Page 50 of Foul Days

“For God’s sake, Bakharov!” Kosara pressed her hand to her heart, trying to keep it from escaping her rib cage. “I thought I was going to jump out of my skin there.”

“That was so cool!” Malamir shouted from the bed. He aimed a finger gun at the upir. “Pow-pow! You should have seen it, Kosara!”

“I’m sorry, I was too busy suffocating under a frenzied bloodsucker.” Kosara massaged her bruised arms. The hole in the upir’s temple kept smoking. “How did you manage to wound it so badly?”

“I rubbed garlic juice on the bullets,” Bakharov replied.

Clever, Kosara had to admit to herself, but she’d never say it out loud.

After only a few hours, Chernograd had taken its toll on the carefully turned-out Detective Bakharov. His perfectly pressed white shirt wasn’t so perfectly pressed or so white anymore. His sleeve was rolled up, and a dirty bandage was hastily wrapped around his forearm. It wasn’t tight enough.

“Did you shadow me here?” Kosara asked.

“No,” Bakharov said. “We seem to be following a similar trail of investigation. Aren’t you glad I showed up, though?”

Oh, dear God, yes. “Actually, I was seconds away from stabbing the upir myself. What are you doing here?”

“I need to ask your friend a few questions.”

We’re more acquaintances, really, Kosara thought, but then she realised that wasn’t the important part. There had been a sudden change in Bakharov’s voice: a steely note she hadn’t heard before.

“You’re not suspecting he’s involved as well, are you?” she asked.

“I—”

“Unbelievable!” Kosara waved a hand towards Malamir. “I mean, look at him! What do you think he did? Dragged himself to Irnik’s house on his stomach and talked him to death?”

“I didn’t mean—”

“It’s because he’s from Chernograd, isn’t it? Because you in Belograd are all nice and polite and smell like spring flowers, and we Chernogradeans are the same monsters as … well, the monsters.”

“No,” Bakharov raised his voice, which was unusual enough to make Kosara shut up. “I need him to explain how his fingerprints ended up at the crime scene.”

“What?” Kosara said.

“What?” came Malamir’s quiet voice.

That wasn’t possible. Kosara could accept she’d been wrong to trust Roksana. But Malamir, too? No way. Once, he’d cried because he’d stepped on a slug.

“Well, Mr. Petrosyan, do you have any explanation for how this happened?” Bakharov asked.

“I, um, no,” Malamir mumbled. His face had turned ashen. “No, I don’t. I’ve never even been to Belograd, I swear. I mean, look at me! How would I get anywhere like this?”

“We checked the timing. You got admitted to the hospital forty minutes after the victim’s approximate time of death. That’s plenty of time for you to leave the pub—”

“My leg was broken, for crying out loud! I’m sorry I took a while getting here.”

Kosara chewed on the inside of her cheek. Something wasn’t adding up. “Wait a minute. Where did you find the fingerprints?”

Bakharov threw a glance towards her, then back at Malamir. “I’m afraid I can’t tell you that.”

“Malamir, think.” Kosara leaned closer to him. “Did you touch anything belonging to the stranger? Anything he could have taken back with him to Belograd?”

Malamir bit his bruised lip and made a pained face. “I honestly can’t rem—wait! I know! I asked if I could try on his reading glasses. I’ve been meaning to get a pair of tortoiseshell ones.”

Kosara turned to Bakharov with her eyebrows raised.

“We might have found the fingerprints on the victim’s glasses,” Bakharov admitted, though he looked as if he didn’t want to. Kosara gave him a triumphant smile. Who’s the detective now, Bakharov?

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