A Killing Winter

Chapter 20

‘You’re fucking my brain with all your questions!’

‘Khatchig, why not try answering them? Or one of us will get tired of the dance, and you’d better hope it’s not me. I might have to go out, have a little vodka, a smoke, something to eat. Of course, I can’t leave you alone; got you booked in as a suicide risk. So one of my colleagues will step in, keep you company. Urmat Sariev, perhaps you know him?’

We were in the basement at Sverdlovsky. A morning of asking around had given me a lot of answers about Khatchig Gasparian, and I didn’t like any of them.

He’d left the Armenian capital, Yerevan, in a hurry a few years ago, leaving behind a couple of dead small-time criminals, and headed down to Dubai, where he locked into a couple of property scams, selling apartments that weren’t his to sell. When the Emirates got too hot for him, he headed north and east, ending up in Almaty. Marrying a Kyrgyz girl got him the right to live in Bishkek. She divorced him after refusing to go on the game and getting a smacking that put her in hospital for two months. She wouldn’t testify, though; swore she’d walked into a door. About fifty-three times, according to the photographs.

He’d got a lot of money in the bank, thanks to gullible Indians in Dubai wanting to climb the property ladder there, so he didn’t seem to need a job. Maybe a bit of pimping, a little drug-running, or shipping a few weapons that fell out of either the Russian or the American military bases into the hands of our Islamist friends down south. But there was no hard proof, and he was small fry, too insignificant to interest Tynaliev’s people.

Right then, I was having as much success at breaking him down as I would climbing Mount Lenina.

Gasparian pulled out his cigarettes, which I promptly confiscated.

‘Fire hazard; don’t want to burn the building down by accident.’ I smiled, and lit one of my own.

‘Pizda!’

‘Cunt I may be,’ I said, ‘but I’m the one enjoying my smoke. Of course,’ and here I looked solicitous, ‘if the smoke is bothering you, I can always go outside.’ I pushed my chair back and stood up. ‘I’ll just get Sariev,’ I said, ‘and he can show you what a real pizda is like.’

Gasparian just grunted, but I could smell the fear on him, like garlic on an Uzbek’s breath.

I pushed his cigarettes over to his side of the table. It wasn’t easy for him to light one, being handcuffed to a chain bolted into the floor, but he managed.

‘Let’s start again, about how you killed Shairkul.’

He sighed; we both knew he didn’t do it.

‘Why would I kill her?’

‘Maybe you couldn’t get it up? Maybe she started laughing? Maybe you lost your temper?’

He looked at me as if I was a peasant straight out of the village.

‘You got money in the bank, Inspector?’

‘I hope that’s not an attempt to bribe an officer of the court, Gasparian.’

He looked alarmed, held up his hands.

‘No, no. Just, you keep your money there so it’s safe, so it earns you more money, right?’

‘Go on.’

‘Shairkul made me money. Why would I empty my bank account?’

I shrugged.

‘Here’s how it was. I was out with Gulbara. She was giving an American soldier a blow round the back of Panfilov Park, near the statue of Lenin. She gets a call on her mobile, answers it, which pisses the Yank off, what with her being paid to use her mouth for other things besides gossip. She gets up off her knees, comes over, says Shairkul’s in trouble, we need to get over there. We leave the Yank swearing and pulling his pants up, and I drive over.’

He paused, and pursed his lips, remembering the scene in the apartment.

‘Well, you saw her. You know what state she was in. We never touched anything, I swear. I wouldn’t even let Gulbara see the body. That sort of thing, it can put a girl off her work for ever.’

‘You’re all heart, Khatchig,’ I said, taking the cigarette out of his mouth and stamping it out on the concrete.

He didn’t recognise the anger in my voice, and nodded agreement.

‘Someone has to look after these girls,’ he said, a defensive note in his voice.

‘Well, you did a fucking bad job with Shairkul, didn’t you?’

‘You’re the law, you’re supposed to keep the maniacs off the streets.’

I didn’t have an answer to that, so I tugged on the chain, forcing his head down on to the table.

‘So where’s Gulbara?’

‘Don’t have a fucking clue. That slut was down the stairs faster than piss down a drunk’s leg.’

‘What were you just saying about keeping your money in a bank?’

‘So?’

‘Gulbara and her performing monkey keep you in the good life. You’re going to let her disappear?’

He shrugged, the timeless Levantine answer to any difficult question.

‘She’s gone back to Osh? Or you’ve stashed her away, ready to get back on her knees when this all blows over?’

No answer, just an insolent stare. Both made me decide it was time for more forceful measures.

‘I think you could be more helpful than this, Khatchig,’ I said, and tugged on the chain again.

‘I told you all I know. I’m just an ordinary citizen.’

I heaved a deep sigh, to show Gasparian how disappointed I was.

‘That law you punched when we tried to bring you in?’

‘Plain clothes, how am I supposed to know he’s one of yours? Self-defence, plain and simple.’

‘Well, you bounced his head off the wall, and now he’s in the hospital, in a coma.’

‘And that’s my fault?’

‘Well, his uncle thinks so.’

Gasparian sneered.

‘So get his uncle to sue me.’

I smiled, mirthless, stood up, put my cigarettes back in my pocket, crushed his pack in my fist.

‘He might want to be more direct than that. I’ll be upstairs if you suddenly remember where Gulbara’s hiding out. You talk things over with his uncle.’

I paused, my hand on the door, turned back to face Gasparian.

‘The officer you hit is called Kairat Sariev.’

I opened the door. Urmat Sariev was standing there, smiling at the prospect of a brief encounter with the man who put his nephew in hospital. Usually he uses a bag of apples; leaves lots of spectacular bruises, and you can rupture a spleen with one swing. But nobody would be too worried about Gasparian having a bruise or two. Not in his line of work.

As I trudged upstairs, I heard the flat thud of the first blow.

That’s usually all it takes.