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intrusion. A rat that had made a homein my wife’s body, her ribcage its roof rafters, her belly its nest. The rat stared back at me, unafraid, baring long yellow teeth in a snarl of defiance. Then I was pumping bullet after bullet into the grave, and as the earth gave way under my feet, I fell, to embrace Chinara for a final time.

Chapter 8
    I’d had the nightmare before, but its familiarity did nothing to stop me waking, bathed in sweat, heart pounding and my mouth filled with the taste of bile. I switched on the bedside lamp and drank from a bottle of water. Its chill punched my stomach, and I thought I was going to vomit.
    I looked around the room, bland, unremarkable, but couldn’t shake off the impression that something vile had retreated into the shadows, awaiting its moment. I sat there, hands shaking, until my heart slowed and the terror in my mind subsided.
    I knew the dream was offering me some sort of clue, dredged out from the day’s events by my subconscious. When you live in a country governed by the seasons and the power of nature, there’s a deep-seated belief in the sacredness of the world around you. To survive in a land this harsh, you need respect. There’s an element of shamanism buried deep in Kyrgyz culture, a knowledge that recognizes mystic places, sacred mountains, the superstitions and beliefs that underscore the way we live. We never place the round flatbread lepeshka upside down on a plate or fill a cup to the brim with chai, we don’t disturb brightly colored cloths tied to a branch or a rock. To doso is to insult the gifts of nature, or to issue a challenge to forces we don’t even comprehend.
    Sometimes the job’s simply about keeping an open mind, rearranging facts until you start to see patterns. But over the years, I’ve learned dreams can hint at something, even if I can’t always work out what it is. It’s more than simply sifting clues or watching how seemingly random patterns form a new way of seeing things.
    Dreams let me step away from myself, allow me to reach an understanding with my surroundings, the smells, the sounds, the mutter of wind stirring the grass on the high jailoo . The cynical might call it grasping at straws, or following a hunch, or desperation. I call it listening to the songs of the dead, telling me how they died, why, and who stole their breath.
    And sometimes it’s about seeing the world through the eyes of the thief.
    I spent the next two days making phone calls, using the list that Gurminj had given me of all the orphans whose identity bands were in front of me as I spoke. None of them seemed connected to each other, and a couple hung up on me once I started to explain the reason for my call. None of them had been in the same orphanage at the same time as anyone else on the list. Four men, three women, living in different parts of the country, with nothing in common apart from their time in the care of the state. A time that didn’t seem to have many happy memories for them.
    I also contacted their local police stations, to see if there was anything against them. One man accused of selling weed, a couple of car crashes, nothing that tied them to seven small bodies.
    Usupov was due to go back to Bishkek the following day, taking the bodies with him, to store in the morgue in the hope that we might find out their identities. My new boss in Bishkek, the replacement for the chief, a paper-pusher and political appointment called Lavrov, had already called me twice, stressing the need for a quick solution to the crime. I did think about asking him if he had any ideas, but the only investigating he’d ever done was looking for his car keys.
    Which meant it was time to find out exactly what Usupov wasn’t telling me.
    “Kenesh, I need to know what’s going on.”
    We were in the hotel lobby, empty apart from the two of us and a receptionist engrossed in texting her friends. It made sense to talk here; I know enough about wired interrogation rooms to