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

by G. D. Abson

  She gave in first: ‘What did he say, Major?’

  Dostoynov checked the document on his screen and she realised he was writing up a report. ‘Dahl was unavailable. I spoke with the lawyer – Anatoly Lagunov – he said it will take at least a week for the dental records.’

  She was going to speak when she saw Mikhail frown at her. He was signalling her to be careful.

  Dostoynov looked up from his screen. ‘What was the lead?’

  ‘A waste of time.’ She remembered the phone call the conscript had taken. ‘Someone thought Bezzubtsev was a neighbour’s son.’

  ‘And that took you all day?’

  ‘I also tried to see if Zena was registered to a dentist in the city.’ She shrugged again as if it too had been a dead end and left the lie unembellished.

  ‘Good. No going home tonight. Tell your sergeant the same.’

  Dostoynov returned to the laptop and she took his response as a dismissal. She left their office and walked straight into the conscript.

  ‘Captain,’ he said, breathlessly, ‘it’s about the girl. Someone called from Gatchinsky District this afternoon; he didn’t make much sense…he was wasted.’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Morozov, Alexei Yurievich.’

  She gave him an encouraging smile, which she hoped wasn’t too patronising. ‘Well, Alexei Yurievich, it’s unlikely someone will be calling from the Winter Palace, if that’s what you were expecting?’

  The conscript scratched his head and she wondered if he had lice. ‘He said his name was Petya,’ the boy began, ‘but he didn’t mention Bezzubtsev, just kept asking about the ransom and if it was real. I told him not to waste our time. I got rid of him…then he called again.’

  Morozov rubbed a finger along the collar of his shirt. ‘He told me there’s a group of squatters in an old schoolhouse in Novvy Svet. Two more joined them last Monday. Called themselves Stas and Dima. On Friday night they were flashing around money. Stas said he’d banged an American and she was so grateful she gave him two hundred dollars. Petya thought they were whistling until he showed them a picture.’

  ‘I asked him to send it to me.’ Morozov held up his mobile phone and his cheeks coloured. ‘Is this the girl who was killed?’

  She took Morozov’s mobile and stared at the picture. The camera flash had bleached the image though it was easy enough to make out the bottom half of a girl lying on a pavement, her pale underwear visible above crossed legs. There was some of her dress in it too, but it had been rendered grey, not powder blue as Yulia had described. The face was visible though; Zena Dahl could be seen glaring angrily at the photographer.

  The tiredness of the day was gone. She left Morozov watching her expectantly and burst back into the office. Dostoynov scowled instantly; Mikhail expressed paternal disapproval with a frown.

  ‘We’ve got the bastard,’ she said.

  Chapter 23

  The dark grey OMON truck led the four vehicle procession, its six massive tyres and heavy suspension easily negotiating the narrow, broken road. In its wake, three police cars weaved around the ruts as if driven by children. Mikhail’s Mercedes was last, the blue light attached to his roof no longer flashing; his sirens no longer blaring now the city was behind him.

  He gripped the wheel one-handed while he lit a Sobranie. ‘You lost Stepan because he went for a shit?’

  ‘I shouted outside the door. His mobile was off too. Maybe he had a heart attack on the toilet. I thought he was going to have one this afternoon.’

  He twisted his head to the left and exhaled smoke through the open window. ‘Angel, I don’t believe a word you said to Dostoynov in my office. Where were you and Rogov today?’

  ‘I can be good at lying too,’ she said. It was apparently too enigmatic for Mikhail as his expression remained unchanged. ‘We were looking for Yulia Federova.’

  ‘Where was she?’

  ‘No idea – I think she ran away.’

  He flicked his cigarette ash out the window. ‘Seems everyone is hiding from us. Perhaps she’s with Dahl and his security man having caviar and champagne?’

  ‘More like she doesn’t want to get involved.’ Behind her, she noticed a pair of pressed jackets on the back seat.

  ‘What the hell are they?’

  ‘Got them from the dry cleaners earlier.’ He looked ashamed.

  ‘No, you brought them along in case the press turn up. I thought you were giving Dostoynov a free pass. If you take Vasiliev’s job, I’ll have to leave – there’s no other way. I’ll end up in the municipal police fishing drunks out of the Moika. Why can’t you keep things as they are?’

  He shook his head slightly. ‘I don’t know what I want, Natalya, but I do know the man drives me to it. Did you know Dostoynov turned down a lift with me so he could ride with the OMON?’

  ‘That’s your fault for baiting him. He’ll damage you if he gets Vasiliev’s chair.’

  He grinned. ‘I know, Angel, but I can’t stop myself.’

  They were quiet for a while and Mikhail pressed the button for a preset station on the radio. A young man’s voice filled the Mercedes; he was being interviewed about the Geiger counter measurements he took every winter of the chemical sludge they sprayed on the roads. Barely a minute later and the presenter deftly steered the topic to immigration. It was always about immigration. Or gay people. Or liberals. Or Ukrainians, Georgians, the EU, NATO, Britain, or America. It was never the fault of the incompetents who were too busy robbing the country to run it properly.

  She stabbed at the off button. ‘We could always split up.’

  Mikhail was bluff, ‘That will make it even worse. They definitely won’t let me supervise you.’

  ‘You really want this, don’t you?’

  ‘I want you more.’

  ‘Listen, Dostoynov’s ahead after that press conference. This will make you even.’ She peered again at his suits on the back seat. ‘If you’re trying to upstage him wear the blue one, it’s more assertive; grey is too corporate.’

  He tapped his fingers nervously on the steering wheel. ‘Why are you doing this?’

  His tone softened, ‘Angel, what’s got into you?’

  The procession turned right and the car began to shake as the road deteriorated. She saw a huge slab of concrete, cracked and deformed by tree roots.

  ‘Christ!’ he shouted, swerving around it. He looked at her, his face humourless. ‘Want to hear a joke.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Did you know the Russians invented time travel?’

  She gave him a mock disparaging look.

  ‘Sure you do. If you want to go back to the time of the tsars just drive an hour out of Moscow or Piter.’ He had a pull on his cigarette. ‘Jesus, will you look at this place?’

  They were passing two houses on the right with neat vegetable gardens. As the procession drew level, she saw their pretty red roofs transmute into corrugated iron coated in rust treatment paint. The walls were bare concrete and half-timbers that offered little protection from the swarms of mosquitoes in summer or the ravaging winds in winter. A horse waited on the lane outside while its wizened owner fixed a tarpaulin to the cart. The man looked up briefly, then pulled on a rope, unbothered by the sight of the convoy.

  ‘I can’t be your boss. If I take it you’ll be re-assigned to a district station and coming home smelling of puke and piss each day. Is that what you want?’

  She needed more time to decide. She needed to find out if Mikhail was still the person she had married. If he wasn’t, well…she hadn’t got that far in her thinking but it didn’t look good. Divorce felt inconceivable – she didn’t want to be with anyone else – but if he was corrupt, how could she stay? ‘I’m not saying that, but if you don’t put yourself forward he’ll win for certain.’

  ‘But you don’t want me to win.’

  He risked another look at her then pulled his eyes back to the road. ‘Natashenka, you can’t quit just so I can chase a promotion.’


  ‘I’m not.’ She took a deep breath and exhaled. ‘I’m just saying let’s not decide now.’

  The OMON truck caught dried mud on the road and sprayed a cloud of dust behind it. Visibility dropped to a few metres. Mikhail pressed a button to close his window then stubbed out the Sobranie. ‘What’s going on?’

  Red lights leapt out of the gloom. Mikhail stamped on the brakes then manoeuvred around them. She looked over her shoulder to see a police car merge into the dust.

  ‘Flat tyre I bet,’ he said. ‘Should have watched the road.’

  Her heart fluttered like a trapped bird. ‘You’re dirty, Misha.’

  ‘Angel, what the hell are you talking about?’

  Now the bird was thrashing, snapping its wings. ‘Tell me about your secret bank account. Tell me about Misha Buratino.’

  ‘How—’

  ‘Mikhail!’

  The car in front swerved but he was too slow. The Mercedes buckled as it hit a pothole, then righted itself.

  ‘Are you trying to kill us?’

  He slowed and craned his neck, she assumed to listen for the rumble of a burst tyre. There was nothing above the heavy diesel engine of the OMON truck ahead, and he accelerated to catch up with the convoy.

  Mikhail was calmer than she had expected: ‘What makes you think I’m dirty?’

  ‘I found your secret account when I checked to see if you’d paid Anton’s university bribe.’

  His chest shook as he chuckled to himself. ‘Then you’ll be amused to hear Professor Litovkin called this afternoon…he has the money and is adamant the rejection letter was no more than a clerical error. He sounded very appreciative.’

  No wonder, she thought, Mikhail had paid the man twice. ‘My congratulations.’

  ‘So tell me, Natalya, how did you find out about Misha Buratino?’

  ‘I put a keylogger on our computer; it captured your passwords.’ She felt her voice rise in pitch, ‘You bought our apartment with dirty money, Misha.’

  They passed a sign indicating the village of Novvy Svet was two kilometres away and the Mercedes gathered speed as the road became smooth tarmac. On the right was a drainage ditch; she thought about ripping the steering wheel from his hands and dragging the car into it so the rest of her body could experience the jagged, visceral pain in her gut.

  Mikhail was frustratingly calm, he pressed another preset and “Radio Zenit” displayed on the dashboard. The airwaves filled with the sound of a crowd cheering.

  ‘Turn it off. Football is caveman shit.’

  He touched the button and twisted the volume control by mistake. Suddenly the roar of the crowd was personal. They weren’t cheering for points on some league table, they were cheering him on; it was his victory over her. She stabbed at the button again to switch it off.

  ‘Talk to me, Misha. What did you do, get someone off murder?’

  He pressed his lips together. ‘You’ve got it wrong, Angel. It wasn’t me.’

  ‘You control the account, don’t be ridiculous.’

  He went to speak and she rolled her eyes in anticipation of the lies that were going to come. ‘There’s nothing you can say.’

  ‘Oh I think there is,’ he spoke urbanely, smoothing his collar. ‘My mother.’

  She let out a short laugh. ‘What did Violka do?’

  ‘I told you before. She left me her money.’

  ‘Don’t lie, I deserve better than that.’

  ‘If you’d just listen!’ He took a breath. ‘Didn’t you ever see The Adventures of Buratino?’

  She unlocked her arms and waved a hand. ‘Of course, who hasn’t?’ It still appeared on the listings for the cable channels that sold nostalgia.

  ‘Well, it came out just before I was born. When I was six or seven, I had these stupid blond curls like Dima Iosifov, the boy who played Buratino – I couldn’t wait to have the fucking things cut off – I was always getting into trouble too. Before my mother started losing her mind, she set up the account and transferred her assets to me; it was her idea of a joke: Misha Buratino was my childhood nickname.’

  ‘Then how was it you never told me?’

  ‘Because, my darling, it is illegal for an official to have a foreign bank account. More importantly, I was hiding it from those felons in the Federal Tax Service who are in league with the mafia.’

  ‘So why didn’t you tell me?’ she asked again.

  He let out a weary sigh. ‘Because you’re too honest and I didn’t need the shit.’

  She looked out of the windscreen at the OMON truck; it was pulling over. Mikhail parked behind the remaining police car, almost dropping the Mercedes into a hole in the tarmac so perfectly spherical it could have been made by the impact of a meteorite.

  Already, Cosmonauts wearing blue and grey uniforms, black belts and boots, were climbing out. Mikhail stopped the engine and pulled on his door handle.

  ‘Definitely the blue jacket.’ She flicked her head in the direction of the men assembling outside the six-wheeled OMON vehicle. Dostoynov stood with them, affecting their easy, masculine stance. ‘I bet he warned the press.’

  She climbed out and pointed her Makarov at the ground as she racked the slide. To anyone else, she was sure Mikhail’s explanation sounded reasonable – all the money had come from his mother and the foreign account was to protect his inheritance – but it didn’t sound right. There was no reason to conceal the fact it was held offshore. Sure, tax evasion was illegal, but so was bribery, and hadn’t they done just that to get Anton into college? Mikhail was lying: he hadn’t told her about the account because it was stuffed with dirty money. Buratino was the boy who told lies.

  ‘Are we good, Angel?’ he asked.

  There was a sting of histamine and she sucked in air to stop the tears welling. ‘No, we’re not.’

  The old school house stood on the opposite side of the road. It was a two-storey block of concrete with plywood for windows, surrounded by a tall brick wall that, perversely, looked like the only part of the building made with any real affection. She instantly pitied the poor children who had passed through it, then wondered if the squatters occupying it had once been students there; now returning, subconsciously or otherwise, to wreak revenge on the place.

  The wall wasn’t high enough to obscure the OMON truck but subterfuge wasn’t necessary when the open fields surrounding the schoolhouse would merely provide sport for the police if the squatters ran for cover. She disengaged the safety on her Makarov then tucked the gun back in her holster. It wasn’t the way she’d been taught but the guard was good enough to prevent an accidental discharge.

  Next to a lamppost in the shape of a dandelion seed, a too-thin, too-pale boy was fidgeting with his phone. She took out her mobile and called the number the conscript had given her.

  The boy was startled when his phone rang and he stared at it for a full two seconds before answering.

  ‘Petya?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘You see a woman waving?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘That’s me. Come over.’ She saw a couple of OMON officers taking an interest as they clipped their batons in place. ‘And don’t go anywhere near the thing that looks like a tank, you’ll regret it.’

  She watched him walk briskly across the road and saw his face was covered in yellow-pitted acne as he came closer.

  ‘Are they still there?’ she asked.

  He frowned then rubbed his nose with the back of his forearm leaving a glistening trail on it. ‘Yeah, Stas and Dima are cooking.’ He sniffed, ‘You got the reward?’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, son.’ Mikhail appeared, grabbing the boy by the wrist before he could run. ‘You think we’d give it to a junkie.’ He pulled out a nylon tie to fix the boy’s wrists.

  ‘Leave him, Misha. Give me the keys, I’ll take him back.’

  He shook his head. ‘You can’t. This is your case. It’s a major arrest, Natalya, and it’s all yours. Everyone else is here to support you, even Dostoynov and
the Cosmonauts.’

  ‘I’m not going in there.’ She re-engaged the safety on her Makarov. ‘Make sure you get to them before Dostoynov realises what’s happening – it’ll make you even with him.’

  She heard a motor and expected to see the police car that had burst a tyre; instead, a van drove past with an outsized satellite dish fixed to the roof and a blue “1” on its side for Channel One. They either had a supernatural sense that a major arrest was about to happen or someone was feeding them information; Dostoynov, she imagined.

  ‘Angel, I don’t care about that.’

  ‘You should. I’ll see you at home.’ She couldn’t focus on his eyes, couldn’t bear to.

  The OMON had split into two rows and Dostoynov was addressing them.

  ‘You let him make the arrests and you may as well resign – he’ll make your life miserable. Give me your car keys, you can go back in that stupid troop carrier.’

  His voice sounded distant. ‘In the ignition…I’ll see you at home, right?’

  She mumbled a reply then removed Mikhail’s blue jacket from the back seat and tossed it to him. ‘Put this on. You look handsome in it.’

  Turning to the boy, she said, ‘Get in the car, and if you leave any bodily fluids behind then he’ – she tilted her eyes at Mikhail who adopted a menacing look on cue – ‘will do bad things to you.’

  She watched Mikhail pull on the jacket, then take out his Makarov and hold it in a two-handed position at the ground. He crossed the road, hugging the contours of the wall before disappearing from view. A Channel One reporter she vaguely recognised chased after Mikhail followed by a flustered cameraman.

  ‘Right, Petya,’ she said, climbing in, ‘let’s go find your mother and see what she wants to do with you.’

  Chapter 24

  Natalya glared at her alarm clock before realising the harsh buzzing sound was coming from her intercom. She ignored it, assuming a caller had pressed the buttons to several apartments in order to get past the block door. The noise stopped. She frowned. A bottle of Satrapezo to wash down a family-size packet of mushroom and sour cream crisps had seemed like the perfect formula last night. Then she remembered her first glass had been early evening and it hadn’t been one bottle of Satrapezo either. At least she got the flavour of the crisps right.