A Spring Betrayal (27 page)

“We should leave separately,” I said, “but before you go, there’s something I want you to collect from my locker.”

“What is it?” he asked.

“Nothing to worry about,” I reassured him, “but I’ve done a lot of digging about the dead children we unearthed. I’m pretty sure I know what happened to them, and why. But in case someone’s digging a hole for me, I’ve made some notes, and I want you to hang onto them.”

I paused, staring into Usupov’s eyes to reinforce the seriousness of what I’d just said.

“Then if I don’t turn up, or if they find me after someone’s given me a Makarov kiss, send them to the editor of
Achyk Sayasat
. You know how antigovernment they are; they’ll publish right away, and you can’t close all the mouths. An anonymous tip-off. You won’t be implicated.”

“I suppose I can do that,” he said. “But why don’t you just send the information to Tynaliev? You’d get rehabilitated, the porn charges would go away, you’d have the minister backing you all the way.”

I didn’t want to let Kenesh know Tynaliev was possibly involved in the murders; he’d be out of the
banya
and down Ibraimova without stopping to get dressed. I told him where I’d hidden my notes, watched as he headed toward the changing room. I decided to give him ten minutes before leaving, just enough time for one more shower to ease some of the stiffness out of my joints.

That was when I saw the burly guy with a shaven head and a chest full of prison tattoos as he came into the shower room.

And when he noticed me.

Chapter 53

He started to move toward me. Naked, the slabs and sheets of muscle across his arms and chest were clearly visible. He could snap me in half with all the effort it takes to part a pair of chopsticks. The plaster cast on his hand was a souvenir of my hitting him with the tire iron back at Graves’s house, and his scowl suggested he wasn’t in a forgiving mood.

He stood between me and the changing room, and I knew there was no other way out of the
banya
, or time in which to get dressed. I moved away from the steam rooms, toward the corridor that leads to the circular pool, pushing through the door as he followed me. He moved slowly, with the curious grace you sometimes see in burly, overmuscled men. He knew I was cornered, intended to relish the time he had in which to kill me.

In the pool room, he took hold of a nearby broom, jamming it through the door handles to prevent anyone else joining us. The pool was deserted, the water impassive, motionless. Light from the windows placed high upon the walls spilled down through the water, reflecting and shimmering off the blue tiles. It looked like a very good place to die.

I moved to the far edge of the pool, so we faced each other. For every step he took in either direction, I could match him, so we remained opposite each other. Theoretically, it was a dance we could carry out for hours, or until someone came to investigate why the pool room door wasn’t opening. But I couldn’t rely on him not having a colleague with him, still getting changed, who would spot his partner’s absence, follow him, and then have me trapped as they closed in on either side. I had to act.

I walked slowly around the pool toward him, flexing the muscles in my back and shoulders. I got to within three meters of the man, his eyes never leaving my face. The light reflecting off the water gave him an almost unreal intensity. I could see every pore in his skin, every hair on his arms and legs, the heft of his belly. The blue-gray tattoo in the center of his chest was of a Russian church with three onion domes: he’d served three prison sentences. The dagger piercing his neck told me he’d committed murder while in prison, and he was available for hire. It wasn’t a hard guess to work out his latest assignment.

I knew that the plaster cast on his hands would be a weapon as long as he wasn’t in the water, where it would become a liability. So I dropped my head, raced toward him, then dived into the water, dragging him in with me.

We both touched the bottom of the pool at the same time, my arms wrapped around his waist, while he tried to club at my neck with his cast. The cold water bit into my wounds like a starving wolf. I kept my head tucked into my shoulders, so they took the worst of his blows. The resistance of the water and the weight of the cast meant he couldn’t really hurt me. I kept hold of his waist, punched his stomach as hard as I could. It was like hitting a side of beef, his muscles rock solid. I clenched my fist, hit him again. The air in his lungs exploded upward in a giant bubble. Still holding my breath, I reached down and twisted his balls. His mouth opened in a silent scream and he started to panic. I let go of him, and pushed myself up to the surface. The pool is three meters deep, so I started to tread water, waiting to see him appear.

It was then I realized he couldn’t swim. He broke the surface, eyes wide in terror, his legs unable to find the bottom, arms thrashing the
water and sending waves over the tiled surround. I swam to the far side of the pool and clambered out. If I tried to help him, he’d probably drag me down in his panic, drown me with him. A result, even if it didn’t work out so well for him. I stood there, water dripping down my body, hair plastered to my head, looking down.

His arms waved underwater, the way weeds sway with the current of a river, quickly at first, then slower, losing momentum as his lungs filled with water. Finally, he lay motionless at the bottom of the pool, anchored by the cast on his hand.

I knew he would have killed me, choked the life out of me or held me underwater. I was sure he’d killed before, watching the life go out of his victim’s eyes, replaced with nothingness. Perhaps he’d been the man who’d raped and murdered Alina back at the hotel. I imagined he would lie in bed and relive the taking of life with a pleasure that went beyond sexual feeling.

But none of that made me feel any better about standing by and watching another man drown.

Chapter 54

There was no sign of Usupov as I left the
banya
, which was encouraging, as long as he came through with releasing the material in the event of my death. The wail of a police siren meant someone had discovered the body in the pool and put in a call. I crossed the rough ground that passed for a parking lot, worked my way along behind a brick wall. Don’t run, don’t look worried or suspicious, just a regular citizen going about his lawful business.

I called Saltanat, arranged to meet her at the Metro Bar in an hour’s time. That would give me the opportunity to walk across the city, to try to put the pieces together in some kind of order. I’ve always thought best when walking, often at night, when the streets are empty, and the darkness empties my mind of distractions. The routine of footstep after footstep, the pattern and rhythm, seems to create new links, fresh connections. It would also help me distance myself emotionally from the death in the
banya
. I told myself I hadn’t killed him, that he would have killed me, that I shouldn’t blame myself.

I took my own life in my hands, and crossed the road onto Chui Prospekt, ignoring the horns and shouts of the drivers trying to steer a way around the worst of the potholes. From there, I could walk
through the center of the city, invisible in the crowds. My gun was hidden in Saltanat’s car, and I felt oddly naked without the reassurance of its weight. I’ve always believed you should never get too attached to weapons, because that’s when they become the solution of choice, the easy option. But without even a nail file to fend off my enemies, I was wondering whether I should revise my opinions.

I wondered about going to see a doctor about my shoulder, which had more stitches in it than my jacket. The hot shower followed by the cold pool had cleaned the wound, but the fight had opened it up again, and I could feel my shirt sticking to the bloody edges. I decided against a doctor, at least for the moment. If I was on a Be On The Lookout list, then
som
, or maybe even dollars, wouldn’t guarantee silence.

As I crossed Ala-Too Square, I looked up at the giant national flag as it flapped in the breeze, a crimson red broken only by a stylized yellow
tunduk
in the center.

Our flag has always given me hope there is more to men and women than brutality and greed, lust and terror. But now I wondered if it was an empty promise, a passing illusion like headlights reflected on dark windows. The flag’s halyard clattered against the flagpole in a jerky rhythm like distant rifle shots. I looked toward the monument in memory of the protesters shot during the last revolution, remembered the day when the square echoed with bullets ricocheting off buildings and into flesh.

Sometimes you despair, but you carry on. What else is there to do?

Saltanat was waiting at the Metro Bar, a Baltika already half drunk in front of her, clouds of cigarette smoke spilling and drifting above her head. She managed to look both incredibly beautiful and incredibly pissed off.

“You’ve eaten?” I asked, waved at the pretty red-haired waitress to bring menus. I ordered
chai
, then we discussed the merits of various pizza toppings before agreeing to share a Diavolo.

As we ate, I told Saltanat about the drowning in the
banya
. She looked at me, sipped her beer, lit another cigarette before speaking.

“You know he would have killed you. He probably took part in all the rapes and killings. But you still feel bad about him being dead?”

I shook my head.

“Not exactly. But I feel bad about the way he died. That I did nothing to save him.”

Saltanat stubbed out her half-smoked cigarette.

“One of your great virtues, Akyl, is that even with all the death and violence you’ve seen, you haven’t acquired a taste for killing. Of course, in your job, that’s also your problem. A second’s hesitation on the trigger, an impulse to try to wound rather than blast some shithead into eternity; that could be your biggest mistake. And your last one.”

“I joined the police to protect people from the bad guys,” I said, surprised at the slight shake in my voice, “not to become one of them.”

Saltanat winced at what she saw as my naïveté.

“Akyl, an exterminator isn’t a bad guy because he kills rats. It’s just something that has to be done. Let the rats live and they damage all of us. The rats do what they do because they’re rats. We do what we do because there’s no alternative.”

“It’s a philosophy, I suppose,” I said, not wanting to get into the argument about my many shortcomings, as a policeman, as a lover, as a human being.

“For you, maybe,” Saltanat said, a hard edge to her voice. “For me, it’s a practicality.”

There didn’t seem a lot to say, so after that I only opened my mouth in order to sip my
chai
.

“While you were at the bathhouse, I ran through the list of foreign agencies we got from that shithead at the adoption agency, Sakataev. Who ran them, if they had any directors or owners indirectly involved. And tucked away behind a holding company owned by a holding company, guess whose name was there in small print?”

“Our friend, Morton Graves?”

“Exactly. Registered to help find potential adopters from abroad, vet them, and then suggest potential adoptees. All legal, above board, and fully signed off.”

I looked hungrily at Saltanat’s cigarettes, decided to forgo the pleasure.

“And?”

“I went back to pay a visit to Sakataev. I caught him just as he was getting ready to drive his BMW to his dacha. Rewards for all his hard work. He was so keen to help me with my questions he managed to break two of his fingers in his desk drawer.”

“And?” I asked, picturing the scared and overweight bureaucrat, not wanting to linger too long on how such an unfortunate accident might occur.

“When I mentioned Graves’s name, I thought he was going to piss himself. Stammered he couldn’t possibly discuss confidential information, government regulations, all the usual nonsense.

“Graves runs a legitimate adoption agency, calls it Hoping For Love, highly recommended, testimonials from delighted parents in New York, San Francisco, Toronto. And the photos, some of them broke my heart, Akyl.”

I looked up to see a hint of tears in her eyes.

“Little children born with cleft lips, terrible birthmarks, unloved, unwanted. Before and after photos, showing what money and surgery can do. Little boys showing off in their Spider-Man T-shirts, their cleft lips repaired so they smiled and it didn’t look like they were snarling. Small girls in pretty dresses laughing, showing off the cheek they’d always turned away from the camera. Nice clothes, a warm house, toys, hugs and kisses from parents who couldn’t have children themselves.”

Saltanat wiped her eyes, glared at me as if I’d somehow failed to help these children.

“All it takes is fucking money,” she said.

“And love, Saltanat,” I said. “Don’t ever underestimate love.”

Chapter 55

I bought Saltanat another beer, felt the rough wood of the table under my fingertips.

“So we know Graves has helped some children. Maybe part of how he conceals his other activities, looking like the noble benefactor. Does that change anything?”

“It’s a good cover, and he’s certainly in it for the money. Bribes, certificates, flights, medical checks, it all adds up. But nothing compared to the money if he sources illegal adoptions on the side.”

Saltanat blew smoke toward the ceiling, sipped her beer.

“Say the courts won’t approve you as an adoption parent, but you’re desperate to have a child. Well, Graves’s agency can help you with that.”

“Follow the money?”

“Here’s how it works. First of all, you get approval to run a licensed adoption agency. The certificate doesn’t cost very much, but the bribe to get one is going to set you back fifteen to twenty thousand dollars. Then you set up a website, contact adoption agencies in other countries, let people who are desperate to have a child know you’re in business. More time, more money.”

I nodded, scrawling some figures on a napkin.