Murder in Ukraine by Dan Spanton Page B

fretting over the expense, they may forget to ask who authorized a lowly constable to go at all.
                  I’ve never been to Russia, and I plan to promenade across Red Square, for that I’m-at-the- center-of-the-world thrill, and hopefully to snap pictures of me and Sanya Zubov together. 
    I also have a list of gifts for my niece and two nephews compiled by my sister, which I know she expects me to pay for, and they’re not all souvenirs. There are certain anomalies. Something for the winter blues, Anna has scribbled at the end.
    ****
    “What did you find out?” asks Sanya Zubov, leaning across the aisle.  Volodney shifts in the window seat like a child needing a pee.  I remember that Zubov asked him to check out Tatty Akkuratney’s videos, and after a pause I violate my cardinal rule, which is keep my mouth shut.
    “Nothing there, sir,” I reply on Volodney’s behalf.  “She liked to stroll through the parks alone, while she filmed herself chattering.  Not a risk taker, just oblivious.  If anyone was tailing her and waving a hacksaw, she overlooked it.”
    “It was a long shot,” says Sanya.  “Good work, Mister Volodney,” he adds.
    “Thank you, sir,” says Volodney.
    We land in Moscow noonish, Mister Volodney flags a taxi and directs the driver to the Brighton hotel.  This is where video blogger Philip Deruga is holed up, according to Russian Immigration, and since most young men without a day job are night owls, we may catch him before he rolls out of bed. The taxi driver asks Sanya Zubov, who occupies the front passenger seat, “That’s something, isn’t it?  About the Akkuratney girl?
    Beside me, Volodney’s eyebrows twitch, but I’m not surprised news of our local murder has reached Moscow.  All Ukrainian video bloggers employ the Russian language, and Tatty was no exception.  They’d be stupid not too, it’s a huge audience. 
    A news kiosk occupies the sidewalk next to the Brighton, but there’s nothing about our victim, it’s all Dicaprio, Dicaprio.  Russians have a big fat crush on DiCaprio, and he’s just snagged his first Oscar, so it’s a national holiday here.  Zubov shows his credentials at the desk, and we go upstairs.
    Tatty’s boyfriend, Philip Deruga, is known in Ukrainian street slang as an extreme roofer.  He scales bridge supports, or hangs off the edges of tall buildings by his fingertips.  He balances on the roof of speeding commuter trains, and strips to his underwear and rides a toilet down the street on a skateboard, and tasers and maces his numb-nuts friends.  He films it all with his GoPro, and posts it to YouTube, and he’s not just famous in Ukraine, he’s a hit in Russia as well.  Deruga’s a big earner, not so much from YouTube, but from advertising deals.
    I hear all this from my sister Anna, who’s stuck with three preschoolers all day, and has sacrificed her youth.  (You know I’m smiling)
    Upstairs Volodney knocks gently on Philip’s hotel door, so as not to spook him, but in vain.  We return to the Brighton lobby without our person of interest; the desk clerk didn’t notice him go out, so we buttonhole the doorman, who says he hailed Deruga a cab and overheard the words Moscow City.  Sanya Zubov perks up after hearing this; Moscow City is a modern cluster of skyscrapers, boasting dance clubs and Michael Kors and so forth, and maybe Sanya thinks he’ll spot a fashion model. On the sidewalk I say I need the ladies’, and everyone looks around for a MacDonald’s.  We find a Starbucks a block away.  I use the toilet, and when I come out the detectives are sipping Kenyan and ready to leave. They haven’t ordered me anything, but I tell myself I’m a grownup, so don’t sulk.
    “If there’s a mall in Moscow City, that’s where he’ll be,” says Volodney. This isn’t deductive reasoning; he’s simply stating the obvious.   Nobody loves a shopping mall more than a Ukrainian.  He nudges me with an elbow,