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avoid having a conversation in any police station. I sat back on the lumpy hotel sofa and stared at Usupov, saying nothing. All too often, it’s what you don’t say that gives you the edge.
    Usupov looked around, his usual calm gone, avoiding my eyes, his glasses catching the harsh mid-morning light from the window. His unease infected me, and my fingers touched the cold metal of my Yarygin.
    “Akyl, the best thing you can do is tiptoe away, and make sure the door doesn’t slam behind you. This is a crime you don’t want to solve.”
    His unusual use of my name was even more disconcerting than the warning he gave. In all the years I’d known him, the formality with which he’d called me “Inspector” had defined our relationship. Now, I didn’t know where I stood with him. I lit a cigarette to buy myself some time to think, and watched the blue-gray smoke as it hung in the air.
    “Kenesh, I’m not a virgin. Tell me.”
    Usupov shrugged. I picked a fleck of tobacco off the tip of my tongue and stubbed out my cigarette.
    “You know I can’t just walk away from this. I do and I’m fucked. Lavrov will have me up on the Torugart Pass, inspecting license plates on the trucks that cross over from China.”
    Usupov said nothing, and I felt anger starting to rise.
    “If you know something, and I don’t, you’re a witness, maybe even a suspect,” I said, “and no one’s going to question me if I put you up in a cell for a few days. Maybe with someone you’ve testified against.”
    It was an empty threat, and we both knew it, but I needed to remind Usupov that this was a murder case, and there weren’t going to be any get-out-of-jail cards.
    “I don’t know much,” Usupov said, staring down at his hands. I noticed that they shook slightly.
    “So you do know something,” I said. It wasn’t a question.
    “Not know, more something I suspect.”
    “You tell me what you suspect, I’ll find the evidence to back it up,” I said.
    “You’re coming up against some very powerful men, Akyl.”
    I shrugged; I’d expected nothing less. And putting a stone in the shoes of the rich and powerful is more satisfying than confiscating some alkash ’s bottle, or collecting breakfast money fines for speeding.
    “It wouldn’t be the first time, Kenesh, you know that. It’s my career specialty.”
    He shook his head, sucking his teeth at my criminal stupidity.
    “They’ll brush you aside and forget about you the next minute. Traffic duty in Torugart Pass? You’ll be lucky not to be in a shroud lying next to your wife.”
    Perhaps that was the meaning of my dream, a warning or a prophecy. The ticking of the clock behind the reception desk was very loud. Silence hung between us like a spider’s web, ready to snare the unwary.
    “These powerful fuckers, what is it they want, Kenesh?”
    Usupov stared past me, and I could have sworn there were tears in his eyes.
    “You can’t fight them, Akyl.”
    “Let me ask you again, and this time with my Murder Squad cap on. Chief Forensic Pathologist Usupov, what is it they want?”
    Usupov paused, sighed, world-weary, sickened.
    “Fresh meat, Inspector. Young meat.”
    He stirred his lukewarm tea, raised the cup to his mouth, put it down again untasted. His eyes were bleak behind his glasses.
    “They want children.”

Chapter 9
    “It was around this time, about a year ago,” Kenesh began, his eyes avoiding mine. “I’d been called out in the middle of the night by the duty officer at Sverdlovsky station. They’d found a body just off Chui Prospekt, it was being shipped to the morgue for me to examine. He wouldn’t give me any details, except to say it was important the autopsy be done right away.
    “I wasn’t too pleased; we’d been celebrating the spring festival, Nowruz, and I knew I had a busy day ahead. But he told me orders from the top, with a police car outside my front door within ten minutes. So I got dressed, a ment drove me across town to the