A Vengeful Longing: A Novel (St. Petersburg Mysteries)

by R. N. Morris

  ‘Such pamphlets are widely circulated, I believe,’ said Porfiry Petrovich. ‘Is that not so, Pavel Pavlovich?’

  Virginsky didn’t answer.

  ‘They are subversive. They express opinions critical of our government. Possession of such material is an offence,’ insisted Salytov.

  ‘Then we will confiscate them.’ Porfiry made a sweeping gesture with one hand.

  ‘That is no solution. The fact is, the boy is an insurrectionist.’

  ‘The boy,’ countered Porfiry Petrovich impatiently, ‘is a boy.’ He closed his eyes. ‘I grant you, we could come down heavily on him, Ilya Petrovich. We could even turn him over to the Third Section. We could grind him under the heel of our boot, so to speak, as a blind man tramples a flower.’

  ‘He is no flower.’

  Porfiry opened his eyes to look at Salytov. ‘In all respects, he is more than a flower. He is a youth. A Russian youth. Our youth. He is as yet unformed. If we respond to him with brutality, we may very well turn him into an enemy of the state. If we show him tolerance and understanding - forgiveness, even, of his youthful folly - is it not then more likely that he will grow up to respect rather than hate the rule of law?’

  ‘The rule of law is not ours to bend as the whim takes us.’

  ‘Not as whim, but as wisdom dictates. It is my job to decide if there is sufficient evidence to warrant a prosecution. I have decided that there is not. However, in the light of the new evidence that you have just now presented, you have my authority to issue him with a stern warning, so that he understands both our leniency in this instance and our determination to prosecute should he ever again be found in possession of such material. And then you may release him.’

  ‘Are you not interested in finding out how he came by the pamphlets? ’

  ‘I have a murder case to investigate. As the proverb goes, if you run after two hares, you will catch neither. Good day, Ilya Petrovich.’

  Porfiry Petrovich half-bowed and moved away, followed by Virginsky, still clutching the pamphlets. Salytov watched them go then nodded for the door to be opened.

  6

  One Bezmygin, a musician

  Shestaya Street, where Meyer was being held, was on the Peterburgsky side, off Bolshoi Prospekt: across the wide Neva and into a different St Petersburg, one built more of wood than stone. The buildings were lower, flimsier, more provisional, staging posts to a future that might never arrive. The Shestaya Street Bureau itself was one of the exceptions: it dominated its jerry-built neighbours with its precise and ruthless geometry, by the power of masonry.

  ‘He has been asking for you,’ said Ptitsyn as he led the way to an interview room. ‘He started asking for you this morning. Apparently he has remembered something that can only be divulged to Your Excellency’s ears.’

  ‘I thought his memory would improve if we allowed him to stew for a couple of days.’ Porfiry turned to Virginsky, who was beside him, and smiled. ‘You have kept him alone?’ The question was for Ptitsyn, though Porfiry continued to fix Virginsky with a steady gaze.

  ‘As Your Excellency requested.’

  ‘How does he appear to you?’

  The young politseisky stopped walking. He turned to face the magistrates, his expression one of concern. ‘He is in a bad way.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ asked Porfiry.

  Ptitsyn shook his head gravely. ‘Some kind of sickness, I think. In my view, a doctor should have been called. I have made my opinion known, but my superiors have seen fit to ignore it.’

  ‘They are acting under my instructions.’

  ‘But Your Excellency! I fear that he is very ill.’

  ‘I believe it is a disease that will cure itself if we leave him be. You will continue, please.’ Porfiry gestured ahead.

  Ptitsyn bowed slightly and began walking again, without speaking now, however.

  ‘What have the symptoms been?’ asked Virginsky.

  ‘Alternating fits of indolence and raving. Instability of mood. Loss of appetite. The sweats. Fever. Agonising stomach cramps. Constipation.’ It was Porfiry who had answered.

  ‘That’s correct,’ Ptitsyn confirmed over his shoulder, somewhat surprised.

  ‘He is withdrawing from a morphine addiction,’ said Porfiry. ‘Why else do you think the maid had such trouble rousing him the day his wife and son died?’

  A pungent smell came off Dr Meyer, which was more than simply the odour of a man who had not washed for a few days. It was as if he had sweated something vile and rotten out from his core, and the rancid exudate had soaked into his clothes. He was sitting at a flimsy painted table, the surface of which was pitted and scratched, in a small room with chipped plaster walls. A batch of brilliant sky, disrupted by silhouetted bars, cast a beam of light on to the back of Meyer’s head. When he looked up as the door opened, it seemed that he had aged since they had last seen him, though it was only a little over a week ago. His face was haggard, heavily stubbled, his eyes dazed and adrift.

  As soon as he saw them he sprang to his feet, his eyes now blazing with a sudden fervour. ‘Thank God you’ve come! You must let me out. This is all a terrible mistake. I can explain everything. There was a man. How could I have not mentioned it before!’ Meyer struck his forehead in a mime of acknowledged stupidity. ‘I thought nothing of it at the time. Annoying, yes. But . . . uh . . . my mind . . . you have to understand, I had a lot on my mind.’

  ‘Please sit down, Dr Meyer,’ said Porfiry. The manic light in Meyer’s eyes died as suddenly as it had sparked. His expression became utterly crestfallen. At those few neutral words from Porfiry, he had lost all hope. He sank back shakily into his seat.

  There were two other chairs. Virginsky took one of them; Porfiry ignored the other and instead began to pace the room. Ptitsyn stood by the door. Meyer winced at the sound of the key turning as it was locked from the outside.

  ‘How are you, Dr Meyer?’ began Porfiry cheerfully, wrinkling his face into a smile.

  ‘How do you think I am?’ Meyer twisted his head to follow Porfiry’s restless movement.

  ‘Yes, yes, of course. This is a very bad situation for you. Your wife and son are dead and . . .’

  ‘And I stand accused of their murder.’

  Porfiry seemed surprised by the force of Meyer’s bitterness. ‘I’m afraid so. I presume you maintain that you are not responsible for their deaths?’

  ‘Of course! I’m not a monster.’ Meyer stared desperately. ‘Anyhow, I can explain it all. I know what happened.’

  Porfiry stopped pacing and pulled back the seat next to Virginsky, as if he intended to take it. He did not, however, and by remaining standing he introduced a strange tension into the interview. ‘I am very interested to hear what you have to say.’ Porfiry continued to stand over the doctor, fixing him with an expectant gaze. At last he let go of the chair and began pacing again. ‘Forgive me. At the moment I find it uncomfortable to sit down for long periods. It is better for me to remain on my feet. It makes me rather restless, I confess. I’m sure as a doctor you will understand. Perhaps you will say the exercise is good for me. By the way, you are aware that your friend, Dr Pervoyedov of the Obukhovsky Hospital, has confirmed that Raisa and Grisha were killed by a poison administered via the chocolates you gave her? It was you who gave her the chocolates, was it not? You bought them from Ballet’s that day, I believe.’

  ‘Yes, that’s true. I-I-I don’t deny it,’ Meyer stammered in confusion.

  ‘There is no point in denying that which is self-evidently true, my friend.’

  Meyer suddenly became excited. ‘But here’s the thing! I remembernow what happened.’ He was almost shouting.

  ‘Very well. Tell me what happened. But please, try to calm down.’

  ‘There was a man.’

  ‘A man?’

  ‘At the shop. The confectioner’s.’

  ‘Someone who works there?’

  ‘No. Another customer. Although, now that I come to think of it, it was outsi
de the shop. I was coming out. I’d just bought the chocolates. He was going in and . . . he walked into me. Quite deliberately! Don’t you see? I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but the thing is, you see, I dropped the chocolates. No! I didn’t drop them! He knocked them out of my hand! It was quite deliberate. I see that now. At the time, well, you cannot believe such things. You do not trust the evidence of your own eyes. “Why would anyone do such a thing?” you think. No, it can’t have been so. He can’t have knocked the chocolates out of my hand. I simply refuse to believe that a stranger would do this. And yet . . . he did it! Afterwards he was so apologetic, and made such a fuss of retrieving the chocolates for me. What if, what if - this is what I’m thinking - what if he swapped them for another box of chocolates? A poisoned box!’

  ‘Did anyone else see this encounter?’

  ‘Oh yes! There were many people on the pavement. It was on the Nevsky Prospekt. Another fellow even tried to pick up the chocolate box but he - the man, you understand - he screamed at him hysterically to leave them be. I thought that most odd, but at the same time, thought nothing of it.’ Meyer frowned. ‘He was very particular - jealous you might almost say - about picking up the box himself.’

  ‘Can you give us the names of any of these witnesses?’

  ‘No! Of course not! They were just people on the street. Passers-by. How could I be expected to know their names?’

  ‘And this man? Was he known to you?’

  ‘That’s what’s strange about this whole affair! I’ve never seen him before in my life.’

  ‘Can you describe him?’

  ‘He was a man. I don’t know, just some kind of man. I didn’t look very closely at him. I found him rather annoying. I do not like to look closely at people who annoy me. I wanted him gone from my sight. I had no idea, at the time.’

  ‘Why would he do this, do you think, this stranger?’

  ‘I don’t know! That is to say, I only have one theory.’

  ‘And what is your theory?’

  ‘Bezmygin.’

  Porfiry broke off his pacing once more. He stood with his back to Meyer.’Who is Bezmygin?’ Porfiry angled his head as he awaited Meyer’s answer.

  ‘A musician.’

  ‘And what does Bezmygin the musician have to do with all this?’

  ‘Why it’s obvious, isn’t it?’

  Porfiry turned and transmitted a blank look to Meyer.

  ‘He put the man up to it.’

  ‘You will have to help me here. I’m afraid I don’t understand. Why would he do that?’

  ‘He was in love with Raisa. They played duets together. He even came to visit her sometimes when I was not there. I caught them together once. They denied any impropriety, of course. They were rehearsing for a concert. Ha! But why would he be at the house of a married woman when her husband was absent if not for immoral purposes? I made her break with him completely. In point of fact, she was happy enough to do so. She did not love him. It was all on his side. My wife . . . well, my wife is easily influenced. She is weak. He is a flashy gewgaw of a man. She was a woman. It was only natural that there would be some degree of infatuation. But love? No. Never. But this man, this Bezmygin, he is a vain, arrogant man. You have no idea. He didn’t take it well. I believe he has done all this to get even with her, with me. To destroy us. Do you not see?’

  ‘We will naturally want to talk to this Bezmygin,’ said Porfiry, beginning to pace once more. ‘Do you know where we might find him?’

  ‘He plays in the private orchestra of Count Akhmatov. I believe he is at the count’s dacha near Petergof. He is little more than a serf. A performing lackey!’

  ‘But why would he wish to kill your son?’

  ‘He hated Grigory. To him, Grigory was always in the way. He could never be alone with my wife, you see.’

  Porfiry stopped pacing to light a cigarette while he considered what Meyer had said. The doctor looked from Porfiry to Virginsky with desperate expectancy, trying to gauge on which of these two magistrates to focus his appeal. Virginsky’s expression held more promise of sympathy, but he too watched Porfiry in some expectation. Everything, clearly, hung on what the older magistrate decided. For the moment, however, Porfiry seemed interested only in absorbing and enjoying the smoke from his cigarette. His face gave nothing away. At last he nodded, decisively, and said, ‘We will look into it.’ Finally, he took the seat next to Virginsky. ‘At the dacha we found a number of sheets of paper covered in close, neat handwriting, apparently passages copied from the newspapers. All of them seem to be sensationalised accounts of murders or suicides. Rather singular, I think you will agree. Extraordinary, one might almost say. Dr Meyer, do you have any idea who made these copies?’

  ‘Grigory. It was something he did.’

  ‘If you don’t mind me saying so, it seems rather a strange hobby for a boy to have.’

  ‘It was not a hobby. It was a compulsion. Grigory . . . was not ... he faced particular difficulties.’

  ‘How would you characterise these difficulties, speaking as a doctor?’

  ‘As a doctor?’ Meyer seemed surprised by this acknowledgement of his profession. ‘As a doctor, I would characterise them as imbecilic.’

  ‘And as a father?’

  Meyer said nothing. Anguish writhed on his face.

  ‘He must have been a disappointment to you,’ pressed Porfiry softly, grinding his cigarette out into the tin ashtray on the table.

  Meyer flashed the briefest, and rawest, of looks at him. ‘He was my son.’

  ‘And yet . . . not the son you had hoped for.’ Porfiry put this as a statement. ‘No one would blame you for feeling this way.’

  ‘I tried to help him, to break these habits. If only we could have ruptured the pattern of compulsion, we might have made progress.’

  ‘But it was hopeless? He did not respond to your treatment.’

  ‘Raisa Ivanovna would not support me in it. Her mollycoddling undermined my efforts.’

  ‘There must have been times’ - Porfiry’s voice cracked on the edge of a whisper - ‘when you thought it would have been better for Grigory if he had never been born.’

  Meyer took off his spectacles and cleaned them with a handkerchief. He lifted his head as he replaced them, but did not look at Porfiry. ‘Better for Grigory? Grigory’s condition caused him no suffering. If anything, it was we who suffered more because of it.’

  ‘And you, most of all, I imagine.’

  ‘That does not mean I wished him dead.’

  ‘It must have been hard though, for a man such as you, with a brilliant academic record, a PhD, an intellectual, to have such a son.’

  ‘For all that, sometimes I envied him.’

  Porfiry kinked an eyebrow sceptically.

  ‘Grigory was an innocent,’ continued Meyer. ‘Sometimes I wondered what it must be like to live in such a state of . . . innocence, a state of grace.’

  Porfiry smiled. ‘I understand. I understand completely. And yet you must have feared for him too? There would come a day when you and Raisa would no longer be able to look after him.’

  ‘I had thought of that, even if Raisa wouldn’t. There are provisions one can make. Institutions. As a doctor, one knows a little more about these things than a layman.’

  ‘You visited asylums?’

  ‘I went to Ulyanka. The house at the eleventh verst.’

  Virginsky shot a significant, excited glance at Porfiry, who battedit away with three quick blinks.

  ‘When was this?’ asked Porfiry, neutrally.

  ‘Is it important?’ It seemed Meyer had picked up something from Virginsky’s glance.

  ‘It may be.’

  Meyer frowned and shook his head, trying to remember. ‘I don’t know. It was in the summer. It must have been last summer.’

  ‘And what were your impressions?’

  ‘It is run in accordance with the latest scientific thinking.’ Meyer’s tone was strangely dead.

  ‘And
what did Raisa think?’

  ‘She didn’t go with me. She wouldn’t countenance it. I couldn’t talk to her about the future.’ Meyer’s imploring gaze sought out Virginsky. ‘I did not wish my son dead,’ he insisted.

  ‘The maid, Polina,’ said Porfiry, his tone harsher now, ‘she couldn’t raise you. She said she knocked on your door and called out for you, but you didn’t answer.’

  ‘I was working. I told you that at the dacha.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Your work. It must be very absorbing work.’