Free Amber by Stephan Collishaw Page B

respect?’
    â€˜I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I said.
    I got up and took the key from my desk, indicating to Kirov I considered our conversation ended. Kirov, however, did not move. He watched me closely. With deliberate care he slid a packet of cigarettes from his pocket and extracted one. Slouching back into the chair, raising his feet and resting them on the edge of the desk, he lit the cigarette and blew a cloud of thin blue smoke into the air above his head.
    â€˜No, you don’t,’ he said at last. ‘You have no idea what I am talking about, do you? How much did our friend Vassily…’ He paused mid-sentence, took another drag on his cigarette and tapped the ash from it on to the floor. ‘How much did he tell you? About what happened there, in Afghanistan?’
    â€˜We didn’t talk about it.’
    Kirov laughed. ‘I’ll bet he didn’t.’
    â€˜I said “we” didn’t talk about it,’ I corrected him pointedly.
    Kirov rose from his seat suddenly. He stepped over to me, raised a finger and prodded my chest.
    â€˜There are things you should know,’ he whispered. ‘There are things he should have told you. The kind of things a friend would have told you. You think he was being considerate of your feelings, stepping around the past, keeping it from you? You think it was for your sake he did not say anything? You’re mistaken, Antanas. You’re very mistaken. There are some stories Vassily should have told you. There are some confessions he should have made.’
    He drew steadily closer, until I could feel his hot breath against my face. His eyes had narrowed and his lips were trembling. With a shudder I recalled the almost sexual thrill he had taken from killing in Afghanistan. Recalled the way he would lick his lips before we went on a raid, the way they would tremble like this as he tested the blade of his knife against the soft pad of his thumb, drawing a little blood, sucking it up, savouring it on his tongue.
    I recalled the evening when, drunk, he had grabbed me in the heavy darkness by the latrines, the blade of his knife cold and sharp against my throat.
    â€˜I’ve seen you watching me,’ he whispered, his breath hot in my ear. ‘In the showers.’
    I had heard of his reputation. I tried to pull away, but he pressed the blade deeper so that it bit into the soft flesh of my throat. I felt his hand reaching, searching. A torch beam startled him and I was able to slip out of his grip.
    â€˜I’ll get you,’ he whispered.
    â€˜Wouldn’t you like to know what Vassily did?’ Kirov taunted me. ‘Wouldn’t you like me to tell you?’
    I stepped away from him and stumbled against a worktop. As I steadied myself, my hand came down on a pair of shears we used for cutting metal. My fingers curled around them, behind my back, opening the blades. Kirov advanced on me. His eyes glittered maliciously. A sudden image of him bent over a body flashed through my mind, the knife bloodied in his hands as he slit around the ear of the dead Afghani. Taking the lobe, he lifted it with the care of a chef and eased it away from the side of the skull as his knife sawed at the gristle.
    â€˜It’s not a pretty story.’ Kirov grinned. ‘But then that’s why I like it so much.’
    I whipped the shears from behind me and flicked the blades threateningly in his face. He stepped back, startled. Not giving him a chance to recover, I thrust them at him again, forcing him to take several paces backwards and stumble on the bags of unworked amber.
    â€˜I want you out of here,’ I said, my voice trembling. ‘I want you out and I don’t want to see you back.’
    â€˜Now, Antanas…’
    â€˜Get the fuck out of my shop.’
    I stabbed the shears forcefully towards him, and he had to step back again. This time he tripped and sprawled on the floor, in the