A Spring Betrayal

Chapter 20

Saltanat and I sat under the shelter of the sloping bar roof, the rain cascading down around us. We’d eaten the vegetable pelmeni and bowls of lagman Rustam had brought out to us, wondered if the storm would ever end. Up in the mountains behind us, occasional rolling peals of distant thunder punctuated our conversation as we planned what to do next.

I thought I knew the streets and alleys of Bishkek better than most tacsi drivers, but I’d never heard of the Umai Hotel. And judging by the apparent absence of any guests, neither had anyone else.

“How do you know about this place?”

Saltanat lit a cigarette and sucked down the first smoke, then let it merge with the fine gray mist of the rain.

“I was at school with Rustam’s daughter. Anastasia. We knew each other, not well, enough to say hello. When she was at college in Tashkent, she was attacked by three men.”

She paused, stared at me.

“I helped catch the men who did it. One of them was killed trying to escape. By me.”

Her look challenged me to disagree with her. I simply raised an eyebrow.

“I’d do it again. Rustam knows that too. So I stay here at his insistence, every time I’m in Bishkek. I can’t pay for anything. Embarrassing, really.”

After a final draw on her cigarette, she threw the still-lit stub out onto the grass, listened to its half-hearted hiss before dying.

“I don’t think your people—your ex-people—know I use this place, but we’d better keep on the move, just in case.”

I followed her to the car. From the hotel porch, Rustam raised his arm in farewell, jacket collar turned up against the rain. As the Lexus started to move toward the gates, Saltanat turned to me, her face impassive, betraying nothing. Her voice was calm.

“Eighteen months later, Anastasia killed herself.”

And then we were through the gates, tires sending up a black spray against walls on both sides.

Chinara always said I felt too deeply for the victims in the cases I handled, that my emotional involvement would lead me to make mistakes, to follow one line of investigation excluding all others. At the same time, she knew it was the only way I could operate. My unconditional need for her and my need for justice for the dead were what made me the man I was. But things change, and so did I.

“Love weathers all storms”? Perhaps. But I’ve learned that without love, nothing shores our lives up except rage, darkness, death. The story Saltanat had shared gave me one insight; we both endured the same sense of loss on behalf of the dead. Chinara had been my soul mate; Saltanat was my mirror image.

“Our plan?” I asked.

“We go somewhere no one will look for you. You can’t hide in Bishkek; too many people know you. And my contact down in Jalalabad can deprogram that phone’s security features.”

“It’s the only lead we’ve got,” I agreed. “But wouldn’t it be better if we split up? Why should you get involved with this?”

“Because I want whoever killed Gurminj,” she said.

“And those children.”

“Yes. And those children.”

Which meant heading southwest toward Jalalabad, snowcapped mountains rising up on either side of us, soon to be stained with the setting sun’s blood.