A Killing Winter Read online

  ‘A good-quality bag? Expensive?’

  The two girls looked aghast at my ignorance.

  ‘Maybe fifteen hundred dollars. And the real thing too. Not bought here, but abroad, maybe GUM.’

  I couldn’t help sighing. GUM is the ornate building that sits on Red Square facing the Kremlin, probably the most expensive cluster of boutiques in the world. Anyone who could afford to buy there was bound to have influence, people who would demand quick results and a head on a platter. And if I couldn’t find a killer, I knew whose head it would be.

  ‘You take anything else besides the money?’

  Gulbara shook her head and watched me open the bag. BlackBerry, keys, lipstick, a pair of gold hoop earrings and, tucked into a zipped pocket, the thing I’d hoped to find. An ID card.

  The face I found under the trees stared back at me. The same calm, the same detachment. The face lying in a drawer waiting to be claimed.

  I read the name.

  And realised that I was in a world of shit.

  Chapter 7

  I was in a patrol car, on my way back to Sverdlovsky Station, the windscreen wipers struggling against the snow with a dull, relentless screech. Pretty much what I expected to hear once I saw the Chief. I’d put in the call before I organised a ride, knowing that he’d been overjoyed at being woken up and asked to meet me at the station. No one could ever mistake a Tatar for a sunny day, but my boss lived in an almost permanent state of rage.

  The cop at the wheel swore almost constantly as the car slithered and slid through the snow: at the weather, at the authorities for failing to clear the roads and, under his breath, at me for hauling him halfway across the city. As we passed the memorial to the dead killed in the last revolution, the floral tributes were almost invisible under fresh snowdrifts, just as Chinara’s grave up in the mountains – and the grave someone would dig for the girl under the birch trees – would be hidden. I considered asking the ment to stop so I could get a hundred grams of vodka to warm me up. But then we were pulling into the forecourt, waved in by the officer on guard, stamping his feet for warmth, gun slung over his shoulder.

  It was no warmer inside the building than it was outside, one more thing that wasn’t going to endear me to the Chief. I made my way up the chipped and cracked concrete steps and along the corridor to his office. I passed Urmat Sariev, one of the old guard, famous for being the clumsiest cop in Bishkek: at least, more prisoners had accidents while in his care than anyone else’s. We’d never been openly hostile to each other, but Sariev knew I thought he was a shit-sucker. And when he wasn’t doing that, he was pouring it on the heads of everyone else. Being better at politics than policing gave him the inside track on what was going on.

  He gave me a gold-toothed grin.

  ‘It’s the Clever Wolf, come to teach us all how to catch the bad guys!’

  I should explain: my given name is Akyl, which means ‘clever’, and my family name contains the word ‘boru’, Kyrgyz for a wolf. So Clever Wolf is the joking name I’ve carried around with me ever since rookie days at the academy. Pretty much a job description, I suppose, if you’re planning to survive in a job where even the people on your side might be enemies.

  Sariev smiled again and drew a finger across his throat, so I knew it wasn’t good news. I gave him a wink of confidence that I was far from feeling, and rapped on the wooden door.

  The rest of the station may have been a shithole, but no one could have accused my boss of lacking civic pride. He knew that he had the spotless reputation of the police to uphold. That explained the colourful shyrdak felt rug on the wall, the polished wooden floor, the car-sized desk with a bronze half-size hunting eagle perched on one edge. Of course, it helped that it was all paid for out of the police budget, probably with a little extra commission in place for him.

  As I walked in, the Chief was pouring himself a drink. I noticed that there was only one glass. He threw it back, poured another one.

  ‘Zatknis’ na hui!’

  Told to shut the fuck up, before I’d even opened my mouth. Not a good sign. The Chief sat back in his chair and looked at me disapprovingly with red-rimmed eyes. A big man, a champion wrestler once, running slightly to fat after too much plov stew and Kyrgyz-brewed pivo. The round moon face of a Tatar, black eyes impassive, unwilling to give anything away. But he was shrewd, a tough bastard and a good cop. He wasn’t a political appointment either, so his tongue wasn’t lodged up any politico’s arse.

  He’d seen out both revolutions since independence, even managed to get promotion after the second one. He knew where the bodies were buried, had probably put a few there himself. He was a survivor. But I didn’t know whether I would be, once I told him what I knew.

  ‘Two o’ fucking clock in the fucking morning, this had better be important. Otherwise, they’re looking for traffic cops up on the Torugart Pass.’

  Torugart. Four thousand metres up in the Tien Shan Mountains down in the south, the border pass into China, impassible in the winter, through snow or avalanches or both. The arse end of nowhere, with nothing to do but watch lorries crawl past, laden down with cheap Chinese furniture. With the Chief, it wasn’t an empty threat. It never was with him. He always made sure to get his retaliation in first; it was what made him a force to be reckoned with.

  ‘Illya Sergeyevich,’ I began, hoping to appease him by using his patronymic, ‘we’ve had some major developments in the Ibraimova case and, since you’re the most senior and experienced officer we have here, I considered it best to keep you informed at all times.’

  He grunted, and took a sip of vodka.

  ‘I have some good news: we’ve managed to make a tentative identification, and I’ll go to the morgue in the morning for further confirmation.’

  I poured some water into a glass and raised it in a toast.

  ‘Na zdrovia.’

  I wondered how healthy I’d be once the Chief heard what I had to say.

  We emptied our glasses and set them down.

  ‘And the bad news?’

  ‘As I said, we’ve managed a tentative identification.’

  He nodded, impatient. But I wasn’t about to rush into some indiscretion that could land me up in the mountains. And for all I knew, the Chief’s office might be bugged, either with or without his knowledge.

  ‘After extensive inquiries among various sources, I managed to recover the deceased’s handbag.’

  The Chief gestured, impatient, but I picked my words carefully, all too aware of their potential to come back and kick my arse later on. I didn’t want any misunderstandings, misinterpretations. A shit-sucker like Sariev would be all too ready to pour poison in people’s ears, and there are always people ready to listen. I explained about meeting with Vasily, about encountering Shairkul and Gulbara, about retrieving the bag.

  ‘You want the slapper brought in? A couple of minutes in a cell with Sariev and she’ll be begging to talk. Maybe a turf war between working girls?’

  The Chief looked hopeful; low-life deaths don’t make headlines or waves.

  ‘I think our victim was in a different league. And she wasn’t a hooker – at least, not as far as I know.’

  ‘And this Gulbara ending up with the bag? That doesn’t set alarm bells ringing?’

  I braced myself; now was the time to come clean.

  ‘I have no reason to think that the handbag was anything other than an opportunistic theft on her part, unconnected to the murder.’

  The Chief looked up, picking up on my words.

  ‘You’ve established a motive? Inspector.’

  Reminding me just how thin was the ice on which I stood. I shook my head and quickly added, ‘But we do know who she is. Was.’

  ‘Will you for fuck’s sake just tell me?’

  ‘Yekaterina Mikhailovna Tynalieva.’

  I paused, and waited for the news to sink in.

  The Chief reached for the bottle and poured another shot, a big one, and without waiting, threw it back. His fac
e was serious, worried.

  ‘Whore! Why couldn’t the bitch get herself sliced in someone else’s district?’ he snarled.

  ‘Wouldn’t make any difference. We’re Murder Squad. Ends up on our desk one way or another.’

  ‘Your desk.’

  I shrugged.

  ‘Get one of the uniforms to drive you. And be discreet. No flashing lights, sirens, any of that crap.’

  He looked at me, at the crumpled suit, the wrinkled shirt, the snow-sodden boots.

  ‘Could you look any less like a cop?’

  Personally, I thought that’s exactly what I did look like, but it wasn’t the time to say so.

  ‘You want me to go home and change?’

  My one good suit, unworn since I threw a handful of dirt on to Chinara’s shroud. Appropriate, maybe, for another grieving family, another woman dead before her time.

  ‘No. Better get it done with. He won’t appreciate you putting on a tie to bring him this shit.’

  ‘If he wants to know the details? Do I tell him about the cutting, the mutilation? The foetus?’

  ‘If you had any discretion, I’d say use it. But we’ll get more shit pissing him off by hiding stuff. If he doesn’t ask, he doesn’t need to know. We don’t need to make this pizdets any fucking worse.’

  I nodded.

  The Chief looked slightly more relaxed, knowing the burden was sitting good and square on me. I knew he was already working out how to minimise his exposure to the shit storm.

  ‘He’s not going to want to wait until morning. Get Usupov to open the morgue.’

  He poured another drink, then looked surprised to see me still standing there.

  ‘Now fuck off. And for fuck’s sake, tread softly.’

  I shut the door behind me, and walked back towards the entrance, wondering just how exactly I was going to break the news that his daughter had been murdered to the Minister for State Security.

  Chapter 8

  The State Service for National Security plays by its own rules. Its people are never photographed, quoted in newspapers, hauled before Parliament. Think of them as smoke, or morning mist on the water of Lake Issyk-Kul, drifting, intangible, impossible to pin down. They’re the elite, the Kyrgyz equivalent of the Russian Spetsnaz, hand-picked and trained to eliminate any threat to the welfare and security of the state. The problem is that, all too often, the welfare of the state means the welfare of the top men. So anything that’s bad for them is bad for the country. And Mikhail Tynaliev was the kind of man who refuses to let anything bad happen on his watch. He would take the news I was going to bring him very badly indeed.

  As we pulled up outside his town house, motion-controlled lights flashed on while we parked. An armed guard in a secure sentry gatehouse kept a close watch on the street; the blue flickering light across his face told me that the cameras around the grounds weren’t just for show. This was one of Bishkek’s smartest roads, private houses set back, secure, regularly patrolled.

  I got out of the car slowly, my hands well away from my body, my ID card already in my hand. This was not the time or place for any sudden moves. From the other side of the glass, the guard beckoned me further forward. I smiled, doing my best to look harmless, my boots skidding on the packed ice.

  ‘How’s tricks, comrade?’ I said, holding up my card.

  The guard didn’t take his eyes off me, but pushed a sliding tray from his side of the glass. I dropped my card in, and waited while the guard scrutinised it. Obviously, I wasn’t his comrade. Eventually, I passed muster.

  ‘What are you here for?’ he asked, his voice mechanical and hoarse through the loudspeaker set into the window.

  ‘I’m here to see the Minister. Police business, official.’

  ‘Does he know you’re coming?’

  ‘Nyet.’

  This was where it could all go to shit. Maybe the guard wouldn’t admit me, in which case Tynaliev wouldn’t find out about his daughter until the morning, which wouldn’t please him. And if I told the guard my reason for coming, it would be all over the city in an hour.

  The guard pondered his options, then made a call. A couple of moments of conversation, his face turned away so I couldn’t lip-read, then the decision was made.

  ‘Someone will be down from the house.’

  ‘Can you open the gate? We’ll park outside.’

  The guard shook his head. No matter that this was a police car, that he’d seen my ID; the risk of a suicide car bomb was too great. I stamped my feet to keep warm, until a side door in the main gate opened. Two more guards waved me forward towards a scanner, but I stopped, held my jacket open to show the Yarygin. No point in giving anyone an excuse to show how fast and decisive he could be when guarding the boss.

  They took my gun away, walked me through the scanner a couple of times, and then the senior of the two guards led me towards the house.

  ‘This had better be important,’ he said. ‘No guarantee he’ll see you.’

  ‘My Chief sent me personally. It’s to do with a case.’

  The guard looked at me, curious, but I wasn’t about to volunteer any more information.

  ‘You’d better hope he thinks so.’

  I trudged down the path, my boots crunching in the newly fallen snow. A wave of tiredness drifted over me at the thought of another death to announce, another person’s grief to observe. The door swung open as I arrived, and I was shepherded into the hall by yet another guard. He patted me down again, clinically and thoroughly, and then took me through into a study to wait for the great man. I could feel sweat starting on my forehead, so I removed my fur hat and stood bareheaded. The room was stiflingly overheated, but that wasn’t the only reason I was sweating. I knew my career could end right there.

  ‘Inspector.’

  I turned round to see Mikhail Tynaliev standing in the doorway. Shorter than I’d imagined from his pictures, but with the typical Kyrgyz build: broad shoulders, a bull neck, powerful hands. Easy to imagine him interrogating a prisoner in the basement of his headquarters, standing too close, the casual punch, the backhanded slap that loosens teeth and lashes blood across the floor.

  ‘Minister.’

  ‘It’s very late for an unscheduled visit.’

  ‘My apologies. I wouldn’t have come at this time of night had it not been a matter of the utmost urgency.’

  I stood to attention, spoke formally, tried not to let a tremor enter my voice. Because this man had seen and heard the sounds of fear a thousand times, knew them all.

  ‘Which is why I’m seeing you now.’

  The Minister crossed over to one of the leather sofas that stood against the far wall and sat down. He didn’t invite me to join him.

  ‘I find it hard to imagine that there’s a threat to the state that the police would know about before my people.’

  ‘It’s not a political matter, Minister.’

  ‘No?’

  I saw that I’d caught his attention. Not terrorism, not organised crime. Then what? His eyes were on my face now, cold and black as the ice outside.

  ‘A personal matter. A family matter.’

  His voice, when he spoke, was harsh, flat.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Early yesterday morning, the body of a young woman was found off Ibraimova Street. We were unable to make a preliminary identification at first; there was no ID on the body. But further information came into our possession within the last couple of hours.’

  I paused, but the Minister simply stared at me, his face unreadable.

  ‘I very much regret to tell you that our inquiries suggest that the young woman may be your daughter, Yekaterina Tynalieva.’

  The Minister looked at me.

  ‘On what basis do you suggest it’s her?’

  ‘We recovered an ID card in her name, in a handbag taken from the scene of the crime.’

  ‘So it is a crime, then? Not an accident?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. We’re treating it as murder.’

&
nbsp; I reached into my pocket and pulled out the dead woman’s ID card. He stood up and took it from me. He stared as if unable to make sense of what he saw, and I reminded myself that, right then, he wasn’t one of the most powerful and dangerous men in the country but a man faced with what must be the most terrible news a father can receive.

  ‘That’s her, that’s my Katia. But there must be some mistake. Her handbag stolen, or . . .’

  His voice trailed away. I said nothing but took out the head shots that Usupov had prepared for me in the morgue a thousand endless hours ago. She looked calm, no expression of surprise or terror, just that indefinable stillness that separates the dead and the living. He took them from my hand, looked at them, nodded.

  ‘Da.’

  One of the photographs fell to the floor, but neither of us moved to pick it up. When he spoke, his voice had aged, suddenly weary, an exhausted man at the end of his tether.

  ‘Did she . . .?’

  ‘As far as we can tell it was very quick.’

  I chose my words carefully. The normal phrases of condolence seemed less than adequate, an insult almost.

  ‘Was she . . .?’

  ‘We don’t think so. But the pathologist was unable to tell if she’d been raped. There were . . . post-mortem wounds.’

  Tynaliev pursed his lips, a gesture so slight he might almost have been turned to stone. He reached for a crystal decanter on a nearby table, poured a drink, downed it, poured another, and then, after a moment’s thought, one for me. I nodded my thanks and took the glass.

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘I don’t think that we need to go into details, Minister. I realise this has been a terrible –’

  ‘Tell me.’

  His voice cold, flat. An order.

  So I did.

  I hid nothing, not the hacking away of his only daughter’s vulva, the gouging out of her belly and womb, the uncoiling and unwinding, the final insult of the foetus dumped inside her like some backstreet abortionist’s garbage can.

  The only thing I didn’t tell him was how the snow had settled on her face like the veil of a bride, how quiet the night was beneath the birch trees, how I thought of my own dead wife newly laid in her grave.