A Spring Betrayal

Chapter 35

“Who are you? And what do you want?”

The Voice. Snarling, filled with anger, incredulity that anyone should dare to challenge him.

“You don’t need to know. What do we want? The folding stuff, of course.”

“You’re not Circle, I know that. They’ve all filled their beaks from me.”

I laughed, making the sneer evident. Nothing annoys a pakhan, a big man, more than thinking someone would have the temerity to fuck them over, think they could get away with it. The big man becomes angry, and that means reckless. Then you have him.

“Times change. People get hungry, prices go up.”

“Not when I make a deal.”

“Who said you’d made a deal with us?” I asked.

Silence on the other end of the phone.

“Think about what you’ve got. Think about how much you’re prepared to lose. Not just containers stuffed with questionable goods, but staff, bodyguards. Once they think you’re losing control, they’re out the door and you’re all alone. Keeping that has to be worth something, don’t you think? So think; we’ll be in touch.”

Saltanat looked across at me as I switched off the phone. It was one of a dozen pay-as-you-go mobiles I’d bought at an Internet café near the railway station, onto which I’d copied Graves’s number. I didn’t know if Graves had the muscle to get them tracked, but I’ve never been one for unnecessary risks. I could see she wasn’t happy. The hotel room had never seemed more cramped.

“So what exactly is your master plan?” she asked, her voice like a steel bar hitting a table. “I’m assuming—hoping—you’ve got one?”

“This Graves; he’s got businesses, restaurants, shops, and not a big enough crew to protect them all. Gas bombs, drive-bys, we can keep him hopping from foot to foot, until he doesn’t have the muscle or money to keep himself protected.”

I slapped my hands together, the way you do when you squash a fly.

Saltanat shook her head in disbelief.

“You want to start a war? A one-man war, I might add, because I’m not going to take part in it,” she said.

I looked at her, shrugged as if to say it was no concern of mine.

“I thought Gurminj was your friend. My mistake, I guess,” I said. “The identity band on the kid’s wrist links Gurminj’s killers with the rapes and murders. All we have to do is hunt them down.”

“I know you can be a bastard, Akyl,” she said, and I heard both anger and pity in her voice, “but I never thought you’d be a stupid one.”

She lit a cigarette, blew smoke at the ceiling.

“This isn’t about revenge for Gurminj. Or justice for all those dead children. This is about you wanting to die, taking as many of the bad guys with you as you can.”

“You’re being ridiculous,” I said. “Why would I want to die?”

She stubbed her half-smoked cigarette out, jabbed her finger at me.

“Because your wife is dead and you’re not. Because your friend died and you couldn’t protect him. Because of tortured and murdered children, and you can’t give them justice. Because you can’t work out whether you want to fuck me or leave me. Because you think you’ve failed and there’s nothing left.”

All of this delivered in a flat, impersonal tone, the more wounding because of it.

There was nothing I could say.

I stared at my reflection in the mirror above the small desk. Eyes empty as bruises on a corpse’s face. Was there any way back to feeling anything other than despair and anger?

“You’ve struck at him three times now. He’s not stupid. You think he won’t be waiting for you to pull another hit? You’ll walk into a trap, and you won’t ever know what hit you when someone gets a .22 to whisper in your ear.”

“What do you suggest, Saltanat? I’m the one on the run from the police,” I said, “the one with nowhere to go. You want to drive me over to Sverdlovsky so I can hand myself in?”

“You really want my advice?” she asked. “Or would that just be the ideal excuse to storm out and get yourself blown away?”

I looked at Saltanat, drawn in by her anger, her crystal-hard intelligence. The sudden thought of living without her was almost intolerable, like having a limb amputated without anesthetic. And, as always, I wondered if there was anything she could find to enjoy in a man like me.

I sighed, nodded, offered a cigarette, lit hers and mine.

“I rely on you,” I said, “more than I should.”

If I was expecting her to melt into my arms, I was mistaken. She squinted at me through the smoke that coiled between us, her eyes determined, suspicious.

“I don’t need bullshit, Akyl,” she said. “I don’t need lies. Not from anyone. And especially not from you.”

She reached over, stroked my cheek in the gesture of a friend rather than a lover, took her hand away, sat upright on the bed.

“This is what we’re going to do,” she said, “and listen to me. Otherwise, you’re on your own.”