I couldn’t see any police cars parked nearby, and I was pretty sure no average ment was going to be standing out in the cold. I wiped the last of the grease from the samsi on my sleeve, spat out the inevitable piece of gristle, strode up to the entrance door.
The trick is always to appear confident to anyone watching, show the world you have nothing to fear and even less to hide. Look furtive or worried, and even if the law doesn’t spot you, some sharp-eyed babushka with nothing better to do than spy on her neighbors will call it in.
I keyed in the four-digit number on the electronic lock installed after one of the tenants on the third floor was found stabbed to death, pushed open the door. Security might have been tightened since then, but half the lightbulbs on each landing were still either dead or missing, and the elevator was the same cramped and stinking toilet it had always been.
I took the elevator up to the floor above mine, and walked down the stairs to my front door. A thin ribbon of crime scene tape was still attached to the frame, but there was no sign of anyone guarding the place. I knocked on the door, just in case some ment was hoping to earn promotion, and when no one appeared, let myself in.
Chinara would have been horrified at the mess, but it was nothing more than I’d expected. Chairs overturned, drawers emptied out onto the floor and left open, the bed tipped to one side, with a couple of diagonal knife slashes across the mattress for good measure. Maybe with all the porn they’d found, the crime scene officers had decided to mark the spot with an X.
The poetry books Chinara had loved, had scrimped and saved to buy, littered the floor, spines twisted or broken, pages bent or torn out. I remembered the consolation she had sought and found in these poems, wondered how poetry could save the world when it couldn’t even save itself. I picked up a book at random, looked at one of the final poems.
Written by someone called Esenin, apparently. I wondered if he was still alive, if he’d be interested in meeting up one evening. With that attitude, I thought we’d get on just fine. Then I flipped to the frontispiece, and learned young Sergei had hanged himself at the tender age of thirty, in the Hotel Angleterre, St. Petersburg, back in 1925. So no meeting of minds then.
I picked the books up off the floor, put them back on the shelf where Chinara had always kept them. I wasn’t going to bother tidying the rest of the apartment. As far as I was concerned, the place where she and I had made our home no longer existed.
I looked around for the framed photo I’d kept of her, laughing, her hair caught in the wind as we rode the Ferris wheel in Bosteri, on the shore of Lake Issyk-Kul. It wasn’t in its usual place, but then I spotted it, face down, half-hidden under a pile of clothes.
The frame was intact, but the glass was broken, and someone had ripped Chinara’s photo in two. Checking to see if anything was hidden behind the picture, I guessed. I held a piece in each hand, and brought the ragged edges together, trying to make her whole, hoping to bring her back to life. But some things are impossible; life pins you down, picks your pocket of all the happiness and comfort you’d ever hoped for. Life had made my wife die, and made me her murderer. And knowing I’d simply brought her inevitable end nearer didn’t make me feel any less guilty.
I put the two pieces of the photograph in my jacket pocket, remembering why I’d come back to the apartment, went into the tiny kitchen. As I expected, the cooker and the refrigerator had been searched, and the doors left open, which accounted for the sweet aroma of decaying food. But no one had bothered to search properly under the sink. Years before, I’d constructed a false back with a space of five centimeters between it and the concrete wall. You never know when you might not be able to get to your major arms dump. I’d painted over the cracks on either side, so only the closest inspection would spot it. And nobody had.
I used a screwdriver to pry the false back away, and reached inside. My fingers found the thin plastic-wrapped package inside, surprisingly heavy for its size. My knees creaking to remind me I wasn’t getting any younger, I stood up and slipped the package into my pocket. I checked my watch; half an hour since I’d arrived. It was time to get out of the apartment; I’d been there too long already. I listened at the door before opening, but the landing outside sounded deserted. I pulled the door shut after myself, the click of the lock sounding as final as anything I’d ever heard. An end to my old life, I told myself. The only question was if there would be a new beginning.
I took the stairs two at a time, managing to avoid the piles of litter that had accumulated at each turn. We Kyrgyz are house-proud when it comes to the inside of our apartments, but communal space is a different matter altogether. Maybe that’s why the lightbulbs are always missing.
I was in a hurry, and the stairwell was dark, which was why I didn’t spot the empty Baltika bottle until I stood on it. It rolled away under my feet, taking me with it. I staggered and waved my arms about like one of those Soviet circus clowns that used to make holidays so miserable, then smacked my head against the wall.
I was only unconscious for about three minutes, but apparently that was enough. Because when I came to, and tried to touch my head where I’d attacked the wall, I found I couldn’t move my hands. And I was blind.
Chapter 45
Somehow in the fall, I’d managed to lose my shoes and socks, and pull some kind of sack over my head. I’d taken two of those little plastic ties that hold computer cables together to attach my thumbs together. I’d also done the same with my big toes. I must have looked as if I were practicing a particularly strenuous yoga exercise. Except I wasn’t.
“You always have to be careful just how tight you make those restraints,” a woman’s voice said, so close to my ear I would have jumped, had I been able to move.
“Too loose and your captive might just be able to wriggle their way out of them,” she continued. “Too tight and the blood gets cut off and after a few hours, it’s amputation time. Just be grateful I didn’t put one around your dick.”
“They don’t make them in that big a size,” I said.
“If you’re going to mouth off, then I’ve got some other toys I like. You won’t, but that’s the least of your problems,” the woman said, her mouth against my ear. I could smell her scent, floral, powerful, but somehow reminding me of decay. Her voice rasped, as if she’d been kicked in the throat a long time ago and never quite recovered. She didn’t need to whisper threats to sound terrifying.
“Have you ever noticed how someone walks when they’ve had their toes cut off? You wouldn’t think it would make much difference, such small bones, with hardly any meat on them. And it takes very little effort, it’s like trimming your toenails, only a little further down. But, believe me, it does. People shuffle as if they’re drunk, or they’ve only recently learned to walk. They walk round obstacles rather than over them, they can’t manage stairs, and they’ll never play football again.”
I said nothing.
“You must think us very simple, Inspector Borubaev. Or is that ex-Inspector? Haven’t you become one of the little people now? Looking over your shoulder in case some ment keen on glory spots the wanted child pornographer, puts two between your shoulder blades and gets a quick promotion?”