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There’s a reward going, maybe? For information? And Vasily doesn’t have to know, right?’
    Suddenly I felt old, washed up, as if I’d been listening to the same lies, self-justifications and greed all my life. I nodded my head towards a doorway, to get us off the street. Shetook a final drag of her cigarette, flicked it away and stumbled after me.
    Out of the wind, her cheap perfume burnt my eyes. The top must have come off the bottle.
    ‘She was cut up, right? I mean, badly cut up? And someone shoved a baby inside her belly?’
    ‘You’ve got big ears, and someone’s got a big mouth.’
    She pouted. This wasn’t going the way she’d planned; grateful cop gives her a handful of notes and a Get Out of Jail card. She fumbled through her bag for another cigarette, found only an empty pack, crumpled it up, dumped it. I offered her one of mine, and she leant forward as I lit hers and mine. True romance. I could almost hear the violins.
    ‘My friend Gulbara told me a girl had been killed.’
    ‘And she knew, how?’
    I didn’t expect that she’d tell me. Gulbara, if she even existed, wouldn’t be likely to share her informant at the station with anyone. But you have to ask, make sure they don’t think they can get away with anything.
    ‘I wasn’t sure if I should believe her or not. But then Vasily told us as well. Said not to worry, that we could keep on working, that this guy wasn’t interested in working girls.’
    Typical Vasily. As long as the
som
came in, he wouldn’t give a fuck if his whole stable got slaughtered. Plenty more where they came from.
    As if she read my mind, Shairkul took a final, lung-bursting drag from her cigarette, threw it away.
    ‘He would say that, right?’
    I nodded.
    ‘So what should we do?’
    I shrugged again.
    ‘What did Gulbara say?’
    She took a step back, took a fresh look at me.
    ‘You don’t give a fuck either, do you?’
    ‘What do you want me to do? Give you money to catch the bus back to your village? Call out the army to give you twenty-four-hour protection? You know how it works.’ I threw her the tough-but-honest-cop stare. ‘You tell me what you know, I find the dickhead, book him in at the no-star hotel, and we all go back to work as normal.’
    Shairkul seemed less than reassured by this, and gestured for another cigarette. At this rate, it would be lung cancer that laid her out on Usupov’s slab, long before any crazies got to her.
    ‘She wasn’t one of us, not a regular working girl. But you already know that, right?’
    ‘I know what we know. What I want is what you know.’
    Even though the street was deserted, Shairkul looked over her shoulder before speaking.
    ‘She wouldn’t have lasted three hours without a pimp, you know how this town’s carved up.’
    I winced at the word, remembering the frozen stare gazing out past the trees towards uncaring stars, the uncoiled tangle of guts, the half-clenched fingers of the foetus.
    ‘So she was an amateur, that’s what you’re telling me?’
    Shairkul smiled; there’d be a price for her information.
    ‘Is there a reward?’
    ‘For you?’
    I stopped for effect, reached for my cigarettes. Shairkul grinned, the money already as good as in her handbag.
    ‘Let me explain. I saw the body of a young woman hacked up worse than I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen plenty. Some other woman, if she’s still alive, is mourning the death of herunborn child. So my patience is not just wearing thin, it’s non-existent. And I’m in a hurry.’
    I grabbed Shairkul’s jacket and pulled her to me, so close that anyone passing by would think we were lovers, oblivious of the cold. I lowered my voice to the gentle, persuasive murmur that I’ve always found more menacing than a shout or a snarl.
    ‘Unless you start talking, I’m going to tell Vasily just how talkative you can be. You know how pimps feel about girls that use their mouths for something other than giving a customer a blow. And then you won’t be