but this one seemed particularly slow. I even wondered about getting out and walking, but the thought of the heat and humidity made an air-conditioned limousine with leather seats my preferred option.

  Finally, we turned into Langsuan and back to the hotel. It was already getting dark, and I could see flocks of birds rising up and spiralling to find somewhere to roost in Lumpini Park. The idea that wildlife could survive, even thrive, in such an urban chaos was oddly reassuring.

  Back in my room, I retrieved the burner from its hiding place and switched it on. A single message, ‘Asia Books, Landmark Hotel, 20.00.’ Saltanat was nothing if not concise. I didn’t know whether she intended for us to meet there, but I only had an hour to get there. In reception, I spoke to the husky-voiced kathoey receptionist (I was beginning to recognise the telltale signs) who told me it was about three quarters of an hour away on Sukhumvit, if I was willing to walk. A taxi? Who knows, this time of night? The receptionist gave a sweet smile, apologising for being unable to be more helpful, told me I couldn’t miss the Landmark. Just follow the Skytrain overhead. I gave my thanks, pushed through the oversized doors and out into the night.

  I wondered about getting a tuk-tuk, one of the three-wheeled motorbikes with seating and a roof attached that hurtle through the city, decided I’d had enough excitement for one day.

  I strolled up Langsuan past the luxury condominium blocks and building sites towards Chit Lom BTS station. I looked at the concrete stairs climbing up to the platform, saw the crowds heading towards the trains, and chose walking as preferable to being squashed to death.

  It was a very pleasant walk, if you took away the incessant roar and blare of traffic, the fumes hanging in the air, the humidity visible under the streetlights, and the countless people who in their hurry to be somewhere decided to walk through me. It was a relief to find myself at the Landmark, which I discovered was just around the corner from Nana Plaza. From low life to the high life in just a few steps; maybe that was part of the charm of Bangkok.

  This was the sort of hotel where Quang thought I should be staying, with a spacious terrace proclaiming ‘Al Fresco Dining’. It was populated by the kind of people who’ve never gone hungry or cold. I could drink a very expensive cup of coffee, nibble at an even more expensive piece of cake, or simply enjoy the air conditioning. I wandered around in the aimless fashion that anyone following me would expect of someone sightseeing with nothing particular in mind. I looked at tourist souvenirs, studied restaurant menus discreetly positioned by the dining area, looked for the toilet, came out drying my hands.

  I arrived at the Asia Books shop a little after eight. One thing I’ve learned is never to arrive exactly on the hour or the half-hour. Nothing spells rendezvous more clearly than that; six minutes past the hour is just a random time. Simple tradecraft, but you’d be amazed at the number of people who don’t use it.

  I smiled sweetly at the assistant who scurried over, shook my head to show I didn’t need any help, and started to browse the big books of photographs of Thailand. I’d been there for maybe ten minutes when I felt the burner in my pocket vibrate. I pretended to stumble, looking down at my shoe as if I’d tripped over my lace, then knelt down behind a large display of self-help books and checked the burner. The last time I’d been in a bookshop, I’d shot and killed a man. That doesn’t say much for literature as a civilising influence.

  The screen message simply said ‘John Burdett. Bangkok 8’. I deleted the message and stood up. I didn’t know anyone called Burdett, and I had no idea where Bangkok 8 was. But I wandered around the store until I came to the fiction section, and there, under B, were half a dozen copies of the book. I picked up a copy at random, flicked through, replaced it. Bangkok 8 seemed nothing out of the ordinary, but as I leafed through the third book, I found a small strip of paper, the kind you tear off the edge of a newspaper to use as a bookmark. Someone had written 623. Saltanat made it a rule never to leave an obvious trail; it was part of how she’d stayed alive for so long.

  I put the book back on the shelf, screwed up the paper and dropped it to the floor. Probably a room number. Maybe when all this was over, I could rejoin the police and work my way up the ranks to detective.

  I spent a few more minutes thumbing through a photographic history of Angkor Wat, the sort of book that takes two hands to hold and a deep wallet to buy. Some of the pictures showed where statues, sculptures and carvings had been cut away from the temple walls, and I wondered if one of them showed the spot where Quang’s bas-relief had been hacked away.

  The assistant hovered by me, hoping to snatch my credit card and ring up a purchase before I could change my mind, but I simply shook my head and replaced the book.

  Outside the store, I saw a row of lifts, walked over, looked at the destination board. The Rib Room and Bar Steakhouse sounded ideal, not that I was particularly hungry after lunch. Maybe a drink or two first.

  The lift was empty when I arrived, so I pressed for the thirty-first floor. When the doors opened and a group of well-fed diners entered, I exited, making sure to press the button for the sixth floor on the way down. The lift hadn’t stopped on the journey up, so anyone on the ground floor who had been watching me would assume I’d gone to eat, drink and stare aimlessly out of the plate-glass windows. I was pretty sure I would have an hour or so to remain out of sight, so I looked for the stairwell, started to make my way down.

  I prefer stairs to lifts any time; it’s harder to be surprised by a gun or a knife. However, walking down twenty-five flights of stairs is not my idea of light exercise, particularly when the stairwell doesn’t have air conditioning, and I hoped Saltanat would have a fridge full of cold water when I reached room 623.

  I knocked on the door and waited. I could see the glow of lights in the room through the peephole. The door swung open, just a little, and I knew Saltanat was standing to one side, gun in hand, ready to shoot at the first sign of anything wrong. I didn’t know how she’d acquired a firearm, but she wouldn’t have had any trouble, or have any problems using it either.

  I pushed the door open a little further, didn’t step in right away. Caution keeps you breathing, even air as polluted as Bangkok’s.

  ‘Thanks for the book recommendation,’ I said, ‘but my English isn’t up to it. Perhaps when it comes out in Russian.’

  ‘Shut the door,’ was all she said.

  I watched as she put the gun away behind a newspaper on the table. In movies, people hide guns under pillows, but in real life that’s clumsy, and when fractions of a second count, possibly fatal.

  I shut the door, put on the chain, operated the deadlock and one of those horseshoe-shaped hasps that hotel guests believe keep intruders out. They don’t; you just have to be determined and not care if you make a bit of noise.

  As always, a first glimpse of Saltanat was enough to deprive me of breath, let alone sense. The elegant hooker outfit of the night before had been abandoned in favour of jeans and a crisp white blouse. No make-up, hair tied back in a chignon, I couldn’t imagine anyone looking more elegant, more pois
ed. I suspected she didn’t see me in quite the same worshipping light.

  ‘I’ve made a few enquiries, Akyl, while you’ve been out playing footsie with one of the biggest criminals in the Far East.’

  I didn’t bother to ask how she knew where I’d been; in fact I’d expected nothing less.

  ‘What in the name of God possessed you to shoot Tynaliev?’ she asked.

  ‘Because I knew he was going to shoot me,’ I said. ‘And I’d rather be on the run than in a grave.’

  ‘How do you know he was going to kill you?’

  ‘Lenin didn’t announce he was going to have the tsar and his family lined up against a wall. Stalin didn’t tell Trotsky he was sending him an ice-axe,’ I said, starting to feel rather heated. You can only spend so much time defending yourself before it begins to irritate. ‘You think Tynaliev was going to say “Thank you for all your help in the past, Akyl, time to kiss the world goodbye”?’

  Saltanat surprised me by making an appeasing gesture.

  ‘Calm down, Akyl, I know you had reason to worry because of how much you knew, and how paranoid the minister could be. But working for the Circle of Brothers? You must have had a good reason, a better reason than “I’ll get him before he gets me”.’

  I crossed over to the fridge, took out a bottle of water, looked over at Saltanat. She pointed at the bedside table where I could see a half-drunk glass of red wine sitting there.

  ‘When you called me from Tashkent and asked – no, begged – me to come and meet you here, you said you’d explain. Well, I’m here. And I’m still waiting for your explanation. I’ve got a flight to Tashkent booked for tomorrow morning. And without some pretty convincing answers, I’ll be on it. And you won’t be seeing me again.’

  ‘It’s complicated,’ I said, trying to keep self-pity out of my voice.

  Saltanat crossed over to the bed, picked up her wine, took the smallest of sips and stared out of the window.

  ‘Things are always complicated for people like us, doing what we do,’ she said, and I sensed compassion in her voice. I could only hope it wasn’t pity. ‘You asked me to come and help you, and I came.’ She was still staring out of the window, never turning to face me. ‘I came because I wanted to help. You’re in the worst trouble of your life, and there’s no way you could haul yourself out of the swamp on your own.’

  I could feel my heart beating as if suffering repeated body blows. My mouth was dry, my hands trembling.

  ‘And I had a reason of my own,’ she said, her voice flat, expressionless. ‘I’m pregnant.’

  Chapter 39

  I sat down heavily, opened and closed my mouth a couple of times. There are moments in your life when the road suddenly veers at a right angle to the expected direction. This looked like being one of those.

  ‘Is it—’ I started to say, but Saltanat forestalled me.

  ‘Yes, it’s yours,’ she said, with an edge to her voice that told me to tread very warily indeed. ‘You’d prefer a boy?’

  ‘Either is great,’ I said, in spite of knowing girls have a harder passage through life, whether they’re in Kyrgyzstan or Uzbekistan, Bishkek or Tashkent.

  ‘You’re angry?’ Saltanat asked. ‘I know it’s something that neither of us talked about, even considered. Well, I didn’t at any rate.’

  She picked up her wine glass, watched as I stood up and took the glass out of her hand.

  ‘That stops, as of now,’ I said. ‘And the cigarettes.’

  ‘I take it you don’t want me to get rid of it?’ Saltanat asked, staring at me and my new-found assertiveness. I shook my head. I’d never told her about Chinara’s abortion, how it had eaten at me ever since.

  ‘I’ve never felt particularly maternal,’ she continued, ‘and you’ve always struck me as being too self-involved to play the role of happy Pappa.’

  She must have seen the look on my face, because her tone altered.

  ‘The job I’m in, the situation you’re in, you think we’d make the best possible parents? Especially in a shit-filled world like this?’

  I said nothing; I couldn’t speak. I was thinking of the time Chinara got pregnant, not long after we were married, and we’d both decided the time wasn’t right to have a child. I remembered going with her to the clinic, seeing the brave smile that stopped before reaching her eyes and the thumbs-up she gave me, dressed in the ill-fitting surgical gown they gave her as they took her away to kill our child.

  ‘It’s a shock, that’s all,’ I said. ‘As you said, not something we were planning.’

  I remembered lying next to Chinara in bed two nights later, after an evening of forced smiles, avoiding each other’s eyes. Then the silent sobs moving her shoulders, the mattress shaking to mourn the passing of our child the way it had shaken when we created it. I felt helpless, impotent in the face of the blow reality had dealt us. We survived, because that’s what love does; we’d said we could always have another when the time was right. And then the cancer stepped in, took away all Chinara’s time, right or not.

  ‘What do you want to do?’ I said, thinking this would probably be my last chance to father a child, even if it was almost certain I wouldn’t be alive to watch it grow up. I’ve always lived my life trying to avenge the dead, but I’ve always shied away from admitting I’ve killed an innocent victim as well.

  ‘Don’t you mean, what are we going to do?’ Saltanat said.

  A lot of my countrymen, and Saltanat’s too for all I know, would say it’s a woman’s decision, it’s her body, as long as it’s not a boy. We bride-steal a girl, marry her, get her pregnant then head off to Moscow for a life of a little more money and no responsibility. And none of that money finds its way back to the city or the villages. After that, the divorce, a shrug of the shoulders, it’s all in the past now, life, it can’t be helped, just the way it is. Until the next time.

  ‘I mean, you’re the mother, you’re carrying it in your body for the next few months. I’m not even sure how many days I’ve got left, before Tynaliev or Aliyev or Quang decide to finish me. I can’t make a sensible decision about a child I’m never going to see. The most I can hope for is that if it’s a boy, you call him Akyl.’

  Saltanat sat down beside me, took my hand.

  ‘I didn’t come to Bangkok to pressure you into a shotgun wedding,’ she said, ‘but you’d better not meet my brothers unless I have a ring on my right hand. I came here to try to help you, not because I’m pregnant but because I know you love me, and I appear to be stuck with you.’

  She smiled, that enigmatic haunting smile, and I thought how lucky I was to know her, how unworthy to deserve her. Saltanat might be a trained killer, but she’s my trained killer. And a selfish part of me knew that if anyone could get me out of the mess I was in, it would be her.

  ‘I’ve got your back when you next go to see Quang. You won’t spot me, but I’ll be there.’

  I nodded. You don’t need an army when you’ve got the best on your side.

  ‘And now you’d better go,’ she said. ‘If someone followed you here, they might decide it’s time to see if you’ve finished eating. Or if you’re getting blind drunk and liable to cause trouble.’

  I nodded, stood up, tried to kiss her. But she pushed me away, pointed to the door.

  ‘Next time. Go,’ she said, and then I was in the corridor, getting ready to climb up to the top floor. I reached the Rib Room, washed my face in the bathroom, sat at the bar, ordered an orange juice. I was halfway through the glass, lamenting the absence of freshly squeezed oranges in Bishkek, when the driver appeared in the doorway, obviously looking for me.

  I looked over at him, as if trying to focus after a few vodkas, recognised him, smiled, waved.

  ‘Tovarich,’ I slurred. ‘A drink for you?’

  The driver simply shook his head, took my arm, a band of steel tight against my bicep.

  I finished the juice in a single gulp, winced as if it were three-quarters vodka, smiled at the bartender, left several th
ousand baht on the bar top.

  ‘That should cover all the drinks,’ I said, and got up off the stool, swaying slightly as I did so. The bartender was discreet enough, or greedy enough, not to raise any objection, and we made our way to the lift.

  Once inside, I straightened my jacket, surveyed myself in the mirror.

  ‘How did you know I was here?’ I asked, innocent curiosity in my voice.

  ‘Mr Quang has a lot of friends, who like to keep him informed,’ was the neutral answer. I was pretty sure no one had spotted my detour to the sixth floor, but I guessed I’d know soon enough.

  A parking valet brought the limousine around and I clambered into the back, making sure I caught my foot on the door edge as I did so. Maybe I was overdoing it, but then the driver had probably had experience of drunken Russians before.

  ‘Now we go to a club, yes?’ I suggested, tapping the side of my nose.

  The driver said nothing, but steered in the direction of my hotel, which suited me just fine. I needed time to plan ahead for my next meeting with Quang, to work out how to keep Aliyev happy, how to avoid the wrath of Tynaliev, and, most importantly, what I was going to do about Saltanat.

  At the hotel, I gave a stiff and formal nod to the driver, before making my way unsteadily to the doors.

  ‘Seven tomorrow morning,’ was all the driver said. I assumed that was when I’d been summoned back to thrash out a deal with Quang. After that, I’d just have to trust to luck and what natural cunning I possessed. But sleep was a long time in arriving, coming as it did complete with dreams of pain and death.

  Chapter 40

  In the morning, sober, I felt as rough as if I’d necked a bottle of samogon the night before, a headache drumming at the back of my eyeballs like a miniature metronome. Lack of sleep and fear will do that for you. All night long, I’d dreamt of a gun barrel pressed against my forehead, or watching helpless as a faceless interrogator brought a red-hot iron closer and closer to my face. It was almost a relief to wake up.