A Spring Betrayal Read Online Free PDF Page B

wrapped her body in the frozen earth and snow.”
    None of the men spoke. The diggers crouched down in Chinara’s open grave, watching, knowing they were trapped.
    I wondered if the simplest solution to everything I carried inside me was to start shooting, and let them extinguish me in a dozen heartbeats, place me next to my life’s love.
    I’d done my best to come to terms with the thought of Chinara’s decay. Cheeks collapsing to rest on teeth, eyes sinking back into their sockets, smooth belly distended by the gases of rot. Soft warm skin shrunk into rasping parchment stretched tight over bones before splitting. And slowly, over decades perhaps, turning back into the earth, with only her grave marker to show she’d ever lived and loved and made my heart bright.
    I looked at the simple marble plaque in front of the grave. Chinara’s profile, copied from a paper silhouette done by a street artist in Red Square beside the Kremlin walls, during the one visit we’d made there. Followed by her name, her dates, and a line she would often quote by one of her favorite poets: LOVE WEATHERS ALL STORMS . When we argued, she could always defuse the occasion, simply by saying it, raising an eyebrow and winning my heart once more with her smile.
    But I’ve never been convinced that love can weather a storm as overwhelming as death.
    I bent down and brushed the loose soil from one of the blue flowers that had adorned the grave. Sunlight turned the tiny petals turquoise and a gust of wind snatched it from my fingers. It was time.
    I like to think I’m not a violent man. I hope the power a police badge, a gun, and a basement interrogation room bestow hasn’t changed my views on right and wrong. But I also know the clarity when the dice have been thrown, and the speed of your reactions and your willingness to pull the trigger are all that stand between you and a hole in the ground.
    Don’t think. Act.
    It’s a clarity that’s helped me put people in their graves. So perhaps it’s all too easy to deceive ourselves as to who we really are.
    The older of the two uniformed officers stepped forward, his hands held palm forward, as if to reassure me that he meant no disrespect.
    “Inspector, we received a call from a very senior government official, ordering us to undertake this regrettable action.”
    I looked at Usupov. His imperceptible nod confirmed my suspicion: Mikhail Tynaliev, Minister of State Security. I turned my attention back to the officer. He had taken a step forward, so that my view of his colleague was partially obscured. I beckoned him to move back, ready to pull out my gun if I had to.
    “Go on.”
    “He told us you’re working on a very important case. One with consequences that go to the highest government levels, if you solve it. The very highest. And vital evidence has been concealed in your wife’s grave.”
    He paused, shrugged.
    “He didn’t tell us where he got the information. And we were ordered to ask you here, to show that nothing disrespectful to your wife’s remains or to your feelings would take place.”
    He reached into his pocket, stopped when I shook my head.
    “A cigarette, that’s all.”
    He looked down at the grave.
    “This isn’t what I signed on for.”
    I shook my head again and he withdrew his hand, before beckoning to the diggers to climb out of the grave. They did so, standing well away from the other three. Maybe they didn’t know that a Yarygin holds seventeen 9mm Parabellum bullets, more than enough to go around.
    I looked down into the dark mouth of the grave. My wife’s shroud was smeared and stained with earth, torn in places, the soil around it raw and freshly turned. The roots of the nearby thorn had coiled themselves around the body, as if defending it against incursions such as this one. The white cloth stirred as if caught by a sudden breeze. But the air was still.
    Then, a sudden movement, quick, intense. The gray muzzle and black snout of a rat, alert at our