A Killing Winter

Chapter 33

Saltanat walked into the SUV’s twin circles of light, cradling a Kalashnikov.

Aydaraliev looked puzzled for a few seconds, then nodded in recognition.

‘I suppose I’ve got Otkur to thank for you being here?’ I asked. ‘No secrets from you, eh?’

‘Just as well for you, Inspector,’ Saltanat said, her eyes never leaving Aydaraliev. ‘Our friend here always travels with precautions.’

Aydaraliev jerked his head towards the darkness from which she’d just stepped, then raised an eyebrow. Saltanat nodded in return.

‘One of them will wake up tomorrow feeling like Mount Lenina fell on him. The other?’ She shrugged. ‘He won’t be waking up at all.’

‘No loss, if they didn’t have the balls to handle a whore like you.’

Saltanat’s face didn’t register the insult, but she took a quick step forward and rammed the muzzle of the Kalash against his hip. He grunted in pain and put one hand out against the side of the SUV to support himself, staying upright.

‘You’re the Uzbek bitch?’ he said, and contempt dripped from every word. Contempt for her as an enemy, a cop and a woman, all three.

‘Think of it as warming up, Maksat, some light snacks before we get down to the main course,’ she said, and smiled without warmth.

‘It’s fucking freezing, let’s go and discuss this in the warm, over a bottle, pretend we’re friends.’

‘Sure,’ Saltanat agreed. ‘I want you to be my guest.’

She reached down, never taking her eyes or aim off the pakhan, and patted Yuri’s pockets, finding the car keys, tossing them to me.

‘You drive,’ she said, ‘and I’ll snuggle up in the back with my true love.’

And in case I mistook her meaning, she stroked the barrel of her gun.

‘Him?’ I asked, looking down at Yuri.

‘You give a fuck?’ she said, and motioned our captive into the car.

Now that she’d mentioned it, I didn’t, but I didn’t want him to freeze to death either, even if he was gang muscle. I made an anonymous call, and organised a patrol car to pick him up and deposit him in a nice warm cell. Then I slid behind the wheel, fired up the ignition and we lumbered out into the night.

We headed east along Chui Prospekt, past the power station with its veil of smoke hanging in the air. I kept one eye on the mirror, but traffic was light, and I was pretty sure we weren’t being followed. Saltanat directed me to the outer edge of Bishkek, towards where a rash of new houses was springing up. The potholed road was replaced by a rutted dirt track, and we bounced and lurched from side to side. Now would have been the time for Aydaraliev to make his move, but Saltanat had her gun pressed firmly into his belly, ready to cut him in half if he tried anything.

We arrived at a large three-storey house, surrounded by a two-metre wall. Someone must have been watching for us, because the blue ornamental gates swung open as we approached, and I steered the car through the gap. The gates immediately closed behind us. I parked beside the front door, and got out of the car.

A guard immediately frisked me, while another pointed his Kalashnikov in my direction. They dragged Aydaraliev out of the car and searched him, much more thoroughly. When they were satisfied, they led the two of us inside. A wooden staircase spiralled up to the first floor and down into the cellar. Other than that, the entrance hall was completely empty. We were pushed forward into one of the rooms at the back, told to sit on the floor. For a safe house, the place seemed pretty basic. There was no heating, and our breath hung in the sour air like steam.

Saltanat walked in and leant against the wall. She’d left her Kalash in the car, but the two guards who flanked her had more than enough firepower. It struck me that the pakhan wasn’t their only prisoner, and Saltanat had no more reason to feel friendly towards me than she did towards the old man. I remembered she had been sent to kill me, and my stomach gave a lurch.

‘No point trying to remember your way here again, Inspector.’

Maybe she meant I wouldn’t be leaving here again, or the place was only a temporary bolt-hole. I suspected that the pakhan wouldn’t be leaving at all. If so, he was showing no signs of it worrying him. He was a murdering bastard, but I had to admire his balls.

He levered himself up from the floor and walked towards Saltanat. The guards tensed, and I braced myself for catching a bullet in the crossfire, but Aydaraliev held his hands apart, stood in front of her.

‘I know you’re a torpedo, you know I’m top boss, a vor v zakonye. Let’s not pretend. I don’t expect you to let me walk out of here with my cock in my hand. It’s not in my nature to give out information. You put a bullet in my head, then you get it quick from my followers. Same shot, behind the ear, guaranteed.’

He paused and looked at Saltanat without blinking. His face could have been chiselled out of granite for all the emotion he showed.

‘Or, you give me shit. The pliers. The hammer. The usual. I know. I’ve used them myself. That happens, they find my body, you get worse. Nipples scissored off. Make a movie of you getting gang-fucked front and back by my boys and your tits hacked off, send it to your family.’

He told her this with as much emotion as if he’d been explaining how to distill extra-strength home brew, then gave a gesture of resignation; all this was out of his hands now.

‘Or one last option. I should be grateful, you showed me that I’ve let things slide, maybe got a bit complacent in my old age. Employing useless pricks like Yuri, and those two clowns who let you stroll up and take them. You let me walk, all is peace.’

He looked around the bare room, weighing up whether the beatings and killings, the drugs and the bribes, the dacha and the money, had all come down to this, dying against stained and peeling wallpaper in a bitterly cold house.

‘You drive me back into town, we draw a line under all this nonsense. But I have to have a little taste of something for my trouble, you know that. Otherwise, someone starts whispering, “Maksat, he’s getting soft, lets some pussy take him for a ride, and in his own fucking car.” And I can’t have that.’

‘So what do you want, top boss?’

The pakhan gave another of his mirthless smiles, his eyes considering the odds that he might get out of here alive. He looked over in my direction.

‘His head.’