Nadia has never dived that deep, but to save her sister, she's going to have to.
Here's how it all starts...
Prologue
The only thing worth killing for is family.
Her father’s
words to her, the day they’d come for him.
She’d been
fourteen when two men in combat fatigues and balaclavas burst into the kitchen
where she and her father were enjoying breakfast. The armed commandos hadn’t
seen his pistol lying beneath a folded newspaper. While her father struggled
with the men, his eyes flicked between her and the weapon. She could have
darted for it, threatened them, helped him. But she hesitated. The moment
slipped past. They threw a black hood over his head, cuffed him, and dragged
him away... to be interrogated, tortured, executed and buried in the woods. A
single thought haunted her ever since.
Had he known
they would come?
Four years
later, Nadia picked up his Beretta, its dark metal cool in her hands. She
checked and re-loaded the magazine. She walked to the window, took one last
look at the wild garden where her father had taught her to shoot, and the gravel
path leading through the pine forest to the banks of the Volga. There, she’d
learned first to swim, then to dive. Turning away, she stashed the pistol in
her backpack and crept downstairs, hoping to escape unseen. But her mother
was waiting for her on the doorstep, arms folded.
‘You’ll end up a killer just
like him, Nadia. Or a whore, like your sister.’
Nadia pushed
by without replying. She passed through the creaking gate that had so often
announced her father’s return, and breathed easier after the turn of the road.
She waited an hour for the bus, partly hoping – but mainly dreading – that her
mother would come running around the corner begging her to return.
Fifty miles
from Moscow, where her sister Katya lived, everyone had to get off the bus at a
security checkpoint to show papiren.
Nadia left her backpack under the seat. When she reached the front of the line,
a young soldier flicked noisily through her passport, then glanced up, surprise
lighting his smile.
‘Happy
birthday,’ he said. ‘Eighteen. A special day.’
Nadia moved
into a grotty studio flat in Old Arbat, where each night she fell asleep
exhausted from working in the local bakery from four a.m. until three p.m.,
then at a supermarket until nine at night. She kept her hair cropped, dressed for
comfort, and was often mistaken at first sight for a young man, which was fine
with her. She liked boys well enough, but hated the unsubtle flirting, the
vodka-fuelled race to unconsciousness, the lies. She’d loved her father, but
he’d been one of the worst with women, and she’d seen the damage it had done to
her mother.
She didn’t get
enough time with Katya, but on Wednesdays they’d go to the Sevastopol Hotel,
the rock-bottom market. They’d start on the sixteenth floor and work their way
down, Katya usually buying her little sister Chinese or Afghan trinkets to
brighten her dingy flat, seeing who could negotiate the hardest, laughing about
it afterwards over ice cream. And every Sunday afternoon they’d head to Gorky
Park, taking turns to push each other on the swings just like when they were
younger, and ice skating as winter approached, always hand in hand. Sometimes
they talked about their parents, but only back in the past, during those good,
early years. But when they’d hug, Nadia remembered how they used to hold each
other in bed during their parents’ screaming matches downstairs.
Katya never
invited Nadia to her place, never spoke about what she did with the rest of her
time. Nadia didn’t want to probe, didn’t want to break the spell. Besides, she
wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
Then the
ever-gorgeous Katya invited her dark-haired kid sister to a party at a
luxurious country dacha owned by a wealthy businessman, Kadinsky. Nadia was
never formally introduced, though Katya clearly knew him very well. Nadia was
mesmerised by the women with perfect skin in glittering, low-cut dresses, the
handsome and not-so-handsome men, their jewellery and fancy cars and easy talk
of big deals. Viktor, a man twice her age, who turned out to be someone in
government, seduced her. He wasn’t bad-looking, took his time in bed, and left
cash for her breakfast in the mornings.
She let things
coast for six months, no demands or promises on either side. She presumed he
was married. She never asked, and he never said. She gave up the early morning
bakery job, and thought about getting a cat.
Then one day
Viktor was on the news, handcuffed, being forced into a police van. She leapt
off the sofa and began packing a bag, but within minutes a loud rapping sounded
on the door. The Beretta was on the table, fully loaded. She hid it under a
loose floorboard, then opened the door.
Receiving misappropriated funds. That’s what they told her at the
station, though she was never formally charged, never saw a lawyer. Once inside
Lubyanka prison, Nadia was informed she’d be their guest for twelve years, ten
if she behaved. On the anniversary of her father’s death, she gazed through the
prison bars, studied the sad faces staring back at her from the ugly block
opposite. She turned away, took in the inside of her cell. The double bunk with
rancid sheets under which she shivered each night, curled up in the foetal
position. The iron toilet that stank of her own piss and shit – they wouldn’t
give her the bucket of water to flush it until lunchtime. The cold grey bars,
faded whitewashed brick walls, not even graffiti to lighten her mood. And the
lone hook in the ceiling that her former cellmate had used to end everything
while Nadia had been out in the exercise yard. The fourth suicide since her arrival.
Ten years? She
wouldn’t make it.
Shouting
erupted down the corridor. Wolf-whistles, tin mugs clanging against cell bars,
lascivious remarks from several lesbian inmates, one of whom already had her
eye on Nadia. And then a gruff man’s voice, more like a growl. Silence. Nadia
stared at the bars. It couldn’t be anyone for her. No one had visited her since
her incarceration. But she listened. A man’s shoes, heavy, impatient, and high
heels clacking behind, almost running to keep up. Nadia smelled her sister’s
perfume, and took a step forward as the footsteps approached. But Katya wasn’t
alone. Nadia took a step back.
Kadinsky.
Since being
locked away, she’d heard on the grapevine that he was a gangster, not a
businessman, and now she saw him close up for the first time, he fit the bill.
He had a gleaming bald head, like he actually polished it every morning, and
was fat without being flabby, as if his weight was there to throw around, to
crush you if necessary. He wore an expensive, baggy beige suit, and gold
jewellery dripped from his wrists and neck. Katya stood behind him in a skimpy
red dress and high heels, tousled hair falling behind her shoulders, her large
eyes hopeful and scared at the same time. There was no guard with them.
Kadinsky held a ring of keys in his hand. He selected one that looked
indistinguishable from the twenty others dangling from the ring, shoved it into
the slot, turned it with a resounding clank, and stepped inside.
Nadia wanted
to hug her sister, but Kadinsky stood between them. He turned his head to the
side, not enough to see Katya, but just enough so she’d know he was talking to
her.
‘One word, and
I walk. Turn around. Give the other inmates a treat.’
Katya gave one
last look at her sister, then dutifully turned around and faced the bars. There
was silence outside. Everyone was listening. Especially Nadia.
Kadinsky
glanced at his gold Rolex, as if bored, somewhere else he’d rather be.
Anywhere. He glanced at Nadia, then folded his chubby arms, stretching the
fabric of his suit.
‘I’ll ask you
a single question, girl. You have three chances to give the right answer. If
you do, you come with us. If not, you stay, and see your sister in twelve
years.’ He glanced at the toilet bowl, grimaced, pulled out a silk
handkerchief, blew his nose noisily, then stuffed it back into his pocket. ‘And
be quick.’
Nadia tensed,
stood almost to attention, and waited for the question.
‘What did you
do wrong?’
Nadia’s reply
was too fast, a prison reflex, what everyone here said when they first met
someone new in the canteen or the yard.
‘Nothing,’ she
said.
‘Wrong answer,’
he said. ‘Second try.’
Of course it
was the wrong bloody answer. He was a gangster, so in his mind everyone had
done something wrong. She stared at the keys in his hands. The door was open.
Soon, one way or another, it would be locked shut. Think! Maybe just the facts...
‘I met Viktor
Romanovich at your dacha. We had an affair. It lasted six months. One day I saw
him on TV, being taken away, arrested on corruption charges. While I was
packing, they came for me, threw me in here.’ But what had she done wrong? She’d just enjoyed the ride, a little
life, a little luxury, someone who’d looked after her. She pictured Viktor. A
man twice her age. Old enough to be… She shuddered. ‘I should have found out
what he was up to, asked where the money came from.’
Kadinsky made
half-fists, turned them palm upwards, and studied the fingernails of one hand,
then the other. He stared at her like she was a waste of skin. ‘One last try.
What did you do wrong?’
Nadia looked
at her sister’s outline; she was trembling. What had she done wrong? She didn’t
know. Been born, maybe? So, she’d stay here, die here. Could she do that to
Katya? If her father hadn’t got messed up in God-knew-what, if he’d still been
around, things would have been different. What had he done wrong? She never knew. But then she realised what it was
she’d done wrong, both times. She’d not picked up the gun for her father, that
fateful day. And when they’d come for her, his Beretta – the only keepsake she
had from him – had been right there, on the table.
She looked
Kadinsky in the eye. She didn’t know if it was the answer he was looking for.
Whichever side of those bars she ended up on, she had a feeling it would be her
epitaph.
‘I let them
take me.’
Kadinsky
grunted. Looked at his watch again. ‘We’re leaving,’ he said.
Katya spun around and
Nadia found herself wrapped in her sister’s arms, felt her sister’s hot tears
on her cheeks. Nadia’s head tilted upwards, and while she succumbed to the
embrace, she stared at the lone hook in the ceiling. Fuck you.
66 Metres available for pre-order, will be released on 25th August
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