A Killing Winter

Chapter 23

‘See it from my point of view, Inspector.’

Gulbara was sitting across from me, clutching a cup of tea as if it was the only thing stopping her freezing to death. But the café was warm, and her shivering was due to coming down off the drugs. Her hair was scraped back and tied in a loose ponytail; she looked much younger, but maybe that was because she wasn’t naked, and the track marks on her arms and thighs weren’t on display. I imagined the monkey was still clambering into her pizda, though.

‘I come back to the apartment, and I find… well, you saw what happened to Shairkul. The handbag led some very bad people to us. And you were the one who took the bag from me, who passed it on to someone. Who else knew about us, we were just working girls? The bag belonged to somebody rich, important. Someone who’d want their thousand dollars back.’

‘How does that make me the one who killed Shairkul?’

Gulbara looked uneasy and sipped her tea.

‘Maybe not you, but someone who could make the police look the other way. A politico, maybe, one of the high-ups. What’s a dead hooker to one of them?’

I sighed, and drank my own tea. Without asking, Gulbara added more to my cup, filling it halfway, the perfect hostess.

‘You found a body, hacked and mutilated, with a dead foetus in her belly. Then you find your flatmate and work colleague in the same condition. You think I keep a store of dead baby boys just in case I want to make a murder more interesting?’

I reached across and pulled up her sleeve, the rotting krokodil greenish-brown against the pallor of her skin.

‘How much of that shit are you shooting up?’

My voice had risen and I was getting curious stares from the people at the next table. Gulbara looked down at her cup, and I noticed that her fingernails were chewed down to the quick.

‘Saltanat told me you were OK.’

I looked across at the other woman at the table. At least now I knew her name.

She nodded.

‘You’re one of the good guys, Inspector. Or…’ Saltanat paused to consider, ‘at least you don’t mind killing the bad guys.’

‘I don’t want to kill anyone,’ I said, and drank more tea.

‘Doesn’t stop you being pretty good at it, though.’

Her tone was mocking, as if I was a joke to which only she had the punchline.

I looked over at Gulbara. The cop banter wasn’t helping her calm down. And then it struck me that I didn’t know if Saltanat was law; I didn’t know anything about her, except that she scared the shit out of me.

‘Are you taking me back to Bishkek?’

I looked at Gulbara, tried to reassure her with a calm voice and an understanding gaze.

‘You’re not suspected of anything, there isn’t a warrant out for your arrest. I just need your deposition. Give me some answers, and I’ll see that there won’t be any paper out on you, not even for fleeing the scene of a crime.’

Saltanat surprised me by nodding in agreement. I gave Gulbara my most winning smile.

‘Tell me what you know, it ends here. No having to go back to Bishkek.’

‘I don’t have a minder any more, anyway, do I?’ Gulbara asked, guessing that I’d given Gasparian the hard word.

Once back in the Kulturny, she’d be fixed up with a new protector in seconds, whether she wanted one or not, but I decided not to share that cheerful thought.

‘Stay in Osh, maybe,’ I suggested. ‘Get off the krokodil?’

She looked defensive, and tugged the sleeves of her coat further down over her wrists.

‘It’s only every once in a while, to relax, for my nerves.’

We both knew she was lying; if the krokodil kept biting her, she’d got a year left, maybe two if she was really unlucky. But it was her call, and I was a murder cop, not a drugs counsellor, a father figure or a knight in tarnished armour come to the rescue. Gulbara knew that too, knew what lay ahead as surely as if I’d shown her a photo of a pile of freshly dug earth, with her name and face engraved on the headstone.

I gave up on the cheap advice, and got down to her statement. Saltanat listened intently, saying nothing, her eyes narrowed from the smoke of her cigarette. What Gulbara had to tell me was pretty much as I expected: no, she didn’t know who Shairkul was meeting, didn’t know anything about Vasily, or what he might have done to get Lubashov so pissed off with him. One thing she did tell me was that Shairkul was also working off the books, servicing clients she’d found on her own account. Which meant she got to keep the money, but risked a beating from Gasparian if he found out. But I already knew Shairkul’s pimp wouldn’t also be her killer.

‘The dead woman, she was somebody important?’ she asked, wondering if she should continue to be scared.

I thought about saying every murder victim is important, if only to their family and friends, but I knew both women would see that as the worst sort of lie. Yekaterina’s father could turn Bishkek upside down to find his daughter’s butcher, but I’d be lucky if I could get Shairkul anything more memorable than a cheap cotton shroud and a state-dug pit.

‘Her father’s a big guy,’ I said, and left the rest unspoken. ‘You know anything about Shairkul’s family?’

I thought I could trace her easily enough, but it never hurts to save time when you’re hunting a murderer.

‘She’s… was… from Tokmok,’ Gulbara said, her face screwed up as if to help her concentration, ‘but I don’t know anything about her family. She said they didn’t get on.’

I couldn’t say I was surprised; not many parents are delighted when their darling daughter decides to start selling herself under the trees in Panfilov Park. It was time to push Gulbara a little harder.

‘How did your house burn down?’ I asked, throwing out the question as if the answer didn’t really matter.

Gulbara fiddled with her tea, and I sensed a new tension.

‘It’s my mother’s house, not mine. When the recent troubles came, well, we’re Uzbek, and this is a Kyrgyz district. Mama lived through the killings twenty years ago; when it all started up again, she just grabbed what she could and headed for Doslik.’

We Kyrgyz call the Uzbekistan border Doslik, while the Uzbeks insist it’s called Dostuk. Neighbours, and yet we can’t even agree on a common name. It turned out that Mama had crossed into Uzbekistan and headed for relatives in Tashkent, fleeing the authorities on both sides. A lifetime’s home suddenly in hostile territory, what else was she to do? Yet again, I felt weary despair at my country’s endless acts of hate, stupidity, violence.

‘But that was a while ago, and the ruins of your house are still warm. So, again, what happened?’

Gulbara looked over at Saltanat, but there was no help coming from that quarter.

‘I’ve been staying there since I left Bishkek. A couple of nights ago, I’d gone out. Working.’ She looked at me, defying me to criticise. ‘I have to eat, don’t I?’

I nodded. Whores get hungry too.

‘I got back about midnight, and the place was alight. Nobody round here is going to do anything to help. I’m just an Uzbek slut, as far as they’re concerned. Probably my fucking next-door neighbours. Some dickhead who thinks Osh belongs to the Kyrgyz.’

I didn’t ask about insurance; it’s as rare here as diamonds in the street.

‘You don’t think it had anything to do with what happened to Shairkul?’ I asked, as gently as I knew how.

Saltanat flashed me a warning look, but Gulbara was too busy thinking about the misery of her future to notice. I could see that she could use a kosiak right now, home-grown and hand-rolled, just to take the edge off things, but I didn’t come all this way to listen to stoned ramblings. The thought that the fire might be a hit rather than some racist act wasn’t the best thing to put in her mind, but better that than her stumbling into the sights of a Makarov.

‘But I don’t know anything,’ she wailed, tears starting, face twisted, ‘I swear I don’t.’

‘You’ve got somewhere to stay?’

‘With my uncle and his family, near Gulcha.’

I nodded. Down south towards the Tajik border, far enough away from Osh to give her relative safety, I hoped.

‘I’ll see she gets down there without any trouble,’ Saltanat said.

One last question.

‘Your friend Gasparian? The fat hairy guy I caught teasing the monkey?’

‘Him? Pays the rent on the apartment, keeps the local uniforms in breakfast money, we give him a slice of what we make. He visits me every couple of weeks. Can’t get it in without swearing and yelling and calling me names. Not that there’s a lot to put in.’

‘Did you say anything about the first murder to him?’

She scrounged another cigarette off Saltanat. The air above the table was thick and blue, and I wondered if the café owners had ever considered turning it into a cancer ward. She sparked up, and blew smoke in the general direction of the kitchen.

‘He mentioned it. Had I heard about it, was she a working girl, did I know her? That sort of thing. And then he got hard and climbed on. I didn’t pay too much attention, too busy trying not to get crushed. And then you spoilt his party.’

I excused myself, and headed out into the relatively clean air outside. I called Sverdlovsky to tell them to hold Gasparian for further questioning, but he’d already been released. They asked if I want him picked up, but he’d either be laughing from the other side of a border, going about his daily routine, or dead. It could wait until I flew back.

Saltanat was making arrangements for Illya to drive Gulbara down to her uncle’s farm. It was quite a drive, over two mountain passes that were going to be dense with snow, but the BMW should make it, if he took it slowly.

I scribbled my mobile number on the back of my card and gave it to Gulbara.

‘If you think of anything more, call.’

But she probably wouldn’t. And I was pretty sure I wouldn’t see her again, unless it was round by the dark side of Panfilov Park, near the Lenin statue, or on Kenesh’s morgue table.

Saltanat surprised me by kissing Gulbara on both cheeks, then hugging her; I had her down as an ice maiden. We watched as Gulbara walked down the street, Illya two paces behind. Alone, I turned to Saltanat. The sunglasses were back in place, even though it was now night outside. I reached over and removed them. She stared back at me, expressionless. It was clear that I wasn’t going to get any information that she didn’t want to give.

‘I’ve got a few more questions,’ I said.

‘I rather thought you might.’

‘Questions like: what’s your involvement in all this? Who are you working for?’

I poured out the last of the tea into our two cups, added sugar, took a mouthful, savoured the flavour and the warmth.

‘I’ll answer your questions. Maybe. But first of all, I want a proper drink.’