Special Assignments

by Boris Akunin

  The most significant point was that they did not teach people to write like that in the handwriting classes in the grammar schools. What he had here was either someone educated at home, which was more typical of female individuals, or someone who had had no regular education at all. However, there was not a single spelling mistake. Hmm. This required a little thought. At least the writing was a clue.

  Next - the velvet box. The kind in which they sold expensive cufflinks or brooches. Inside it there was a monogram: A. Kuznetsov, Kamergersky Way'. That was no help. It was a large jeweller's shop, one of the best known in Moscow. He could make inquiries, of course, but they would hardly come to anything - he could assume that they sold at least several dozen boxes of that kind a day.

  The satin ribbon was nothing special. Smooth and red - the kind that gypsy women or merchants' daughters liked to tie their plaits with on holidays.

  Using his magnifying glass, Erast Petrovich inspected the powder box (from 'Cluseret No. 6') with especial interest, holding it by the very edge. He sprinkled it with a white powder like talc, and numerous fingerprints appeared on the smooth lacquered surface. The Collegiate Counsellor carefully and precisely blotted them with a special, extremely thin paper. Fingerprints would not be accepted as evidence in court, but even so they would come in useful.

  It was only now that Fandorin turned his attention to the poor ear. Judging from the sprinkling of freckles on both sides of the ear, its owner had been ginger-haired. The lobe had been pierced, and very carelessly: the hole was wide and long. Taking that into account, and also the fact that the skin was badly chapped by cold and wind, he could conclude, firstly, that the former owner of the object in question had worn her hair combed upwards; secondly, that she was not a member of the privileged classes; thirdly, that she had spent a lot of time out in the cold without wearing any hat. The final circumstance was especially noteworthy. It was well known that street girls touted their wares with their heads uncovered even during the cold season. It was one of the signs of their trade.

  Biting his lip (he still couldn't manage to regard the ear as an object), Erast Petrovich turned the ear over with a pair of tweezers and began examining the cut. It was even, made with an extremely sharp instrument. Not a single drop of congealed blood. Which meant that when the ear was severed the ginger-haired woman had already been dead for at least several hours.

  What was that slight blackening on the cut? What could have caused that? Defrosting, that was what! The body had been in an ice-room - that was why the cut was so perfect: when it had been made the tissues had still not completely thawed out.

  A prostitute's body placed in an ice-room? What for? What kind of fastidiousness was this? That kind were always taken straight to the Bozhedomka and buried. If they were put in an ice-room, it was either in the medical-faculty morgue on Trubetskaya Street for educational purposes, or in the forensic morgue at Bozhedomka to help with a police investigation.

  And now the most interesting question: who had sent him the ear and why?

  First - why?

  The London murderer had done the same thing the previous year. He had sent Mr Albert Lask, the chairman of the committee for the capture of Jack the Ripper, half of a kidney from the mutilated body of Catherine Eddows, which had been found on 30 September.

  Erast Petrovich was convinced that this action had had a double meaning for the killer. The first, obvious meaning was a challenge, a demonstration of confidence in his own invulnerability, as if to say: No matter how hard you try, you'll never catch me. But there was probably a second underlying reason too: the typical masochistic desire of maniacs of this kind to be caught and punished: If you protectors of society really are all-powerful and ubiquitous, if Justice is the father and I am his guilty son, then here's the key for you; find me. The London police had not known how to use the key.

  Of course, a quite different hypothesis was also possible. The terrible package had not been sent by the killer, but by some cynical joker who regarded the tragic situation as a pretext for a cruel jest. In London the police had also received a scoffing letter, supposedly written by the criminal. The letter had been signed 'Jack the Ripper', which was actually where the nickname had come from. The English investigators had concluded that it was a hoax - probably because they had to justify the failure of their efforts to find the sender.

  There was no point in complicating his task by making it a double one. At this moment it made no difference whether or not it was the killer who had sent the ear. All he needed to do at this moment was find out who had done it. It was very possible that the person who had severed the ear would turn out to be the Ripper. The Moscow trick with the small package differed from the London case in one substantial respect: the entire British capital had known about the murders in the East End, and in principle anybody at all could have joked' in that way. But in this case the details of yesterday's atrocity were only known to an extremely limited circle of individuals. How many of them were there? Very few, even if he included intimate friends and relatives.

  And so, what details did he know of the person who had sent the 'small package'?

  It was someone who had not studied in a grammar school, but had still received a good enough education to write the phrase 'Collegiate Counsellor' without any mistakes. That was one.

  Judging from the box from Kuznetsov's and the powder box from Cluseret, the person involved was not poor. That was two.

  This person was not only informed about the murders, but he knew about Fandorin's role in the investigation. That was three.

  This person had access to the morgue, which narrowed the circle of suspects still further. That was four.

  This person possessed the skills of a surgeon. That was five.

  What else was there?

  'Masa, a cab. And look lively!'

  Zakharov came out of the autopsy room in his leather apron, his black gloves smeared with some brownish sludge. His face was puffy he looked overhung and the pipe in the corner of his mouth had gone out.

  Ah, the eyes and ears of the Governor-General,' he muttered instead of a greeting. 'What is it - has somebody else been sliced up?'

  'Mr Zakharov, how many prostitutes' bodies do you have in the ice-room?' Erast Petrovich asked curtly.

  The forensic expert shrugged: 'On Mr Izhitsin's orders, they now bring in all the streetwalkers who have come to the end of their walk. In addition to our mutual friend Andreichkina, yesterday and today they've brought in another seven. Why - do you want to have a bit of fun?' Zakharov asked with a debauched grin. 'There are some very pretty ones. But probably none to suit your taste. You prefer the giblets, I think?' The pathologist could see perfectly well that Fandorin was not at ease, and he seemed to take pleasure in the fact.

  'Show them to me.' The Collegiate Counsellor thrust his chin out stolidly, readying himself for the distressing sight.

  The first thing that Fandorin saw in the spacious room lit by electric lights was the wooden shelves covered with glass jars with shapeless objects floating in them, and then he looked at the zinc-covered oblong tables. Projecting from one of them, beside the window, was the black neck of a microscope, and beside it a body was lying flat, with Zakharov's assistant working on it.

  Erast Petrovich took a quick glance, saw that the body was male and turned away in relief.

  'A deep firearms wound to the top of the head, Mr Zakharov, that's all,' the assistant said with a nasal twang, gazing curiously at Erast Petrovich, who was an almost legendary character in and around police circles.

  'They brought that one in from Khitrovka,' Zakharov explained. 'But your little chicks are all over there, in the ice-room.' He pushed open a heavy metal door that breathed out a dense, chilly, repulsive stench. A switch clicked and the matte-glass globe on the ceiling lit up.

  The doctor pointed. 'There are our heroines, on that side,' he said to Fandorin, who was feeling numb.

  The initial impression was not at all horrific. Ingres's
painting The Turkish Bath. A solid tangle of naked women's bodies, smooth lines, lazy immobility. Except that the steam was not hot, but frosty, and for some reason all the odalisques were lying down.

  Then the details struck his eyes: the long crimson incisions, the blue patches, the sticky, tangled hair.

  The forensic expert patted one of them, who looked like a mermaid, on her blue neck. 'Not bad eh? From a brothel. Consumption. In fact, there's only one violent death here: the one over there, with the big breasts; someone stove her head in with a rock. Two of them are suicides. Three of them died of hypothermia - froze to death when they were drunk. They bring them all in, no matter what. Teach a fool to pray and he won't know when to stop. But what's that to me. I don't have to do all that much.'

  Erast Petrovich leaned down over one woman, thin, with a scattering of freckles on her shoulders and chest. He threw the long ginger hair back from the pitifully contorted, sharp-nosed face. Instead of a right ear the dead woman had a cherry-red hole.

  'Well, who's been taking liberties here?' Zakharov asked in surprise and glanced at the tag attached to the woman's foot. 'Marfa Sechkina, sixteen years old. Ah, I remember: poisoned herself with phosphorous matches. Came in yesterday afternoon. But she still had both her ears, I remember that very well. So where's her right one got to?'

  The Collegiate Counsellor took a powder box out of his right pocket, opened it without speaking and thrust it under the pathologist's nose.

  Zakharov took the ear with a steady hand and held it against the cherry-red hole.

  'That's it! So what does this mean?'

  'That is what I would like you to tell me.' Fandorin held a scented handkerchief to his nose, feeling the nausea rising in his throat, and said: 'Come on, let's talk out there.'

  They walked back into the autopsy room which now, despite the presence of the dissected corpse, Erast Petrovich found almost cosy.

  'Three qu-questions. Who was here yesterday evening? Who have you told about the investigation and my participation in it? Whose writing is this?'

  The Collegiate Counsellor set down the wrapping paper from the 'smopackadj' in front of Zakharov. He felt it necessary to add: 1 know that you did not write it -1 am familiar with your handwriting. However, I trust you appreciate the significance of this correspondence?'

  Zakharov turned pale; he had clearly lost any desire to play the clown.

  Tm waiting for an answer, Mr Zakharov. Shall I repeat the questions?'

  The doctor shook his head and squinted at Grumov, who was pulling something greyish-blue out of the corpse's gaping belly with exaggerated zeal. Zakharov gulped and his Adam's apple twitched in his neck.

  'Yesterday evening my colleagues from the old faculty called to see me. They were celebrating the anniversary of a certain ... memorable event. There were seven or eight of them. They drank some medical spirit here, in memory of the old student days ... It's possible that I might have blurted out something about the investigation - I don't exactly remember. Yesterday was a heavy day, I was tired, and the drink soon went to my head.' He stopped.

  'The third question,' Fandorin reminded him: 'whose handwriting is it? And don't lie and tell me you don't know. The handwriting is quite distinctive.'

  Tm not in the habit of lying!' Zakharov snapped. And I recognise the writing. But I'm not a police informer; I'm a former Moscow student. You find out for yourself, without me.'

  Erast Petrovich said in an unpleasant voice: 'You are not only a former student, but a current forensic medical expert, who has taken an oath. Or have you forgotten which investigation we are talking about here?' And then he continued in a very quiet, expressionless voice: 'I can, of course, arrange for the handwriting of everyone who studied in the same faculty as you to be checked, but that will take weeks. In that case your honour among your comrades would not suffer, but I would make sure that you were tried and deprived of the right to work in the state service. You've known me for some years already, Zakharov. I always mean what I say'

  Zakharov shuddered, and the pipe slid from left to right along the slit of his mouth. 'I'm sorry, Mr Court Counsellor, but I can't. Nobody would ever shake my hand again. Never mind the government service, I wouldn't be able to work in any area of medicine at all. But I'll tell you what ...' The forensic expert's yellow forehead gathered into wrinkles. 'Our revels are continuing this evening. We agreed to meet at seven at Burylin's place. He never completed the course, like many of our company in fact; but we get together from time to time ... I've just completed a job here; Grumov can finish up everything else. I was just about to have a wash, get changed and go. I have an apartment here. At the public expense, attached to the cemetery office. It's most convenient ... Well, if you like, I can take you with me to Burylin's place. I don't know if everyone who was here yesterday will come, but the person you're interested in will definitely be there, I'm certain of that ... I'm sorry, but that's all I can do. A doctor's honour.'

  It was not easy for the pathologist to speak in such a plaintive manner; he was not accustomed to it, and Erast Petrovich decided to temper justice with mercy and not press him any harder. He merely shook his head in astonishment at the peculiarly elastic ethics of these people's esprit de corps: a man could not point out someone he had studied with as a likely killer, but there was no problem in bringing a detective along to a former fellow-student's house.

  'You are complicating my task, but very well, let it be so. It's after eight already. Get changed and let's go.'

  For most of their journey (and it was a long journey, to Yak-imanka Street), they rode in silence. Zakharov was as gloomy as a storm cloud and he replied to questions reluctantly, but Fandorin did at least learn something about their host.

  He was called Kuzma Sawich Burylin. He was a manufacturer, a millionaire from an old merchant family. His brother, who was many years older, had taken up the eunuch faith of the skoptsy. He had 'cut off his sin' and lived like a hermit, building up his capital. He had intended to 'purge' his younger brother as well, when he reached the age of fourteen, but on the very eve of the 'great mystery' the elder brother had died suddenly, and the youth had not only remained completely intact, but inherited an immense fortune. As Zakharov remarked acidly, a retrospective fear and the miraculous preservation of his manhood had marked Kuzma Burylin's life ever since. For the rest of his life he was doomed to demonstrate that he was not a eunuch, and he often went to excess in the process.

  'Why did such a rich man join the medical faculty?' asked Fandorin.

  'Burylin has studied all sorts of things - both here and abroad. He has a curious and unstable mind. He doesn't need a diploma, so he has never finished any course anywhere, but he was thrown out of the medical faculty'

  'What for?'

  'There was good cause,' the forensic expert replied vaguely. 'You'll soon see for yourself what kind of individual he is.'

  The illuminated entrance to Burylin's house, which faced the river, could be seen from a distance. It was the only house glowing with bright lights of different colours on the dark merchants' embankment, where they went to bed early during Lent and did not use any light unless they needed to. It was a big house, built in the absurd Mauritanian Gothic style: with little pointed turrets, chimeras and gryphons, but at the same time it had a flat roof and a round dome above the conservatory, even a watch-tower shaped like a minaret.

  There was a crowd of idle onlookers outside the decorative gates, looking at the gaily illuminated windows and talking among themselves disapprovingly: an obscenity like this on Holy Week Wednesday during the last week of the forty days of Lent! The muffled whining of gypsy violins drifted out of the house over the silent river, together with the jangling of guitars and jingling of little bells, peals of laughter and an occasional low growling.

  They walked in and handed their outer garments to the doormen, and Erast Petrovich was surprised to see that beneath his tightly buttoned black coat, the forensic expert was wearing a white tie and tails.


  Zakharov smiled crookedly at his glance of amazement. 'Tradition.'

  They walked up a broad marble staircase. Servants in crimson livery opened tall gilded doors, and Fandorin saw before him a spacious hall, its floor covered with palms, magnolias and other exotic plants in tubs. It was the latest European fashion - to make your drawing room look like a jungle. 'The hanging gardens of Semiramis' it was called. Only the very rich could afford it.

  The guests were distributed in leisurely style among the paradisiacal groves. Like Zakharov, everyone was in white tie and tails. Erast Petrovich's dress was dandyish enough - a beige American j acket, a lemon-yellow waistcoat, and a pair of trousers of excellent cut with permanent creases - but in this black-and-white congregation he felt like a Yuletide masker. Zakharov could at least have warned him what kind of clothes he was going to change into.

  But then, even if Fandorin had come in tails, he still would not have been able to lose himself among the guests, because there were very few of them - perhaps a dozen. For the most part gentlemen of respectable and even prosperous appearance, although they were not at all old - about thirty, or perhaps a little older. Their faces were flushed from drinking, and some even looked a little confused - evidently for them this kind of merrymaking was not the usual thing. At the far end of the hall Fandorin could see another pair of gilded doors, which were closed, and from behind them he could hear the clatter of dishes and the sounds of a gypsy choir practising. A banquet was evidently in preparation inside.

  The newcomers had arrived at the high point of a speech being given by a bald gentleman with a paunch and a gold pince-nez.

  'Zenzinov - he was the top student. He's a full professor already,' Zakharov whispered, and Fandorin thought he sounded envious.