Motherland: A gripping crime thriller set in the dark heart of Putin's Russia

by G. D. Abson

  ‘You did what?’

  ‘Relax – I wrote to him in Krasnodar.’

  She enjoyed seeing the shock on his face. ‘Don’t worry, the mail system is shit. We could be anywhere in the world by the time he reads it.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘“Hey husband, you evil bastard. We’ve gone. Don’t bother looking, you’ll never find us.”’ She smiled at him. ‘It’s not Tolstoy.’

  Two hours had gone by since they’d left the city behind. The heater was on full but still she shivered. Out here, away from the water and heading north to Finland, forests threatened the road and the temperature dropped to minus thirty in winter. Ksenia stirred with the noise of the engine and Kristina shifted position, bringing circulation to her numb right arm. The silence was oppressive in the Zhiguli and he broke it by turning on the radio; there was nothing except static and he switched to long-wave. She heard the President’s voice and was stunned.

  There had been the horror of Chechnya, then everyone’s savings had been wiped out when the rouble crashed. And still Yeltsin survived, propped up by Berezovksy and the other oligarchs. He’d gone to America and been discovered drunk outside the White House in his underwear. On the TV puppet show, Kukly, she had cringed as he was humiliated again and again.

  ‘He’s leaving,’ she said in shock. ‘Boris Yeltsin is resigning.’

  She twisted the volume control to hear it over the Zhiguli’s engine and caught phrases:

  “I want to ask for your forgiveness because many of our dreams didn’t come true…the pain of every one of you, I feel in myself, in my heart...in saying goodbye, I want to say to every one of you: be happy. You deserve happiness. You deserve happiness, and peace.”

  The old buffoon had made her cry. She dipped her head forwards to dab her tears on the arm of her jacket.

  Now the Acting President, a KGB goon called Putin, was promising freedom of speech and freedom of conscience. She wondered if he was smirking while he spoke. At least he didn’t drink, maybe he was what the country needed now: someone serious and sober.

  They were travelling faster, a hundred kilometres an hour on the empty carriageway; the Zhiguli’s lights illuminating cones of snowflakes. She wanted to tell him to slow down but she was just as impatient to get away. The radio announcer cut to a live broadcast outside the Kremlin and they sat in silence as the bells of Spasskaya Tower clock chimed.

  ‘Happy New Year, darling.’ She reached across to squeeze his hand. ‘To our happiness and peace.’

  ‘I love you,’ he said.

  ‘I love you too.’ She offered a smile to cover up the white lie.

  He yanked his hand from hers.

  She looked at him, confused, and saw him gripping the steering wheel; his mouth had fallen open.

  The Zhiguli slid silently along the iced road. He stamped on the brake pedal; the car jerked to the left. She held Ksenia tightly against her chest. The Zhiguli cut across the opposite carriageway and there was a smashing of steel that thrust her forwards. She floated in clear air and screamed all the way down.

  Chapter 1

  The White Nights, June 2017

  Zena Dahl tried to focus on her bottle of Nevskoe Pale but it was no good, the damned thing had a life of its own. Beyond it, plates with the remains of pickled herring, salmon in dill, and beetroot salad performed a Day-Glo dance before her eyes. She squinted at her blurred reflection on the metal napkin holder, seeing how her thick blonde hair had curled from the humidity in the bar.

  ‘You shouldn’t say that, Zena.’

  She looked up. Yulia’s face was sliding, presenting multiple images of straightened brown hair and coral lips. Zena screwed up her eyes and a single version of Yulia appeared; it scowled at her then sucked on an e-cigarette, tilted its head back, and blew the steam upwards.

  Oh, crap. The conversation came back to her. She’d been talking loudly about corruption – one of her father’s stupid arguments.

  ‘Sorry, I can’t drink like this.’ She puffed her cheeks and blew.

  Yulia tucked the e-cigarette into her knock-off Gucci handbag before picking up her bottle of Budweiser Light. ‘You’re right by the way.’

  Zena smiled and clinked her bottle against Yulia’s Bud.

  ‘Zdorovye.’ The word stumbled from her mouth.

  Yulia drained her beer, then looked around. ‘Let’s get out of here, this place is dull.’

  Outside, the heat of the day still lingered and a light breeze brushed against her bare arms without raising goose pimples. The pale light of the sun made Zena check her watch for reference: it was a little after 11 p.m. The street was full of tourists and she sucked in a few deep breaths to try and sober up. Yulia was already ahead, working her way through a small crowd that had slowed to watch a fire-eater. Zena followed her, taking a left onto the main road where a row of SUVs were parked. A group of drivers stood nearby, smoking. A queue stretched along the pavement, the length of six of the enormous cars.

  Yulia turned to her. ‘This one’s new. I’ve heard good things about it.’ Then she added softly, ‘You do the talking.’

  Zena understood; they had done this before. Foreigners were always in the news: Kazakhs and Uzbeks were stealing jobs, the Chinese were taking over Siberia by stealth, and NATO, as always, was out to destroy Russia; yet being foreign was still an advantage when it came to getting into the city’s bars and clubs.

  She watched the doorman approach. He had no right to look as relaxed as he did in a pair of navy jodhpurs, a brown shirt with red flashes on the collar, and a red peaked cap. The effect of the vintage uniform was spoiled by a coiled earpiece wire trailing along his neck and disappearing behind his collar. She looked for the name of the bar and saw Cheka in the Latin alphabet.

  ‘Hey, you must be the secret police,’ she said in English, trying to sound friendly, or at least not as drunk as she was feeling.

  ‘Nice try,’ he replied in Russian, twisting his head past her to look Yulia up and down. He shook his head slightly and flicked his eyes to dismiss them.

  Zena reached into her purse for her Swedish ID card but the doorman’s attention had already shifted to a black Porsche Cayenne. An impassive driver-cum-bodyguard emerged and opened its doors. Two men climbed out, looking decades older than the rest of the clientele.

  ‘Biznismen,’ Yulia muttered in distaste as they sloped to the back of the queue.

  Zena smiled but the doorman’s insinuation had stung; it reminded her of the flea market at Udelnaya where a woman in a tie-dyed shirt had tried to sell her an old propaganda poster.

  ‘It’s you,’ the woman had said, pulling out a framed picture of a rosy-cheeked girl with straw hair driving a tractor.

  She hadn’t bought the poster although the likeness had been uncanny – it wasn’t flattering and besides, she didn’t need a reminder of her own thick hair and broad body.

  They made it inside the Cheka bar after thirty minutes of queueing. Yulia ordered vodka and when the bottle arrived, the waiter, dressed in the khakis of a Second World War soldier, turned it around so Zena could read the label. He enunciated his words carefully, realising he was speaking to a foreigner.

  ‘Putin-ka,’ he announced, ‘it’s a joke. An alcoholic drink in honour of our teetotal president.’ He smiled good-naturedly. ‘Where are you girls from?’

  ‘Here, and she is from Sweden.’ Yulia flirted a little.

  ‘Which part?’

  Zena watched in silence as he filled their glasses, feeling sorry for the waiter. Usually on their nights out, Yulia was only friendly to the ones she intended to humiliate.

  ‘My friend is from a little town, I don’t think you know it.’

  ‘I might do,’ he asked.

  And then there was the kick in the balls when Yulia would say “It’s called Get Back To Work”, or if she wanted to pull his wings off first: “Buy me a drink and I might tell you.” It wasn’t one of her more appealing traits.

  ‘Why don’t you—�
��

  ‘Östermalm,’ Zena butted in, ‘it’s a district in Stockholm. I’m Zena.’ She held out her hand and instantly regretted the move as a stuffy habit she’d picked up from her father.

  The waiter smiled and shook it. ‘I’m Gavril, just ask for me if you need anything. Nice to meet you, Zena.’

  Yulia’s expression was that of a cat denied the pleasure of torturing a small rodent. ‘She’s rich,’ she said, trying to wrestle the conversation back, ‘her father knows the Queen of Sweden.’

  ‘She’s joking of course,’ Zena said unnecessarily as the waiter was smiling.

  ‘Well, have a good evening.’ He tapped his heels together and made a mock salute.

  ‘What a loser,’ said Yulia when he had gone.

  ‘I thought he was nice.’

  Yulia tilted her head and held out her glass. ‘Anyway…To health.’

  They tipped the vodka back then Zena stood, feeling the blood drain from her face. ‘I need the bathroom.’

  When she returned after more queueing, their table was empty but it wasn’t hard to find Yulia. She was dancing on the stage and her long, slim arms were raised high in the air; it had the effect, no doubt intended, of pulling up her red mini-dress to reveal a few centimetres of skinny thigh above stay-up stockings. Next to Yulia was a boy, though with chiselled cheekbones and narrow Slavic eyes he was more godlike than human. He wore a brilliant white shirt with the top buttons undone and was throwing his arms around like a bear conducting an invisible orchestra. Zena felt the acid burn in her stomach.

  Yulia still hadn’t seen her as she climbed on to the stage, and Zena forced her way through a group of five or six drunken men with shaved heads. They laughed and formed a circle around her, then began clapping in time. One of the men entered the circle and squatted on the stage.

  ‘The huge country is rising,’ they half-sang, half-shouted over the wailing of the DJ’s power ballad.

  The one squatting put his hands on his hips and began performing Cossack kicks with some skill. She bumped into his outstretched leg causing him to fall on his back.

  ‘Rising for the deathly battle.’

  Zena went to help him from the floor. She realised then, that he’d been looking up her dress. She broke out of the circle and slipped, putting an arm out to stop herself.

  ‘Against the dark fascist force.’

  ‘Fuck, I’m so drunk,’ she muttered.

  The boy in the white shirt was staring at her, an amused expression on his face. She realised with a shock that her hand was resting on his chest; the tips of her fingers slipping through the sheer material of his shirt onto bare skin. There was no sign of Yulia. They stood there, frozen in time. She tilted her head and smiled.

  ‘Let our noble wrath,’ the men shouted, abandoning any attempt to follow the melody of their song.

  The boy must be drunk, she thought. Her fingers lingered, then she pulled at a loose thread. ‘You’ve lost a button.’

  He smiled back, and in a moment of insanity she pressed her mouth against his chest. He tasted salty and his skin felt smooth, like plastic. The boy’s hand tightened on her waist.

  ‘Against the cursed hordes.’

  The arm was gone. He stepped back to increase the distance between them.

  Yulia’s voice was close and shrill, ‘Zena, what were you doing?’

  ‘Seethe like waves.’

  She cut through the circle of conscripts. Their singing stopped and she caught a cheer behind her as she climbed off the stage. At the table she grabbed the bottle of Putinka by the neck then ran out into the luminous night, brushing past the tourists milling around Ligovsky Prospekt.

  ‘Hey!’

  The doorman with the stupid uniform chased after her. She pushed a hand into her purse and tossed some bank notes on the ground.

  ‘Bitch,’ he called out in English.

  She waited a safe distance before turning, and caught him pulling at the creases of his jodhpurs before crouching to pick up the notes and tuck them in his wallet.

  There were goose pimples on her arms now. She’d been wandering for hours, most of it spent burning off the anger she had directed at herself for behaving like a slut. After that, self-pity had taken hold at losing the only decent friend she’d made after nine months in St. Petersburg. She checked her iPhone then remembered the battery had died somewhere between the tall office blocks that took up both sides of the street. Taking another step, she felt a pull on her left leg.

  ‘Damn it.’ She stared at the heel wedged between two pavement slabs.

  Easing her foot out of the six hundred dollar velvet pump, she teetered on the remaining heel, then lost her balance.

  A grey wall lurched towards her. ‘Oh shit.’

  She twisted her body in time to take the impact on her shoulder. The Putinka fell from her hand and bounced on the pavement with a chink. It rolled then came to rest a metre from her wedged heel. Putting her back to the wall, she slid down, not thinking of the dress until it crackled with the sound of static. She’d had it less than a day and it was ruined. All those little silk spiders working away for nothing. She squatted on the asphalt and twisted her heel from the grate, then slipped the pump back onto her foot and reached for the bottle. Unscrewing the cap, she put the mouth of the Putinka to her lips.

  She heard a blast reverberate through the city and thought it was the cannon from the Peter and Paul Fortress before remembering it was only fired at midday. Craning her neck to see above the office buildings, she saw globes of pink and white fireworks, then watched them fade, leaving clouds of white smoke behind in the pale sky. The air carried the sound of a distant crowd cheering followed by the mournful blast of a ship’s foghorn that drowned out their voices. She sipped the vodka more carefully now, seeing the colours of fresh fireworks play on the glass.

  Back in Stockholm, she had watched the parades with her father. Those Konstens Natt festivals with their dancing girls and marching bands were so lame. She cringed remembering his over-enthusiastic clapping as the Östermalm locals drifted by in their homemade costumes, their heads twisting to get a glimpse of the famous businessman. Konstens Natt marked the start of summer, when the sun stayed above the horizon for three months, but it was pathetic compared to Belye Nochi, the White Nights festival in St. Petersburg.

  She had heard from Yulia that every year, at the height of the celebrations, a scarlet-coloured tall ship sailed along the Neva to the accompaniment of classical music and enough fireworks to keep factories in China busy for the rest of the year. That was two days away, yet no one seemed to have told the people launching the rockets. She had seen canals filled with splashes of colour, the water churned up by partygoers on motorboats who danced and sang in drunken ecstasy. She sighed – it would continue for weeks and she was already exhausted.

  ‘Pu-tin-ka.’ She pushed her lips out and spoke in an exaggerated, deep Russian voice.

  Finally, she screwed the cap onto the half-empty bottle of vodka, leant against the wall and closed her eyes.

  An internal alarm made her instantly awake as two boys worked their way towards her, silhouetted by the weak shadows of the office buildings. One of them stopped in a doorway, his face hidden, but the other boy kept coming. He had red Adidas tracksuit bottoms and a stained yellow T-shirt, and even from ten metres she could see his teeth were rotten. The word gopnik came into her head; Yulia had used it to describe a street kid they’d seen. She’d asked what it meant.

  ‘A nasty shit with bad fashion sense,’ Yulia had replied.

  Zena patted down her dress as the gopnik approached, conscious of her bare legs, then looked around, trying to pass off the search for an escape route as a casual glance – the place was deserted. Her diaphragm tensed automatically and she rubbed her arms to shake off a shiver. The boy was facing her now, gripping a cigarette between his index finger and thumb. The smoke made her eyes smart.

  ‘You want some?’ He moved the cigarette away.

  She shook h
er head.

  He squatted until his head was level with hers. She smelled his sickly sweet breath as he took a swig of Jaguar. He placed a hand on the back of her head and pushed the can against her mouth.

  ‘Don’t touch me.’

  She spoke in rapid Russian, making her accent harsh, then shook her head to brush his hand away. The liquid dribbled down her chin.

  ‘Messy girl.’ He put the can down and grabbed the strap of her handbag, eyeing her carefully to see her reaction.

  She felt the spasm in her diaphragm again.

  ‘Don’t…,’ she said, then stopped. She stopped to avoid putting the words in his head: don’t hurt me.

  She settled for ‘Leave me alone.’

  He ignored her and opened the clasp of her purse. A firework exploded into yellow petals that transformed into white trails as they fell. He watched them until they disappeared behind the buildings, his mouth gaping open like a child’s.

  The twilight resumed and he dipped his head to ground level, twisting his neck to call into the recess of an office block. ‘Fuck, Stas, you should see this.’

  Her gaze had been fixed on the ground, anxious to avoid eye contact, but now she turned and saw him with a fold of her notes. He was counting them out and she thought of running but the idea was laughable: two boys against a half-drunk girl? Another spasm caught her low in the diaphragm; this time she vomited.

  The gopnik glanced casually at the puke on the pavement. ‘Messy girl,’ he repeated, then tutted as if her drunkenness had made him morally superior. He shuffled on his haunches then called over his shoulder, ‘Stas, she’s got American dollars.’

  The other boy came out of the shadows and crouched next to him. She shivered as a breeze blew against her bare legs.

  ‘Leave me alone!’ Her voice echoed in the empty street.

  Stas’s face brushed against hers, and she smelled bitter cigarette smoke and stale sweat as his hands grabbed her thighs.

  She glared at him. ‘Get your fucking hands off me.’

  He grinned back, revealing brown teeth and a stench of decay.