9.

26 June, 7:15 AM, Czernograd, King Nicholas Bridge

It took him about five minutes to get there, speeding through the pre-rush hour traffic streets along the arc of the railway line and then west along the river.

He parked his car, a 2002 done-up Opel convertible, about a hundred metres from the bridge, outside one of the boarded-up warehouses. A large area around the two massive concrete pylons has been marked off with the tallow police tape. Three Milicija cars, an ambulance and a nondescript forensics van were parked just outside on an expanse of hard dirt and crumbling asphalt littered with aluminium cans and crumbled paper. On the river quay early morning joggers and cyclist would stop for a moment and stare but there was nothing to see except the uniforms, plainclothes and forensics in their protective suits milling around.

He walked over to the tape and lit up again. The police photographer was using flash even though there was plenty of morning light. No other cameras in sight, so Igor was the first from the media at the scene.

No other familiar faces either, except for the angry bowling ball on legs, wearing his trademark navy blue long coat and a permanent scowl, as old and worn out as the coat. Senior Detective Piotr Bohun might have been shorter by a head than most of the other cops within the taped off no-go zone, but his reputation for foul moods was all the stilts he needed to tower over others. His keen and twisted mind, sheer bloody-mindedness and tough shell have gotten and kept him where he wanted to be, not high up in the rarefied atmosphere of headquarters, pushing paper all the way to retirement, but on the ground, still pounding the beat and, some said, suspects and still terrifying new generations of youngsters in uniforms.

Igor held on to the yellow police tape, cigarette in his mouth, trying to make eye contact with Bohun. They locked their gazes a few times, but each time Bohun pulled back to return to his conversation. He finally felt forced to try to beckon the old man with his head, feeling like an idiot with a nervous tic, but after half a minute of humiliation it worked. Bohun eventually detached himself from the group and slowly shuffled his way over to where Igor was standing.

“What am I, a fucking dog?” he grumbled. “Are you going to whistle at me next time?”

“Maybe I’ve got a snack for you,” said Igor.

“No, you think I might have got a snack for you,” Bohun stuck a fat finger in Igor’s chest.

Forget all the clichés about the heart of gold hiding beneath a gruff exterior, thought Igor. Here was a heart of rusted iron, impervious to charm, threats or awe. The only way to win his grudging respect – no, make that occasional grudging cooperation – was to prove that you could be just as much of a son of a bitch as him. Bohun was self-taught, Igor had a degree in that too; his first one, before journalism. And Igor could be useful, too; one of those symbiotic relationships between the law enforcement and the press. Someone should make a nature documentary about it.

“So what do we have?” he asked, offering the detective a cigarette.

“A handful,” Bohun took it and took Igor’s fire, “and not enough time to deal with journalists.”

“Give a break. It’s quarter past seven and I had to give up morning sex with a twenty-year-old for this.”

“Are you expecting sympathy from me?” Bohun shrugged. “By the way, how did you find out? Are you naughty people listening in on again on our short-wave?”

“Don’t ask me, I just got the instructions from above to turn up. And now that I’m here, the less time we spend on this foreplay, the sooner you’ll be able to get back to work. Make that both of us.”

The detective looked back over his shoulder, blew the smoke in the direction of his colleagues and turned back to Igor. “A vamp, male, visually early 40s.” It was impossible to estimate a vampire’s true biological age just by looking at them; they remained forever frozen in time they were turned. Sucks if you were a geriatric when it happened, Igor thought. Forever old. Personally, Igor thought that mid-twenties was the best time.

“A dead undead?”

“Yep. Staked right through, God bless his damned little soul.”

“Any leads?” Igor asked. The morning traffic was starting to thunder above them, and it was surprisingly noisy, the vibrations from the giant steel skeleton resonating through the cavernous empty space beneath and bouncing off the still paddled up rows of warehouses on both sides of the bridge.

“The stake was firmly planted in the ground the sharp end up and the vamp looks like he just fell straight on it.”

“Did he trip or was he pushed?”

“You journalists, always so suspicious,” Bohun threw the stump of his cigarette to the ground and crushed it with his foot.

“Just asking the questions you guys should be. And you’ve just contaminated a crime scene.” Igor offered him the second one.

“Fuck off, Svoboda.,” the Senior Detective grimaced but took the offering. “You sure you want my help?”

Igor presented him with his most disarming smile.

“Who found the body?” he asked.

“A jogger. You fag.”

“Only now? It’s been daylight for at least two hours; somebody should have tripped over it earlier.”

“Can’t really see it from the track unless you’re really looking. The guy who found him apparently side-tracked to take a piss away from the river.”

“Hope you booked him for urinating in public. Anyone heard anything?” Igor asked. “Aren’t the v-men supposed to scream like all hell when they’re staked? Or have I watched too many horror movies.”

“Both, no doubt,” Bohun said. “But it’s an industrial area; no one lives around here. Besides, it’s under the bridge for goodness’ sakes. The chump might have screamed his cold undead heart out for all we know, and no one would have heard him, even at night.”

“What about the deceased? Was he also a jogger?”

“There’s a car parked nearby. A bit too expensive for the area. We’ve found the keys in his pocket, so no, not a jogger.”

“I take it somebody is running off the licence plates now?” Igor asked.

Bohun shrugged. Ask a stupid question... “Anyway, pleasure as always.”

“I owe you one,” said Igor.

“You owe me a lot more than one.”

“The next time your rough up a suspect during the interrogation I’ll just write the little shit’s been resisting arrest,” Igor smiled with the corner of his mouth.

Bohun waved him off like a pest that he was and waddled back to rejoin his colleagues.

Igor contemplated for a moment retracing his steps back to the apartment on the southside, losing his clothes and slipping into the warm bed and the girl – what was her name? Irina? Rena? – but the professional in him won the struggle. He hated the professional. He sighed, chucked the half-incinerated cigarette away and started walking back to his car.

Photo by Daniel Olah on Unsplash