Death's Executioner

by Charlotte E. English

  ‘Good,’ said the inspector crisply. ‘Has anyone been there yet?’

  ‘We thought you might like to be on the scene immediately yourself, sir.’

  ‘And I shall!’ said the inspector, rising from his chair with alacrity.

  Konrad took a shrewd guess that officers of Nuritov’s level were not always so eager to do the legwork. Perhaps that was one of the qualities that won him respect.

  ‘Have you finished with your other assignments, Karyavin?’

  ‘Of course, sir.’

  ‘Then you’ll come with us.’

  Karyavin looked quietly but profoundly gratified.

  But then the word us registered, and his gaze travelled to Konrad. Bemusement.

  ‘An associate,’ said the inspector. ‘Mr. Savast has an Eye.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘For detail, you understand.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Amused, Konrad fleetingly regretted that he would never have an admiring trainee of his own. But only briefly. Young men were rash — he’d been one himself not so long ago, after all — and he had as many responsibilities as he could fairly manage already.

  Still, as he made his greetings to young Karyavin and graciously permitted him to follow first in Alexander’s train, he could not help feeling a moment’s attraction to the idea.

  Hold, though. Did Tasha count?

  Spirits above, no. Tasha wouldn’t know deference if she drowned in it.

  Smothering a laugh, Konrad stepped into Alexander’s sturdy and serviceable police cab, resisting an unusual temptation to have Eetapi tweak the young constable’s ear.

  Verinka Tarasovna’s place of residence answered most of Konrad’s expectations. Years of observation stood him in good stead when it came to such judgements. He could usually assess a person’s place in society and approximate degree of wealth to a nicety, by studying such clues as the way they dressed, the style of their hair or beard, and the ornaments (if any) they wore.

  Not always, of course. Some were deceptive. Some were deliberately misleading, like Konrad’s own gentry-gear. Anybody would take him for a gentleman born and bred, which he wasn’t.

  Anyway. Verinka had lived on the edge of the city of Ekamet, nowhere salubrious but nowhere meagre either. House-proud, she: front door and window-frames freshly painted, her garden ordered and well-tended. Two storeys only, but the house was wide enough, and long: she had several rooms.

  Konrad took note of the house’s location, that being nowhere near Polik Street. Had it been her first visit to that locale, or had it been a regular habit of hers?

  In either case, why?

  The inspector led the way inside. The door was unlocked, and the rooms beyond — furnished with neatness, propriety and a spectacular lack of imagination — were occupied by more of his men.

  ‘Anything, much?’ said he cheerfully.

  ‘Not yet, sir,’ answered a subordinate, older than Karyavin, and stout. He, too, cast a curious glance Konrad’s way, but Alexander did not trouble himself to explain or introduce his “associate” again, and the man (perhaps wisely) chose not to question it.

  Surveying Verinka’s space, Konrad felt a mild depression of the spirits. Cold, and unnecessarily so, for nothing suggested she was too poor to afford heating. But the embedded chill suggested no fire had been lit in that house in weeks, if ever. The place was spotless, as though someone sought to eradicate every sign of human habitation. And then there were the colours of it, or lack thereof. Dull white. Insipid grey. Beige. Joyless.

  Not a happy woman, perhaps? Or merely unimaginative.

  ‘No smoking paraphernalia, I suppose?’ said Konrad, with perhaps a trace of diffidence. Alexander had never before taken him along on official police business; he was more in the habit of conducting such investigations himself, and relaying the news to Konrad later. Was it presumptuous of Konrad to question his men?

  The inspector reacted not at all, however, seeming absorbed in a survey of Verinka’s scant collection of books, arranged in a sorry little stack upon a pine shelf constructed with an almost brutal precision. After a moment’s hesitation, the stout police officer replied, ‘Tobacco, and the like? No, we haven’t found anything like that.’

  Alexander, absently, nodded.

  Nice to have confirmation.

  ‘Karyavin,’ said Alexander. ‘Anyone talked to the neighbours yet?’

  ‘Not yet, sir.’

  ‘Off you go then, please. I want to know about her habits. Whether she was close to anybody. Anything about her personal life we can get. And whether she had reason to go anywhere near Polik Street.’

  ‘Sir.’ Karyavin touched his hat, almost a salute, and took himself off.

  ‘He’s good,’ Alexander said to Konrad. ‘Natural talent. Knows just the right questions to ask, and good at putting people at their ease.’

  Long before Karyavin might reasonably be expected to return, there came a knock at the door, an impatient rat-tat suggestive of someone in no way doubtful of their right of entry. And in a hurry, besides.

  ‘Allow me,’ murmured the inspector, and with his pipe clamped between his teeth he yanked open the door, interrupting the visitor mid-knock.

  ‘Oh,’ said the visitor, blinking in befuddlement at the array of strangers before him. Enlightenment was not long in dawning, and he stepped back, his face falling into a mask of dismay. ‘Police?’

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ said Alexander.

  ‘Verinka is…?’

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ said Alexander again.

  Konrad watched the new arrival’s expressions carefully, for unless he missed his guess, this must be the brother. The same one Verinka had accused? His features bore a more than passing similarity to his sister’s, though he was larger of frame — rather fat, even. He had the same brown hair, and was dressed at a similar level of affluence. He had none of his sister’s neatness, though, for his dark brown coat was rumpled and stained, and his boots filthy.

  He did appear genuinely upset at the news, though not much surprised. And judging from the tears welling, he had jumped — accurately enough — to the conclusion of her demise. A police presence in her house might denote a number of things besides that.

  Alexander, though, had the situation well in hand.

  ‘Inspector Nuritov,’ said he, stepping back to usher the man inside. He removed the pipe from his mouth at last and stood holding it, watching the stranger keenly. ‘You are a relative, I take it?’

  ‘I am her brother,’ answered the man.

  ‘Tsevar Tarasovich—’

  ‘—Manin. Yes. Forgive me.’ Tsevar dragged a dirty handkerchief from a pocket, and mopped at his eyes. ‘We were close,’ he sobbed.

  ‘I am sorry for your loss,’ said Alexander, and managed to sound as though he meant it. Probably he did. ‘You knew she was ill?’

  A guess on the inspector’s part, but a correct one, for Tsevar nodded. ‘For months, she had been complaining of tiredness and aches, sickness. She would go out, regardless, though I begged her to use the carriage…she said that walking was good for her. I did not think so. Day by day, she grew weaker, and the doctors could do nothing. No one knew what ailed her.’

  ‘So you came to check on her,’ said Alexander with gentle sympathy. ‘What a terrible shock for you.’

  ‘Yes.’ A few ideas seemed at last to filter through to Tsevar, for he looked hard at the inspector through reddened eyes, and his gaze then travelled to the other police officer occupied some way down the passage, and at last to Konrad. ‘But what could bring the police here? And… who are you, sir?’

  The latter question being inevitably directed at Konrad, he bowed. ‘I work with the police,’ he said, without troubling to give his name.

  Tsevar’s eyes narrowed. ‘You?’ He took in the vision of gentility Konrad made in his tall hat and fashionable coat, clearly disbelieving.

  ‘He is quite useful,’ Alexander said mildly. ‘And it was he, in fact,
who discovered what had become of your sister.’

  This distraction gambit paid off, for the bereaved brother fell to questioning the inspector as to his sister’s fate. While Alexander explained the circumstances, Konrad quietly withdrew to the kitchen. If Verinka had been poisoned over a period of months, she may well have been imbibing the stuff in her own house. And in that case, there could be traces of it in her kitchen.

  Verinka’s scrupulous, almost obsessive neatness helped him greatly, for he encountered a space with nothing out of place, and no clutter. Everything here had its designated purpose. He examined the jars of dried herbs and one or two spices lined up upon a humble shelf over the plain pine sideboard, and saw nothing untoward. The inspector’s men had already been through them, he guessed, for they were a little knocked about. Nonetheless he went through them himself, removing the glass stoppers and taking a slow inhalation of the contents. Diverse odours filled his nose, but nothing that seemed out of place. He returned them, knowing that Alexander’s people had doubtless taken samples and would see that they were tested.

  He did not think the poison was secreted in the jars, though. He had a nose for such things (as well as an Eye, in Alexander’s opinion. Perhaps he was a useful person to have about, at that).

  A simple tin tea caddy sat in a corner, but this, too, apparently contained nothing but dried tea leaves. Verinka did not keep much food in her house, by all appearances; the place was too small to have a dedicated larder, and the shelved, walk-in recess that served the purpose instead was rather bare.

  He returned to the front room, disappointed of discovery. It was still possible that Verinka had somehow been buying and consuming tainted produce of some sort or another, but if so, whatever it might be was not presently in the house.

  Alexander would set his men to enquiring where Verinka bought her food, and from whom, and how it was procured. They would do the dull work of investigating these suppliers in search of something out of place. Konrad was more interested in who might conceivably be behind such an organised plan; the police might uncover a name in the course of these enquiries, but they may also come up dry.

  For Verinka might never have encountered the poison in her own home. It was just as likely that the stuff had been administered somewhere else, by someone that she met regularly. And there Konrad would focus his own efforts.

  Beginning with the brother, whose grief might have been copious but might, for all of that, have been feigned.

  ‘I hope you will forgive me for asking, sir,’ Alexander was saying as Konrad re-entered the room. ‘But the processes must be gone through, you understand.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Tsevar. His eyes were dry again.

  ‘Well,’ and the inspector’s tone became rather apologetic, ‘One or two of your sister’s neighbours have remembered that— well, that she did not quite appear to trust you. You did say the two of you were close?’

  ‘What?’ said Tsevar, assuming a creditable expression of outrage. ‘Of course she trusted me. We saw each other every week. I was her brother. She knew how I cared for her.’

  ‘You see, sir, she seems to have thought you might even have been inclined to harm her,’ said Alexander, more apologetic than ever. ‘Perhaps her illness made her unreasonably suspicious, but—’

  ‘That is absurd,’ said Tsevar, his mottled face turning redder. ‘She cannot possibly have said any such thing. Whoever made such an accusation is a liar.’

  Konrad gave his friend full credit for finding a way of asking about Verinka’s belief in a way that might seem plausible to Tsevar, but he could hardly explain that it was she and not a neighbour who had accused him — after her death. He was obliged to abandon the line of questioning, but before he could embark upon some other direction of enquiry, Konrad quietly intruded.

  ‘You met every week?’ he said. ‘That is dedicated care indeed.’

  ‘More often, since she became ill,’ said Tsevar, the angry flush not yet faded from his features. ‘We have met once a week at a luncheon-club for years, and in recent months I have also been here very often to support her in her illness. I took her to the doctors. I did everything I could.’

  Which probably explained what she’d been doing in Polik Street, Konrad thought, for a pre-eminent physician had premises there. A cab had brought her, but she had fallen before she’d reached the doctor’s door. ‘Which luncheon-club was that?’ said Konrad.

  ‘It is held at the Larch eating-house. You may ask anybody there that you like. They will have seen us, every week. Why should I have done that if I did not care for her? And why could I possibly have wanted to harm her, even if capable of it?’

  Konrad privately agreed with him on that score; as yet, they had no idea of a motive.

  Except for one possible thing.

  ‘Were you aware of anybody in your sister’s life of the name of Kristov?’ he said.

  Tsevar’s face darkened still further. ‘That miscreant. If anybody harmed her, you should take a close look at him.’

  ‘Ah, we will certainly consider it,’ said Konrad. ‘And who is he?’

  ‘He has been courting her these past six months and more. Verinka always said she did not wish to marry, and she never did, but lately I began to think he had persuaded her to change her mind.’

  ‘And you didn’t approve?’

  ‘No. Who could? He is beneath her. A mere grubby, upstart— he has charm, that I will allow, but nothing else. I do not know what Verinka saw in him.’

  ‘Do you know what he saw in Verinka?’ Konrad suggested. He meant no insult, only she was of middle-age and no particular beauty, and nothing he had seen suggested that she was in possession of an especially sparkling personality. Or of any great wealth, either. None of the usual things, in short, that might encourage a man to court a woman comfortable with her spinsterhood with so much assiduity.

  ‘They met in the street, would you believe, on one of Verinka’s dashed walks,’ said Tsevar, without precisely answering the question. ‘Nothing could be more improper.

  ‘You do not happen to know which street?’ Konrad said quickly, but Tsevar shook his head.

  ‘What can that possibly matter?’ he said impatiently. ‘She is dead, and it is his doing. I would lay my life on it.’

  Kristov. Soft words, echoing somewhere inside Konrad’s head. My Kristov. Poor Kristov.

  Verinka? Said Konrad. Tell me about Kristov.

  But she did not answer.

  Konrad was left to secure the rest of Kristov’s name from her indignant brother, and the despised suitor’s place of residence. Tsevar took his leave soon afterwards, destined, he said, for the morgue. Someone was wanted to confirm Verinka’s identity, for the official procedures must be gone through; Alexander could not write in his report that the victim had confirmed her own identity through direct speech with a ghostspeaker.

  Karyavin returned with tidings which might have interested Konrad a little sooner, but now could achieve little but confirming some of the things Tsevar had said. Her weekly appointment with her brother had been a known thing among her neighbours, as had Kristov’s pursuit of her. Konrad was interested to hear that her neighbours had not liked the look of the man, either, though none had met him directly.

  ‘She wasn’t much for socialising with any of them, sir,’ said Karyavin. ‘None of ‘em had much speech with her, it seems. But they watched who came to the door, and who she went off with. Mostly this brother, and the one who has to be this Kristov fellow. Black hair and beard, they said. Dressed like a merchant or something.’

  ‘You mean prosperous?’ said Alexander.

  ‘In a manner of speaking, sir. Didn’t look so fancy as to look out of place in these parts, but they thought he must be in business of some sort. So I take it he isn’t poor.’

  Konrad wondered, then, why Tsevar had called him a grubby upstart. ‘What do we know about the family?’ he asked of no one in particular. ‘Tsevar has some airs, but there’s nothing here to s
uggest Verinka was so superior to a reasonably well-off man of business. Were they wealthier, once?’

  ‘A good question,’ Alexander said. ‘One we’ll look into.’

  ‘Might be why the lady scorned to spend time with her neighbours,’ Karyavin offered. ‘They did talk like she was a bit aloof. Not that they disliked her, exactly. Said she was always civil, if they happened to encounter one another on the street. But distant. One or two said she was a snob.’

  ‘Conceivable,’ murmured Alexander, and noted something in his ever-present pocket book. ‘Right, lots to look into. Savast, has Nanda been consulted?’

  ‘Not yet. Shortly to be so.’ The inspector was after what manner of poison might have done for Verinka, and that was an important question. Poisons were sold in the city, but they were under strict regulation; purchasing enough of something to kill a woman over a period of months was no easy task. Konrad doubted anyone had been careless enough to buy from the same shops, over and over again. People in Nanda’s trade tended to report such purchases to the police, if they were not known to the trader, for while small amounts of some poisons could be beneficial in some cases, large amounts never were.

  But he wanted her expertise. What might produce the symptoms experienced by Verinka? How hard was it to get hold of? And how might it be administered without either her or (supposing him to be innocent) her protective brother detecting it?

  He never minded an excuse to see Nanda (not that he really needed an excuse, these days). He did quietly hope, though, that he would not also have to pay a visit to Danil Dubin, her closest friend in the trade. Try though he might, he had never managed to overcome his irrational dislike of the timid young man.

  ‘Karyavin,’ said Alexander. ‘That leaves you and me to track down this Kristov. And perhaps to look into this luncheon-club.’