Murder in Ukraine by Dan Spanton

Author:Dan Spanton [Spanton, Dan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-03-08T05:00:00+00:00

During the night it snows. In the morning my cat Masha sits at the window watching, wide eyed, and I’d love to know what she’s thinking, but maybe she’s just hypnotized. The weather boffins have forecast snow, it’s the ‘how much’ part they’ve miscalculated. At the airport it’s falling heavily, but we lift off on schedule. This time I’m sitting next to Sanya Zubov, who’s wearing a pinstripe grey suit, blue tie, black shoes with a perfect, unmarred gloss, and my breathing is deep and calm, because I’m concentrating on a solitaire game on my phone.

“We should rent skis,” Volodney is saying, “in case there’s a downhill pursuit.”

“Snowboards have more control,” answers Sanya. He leans across me, stretching out a muscular hand to demonstrate edge pressure, and for an instant his face is centimeters from mine. Have I mentioned his eyelashes? At this point I’m going to keep my thoughts to myself until the plane lands.

There’s a mini bus waiting as we touch down, four others who’ve bought the package deal squeeze in behind us, and we’re all driven over rutted roads of mud churned with fresh snow, where green and blue houses wait behind tall, occluding fences, and here and there bony dogs watch without hope as we pass.

Soon we’re on a better road, the sort paid for by private enterprise and not government, climbing steeply through spruce and pine.

The Ibex Hotel in Bukovel is rustic alpine, and by rustic, I mean it was probably built three years ago. There’s a main building with service facilities, surrounded by private lodges at discreet distances, ringed by trees. We check in, then are led along a walkway to an A-frame Swiss-type chalet, where we unpack our bags. It’s been agreed that we’ll need to blend in in order to assess the situation.

I spend some time changing into my ski slope attire, and when I return to the living area both men are gone, but I find Volodney in the main building scrounging leftover breakfast buffet in the dining room.

“Pasha Bulychuk’s already on the slopes,” he says.

“Where’s Mister Zubov?”

Sanya Zubov comes in, lugging a snow board from rentals, wearing a white and blue ski jacket with trendy trapezoid patterns, goggles strapped to his helmet.

“Two bodyguards,” reports Sanya.

I believe we’ve assumed Pasha Bulychuk would have security, but it’s suddenly clear that sitting Pasha down under a dangling light bulb will entail strategizing.

“We’ll get to him when he hits the john,” suggests Volodney.

“He’ll deny everything and his bodyguards will alibi him,” I point out.

“Pasha’s not an easy target,” Zubov agrees. “We need to question his security people. If one of them has a police record, we can twist his arm.”

“We wait until dark and follow them all from the dining room,” advises Volodney. “We’ll separate one from the pack.”

Sanya considers. “Not bad, but we can do the same on the slopes.”

We find all five men in a coffee shop near the chair lifts, where I get a good look at Pasha. You can tell rich men by their teeth, and Pasha has a megawatt smile.

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