The hunter, Jasha, had no woman in the city down the E105 highway. Nor did he have a drinking friend there. His business contact was an agent who sold the pelts that he brought in from the wild animals inhabiting the tundra of wild grasses and dwarf birch and cloudberry. He killed his animals for the trophy heads that could be mounted on walls in lodges and hotels and which were popular in St Petersburg and Moscow. He lived amongst the shy, cautious lynx and Arctic foxes and the elusive wolverine, and there were moose and reindeer and the one bear, Zhukov, that fascinated him.
The bear never acknowledged him. Often, when out with his rifle and going in silence and using dead ground, he sensed he was being followed. He thought the beast dominated him and often, in his refuge home, he would talk softly to it, call it by the name he had awarded it, have a conversation, and be convinced of his own insanity. It had watched, it had shuffled round, shown him its back, and turned away to feed off a branch of berries and he was losing sight of it.
“Heh, Zhukov, heh. Friend, I will see you. I hope to. I have no other friend. Stay close and stay safe.”
Down at the main rail station, near to the harbour and the docks – with the rain heavier – Timofey had come to trade.
The arrival of a train from the south always lifted his spirits and was as good a place for him to make money as any in Murmansk. Twenty-four hours from St Petersburg to the Murmansk station, and thirty-six if the train had come from Moscow. Best was when young naval recruits were on their way to Severomorsk up the coast. They would buy. Timofey wore a thin windcheater that barely kept out the fine rain, faded jeans, and trainers that were scuffed and stained. His hair was fair and cut haphazardly and followed no style, but he had a strong face and high cheek-bones and a jaw that jutted and his eyes had that detached look as if his attention was far away as he hustled to get among the mass of the young military guys who stretched and coughed and smoked and would be allowed a few minutes to go and relieve themselves before the final part of their journey, to their ships and their barracks. In better times he would have had Natacha beside him, using her smile to attract the guys in uniform who yearned for the comfort of a wrap or a pill. He worked among them, dealt only in cash, had no time for change, and stuffed the money into his hip pocket; in his jacket’s right-side pocket were the pills and in the left-side pocket were the scraps of paper with the twisted ends. It was not easy for him because not only did he have to do business, but he had to avoid arguments with the smart-arse kids who wanted to bargain, and had also to be aware that the military police would be looking for him, or others like him, and would come piling in with their batons and their handcuffs if he were too prominent.
His phone rang. He let it ring at first. Too busy trading. He let it ring as long as he dared because if it went off for too long then he’d attract attention. He pocketed cash, handed out pills, and that day they went better than the wraps. He moved fast and could hear the NCOs bawling at the kids to get on the buses. A queue had formed near him and he was circled by purchasers. He sold well, but Natacha would have done better. She would have been in there with her smile and the float of her eyebrows, the pout of her lips, and every kid would mentally have stripped her and would be groping for money and she would have given a tiny wiggle of her hips. They would all be submarine boys if they were in transit for Severomorsk where the hunter-killers were docked… and she talked heavy on submarines and had cause… and his phone kept ringing deep in a pocket and he had no time to answer, and a few of the NCOs were pushing in among the kids and heaving them towards the buses and the rain slopped off his hair. He had sold all of his pills, and only a palm full of wraps was left. A petty officer was in front of him. Eye contact made. The man thought Timofey was scum. His eyes and his sneer seemed to pose a question and he fingered the top of a truncheon fastened to his belt. Which would he prefer? Would he prefer a crack of the truncheon on his shoulder-bone and then his shin-bone, or would he prefer to back a discreetly palmed percentage of his takings? Timofey despised the sort of man who wore a uniform, held power because of the baubles on his chest. He was a free spirit: he slipped away, and the phone still trilled in a pocket.
Timofey’s car was parked in a side street. He drove an under-powered Fiat 500, long past the date when it had any value other than for scrap. The car was good for Timofey and Natacha, painted a dull grey, hardly noticed, and would take him now to the gates of the gaol because this was the day she would be freed. He had not been to the trial and had not visited her in gaol. Would have been too easy for the bastards if he had done, would have identified himself. She would not have expected him to come, and he would be round a corner and beyond the cameras and she would exit though a small door in a big gate and would walk away and might just spit in the gutter and would go round that corner and the engine would be running, the passenger door open. She would slide in, would lift his hand and lay it between her legs, and he’d rev the engine and they’d be gone. He had missed her, had missed her bad.
He answered the phone, and heard heavy, gasped breathing. Timofey’s father was a drunk, a certified alcoholic. Most of his cronies in the block were drunk most days from cheap vodka. It sounded like his father was having a panic attack or was afraid or merely drunk.
“Yes…?”
A silence broken only by incoherent grunting.
“What is it? Are you too pissed to say? Why did you ring?”
He was answered. One word. Foreign, awkward on his father’s slurred tongue, and the obvious fear made its sound more indistinct. “Matchless.”