An Autumn Hunting

Chapter 13

Aliyev leant forward, his gaze suddenly brutal, driven. Now I saw the strength of will that had lifted him to the heights of the Circle of Brothers.

‘I’ll ask you one question at a time; I wouldn’t want to confuse you. But I will have the truth, you understand? Otherwise the consequences may well be fatal.’

I managed to nod my head, the arm around my throat making it hard to speak.

‘To begin, who told you to lure me to Derevyashka? Who was responsible for the bomb that almost killed me?’

For a moment, thought escaped me. Panic swelled like vomit in my throat. Keeping calm and rational was my only hope of survival.

‘Why would I do that?’ I said. ‘I was with you when the bomb went off; I could have been killed as well. Why would I risk that?’

I saw him consider what I’d said, but the arm around my neck remained as relentless as ever.

‘And who says it was a bomb, anyway? They cook with gas cylinders there: an explosion, an accident, who knows?’

‘You arranged the meeting. You organised the venue. Maybe you thought it would be a simple hit, a couple of copper jackets in my head, not a bomb to wipe you out as well.’

‘What would I have to gain?’ I said. ‘You dead, the next in line steps up to the throne, and the wheel turns just as always. Anyway, you’re no use to me dead. Not with the situation I’m in.’

Aliyev gave a single low chuckle, one of those laughs without humour that tells you just how stupid he knows you are. He nodded, and the arm around my neck loosened its stranglehold.

‘On the run, every cop in the land seeing your head as the route to promotion? You honestly think you’re an asset, not a liability?’

I took my time fumbling for my cigarettes, ignored his frown, lit up, rocketed blue smoke towards the ceiling.

‘I’d agree with you, except you don’t have the full picture. You don’t know why I killed Tynaliev, or how much money’s at stake. More than you’ve ever dreamt of.’

‘Suppose you tell me, as we’ve got time on our hands?’ Aliyev said. Not a suggestion, an order.

‘My tea?’ I asked. ‘It’s a long story, and talking’s a thirsty business.’

I sat back and smiled, content to wait. The longer we waited, the longer I carried on breathing.

‘Zakir,’ Aliyev called, and the ugliest and scariest of the bodyguards came over. Aliyev told him to make tea, and Zakir obeyed, giving me a scowl that told me he’d rather be tearing my arms off. I made certain to give him an insincere smile as he slopped my cup down in front of me, watched him stomp back to his colleagues. If the killing started, Zakir would be the first one I’d have to take out.

I sipped at my tea: no sugar, no surprise there. A boiled sock would have tasted better.

‘I’m waiting, Inspector,’ Aliyev said, irritation plain in his voice. ‘Delayed anticipation is a much-overrated virtue.’

‘You know I’ve done some things for Tynaliev that weren’t exactly part of my official duties,’ I said. ‘Things that could get him into big trouble and me into a shallow grave.’

Aliyev stayed silent, gestured for me to continue.

‘We were like the USA and the old USSR; we both had weapons of mutually assured destruction, even if the minister was far and away the more powerful of the two of us.’

I took another sip of tea, wondering how plausible the story I’d planned would sound.

‘Tynaliev wasn’t a poor man. You have to be very stupid or very honest not to make a fortune in this country if you’ve got contacts and influence, a power base to back you up. But you know how it is with some people. More than enough is never enough, they always need – no, want – more. Money, sex, power, whatever.’

‘And the minister wanted what he didn’t already have?’

‘Tynaliev was a millionaire, several times over. He knew the secrets of the great and the powerful. He was a very big fish in a pretty small pond. But he wanted to be respected. By the oligarch billionaires who plundered Mother Russia. By the men in power in the Kremlin. A house off Chui Prospekt and a dacha near Talas were never going to be enough for him.’

I stubbed out my cigarette, shook the pack to make sure I had refills close to hand. I looked over at Zakir and his colleagues, huddled around a TV with the sound turned low. I lowered my voice to little more than a whisper.

‘Where was his luxury London apartment near Harrods? His Upper East Side townhouse? His Malibu beach house? We might be the most landlocked country in the world, but that doesn’t stop a man wanting a superyacht, complete with helicopter pad and topless blonde models lounging on the deck.’

Aliyev looked around, gave a rueful smile. Perhaps he had once craved such toys, only to find himself in a cellar miles from anywhere remotely civilised.

‘He believed they would grant him the respect he craved. His vanity wouldn’t let him believe that no matter how much he spent, he would never have kulturny; for the people he admired, he would always be that thug from some godforsaken shithole at the furthest end of the former Union.’

Aliyev threw back his vodka, reached for the glass he’d poured for me.

‘You’d think he’d know better,’ he said, raising the glass in a mock-toast. ‘And now all his money and power are useless. Unless he’s discovered a way of spending it in hell.’

He downed the vodka, wincing as the alcohol burnt his throat.

‘But you still haven’t told me how he planned to acquire all this immense wealth. Or why you killed him. So I think your story is only half-told, Inspector. And it’s that half that’s stopping me ensuring you end up like my predecessor, Maksat. On a slab waiting for Kenesh Usupov’s scalpel to unpick your secrets.’

It was time to come clean. Any more dancing around and I’d waltz right into a grave. I finished my tea, cleared my throat, ready to sing.

And that was when Zakir came over, his face a curious mix of triumph and worry.

‘Pakhan, the news on the TV? Tynaliev? The minister this gopnik shot? They say he’s alive, seriously wounded but expected to recover, undergoing surgery with the reporters waiting outside the hospital.’

Zakir turned to me, and the hatred in his eyes was unmistakable.

‘You pizda, you useless piece of shit, you couldn’t even kill him.’

And to prove his point, he spat in my face.