Did he mean police, or Russians? Probably both. It was a sad insight.
“What do you want to know?” Kazakov asked and the old man turned a gaze on him faded almost white. Blind?
“Who would do that to our Semetai? What kind of men would kill a harmless boy who loved only music and a girl?” the old man asked.
“The answer is that I do not know. But I’ve learned that Semetai may have been involved in an altercation at a charity polo game, does anyone know anything about this?”
“Polo?” asked Semetai’s mother. “Why would my boy have gone to a Russian polo game? This is not kok boru. Not a true Kyrgyz game.” She set her jaw firmly against any such possibility.
Kazakov nodded. “But this game was modeled after the old game.” The barbaric game, but he dared not show what he thought. “It was raising money to host another student music conference like the one where Semetai and Yekaterina met. Perhaps he was invited to attend? Or not?”
He scanned the men and women on both sides of the room, but the place had gone stony with silence.
“I am not trying to blame Semetai for anything. I simply need to know whether it was him that became involved in an altercation. Whatever happened, if something did, it could be the reason Semetai was killed.”
There was only more silence so, clearly, he was not going to gain those answers here. He needed to change the direction of his enquiries or he was going to get nothing more from this group.
“You have given me much information that I did not know.” He sighed. “When Semetai died, I found Yekaterina’s school bag in the alley. She had been found earlier the day before. I don’t know who killed her, either, but at the time, the condition of her body and the way Semetai was found suggested that they may have been killed by their families. It was plausible given how horrified people were that they were seeing each other.”
The old woman hissed. The mother covered her face. The men started talking over each other until the print shop owner waved everyone to silence. “You see how important it was for us to meet with him? He could actually accuse one of us of killing our own if we did not talk to him. They would use our silence to say we hide our guilt from them.”
Kazakov shook his head. “That is not the only problem. In the police department—it seems there is not to be an investigation. All my evidence was taken.”
“By whom?” the print shop owner asked, his role as a leader in the old city becoming clearer by the moment.
“I don’t know where the direction comes from,” Kazakov said placing his hands on his knees. “Rostoff, my boss, took the file away from me and was not pleased when he discovered that I investigated on my own. But there may be other parties, other forces at work.” He would not tell them of Collin Archer’s death.
On impulse he pulled out the newspaper article photocopies he had made this morning and spread them on the floor in front of him. “Do you recognize any of these men?”
The men passed the photos around, then handed them to the women to inspect. The young girl and her mother both hissed when the photocopies came into their hands.
“This one. I remember this one,” the old woman said holding the photo of the plant opening close to her face.
“Which one, Mama? Let me see.” The younger woman eased the photo from her mother’s clutch and studied the image. Finally she nodded. “It is him.” She leaned forward, tapping the image, and Kazakov took it from her, checking where she’d touched.
Collin Archer peered out at him. Only then did Kazakovnotice that, like Boris Bure, the dead man had predatory, overlarge teeth.
Chapter 9
The dusk of a short winter day had gathered by the time he crept out of the old city to his vehicle. The community information had been a lot to take in and it filled him with concern on many levels, not least of which was the trust they had placed in him. How had he been so wrong as to think that they could have killed their own? But then killers lurked in unexpected places. A jilted fiancee’s father, a long-time friend suddenly jealous over a scholarship, an unsuccessful businessman seeking revenge on a successful one. In each case you found the motivation, the emotion, and you would find the killer. Usually it was someone close to the dead person. This time, aside from the two young people being lovers, he was not so sure. What if he failed to find Semetai’s and Yekaterina’s killers? What if these people did not like the results?
Walking through the winter streets, he felt as if he burrowed through darkness like some worm or mole. But it was always like that in winter. The shorter days took their toll on people. In the west there was a line of clear sky far out over the lowlands of the eastern Ottoman Empire and it allowed the horizon to burn while New Moscow and the mountains were buried under the threat of clouds burdened with more snow. He opened the Perseus’s door and sniffed the air. Just the scent of his wool and the soap he used greeted him, so it seemed that no one else had been there. He climbed in, started the engine, and cruised past Potemkin Park to the far side of the city.
Collin Archer’s apartment sat in an area of New Moscow plentiful with gardens.
In the summer.
At this time of year, the open plantings that were maintained by community gardeners were usually dry stalks in winter-burned earth. Today they were buried under the drifting snow, with only the sad remains of sunflowers and cold-blackened tomato plants poking through. Interspersed with the lifeless gardens were the stone outcroppings of the buildings. Most were expensive stone-and-wood homes that hunkered down around twin ten-story towers of glass and steel that had been heralded as New Moscow’s most modern living environments. Collin Archer’s building had a view over the rooftops of the old city to the crags of Yekaterina’s Mountain.
He parked the Perseus in the lone visitor’s parking stall—apparently anyone worth talking to already lived here—and went to the well-lit main door. Inside, white marble-tiled floors gleamed under a thick Bukhara carpet of reds and blues. Dark blue couches faced an electric fireplace that demarked a visitor waiting area away from the elevators. An aging security officer in a crisply pressed blue uniform sat at a white-tiled desk near the door. He watched Kazakov try the locked entry, but buzzed him in after Kazakov pressed his badge to the glass.
Kazakov made his request to access Archer’s apartment.
The security officer shook his head. He was about ten years Kazakov’s senior, with a balding head and shoulders sloped as if he bore the weight of Yekaterina’s Mountain on his back.“Mr. Archer left instructions that no one is to go in without him.”
Kazakov sighed. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Mr. Archer will not be coming back. Mr. Archer is dead. I am investigating his death. Now let me in or I will be forced to obtain a court order and the culprit will have time to escape.” He was being more than a little melodramatic given he had no chance of obtaining such an order.
The old fellow hesitated, but then produced a set of keys. “I’ll—I’ll go up with you. See you don’t disturb anything.”
Which was exactly what Kazakov intended to do. He smiled. “And who will watch the door for you? I would hate for this to cause you a problem.”
The old man stopped and looked to the door. Clearly, opening it for people and checking them in was an important part of the job.
“When was the last time you saw Mr. Archer?” Kazakov asked.
The older man frowned. “Three nights ago. I think. He goes out every Wednesday night. I think he has a regular date.”
Kazakov filed that bit of information away. It fit with Archer attending the Red Veil at least one night a month. Where he was the other Wednesday nights was anyone’s guess.
“Has anyone else been to see Mr. Archer in the past three days?”
The guard’s open gaze grew shuttered. “Not that I can recall.”
Of course, recollection could be a selective thing.
“Perhaps you could try a little harder. Did Mr. Archer have visitors?”
The aging guard�
��s lips firmed, but his gaze turned pleading. “You have to understand. I am paid to have discretion. I tell stories and I lose my job.”
“Just tell me whether someone was here these past three days?”
“I’m sorry. No.” The guard shook his head.
Kazakov slipped the keys from the old man’s fingers. “Then I will take that as a yes. I will not cause any harm. Now which apartment is it?”
The old security man’s gaze flipped from the building entry to the keys to the bank of elevators beyond the fireplace. Then he sighed and nodded and sank down on his chair. “I guess a man can’t be everywhere. And you are the police. It’s apartment 9B. A nice view from up there.”
Kazakov took the elevator up the nine floors—not quite to the top, but damn close—and stepped out into a vestibule of thick pile carpet the gold of old wheat and paler velvet wallpaper. The heat was on high and so dry that he felt as if he had fallen into a silo of chaff. The walls to either side were blank, but there were two doors facing him with plain gold lettering: 9A and 9B. There were no other apartments on the floor.
Fewer chances of witnesses?
He used his borrowed keys and let himself inside Collin Archer’s apartment.
The first thing he noticed in the darkness was cold. He toggled on electric lights and found himself in another foyer. This one gave onto a dining room to his right with high coffered ceilings and burgundy walls with ornate white crown moldings. A dark wood table complete with candelabra gleamed in a chandelier’s light.
He abandoned the foyer and ventured into the other room, a grand parlor complete with huge windows that overlooked the gleaming lights of New Moscow skirting around the five-peaked mountain. The windows radiated cold. For all the heaters in the elevator foyer, they could not compete with this colder than normal winter. Kazakov held his hand over a heating vent. Cold. Apparently, Collin Archer depended upon the ambient heat of the building to heat the place. Or turned everything off when he left to go out.
The room held two large, pale gray, leather sofas facing each other over a large glass coffee table that bore a simple, low, square vase and the twisted limbs of a bonsai. On the room’s three other walls hung artwork. Kazakov frowned. He might not know art, but this looked like the real thing, not the usual kitschy painting of Saint Basil’s Cathedral or dreamscape images of Russia remembered. These were minimalist depictions of mountains and birds, but instead of Chinese karsk landscapes of steep-sided limestone mountains, these had a bucolic Anglo flavor to them with brief blue strokes of rivers winding between sweeps of green fields. Still, there was something of the oriental in them. He leaned in to read the artist’s signature. A. Bruce. Could be from anywhere. Perhaps the artist simply mimicked the ancient Chinese style. After all, the Anglo-Germans were in league with the American states trying to broker a peace between the two empires.
Kazakov smiled at the similarity of style. Collin Archer had had his features transformed, but not his taste. Perhaps he wasn’t a very good spy at all. Odd, given the painstaking changes that had been made to his body. What made more sense was that as a pseudo-Anglo-German he chose this style for a reason. Perhaps it was in vogue in that Empire. He seemed to recall seeing something about cross-cultural art being in vogue. It was something else to check.
Shelves and drawers were built in under the paintings and he set about his search. The drawers were mostly empty. When he finished his cursory look, he eased his back. Collin Archer might have rented this place, he might have resided here, but this room might as well be empty. It was for show, nothing more. Even the framed photos on the low shelves were no more than framed copies of the newspaper article photos he’d already seen. Nothing from the life he’d claimed back home in Devon.
A closed door at one end of the room gave onto a large, modern kitchen with dark grey concrete counters and red appliances. Black cupboards made him feel as if he was in Baba Yaga’s lair about to brew up a strange concoction. The air even smelled funny. He checked the fridge—almost empty except for a half-empty carton of eggs and a wilted head of lettuce. The cupboards carried almost nothing—an unopened box of rice, a single pot and frying pan. A set of four plates and bowls and a matching amount of cutlery. If Collin Archer planned to entertain, he clearly planned to have the event catered. No junk drawer. No takeout menus. No nothing. The place had the gutted feeling of a fish—as if someone had been here before him.To remove anything of importance? It seemed the old guardian of the building entrance had not only fibbed about someone’s attendance, but had also been a bit disingenuous about not allowing anyone into the apartment.
The garbage bin contained the remains of a dinner of noodles and rice and vegetables in a dark spicy sauce—all now covered in a blue frosting of mold. The mess was the source of the odor in the room. Three days the security guard had said. Perhaps it was longer, age doing what it did to an old man’s memory. So where had Collin Archer been?
He returned to the living room and spotted an obvious panel designed like a secret hiding place set into the far wall opposite the kitchen. Such things had been all the rage in Fergana about seven years ago when someone had taken the country’s unspoken fear of invasion and made it fashionable. The panel opened with slight pressure of his fingertips to reveal a bedroom. The room had the same opulence as the dining room, with white coffered ceiling, ornate navy-blue walls and, against the far wall, a large, white, four-poster bed draped in navy bedding. This room had a slightly different air—a scent as if a person lived here. Pheromones. The scent of unwashed clothing and old skin sloughed off in bedding. A dresser sat under another cold window, but the heating vents were on here and, so far, able to hold off the cold.
Drawers revealed the dead man’s clothing. Underwear. Socks. A white t-shirt. A black t-shirt. White shorts and polo shirt suitable for racket sports.
He found the closet and bathroom behind another supposedly secret panel. Large bathroom with tub, shower, and a vanity that contained cold medicine and a bottle of lotion that tingled on Kazakov’s fingers when he tried some. Skin bleach? It was a reasonable possibility. But the sheer lack of anything else said this was a very careful man. Or someone had helped him along.
In the closet, the impression was reinforced with freshly laundered clothing all held in individual plastic coating. Nothing in pockets—he checked. No boxes on the shelves. Even the shoes had had their soles cleaned. All of the clothing bore labels Kazakov recognized as coming from Anglo-German designers.
Perhaps that was odd in and of itself. Most people were not careful about only purchasing items manufactured at home, and with trade across the globe, more and more designer clothing could be made anywhere in the world.
Frustrated, he returned to the living room. The man had left no sign of his existence beyond a body, a few newspaper clippings, and a woman’s statement.
He was wasting his time here. He was sure of it. And he was fairly certain that Archer’s office would be just as carefully devoid of the man. But there was another place Archer had spent his time.
Kazakov returned to the bedroom closet, dug to the back, and pulled out a sterile plastic-wrapped package of white breeches and polo shirt. Embroidered on the breast pocket was the name: AngloTec Polo Club.
He tossed the clothes back into the closet and headed out the door. In the downstairs lobby, he returned the keys to the crafty old security guard.
In all of New Moscow there were only three polo clubs. He knew that much. One had its stable and clubhouse to the south in the foothills. The other two shared facilities and were located westward out of the city toward Kokand. He remembered reading about it in the newspaper, because the second club was patronized by AngloTec.
He checked his watch. Six thirty. All those businessmen had to exercise their string of polo ponies some time.
He started his car and headed west.
Outside the sprawling city, the houses died away and the land flattened out. In summer, it would hold rolling fields of wheat and
corn. Fergana’s many irrigation canals had been dug to steal water from the Potemkin River. In exchange, the farms offered up vegetables and sweet Dunhuan melons in the long summer days. Now the silent fields were dark, reflecting moonlight that filtered through a spectral layer of clouds. Here and there lay the huddled, low-slung shapes of houses and farm buildings amid the fields.
He reached the stables, only a short drive off the highway, just after seven. White-fenced fields were empty, but a large, covered arena leaked light through large windows placed above metal siding. Stables made sloped rooflines off the sides of the arena like the full skirts of a tribal Kyrgyz woman.
The parking lot was full of expensive Ziln, Bosphorus, and Autowunder vehicles as he pulled the Perseus into a space among them. His trusty vehicle looked like an ill-bred Kyrgyz mount amongst sleek racehorses. Any one of the imported vehicles could have bought and sold his dacha ten times over. He climbed out onto the well-cleared lot and hunched toward the nearest stable. The large sliding barn door had a smaller human-sized door in the middle with a bright amber light overhead. He opened the door and stepped through.
Quiet and warm were his first two impressions. The air lay still and pungent with hay, leather, and horse manure. Along the length of the long breezeway between two rows of stalls, three horses were tied and men were working over them with brushes. The two men working on the horse closest to him glanced in his direction. They were young and fit, clad in breeches, puffy down jackets, and high black boots.
Feeling out of his depth—he had never had occasion to get comfortable with horses except for the small mountain breeds of the tribesmen who had visited the dacha woods—and bulky beyond belief in his long wool coat, he approached the first animal and its handlers.
“Detektiv Alexander Kazakov, New Moscow Police. I am conducting an investigation. Can you point me to whoever is responsible for this place?” He left out the nature of the investigation in the belief that in an environment like this the news would travel like wildfire, thus potentially ruining witness testimony.
After Yekaterina Page 17