A Killing Winter

Chapter 11

For the last hour, I’d been blindfolded, at Kursan’s insistence, bouncing from side to side as the car drove over what was clearly no more than a dirt track. I was bruised, sore and pissed off. My gun was locked in the trunk, ‘to be on the safe side’.

Finally, I sensed the car slowing to a halt. Some shouting outside, then Kursan removed my blindfold. I blinked, and looked through the windscreen. Fuck knew where we were; it was hard to make anything out, with the falling snow. I suspected I’d fallen off the edge of the earth. Two men, both Uighurs and clutching Makarov semi-automatic pistols, beckoned me out of the car. They both looked as if you could beat them with a scaffolding pole for a day and still not get anything out of them. I opened the door slowly, making sure my hands were always in view. It was freezing, and I pulled my fur ushanka tight over my ears. Right then, a vodka would have been very welcome.

The thug on the left, whiskery and sullen, reeking of garlic, patted me down, then pointed to the black Mercedes parked nearby. Kursan and I made our way over, the rear window sliding down as we approached.

‘Abdurehim Otkur,’ Kursan made the introduction, reaching out to clasp the hand of the man in the back seat. I noticed no one wanted to shake my hand. Abdurehim Otkur was one of the great poets of the Uighur language; clearly I wasn’t supposed to know the real identity of the man in front of me. Reassuring, in a way; if he’d wanted to have me killed, he wouldn’t have bothered with a false name. I watched as he got out of the car, fastening his coat as he did so.

‘“We were young when we started our journey”,’ I said, quoting the only line of Otkur I remembered from school.

‘“Now our grandchildren can ride horses”,’ he finished the quotation. ‘I’m impressed, Inspector, I wasn’t expecting a man of culture.’

I did my best to seem modest, while looking Otkur up and down. Burly, above average height for an Uighur, dark, expressionless eyes, with a long face made longer by a knife scar running from his left ear to the corner of his mouth. He noticed my gaze, and drew his index finger down the length of the scar.

‘You won’t find my picture in your files, Inspector,’ he said, ‘and you won’t find the son of a whore who gave this to me, either. Not in one piece, anyway.’

The grin he gave wasn’t reassuring, his scar twisting across his cheek.

‘I wasn’t planning on looking for your mugshot, not if you can help me out. Anyway, I assume some obliging squealer back in the Prosecutor’s Office managed to spill coffee on your dossier?’

‘Law, always suspicious,’ Otkur said, turning to his thugs, who smiled obligingly. ‘Who can say how these unfortunate accidents occur?’

‘The case I’m investigating wasn’t an accident,’ I said, my voice harsh. Back to the business in hand. I was cold, hungry, and my arse felt like I’d been thrashed after eight hours on the road. My gun might have been in the boot of Kursan’s car, but I was still an Inspector, Murder Squad, and people shouldn’t ever forget it.

Otkur’s face grew serious. He would be a ferocious enemy, cunning, implacable. But then there were plenty in Bishkek Number One who might say the same of me.

‘Inspector, Kursan and I do business together now for many years. I don’t like Kyrgyz, he doesn’t like Uighur. But we understand each other. No drugs except for weed, no girls. It’s straightforward, business. But sometimes, shit happens you can’t ignore. That’s when you stand up, be a man. Make sure the scum, the low life know their place, bottom of the shitpile.’

He paused, and we lit cigarettes. He plumed the smoke out, and I watched the cloud flood through the snowflakes. I guessed we were somewhere the other side of Karakol, up towards the Kazakh border. Before we headed back to Bishkek, perhaps I’d have time to visit Chinara’s grave. Maybe permanently.

‘You know Chinese medicine.’

It was a statement, not a question. I looked over at Kursan, who nodded.

‘Only what Kursan tells me.’

‘You fuck a Chinese pussy, they go crazy because you’ve got a dick like they’ve never seen before. So, naturally, they complain about their men. So after they’ve given their bitches a touch of muscle to quieten them, the guys start wondering about medicine.’

‘Rhino horn, tiger bones, that sort of shit?’

Otkur laughed, and dropped his cigarette on to the snow, where it hissed for a second.

‘Shanghai? Beijing? Maybe you find the genuine article there. Urumchi? The arse-end of China, Inspector, so they make do.’

I stayed silent.

‘Remember, people want to believe. Tell them something is good, it might even be true, if they believe it hard enough. And something they really want, they pay good money for.’

‘And they want what?’ I asked, having a good idea of the answer.

‘Remember what Genghis Khan said? “There is no greater joy than conquering your enemy, riding his horses, taking his wives and daughters.” Nothing changes; we all want long life, stiff dicks and many sons.’

I looked over towards the mountains, where the last sunlight was turning the snow blood orange and red.

‘What has all this got to do with a murder in Bishkek?’

‘You can’t get rhino horn or tiger bones for sex, you go for the next best thing. Something you can harvest, with an endless supply, something that proves a man’s strength.’

Otkur paused.

‘In the border villages, they believe nothing’s as powerful or as virile as an unborn baby boy. Energy untapped, undrained. Harvested fresh while the heart still beats, mother’s blood flowing through its veins.’

I thought back to the morgue, the unborn child ripped from its mother’s womb, his eyes accusing me of betrayal, and my mouth filled with bile. When I spoke, I sounded weak, incredulous.

‘Human foetuses, you mean? Children?’

He paused and spat. When he looked back at me, his face was grave.

‘Women don’t go missing around here. They’re always close to home. Unmarried, they could be bride-stolen. And once they’re wed, they’re a symbol of their husband’s strength, his property.’

The thugs nodded in agreement. Kursan swore under his breath. Then silence, except for the wind.

‘A pregnant village girl goes missing. The other side of the country, the daughter of a member of the nomenklatura is murdered, and another woman’s dead child is dumped in her womb like so much trash. I don’t see the connection.’

Otkur nodded his head, as if in agreement. The scar on his cheek stood out livid against the bitter cold. I blinked against the snowflakes and turned my collar up, but nothing could warm me against the sour feeling in my gut.

‘And you’d be right, Inspector.’

Otkur’s face was unreadable, his eyes never leaving mine.

‘Except?’ I asked.

‘The village girl isn’t missing any more. But her unborn child is.’