An Autumn Hunting

Chapter 16

We sat there in silence for several minutes. I’d baited the hook; all I had to do was see if the shark would take it or pull me into the water. The last thing I expected Aliyev to do was change the subject.

‘I’m afraid you still haven’t told me who was responsible for the bomb at Derevyashka,’ he said, and I thought I could detect the slightest hint of uncertainty in his voice. ‘Clear that little incident up to my satisfaction, and I’ll make sure you die with the absolute minimum of pain.’

‘No need to be hasty,’ I said, trying to inject a note of confidence but being betrayed by a dry mouth. ‘I admit, I haven’t told you everything. Tynaliev didn’t tell me much more, but I can still put two and two together.’

‘Once a detective, always a detective, eh?’

‘You’re right, Tynaliev couldn’t have built up an organisation from scratch. You’d have wiped it into the dirt before it got too powerful to threaten you. So he had to have reached out for a partner, a potential rival to you.’

Aliyev stared at me, his face impassive, as if I’d just passed on a truly uninteresting piece of information.

‘Whoever he was talking to would have been the ones that tried to kill you with the bomb in Derevyashka,’ I continued. ‘Cut off your enemy’s head straight away and you need no longer fear him. Then, while your forces try to regroup and secure a new leader, he seizes power. Getting rid of me at the same time would have been a bonus, drawing a line under past issues.’

I sat back, pleased with my analysis.

‘You don’t need to be an inspector to work that out,’ he said. ‘Even an idiot could put that scenario together. You don’t have any idea who he might have decided to go into partnership with?’

‘The obvious answer would be an Uzbek team,’ I said, ‘trying to get in on the Russia trade, and hit out at you. After all, Osh is pretty much an Uzbek city in all but name, and that’s where the Tadjiks bring the drugs.’

I didn’t need to explain there’s always been tension between the Kyrgyz and the Uzbeks, and it sometimes erupts into mob violence, leaving bodies and burnt-out houses in its wake. Stalin knew ‘divide and rule’ was the best policy for keeping a grip on somewhere as vast as the Soviet Union, so he drew the country borders to set Kyrgyz and Uzbeks at each other’s throat. Smart move, and one both sides have paid in blood and death ever since.

Aliyev nodded but didn’t look completely convinced.

‘The old pakhan hated Uzbeks worse than poison. And Kazakhs, Tadjiks, Chinese and Russians, now I come to think of it. So he refused to have Uzbek partners. Me? I believe there’s more money to be made out of peace than out of war. I negotiated an agreement with the big men in Tashkent. We leave each other’s markets alone, nobody dies and everyone goes to the bank.’

I nodded my understanding: there’s nothing profitable in killing each other when there’s a whole world out there ready to be plundered, bled dry.

Then Aliyev almost caught me out, with one of the unexpected changes of subject in which he was clearly expert.

‘You’re an ex-cop, kicked out of the force, wanted on charges. Why would Tynaliev let you within a hundred kilometres of any scheme he was setting up?’

I knew I only had a few seconds to answer, or everything was going tits-up. I pretended to look puzzled, gave Aliyev my best innocent look.

‘It’s obvious, isn’t it?’

‘Enlighten me.’

‘Tynaliev was going to need protection, right? From you, from whoever he was involved with if things went wrong. So he put about the story I’d been fired, told the security forces to work with me as if I were undercover. That way, his arse was covered if I put a foot wrong. And there was one other reason he chose me.’

I paused, pointed to my cigarettes. Aliyev shook his head.

‘The minister might have beaten the shit out of suspects down in Sverdlovsky basement, given a few dentists some extra work, had doctors sew a few stitches. And he probably killed my old boss with his bare hands, revenge for organising the murder of his daughter Yekaterina. But he’s never had to kill someone who was about to kill him. Look them in the eye, pull the trigger first, watch the hope and the life go out of their face. And I have. There’s a world of difference in using your fists and boots on some poor sod tied to a chair in a cellar, and looking down the barrel of a Makarov.’

Aliyev didn’t look entirely convinced, but shrugged and gestured to me to keep going.

‘So you were best of friends, comrades together in the crusade to get rich? So why did you shoot him?’

I knew my life hinged on the answer. And fortunately, I was granted a little time to think of a convincing lie.

Because that was when the hand grenade exploded in the house above us.